52: Fishing in troubled waters

The muddy river water carried broken wood and bloated floating corpses.

It slammed hard against the heavy armor belt of the black iron, letting out a dull thud.

Jiang Ran sat steadily in the main control seat on the bridge, ignoring the slight tremors of the hull.

He fine-tuned the helm with one hand.

Letting this steel behemoth carve a precise arc through the aftermath of the torrential flood peak, cutting downstream into the original defensive core of the Dragon King Stockade.

The once-formidable floating fortress now consisted of only a few lonely concrete pillars poking out of the water.

They were the remaining skeleton of the watchtower.

"Release the 'hummingbird' reconnaissance formation, full-spectrum scan."

As Jiang Ran's mental command was issued, the armor plates on the side of the black iron slid open silently, and six rotor drones catapulted into the sky like arrows from a bow.

They quickly gained altitude in mid-air, their rotors slicing through the curtain of rain with a low hum as they fanned out.

Bringing the muddy ruins below under the surveillance of their electronic eyes.

A holographic screen unfolded before Jiang Ran's eyes, with countless chaotic data streams cascading down like a waterfall.

Thermal imaging, metal detection, structural sonar... multiple filters were overlaid on the live footage.

The ruins originally submerged by the flood instantly became transparent in his eyes.

Most areas were left with a deathly gray darkness—completely collapsed wasteland with no salvage value.

Jiang Ran's gaze swept coldly over the corpses from the Dragon King Stockade drifting with the current, his fingers swiping rapidly through the air.

Filtering out meaningless junk data, he focused solely on searching for high-value metal signatures and special energy fluctuations.

Since this gang of river pirates had run rampant on the river for so long, there ought to be at least some hard currency left in their lair that hadn't been washed away.

In the footage sent back by the drones, a striking red box suddenly popped up in the lower-left corner of the holographic screen.

Behind the core area of the Dragon King Stockade, a semi-underground bunker built against the mountain revealed its true form in the muddy water.

The flood had demolished the fragile masonry camouflage on the outside, but failed to shake the thick reinforced concrete skeleton within.

Though more than half of the entrance was soaked in the muddy vortex.

Only military-grade fortifications like this could possibly survive a cataclysmic flood peak like the one just now.

"This is it."

A sharp light flickered in Jiang Ran's eyes as he suddenly pushed the joystick.

The black iron's engine let out a low roar.

The bow broke through the debris floating on the water, cutting into the flank of the partially collapsed building like a surgical knife.

As the distance closed, the bow's searchlight pierced through the rain like a sword, shining directly into the depths of the pitch-black warehouse.

Floating on the water were countless shattered wooden crates, foam, and bloated grain sacks.

The lightweight materials on the surface had clearly been completely destroyed, swirling in the corners with the eddying currents.

But Jiang Ran didn't want this junk.

The black iron came to a steady halt beside a broken wall protruding from the water.

Two steel cables were launched from the side, firmly gripping the concrete pillars to secure the ship's hull in the rushing current.

Without a moment's hesitation, Jiang Ran threw on a waterproof tactical trench coat.

He fastened the mechanical buckles of his exoskeleton and strode down the lowered gangplank onto the mud-covered warehouse platform.

The air was thick with the stench of damp rot and the smell of engine oil.

He switched on his shoulder light, the powerful beam cutting through the darkness.

Ignoring the sticky sensation beneath his feet, he walked straight toward the heavy, silent shadows in the depths of the warehouse that hadn't been swept away by the current.

With a crowbar snapping off rusted padlocks, Jiang Ran violently dismantled several seemingly heavy cargo crates in succession.

Most of them contained unopened old era individual combat rations and several crates of heavy machine gun parts that hadn't been assembled yet.

In the early days of the apocalypse, these things might have been hard currency that everyone fought over,

but for the current black iron, they were like chicken ribs—tasteless to eat but a waste to discard.

Tossings a crudely made gun barrel into the muddy water at his feet, Jiang Ran frowned slightly.

There was no unique energy resonance like that of the "Spark" here.

It seemed the Dragon King Stockade's depth of resources ended here.

His expectations thwarted, he was just about to turn and leave,

when the edge of his tactical eyepiece suddenly caught several inconspicuous dark green engineering crates in the corner.

These crates were half-submerged in the water,

but the military paint on the surface hadn't peeled at all. With this specification of reinforcement ribs and airtight buckles... they were standard-issue equipment for the old era navy.

Jiang Ran strode forward, applying force with his exoskeleton palm, and with a "click," he forced open the long-rusted airtight valve.

As the nitrogen protective layer inside leaked out with a "hiss,"

the lid popped open, revealing precisely arranged black cylindrical probes and neatly coiled special cables.

"Is this... an AN/SQR series towed sonar array?"

Jiang Ran's fingers brushed over the cold sensors, a hint of unexpected pleasant surprise flashing in his eyes.

Although the model wasn't the most cutting-edge,

it was extremely well-preserved, with no signs of moisture on the core piezoelectric ceramic components.

Even if the bandits of the Dragon King Stockade got their hands on this, they would likely just treat it as incomprehensible "high-tech scrap metal" and leave it here to gather dust.

They simply didn't understand that in future naval warfare, this thing would be the ship's eyes and ears in the deep sea.

The black iron's current anti-submarine detection methods were relatively limited,

if this array were integrated, even when facing mutated behemoths lurking in deep waters or surviving military submarines,

the probability of detecting the enemy first would increase exponentially.

This was far more valuable than a pile of gold or guns; it was a strategic component that could truly raise the survival ceiling of the black iron.

