Luo Xia didn't climb down the ladder. He jumped.
Ten meters straight down.
Luo Xia had an ordinary person's physique, not that of some "special forces soldier" who was really a cultivator in disguise. A fall straight down from that height would probably break both his legs.
But while he was still in midair, Luo Xia reached out and grabbed the sewer wall. The Sensor Gloves carved deep grooves into the concrete, sending sparks flying.
His descent slowed, and he landed on the ground in a shower of sparks.
The sewer smelled awful, but Luo Xia had encountered plenty of harsh environments on missions in his previous life, so it wasn't unbearable.
Luo Xia had no intention of sneaking in. The moment he forcibly pulled open the manhole cover, the tremendous noise had already told everyone inside the sewers that someone had broken in. He might as well charge in as quickly as possible and catch them off guard.
As soon as he landed, the scene before Luo Xia's eyes changed. The darkness turned deep green: he had activated the night-vision function of his Tactical Goggles.
It looked like a sewer that had been abandoned for some time. There were no slimy stains on the ground; if anything, it looked a little dry. Luo Xia examined the floor carefully and soon found footprints.
Obviously, no one would come down here to sightsee or play hide-and-seek. The footprints on the ground most likely belonged to the thief.
Luo Xia broke into a run, following the footprints.
The sewer was spacious, and there weren't as many branches as Luo Xia had imagined. He only had to turn twice before reaching the place he was looking for.
A dry, almost clean space of about twenty square meters concealed a little sewer hideout. It looked as though someone lived there.
There was a battered computer assembled from mismatched parts, a blackened fabric sofa, and a blanket that looked stiff as a board.
There were plenty of food scraps on the table. Judging by the packaging, the food was expired cookies from a supermarket clearance sale. It was clear that the person living here was having a hard time.
Under the table sat a generator, wired to the computer and a lamp. The place was surprisingly self-sufficient, though it looked terribly shabby.
Luo Xia stood in what could barely be called a doorway. He didn't go inside, but switched his Tactical Goggles from night vision to X-ray mode.
He spotted a thin figure hiding behind the tattered sofa, holding a cracked baseball bat.
The person was so thin that they could curl up behind the narrow sofa. If Luo Xia's Tactical Goggles hadn't had X-ray vision, he would have had to walk over and lift the blanket to see them.
The person seemed to be waiting for Luo Xia to approach, so they could bash him over the head.
Luo Xia had originally planned to give the thief a thorough beating once he caught them. But seeing their living conditions, he gave up on pressing the matter further.
Luo Xia couldn't be bothered to go inside. He stayed in the doorway and said, "Give me back my things, and I'll leave. As long as you don't try anything with that baseball bat, I won't call the police. That's a deal. What do you say?"
At Luo Xia's words, the thin figure shuddered with nerves. Even the hands gripping the baseball bat trembled.
"First, I should warn you that I have a gun, but I'm not planning to put a bullet in you. So if you're smart, you'll give me back my things, and I'll turn around and leave," Luo Xia continued.
At that, the thin figure finally stood up from behind the sofa.
The person had messy hair hanging loose and wore only a dark T-shirt, probably because it didn't show dirt easily. The sewer was dim, and without the lights on, it was hard to make out anyone's features.
But that didn't matter to Luo Xia. Even in these conditions, his Tactical Goggles let him see everything clearly.
Then Luo Xia exclaimed in surprise, "You're Asian? Chinese? Korean, or Japanese?"
He really was surprised. In this filthy sewer, Luo Xia had come across an Asian girl with black eyes. Her hair had a slight yellowish tint; he couldn't tell whether it was from malnutrition or because she was mixed-race, but her features definitely looked Asian.
"You... can see what I look like?" The frail girl seemed even more surprised than Luo Xia.
"Yeah. These goggles were pretty expensive," Luo Xia said honestly.
The girl couldn't help laughing, but her nervous expression quickly returned.
"I told you, I only want my things back, so you don't need to be so nervous," Luo Xia reassured her.
The girl watched Luo Xia and slowly backed away. Only after she felt she'd reached a safe distance did she carefully set the baseball bat aside and pull a box out of a corner.
She kicked the box toward Luo Xia's feet. "Everything I stole is in there."
After saying that, the girl picked up the baseball bat again and hid in a corner.
With a flick of his wrist, the Sensor Glove popped out the Alloy Dagger with a quick snap. The sudden movement startled the girl so badly that she nearly cried out.
Luo Xia ignored her reaction and carefully used the dagger to pry open the box. On a mission once, one of his comrades had been careless while opening a drug lord's box of drugs and lost an eye to a trap. Luo Xia didn't think the girl was particularly dangerous, but he wasn't about to drop his guard.
The box was small, and nothing seemed amiss when he opened it. But inside, Luo Xia found only some loose change, a set of keys, and a few things that looked like computer parts. The Energy Activation Device he was looking for wasn't there.
Luo Xia frowned. "My stuff isn't in here. What about the sapphire you stole from my house today?"
"Sapphire? I don't know what you're talking about," the girl said nervously.
"A sapphire about the size of a fist. In a basement at 17th and 4th in Hell's Kitchen. Today—or, well, sometime recently—you stole it from my house," Luo Xia explained patiently.
"Today? I haven't gone out at all today. And I wouldn't steal some sapphire anyway. I'm a person with principles," the girl explained.
"Oh, so that money was your pay for waiting tables?" Luo Xia said with a smile.
"Those... that was the emergency cash hidden under the carpet. I was only punishing dishonest men," the girl said stubbornly.
What a foolproof excuse. Luo Xia silently mourned for a second for all the henpecked husbands hiding their cash.
Luo Xia wasn't a detective, so he couldn't tell whether the girl was lying. But he knew that, at the very least, his Energy Activation Device really wasn't in this hideout. The place was so small that a scan with his Tactical Goggles was enough to see everything.
So where was the Energy Activation Device?
"Well, if you trust me, I can help you look into it," the girl suggested.
Before you continue