A "perfect" dinner drew to a close, and Tony hauled Coulson out of his chair. That was right-as Lin Xiao's best buddy and dear son, how could he miss this perfect feast? Lin Xiao had dragged him over by force. At the time, Tony had been at his villa, planning to get better acquainted with a newly met Victoria's Secret model, only to be hauled over by Lin Xiao.
The instant Tony pulled him up, Coulson felt the mass of grass residue still churning in his stomach surge another half inch upward. He suppressed the urge with the facial control honed over twenty years as an agent, but his complexion had already turned from its normal white to green.
Tony was in even worse shape. Mr. Iron Man was currently propping himself against the table, his sunglasses crooked on his nose, his lips pale and his eyes sunken. He looked as though he had just escaped a refugee camp in some third-world country.
After finishing dinner, the two left without looking back. Lin Xiao kindly offered to keep them for some soup, but both refused with absolute determination.
"Happy." Tony's voice was unbelievably hoarse. "Drive. Hospital. Stomach pump."
"Sir, you-"
"Not another word."
Happy looked at Tony, then at Coulson, and wisely chose to shut up. He opened the rear door, stuffed the two green-faced big shots inside one at a time, then went around to the driver's seat and started the engine.
As the car left Forest Hills Community, Tony rolled down the window, stuck half his head out, and took a deep breath of cold air. His complexion improved just a tiny bit, but the light of shattered faith had yet to fade from his eyes.
"Food like that shouldn't exist in this world," Tony said softly, as though stating an indisputable law of physics. "That isn't food. It's a biological weapon. The United Nations should send someone to investigate. I'm calling the Department of Defense and telling them to put cow cud on the prohibited substances list."
Coulson sat beside him with his eyes closed and his hands folded over his abdomen. His lips moved, releasing an extremely faint, almost inaudible groan.
He had eaten plenty of strange things in his life. S.H.I.E.L.D. field assignments sometimes required surviving in extreme environments. He had chewed raw bugs, drunk camel blood, and once even survived for three days in the desert on cactus. But none of those had hit him as hard as tonight's dinner. It wasn't that it tasted bad-to be fair, the flavor was actually decent. It was just that, while they ate, Lin Xiao had explained how the soup base was made and the principles behind the process, instantly leaving him feeling awful. Coulson decided he would never again eat anything with "cud" in its name.
Happy glanced at the two big shots' faces in the rearview mirror and silently pressed harder on the accelerator.
After seeing them off, Lin Xiao returned to the apartment with the wicked chuckle of a fox whose scheme had succeeded. May leaned halfway out of the kitchen, still holding a rag.
"Both gone?" May set the rag on the stove and wiped her hands.
"Both gone." Lin Xiao nodded. "Coulson said he'd never eat it again, and Tony said he was getting his stomach pumped."
"And you're still laughing." May rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't keep the corners of her mouth from rising.
Lin Xiao strode over, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her into his embrace. May gave a short, soft cry and pushed against his chest, then softened against him, burying her face in the crook of his neck and muttering, "You smell like hot pot."
Lin Xiao bent down and nipped her neck. May hummed softly, slid her hands up from his chest to loop them around his neck, and rose onto her toes.
Peter sat beside the dining table, still holding his chopsticks and chewing half a slice of beef he had yet to swallow. He watched as Lin Xiao lifted Aunt May completely off the floor, her legs hooked around his waist, and the two turned from the kitchen doorway toward the hallway as though no one else were there. Peter looked down at the cow-cud broth remaining in his bowl and suddenly felt that the meat in his chopsticks had lost its appeal.
Honestly, he thought the stuff tasted pretty good. The broth wasn't a particularly attractive color, but the meat cooked in it was tender and silky. Dipped in sauce, it was several leagues above the school cafeteria's burgers. He had been about to fish out another piece of beef, but Aunt May's laugh drifting back from the hallway completely killed his appetite.
The Fool appeared behind him, his eight legs curling slightly, two faint points of light glowing in the eye sockets of the human-face pattern on his back. He tilted his head, expressing confusion in an extremely human gesture, as though saying, Master, why aren't you eating anymore?
Peter set his chopsticks on the table, stood, and headed toward his room. As he passed through the hallway, he quickened his pace, staring straight ahead and pretending he had seen nothing.
