Chapter 960: Bohemia's Story (2)
After tying the torn strips of fabric around Puppeteer’s body, Bohemia half-bound and half-carried him onto her back, finally freeing up her hands.
However, with the slightest movement, she would hear the "shushing" sound of Puppeteer’s feet scraping against the floor behind her. She was afraid that this sound would guide the pursuers to their location. After hesitating for a moment, unsure of where to hide, a slight tremor reverberated through the ground beneath her feet, and the spacecraft came to a complete stop. It seemed they had reached the end of the track.
Bohemia paused, looking at the empty metal passage outside the window, and suddenly an idea occurred to her.
"Let them find me inside," she muttered to herself, "They will never expect it!"
The Chicky brothers might still be on Exodus, she thought. She had seen the tuft of hair in Lin Sanjiu’s hand. Although it hadn’t been explicitly mentioned, she had vaguely guessed that the brothers’ abilities were somehow related to their hair. The hair of those brothers must have spread all over Exodus by now. If she wanted to hide, she should find a place without any hair.
However, if the Chicky brothers were associated with that "Puppeteer," what if they had entered the other ship...
No, she had a way. If it was about hair...
Once Bohemia made up her mind, her ability to act became superhuman. Within a few minutes, she briskly walked out of Exodus’s white airlock. After the door closed behind her, she didn’t waste any time. Dragging Puppeteer through the end of the track, she turned into a vast and dimly lit chamber. She ran cautiously, looking around anxiously, not sure where she was going.
In the dim light, countless metal pipes intertwined and spiraled high above, resembling the skeletal structure inside a behemoth. Faint white mist swirled in the darkness as she passed through the creature’s belly, following the green emergency lights that pierced through the mist, until she stumbled upon a cargo elevator.
Carrying such a burden as Puppeteer on her back, she might as well be considered a cargo carrier. Bohemia felt the urge to throw him down a few times but worried that she might regret it if they encountered danger later on. She hadn’t expected that this character, who was feared by everyone in the Twelve Worlds, had become a cumbersome burden on her back. It was useless to keep him, but throwing him away felt like a waste.
After grumbling to herself for a while, the cargo elevator had already taken her up all the way to the top floor.
Compared to the lower decks, the top floor was clearly an area for people to live and move around. Bohemia knew that she looked suspicious at the moment, so she hid in a corner near the cargo elevator, not daring to peek outside. With an unconscious and unresponsive patient on her back and several layers of torn clothes, which she had used as ropes to tie Puppeteer, she couldn’t even utter a single word if questioned.
It wouldn’t be long before the two people from Exodus discovered that she had escaped... Although the spacecraft was enormous, it wouldn’t be easy for them to find her here. But staying here indefinitely wasn’t a solution.
"Leave him here in the cargo elevator," she muttered to herself, making a quick decision.
Just as she was lost in thought, a distant sound of footsteps and voices suddenly reached her ears. Bohemia started and quickly hid deeper into the corner, accidentally causing Puppeteer’s body to emit a dull thud. She turned her head in a panic to check his face and, seeing that he hadn’t woken up from her bump, she breathed a sigh of relief.
When she cautiously peered outside, she saw a man in a black uniform striding from the corridor, gesturing for a small electric car behind him to stop. "Leave the stuff here... Yes, this cargo elevator is close to RACK 12. It will be convenient for us to move it down tomorrow night. What? Don’t worry, no one will touch it. Just don’t block the door."
The driver of the yellow car grumbled and jumped off, helping the man stack several wooden crates, each over two meters tall, near the cargo elevator. One of the crates facing Bohemia had the words "Base Electrical Materials" written in red, though she had no idea what it meant.
Speaking of which, where was this large spacecraft headed? What were these people doing? And why did it swallow Exodus?
Lost in her thoughts, the two men quickly left. Bohemia hid in the corner and surveyed the wooden crates, her eyes shining with excitement.
Carrying an unconscious man on her back was too conspicuous. It not only hindered her movements but also made it impossible for two people to hide together. It must be the heavens taking pity on her recent streak of bad luck that brought these wooden crates before her eyes. It was the perfect opportunity to stuff Puppeteer inside one of them—she just had to move him out before they came to move the crates tomorrow night!
Bohemia untied the fabric straps and clasped her hands together, bowing in front of this man who resembled a puppet more than a puppet. "Don’t be angry, I’m helping you..."
As the words left her mouth, she was surprised to find herself stunned.
After half a second, she reached up and lightly touched her throat—she could make sound?
It was only temporary!
