The Hunt

Bang! Watching the beautiful woman at his feet, whose legs had already been twisted and broken, burn to ashes after being struck by a Holy Light Bullet, Meng Zu switched on his headset. "Your intel was wrong. There's no cult at all—just a few unruly vampires hunting for food."

"Evan, find those vampires and eliminate them all." Coulson's voice came through the headset.

Meng Zu said bluntly, "Coulson, my mission was only to investigate the cult. Now that it's been cleared up, SHIELD can handle the vampires yourselves."

"Evan, you're a SHIELD agent too."

"A freelance one."

Hearing that, Coulson said with some frustration, "What will it take for you to act?"

Meng Zu's lips immediately curved upward. He smiled. "Simple. Pay me more!"

"Fine. As long as you deal with those vampires, your mission bonus will be tripled." Coulson agreed to Meng Zu's demand.

After hanging up, Meng Zu cheerfully set off after the two vampires who had escaped earlier.

Half a month had passed since Meng Zu last met Coulson. That afternoon, Coulson had called and arranged to meet him, then assigned him his first mission at a coffee shop: investigate a newly emerged cult in New York.

Meng Zu had been rather speechless. He mocked Coulson on the spot. "Heh! You need me to investigate something like this? Doesn't SHIELD always boast that nothing can be hidden from you?"

Coulson ignored Meng Zu's sarcasm and began introducing the information on the cult. It had appeared in New York only within the past week. Every night, two or three people went missing. When those people were found the next day, they were already dead. Even stranger, every corpse was missing its head.

SHIELD suspected that a new cult was operating in the city. They had even tried baiting them with agents, sending someone openly into the cult's area of activity at night. Yet all they caught were gang thugs. They had not found a single trace of the cult.

To catch the cult, Coulson had thought of Meng Zu. According to the information they had gathered, Meng Zu was particularly skilled at finding people, so Coulson arranged to meet him.

After some bargaining with Coulson, Meng Zu finally accepted the mission when the bonus was raised to thirty thousand dollars.

That night, Meng Zu went alone to investigate the location Coulson had provided. Before long, he encountered four vampires. After a brief fight, he killed one vampire and broke another's legs. Seeing that things had gone badly, the remaining two vampires fled.

After interrogating one of them, he learned that the so-called cult was simply those four vampires hunting humans for blood. To avoid exposing that vampires were responsible, they cut off the victims' heads along with their necks and destroyed them. The SHIELD agents acting as bait had long since been recognized as government personnel, so the vampires had avoided attacking them in order to prevent a direct conflict with the government.

Before long, Meng Zu caught up with the vampire running and leaping across the rooftops ahead. Without a word, he raised his pistol and fired a Holy Light Bullet straight into the vampire's head. Seeing him burn to ashes, Meng Zu immediately turned and chased after the last vampire in the direction he had fled.

Ryan was a bartender at a nightclub. To others, it was an utterly unremarkable job, but his coworkers would never have guessed that he was a vampire. Ryan had only become a vampire a few years ago. After teaching Ryan how to survive in modern society, the vampire who transformed him had left New York.

For the past few years, Ryan had lived exactly as he had been taught. He worked as a bartender at night and stayed hidden in his house during the day. Whenever he was hungry, he bought hospital blood bags on the black market. He had thought life would continue like that forever, until he met three vampires from out of town, and his habits changed completely.

Those three vampires had been transformed by the same vampire a year ago. Unlike Ryan, they did not want to keep buying hospital blood bags. They wanted to drink the blood of living people directly. After hearing them describe the exquisite sensation of drinking fresh human blood, the inexperienced Ryan was tempted. He wanted to try it for himself.

So the four of them began hunting lone young men and women at night. After drinking fresh human blood for the first time, Ryan fell deeply in love with that wonderful taste. To avoid attracting the police's attention, they hunted very cautiously every night—until they encountered Meng Zu tonight.

Pale-faced, Ryan ran frantically through an alley toward his residence. He had only one arm left. After Meng Zu's Holy Light Bullet struck his other arm, Ryan had viciously torn it off to save his life.

Ryan lost his footing and crashed into a garbage can. Panting heavily, he used one hand to push himself upright against the wall. He realized he was far too weak and desperately needed blood, or he might pass out. If he lost consciousness, then even if Meng Zu did not catch him, he would be dead for sure once dawn came and sunlight touched him.

It was as if heaven could not bear to watch Ryan's miserable state. As he slowly made his way along the wall, he encountered a young woman who had gotten drunk after breaking up with her boyfriend. Watching her stagger along under the effects of alcohol, Ryan could not help but smile.

Ryan forced himself over to the young woman and pretended to be a good person helping her. Once she leaned against him, fangs emerged from his mouth. Looking at her neck, so close it was within reach, Ryan opened his mouth and bit down without hesitation. The drunken young woman had no idea what fate awaited her.

Just as Ryan was about to bite her neck, bang! A bullet glowing faintly gold flew out of the darkness and struck Ryan in the head. In an instant, he burned into a pile of ashes, while the drunken young woman lost her support and collapsed to the ground.

Meng Zu stepped out of the darkness and said to Coulson on the other end of the phone, "The last vampire has been taken care of."

"Mm. Your bonus will be transferred to your bank account tomorrow morning."

After hanging up, Meng Zu looked at the young woman lying on the ground, drunk as a puddle of mud, and could not help frowning. After standing there and thinking for about three seconds, he made a decision.

Meng Zu grabbed the back of the young woman's clothes with one hand and lifted her entire body. Getting this drunk in an alley made it easy for someone to take advantage of her, so Meng Zu decided to do a good deed and toss her out onto the street. That way, someone would definitely call the police when they saw her, and the police could handle the rest.

Just then, a strand of webbing suddenly stuck to the young woman's back. Before Meng Zu could react, a dark figure leaped down from the rooftop and yanked the woman out of his hand.

Peter Parker, dressed in a red-and-blue bodysuit, held the young woman in his arms. The moment he landed, he said to Meng Zu, "Hey, man, what are you doing carrying a girl around in the middle of the night? Or are you planning to invite your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to a three-person party?"