Jiang Ran immediately activated the communication channel, his voice carrying a rare trace of warmth:

"Mechanical Arm, prepare for reception. Prioritize hoisting these crates onto the ship; don't leave a single screw behind."

With the sound of the winch retracting, the engineering crates containing the sonar array were steadily hoisted by the Mechanical Arm.

They swung unsteadily toward the deck of the black iron.

Jiang Ran did a final check of the surroundings, confirmed there were no high-value items left behind, and was about to turn and leave.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

A series of dull, irregular thuds, mingled with the sound of rushing water, abruptly reached his eardrums.

The sound was extremely faint, as if coming through a thick medium, carrying a sense of death-struggle despair.

Jiang Ran's footsteps paused, his gaze instantly locking onto a giant, oil-stained iron grate on the warehouse floor in the corner.

The sound was coming from below.

He strode over in a few steps, his tactical boots making a crisp metallic clatter on the iron grate.

The powerful light of his exoskeleton shone vertically downward, piercing the darkness beneath the gaps in the grate.

In that instant, the light beam illuminated faces that were turned purple and distorted from lack of oxygen.

Beneath this grate was actually an underground water dungeon originally used to hold "hostages" or those being punished.

At this moment, the backflowing river water had filled most of the space, with the muddy water reaching up to an adult's chin.

In the narrow, cramped space, twenty to thirty people were packed like sardines in a tin.

They were poorly clothed and skin and bones, frantically trampling each other to fight for the tiny bit of air space remaining above.

Several withered arms gripped the gaps in the iron grate tightly.

Fingernails were snapped off, and blood mingled with the muddy water flowing down.

Yet they were still desperately shaking this cell door, which was impossible to move with human strength.

When the powerful light fell, the commotion below suddenly ceased for a moment, followed by an even more shrill wail mixed with the sound of choking on water.

Those countless eyes, already numb and ashen in this apocalypse.

At this moment, they stared intently at the black figure above, like a drowning person staring at the last straw.

The water level was still rising visibly.

At this rate, in five minutes at most, this place would become a large coffin filled with corpses.

Jiang Ran looked through the iron grate at the hellish scene below with an expressionless face.

In the past, he might have turned and left, or given them a bullet as an act of mercy.

But now, the hull of the black iron was getting larger and larger.

Internal maintenance, deck cleaning, and even menial tasks like carrying heavy objects...

...truly required some "Biological components" that didn't need to think to fill the roles.

"Some dirty work is too much of a waste of energy for robots."

Jiang Ran muttered to himself, then activated the limit load mode of his exoskeleton.

The hydraulic linkages let out an overburdened creak.

He bent down and gripped the edge of the iron grate.

Accompanied by the ear-piercing screech of alloy friction, the incredibly heavy cast-iron grate was torn open and slammed heavily onto the nearby pile of rubble.

"Cough, cough, cough—!"

As the water splashed violently, those bodies turned pale from soaking scrambled out of the opening one after another.

Like demons crawling out of hell, they slumped in the muddy water, gasping for air.

"A ship... there's a ship! Take us with you!"

A few people who had just caught their breath saw the towering warship, and a frantic longing instantly erupted in their eyes as they stumbled toward the gangplank.

"Bang!"

A gunshot exploded in the air, kicking up a spray of mud in the water before the gangplank.

Jiang Ran held a gun in one hand, light blue smoke still rising from the muzzle, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at a herd of livestock.

"I'll only say this once."

With a flick of his toe, he kicked a heavy black cloth bag out of his tactical waist pouch.

With a "clatter," the bag burst open, revealing over a dozen silver collars shimmering with a cold metallic luster inside.

These collars had no extra decoration.

Only a soybean-sized red indicator light was embedded on the front, along with a ring of miniature high-explosive plastic explosives on the inside, flush against the carotid artery.

"The black iron doesn't support idle people, it only takes slaves."

Jiang Ran's voice pierced through the rain, devoid of any emotion:

"Put it on and go scrub the decks in the bottom of the hold for me.

If there's even a hint of a thought of resistance, or an attempt to take it off..."

He pointed to his own neck and made an explosion gesture: "'Boom,' and your head is gone."

The crowd instantly fell dead silent.

This naked declaration of enslavement made everyone feel as if a block of ice were stuck in their throats.

But the countdown to death continued, and the flood behind them was still rising.

After hesitating for just two seconds,

a few slightly stronger survivors crawled over trembling, grabbed the collars from the ground, and snapped them tightly around their necks.

"Click."

With the crisp sound of the metal buckles interlocking, the indicator light on the collars turned from red to green, emitting a soft "beep."

This sound meant that from now on, their lives no longer belonged to them.

"Very good."

Jiang Ran didn't spare them another glance, nor was he interested in knowing their names.

In his eyes, this was no different from installing a few new sweeping robots on the ship.

The only difference was that these "components" were relatively cheap, and it wouldn't hurt to lose them if they broke.

"Get up there and stay in the bottom hold."

A few minutes later.

Five survivors with green lights flashing on their necks lowered their heads.

Like the walking dead, they followed behind Jiang Ran and disappeared into the dark cargo hold entrance of the black iron.

As for the remaining people who didn't dare to put on the collars or were too physically weak, Jiang Ran didn't give them so much as a single glance.

As the winch roared, the heavy metal gangplank was slowly retracted.

The black iron's engine let out a deafening roar.

The stern propellers churned up a massive current, mercilessly leaving behind the abandoned souls still wailing on the shore, along with the ruins.

Jiang Ran stood on the bridge, watching the ruins grow smaller in the rearview monitor.

A few more hands for menial tasks, a little less leftover food.

This deal wasn't a loss.

"Full speed ahead."