Lance had never been this speechless in his life.
The instant he looked over, the man on the stadium canopy—for reasons known only to himself—stuffed the MP3 into his pocket.
When the man lowered his head, the pale-blue barrier floating in front of him bent downward as well.
The moment he straightened, the barrier immediately stretched flat again like an obedient little dog.
That barrier looked extremely familiar to Lance. Familiar enough that it had to be the exact same model someone had used in the classroom that morning.
The color. The sheen. The transparency. The effect. More authentic than an official-store verification.
The corner of Lance’s mouth twitched.
He was not actually surprised Zhan Pingchuan wanted Bolas and Clova dead. After all, Zhan Pingchuan had clashed with Ediv on the first day of school, and Ediv had genuinely intended to kill him on the athletic field. Once the scene was reconstructed, Zhan Pingchuan would become the most obvious suspect.
What surprised Lance was how this man could act with such total disregard for restraint—committing crimes directly into the wind, caring about nothing, and finding places to court death wherever he went.
“Young Master, what do you see?” Mad Clown leaned against a parasol tree, spinning the ring necklace around one finger, looking both bored and restless.
Lance exhaled lightly. His eyes remained fixed on Zhan Pingchuan, faint light shimmering within them. “You don’t need to act anymore.”
Bolas had been the most difficult opponent. Someone this sensitive to sound was almost no different from possessing precognition. Any attack Lance or Mad Clown launched would give him more than enough time to evade.
“What are you doing?” Mad Clown’s painted mouth drooped in confusion.
Lance raised the rifle and tilted his head slightly toward his right shoulder. A strand of hair escaped the ribbon and fell across the bridge of his nose. His eyes lifted faintly. Through the eight-power scope, he aligned the muzzle with the completely unaware Clova.
The tips of his lashes tangled with that loose strand, adding something seductive to his features. His index finger settled on the trigger as he said meaningfully, “I found a better weapon.”
Stadium canopy.
On the stadium canopy, Zhan Pingchuan lowered his head to pocket the MP3 and sneered. Locating someone by sound at this difficulty level was something he had mastered in elementary school.
Thanks to the “scientific” education of those two incomparable geniuses, Old Zhan and the supervisor, situations like this always made him involuntarily remember feather dusters, belts, and slipper soles. As the old sayings went, crows fed their parents and lambs knelt to drink milk. Filled with that same gratitude toward those who raised him, Zhan Pingchuan could always locate a target rapidly and kill with one shot.
There was a reason the ancients said a happy childhood healed a person for life.
Only thirty seconds passed between Bolas releasing Low-Frequency Standing Wave and Zhan Pingchuan confirming his exact location.
The wave came from the parking lot, where dozens of cars were parked in a suspicious attempt to hide among one another.
Zhan Pingchuan rapidly scanned each vehicle. Almost every window carried privacy film, and sunlight reflected off the glass, making it impossible to see whether anyone sat inside.
His gaze dropped directly from the windows to the tires.
From his high position, the angle was excellent. Very quickly, he noticed only one vehicle in the entire lot had tires compressed noticeably more than the others.
Someone was inside.
Zhan Pingchuan clicked his tongue thoughtfully. In weather this hot, turning off the car and refusing to get out could only mean the person did not particularly want to live.
Since the man no longer wished to live, Zhan Pingchuan—as an exemplary youth of the new era and Desert City’s annual model citizen—naturally had to anticipate the needs of others, worry about what worried them, and use a burning heart devoted to helping people to assist Bolas through the final stretch of his journey.
He simply dismissed the barrier in front of himself and allowed the standing wave to strike his body without restraint.
The murderous sound wave penetrated his clothing and vibrated his blood cells, making his organs tremble faintly.
Zhan Pingchuan merely kept both hands in his pockets and turned his head toward Bolas with a smile.
The pale-blue barrier suddenly appeared above the roof of Bolas’s car. In the instant before Bolas could react, it chopped downward from the air like an indestructible cutting machine and sliced the sedan cleanly into two pieces.
Dust exploded upward. The black business sedan emitted cracking mechanical noises. With the fall of one final screw, the vehicle split apart and collapsed to both sides.
Sunlight poured in. Blood mist filled the air.
Bolas’s eyes widened in terror. He had been about to use [Voiceprint Capture] to identify the approaching danger when a cool draft suddenly brushed the top of his head. Then his facial features and the back of his skull split in opposite directions like the peel of a banana.
“Bolas? What happened over there?”
Clova pressed one hand to her earpiece, brow tightly furrowed. A terrible premonition climbed from the bottom of her heart.
She had not received any message from Bolas for a long time since entering the university.
Perhaps catching the scent of blood, Clova abandoned the student who was hesitating in front of her and looked toward the distance.
Something seemed to pierce through the air. A black dot raced toward her at extreme speed. Her mind went blank as the smell of blood and gunpowder smashed straight through her visual palace.
Pfft!
The tremendous momentum drove Clova back several staggering steps. Trembling, she raised a hand to the blood pouring from the center of her forehead.
Her throat spasmed, producing a harsh rasp. “That was…”
A sniper rifle.
“AHHHHHHH—!” The student screamed. Before his eyes, the male teacher he knew suddenly transformed into an unfamiliar blond, blue-eyed woman. A bullet hole opened in her forehead, blood covered her face, and she crashed to the ground in front of him.
“Someone died! Teacher changed sex! Somebody come here!” The student crawled away in panic.
“Shut up! Stop shouting!”
“Blue Hub Ability Inspection Bureau operation!”
Large numbers of inspectors rushed forward carrying guns and shields, surrounding Clova’s corpse at top speed. Shouts, gunfire, sirens, and radio calls overlapped into chaos like water thrown into hot oil, crackling and exploding everywhere.