Feeling an overwhelming sense of relief, gratitude, self-pity, and regret surged through her, bringing a glistening moisture to her eyes.
As long as... as long as she could still make sound, everything would be alright!
Bohemia was overwhelmed with mixed emotions, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time. Her lips quivered, and her face contorted. Once she managed to regain her composure, she forcefully sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. After waiting for a while and making sure there was no one nearby, she quietly walked out and took cover behind one of the wooden crates. She pried open the back panel, revealing neatly wrapped packages inside, which she quickly stashed away in her storage pouch. Carrying Puppeteer inside the crate proved to be a bit challenging. She had to lay the crate down and roll up Puppeteer’s arms and legs before stuffing him inside, like rolling up a cloth. Perhaps feeling that her actions were too rough, she reached out to check his breathing before finally closing the crate.
Not bad, still alive. I wonder if the effect of the medicine will wear off by tomorrow? Dumping a corpse is truly more difficult than killing someone. After closing the back panel of the wooden crate, Bohemia wiped the sweat from her forehead and let out a long sigh.
But it wasn’t over yet.
Bohemia crouched on the ground and carefully inspected the area around the wooden crate, the floor, the wall crevices, and the corners. She made sure not to find a single strand of hair before she could relax—this place was outside the range of the Chicky brothers’ detection.
What should she do next?
As she pondered, she changed into the complete outfit Lin Sanjiu had given her.
There were quite a few people passing by this corridor, groups of people wrapped in conversation and footsteps, casting swaying shadows from time to time. Bohemia stayed in place, listening attentively for a while, before deciding to go and check out the place called the "Bulletin Board." It seemed to be a forum-like place where she could at least find some information about the spacecraft.
To avoid being discovered by the Chicky brothers, who might have left some hair strands along the way, she intentionally disguised her appearance. She reluctantly took off all her jewelry and tied up her chestnut-colored long hair, tucking it under her hat. She covered her face with the brim of her hat, raised her collar, and quietly blended into the crowd as a wave of people passed by in the corridor.
Although the Twelve Worlds hadn’t developed a systematic scientific system, it was a kaleidoscope-like human society mixed with scientific achievements and peculiar devices from various worlds. Bohemia grew up in such an environment and had become accustomed to many seemingly unbelievable things, so she didn’t find the Bulletin Board particularly fascinating. She even found the man next to her annoying as he enthusiastically explained how to use the Bulletin Board—as if she didn’t know how! She responded with a dismissive tone and walked away without looking back, hearing the man mutter behind her.
A few minutes later, when Bohemia finally realized that she was flying towards another planet, she was completely dumbfounded.
She had assumed that this spacecraft would soon come to a stop, just like many other ships in Heaven Underworld. Then she could discreetly take Puppeteer and sneak off the ship, informing Lin Sanjiu about Exodus. That would have been the least she could do.
But now, Bohemia, a character who was not well-liked by the Twelve Worlds Centrum, found herself trapped on a spaceship called the Ocean Voyager, heading to another planet. What was even worse was that she was already trapped like a turtle in a jar for the pursuers behind her. In this non-descending ship, they had plenty of time to search for her!
Bohemia bit her lip, and the sense of crisis that surged within her made her face turn pale.
No, she thought. As she hurriedly pulled out a mask that Lin Sanjiu had left for her, Bohemia realized that she first needed to find out what facilities on the Ocean Voyager were open 24 hours to avoid arousing suspicion due to having nowhere to go. Secondly, she had to completely conceal her tracks—not only by changing her appearance but also by avoiding the attention of the Chicky brothers.
Only after ensuring her safety could she find a way to deliver the message to the surface—if she could even transmit it. After all, Lin Sanjiu was on the planet’s surface thousands of meters below, and Bohemia had no idea how to contact her.
Lin Sanjiu had no taste when it came to selecting masks.
Bohemia silently criticized as she put on the mask, watching her reflection on the metal wall quickly transforms into a crudely made, rough-looking middle-aged man. She sighed in frustration, glanced around, and swiftly stepped into the corridor when no one was paying attention to her.
Next, Bohemia took out a vacuum cleaner.
It was something she had retrieved from Exodus, originally an additional facility besides the central vacuum system. If it weren’t for dealing with the Chicky brothers’ detection, she would have never willingly picked up a vacuum cleaner from her own room. But now, Bohemia focused all her attention and meticulously ran the vacuum head over every inch of the floor, not wanting to miss anything that resembled hair.
She realized that for the next few days, she would have to disguise herself as a janitor, wouldn’t she?
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