"Peter."
Lin Xiao's voice came from the far end of the hallway, carrying a hint of lazy teasing. Peter froze in place.
"How are things going with that MJ?"
Peter's pupils abruptly contracted. In a fraction of a second, his face went from normal to bright red. His lips opened and closed, then closed and opened, until he finally squeezed out a few breathless syllables. "She-she looked at me one extra time in class today."
"Just once?"
"Twice. I think it was twice. Maybe she just thought I stood out standing there-" Peter's voice grew quieter and quieter, the last few words barely making it out of his mouth.
Lin Xiao snorted and shook his head. He was still holding May, who had covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking suspiciously. Freeing one hand, Lin Xiao waved Peter off. "All right, go to bed. You've got school tomorrow."
As though granted a pardon, Peter rushed into his room. The instant the door closed, he vaguely heard Lin Xiao tell May, "That kid's too thin-skinned. He should learn from me," along with May's irrepressible laughter.
Peter buried his face in his pillow. The Fool floated above his head, his eight legs slowly curling into a ball and the eyes of the face on his back closing, as though suffering social death on his master's behalf.
It was late. May was sound asleep, breathing evenly, a lingering flush still on her cheeks. Lin Xiao leaned against the headboard with his legs crossed and opened the system panel.
A blue light unfolded before his eyes. When the mission settlement page popped up, he was practically flying with delight.
Having Doupao automatically accept missions now really saved him trouble. No need to search the streets for clues or stake out rooftops. Wherever he went, missions triggered automatically. Only those who had experienced winning while lying down knew that joy.
The first settlement notification popped up-
Four-star mission: Lizard Crisis, completed. Mission rating: S. Freely allocable points +5. Random item issued.
After the purple light signaling the arrival of his free points flashed, a blade appeared in Lin Xiao's palm.
The blade was long, its pitch-black scabbard wrapped in dark purple patterns, and it felt heavy in his hand. The metal guard was carved into a clover shape, its patterns extraordinarily intricate. Lin Xiao drew the blade, which gleamed with an eerie purple light beneath the moon. After staring at it for a few seconds, he vaguely felt that the purple light seemed to be flowing slowly, as though life were moving within it.
A translucent attribute panel automatically popped up:
Enma, B-rank, from "One Piece." Effect: Infuse stamina into the blade to unleash blade energy, dealing damage at a random multiplier to all enemies within five hundred meters ahead. Note: This world has no Haki system. Consumption converted to current stamina.
Lin Xiao raised an eyebrow. That note contained quite a bit of information. In "One Piece," Enma was Oden's sword, one of Zoro's three great blades, a weapon capable of wounding Kaido. It was incredibly powerful, so why was it only rated B-rank?
While Lin Xiao puzzled over it, the purple light on the blade suddenly flared. The next second, he felt himself being emptied out.
That wasn't a metaphor. He was being emptied out in a physical sense.
The arm holding the sword instantly lost all strength from fingertips to shoulder, as though someone had opened an invisible valve inside him and drained every bit of his stamina, energy, and even the strength to breathe. Lin Xiao swayed, his back striking the wall behind the headboard with a dull thud. Enma briefly flashed red, as though mocking him, before soon dimming and returning to a quiet, seemingly harmless long blade.
May turned over beside him, mumbled something indistinct in her sleep, and sank back into deep slumber. Lin Xiao leaned against the headboard and looked down at the blade in his hand with an extremely complicated expression.
He wanted to put it down, but his fingers wouldn't obey. He wanted to swear, but couldn't even muster enough strength to open his mouth. This blade's consumption was far more absurd than the Lightning Summoning Spell's. One slash, and all his stamina went straight to zero. This wasn't a weapon. It was an instrument of torture. It was seriously cool-and seriously crippling.
Lin Xiao slumped against the headboard and stared at the ceiling, panting for a long while before strength began trickling back into his body. Once his fingers could finally move, he stuffed Enma, scabbard and all, into System Space.
"No wonder it's B-rank. If I went onto a battlefield with this, I'd drain my stamina and collapse into a heap before doing a damn thing. No matter how powerful it is, that's useless. I'll test it slowly. The first time Zoro used it in 'One Piece,' it nearly sucked him dry too. I'll just take it slow."
