The vehicle slowly picked up speed.
Wang Yiyang first glanced at the rows of data in the lower-right corner of his vision.
That mysterious random identity synthesis system was still the same as ever, with no changes.
It seemed that when it said one random identity per week, it meant exactly one per week—never early or late.
Then he checked the messages on his phone.
A text message from Guixi Town quickly caught his attention.
After reading it, he narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment. Then his gaze dropped to the messages below, and he looked at the next one.
The second message was from Jian. It said he had managed to hire three elite mercenary teams. Each of the three teams had a Limit Martial Artist.
"Limit Martial Artists?" Wang Yiyang mused. It was the first time he had heard the term.
Neither his investigations before his rebirth nor the information that came with his hidden identity had mentioned it.
"Do you know what Limit Martial Artists are?" Wang Yiyang suddenly asked.
"Limit Martial Artists?" Bodyguard No. 2, seated in the passenger seat, thought for a moment. "If you mean people who surpass the limits of the human body—a concept once put forward by the Martial Alliance—then I might know something about it."
"Oh?" Wang Yiyang immediately became interested. "Tell me about it."
"Yes, boss." Bodyguard No. 2 gathered his thoughts and continued.
"As the Federation's largest combat sports organization, the Martial Alliance once tried to save traditional martial arts schools, which were gradually losing their combat effectiveness. To that end, they proposed a research project.
The project was called Extreme Martial Arts."
"They publicly announced a benchmark, with detailed data requirements. Anyone who met or exceeded it was called a Limit Martial Artist. At the time, that caused quite a stir." Bodyguard No. 2 spoke gravely.
"Then why did we stop hearing about it?" Wang Yiyang knew the name Martial Alliance.
But he hadn't learned about it through actual combat sports. He knew of the organization from the TV show All-Star Fighting Tournament.
The All-Star Fighting Tournament had a nice-sounding name, but in reality, it was just a performance show.
The fights were all flash and no substance. They looked impressive and powerful, but were really just staged for an audience.
They even manufactured love and hate, all kinds of tangled grudges, loud and exaggerated nicknames, and over-the-top entrance music.
The contestants were either handsome or beautiful, or imposing and muscular. In short, they had to be eye-catching.
As a result, the show was a hit across the Federation.
"I've heard that the Martial Alliance once had martial arts stars who were invited to a neighboring planet for a friendly match. But they were utterly defeated," Bodyguard No. 2 added.
"So the Martial Alliance doesn't have any real combat experts?" Wang Yiyang asked.
"Of course it does," Bodyguard No. 2 replied. "The Martial Alliance is divided into two factions: the performance faction and the practical combat faction. The performance faction makes money for the organization, while the practical combat faction is its foundation.
"The practical combat faction uses a ranking system to measure combat strength. There are ten ranks, followed by Glimmer, Bright Light, and Grand Justice. I've heard that Glimmer is the level of a Limit Martial Artist."
"That sounds impressive... Can we hire a martial artist at the Glimmer level for our mission?" Wang Yiyang pressed.
"That would be difficult... People in the Martial Alliance aren't exactly short of money. And we don't have any special connections..."
"Connections..." Wang Yiyang was beginning to understand the place martial arts experts held in the Federation.
He thought for a moment, pressed the chip on his arm, and quietly recited the activation phrase. "Open Mister System."
A soft hiss, and a pale-blue semicircular screen appeared across his retina, visible only to him.
The screen was divided into four sections: Weapons, Personnel, Intelligence, and Uploads.
Wang Yiyang tapped Intelligence.
A huge search box appeared before him.
He entered "Limit Martial Artist" by hand.
Beep.
A soft chime sounded, and a mass of related information flashed across the semicircular blue screen.
But as Wang Yiyang scanned through it, he found that the information consisted mostly of stray mentions in books and magazines. The entire intelligence network had scarcely any detailed information about Limit Martial Artists.
The network he had searched was a powerful intranet developed by the Mister Group.
It could search the group's internal intelligence and connect to external networks to retrieve related information from the web.
Its search coverage was extremely comprehensive.
"If even the group's intranet can't find anything, either nobody has talked about the concept in ages and it's completely fallen into obscurity, or some official force has deliberately suppressed and scrubbed it."
Wang Yiyang considered the possibilities.
"Boss," Bodyguard No. 2 said, unable to hold back any longer.
"Go on."
"If you want to hire experts from the Martial Alliance, you might not have to go through the alliance itself. There's another place that should have what you're looking for."
"Where?"
"Yanhu Sect."
The car slowly came to a stop not far from the East District Police Station.
Someone opened the car door for Wang Yiyang.
"You really didn't need to come in person. We could have taken care of this little matter for you," the man said quietly. He was the captain of one of the teams responsible for protecting Wang Yiyang.
