With three superpowers at his fingertips, he could dominate the 1970s.

As soon as Jiang Zhiyu got off the car, she felt several gazes on her. The wind in East Bay was colder than in Chinatown, carrying the pungent smell of the sea against her cheeks. She pulled her trench coat tighter and calmly scanned the shipyard's perimeter wall—the barbed wire was covered with barbs, and there was a guard post every ten meters, with guards inside holding guns and looking wary.

Her Asian features made her stand out here. Several pedestrians who brushed past her seemed casual, but their steps always seemed to veer towards her, their scrutinizing eyes impossible to conceal. Jiang Zhiyu remained unfazed, walking past the shipyard's main gate in her high heels as if she were merely going for a stroll across the street. Her steps didn't falter, yet her mental energy was like a spread net, thoroughly understanding her surroundings.

The buildings inside the walled compound were mostly abandoned factories, their rusty chimneys pointing straight to the sky. Only a small white building at the very back had lights on, and there were three times more plainclothes officers patrolling the area than elsewhere. "It seems Professor Sun's research institute is just a front; this is their real headquarters," she thought to herself. "Professor Sun and Professor Zhang are useful and safe for now, but what about Song Yanzhou and the others…?"

Every minute wasted increased the danger. Jiang Zhiyu quickened her pace, circled to the end of the block, and after confirming no one was following her, asked Seventeen, "How's your energy recovery? Can you teleport to the basement tonight?"

Seventeen's voice was weary: "Host, teleporting has used up too much energy these past few days, I only have 10% left..." It paused, then suddenly became excited, "But I have a way! Give me two bottles of spirit spring water, I'll exchange them for energy blocks in the Multiverse System exchange group, I guarantee it'll restore my energy!"

Jiang Zhiyu frowned: "What if other systems discover the secret of the spirit spring water?"

"Don't worry!" Seventeen patted its chest (if it had one), "System transactions only consider energy equivalence, not origin. Besides, spirit spring water is just ordinary healing fluid in the eyes of high-level systems; no one will care. Furthermore, with your current strength and your space bound to your soul, who can steal it?"

Jiang Zhiyu thought about it and agreed. During the apocalypse, she relied on this space and her supernatural abilities to fight her way out. Now that her cultivation had recovered to its peak, even if someone coveted it, they would have to be alive to take it. She took out two bottles of spiritual spring water from her space: "Go quickly and come back quickly."

"Mission accomplished!"

Jiang Zhiyu walked through the block and saw a "Starlight Hotel" by the roadside. The decor wasn't luxurious, but it was very clean. Once the people behind her had disappeared from sight, she pushed open the door and went in. The receptionist was an elderly blonde woman who smiled and asked, "Need a room?"

"A single room, for two nights," Jiang Zhiyu replied in English, handing over her passport—a fake identity she obtained in Hong Kong. In the photo, she had shoulder-length hair, a stark contrast to her current curly hair.

After the old lady finished registering, she handed her the key: "The last room on the left on the third floor. Don't play loud music after 11 p.m.."

"Thanks."

After going upstairs, closing and locking the door, Jiang Zhiyu immediately slipped into her spatial dimension. The food she bought in Chinatown was still steaming hot. She took out salt and pepper baked crab, shrimp dumplings, and a bowl of congee with preserved egg and lean pork, and slowly began to eat. The spiritual spring water slid down her throat with the congee, and her fatigue instantly vanished. After finishing her meal, she lay down on the soft bed, set her alarm for nine o'clock that evening, and closed her eyes to rest.

When he woke up again, before the alarm clock went off, Seventeen was already shouting in his mind, "Host! I'm back!"

Jiang Zhiyu sat up and saw twenty silver cubes piled on the spatial table, emitting a faint blue light. "These are energy cubes?"

"That's right! Grade C energy blocks, two blocks can restore 80% of my energy," Seventeen said proudly. "I traded two bottles of spiritual spring water for twenty blocks, enough for ten uses! That interstellar system even said they wanted to cooperate long-term, but I refused. We don't lack this little bit of energy! This time it was too urgent. Normally, the energy I restore is enough for the two of us."

Jiang Zhiyu picked up an energy block; it was cool to the touch and its surface was as smooth as a mirror. She used her mental energy to sense it. "No radiation. Not bad." She put the block down. "Ready to move out."

At 11 p.m., the hotel was completely silent. Jiang Zhiyu changed into black night clothes, put on a yellow wig, used makeup to make the corners of her eyes more upturned, and put on blue contact lenses—the person in the mirror had fair skin and fluffy curly hair, looking exactly like a rebellious American teenager. Crucially, she also had an advantage in height; after several months of cultivation and using spiritual spring water, she was now 1.73 meters tall. She also wore exaggerated earrings and a studded bracelet, and even her walking posture deliberately imitated the casualness of European and American girls, exuding a lazy yet arrogant air.

