Air Force

After parting ways with that group of young masters and misses, Zhou Kai was in no rush to return to the boxing gym.

According to Du Feng, Chen Ping wouldn't be back until at least midnight, and if things got busy, it could easily be even later.

A rare moment of leisure; no need to rush.

The key to seeing Chen Ping lay in the secret medicine, and if Chen Ping wasn't there, where would the medicine come from?

It was better to take advantage of this rare free time to loosen the strings of his tightly wound nerves.

Zhou Kai had indeed been suppressing himself for too long...

The pitch-black Nightmare, the despair that followed one after another, and the looming crises in reality.

Not to mention that bastard who smashed his door today.

In the Nightmare, Zhou Kai could still swing an axe and release a bit of pressure amidst the flying flesh and blood.

But in reality?

Zhou Kai felt the muscles in his hands beginning to tense up involuntarily again.

"Hoo... stay calm."

The continuously active double-strength Clear-Headed state kept Zhou Kai in a state of unprecedented comfort.

Zhou Kai strolled through the Camping Park all by himself.

There were few artificial facilities here, and the nearest street lamp was eighty or ninety meters away, its dim, yellowish halo swallowed by the darkness.

For most people, large areas of the park were pitch black, unable to see one's own fingers.

But for Zhou Kai... the situation was subtly different.

"I once heard a theory that human eyes have an extremely strong ability to adapt."

"So strong that even with mild to moderate nearsightedness or astigmatism, if you stay in an open, natural environment long enough, your vision can miraculously return to normal."

Zhou Kai's sharp, piercing eyes scanned his surroundings in the night. Even in the deepest darkness, he could barely distinguish the outlines of trees and the undulations of the grass.

These were, quite simply, the eyes of a predator.

Is it because I've been struggling to survive in the dark environment of the Nightmare for too long that my body has begun to adapt and developed basic night vision?

Discovering this small gain, the corners of Zhou Kai's mouth twitched imperceptibly.

Limited by the physical structure of the human eye, this night vision effect would likely stop here.

But who could say what the future held?

Perhaps one day, he would learn a skill from the Nightmare that could elevate his eyes to see as clearly as fire in a lightless environment.

As he walked, Zhou Kai arrived near the small lake in the park.

At this moment, the nearly full moon had risen to the perfect position. The clear, soft moonlight poured onto the lake surface like cold mercury, inch by inch. As the wind blew, it wrinkled the lake into a shattered mirror.

The water shimmered, brilliant as flowing quicksilver.

This rare, beautiful scene made Zhou Kai pause, and he simply stopped in his tracks, watching it quietly.

To Zhou Kai's left was a small cape extending from the shore into the lake, where a fishing lamp hung from an upright pole, casting a ghostly light onto the water.

Under the light, a man and a woman were squatting.

The man looked like a seasoned angler, and the woman was likely his wife.

Zhou Kai didn't intentionally eavesdrop, but their conversation drifted into his ears on the evening breeze, intermittent and fragmented.

"...I went to register as a delivery driver; it should help take some of the pressure off you..."

"Don't be sad. From now on, I'll come fishing with you every week. It's just unemployment, we'll struggle through it together. We can always make it through."

The woman squatted on the bank, her eyes gazing at the water as if lost in thought; her mood was certainly not as calm as her words suggested.

The angler replied in a muffled voice: "I'm sorry, Xiao Yue... but I have no choice. The company is cutting costs and increasing efficiency, and since I'm older, I was among those laid off..."

"...Why is it always us who have such bad luck? We bought the house for 1.9 million, and now it's only worth 1.1 million, yet the mortgage payments haven't dropped by a single cent."

"I've thought about just defaulting on the loan several times."

The man gripped his fishing rod tightly. Even though the float had moved several times, he acted as if he hadn't seen it.

"But... we need a home, don't we?"

"Ah Hua..."

"Looks like there's a bite." The woman suddenly changed the subject.

The man named Ah Hua only then reacted, jerking the rod upward... perhaps the timing was off, for the hook came up empty.

