“Hello.”
“Hello, I’m here to find a friend.”
“May I ask for his room number, do you know it?”
“9039.”
“Okay, I’ll connect you…”
Boom!
The conversation between Lin Qiye and the front desk was interrupted by a deafening explosion from above, followed by the piercing screams of the surrounding pedestrians.
Lin Qiye’s face changed, without a word, he turned and ran out of the hotel lobby, looking up at the sky.
At the top of this towering skyscraper, a sea of fire had erupted.
Without counting, Lin Qiye knew that it must be the floor where Baili Pangpang lived. Only he could have caused such an outrageous attack on the entire hotel.
As Lin Qiye prepared to rush into the hotel and run up to the 90th floor from the stairs, he vaguely saw a flash of gold in the night sky!
“What is that…” Lin Qiye squinted his eyes slightly.
Without hesitation, he grabbed two black boxes and squeezed through the panicked crowd, quickly running towards the place where the gold flash had appeared.
After passing through several main roads, Lin Qiye finally arrived near the gold landing point. This was a relatively remote section of the road, with few pedestrians and even fewer vehicles at this late hour.
Lin Qiye closed his eyes and carefully sensed everything around him with his psychic power. Suddenly, his body trembled slightly.
He opened his eyes and quickly ran to a narrow intersection, his face darkening.
At the front of the street, there was a signboard with four large characters written on it.
“No entry ahead.”
No-Restrictions Zone!
Lin Qiye frowned tightly. This was definitely not the No-Restrictions Zone set up by Team 136, and the signboard used to display the No-Restrictions Zone was only possessed by the Night Watchman teams stationed in various cities!
In other words… Night Watchmen from other cities were involved in this matter?
Were they here to protect Baili Pangpang, or… to kill him?
Lin Qiye felt that the former was highly unlikely. If they were here to protect him, why would they appear at this time? And why would they secretly set up the No-Restrictions Zone?
Eight billion was enough to sway some of the less steadfast Night Watchmen, prompting them to steal the signboard and betray the Night Watchmen to claim the bounty on Baili Pangpang’s head!
How many people were on the other side? Did they bring the signboard directly, or did they steal it from the Night Watchmen? Would there be high-level experts involved?
A series of questions surfaced in Lin Qiye’s mind as he stood quietly in front of the signboard, lost in thought.
Should he go in, or not?
If it were the old him, faced with such a dangerous and unknown situation, he would definitely run as far away as possible. But now…
Perhaps even he himself hadn’t noticed that he had slowly changed.
What had changed him?
Perhaps it was the warmth brought by Team 136, Hong Ying’s enthusiasm, Qi Mo’s gentleness, the captain’s protectiveness, the vice-captain’s pride, Leng Xuan’s tenderness, Zhao Kongcheng’s determination…
Or perhaps it was the training camp’s shared hardships, or perhaps it was the countless insignificant details hidden in everyday life.
In the past, his life only revolved around his aunt and Jin, but now, unconsciously… it seemed like he had many more people around him.
In the darkness of the night, a firm resolve appeared in his eyes, and a hint of gold gradually lit up in his eyes.
Six months ago, he broke through the No-Restrictions Zone to save the hero who protected his world.
Now, he had to break through the No-Restrictions Zone again…
To save his friend.
…
“What is this…” Baili Pangpang looked around, his face unusually serious.
“No-Restrictions Zone.”
“Are they friend or foe?”
“What do you think?”
Cao Yuan’s gaze fell on the street ahead. Under the dim night sky, the streetlights on both sides of the street flickered, and in the distance of the asphalt road, a burly figure was slowly approaching.
“There’s someone behind us too.”
Baili Pangpang turned to look, only to see a man carrying three knives standing at the other end of the street, watching the two of them with a mocking look in his eyes.
“Only two people?”
“No, there should be at least one more person outside, setting up the No-Restrictions Zone,” Cao Yuan shook his head.
Baili Pangpang sneered, “Since when did Night Watchmen start acting like bandits?”
“No, we are no longer Night Watchmen.” The burly man who was approaching spoke in a low voice, “We come from the Forbidden Ruin.”
“Forbidden Ruin?” Baili Pangpang looked at Cao Yuan in confusion.
“The Forbidden Ruin is a place for imprisoning the owners of criminal offenses, and half of them are former Night Watchmen who were expelled for committing crimes,” Cao Yuan calmly explained, “If it weren’t for the Supreme Commander of the Night Watchmen saving me and sending me to Jiuhua Mountain, I would have been locked up there too.”
“So you just got out of jail,” Baili Pangpang realized, “But if you want to kill me, why blow up the hotel? What about the other people who got hurt? People who once swore to protect this country are now disregarding the lives of the citizens for their own gain?”
“Don’t lump us together with those wild dogs,” the man with three knives angrily retorted, “No matter what, we were once Night Watchmen, and we still have that basic bottom line. We want to kill you just to repay a favor…”
“Repay whose favor?” Baili Pangpang raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t try to manipulate our words. You just need to know that tonight… you won’t walk out of this No-Restrictions Zone.”
The burly man growled lowly, and a fierce light burst from his eyes. His muscles violently twisted, and his body first grew half a meter taller, then rapidly shrank…He had shrunk into a mere one-meter-tall, frail and skinny dwarf, looking as if a gust of wind could knock him over.
“Conan?” Baili Pangpang asked in surprise.
“Sequence 214 of the Forbidden Ruin, [Muscle Reconfiguration], allows one to freely compress their muscle tissue. Don’t be fooled by his current appearance, similar to that of an elementary school student; his speed and strength have reached an extremely terrifying level!” Cao Yuan’s eyes were filled with solemnity.
A cold smirk appeared on the skinny man’s lips. With a heavy stomp on the asphalt, leaving a deep indentation behind, he shot across half the street like an arrow!
A puny fist rapidly enlarged in Baili Pangpang’s vision!
“Yaoguang!”
A golden light instantly solidified into a shield in front of him, and the man’s fist collided with it without any fancy tricks. A muffled boom sounded, and cracks began to appear on the surface of the Yaoguang shield.
“Holy shit!” Baili Pangpang exclaimed.
Immediately after, a whip kick struck the Yaoguang shield, scattering bits of the golden light!
While hurriedly reaching into his bath towel as if searching for something, Baili Pangpang shouted to Cao Yuan behind him:
“Aren’t you going to help me out?!”
Cao Yuan, with a knife in his arms, was intently watching another man with three knives, “I’m busy.”
Under the moonlight, the man expressionlessly drew a knife from behind his back, while the other two seemed to be grasped by an invisible hand, unsheathing simultaneously!