On the west side of Manhattan Island lay a rectangular area bounded by 59th Street and 34th Street to the north and south, Eighth Avenue to the east, and the Hudson River to the west. This was the legendary Hell's Kitchen.
In its early years, Hell's Kitchen had been a notorious slum on Manhattan Island, inhabited mainly by working-class Irish immigrants. It was famous for its chaotic, backward living conditions, severe ethnic conflicts, and high crime rate.
If American comics had only used this area to create the stories of Spider-Man, Daredevil, Kingpin, Bullseye, and the like, then Chinese webnovels had used it to produce countless big shots who transcended the other shore.
As Lin Hao entered the area, he did not feel the gazes of any big shots, but he did see naked greed.
Nearly every alley held groups of black men, white men, and addicts eyeing the lone Asian face that had walked in, making no attempt to hide their intentions of "shopping for free."
Lin Hao had changed identities again. This one was called Kurosaki Ichigo.
He was a legitimate businessman with legal status in Tokyo.
In the real world, soaring housing prices in Manhattan had drawn property developers into Hell's Kitchen. By aggressively developing real estate and raising rents and living costs, they had driven out the low-income residents of the area.
That had thoroughly solved the public safety problem that the New York government and police had failed to resolve for years.
The lords were kind-hearted and could not bear to see poor people, so there were no poor people left here.
The unceasing "gentrification" had brought more and more "gentlemen" into the area, and public safety had improved accordingly.
But in the Marvel world, editors needed New York to have an area where turmoil frequently broke out, so superheroes would have a stage to make their appearances. Therefore, even more than a decade later, no property developer dared to get involved in Hell's Kitchen.
At this point in time, the blind lawyer should still have been in school, Spider-Man was still an eight-year-old brat, and Kingpin had already taken control of the gangs in this area...
None of that had anything to do with Lin Hao's trip. He had come here to find someone.
A man named Lan Kenian in S.P.E.A.R.'s records. He was a Level Seven agent and had once been one of the agents of the Americas Branch. His Vivre Card in the Ring Fortress showed that he was still alive, and the Safe House listed in his records happened to be in Hell's Kitchen.
Lin Hao's attendance at Tony Stark's party in New York had merely been a pretext, giving himself a logical reason to come to the city.
Who would have thought that Tony would happen to be heading to Afghanistan? Lin Hao had taken the opportunity to make a trip to Wall Street, which had then led to the Adam Smith slicing incident.
Finding surviving agents from the former Americas Branch was the true purpose of his trip.
Only sixty-three agents from the Americas Branch had survived so far, scattered across the American continent. Eleven were in South America, where the losses had been relatively light, while the remaining fifty-two were distributed across the two countries of North America, with most of them in the United States.
Due to the importance of the Americas Branch, its head had been a Level Eight agent in the S.P.E.A.R. system, with four Level Seven agents under him. Two had been in the United States, while the other two had been stationed in Greater Canada and West Brazil respectively.
Now that Director Cheng Yi was dead and the other Level Seven agent in the United States had also perished, Lan Kenian was the highest-ranking remaining Level Seven agent. If Lin Hao wanted to learn the details of the incident from several months ago, asking him was the most direct route.
The Americas Branch had suffered a devastating blow. All surviving agents had entered silence according to protocol, and apart from Director Zheng Xian and the newly appointed person in charge, no one knew their exact locations.
Lan Kenian's registered Safe House was located in the center of Hell's Kitchen. With his Asian face, Lin Hao had walked through nearly half the district, accumulating quite a few people behind him who were hoping to "shop for free."
But when he reached the apartment building where Lan Kenian was staying, the tails behind him abruptly stopped. They first looked at Lin Hao in surprise, then soon revealed mocking, cruel smiles. Some even openly made throat-slitting gestures, showing no effort to conceal their malice.
Lin Hao entered the apartment building. Surprisingly, this old building even had a white manager. The bald manager was packed with muscle and covered in tattoos.
"Hey, kid!"
The burly building manager sneered. "This isn't a place you should be."
Though his words were unpleasant, strangely enough, he did not show mockery or malice because of Lin Hao's appearance or skin color.
Lin Hao looked at the burly manager and spoke calmly. "Tell Lan Kenian that someone from home has come to see him."
"You're looking for Mr. Lan?"
