I See You

Xiang Qian found a spot that wouldn't be in anyone's way and plopped down, his entire demeanor—from his facial expression to his body language—slack and relaxed. For various reasons, neither Saber nor Vector came to disturb him, leaving him to quietly and listlessly observe the soldiers moving back and forth through the camp.

Xiang Qian's "Meteor Fire Shower" had completely turned the tide of the battle. Most of the militants who had been trading blows with the defenders were dead, and most of the survivors had surrendered; only a tiny fraction had managed to break away and flee into the distance. A dull, powerful roar of engines drifted faintly from the end of the highway—the armored reinforcements ordered to the scene had arrived. As the situation stabilized, the soldiers in the camp gradually relaxed. Once the tension of combat faded, many appeared lethargic, a common symptom of the adrenaline crash.

With the support of the armored units, the command center dispatched a portion of their forces to pursue the fleeing militants. It was easy to imagine that the remaining Kuliya police forces in the sector would soon be disarmed under the watchful eyes of the armored troops; a massive purge was inevitable. Given the political traditions of countries in the Russian sphere, such a purge would undoubtedly be cruel and bloody.

However, none of this was of any concern to Xiang Qian. Failing to extract information about the Mandarin from Temugin was indeed a regret, but it didn't trigger any significant negative emotions.

Xiang Qian's "Memory Planet" contained a complete psychological profile of Temugin. The pathological sense of honor possessed by this terrorist was deeply ingrained, and his act of detonating the ring at the final moment proved he would never compromise easily. Thus, Xiang Qian had anticipated the failure of the interrogation long ago.

Still, I'm a bit unwilling to let it go, Xiang Qian thought to himself. Temugin was the only known son of the Mandarin, and in a sense, this lead was the closest anyone had come to the Mandarin in over a decade. How could he be content to return empty-handed?

Xiang Qian opened his palm to examine the other harvest from this trip: the ruby ring seized from Temugin. The design of the ring was extremely bizarre, clearly not intended for aesthetic decoration. The ruby embedded in the center of the setting was capsule-shaped, with fiery red light flowing faintly within the gem. If one looked closely enough, they would realize that these fiery streams were actually tiny, constant flickers of flame flowing through the heart of the stone.

Under Xiang Qian's gaze, the ring suddenly began to tremble, and he perceived the flames at the heart of the gem abruptly accelerating. Instinctively, Xiang Qian pinched the band with his fingers.

The vibration of the ring intensified sharply. The high-frequency shaking blurred Xiang Qian's vision, and the ruby on the setting turned into a red phantom. A massive pulling force emanated from the ring, as if it were about to soar into the sky at any moment, yet it remained firmly held between Xiang Qian's fingertips.

Feeling the power surging from the ring, Xiang Qian's gaze grew increasingly sharp. He knew someone was manipulating this ring from a great distance. As time passed, he even sensed a trace of agitation emanating from the gem.

Xiang Qian habitually sank his consciousness deep into the heart of the gem. He had previously attempted to manipulate the ring with his mental power, but only in a superficial manner. Now, however, he knew there were more secrets hidden deep within.

His mental energy, wrapping around his consciousness, traveled through the gem. What appeared to be a capsule-sized stone from the outside became an endless void in the mental realm. Those hair-thin flames became heavy and substantial, churning and blotting out the sky, giving off an oppressive sense of impending destruction.

Where Xiang Qian's mental power touched the inner walls of the gem, vast, complex energy lines emerged. A cursory glance allowed Xiang Qian to guess that these energy-constructed lines outlined a special energy-generating field, but its operational logic was completely different from Earth's scientific systems—it was definitely not something he could currently comprehend.

These lines were not what Xiang Qian cared about at the moment. From the instant his mental power delved into the gem, a faint, ethereal voice echoed in his ears: "Return... return..." At first, the voice was barely audible, but as Xiang Qian delved deeper, it became increasingly clear, until finally, it boomed like a tolling bell, reverberating through the space within the gem.

At the source of the sound, Xiang Qian found the target of his trip.

A tall man with long hair, a square face, and a wide mouth, dressed in a traditional Tang-style robe, stood suspended in mid-air. He was staring fixedly at the suddenly appearing Xiang Qian, his expression solemn and his gaze fierce.

Xiang Qian observed him in return. He was a middle-aged man who didn't look particularly old, with distinct East Asian features but the contours of a highland ethnic group—a mixed-race individual, just as the Spear Bureau's files had recorded. The streaks of white in his long hair seemed to suggest his true age was far greater than his appearance implied.

Xiang Qian looked at him blankly, his voice a mix of inquiry and confirmation: "The Mandarin?!"

"So, you are the one who took my ring?" the Mandarin demanded, his voice echoing with a dull, heavy resonance.

A predatory glint flashed in Xiang Qian's eyes as he sneered, "Not just your ring, but your son as well. If you want them, come and take them yourself."

"Arrogant!" the Mandarin roared. The flames that had been flowing slowly around them suddenly surged, pressing down on Xiang Qian like a tidal wave.

Xiang Qian chuckled dismissively and cast a casual glance at the flames. Instantly, the surging fire recoiled. The Mandarin was struck with shock and horror; he hurriedly pushed his hands outward, various lights flickering on his otherwise empty fingers, barely managing to block the backflowing fire.