“Someone check Commander Bolas!”
“Commander Bolas is down too!”
That was another thunderclap. Every inspector shuddered, cold sweat instantly soaking their body armor.
How could Commander Bolas too…?
“Lock down the university immediately! Search for suspect traces! One team, follow me to rescue Commander Bolas!”
They called it a rescue, but everyone knew there was nothing left to save. The destructive power of the ability was horrifying, the scene nearly enough to make people vomit.
“Inform the university president. From this moment onward, every teacher and student at Xingzhou University must remain in place for investigation!”
A continuous stream of Blue Hub vehicles drove onto campus until the entire university was sealed airtight.
Up in the administration building, the university president shoved his feet into sandals and ran frantically from his office without even putting on his wig.
On the way from the president’s office to the scene, he ran into He Jing’en, dean of the Attribute College. He Jing’en kindly advised, “President, slow down. At least put your hair on properly.”
The president waved him off, helpless and perfectly frank. “I left it on purpose. I was waiting for him to show off, and now he’s gone. Fine, gone is gone, but for the federal government’s sake I should at least look enthusiastic.”
He Jing’en could not stop himself from laughing. “No wonder you became president.”
“It’s all social politics.” The president sighed. “You should at least show your face too.”
He Jing’en hurriedly declined. “Forget it. I have no ambition. I’m perfectly happy eating and waiting to die.”
The president knew his lazy habits and did not persuade him further. Instead, he deliberately messed his hair even more, arranged a grief-stricken expression, and shouted loudly, “Are the two commanders all right? Commanders, please hold on!”
His voice carried through the corridor. Someone downstairs immediately called back, “President, please restrain your grief! The two commanders may…”
The president looked as though both parents had died and beat his chest in sorrow. “Commanders—!”
He Jing’en watched the president run away. Only then did he place his hands behind his back and gaze thoughtfully toward the athletic field.
Dusk approached. Wind entering through the window stirred his martial-arts jacket, flipping back one sleeve and revealing a faint, luminous glow at his fingertips.
The glow flashed once. Dense ability pheromones suddenly expanded outward, making the window frames rattle violently. Only after a long while did they become still.
He withdrew his fingers into his sleeve. Relaxed and pleased, he smiled and shook his head. “Children, after all. They never think through the consequences.”
Everything had settled.
The moment Clova fell, Zhan Pingchuan raised his brows exactly as expected.
He knew White Pharaoh had been hidden somewhere observing the entire scene, and he had more or less tacitly allowed the cooperation.
Unfortunately, his plan to capture the person for interrogation had failed. Even the sniper rifle had been suppressed, making the shooter difficult to locate.
Come to think of it, White Pharaoh had used him completely this time. If Zhan Pingchuan had not killed Bolas first, who knew how long the other side would have been restrained?
He ground his teeth inwardly. No matter how he calculated it, he had come out at a loss. He had not killed Ediv, had learned nothing about the truth of the Pacification War, and now had somehow ended up in the same bed with that White Pharaoh.
Boat.
Zhan Pingchuan spat in disgust and decided that sooner or later he would catch that sly fox and eliminate a menace on behalf of the people.
For some reason, he suddenly thought of Lance.
Lance had fox-shaped eyes too, with sharp inner corners and lifted outer corners. But those eyes were far clearer and kinder, without even the faintest hint of slyness.
The difference between people really could be as wide as heaven and earth.
Zhan Pingchuan was still savoring the memory of those amber eyes when he abruptly remembered that a freshly washed, sweet-smelling little cutie was still waiting on the bed with desperate longing for lamb-and-radish shumai.
Fuck!
He checked the time and discovered an entire hour had passed.
At this point even wheat planted from seed should have come back as shumai!
Zhan Pingchuan pinched the space between his brows, jumped from the building, and without a second of hesitation raced toward the cafeteria, stepping across his barriers at full speed.
He swore he had never run this fast in his life. Even rushing a wife to the hospital to give birth could not possibly be faster.
He reached the cafeteria like a gust of wind and flipped up his hood, exposing damp temples.
Sweat rolled down his sharply defined jaw and left a sensual wet trail along his wheat-colored neck. He raked a hand through his dyed hair, his wrist knocking the two turquoise pendants against one another with a clear chime.
The cafeteria was packed shoulder to shoulder. Every food window had a line extending almost outside the building. Only the shumai counter was deserted. Clearly, the final portion had already been sold.
But there was nothing money could not solve. And if money could not solve it, there simply was not enough money yet.
Zhan Pingchuan’s sharp eyes spotted a little Omega walking away from the shumai counter holding a takeout box.
The little O had even taken the trouble to tie the plastic bag into a bow, with two pairs of chopsticks tucked on top.
Zhan Pingchuan strode over and grabbed his arm. Staring mournfully at the shumai, he said with deep sincerity, “Classmate, ever since my mother died, I’ve never again eaten the lamb-and-radish shumai she used to make. Ten years. I never imagined I’d smell that familiar scent here today. Classmate, I have an unreasonable request. Could you sell me those shumai? I’ll thank you on behalf of my future wi—ptooey, on behalf of my mother.”
Tang Li’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Zhan… Zhan Pingchuan?!”
“You know me?” Zhan Pingchuan raised a brow and sacrificed the last of his dignity to continue lying. “Then you should know I’m exactly this kind of deeply affectionate, hot-blooded young man. One little box of shumai can stir my heart until tears fill my eyes. Surely you can’t bear to refuse me?”
Tang Li: “……”
Tang Li: “Wasn’t your heart as cold as Mount Kilimanjaro? Melted again?”
Zhan Pingchuan: “……”
He seemed to remember who this person was.