"What is this? Your innate ability?"
Captain Wang asked in shock and uncertainty.
Shen Ye did not answer.
The damned password was far too long, and the pen did not work very well either. Writing too fast was out of the question.
It was enough to drive him crazy!
Suddenly-
A tremendous crash rang out from the iron door.
Captain Wang was attacking the iron door!
Boom!
He kicked the door with all his strength, sending it flying toward Shen Ye.
Disperse!
Shen Ye silently recited the word, his hand never stopping.
The door vanished at once.
"I'll kill you-"
Captain Wang roared and charged straight at him.
Gate! Shen Ye recited again.
With a clang, Captain Wang, who was charging too fast to react, slammed headfirst into the iron door, raising a large lump on his head.
Being toyed with like this finally pushed him past the limits of his restraint.
"You think this can stop me? Ridiculous..."
Murderous intent surged from him as he twisted around, smashed through the wall, and charged at Shen Ye around the iron door.
At that moment, Shen Ye put down the pen.
-He had finally finished writing the password.
Three lines of glowing text appeared on the wall:
Password verification successful. Kunlun has arrived. Beginning review of emergency response. Scanning the entire Police Station.
Immediately afterward, a deep, courteous male voice sounded from the silver wall:
"Luo Feichuan's body has been found. Cessation of Luo Feichuan's brain waves successfully verified."
"The false identity of Major Crimes Unit Captain Wang Xuemu has been successfully verified."
"Dispatching the nearest Advanced Professional."
"Human Martial Arts Group Regional Manager Qian Rushan has been mobilized."
"Given the severity of the current situation, immediate elimination has been authorized."
"After a thirty-second countdown, the murderer impersonating Wang Xuemu will be executed on the spot."
"Beginning countdown!"
"Thirty!"
The wall broke apart as Captain Wang came at him with a dagger.
But an instant earlier, Shen Ye had already pressed his hand against the iron door of the Weapon Storage Room and said in a low voice, "Gate."
Another iron door appeared in front of it.
He slipped inside and vanished.
-I'm no match for him at all. I shouldn't even think about fighting him. My first thought has to be how to escape!
That was what Shen Ye thought, and that was what he did.
It was precisely this unhesitating willingness to evade that allowed him to dodge the attack just in time.
Captain Wang charged up to the silver wall.
Shen Ye had just entered the door.
Once again, they missed each other.
This time, however, Captain Wang stopped pursuing him.
No longer able to spare any attention for killing Shen Ye, he ducked sideways into the corridor, exposing only one eye as he looked out the window.
"Is Kunlun deploying forces? Trying to kill me? Dream on!" he sneered.
From the silver wall, the deep, rich male voice continued where he had left off:
"You mangy mutt, I lied."
"Three,"
"Two,"
"One."
A blur appeared on the street outside at an unbelievable speed, rushing toward them with a piercing whistle.
Captain Wang's expression changed, and he tightened his grip on the black dagger.
An abrupt change occurred!
Bzzzz-
The saber's fierce, explosive ringing suddenly rose like an air-raid siren, shattering all the glass in an instant.
People instinctively covered their ears.
The blur came so fast that it passed through the wall in a flash.
Qian Rushan!
The scruffy, listless middle-aged man had actually smashed straight through the wall and suddenly appeared in the corridor behind Captain Wang.
With his head lowered, he slowly sheathed a Straight-Backed Long Saber and intoned:
"No defense withstands the martial arts of this world; only speed cannot be overcome!"
Behind him.
Blood spurted skyward.
Captain Wang had been cut clean through at the waist. His legs dropped to their knees, twitching as though about to dodge.
But the blade had been too fast, and he had reacted too late!
In his final moments, Captain Wang's face filled with ferocity. He threw away his dagger and swiftly brought his hands together, about to unleash something.
Unfortunately-
His upper body split straight down the middle as well, separating once more.
The gap between his hands therefore grew wider and wider, until he could no longer bring them together, much less perform any spellcraft.
He was dead.
The door to the Weapon Storage Room opened.
Shen Ye slipped out, closed the door, and said gratefully, "Thank you for stepping in, Mr. Qian."
A few minutes later.
Qian Rushan sat in the Police Station lobby, smoking and jiggling his leg.
"Did I look cool back there?" he asked.
"Very cool," Shen Ye said obligingly.
"Mm, kid, you've got a good eye. I can help you handle everything else, but you have to tell the truth about that password," Qian Rushan cautioned.
Shen Ye shrugged. "Luo Feichuan gave me the password. He felt he wasn't safe anymore, so he gave it to me in advance and told me to use it immediately if anything happened."
"Really? He thought something might happen to him, so he gave you a password?"