Then Lin Xiao opened the second settlement notification:
Four-star mission: Evil Conspiracy. Completion: 50%. Mission rating: B.
Lin Xiao's brows furrowed. A B rating? Half completed? He opened the mission details: stop Bullseye from capturing Connors, and stop Kingpin from producing an army of Lizards.
Lin Xiao narrowed his eyes. That damn bald Kingpin wanted to build an army of Lizards? Judging by Bullseye's attempt to intercept Dr. Connors, it did make sense. Though Connors's Lizard Serum was unstable, if it fell into Kingpin's hands, mass production wasn't impossible given his resources and connections. And Lin Xiao had ruined this operation-Connors had been captured, ahem, no, placed under his "protection," leaving Kingpin no way to replicate the serum.
The mission had completed automatically. Kingpin had probably temporarily abandoned the Lizard plan after confirming the operation had failed. In any case, half completed was still half completed, so long as there was a reward.
Then he read further and burst out laughing.
Note: Eager to salvage the situation, Bullseye acted alone without Kingpin's authorization, attempting to seize the remaining serum samples directly, causing the mission to fail prematurely and Dr. Connors to transform.
That idiot Bullseye. Lin Xiao leaned against the headboard, his fingers unconsciously tapping the covers. He had let him go last time to hook the big fish, Kingpin. Instead of serving as bait, the guy had floundered right into the net himself. Given Kingpin's methods, Scar-Eye should be "very happy" right about now.
Lin Xiao shook his head and closed the mission panel. Looks like Kingpin should have noticed me. A mission's about to deliver itself right to my door. Sweet. But tonight, the priority is a good night's sleep. He slipped under the covers and pulled May closer into his arms. May hummed drowsily, rubbed her face against his chest, and sank back into deep sleep.
Meanwhile, in an underground storage room beneath an inconspicuous building in Hell's Kitchen, New York.
Bullseye hung by chains from a steel ceiling beam. His toes barely touched the floor, and the chains bit into the flesh of his wrists. Blood trickled down his forearms, collecting in a small dark red puddle on the floor. Not a single patch of skin on his face remained intact. His eyes were swollen into slits, and bloody foam and half a broken tooth hung at the corner of his mouth.
More than a dozen subordinates in suits and polished shoes stood around him. None dared raise their heads to look at him. All kept their heads lowered, their gazes fixed firmly on their shoes, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
Heavy footsteps came from the shadows. A cane struck the concrete floor, one tap after another, its rhythm steady, neither fast nor slow.
Kingpin emerged from the shadows. His enormous bulk cast the surrounding subordinates into shadow. His bald head gleamed coldly beneath the stark white emergency lighting, and a cigar rested between his lips, its smoke rising slowly in the light and obscuring his expression. He gently lifted his cane and wiped the bloodstained ruby ornament on it.
He walked over to a computer by the wall, which was playing a blurry surveillance recording. In the footage, a burly masked man in an Arab robe descended from the sky, a homemade flag slung over his shoulder. The eight large Chinese characters on it stood out glaringly beneath the sunlight: "Enforce heaven's will, rob the rich to help the poor."
Kingpin took the cigar from his mouth and gave a short laugh.
The laugh was brief-so brief that every subordinate around him shuddered at once.
He pressed the cigar into the ashtray and slowly ground it out, then folded his hands over his stomach. His gaze shifted from the screen to Bullseye. He waved, and several subordinates hurried forward to lower Bullseye, carelessly tossing him onto a nearby heap of garbage. But no one spared him a glance, because they were all waiting for Kingpin's next instruction.
"This man is very interesting," Kingpin said, his voice neither loud nor soft, as though speaking to himself, yet also to everyone present. "Look. He's called Super Earthling. He operates in three provinces in eastern Afghanistan and has single-handedly wiped out at least a dozen armed strongholds. The Taliban has a two-million-dollar bounty on his head. The Ten Rings is offering five million. What do you think?"
No one dared answer him. Kingpin wasn't annoyed, merely continuing to gently wipe the "stains" from his cane. After an indeterminate amount of time, he spoke. "Typhoid Mary, sorry for the trouble this time. Go look into that middle school student named Peter. He gave an interview. Perhaps he knows this man." A red light lit up in the darkness, then disappeared...