Mechanical Limbs Running Out of Energy

Qing Chen rapidly flipped over the short walls of two small courtyards and darted through the environment he was most familiar with.

In that instant, the entire No. 4 Courtyard's terrain was like a three-dimensional scene in his mind.

The autumn wind was slightly cool, with a hint of the dryness from the day.

At the next instant, the young man silently calculated the speed at which the crook was rapidly running...

No, I must go faster!

Qing Chen felt that his lungs were burning and his blood was boiling.

Suddenly, he stopped in the shadows at a corner, holding his breath.

At this moment, the leaves of the Chinese parasol trees in the courtyard rustled and their shadows swayed on the ground.

As many families had their lights off, nothing could be seen clearly and only the sound of running footsteps could be heard from the distance.

None of the other things were important anymore.

3.

2.

1.

It was now.

In the night, the young man lifted the entrenching tool with all his might and swung it outside of the corner he was at.

With a thud, the middle-aged man who was running furiously was hit in both legs and rolled forward!

Qing Chen didn't give him another glance, but instead turned and quickly disappeared into the shadows amongst the buildings. He left right after delivering one hit.

After he left, the middle-aged man's agonizing cry rang through the entire small district and countless windows lit up. Some people looked out but could only see the crook grabbing onto his legs and howling in pain.

The middle-aged man's right leg was broken and blood was flowing profusely.

Slowly, many people got to their windows to watch the scene. However, they could only see the crook and not any sight of Qing Chen.

Even the crook didn't understand what on earth had just happened.

After Qing Chen returned to Jiang Xue's place, he saw her hugging the shivering Li Tongyun, so he asked, "Is Little Yun hurt?"

"She has just been given a bad scare. I'll call the police right away and let the police deal with them."

"No need, I've called the police," Qing Chen said.

Li Tongyun heard his voice and raised her head, saying with tears in her eyes, "Brother, there was another man who ran away."

"Don't worry, I found him," Qing Chen replied.

Only then did Jiang Xue see that the webbed part between his thumb and index finger was hurt by the entrenching tool. She suddenly realized that he must have encountered the crook, and they must have had a confrontation.

Fortunately, after sizing up Qing Chen for a very long time, she saw that he didn't have any other injuries.

"Your hand is hurt. Wait a minute, I'll go bring out bandages and iodine," Jiang Xue said.

"I'm just an ordinary person after all." Qing Chen lowered his head and looked at his hand, sighing at how he had a powerful brain but not a body that could match his brain.

He must hasten his progress in obtaining powers in the Otherworld!

"Auntie Jiang Xue, there's no need for all the trouble," said Qing Chen. "I have them at home too."

By now, the neighbors had all come out because of the earlier commotion. They didn't dare to come out earlier, but now that there wasn't any noise anymore, things should have settled down.

Seeing that more and more people were crowding over, Qing Chen quickly said, "The police will be here very soon. I'll go back to my place first. Remember, I have nothing to do with the things that took place tonight."

Jiang Xue hesitated for a moment. "Alright."

...

Noisy sounds of discussions, the sirens from police cars, and people's footsteps came from outside the windows. But none of them seemed to be able to affect Qing Chen.

He quietly lay on his bed and thought deeply about things. The moment he had swung out the entrenching tool earlier, he had welcomed his brand new life.

The reason why Qing Chen went after that crook was partly because he couldn't accept a young child like Li Tongyun suffering.

Another reason was that he kept feeling that if he didn't even have this little bit of courage, then there was no need for him to look forward to his life in the Otherworld either.

After that, he slowly went to sleep until he was woken up by a series of knocks on his door.

Qing Chen then opened his door sleepily. The one knocking was Li Tongyun.

"Brother Qing Chen, can you come over to my house?" Li Tongyun asked meekly.

"What's the matter?" Qing Chen was puzzled.

"Hurry up and help my mom," Li Tongyun said anxiously.

Qing Chen went upstairs to see Jiang Xue sitting helplessly by the dining table, her arms dangling down by her side.

