Late at night, on an interstate highway in Texas, a black Lincoln Navigator is driving at a steady speed.
The car was well-heated, and Wu Zhengkai was fast asleep against the window in the back seat. The driver kept staring at the rearview mirror for a long time, but nothing seemed amiss. The driver was Germany named Klaus, and he had been with Hans Kruger for twelve years, from Berlin to Houston.
I didn't see anything along the way except the taillights of the pickup truck in front of me.
Wu Zhengkai rolled over, his forehead pressed against the car window, the cold making him frown. He was already at his age and couldn't handle the high-intensity work for several days in a row, but his employer valued his life and would order a full-body checkup at the slightest sign of something amiss, causing Wu Zhengkai Wu Zhengkai considerable distress.
A purple light descended from the sky, landing less than ten meters in front of the Lincoln. A purple portal, over two meters high, instantly opened, the light from within painfully bright. Klaus slammed on the brakes, the tires screeching on the asphalt. Wu Zhengkai, in the back seat, was thrown against the back of the front seat, his nose hitting the wall. He winced in pain, clutching his face and curling up.
Just then, a man emerged from the portal—a burly man over two meters tall. He wore a comical Crayon Shin-chan mask and a matching cape over his red battle suit. His landing was far from elegant; he landed on his heels first, staggered forward two steps, and crashed heavily onto the hood of the Lincoln, leaving a large dent.
"Fuck!" Klaus cursed.
The burly man climbed off the hood, dusted himself off, blinked his eyes behind his mask, and surprisingly said in fluent Chinese, "Sorry, the brakes didn't stop. I'll pay for it."
Klaus drew his gun from his waist, pushed open the car door, jumped out, pointed the gun at the burly man's chest, and pulled the trigger without a word. Three bullets were fired, the gunshots exploding on the empty interstate highway. Before the Echo had even carried far, the burly man was no longer there.
Klaus felt a numbness in his wrist as his gun was snatched from his side. The burly man stood to his left, less than half a foot away, holding Klaus's gun in his right hand with the muzzle pointing upwards. With a swift downward chop of his left hand, he struck Klaus on the side of his neck. The force was light, like a gentle pat between friends, but Klaus's eyelids rolled back, and his whole body went limp. The burly man supported him with his shoulder and gently laid him flat on the ground.
"Feeling dizzy is normal, get some sleep."
Wu Zhengkai, covering his nose, sat up from the back seat. Before he could even see what was happening outside, another woman emerged from the portal. She wore a black bodysuit, had waist-length hair, and her face was covered by a black veil, revealing only her eyes. She landed almost silently, like a leaf falling on water. Wu Zhengkai was stunned for a moment but quickly recovered. He curiously guessed who the two were, only to find that the burly man remained motionless.
The burly man stood next to Klaus, tilting his head, his eyes sparkling with hearts. His gaze moved from the woman's mask to her long hair, then from her hair to the waistline outlined by her tight-fitting clothes, finally settling on the eyes above the mask. He mumbled something, which Wu Zhengkai couldn't hear, but he saw the woman roll her eyes.
"Still watching," she said, her standard Mandarin crisp and clear, "Taking the doctor away is the priority."
The burly man wiped his mouth, grinned, and replied, "You're right. You go help the doctor, I'll deal with the henchmen who've caught up."
Wu Zhengkai's eyes lit up. Chinese. These two people speak Chinese. The Dragon Country sent people to rescue him? He opened his mouth, about to speak, when a flash of light appeared in the woods on the right side of the road, and an RPG, trailing a white flame, flew towards them.
The burly man frowned, glanced at the Rocket, and then moved. He took a step forward, ducked, and kicked out with his right leg, his foot striking the Rocket precisely. The Rocket was deflected, plunging diagonally into the roadbed on the left side of the road and exploding into a column of earth.
Wu Zhengkai's mouth was still open. He thought he might have seen wrong.
Before he could figure it out, the sound of submachine guns rang out from the woods, bullets raining down. The burly man didn't even dodge. He raised his right hand, and a pale golden light barrier unfolded from the bracelet on his arm, forming a semi-circular shield in mid-air to protect him and the two behind him. The bullets struck the shield, clanging and clattering. Strangely, the bullets didn't fall to the ground; instead, they bounced back one after another. Soon after, several screams and the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground echoed from the woods.
The burly man retracted his shield and walked towards the Lincoln. He reached the back door, bent down, looked at Wu Zhengkai through the window, and spoke first:
" Dr. Wu, we'll take you away in a bit. Don't say 'hello' or 'thank you' to me, it'll make me feel awkward."
Wu Zhengkai's lips moved slightly.
"Don't ask me who I am, and don't ask where we're going." Lin Xiao reached out and opened the car door, offering his hand to him. "Come with us first. You can ask that beautiful woman what happened later."
Wu Zhengkai hesitated for a moment. He looked at the hand, then at the woman behind the burly man. She was standing in the middle of the road with one hand raised, purple light dancing back and forth at her fingertips. Wu Zhengkai breathed a sigh of relief and placed his hand in Lin Xiao's palm.
After Wu Zhengkai regained his footing, he saw several more people rush out of the woods. They ran very fast, but their posture was strange; their steps were too straight, and their arm swings were too small, like a group of puppets being led by strings. The one in front had long hair, and his left arm was a silver-gray alloy mechanical arm that gleamed coldly in the moonlight.
Lin Xiao tilted his head, noticing that the masked leader had a mechanical arm.
"Wow, this is quite unique."