The burly manager straightened up and sized Lin Hao up. At last, a cruel smile appeared on his face. "Kid, I don't care where you heard Mr. Lan's real name. If I call him and he doesn't want to see you, I guarantee you'll die an ugly death!"
Lin Hao shifted his gaze and ignored him.
The burly manager did not dare withhold the report, so he picked up the receiver.
A moment later, he emerged from the duty room with a fawning smile, bent at the waist as he led Lin Hao to the elevator, and hurried to press the button first.
"This way, sir. Mr. Lan is waiting for you on the seventh floor."
Lin Hao entered the elevator and arrived on the seventh floor moments later.
The entire floor was Lan Kenian's office. As a Level Seven S.P.E.A.R. agent, it was perfectly normal for him to have built a successful career in New York. That was also his cover identity.
As the elevator doors opened, Lin Hao saw a man in green casual clothes seated behind a desk. The man had a muscular build, looked to be in his early thirties, wore his hair short, and had a small mustache above his upper lip.
"Where did you come from?" Lan Kenian scrutinized Lin Hao, but he had no memory of this man.
"From home." Lin Hao switched to Chinese.
"Where is home?" Lan Kenian continued in Chinese.
"Where the heart finds peace." Lin Hao answered calmly.
Lan Kenian's pupils contracted slightly, but he remained calm and continued, "It's raining so heavily outside. Why didn't you bring an umbrella?"
At that moment, the sky outside was clear and cloudless.
Lin Hao gave the final response. "An orchid has eight leaves."
Once all the code phrases matched, Lan Kenian finally rose excitedly. He quickly ran to the wall, opened a recessed metal box, and pressed the red button inside.
"I've activated the jammer."
Only then did Lan Kenian approach with an excited expression, extending both hands toward Lin Hao. His hands were even trembling slightly.
"Comrade, you've finally come!"
Lin Hao extended one hand toward him while continuing to observe his microexpressions.
From the moment he had been downstairs, Lin Hao had spread his Observation Haki to determine the number of people in the apartment building and assess the threats. After entering the seventh floor, he had paid particular attention to Lan Kenian. If the man made any suspicious move, Lin Hao would kill him without hesitation.
So far, Lin Hao had found nothing unusual about him. There was no problem with his microexpressions, Observation Haki detected no threat, and he had not even foreseen any future fragments of Lan Kenian making a move.
Although Whitebeard's Observation Haki had never displayed the ability to foresee the future in the original work, that was most likely because Oda had not settled on the setting in the early stages. In any case, the Observation Haki Lin Hao had copied could predict a short stretch of the future.
That was what gave Lin Hao the confidence to come here alone in his real body.
"What exactly happened a few months ago?" Lin Hao got straight to the point.
"I don't know either!"
At the mention of the matter, Lan Kenian's expression turned complicated. There was anger, sorrow, and a trace of lingering fear.
"Late last year, on Christmas Eve, Director Cheng suddenly issued an emergency order to everyone, demanding that we enter a state of silence."
"Then our comrades were hunted down by S.H.I.E.L.D. Of the team I personally led, only one person besides me survived. The other two teams I was responsible for contacting lost contact entirely."
"With something like that happening, I had no choice but to return here according to the contingency plan and cut off all contact with the other teams."
"Before the incident, when was the last time you saw Director Cheng?" Lin Hao pressed.
"September 10th last year." Lan Kenian answered immediately.
"Fine. I'll come find you again in a while." Lin Hao actually turned and left.
"You..." Lan Kenian hesitated, his eyes filled with anticipation. "When will you reorganize..."
Realizing that he should not ask further, he hurriedly apologized. "Sorry. I'm just a little anxious."
Lin Hao turned back and looked deeply at him, but still found no flaw.
"Don't worry. We won't make our comrades wait much longer."
As he reached the elevator doors, he added in a low voice, "There is a traitor in our ranks!"
After entering the elevator, Lin Hao turned around and happened to see the shock on Lan Kenian's face, followed moments later by naturally emerging anger.
The elevator doors closed, blocking his view, but the anger on Lan Kenian's face did not fade.
As the elevator descended, Lan Kenian walked to the window and silently watched Lin Hao walk away down the street.
Only then did he suddenly touch his chest, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "The new guy is pretty interesting!"
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