Chapter 109: The Sea of Wandering 2
Half an hour later, the taxi braked steadily at the entrance of a pedestrian street. The dilapidated blue glass building across the road, distinctly styled in the millennium fashion, was the Yuanbao Building.
After Zhao Kai scanned the QR code to pay the fare, he gripped the plastic handle beside him. He seemed a bit car sick, pushing outward several times before finally opening the car door.
At this time in the afternoon, the sun was at its fiercest. The road surface, long in disrepair, was baked like melted sugar. Various complex “city odors” were first mixed and then evaporated by the heat, making one dizzy. Yet even so, the liveliness of the pedestrian street was unaffected. Most young people here dressed flamboyantly, their attire spanning all four seasons. They belonged to the crowd sensitive to fashion but insensitive to temperature. A glance revealed few heads of the same color on the street. A girl with an explosive pink afro was smoking on a stone pier, while on the other side, a foreign tourist enthusiastically raised his camera, snapping photos of her non-stop.
Zhao Kai skirted around the foreigner’s camera lens, clutching his backpack strap with one hand, and quickened his pace toward the Yuanbao Building. He was tall and thin; when his legs moved rapidly, it looked less like walking and more like floating.
“Ouch!” A cry suddenly erupted from the center of the pedestrian street, followed by a series of clang-clang noises. The air was instantly filled with the intense aroma of chili and beef tallow as hot soup splashed everywhere. Handsome men and beautiful women screamed in panic, dodging aside. An older woman wearing a restaurant apron, seeing the large portion of hot pot fish spilled all over the ground, opened her mouth to curse the blind fool in the hat walking opposite her. But seeing Zhao Kai covered in red oil, her mouth snapped shut. This pot had just been cooked and was scalding hot, yet it was all spilled on him… Thinking about the compensation and wrangling she might face later, the woman suddenly couldn’t even catch her breath.
“Young, young man, are you—” Her gaze fell on his hand, wanting to check if the burns were severe, but was swatted away. More accurately, she was heavily shoved aside! Caught off guard, she stepped on a greasy fish fillet and nearly slipped into flight on the spot. Thanks to someone beside her grabbing her arm, she barely managed to stand steady.
“Stop!” After setting the woman down, the operative immediately chased after Zhao Kai, who had suddenly started sprinting not far away. But instead of stopping, he accelerated even more toward the crowd! A young couple holding grilled sausages and shaved ice were watching the commotion, never expecting the “commotion” to turn ninety degrees toward them. Unable to dodge in time, the girl’s brain hadn’t even reacted before she was dragged at high speed for over ten meters by him!
“Help!” the girl screamed in terror.
Zhao Kai, however, seemed completely unaware that a person was attached to him. He simply snatched the cup of ice-cold slushie, opened his mouth wide, and poured it down his burning throat with a splash. The girl clawed and hit him desperately. Because of the proximity, she could clearly see his arm—the blisters scalded by the hot pot just now hadn’t burst. Even after being scratched by her sharp manicured nails, that layer of glistening skin merely trembled wobblingly, wrapping the unknown liquid inside.
Thud! The next moment, Zhao Kai’s head was knocked askew. Two arriving operatives helped the girl up, but Zhao Kai broke free again, bursting toward the main road like a madman. Vehicles came and went outside the pedestrian street. Seeing Zhao Kai about to collide head-on with a fully loaded bus, Yi Ke arrived just in time and grabbed him by the back of his collar. The bus barely brushed past Zhao Kai’s nose tip. Blood flowed down his philtrum. He turned his head angrily, but a silver light reflected in his retina. A stinging coolness instantly came from his neck. Yi Ke held the syringe and pushed a full dose of high-concentration anesthetic in with a click.
The drug specifically for Evolvers didn’t have the intended effect; instead, it enraged him further. Zhao Kai’s eyeballs rolled up uncontrollably in spasms. His legs buckled in an “X” shape as he stumbled forward two steps. The surrounding crowd immediately gasped: “Ahhhh! There’s a zombie!”
“Disperse! Everyone disperse!” Police sternly drove away the crowd, but couldn’t stop the phones being raised one after another—mainly thanks to people being too well-fed, the overwhelming sense of security from living and working in peace, and the Jincheng people’s ancestral love for watching drama.