"Are you hurt?" Qing Chen asked.

"No, I'm not hurt," Jiang Xue replied. "... It's just that my mechanical limbs have run out of energy."

Qing Chen was really stunned. He hadn't given much thought to how the mechanical limbs worked. He only thought that some kind of amazing technology in the Otherworld such as an antimatter reactor or something was hidden in them.

He didn't expect that because Jiang Xue had overused her mechanical limbs yesterday, it resulted in her being unable to move them anymore.

To put it simply, they ran out of juice...

"Hold on, their durability is so bad?" Qing Chen asked, puzzled. "Then how do the people in the Otherworld support the high-intensity battles?"

Jiang Xue explained, "You haven't transmigrated before so you're unaware of this. The entire Otherworld has completed wireless energy charging upgrades. Cooling towers for nuclear reactors can be seen at the borders of the city, and the electricity they produce supplies energy for the entire city through the 'Cloudflow Towers'.

"In the Otherworld, be it cars, communication devices, mechanical limbs, rice cookers, or lights, 90% of electronic devices have said goodbye to cable charging. It's the same for the Internet. It's as if a massive WIFI covers the entire city.

"Everyone has their payment serial number, just like one's identification number. As long as they pay the fees monthly, they will be able to enjoy life with great convenience. The financial groups will charge everyone based on their electricity usage.

"There are approximately over 300 Cloudflow Towers across the entire City No. 18. Therefore, the people there no longer have the concept of 'charging electricity' since everyone's devices are constantly charging at all times."

Distance wireless charging? Qing Chen was puzzled. Wasn't this the dream of Scientist Nikola Tesla?

At this moment, Qing Chen's identity as an amazing student became useful. He started to analyze things rapidly.

The intrinsic nature of electricity charging was the transmission of energy. There was such technology in the Surface World too, take for example how some of Xiaomi's* new products could support distance wireless charging with the range of an entire room.

The reason Xiaomi could support distance wireless charging was because they had made a breakthrough in rectification and positioning technologies. This allowed them to accurately receive the millimeter waves transmitted by the charging devices.

Amongst these two technologies, positioning technology was the most important one. Otherwise, the charging devices would discharge spherical waves instead of being able to accurately transmit the waves to the handphones.

To put it simply, without positioning technology, the charging device would just be an open-style "microwave".

That would be too terrifying.

The technologies in the Otherworld and the Surface World were definitely different. At the very least, there'd be countless levels more breakthroughs

Then would this thing be harmful to the human body? The answer would be that the harm would be insignificant. It was because the radiation emitted was even lower than that of handphones.

As long as the positioning technology was advanced enough, there wouldn't be any impact.

Of course, Qing Chen hadn't studied the transmission theories in the Otherworld, so he couldn't be sure if they had realized Tesla's dream, or if their technologies were similar to the distance wireless charging technology that the Surface World currently had.

However, regardless of which it was, being able to realize wireless charging in all aspects was still quite a novel thing.

At this moment, Li Tongyun suddenly asked, "Then would there be any radiation from the wireless charging? Last month, some grandfathers and grandmothers forced the demolition of the signal station in the next district. Would the radiation be greater than that from the signal station?"

Jiang Xue hadn't given this much thought in the past, but she now felt a little worried after hearing Li Tongyun say that. She asked, "Many official accounts said that even radiations from handphones are very harmful to the human body. Would the Cloudflow Towers affect our health?"

It was true that many official accounts had explained the harm of radiation.

Many people believed that too. They had even removed many telecommunication companies' base stations and signal stations.

Qing Chen said, "The degree of the radiation should be dependent on the individual."

"What do you mean?" Li Tongyun was puzzled.

Qing Chen gave it some thought before saying, "The lower one's education level, the greater the radiation."

Li Tongyun: "???"

Jiang Xue: "???" 

Footnotes: 

[1] Xiaomi Corporation, registered in Asia as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items.