Shen Xingyue stopped the car and asked me what was wrong.
"Didn't you see that little white chicken?" I asked.
Shen Xingyue glanced at the rearview mirror. "It's gone. I saw it just now."
"Let's go back and take care of it for an extra meal," I said.
"...It's late at night, the lab cooks are already off work." Shen Xingyue took me at my word, but still turned the car around and drove back.
I got out of the car as subtly as possible, circled behind the wooden crate, and found the little white chicken still there, pretending to lay an egg. I was worried it might be armed or aggressive, so without hesitation, I fired.
*Bang.* The bullet hit the little white chicken. It instinctively tried to dodge, but my speed was too great. It couldn't avoid it, but managed to stand up. As the bullet struck, feathers flew everywhere. Along with the feathers, some mechanical parts scattered—plastic and metal. One part flew over two meters away and landed, burning, looking like a battery.
Shen Xingyue ran over and exclaimed, "It's really not a normal chicken, it's a mechanical dog that's been modified. How did you figure it out?"
"Mechanical dog" was the general term for non-humanoid robots. They were usually made to look like dogs, but a chicken was indeed rare.
"I didn't figure it out. It looked very realistic. I just felt it shouldn't be here. It's either a demon or a machine. My qi sensing technique showed it wasn't a demon, so it had to be a machine," I explained.
Shen Xingyue gave me a thumbs-up. "As expected of you!"
Then, she walked over to the wreckage of the little white chicken and kicked it. From the chicken, she pulled out something resembling a circuit board. She then called a colleague. Soon, several white-coated lab personnel arrived on electric scooters from the direction of the lab. They packed the circuit board into a vacuum-sealed bag, and also collected the other wreckage to take back for research. They then cleaned up the scene.
Shen Xingyue and I returned to our original position. Bai Qingcheng had already heard the news and was asking for details. I said there were no details, and it was just a lucky shot.
"Haha, Chengfeng was just planning to improve our dinner," Shen Xingyue joked.
The mechanical chicken wasn't complex, and with the lab's advanced equipment, they quickly retrieved the video footage stored on the chip. It was a recording chicken. From the moment it powered on, was placed down, and started wandering, to its arrival at the lab, it took ten minutes. This showed that the person who released it was very cautious, hiding far away. Fortunately, the little white chicken didn't record anything crucial. The last image was of me raising my gun, the camera tilting upwards, and the recording abruptly ended.
"If I'm not mistaken, it was sent by the Chiyou Group to scout the location of the demon core?" I guessed.
"That's likely," Bai Qingcheng said. "These demons do have a penchant for these peculiar little gadgets."
"It might not be manufactured by the demon race," Shen Xingyue interjected. "They must have a research and development team. We disassembled that rotary-wing drone last time; its technological level was very high. The core components were custom-ordered from the Great River Company. We contacted them, and they said the client who ordered these components was from Singapore, and the shipping address was also Singapore."
"And then?" Bai Qingcheng asked.
"This falls under international affairs, so I transferred the lead to Old Zhou in the international department," Shen Xingyue replied.
Bai Qingcheng shook her head. "I really dislike this system within Shabia. The responsibilities of each department are too clearly defined, with task and responsibility sharing, making it difficult to form an effective synergy."
"Then how should it be changed?" Shen Xingyue inquired.
"I haven't figured that out yet," Bai Qingcheng said.
I chimed in, "It's simple. Just add a 'first responder' system for cases."
"What do you mean?" Bai Qingcheng asked.
"It's an adaptation of the hospital's 'first doctor responsible' system, which I invented," I said with a smile.
"Explain in detail." Bai Qingcheng's interest was piqued.