The dawn was just breaking.

The assault from the Thunder Beasts had finally come to a lull.

Ding Ye and two colleagues were cleaning up the destroyed No. 2 blast furnace, searching amidst the ruins for any surviving workers, although the possibility was slim.

He lifted a section of iron trough, turning over two charred and mutilated bodies from the rubble.

Having been stripped of human senses of smell and taste, Ding Ye was relieved of much burden.

When he had been a knight-errant in the past, each time he saw innocent humans killed, he would be filled with intense anger.

That fury and impulse were necessary qualities for a knight-errant, also known in the older generation as "qi."

Without this "qi," one could not claim to be a knight-errant.

Now, having a sword as his essence, walking in an Iron Soldier body, Ding Ye clearly felt the difference from before.

He always considered himself still Ding Ye, just existing in a different form.

But faced with human corpses, Ding Ye no longer felt that infuriating anger, only an indifference and coldness as if viewing the dead animals.

He asked his colleagues about this.

The answers were essentially the same.

"We're no longer human, that's why."

"Electromechanical Life does not empathize or understand humans; they only observe and analyze humans, and now we are not much different from them."

The veterans were used to this.

Yet, Ding Ye was still adjusting.

He continued to rescue civilians and fortify defenses. However, these actions now stemmed from a sense of duty, rather than from the morality, discontent, and rage of the past.

Thinking was never Ding Ye's forte.

In the past or present, he believed in acting and trying first.

No need to agonize over ignorance.

Ding Ye was busily engaged when he suddenly received an order from his group leader.

"The refugees from Shell City have arrived at the port and are being settled outside the mining area. Be careful; there may be spies among these people."

"Also, the first batch of captured enemy soldiers has been detained in the prison, also in that area."

"You are to immediately go to the resettlement area to oversee the guarding of prisoners and the settlement of refugees."

Ding Ye hurriedly rushed towards the northwest direction of the mining area.

Due to prior wartime preparations, a large number of non-toxic giant mushrooms had been planted early in this area, with Mushroom Houses of various sizes standing among the mountains and forests.

When originally constructing defensive works, Captain Zhao Xiao had proposed a staggered layout.

In practice, it meant first planting the giant mushrooms, and then, when they grew to seven or eight meters tall, planting new giant mushrooms under the shade of their caps.

As a result, the new mushrooms at the bottom could not grow tall; they could only maintain a height of three to four meters because the nutrients were absorbed by the giant mushrooms above, stunting their growth.

This was unfavorable to their growth, but very useful in wartime.

The larger giant mushrooms became protective umbrellas; during aerial raids, they could act as buffers, shielding and concealing Mushroom Houses at lower positions.

The effectiveness of this arrangement was proven in practice.

During the aerial bombardment by Duke Destructive's Army, the inhabitants in the bottom Mushroom Houses suffered very little; no one died in the bombings.

Outside the Mushroom Houses where the refugees from Shell City stayed, ropes marked the dwellings clearly: two people per house.

While patrolling, Ding Ye observed refugees moving belongings into the Mushroom Houses.

Those who migrated here were women and children under ten years of age.

The refugees looked somewhat panicked and tired, but their mood was relatively stable.

Soldiers from Steel Refining City brought daily necessities like straw mats, pottery jars, and dry grass, along with a Flame Cup and a small bag of Jade Soup for each household.

The women and children, under the mushroom caps, began cooking Jade Soup in pots using the Flame Cups as little stoves.

Despite the snow outside, the warmth from the hot soup and the presence of heating tools relaxed them considerably.

That very evening,

Ding Ye caught a spy.

It was a child. He had left the Mushroom House to defecate outside, a common occurrence. However, while squatting in the open, the child attracted the attention of a Red-eyed Vulture. The vulture landed briefly before taking off.

Ding Ye immediately beckoned a fellow archer to shoot down the vulture.

After capturing the injured bird, they found a note tied to the claws of the Red-eyed Vulture.

The note, written in charcoal pencil, detailed the number of refugees, the distribution of Mushroom Houses, and the defense details of the Northern Ocean Army. It wasn't very precise but largely accurate.

This was undeniable treason.

The child who had gone to relieve himself was seized.

Ding Ye, who had apprehended the boy, participated in the entire interrogation.

"Name."

"He Gao."

"How did you make contact with Duke Destructive's side?"

"A craftsman found me in Shell City; I know how to write, and he had me write records for him. Before winter, he said that Shell City would not hold and advised me to plan ahead, to side with Duke Destructive. After the success, I would receive a large sum of money, and he would help me rid myself of my slave status."

He Gao, though young, was very composed.

"You're a slave?"

"Yes, my dad sold me to a shell merchant, who took me to Shell City to work as a male prostitute on a ship. I killed him in his sleep with a sharpened shell shard and threw his body into the Dead Sea. Somehow, that craftsman found out about this."

"How do you communicate over here?"

"I was given a kind of drug, and I was told that our people can find us through the drug. I didn't expect that a vulture would come."