"I don't want my normal life disturbed. This is fine." Wang Yiyang shook his head and pointed to the car.
The others understood at once and quickly got back in.
The vehicle soon pulled away, disappearing into the distant flow of traffic.
Wang Yiyang straightened his coat and strode into the station.
Just inside the station's main entrance was a relatively spacious little plaza. A few flagpoles stood alone in the middle, with the Federation's distinctive green-striped national flag fluttering above them.
The red, white, and blue stripes stood out even more against the green background.
Wang Yiyang looked away and passed through the entrance. No one in the guard booth on the right asked him anything, so it seemed security wasn't strict.
He looked around, then quickly spotted the place he needed to go on a display screen mounted outside the building.
He crossed the little plaza and entered a building on the right, where people were queuing.
There were more than ten people in line. Wang Yiyang waited for ten minutes, and soon it was his turn.
When the clerk at the service window heard that he was there to pick someone up, they asked for his ID and phone number. After checking them, they handed him a slip.
Following the name printed on the slip, Wang Yiyang soon found the Missing Persons Office.
The so-called office was just two small rooms joined together, with a total area of less than twenty square meters.
A policewoman was sitting in the office with Li Ran, speaking with her in a low voice.
Li Ran had changed into clean clothes. Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying for a long time.
"Hello?"
Although the door was open, Wang Yiyang still gently knocked on the door.
It was only polite to give people a moment to prepare before entering.
"You finally made it." The policewoman let out a breath of relief and stood up. "This girl's family has had trouble, and she couldn't find anyone else to help. You're her cousin, right? How could you leave a girl by herself outside for so long?
"Do you know she was almost kidnapped and sold by human traffickers? If the girl hadn't been quick-witted, you might never have seen her again..."
The moment the policewoman saw Wang Yiyang, she couldn't hold back any longer. All the things she had been wanting to say came pouring out in a rush.
Wang Yiyang listened with a smile, only nodding without arguing.
She meant well. The police station hadn't charged them anything, and she had stayed with Li Ran purely out of kindness.
At the sound of Wang Yiyang's voice, Li Ran quickly looked up at him. Then she lowered her head again, even further than before, saying nothing as she clenched her hands into fists.
After a long stream of complaints and scolding, the policewoman efficiently completed Wang Yiyang's registration. As she worked, she grumbled that every week they encountered children who had run away from home.
She said parents needed to pay closer attention to raising their children. Now that Li Ran had lost both her parents, they needed to arrange her future as soon as possible. If she needed financial assistance for her education, the policewoman could provide the necessary documentation at any time.
The policewoman rattled on with a whole lot of other things. Wang Yiyang was all right, but Li Ran kept her head down, and as she listened, tears began to fall again.
She didn't even dare look up at Wang Yiyang.
When the police had asked if she had a relative's phone number, she hadn't wanted to face those so-called relatives again.
If they had been even a little kinder, her family wouldn't have ended up like this.
She didn't care that her father had died, but then her mother was gone too.
It felt as though a heavy boulder had settled on her heart. She was sad, she was in pain, but more than anything, she felt lost and helpless.
By the time all the paperwork was done and Wang Yiyang left the police station with Li Ran, an hour had passed.
Li Ran had done nothing but cry the entire time. She hadn't said a word, yet at some point, she had clutched the hem of Wang Yiyang's clothes tightly.
Someone had given her a set of black long-sleeved clothes and black pants. With her long black hair hanging down, it almost completely covered her face.
From a distance, she looked like a charred black tree stump: frail and pitiful.
Once outside the station, Wang Yiyang called a car.
After they got in, neither of them spoke.
Wang Yiyang simply handed her a tissue so she could wipe the tears from her face.
The car drove all the way back to Green Tree Residential Complex.
They got out and walked to the elevator. Then they suddenly stopped.
"Your key..." Wang Yiyang asked quietly.
"I got it," Li Ran answered softly.
"Go back and get some rest." Wang Yiyang sighed.
He was barely able to take care of himself, and he didn't want to involve the girl or drag her into his troubles. It was enough to help her with the occasional little difficulty.
Li Ran said nothing and stepped into the elevator.
Wang Yiyang followed her inside and watched the doors slowly slide shut. He reached out and pressed the button for the third floor. That was Li Ran's floor.
Li Ran looked up and saw it too.
The faint light in the elevator fell across her cheek, making her already pale complexion look even paler.
"Brother Yangyang... I'll definitely... repay you someday!" she said with earnest conviction.
"Just live well and study hard. I'm not helping you because I expect you to repay me." Wang Yiyang patted Li Ran on the head.
"If you run into trouble and really can't manage, you can come to me. I'll help however I can."
Li Ran fell silent for a moment, then suddenly turned around and threw her arms around Wang Yiyang's waist.
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