A month slipped quietly by, and the time for the second mission finally arrived.
The Reincarnation Temple's mission worlds opened on the fifteenth of every month, right on time. By pressing the Reincarnation Temple's mark on their body and silently repeating the word "reincarnation," a person could teleport directly into the temple from anywhere.
[Make a selection within thirty seconds. Anyone who fails to confirm within the allotted time will be sent to a random world suited to their rank!]
Resident Evil 1 had already closed, and no one could enter it by normal means.
Xu Long had only three choices: Spider-Man, Hokage Ninja, and Kung Fu Hustle, which had opened not long ago.
"I choose Kung Fu Hustle!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Xu Long vanished.
[World type: martial arts] [Energy level: E-rank] [Matched storyline: Kung Fu Hustle] [Danger level: low] [Main mission: survive for ten days! Reward for completion: 300 points! Teleport to the Reincarnation Temple!] [Assessment mission: 1. Kill The Beast! Reward for completion: 1,000 points and one E-rank authorization card! Penalty for failure: 20 points deducted from all attributes!] [Random item draw in progress! Obtained: missing person notice! Placed in storage space!] [Identity replaced with Donut, inheritor of the Eight Trigram Staff of the Fifth Brother!] [Storyline begins!]
The moon was bright and the stars were sparse, and a deathly silence hung in the air. Xu Long opened his eyes and looked around, then waited for the Main God to transfer his memories.
Soon, a great mass of memories appeared in his mind out of thin air.
Slashing, lifting, thrusting, smashing, sweeping, whipping...
Countless essentials of staff techniques were deeply engraved in his memory.
Staff techniques relied on skill rather than strength, and that was even more true of the Eight Trigram Staff of the Fifth Brother.
Firmness and softness complemented each other, attack and defense went hand in hand, and its variations were impossible to predict.
Xu Long grabbed a broom and flicked it, handling it as skillfully as if he had practiced the move thousands upon tens of thousands of times.
"Not bad, not bad. I'm looking forward to the immortal-hero worlds more and more!"
Xu Long was delighted. If he entered the world of The Legend of Sword and Fairy and directly replaced the Moon Worship Sect Leader or the leader of the Shu Mountain Sect, he would really hit the jackpot.
He set the broom aside and looked at the furnishings in the room.
A table, chairs, and a bed-nothing could have been simpler.
In the small room next door were a large pot and some flour, while a few fried dough sticks that hadn't sold during the day remained on the worktop.
"A perfectly good martial arts master, cowering in a place like this. When national calamity strikes, it's the common people who suffer!"
Xu Long sighed, then took the Red Queen out of his storage space.
The plot of Kung Fu Hustle was simple: the Axe Gang were the undisputed kings of Shanghu City, and no one dared provoke them.
The protagonist, Sing, posed as an Axe Gang member and went to Pig Sty Alley to extort money, only to get a sound beating. As it happened, the Axe Gang's second-in-command passed by and was also beaten half to death by the three masters of Pig Sty Alley.
Brother Sum, the Axe Gang's boss, felt he had lost all face, so he sent people to find Heaven and Earth, the killers ranked second on the assassin list, and had them kill the three masters.
That enraged the Landlord and Landlady, who stormed the Axe Gang's headquarters and then fought a great battle with The Beast, whom Brother Sum had just hired...
Xu Long didn't know where they were in the timeline, so he planned to have the Red Queen investigate.
Her body was a liquid-metal robot, which was unstoppable in this era. Even if the entire Axe Gang came after her, they could do nothing to her.
Besides, what the liquid-metal robot did best wasn't fighting, but infiltration and assassination. She was perfect for this sort of task.
"Everything proceeds according to the original plan!"
Xu Long instructed.
"Understood!"
The Red Queen nodded, then slipped away without a sound.
Before entering the world of Kung Fu Hustle, Xu Long had already told the Red Queen the plot in detail.
Over the past month, besides making robots according to plan, the Red Queen had also devised more than a dozen plans based on the different identities Xu Long might replace.
Among them was a plan for replacing one of the three great masters.
Looking out from the window, he saw that Pig Sty Alley was very quiet; even the dogs were asleep.
The people who lived here were all poor. How poor?
The dogs couldn't get any leftovers, and even passing rats shed tears.
He spread his perception through the surroundings and immediately detected several powerful fluctuations.
The Landlord and Landlady were known in the martial world as the Condor Heroes, and their martial arts were absurdly powerful. Together, they could stand up to even The Beast head-on.
Then there were the tailor, who was an inheritor of the Hung Gar Iron Wire Fist, and the laborer, who was an inheritor of the Eighteen-Routine Tam Tui.
Xu Long didn't disturb them. Instead, he closed the window and took out the "missing person notice."
Missing person notice: used to locate a target whose whereabouts are unknown. The more extensive and detailed the description of their appearance, the greater the chance of finding them.
"Not bad, not bad. I was planning to take control of the Axe Gang and send everyone out to search, but this saves me the trouble."
Xu Long found a partly burned piece of charcoal beneath the oil pot and began writing and drawing on the missing person notice.
It wasn't that he didn't want to use a pen. He was simply too poor to have one.
Xu Long's initial plan was to find the old beggar who had sold the protagonist Sing a secret manual many years ago. Everything else could be set aside for the time being.
The items produced by the Main God were all very mysterious. Like a handgun with unlimited bullets, they simply couldn't be explained by modern science.
This missing person notice was no exception!
As Xu Long described the old beggar's physical features, his understanding grew.
When he drew the portrait from memory, an address appeared directly in his mind!
"I didn't expect him to be so close."
Xu Long wasted no time. He opened the window and jumped down from the upper floor.
"Not sleeping in the middle of the night, going out to steal chickens, are you?"
In a room on the second floor, the Landlord muttered, then rolled over and pulled the Landlady into his arms.
If Pig Sty Alley was a slum, then the place where the old beggar lived was a slum among slums.
It was shabby, dirty, and chaotic.
If rats shed tears passing through Pig Sty Alley, then upon coming here, they would surely leave half a steamed bun behind.
With all his attributes at fifty points, Xu Long had keen hearing and sharp eyesight. Even by the faint moonlight, he could see his surroundings clearly.
After searching around, Xu Long did indeed find the old beggar.
"What do you want? Get lost, and don't disturb my sleep!"
The old beggar grumbled, but just as he was about to go back to sleep, he caught sight of what Xu Long held and immediately became wide awake.
It was a gun, a gun that could easily kill a person.
He had seen members of the Axe Gang use one before. A big, strong man had died after a single shot.
"Sir, what can I do for you? I'll tell you everything I know and leave nothing out. Whatever it is, I'll say it."
It had to be said, physical negotiation was quite effective.
Just look at how proper the other party's attitude was!
"I hear you often sell secret manuals out on the streets?"
Xu Long snorted and got straight to the point.