"Skunked again... all night, not a single fish."

Ah Hua's voice was filled with disappointment.

The hot war between the Red Star and the Lyle Federation had ended, but the economic and political winter had only just begun...

The brief joy brought by peace swept through everyone's lives like a gust of wind, leaving behind a total depression that no one knew how long would last.

Zhou Kai left the lakeshore.

He had no mortgage pressure, and his income issues had fortunately been resolved...

Yet, he could truly understand the despair of that couple.

He frowned slightly, recalling the gradual changes in his life lately and pondering everything shifting around him.

In an instant, even Zhou Kai couldn't make sense of it.

Was it the desperate, terrifying Nightmare making this reality increasingly abnormal, or the unpredictable human heart?

Zhou Kai walked into the woods by the lake, his figure quickly swallowed by the darkness.

Beep.

His phone chimed at that moment.

Zhou Kai picked it up to look, the screen's light illuminating his face.

The message was from Feng Mingtai.

"Master Zhou, a dangerous individual has entered the Camping Park. Are you still there? Miss Fischl asked me to remind you to be extremely careful."

Zhou Kai's nerves tightened instantly, and he subconsciously became vigilant.

And in the very next moment.

A hair-raising sensation, the instant his thoughts emerged, swept through his entire body like an electric current!

Whoosh!

A slender, dim red streak shot out from the darkness ahead, tearing through the air!

The warning of a near-death crisis caused Zhou Kai's pupils to constrict sharply; everything before him seemed to enter slow motion.

His heart roared like a detonating engine, pumping scalding blood into every muscle!

Zhou Kai's strong physique was fully activated in a split second.

Zhou Kai's right hand, holding the phone, jerked upward, and just as the red streak hit his face, he blocked it precisely in front of his brow.

Crack!

The screen shattered upon impact.

Damn it, I just bought the latest model!

The momentum of the red streak was significantly weakened by the sacrifice of the phone, and Zhou Kai's other hand swung out, like a sharp blade, swatting it away.

Thud!

A blood-colored throwing knife, the length of a palm, buried itself deep into the nearby tree trunk, its tail vibrating with a humming sound.

Zhou Kai's eyes, however, were already like unsheathed blades, staring deeply into the darkness straight ahead.

Clap, clap.

A man in a hood clapped his hands and walked slowly out of the woods.

His head was covered in blue-black tattoos, making his features look blurred and demonic in the dim light.

"Not bad reflexes, kid."

"Just for that move you made, your life is already worth more than 100,000 Red Star coins."

Qiu Ping did not hold back his praise because... he was already thinking about how to toy with the prey before him.

Being able to dodge one of his throwing knives didn't mean he would live to see tomorrow's sun.

Zhou Kai's expression was cold, countless thoughts flashing through his mind at high speed.

From just these few words, Zhou Kai had already roughly guessed the man's identity and purpose.

"A killer? A bounty?"

Zhou Kai's eyes scanned the man back and forth, a strange light hidden deep within his pupils.

Fear?

Nonexistent.

What burned in his chest at this moment was only... a cold, extreme fury.

Zhou Kai shifted his pace, his feet crunching on the fallen leaves, making a rustling sound as he moved forward instead of retreating, slowly closing in on his opponent.

"I'm just a weak, pitiful, and helpless fresh graduate in the cultural industry. Is it really necessary to hire a killer to take my life?"

Qiu Ping spread his hands. "Who knows?"

"I never ask about the client's identity, nor do I care who I'm killing. If the money is right, I act. It's that simple."

Zhou Kai did not stop his approach.

"Killing in Red Star? You've got some nerve..."

Qiu Ping looked at this prey, who was not only not running but actively closing the distance, and a trace of surprise appeared on his face.

He flipped his right wrist, and five identical blood-colored throwing knives were already wedged between his fingers.

Qiu Ping smiled, revealing a mouthful of stark white teeth. "Why wouldn't I dare? Thanks to the good spot you chose, there... are no surveillance cameras here."