Chapter Nine: So, You’re Done Pretending?

6:00 AM. A group of people gathered in the house for a meeting to review their shortcomings.

Having been busy all day yesterday, Chu Hao and Jenny appeared to be fine. J and Osas were also doing well. Ares looked a bit exhausted, and the unnamed blonde woman appeared weary but was still forcing herself to listen. Chen Mo sat to the side, idly toying with a simplified version of the Blood-Melting Blade.

"The preparations for food, water, and medicine are in order. We have prepared enough for ten people to survive for ten days, and it has been placed in each of the safe houses selected by Mr. Osas," Chu Hao said, taking a sip of hot coffee from his mug before continuing.

"Last night, I hacked into the city's surveillance network and selected the safe houses that I believe are the safest and most capable of avoiding detection by the aliens. As the saying goes, 'a wily rabbit has three burrows.' To prevent any unforeseen circumstances, I have selected several other safe houses to serve as their future bases. We need to continue transporting supplies to set them up."

"J managed to trade for some weapons. Although he brought back some firearms and ammunition, it’s only enough for everyone to have a shotgun. The firepower is severely lacking..."

"I don't know what happened," J sighed. "Everything went wrong. The local underworld was only willing to sell this much weaponry and ammo; other contraband was completely unavailable... It’s strange. Is the Los Angeles underworld really this wholesome?"

*Or perhaps the God of the Main Dimension just doesn't like you and secretly cranked up the difficulty,* Chen Mo thought.

"Our family's influence in North America is truly insufficient," Ares said, shaking his head. "Materials for making explosives, like fertilizer, and other contraband are hard to come by in any significant quantity. Controlled items like these are very difficult to get hold of."

"Then we can only try to make explosives using things like aluminum powder and gasoline," said Mr. Osas, who seemed quite experienced with demolition. "But these explosives are primarily incendiary rather than concussive. They might not be very effective against the aliens from the movie. Furthermore, we need detonation equipment, which is also hard to acquire."

There were still many problems, and little preparation time remained. In less than twenty hours, the aliens would descend upon Earth, and the *Skyline* instance would officially begin.

"I can solve these problems."

Everyone looked at Chen Mo. With a wave of his hand, a massive pile of munitions appeared on the table—pistols, rifles, sniper rifles, machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and everything in between. There were also high-tech devices such as thermal imaging detectors, small drones, and smart robotic dogs.

"Where did you get so many weapons and equipment?" Jenny stared at the pile of weapons on the table, dumbfounded.

"I pulled them from my subspace fragment," Chen Mo said calmly. "Yesterday, I had a sudden epiphany and gained some insight, which caused the seal of my ancestors to loosen slightly. These weapons were inside that loosened seal."

Of course, that was a lie; he had taken them from Valmont.

In Valmont's world, Jackie Chan had already collected six talismans, placing them in the era of the Talisman story arc. At this time, Valmont was still very wealthy; his assets hadn't been squandered by Shendu yet. He was still a rich man who could even mobilize equipment like armed helicopters. Collecting some weapons was a trivial task for him.

Everyone looked at Chen Mo with expressions of shock and suspicion, save for Chu Hao, who remained calm. Chen Mo acted as if nothing were out of the ordinary, his face betraying no emotion.

"That solves the firepower issue," Chu Hao said, looking at Chen Mo. "But we are still missing materials for making explosives. Chen Mo, do you have a way?"

Clatter—a series of square, high-grade detonators were placed on the table.

"That’s all the explosives I have in reserve. I also have a few high-tech electronic swords here. Does anyone else want one?"

"Let me take a look!"

J took an electronic sword from Valmont's world—a piece of "black technology" capable of easily cutting through wire mesh and sheet metal—and played with it excitedly. Others followed suit and grabbed one for themselves.

The price of these electronic swords seemed quite high, but Valmont had generously prepared one for every teammate, including himself. He was so generous that Chen Mo even felt a bit guilty.

"...Alright, then the necessary preparations are basically complete."

Chu Hao looked away. Chen Mo clearly had secrets. Perhaps it wasn't the "ancestral heritage" he claimed, but looking at his calm demeanor, it didn't seem like he was lying either... Maybe the ancestral heritage part was true, but he was hiding other secrets. However, he didn't seem to have any intention of hiding them; he wasn't even pretending.

Shaking his head, he thought, *If there are secrets, so be it.* As long as Chen Mo meant them no harm and was willing to help, that was enough.

"Then let's finish counting and moving the last of the supplies and move into the safe houses today."

"Chen Mo, I have a mission for you."

"Go ahead," Chen Mo said, his expression turning serious as he put away his Blood-Melting Blade.

"Don't be so serious. Because you are the strongest among us, it will be easier for you to handle this... Before the aliens descend tomorrow, go and kidnap the male and female leads and bring them to the safe house."

...

...

While reading *Infinite Dawn*, Chen Mo always had a question.

Was the North Ice Continent's struggle in the story worlds largely due to Chu Hao's various "earth-shattering wisdom" behaviors?

For instance, in this *Skyline* instance, in the original plot, when they went to kidnap the protagonists, they insisted on waiting until the aliens actually descended. They insisted on being bathed in that alien blue light before acting.

As a result, they were nearly caught by the aliens several times on the drive back, got stuck in traffic, had to abandon their car, were forced into the sewers to hide, and had to rely on a gamble involving a natural gas explosion to escape with their lives.

But if they had kidnapped the protagonists early, they wouldn't have faced those dangers or lost teammates... So why did Chu Hao do it? The original work's explanation seemed to be that Chu Hao wanted to confirm whether it was truly the *Skyline* event before acting...

Well... that was truly, "earth-shattering wisdom."

Of course, the reason Chu Hao acted this way was that the author's intent was to describe a story about a "wise man who holds hope but is toyed with by fate," but because the author couldn't manage such a narrative, it turned into a story about "readers full of expectation, being fed a massive pile of 'earth-shattering wisdom'..."

But now, the situation had changed.

Standing downstairs at the apartment building where the protagonists of *Skyline* lived, Chen Mo's expression was uncertain.

Perhaps because he had participated in the *Skyline* event and displayed so many supernatural phenomena, the people in his team seemed to believe in the reality of the God of the Main Dimension's space.

Because of this, Chu Hao hadn't committed the "earth-shattering" acts from the original work, opting instead to have Chen Mo kidnap the protagonists early and hide them in a safe house.

The operation was standard and flawless.

But given Chu Hao's luck... the kind of luck where every plan inevitably runs into trouble...

As he followed these "normal" instructions... would unexpected problems still arise?