"Yes," Shen Ye said calmly. "He inadvertently crossed the Silent Church, and the people hunting me seemed to have their eyes on him too."
"He told me that if he died, I had to write the password on the silver wall on the Police Station's third floor immediately."
"That would save my life."
"But how did you know he was dead?" Qian Rushan asked.
"I have an innate ability. I can sense where there are corpses," Shen Ye said.
"So the moment you entered the office, you knew there was a body in that cabinet?" Qian Rushan sounded interested.
"Yes," Shen Ye said.
"Being able to sense corpses... that counts as an innate ability too. Not bad, not bad," Qian Rushan said.
"Do you need me to prove it?" Shen Ye asked.
"No need. I'll come find you when I need your help with something," Qian Rushan said.
Seeing the expression on Shen Ye's face, which plainly said, "That's all it takes?" he could not help laughing.
"Innate abilities are hard to explain. I know a doctor who, whenever he works the night shift, is guaranteed to have several major resuscitations in his ward that night."
"Are you sure he isn't the one causing them?" Shen Ye could not help asking.
In quite a talkative mood, Qian Rushan replied, "They specifically tested for that. It's uncanny. Anyway, he just has that sort of disaster-star constitution."
"I also know an intelligence operative. Every time he goes on a mission, a woman is guaranteed to fall in love with him, spend a few days in his arms, get pregnant, and only break up with him when his next mission comes along. He gets treated like a goddamn movie protagonist."
"-So yours is nothing special."
Shen Ye silently lowered his head.
Compared with those, his ability really was nothing special.
This damned world.
He would rather go back to Blue Star, eating popcorn while watching all kinds of superheroes on the screen, watching how they saved the world and kept the peace, instead of living in a world that looked so flashy and impressive but was actually utterly terrifying.
Beep, beep, beep-
Qian Rushan's phone rang.
"Kunlun has found out." He glanced at it and shook his head. "The person who tried to kill you was from the Assassin Alliance. They only accept jobs online, so the killer didn't know who wanted you dead either."
"Kunlun?" Shen Ye repeated.
"The thing that told me to come kill someone. It's the World Government Central AI System. Normally, it doesn't bother with trivial matters like these. It only acts for you if you have a password it gave you," Qian Rushan said.
"What a shame about Chief Luo," Shen Ye sighed.
"It really is a shame-he graduated with excellent grades and spent two years as a trainee. He did beautiful work before this," Qian Rushan said.
"But why didn't he call for reinforcements? He could clearly have contacted Kunlun beforehand and asked it to deal with the problem," Shen Ye said.
Beep, beep, beep-
Qian Rushan's phone rang again.
He glanced at it, and his expression abruptly grew grave.
"Shen Ye, come with me."
"Ah, all right."
The two went upstairs one after the other and returned to the chief's office.
Several people in white coats were examining Luo Feichuan's body. Beside them stood two men in black, who had opened a concealed compartment in the wall and were waiting there for Qian Rushan.
"Mr. Qian."
"Mm. What's the situation?"
"Take a look at this weapon."
Qian Rushan and Shen Ye looked toward the concealed compartment together and saw a small metal hand lying inside.
On closer inspection, a line of small text could be seen along the edge of the metal hand:
"Beyond the soul, all can serve as a body."
Looking at those words, Shen Ye immediately recalled another colossal entity in this world.
The Exo-Hunting Equipment Research Institute.
From mecha and prosthetics to guns and munitions, the Exo-Hunting Equipment Research Institute was always at the forefront.
The man in black said:
"This is Luo Feichuan's Steel Prosthetic. A virus was written into its programming, preventing it from activating."
"Is it completely broken?" Qian Rushan asked.
"No." The other man in black lightly tapped the hand.
The steel hand immediately expanded, raising rows of upright steel scales as deep red flames emerged from within.
Even the temperature in the room rose by several degrees.
"Once Luo Feichuan died, it worked again," the man in black said.
"So someone sabotaged it, right?" Qian Rushan asked.
"That's right, and it must have been someone who knew him very well-Kunlun has already assigned us the task. We'll keep investigating," the man in black said.
Qian Rushan sighed.
Shen Ye was thinking about Luo Feichuan too.
No wonder he had told him back then that there was "a problem with his weapon."
This powerful, outstanding police chief had made a point of leaving his business card at Shen Ye's home, worked hard to investigate afterward, and even guided him after death.
-Yet someone like him had died facing an enemy without even being able to use his weapon.
It really was a shame.
Qian Rushan suddenly said:
"Shen Ye, you're one of our group's people now. Today, I'll give you your first lesson. I hope you remember it."
"Please go ahead," Shen Ye said.
"Always be on guard against people with ill intentions. They're more terrifying than monsters."
"Thank you. I'll remember that."