At 10:05 in the evening, Ren Zhong’s motorboat silently slid past the gates of Starfire Town under the moonlight, entering the town.
Finding a corner of the street, Ren Zhong stopped, "Do you want to go see your former home? Two members of your squad have returned, the Heavy Mecha Warrior and the Gunsmith."
"Is it Chen Meng and Yang Yi?" Ying shook her head, "I won’t go see them. As you said, Manager Ren, the former Tang Shuying is dead; the one living now is Ying. I’m mentally prepared. I will say goodbye to my former self for our ideals."
"Alright. Then I’ll trouble you. In the days to come, you’ll probably have to stay in the Biological Laboratory for a long time and can’t easily go out."
Continuing on towards the laboratory, Ying curiously asked, "Manager Ren, have you already assumed that Starfire Town can pass the census survey?"
"Yes."
"I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’m really curious about what Manager Ren plans to do."
Ren Zhong replied casually, "Although Ma Dafu and I have made many attempts, and these attempts can greatly improve Starfire Town’s scores in the survey, the real deciding factor lies in the Cold-blooded Butcher."
Ying: "So?"
Ren Zhong: "I will completely crush him in the battle assessment during the census, under the watchful eyes of the public."
Ying was initially taken aback, instinctively wanting to say Manager Ren was too reckless, but she read the absolute confidence hidden in Ren Zhong’s words.
Recalling the details of how Ren Zhong had calculated against Yang Bingzhong, Ying said no more, "Okay."
Though she once despaired, though she had too many unpleasant memories and past experiences in Starfire Town, at the same time, it was the place where she grew up and once placed her happiness.
If Starfire Town disappeared, she would truly become a rootless duckweed. Deep down, she still hoped for the town to continue existing.
After delivering a person to their destination, she handed them over to Sun Miao.
Sun Miao chatted with Ren Zhong about the progress of the latter stage of Alien Ore processing, then hurriedly left.
Ren Zhong prepared to check on the situation at the Armored Laboratory next door when Ying called to him, "Manager Ren, wait a minute."
"Hmm? What’s the matter?" Ren Zhong turned his head.
Ying magically pulled out a perfectly preserved dandelion from her hand and handed it to Ren Zhong, "Manager Ren, thank you."
Ren Zhong took the dandelion, looked at her, then glanced at Sun Miao, who had a worried look on his face, and suddenly laughed.
"Hmm."
When he went next door, Wen Lei had gone home over an hour ago, and Ju Qingmeng had already fallen asleep. Ren Zhong entered the underground laboratory, started the front-end production line, began adding samples, and busied himself until two in the morning, going to bed.
That night, he didn’t use hypnosis but natural sleep, waking at six in the morning to restart the production line, just in time for Wen Lei to start another line when he arrived at seven.
Time was tight, and to save time, Ren Zhong planned to sleep only four hours a day for the next few days.
As for Ju Qingmeng, she went to the Military Weapon Store.
By around noon, Ju Qingmeng had finished her morning errands and switched over to the private laboratory, where Ren Zhong handed over the production line to her and hurried next door to the Biological Laboratory.
"How’s the situation?"
Looking at Ying, who was asleep in the isolation room, Ren Zhong asked nervously.
Sun Miao wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "Implantation was successful. The embryo’s development has stabilized, growing about ten times faster than a normal embryo. Fortunately, you brought Tang Shuying back. If it were the other three, not to mention successful cultivation, even the safety of mother and daughter would be in jeopardy."
Ren Zhong nodded, "That’s good. Also, she’s now called Ying, not Tang Shuying."
"Got it."
As they were chatting, Ying awoke from the isolation room.
Almost simultaneously, a mechanical arm delivered a large amount of high-absorption liquid food.
Ying grabbed it and began shoving it into her mouth voraciously.
Her peripheral vision caught Ren Zhong and Sun Miao outside the glass partition wall, and she raised her hand as a greeting.
Sun Miao explained, "An embryo growing at ten times the speed competes with the mother for nutrients. She will remain in a constant state of hunger, feeling ravenous as soon as she wakes up. Her daily food intake requirement is nearly ten times that of an ordinary person."
Ren Zhong: "That’s really tough."
"It is."
Not disturbing Ying’s eating, Ren Zhong and Sun Miao went to the neighboring laboratory to check the status of the culture strains.
Everything was going smoothly, calm and normal.
...
The 85th day.
It seemed to be a coincidence, or perhaps an inevitability subtly guided by Ren Zhong’s heartless actions.
Many things happened on this day.
Ren Zhong, upon waking in the morning, went to the Chenhui Mine and brought back two large crates full of Demon Infant Metal products.
Meanwhile, the heavily modified Level Four Exoskeleton spare parts that consumed a lot of Wang Zhaofu’s energy also arrived in Starfire Town on the same day.
This time, to meet the needs of integrating Demon Infant Metal with Alien Ore Evolutionary Metal, Ren Zhong additionally prepared spare parts, pushing the total expenditure of exoskeleton parts to three billion.
However, he wasn’t short on money. Ignoring the temporarily negligible profits from the two resource recycling companies, and considering the revenue from the video traffic generated by the Demon Infant battle, he still had over 1.75 billion in cash. In time, he would also recover about twenty billion from the "illegal private equity" set up for Wu Big Mouth and others.
He could keep constructing at full effort.
On the same afternoon, Sun Miao finally completed all the preparations for the Alien Ore post-processing production line.