Xiang Qian studied the strange lights between the man's fingers and sneered, "Are those your other nine rings?"

The Mandarin did not answer, instead staring at Xiang Qian in astonishment. This was a situation he had never encountered: engaging in a mental battle within a ring he had mastered for years, only to be suppressed by his opponent. Judging by the man's nonchalant demeanor, he clearly hadn't even used his full strength.

"I've been looking for you for over a decade. Today is finally our first meeting—though not in the flesh," Xiang Qian said in a low voice. "You don't look quite like I imagined. I thought a scheming villain like you, who hides away all day and never dares to show his true face, would look a bit more wretched. The ancestors were right: judge a person by their appearance, and you'll lose your way. A villain's face doesn't necessarily have to be as ugly as their heart."

"Arrogant brat!" the Mandarin roared again. His voice, like a tolling bell, was deafening and imposing, carrying the wild pride and authority of an old-school martial artist, yet it failed to move Xiang Qian in the slightest.

Absolute superiority in strength gave Xiang Qian absolute confidence, and it gave him the leeway to deal with the Mandarin at his own pace. If there was still a significant gap between Xiang Qian and the world's most powerful combatants in the physical world—where a melee beast like Wolverine Logan could still pose a lethal threat—in the realm of spirit and soul, Xiang Qian stood at the very pinnacle of the world. Both Shou-Lao of Kunlun and the Sorcerer Supreme of Kamar-Taj had felt this deeply.

"And what if I am arrogant?" Before Xiang Qian finished his sentence, the flames around the Mandarin surged, constantly compressing his safe space.

The Mandarin was incensed to the point of madness. He had lived for over a hundred years, and the only time he had ever suffered a defeat was when he faced the Spear Bureau, forcing him to retreat to Central Asia. He hadn't expected to be bullied by a young upstart today. As the Mandarin burned with rage and prepared to fight back with everything he had, he suddenly met Xiang Qian's mocking gaze and felt a jolt of terror.

Those eyes were deep and distant, as if they could pierce through all disguises, transcend all obstacles of time and space, and strike directly at the essence. The Mandarin understood the opponent's intent in an instant. He no longer cared about counterattacking; instead, he let out a loud shout, actively retracting the power of the other nine rings and allowing the flames to consume him completely.

Before Xiang Qian could react, the Mandarin's figure dissipated entirely within the fire.

At the same time, in an unknown location far away, the Mandarin's true body, which had been half-reclined in a chair, jolted upright with a scream, as if waking from a nightmare. He wiped the cold, wet sweat from his forehead, feeling the dizziness caused by the damage to his mental power, and felt a lingering fear: How dangerous, what a cunning brat!

On the other side, Xiang Qian's mental consciousness also abruptly withdrew from the gem's space.

"Just one step away. One step away from finding the Mandarin's location." He stared at the ring, which had returned to calm, and let out a roar of frustration.

A person's spirit and soul are closely linked to their physical body. When the Mandarin activated the mental imprint left in the ring to try and retrieve it, he had effectively given Xiang Qian a clear signal beacon. By following the fluctuations of mental energy, Xiang Qian, with his overwhelming advantage, was confident he could have pinpointed the Mandarin's current location. Unfortunately, the Mandarin's vigilance had saved his life at the critical moment. One had to admire the Mandarin's ruthless resolve; he hadn't hesitated to cut off his own limb, choosing to suffer mental trauma rather than maintain the connection, abandoning the precious ring without a second thought.

Xiang Qian's roar drew the attention of Vector—the girl's gaze had never left him—and she walked over with concern: "Xiang Qian..."

"I'm fine." Xiang Qian calmly put the ring away and retrieved his tablet to start drawing.

The mental clash within the gem's space could not be known to outsiders. Vector watched the rapidly changing expressions on Xiang Qian's face and felt that he didn't look "fine" at all. She didn't know what to say, and when she looked back at Saber, the man was standing far away, watching them but showing no intention of coming over.

At that moment, Vector missed her captain dearly. Perhaps only she would have a way to deal with this moody man.

Xiang Qian was unaware of the thoughts swirling in Vector's mind; he was now fully focused on his drawing. The tablet's graphics system was highly advanced, and with simple line sketches and intelligent assisted coloring, a portrait quickly took shape on the screen.

"Vector, I recall the Spear Bureau never found any credible photographic evidence of the Mandarin, right?" Xiang Qian's question startled Vector out of her internal struggle.

Vector nodded blankly, not knowing why Xiang Qian brought this up. As a high-priority target for the Spear Bureau, the Mandarin's movements were always mysterious and unpredictable. The Bureau had been locked in a struggle with him for over half a century; although they had dealt heavy blows to the Ten Rings, they had only ever heard the Mandarin's voice and never seen the man himself. Even his appearance was based on the oral accounts of a few captured or surrendered Ten Rings members, and these accounts were contradictory and varied wildly. For the Spear Bureau, this was undoubtedly a failure.

"We only have a few composite sketches, and we don't even know which one is credible."

"I've seen those sketches. They're all fake." Xiang Qian turned the tablet screen toward Vector. "This face is the real one!"