How Did You Get Here? From the Rooftop!

Su Jiannan, dressed like a successful businessman, had just stepped out of a black luxury sedan when a ruddy-faced, portly middle-aged man walked up to him.

"General Manager Su! What a pleasure!"

The man enthusiastically grabbed Su Jiannan's hand. His rough, fan-sized palm was full of strength, as forceful as some kind of beast. Su Jiannan's face twitched almost imperceptibly as he gave a quick shake and let go.

"The pleasure's mine. I didn't expect General Manager Zhou to come greet me in person. It seems your side places great importance on this project."

"Does it even need saying?"

The corner of General Manager Zhou's plump mouth curled up into a smug smile, and his words poured out like a machine gun.

"After all, it's the newly discovered Jingchu Cultural Site. The city government treasures it dearly, going on about 'developing the cultural industry and building cultural confidence.' Before the site's even fully explored, they've already organized an academic seminar. Once those experts finish their meetings, we folks in construction and investment will have to jump right in. Haha, fighting for GDP these days is like waging war..."

Then General Manager Zhou suddenly slapped his head and said boldly, "Ah, got a bit carried away there. Can't keep General Manager Su—the client who's contracted our big project—standing around talking. Tonight's on me. Let's hit the old establishment, Tianxiang Tower!"

Su Jiannan read the situation and saw General Manager Zhou's enthusiasm was hard to refuse, so he didn't decline. "Alright, alright. Then I'll keep you company and drink to our hearts' content—"

He moved to leave but felt a tug on his sleeve.

It turned out a girl had stepped out from the back seat of the car. She wore a luxurious dress, her skin as smooth as lard, her face blending the sharp features of a European with the warmth of an Eastern woman—charming yet proud.

The girl furrowed her brows. "Dad, drink less. Watch your health."

"Fine! Dad will listen to you!" Su Jiannan readily agreed with his precious daughter Su Xiaoqiang. "It's getting late, Xiaoqiang. Take a stroll outside and head back early. Have Uncle Li drive you. I've booked the presidential suite at the hotel..."

The two executives then cheerfully headed off to the dinner table, but Su Xiaoqiang knew her father wouldn't take her words to heart and would keep drinking despite his health condition.

"Boring. What's there to see around here..."

Su Xiaoqiang glanced at Uncle Li, who stood by the car like a motionless statue, then turned and walked toward the brightly lit area.

Suddenly, a red-haired man approached from the roadside and blocked her path. He asked in standard Mandarin, "Excuse me, do you know how to get to this place?"

Su Xiaoqiang stared at the phone screen he showed her and blinked. It was an unfamiliar foreign phone brand... But seeing his hurried expression, she didn't chat further and simply pointed in a direction.

Strange... On his phone screen... did I just see something about murder or silencing someone? Must have misread.

Suppressing her uneasy thoughts, Su Xiaoqiang considered offering him a ride in her family's sports car.

When she looked up again, the red-haired man had vanished.

What the hell? How'd he slip away so fast?

Old Tang felt like he was about to die.

"Bro, you've got the wrong guy. I'm really not called Shirou Emiya! Mercy, good sir, mercy!"

Old Tang had barely poked his head out from the rubble when he was met with ruthless sniping.

Violent, flying pellets formed multiple straight metal streams, shattering the glass windows and blasting dense, shallow craters into the thick concrete layer.

Cursing the freak under his breath, Old Tang turned and fled like the wind.

This ruin-like place was an abandoned building zone far more desolate than the Chu Culture Venue—clearly a stalled project where the developer had cut and run with no one to take over.

Old Tang had gotten lost while searching for his mission location and ended up here. Just as he tried to slip into a building, he was ambushed.

Walking toward him was the lean young man Zhou Yuxuan. Beneath his feet, countless exposed concrete rebars disassembled, converged, and formed sharp, spinning pellets.

Incantation Art: Iron Flow—also known in the West as Sequence 80, Word of Power: Iron Flow.

This ability allowed him to control metallic elements within a domain, using them to attack or create objects.

Zhou Yuxuan combined the pellets created by his Word of Power with an auto-loading magical device (an Alchemy Gun) forged by his family's Artifact Forging Art, producing an enhanced shotgun effect. With the dense rebar around him, he had nearly infinite ammunition—though even without the rebar, the fired bullets could be reclaimed by his Word of Power.

"Shirou Emiya, too scared to come out and fight?"

Old Tang, hiding, shouted back, "You've got the wrong guy! That's my buddy—he's not here, and he's Japanese! I don't speak a damn word of Japanese!"

"..." Zhou Yuxuan stopped. He had only looked at Shirou's file; Old Tang, an insignificant nobody, had been overlooked. After flipping through a pile of Hunter files for a while, he found a cheerful face: "You're Ronald Tang?"

"Yeah, that's me. I'm Old Tang, Shirou's ironclad old partner."

"Then why aren't you acting together? Why abandon your companion and come here alone? Shirou aside, this isn't a place for a Hunter like you. Or did you get wind of information you shouldn't have?"

Zhou Yuxuan's face was stern. This spot was originally the designated meeting point for tomorrow for the younger generation of several Hybrid Families like the Zhou clan, not far from the ruins. Hangers-on like Hunters weren't allowed in; their meeting point should have been the venue farther away.

"Bro, I was wrong, bro! I just got lost, plain and simple—nothing that complicated!" Old Tang whined.

"Records show you're a veteran Hunter who's completed high-level missions multiple times. How could you make such a rookie mistake as getting lost?"

"...Sorry for having such a rookie mistake!"

Old Tang groaned inwardly. These days, telling the truth got you no trust!

Zhou Yuxuan was about to say something else.

Suddenly, a strong sense of danger surged in his heart.

Whoosh—

Zhou Yuxuan barely managed to step back half a pace before a metal arrow embedded itself into the ground. The arrow easily pierced through the reinforced concrete block inches from his foot, with absurd power and precision.

He looked up. On the building's rooftop, a red-haired man was holding a black bow, an arrow nocked.

"You must be Shirou Emiya?"

Zhou Yuxuan spoke up. He found it a bit odd—he hadn't seen Shirou arrive from anywhere nearby using any vehicle to come upstairs. Could he have run straight across the rooftop in a straight line?

Shirou Emiya stepped forward from the rooftop and replied, "That would be me."

Then a dusty, droopy-browed head popped up from the middle of the building. "Ouch, Brother Emiya, you're finally here! Damn it, Mingming's luck was always good before, but this time, Old Tang here took the hit for you!"

"What exactly happened?"

"Brother, come down and talk first."

So Zhou Yuxuan watched as Shirou Emiya leaped down from the rooftop, then used the balcony to flip and swing into Old Tang's floor.