After saying that, he went to meet them. Lin Xiao flashed in front of the group, grabbed the arm of the masked leader with his left hand, pressed him down, and then punched him in the chest with his right fist. The long-haired man knelt down, his long hair sweeping across the gravel on the ground. The burly man didn't even stop after dealing with the long-haired man. He turned around and kicked the second person who rushed up in the chest. That person flew backward as if hit by a car, knocking down two of his companions behind him.
In less than twenty seconds, all five people were lying down. The pebbles on the ground were trampled into a mess, and the way they were lying was exactly the same: curled up on their sides, arms in front of their heads, as if they were protecting something that didn't exist.
Flash walked back from the middle of the road, glancing at the people lying haphazardly at Lin Xiao's feet as he passed by.
Stop posing, it's time to go.
Lin Xiao looked down at his still-raised fist and chuckled twice.
"Isn't he handsome? I'm thinking about whether I should go on a bodybuilding show. His moves are absolutely mesmerizing."
"Still poor? Time to go."
Lin Xiao lowered his hand, put it back in his pocket, and watched as Shan Shan slowly walked towards Dr. Wu, his tone much more serious than before.
" Dr. Wu, my name is Clarice, you can also call me Blink." She paused, as if to confirm Wu Zhengkai's emotions, " Heartfire, do you remember him? He served as a security guard at your lecture at Fuzhou University. He's currently in H City, injured during a firefighting operation, impaled by a steel bar, with the steel bar compressing his skull. Doctor Li said only you can perform the surgery..."
Wu Zhengkai's face darkened. He remembered Heartfire, that Mutants young man, shy, with little work, but who did his job exceptionally well. He never imagined that after only a few months apart, that young man would end up like this.
How is the Heartfire condition now?
"It won't last long," Blink said. "Two weeks at most."
Wu Zhengkai was silent for two seconds. Then he looked up at Lin Xiao, and then at Shan Shuo.
"Okay, I'll go with you."
Flash nodded, raised his right hand, and a purple light shot out from his fingertip, drawing a circle in the air. The portal opened, revealing a deep purple void inside. Wu Zhengkai was startled and took a few steps back. This was the first time he had encountered such a strange thing, the first time he had come into close contact with such a bizarre object, and he hesitated for a moment.
Lin Xiao walked over and patted Wu Zhengkai on the shoulder. "It's alright, Doctor. Look, I just came out from here. Just think of it as Doraemon's Anywhere Door. You've seen the anime, right?"
Dr. Wu paused for a moment, then nodded, gritted his teeth, and stepped into the portal with one foot.
Shan Shan glanced at Lin Xiao, then at Wu Zhengkai.
"Thank you so much, Doctor. Don't worry, I'll make sure you arrive in Dragon Country safely."
"You're welcome, it's my pleasure. Let's go."
Wu Zhengkai didn't say much and stepped into the light circle. Shan Shuai went in second, and Lin Xiao was the last. He stopped at the door, turned his head and looked at the road. There was a big dent on the hood of the Lincoln. Klaus was lying on the side of the road, turned over, and mumbled something.
"I'll cover the damage to the car," Lin Xiao said to the air, tossed down a fifty-dollar bill, and then disappeared into the portal.
The purple halo closed, and the highway returned to silence. Moonlight shone on the asphalt, on the dented hood of the Lincoln, on the empty shell casings in the woods, and on the five "people" lying on the ground.
About twenty minutes later.
The one with the long hair at the front moved. He curled his right fingers first, then used his entire arm to support himself on the ground, slowly raising his upper body. The mechanical arm made a very faint hydraulic sound. He sat up, turned his neck, and remained expressionless.
The second, third, and fourth people also sat up one after another. They didn't speak or communicate; they simply stood up, lined up, and faced the direction from which the road had come.
In the distance, a black Chevrolet had been parked by the roadside for a while. The door opened, and a man in his fifties, with a round face and thinning hair, wearing a gray suit, got out. He was holding an encrypted cell phone and walked over to the group of people, stepping on the gravel. He stood in front of the row of "people," looked down at the deflated armor on their chests, and then at the deformed Negasonic Teenage Warhead that had been deflected by the shields on the ground.
Hans Kruger.
He kicked one of the spent cartridge cases with the tip of his shoe; the case rolled into the ditch. He was silent for a few seconds, then dialed a number.
The phone was answered after two rings.
" Pierce." Kruger's voice was flat, but every word was squeezed out through clenched teeth. "That high-tech puppet you bragged about, is this all it's capable of? Five people, and they couldn't even keep an eye on a private doctor. They got kicked back and lay on the ground pretending to be dead for twenty minutes."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.
Who did it?
"I don't know. There was a man and a woman. The man's movements were strange, and the woman had teleportation abilities. They've already left, through a purple portal."
There was another moment of silence on the other end.
" S.H.I.E.L.D.. has no record of the purple portal." Pierce's voice lowered slightly. "Don't move yet, let me check."
"Investigate?" Kruger laughed, a nasty laugh. "Investigate what? My men have been kidnapped on your United States soil. You either give me an explanation, or I'll find someone else. You decide."
He hung up the phone, stuffed it back into his pocket, glanced back at the row of neatly arranged puppets, sighed, and walked back to the Chevrolet. After taking a couple of steps, he stopped, turned his head, and said something to the long-haired woman.
"Get in the car. Let's go back."
The long-haired, masked man silently followed. His steps were steady, his eyes vacant, but his unseen right hand clenched tightly in his sleeve for a moment, then slowly relaxed.