Undercurrents Stirring

New York's night was ablaze with lights.

In a hospital room downtown, a handsome man wearing sunglasses, with bandages wrapped around his right hand and left leg, lay on the bed.

The man was Daredevil, Matthew, whose limbs Bai Ye had shot and broken with a rifle the previous night. He gripped a charcoal pencil in his uninjured left hand and kept moving it across the notebook before him.

Though it seemed rather unbelievable for a blind man to draw, Matthew's five senses surpassed those of ordinary people. Merely from the echoes of sound, he could form an object's shape in his mind, and in daily life, he was even more agile than normal people.

As the charcoal pencil scratched across the paper before him, the final stroke fell, and the image of a young man around eighteen, so handsome he seemed almost divine, came vividly to life on the page.

After finishing the drawing, Matthew set down the charcoal pencil. Recalling the events of the previous night, he was still deeply puzzled. Who exactly is this guy? Why does he know my identity and weaknesses so well?

Thinking of Bai Ye's warning from the night before—that if Matthew dared continue investigating his identity, he would reveal Matthew's true identity to Kingpin—Matthew's heart tightened. The feeling of having his life and the lives of his friends at the mercy of someone else was truly awful.

Just as Matthew hesitated over whether to continue tracking Bai Ye's whereabouts, his ears caught movement outside the room. From the sound alone, he knew it was Amy, his friend from the firm, coming to visit him with a flower basket.

With a click, the lock was pressed down. Amy hurried in and asked with concern, "I heard you got caught up in a gang shootout last night and were injured. How badly are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. The doctor said I'm in good shape and should recover quickly. I just probably won't be able to work for the next month," Matthew said with a smile.

Amy let out a sigh of relief. "It's good that it isn't serious. Public safety has been getting worse and worse lately. We're nearly overwhelmed with work, so we're counting on you to come back and help once you recover."

As she spoke, her sharp eyes noticed the sheet of paper lying face-down on the bedside table. "Hey, what's that?"

Amy picked it up casually. Looking at the sketch on the paper, her eyes lit up. "Who drew this sketch by your bed? This young man is way too handsome. Is there a real person?"

As she spoke, Amy's expression became a little strange. Who would give a portrait to a blind man? That was a rather surreal thing to do.

"Oh, a friend of mine drew it. As for the person in it, he was actually some student my friend saw on the street. He left a deep impression on him, so he drew him as soon as he got home," Matthew explained with a smile.

"You don't know him? That's such a shame. I wanted to see the real person. Though this must be somewhat idealized, right? I've never seen anyone who could look that good," Amy said regretfully.

"I'll tell my friend to get his contact information next time he sees him. If there's a chance, I'll introduce him to you," Matthew said. Then, as if recalling something, he probed indirectly, "I heard the family members of the patient in the next bed talking. Was another bank robbed recently?"

"That's right. It's become quite a big deal—everyone at our firm has been talking about it. Last night, a gang went to rob the vault at Terry Bank. They had already blown open the vault, but then another super-criminal showed up, robbed the robbers, and drove off with everything they stole, including their sedan."

"When the police arrived, they only caught that gang. Their ankles had all been shot through, so they couldn't run. As for that super-criminal, after an entire night of searching, all they found was the sedan he abandoned."

"Because of this, it was all over the morning headlines. The police have practically lost all face."

At that, Amy suddenly raised a finger. "Oh, right. I heard the police department is holding a public briefing tomorrow morning."

"A public briefing?" Matthew asked curiously, though he also knew who had taken the missing cash.

Amy nodded and explained, "That's right. After all, New York hasn't had a bank robbery in a long time. Public opinion is in an uproar now, so they definitely need to hold a briefing to calm New Yorkers down."

"Is that so? Looks like the New York police are finally taking this seriously," Matthew said with a nod. After chatting with Amy for a while longer, she saw that it was getting late and arranged to visit him again the next morning.

At the same time, at the New York Police Department commissioner's home, George watched the online pessimism surrounding the department and felt like several more strands of his hair were about to turn gray.

As an ordinary man, he had risen to the rank of commissioner in an international metropolis as chaotic and mixed as New York City entirely through years of diligent work.

But anyone with eyes could see that dealing with ordinary criminals was one thing. When facing superhuman beings such as people with powers, mutants, and vampires, it was already difficult enough for the police to survive.

He had repeatedly asked his superiors whether they could send down some kind of superpowered police officer. Otherwise, whenever something major happened, all the police could do was pray for those superhero vigilantes to resolve it. It was far too passive.

But such requests were always brushed aside. They said that the military's research project based on the Super Soldier Serum had been forced to halt not long ago because a test subject had escaped from the base during the experiment, putting the project on hold for the time being. The military was currently devoting all its efforts to the pursuit, so they could only wait, and so on.

Still, by proceeding cautiously and maintaining a clear understanding of their own capabilities, they had managed to patch things together over the years. Compared with other major cities, New York City's annual police casualty rate was only five percent. That was already no small feat.

Thinking of the press conference scheduled for the next morning, he rehearsed his speech once more before bed. Then, feeling utterly drained in body and mind, he helplessly declined his wife's invitation and fell asleep.

"I should launder the money in my hands as soon as possible." In the bedroom, Bai Ye exercised while thinking.

Money had been getting tighter and tighter lately. He needed to legitimize the funds he had as soon as possible.

Just as Bai Ye was thinking this, several fierce-looking men with bulging muscles sat gathered together inside a warehouse.

"At nine tomorrow morning, the police will begin their press conference. A lot of officers will be there then. That will definitely be when police presence is at its weakest."

"At that time, we only need to do the opposite of what they expect, and we can carry out the operation fully armed," said a scar-faced man.

"Then, boss, which bank are we robbing?" one man asked.

"Of course Lansheer Bank. I've thoroughly investigated it. This bank's cash reserves are definitely the largest in all of New York City, but its security isn't very tight," the scar-faced man said.

Yet they had overlooked an important question: why was a bank holding such enormous sums of money so lightly guarded?