Yi Ke pressed the man firmly to the ground, knee against his spine, preparing to pull out handcuffs from behind. But Zhao Kai’s head suddenly turned a grotesque one hundred and eighty degrees backward. He opened his mouth to bite the hand clamped on the back of his neck, but before his teeth could touch flesh, his head took a hit. He grew even more furious, suddenly breaking free from the restraint, standing up with a boom, and gripping Yi Ke’s arms tightly with both hands, attempting to lift him entirely.
Yi Ke didn’t struggle free but used the momentum to leap off the ground, bending one knee in mid-air to kick violently at the opponent’s chest! The dull thud of breaking ribs was heard. Zhao Kai tasted blood in his mouth. He staggered and slumped onto a bench, his eyes blank, as if finally regaining some reason. He didn’t resist anymore, just watching dazedly as he was handcuffed.
The foreigner who had been taking photos of the pink-haired girl earlier had seen enough excitement from within the crowd. He was about to put away his camera, but as soon as his left hand in his pocket moved, his forearm was gripped.
Hiss! He sucked in a breath from the pain and turned his head with an unfriendly expression, meeting a pair of cold eyes. Or rather, a pair of cold and beautiful eyes, black and white distinct, set like gems on an equally stunningly beautiful oriental face, like a perfect work of art. Except this beauty was clearly in a bad mood. The fingers clamping his arm were tightening like a torture device. Liam, however, seemed to lose the sense of pain. Instead of struggling, he raised an eyebrow frivolously at him. Smiling, he leaned down, lips slightly parted, and then—
His upper body suddenly exerted force!
With the zzzt-la-la sound of electric current, his entire left arm was torn forcibly from the shoulder joint connection!
All this happened in a second. Blue light crawled over the metal arm like tiny lightning bolts. Sharp, piercing pain instantly flowed back from his fingertips through Zhuang Ningyu’s entire body. His brows furrowed sharply. Although his evolved special constitution feared no high-voltage electricity, under the high-load impact, the heart within his chest cavity still stopped for an instant with a dull pain as if struck by a heavy hammer! And in that short instant, Liam had already blasted away seven or eight operatives chasing him like a cannonball. He even tried to turn and take Zhao Kai, but was forced back by a shot from Yi Ke. The bullet grazed his ear, blood flowing down his neck! Liam had to retreat two steps. Before Yi Ke could pull the trigger again, he leaped and dived into a modified car speeding up behind him! He steadied himself, grabbing the handle above the window with one hand. As the vehicle brushed past Yi Ke, he gave a provocative look, then released the handle, deftly twirling a remote control in his fingers, shaking it arrogantly in the wind—
As the red button was pressed, a white sedan parked by the roadside suddenly started at extreme speed. It crashed obliquely through the guardrail and drilled straight into the opposing lane! The driver of a red heavy truck was frightened out of his wits and slammed on the brakes! Tires screeched piercingly against the asphalt. Behind it followed a series of honking horns and equally desperate braking sounds. The Order Maintenance Department’s pursuit vehicles also had to stop.
“How are you driving? Do you want to die?!” the truck driver yelled at the top of his lungs. through the front windshield, he suddenly realized there seemed to be no one in the driver’s seat of the white sedan! The unmanned vehicle didn’t stop after breaking through the pedestrian guardrail. Instead, it continued to smash through stone piers, turned half a circle with its crumpled front end, and continued charging toward the pedestrian street—
Yi Ke pursued at high speed, leaping into the air, stomping heavily onto the hood with one foot. His body landed by the front left door. He reached out to pull, only to find it welded shut! The powerful engine instantly carried the vehicle away, leaving only half a broken handle in his hand.
Vroom—
“Ahhhh!” The crowd, who had been craning their necks to watch the drama, were finally scared witless by the oncoming car. Screaming, they scattered in panic, trying to run. But how could they outrun an engine? The roar of the accelerator was instantly upon them. A mother passing by carrying her child stumbled to the ground. Her legs were too weak to stand, so she could only protect the child tightly in her arms, curling up and burying her head—
Bang! A loud noise nearly pierced eardrums, but the expected agonizing pain didn’t come. The world returned to silence after the loud bang. The smell of rubber, gasoline, burning, parts rolling on the ground, thick white smoke dispersing in the air, and lingering gasps, screams, and crying. Supported by an operative, the mother mustered courage to look back tremblingly. She saw the front of the crazy sedan had been split in two, twisted metal and wires exposed. And deeply embedded in the ground at the break in the car body was a broken metal mechanical arm!