"Seventeen, can you scan Song Yanzhou's location?"

"We can't detect it. There's strong interference in the lab; we can only determine it's roughly on the sixth basement level," Seventeen said. "I'll hack into their surveillance system in a bit; I can make the footage loop for the first 30 seconds, so the patrol won't be able to spot us."

"Teleported to the corner of the sixth underground floor."

In a flash of light, the two appeared in a stark white corridor. The smell of disinfectant was pungent and acrid, and the overhead lights crackled and flickered. Jiang Zhiyu activated her mental power at full intensity, scanning her surroundings like radar—two guards in the third room on the left were dozing against the wall; there was a surveillance camera at the end of the corridor ahead, which Seventeen had already hacked.

She moved along the wall like a cat, avoiding the patrol's footsteps. The corridor was lined with rows of iron doors, each with a small window, the inside of which was pitch black. Just to be safe, Jiang Zhiyu activated her poison-based ability, filling the entire passage with a sedative fog that would only make them sleep for a few more hours, thus avoiding any unnecessary trouble.

"This is it," Seventeen suddenly said. [There are over a dozen human auras inside, one of which matches Song Yanzhou's!]

Jiang Zhiyu stopped in her tracks. The iron gate in front of her was rusty, and the lock was an old-fashioned padlock. She released her wood-based superpower, and vines, like snakes, crawled into the crack of the door, wrapped around the lock cylinder, and with a gentle twist, the lock opened with a "click."

Pushing open the door, a pungent, sour smell hit her. In the six-square-meter cell, three men huddled in the corner, their clothes stained and their lips chapped and cracked. Jiang Zhiyu glanced at them—even with his eyes closed, she recognized the thin figure in the middle as Song Yanzhou.

She strode over and used her spiritual power to investigate, discovering they were merely dehydrated and not in mortal danger. She gathered her supernatural power at her fingertips, a pale green halo enveloping Song Yanzhou. He moved his throat and slowly opened his eyes.

Upon seeing the "American girl" before him, Song Yanzhou's pupils constricted, and he asked in a hoarse voice, "Who are you?"

Jiang Zhiyu spoke up, "It's me, Jiang Zhiyu."

Song Yanzhou froze, then struggled to sit up: "Why are you here? It's dangerous here, hurry..."

"Don't speak." Jiang Zhiyu held him down and poured half a bottle of spiritual spring water into his mouth. "Tell me, where are the other team members? Where is Professor Sun?"

As the spiritual spring water entered his throat, Song Yanzhou instantly regained his strength. Pointing to the two cells on either side, he said, "The team members are in the next cell. There are also four Chinese scientists inside. They were imprisoned because they didn't cooperate with M's experiments. If they could be saved... cough cough... Professor Sun and Professor Zhang should be on the fourth floor. Those people are still trying to persuade them to..."

Jiang Zhiyu nodded, then suddenly struck him on the back of the neck. Song Yanzhou's eyes rolled back, and he fainted. She put the three soldiers into her spatial storage, then went next door to rescue four more team members, putting them into her storage as well. There were also four Chinese people in the cell; Song Yanzhou had just said they were scientists who weren't cooperating with the research, so Jiang Zhiyu put them in as well. She also amplified the poison-based abilities of those she put into her storage to prevent them from waking up midway. The poisonous fog that caused them to faint would at most keep them in a daze for a few days, without harming their bodies.

Having done all this, she turned and walked out. The patrol team in the corridor was still dozing off, and no one noticed that the cell was empty. But Jiang Zhiyu didn't leave immediately—there was a strange energy fluctuation deep underground on the sixth floor, making her supernatural abilities subtly stir.

"Seventeen, scan that room." She pointed to the iron door at the end of the corridor, which was three times thicker than the other cells and had a handwritten "High Risk" label on it.

[Scan failed... The energy field inside is too strong; my probe wave was deflected.] Seventeen's voice was trembling with unease. [Host, shall we retreat first? Rescuing them is enough.]

Jiang Zhiyu stared at the door, her supernatural abilities stirring within her fingertips. This laboratory was hidden six floors underground, with security tighter than a military base; it couldn't possibly be holding only a few researchers. What was hidden behind that door?

She gritted her teeth: "Wait five more minutes."

Anyway, the surveillance cameras were hacked, and the patrol team was lethargic; five minutes would be enough. Jiang Zhiyu walked to the iron gate and found that the lock was an electronic combination lock with fingerprint recognition. She sneered, her mental energy drilling into the keyhole and turning the internal gears like a key.

"Click—"

The door opened.

What exactly is inside?