Half an hour later, Lin Hao walked out of the abandoned factory. Several farm-tool corpses with twisted features were left behind. They had not a single wound on them; they had died from excessive fright.
In that half hour, the farm tools had suffered relentless torment, squeezed dry by the Great Demon Lord.
Lin Hao made his way out of the slums with practiced ease, seeming very familiar with San Francisco's roads. Perhaps it was the darkest hour before dawn; even the trash busy making "zero-dollar purchases" at night had fallen asleep. He had not hooked any other fish along the way.
"Good thing I didn't come up empty-handed." Angler Lin Hao hailed another taxi.
The driver was an honest old man who safely delivered Lin Hao to a manor on the western side of San Francisco, facing the Pacific Ocean.
Yes, the driver was safe.
The manor's guard seemed to have known Lin Hao was coming and had been waiting for him all night.
This manor was not large, occupying less than three mu. Compared to the grand estates that covered dozens or even hundreds of mu, it was utterly inconspicuous.
When Lin Hao entered the castle-like main residence and the doors closed behind him, the manor's owner actually jogged over to greet him respectfully. "Master, you've finally arrived."
The other servants were not the least bit surprised by this scene. They all bowed to Lin Hao, though their expressions were numb and their movements mechanical.
"The food has been prepared for you."
"Let's go inside first."
A servant stepped forward to take Lin Hao's luggage and the trench coat he had removed.
He took off his glasses and ran a hand through his hair gel, immediately changing his hairstyle.
There had always been a rumor within S.P.E.A.R.: when the Great Demon Lord wore glasses, he was a refined gentleman. Once he took them off... he was no longer human!
As he walked toward the stairs, Lin Hao's face began to subtly shift. Even his body grew taller and broader.
In the end, he transformed into the exact likeness of the manor's owner.
It was not a transformation, but a restoration.
This was Lin Hao's true appearance.
Only four outsiders in the world could connect his current appearance with the one from before: Zheng Xian, his direct superior, and Lin Hao's parents.
Beyond that, every colleague in S.P.E.A.R. who had dealt with him had only seen the appearance Lin Hao had deliberately disguised himself with.
Ever since joining S.P.E.A.R. ten years ago, Lin Hao had intentionally concealed himself, gradually altering his looks along a different path of growth. Like a silent, soaking rain, it eventually became natural for him to take on another appearance known to others.
Meanwhile, the double bearing his original appearance had arrived in San Francisco five years ago and established himself there.
Lin Hao was merely reclaiming that identity now.
He went upstairs to the study with the double. After the double closed the door, Lin Hao patted the back of his left hand, where there was a demon pattern visible to no one but himself.
Thick blackness spread out again. A pitch-black body, enormous crimson eyes, curved horns, and a black fork in its hand—it perfectly matched the demon image defined by Western culture.
"Do you want to get rich? Do you want to become famous overnight? Do you want luck in love? Do you want eternal youth?"
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—never look down on a poor young man!"
"Tread upon the Southern Heaven and shatter the High Heavens!"
"Hehehe, give me your soul!"
Watching the demon's huge mouth open and close constantly as those voices emerged from it, Lin Hao darkened and slapped it hard across the face.
"Being stupid again, are you?"
The enormous demon immediately shrank into a little black ball less than thirty centimeters tall. Its round body had three white slits serving as its eyes and mouth.
Two even smaller black balls floated beside the Little Devil's body out of thin air. They were its hands, and the black ball on the right clutched a miniature trident.
Two arrow-shaped horns were also stuck into the top of the ball.
"Wuwuwuwu..." The Little Devil's eyes abruptly turned into two watery smudges, with teardrop-shaped tears hanging from their edges.
Master, you hit me...
Without Lin Hao's consent, outsiders could neither see the demon nor hear its voice.
"Enough. Open your mouth."
The aggrieved Little Devil suddenly opened its mouth wide, and a rectangular door of light abruptly appeared in the study.
Lin Hao walked inside, and the double followed right after him.
After entering, Lin Hao bent down to pick up a recorder from the floor and casually pressed its switch. Only then did the strange lines stop.
The voices that had come from the Little Devil's mouth were not its own, but recordings from the recorder, like Bumblebee after losing his voice.
The Little Devil had not lost its voice, but it could only make simple syllables.
For example: wuwuwu, yingyingying, papapa, and so on.
Beyond the door was a vast unknown area. Darkness shrouded most of it, with only the area near the entrance brightly lit. A large number of experimental and production devices had been placed within that illuminated space.
After entering, the double walked on his own initiative toward a glass tank to one side. He stripped naked and stepped into an unknown liquid. Before long, his muscles and bones began to dissolve, returning to the material from which he had been made.
Lin Hao opened a cultivation pod nearby. An artificial human emerged from within, wearing the same face Lin Hao had used when flying on the plane. The moment he took his first step, he stumbled, but he quickly adapted.
"Very good. From now on, your name is Zheng Xiaoxian. You'll be responsible for tending the manor's flowers and plants."
Far across the ocean, Zheng Xian suddenly sneezed inside the Ring Fortress. The scissors in his hand trembled, and he accidentally snipped off an orchid leaf.
His big eyes instantly narrowed into slits, his features scrunching together as his heart ached terribly.
"Damn Lin Hao! Even after leaving, you still won't let me have any peace!"
For no reason at all, he thought of that irritating bastard.
The name on the passport Lin Hao had used to buy his plane ticket was Zheng Xiaoxian. Everything about that identity could be traced, and he had come to San Francisco because a friend had introduced him to the gardening job at this manor.
After Zheng Xiaoxian left, Lin Hao continued onward. The production equipment he encountered along the way all had a rough, outdated style, with an obvious steampunk aesthetic.
Yet such equipment could actually produce artificial humans beyond the reach of current technology.
At the center of the laboratory stood three exquisite glass display cases before Lin Hao. They contained, respectively, a severed arm, an extremely long head split at the top, and... a pair of pure cotton panties printed with cartoon designs.
Lin Hao was twenty-eight this year. When he first came to this world, he had thought he had simply been reborn. He had planned to use his advanced memories to build a fortune and earn several hundred small goals, when he suddenly saw a black-and-white photograph in his middle school history textbook. Beneath it were the words "Captain America."
At that moment, Lin Hao was stunned for a long time.
If it had merely been in a comic book, there would still have been room for further confirmation. But placing it openly in a history textbook was something even the most arrogant banana person could not manage.
What was more, the more he looked at the guy in the black-and-white photo, the more he resembled Chris Evans. No country would be stupid enough to treat an actor as a historical figure and put him in a textbook.
After recovering from his shock, Lin Hao finally realized that he was in the Marvel Universe—and specifically, the cinematic universe.
That meant that in 2018, Director Thanos from the Universal Family Planning Office would snap his fingers and randomly erase half of all life in the universe.
It meant that even if Lin Hao earned hundreds or thousands of small goals in the future, he would still have to gamble his life on that fifty-percent chance.
How was he supposed to live like this?
Knowing the date of his death and waiting for it day after day was bad enough. Worse still, if he died before spending all his money... that would be even more painful!
At that moment, Lin Hao realized he had to defy fate and change his destiny.
And at that very moment, Lin Hao's cheat came online.
He obtained a Little Devil, one capable of traveling through countless worlds and conveniently bringing back a few things along the way.
Before you continue