"Sweet and Sour Spicy, two flavors. Eight for a large bowl, six for a small one."
He Ao watched the girl in front of him quote the prices with practiced ease.
The girl was not very tall, only a little over five feet, slightly shorter than Yuan Nan Nan.
However, she had a well-proportioned, balanced figure. She wore black underneath a dark green jacket, with a black choker around her neck bearing a heart-shaped iron ring. Her figure and outfit made her seem far more mature than Yuan Nan Nan, despite being shorter.
The girl noticed He Ao watching her. She raised her head and met his eyes, but quickly looked away.
She seemed to have just undergone intense exercise. Fine beads of sweat covered her forehead, and her breathing was slightly hurried, but she was doing her utmost to suppress her body's instincts and appear calm.
"I'll have a large spicy one."
After avoiding He Ao's gaze, the girl pointed at the cold noodles, trying to divert his attention.
"Certainly. Please wait a moment."
He Ao began mixing the cold noodles.
He did not ask what was going on with the girl. Everyone had their own story, and he, He Ao, was merely a seller of cold noodles.
In two or three minutes, He Ao had finished the noodles. He looked at the girl. "Eating here or taking it to go?"
"Here!"
Before he could finish, the girl hurriedly answered.
"Alright." He Ao put the cold noodles in a bowl and handed it to her. "Careful, there's oil."
"Thank you."
The girl seemed to gradually regain her composure. Taking the cold noodles from He Ao with one hand, she walked toward the small folding table nearby.
The sound of rubber wheels rolling over uneven ground reached He Ao's ears.
Only then did He Ao notice that the girl was dragging a small black square suitcase. It was not large, but it looked rather heavy.
As the girl sat down, the stall in front of He Ao became deserted once more.
"Stop!"
Zhang Anxia's shout rang through the pitch-black night.
The Industrial Area had been built on the outskirts of the city, bordering rural villages. This area lay between the city and the countryside, filled with construction sites where building was in full swing, as well as scattered self-built homes.
As a result, the terrain here was complex, with narrow paths leading in every direction and no surveillance cameras.
It was Zhang Anxia's first time here, and the terrain had left him somewhat disoriented. The person he was chasing, however, seemed extremely familiar with the area, darting between houses and construction sites like a local.
But his speed was far inferior to Zhang Anxia's. Although his familiarity with the terrain had kept Zhang Anxia from catching him, the distance between them was steadily shrinking.
If He Ao had been there, he would have immediately recognized that this Youth's back looked very much like the Youth who had come to "wreck the place" yesterday and could transform into Bull.
In fact, Bull had always been Zhang Anxia's target. Last night, he had come near He Ao's cold noodles stall to investigate Bull, but after chasing Bull into an alley, he had let Bull get away.
So this time, he sped up and kept a much closer watch on him.
Yet as the pursuit continued, he kept feeling that something was wrong.
Bull's explosive power should have been extremely strong. Zhang Anxia had lost him yesterday because Bull had suddenly accelerated, but the Bull he was chasing today was clearly at a disadvantage in terms of speed, relying solely on his familiarity with the terrain to widen the gap.
As he pondered this, Bull ahead turned along the wall of a self-built house and entered another narrow lane.
After going through this several times, Zhang Anxia had become somewhat familiar with this sort of terrain. He directly vaulted onto the wall, crossed over the house along it, and appeared in the lane on the other side.
In that lane, Bull was wondering why Zhang Anxia had not followed. He slowed down and was about to look back when a heavy fist came flying straight at his face, knocking him to the ground.
Zhang Anxia immediately pulled out a pair of Alloy Handcuffs from behind his waist, pinned the Youth to the ground, and cuffed him.
"How did you get here?"
The Youth pinned beneath Zhang Anxia clearly could not understand why Zhang Anxia had suddenly appeared in front of him.
Zhang Anxia fell silent for a moment. He did not think it necessary to explain that the world was three-dimensional—that people could not only walk, but also climb walls.
He pressed the Bluetooth earpiece hanging from his ear. The call was quickly answered, and a somewhat cool female voice came from the other end. "Got him?"
"Got him." Zhang Anxia looked at the Youth beneath him. "But I keep feeling that something's off."
"Be careful. An anomaly point was reported nearby not long ago, but there hasn't been time to investigate it yet. According to the current information, superhumans, anomalous environments, and Contaminants attract one another."
The woman immediately warned him.
"Mm, I know." Zhang Anxia nodded, his gaze still fixed on the Youth's cheek. "That anomaly point is to the east, and I was heading west. I just think Bull seems much weaker than the records said... far too weak..."
As he said this, his voice abruptly stopped. He turned over his right hand. A faint layer of powder, almost the same color as skin, clung to the back of it.
This was the hand he had just used to punch the Youth's cheek. He slowly lowered his head and saw that the color of the Youth's face, whose head he had pinned to the ground, was uneven.
He directly reached out and rubbed the Youth's face. A thick layer of mud-like substance came off, revealing the somewhat pale skin beneath.
The Youth's "appearance" was also altered by that forceful rub. Though his face was now a mess of colors, Zhang Anxia could recognize him clearly.
This was not Bull!
"We've been tricked! Watch out!"
He immediately shouted into the phone.
What answered him was a violent explosion.
Liu Nan angrily dragged Yuan Nan Nan out of that small street and back onto the main road.
Then, seeing Yuan Nan Nan carefully shielding her bowl as though afraid of spilling even a drop, Liu Nan's anger was gradually replaced by curiosity.
"Is it really that good?"
"Of course!" Yuan Nan Nan excitedly picked up a chopstickful of noodles. "Come on, I'll feed you a taste."
Liu Nan skeptically opened her mouth. Soft, chewy noodles wrapped around crisp bean sprouts slid into her mouth, and the perfectly blended sauce burst across her tongue all at once, making her eyes widen instantly.
She finished slurping the noodles and wanted to open her mouth and curse a few times, but could not bring herself to do so. She could only pout. "It is pretty good."
In truth, she knew her anger had come from nowhere. Rather than anger, it was more like the embarrassed frustration of a self-proclaimed puppy whose looks had failed to work.
Thinking of this, she sighed again. It was not as though she had never met people immune to her looks before, but most of them were either older and had no desires, or held high positions and had clearer ideals and ambitions. This was the first time she had suffered a setback among people her own age.
"Liu Nan, when are you going to marry He Ao? Then I'll get to eat such delicious cold noodles every day."
Yuan Nan Nan remarked as she ate.
A moment ago, it had still been "he likes you," and now she had jumped straight to marriage? That was way too big a leap in logic, wasn't it?
Liu Nan rolled her eyes helplessly. Her relationship with He Ao was simply that of unfamiliar classmates, at most with the added fact that she still owed him a favor. Whether their lives would even intersect again in the future was uncertain, and the possibility of developing emotions was very low.
Still, she was used to Yuan Nan Nan's habit of shipping any two people she found. Yuan Nan Nan had even shipped the two strongest, most muscular handsome guys in their class.
"Alright." Liu Nan looked around. The Industrial Area was exceptionally deserted, with only wide roads and a few cars parked by the roadside, their occupants unknown. There were few pedestrians and vehicles passing through. She took out her phone. "I'll call a car back to school."
Just as she took out her phone, a woman in blue-green cloth clothing inside a pure white sedan not far from her was watching her while talking on the phone.
"We've been tricked!"
As those clear words came through the phone, a black object flashing red was suddenly thrown from afar, landing beside the car.
Upon seeing it, the woman did not even have time to respond to the call. She violently shoved open the door and leaped out of the vehicle.
Boom—
A violent explosion thundered out.
Before you continue