Ding Ye watched indifferently.

The interrogators had a doctor examine He Gao and indeed found traces of the drug in his body.

"How many more insiders like you are there?"

"I don't know; I only know about the craftsman. He stayed behind in Shell City, and he even had me go into the city at one point, but I didn't."

The interrogation managed to reveal another person, a child who lived with him called Bei Ta.

Bei Ta and He Gao were separately interrogated.

Ding Ye was more interested in Bei Ta.

Because this child was normal, he had panic and unease, as well as bewilderment and not knowing what to do. In comparison, He Gao seemed more like he was prepared.

"I don't know... what happened to him?"

Bei Ta seemed somewhat perplexed, "I've known He Gao for two years. He, like me, runs errands in the city and works as a Scavenger outside. But he can read, so it's easier for him to find work."

"The interrogator asked, "Are you a member of the Night Church?"

"No."

"Then what is this statue?"

The interrogator pointed to the gray statue on the table, a lizard standing erect with a wide ridge on its back.

"I found it on the shore; it came with a typhoon. It's a Monster God Statue."

Bei Ta explained, "…I wanted to make it a family heirloom like He Gao does."

Suddenly, Ding Ye had a thought, "He Gao's family heirloom, is it a soft hammer?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

"I don't know... It should be on him."

But when He Gao was captured, he didn't have such an object on him, and it wasn't found in the Mushroom House of these two children either.

Ding Ye immediately led a team to He Gao's defection location, searched everywhere, and eventually found the buried soft hammer under a tree.

His steel fingers gently tore open the rubber; many peculiar dry seeds slid out, and among these seeds was hidden a copper button.

Ding Ye took the button for inspection and ultimately confirmed it as a special signal transmitter and receiver.

This was the device used for undercover agents to communicate with each other.

Meanwhile, the doctors' examination of He Gao also turned up startling news.

"His bone age is not nine, but fourteen. He has indeed been taking drugs for a long time. Those drugs are growth inhibitors, suppressing his growth and development, and he has been taking them for at least four years."

That is to say, He Gao's name and history are mostly fake.

When Ding Ye saw He Gao again, he was already dead.

It was only known after the autopsy that He Gao had taken poison when he was captured, the remaining time was just delaying and waiting for the drug to take effect.

How many more enemy Death Soldiers there were like him was unknown.

Ding Ye looked toward the refugees in the resettlement area, those women, and children; each one seemed suspicious.

Team leader Zhao Xiao exchanged opinions with the Steel Refining Lord.

The final resolution was to transfer this batch of refugees and prisoners again, sending them to the Sand Port Region.

The Wasteland Development Company and Lord Sha Hai both had some special technology capable of identifying undercover agents among these refugees. Transferring the refugees to the rear would also avoid consuming the food and resource reserves at the front line.

Ding Ye received orders once more to escort this group of people.

On the ship heading to Sand Port, that child called Bei Ta approached him to ask, "Brother Ding, how do you tell if someone is a spy? Who should we trust and who shouldn't we?"

Ding Ye looked toward the distant land, "Often, people's troubles come from thinking too much and doing too little."

"What you need to do are two things: one is to survive, and the second is to try to live a little better."

Their conversation was brief and to the point.

Ding Ye went to another cabin next door. The captives were detained here.

Shell City and Steel Refining City had both suffered horrendous bombings. The enemy covertly landed a task force from the Dead Sea. The Northern Ocean Army blocked and wiped them out entirely, capturing three of the survivors.

One of them was particularly troublesome.

As Ding Ye opened the cabin door, he heard someone inside saying things like "keep the faith," "wait for rescue," "behind enemy lines action," "victory will surely be ours."

No need to say.

It was that guy again.

Ding Ye looked inside; among the three, the one in the center was a handsome young man, about sixteen or seventeen.

He waved his hands passionately, encouraging his two comrades.

"Liu Zhaoshan."

"Present."

The youth immediately stood up.

"Shut up."

"Yes."

"Sit down."

Liu Zhaoshan quietly sat down.

Ding Ye didn't know if taking this man to the Sand Port Region was a good thing or a bad thing. He was even doubting whether these few had purposefully surrendered to be captured to infiltrate the rear.

If He Gao and others were the undercover agents, they were the outward ones.

But there was no time to think so much now.

The Wasteland Development Company would handle them.

Liu Zhaoshan suddenly raised his hand.

"Speak."

"Are we being transferred to the Sand Port Region... the side of the Wasteland Development Company?"

The ship was drifting away from the harbor at Steel Refining City.

The direction was quite clear.

Ding Ye said, "What do you want to say?"

"I want to request a meeting with the Chairman of the Wasteland Development Company! I have important matters to discuss with the Chairman!"

Ding Ye was amused.

"If you have a valid reason and something tangible to offer, you might get a chance to see Mr. Zhou."

"Yes."

Seeing his confident demeanor, Ding Ye remembered when he first set out for Jade City, he was equally buoyant and ambitious.

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