Not far away, Zhuang Ningyu let his stiff right arm drop, leaning against a utility pole covered in cold sweat, breathing a sigh of relief as if collapsing from exhaustion.
Outside the pedestrian street, the orderly road had turned into an overturned box of building blocks. Railings were smashed to pieces, skid marks of varying depths covered the road surface, and over a dozen cars had rear-ended each other, though fortunately, no one was too seriously injured. The groggy Zhao Kai was taken to the Order Maintenance Department. He sat blankly in the transport vehicle, looking like a numb rubber doll.
Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke followed.
The headquarters conference room was already full. Huo Ting was there too. Information from the traffic police was being shared on a large screen. Surveillance footage clearly showed that after racing through a few street corners, the modified car plunged headlong into an alley, banging its way down old, broken steps. By the time police arrived, the car was naturally empty.
“There are no cameras in the alley,” Huo Ting said. “Old Wu and the others have already gone to search. Customs is also comparing identities.”
Medical staff rushed to the scene measured Zhuang Ningyu’s heart rate in the corner of the conference room, sighing incessantly as they did so. They sighed so much that even Zhuang Ningyu began to lose confidence, looking at her with very lost and confused eyes. The little nurse was initially embarrassed by his gaze, then realized and waved her hands in panic: “No, no, Captain Zhuang, the high voltage didn’t damage your heart. I just feel…” She lowered her voice and whispered earnestly, “You should really finish your leave first. Your body wasn’t well to begin with; it’s not suitable for work.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t want to work either. Heaven be his witness, when he went out today, his mind was truly filled only with the couple number Yi Ke had been nagging about. But since he was at the venue now, work had to be done. Moreover, he was the only one on the scene who noticed the foreigner’s abnormality, so he had to at least explain the situation to his colleagues.
“But I really didn’t expect his arm to be detachable.” Zhuang Ningyu typed on the keyboard. He was draped casually in a uniform jacket issued by the unit. His original white shirt had become tattered due to the high voltage, with carbonized holes all over the sleeves. A few hairs stood up messily, his hand was injured, and his throat couldn’t speak. Yet even in this state, he was persistently typing to attend the meeting… Huo Ting rubbed his temples. Beside him, the Deputy District Head of District Two, a benevolent grandmotherly figure who always treated Zhuang Ningyu like her own grandchild, couldn’t help criticizing: “There were so many colleagues on the scene. Tell me, why did you have to run and catch that foreigner yourself?”
“District Head Ling, Grandma Ling.” Before Zhuang Ningyu could type, a colleague beside him explained shamefully, “Captain Zhuang intended for us to catch him. He looked at us before acting, but we really didn’t catch his meaning in time. Our fault, our fault.”
Zhuang Ningyu looked innocent. Noticing the foreign man wanted to pull a gun happened in an instant. At that time, Yi Ke was arresting Zhao Kai, while the man maintained a posture of staring closely at them, right hand raising the camera high, left hand in his pocket. Judging by the outline protruding from the casual pants, it should have been a Cold Falcon G90 or similar firearm. The pedestrian street was full of people. Zhuang Ningyu glanced at the colleagues around him, feeling he didn’t have the ability to make them understand the whole complex story in one second, so he could only choose to go himself.
The headquarters building was noisy with voices; clearly, it was another big overtime day. Huo Ting didn’t let Zhuang Ningyu stay long in the conference room. After completing the necessary records, he had the driver send him and Yi Ke home.
On the way, Zhuang Ningyu typed on his phone: Are you still going to apply for that auspicious couple number today?
Yi Ke looked at the person beside him, messed up by high voltage, feeling angry, amused, and heartache all at once. A deep sense of powerlessness rose from the depths of his soul. For a long while, he couldn’t squeeze out a single word.
Oh. Zhuang Ningyu put away his phone, silently sat up straight, looking ahead. Got it, got it. Another day.
