Chapter 45: Half-Man, Half-Ghost, Supreme Marksman

Qi Ming didn’t elaborate on that night’s details; the matter of Ma Erte shouldn’t be revealed to too many until fully clarified.

Kishida: “Based on my understanding of He Zhi, he won’t let this go so easily.”

Emi also warned Qi Ming that the advisor held high rank and power; offending him could make every step difficult.

Qi Ming: “Don’t worry about it.”

He looked at Lucia: “Just consider that a little performance by clowns from our Earth—I’m here, no one can touch you.”

Lucia nodded and continued gesturing; Qi Ming struggled to understand: “You mean if the distance is close enough, you can get a faint sense?”

Lucia nodded.

But when he asked for the exact range, language barriers made it feel like doing a fill-in-the-blank test where the front had the passage and the back had the options—he couldn’t grasp how “close” this “close distance” really was.

If the sensing range was this small, wasn’t it still like searching for a needle in a haystack?

Qi Ming pondered for a long while: “Looks like I’ll have to use this trick—I’ll cast a divination and see if I can find any clues.”

Morohoshi: “?”

Emi: “?”

Yamana: “?”

Kishida: “?”

Nishijo Nagi: “?”

Divination?

Emi hesitated before speaking: “Team Member Qi Ming, when you say ‘divination,’ do you mean… that so-called ‘fortune-telling’?”

Qi Ming nodded.

Morohoshi was stunned: “You can do fortune-telling?”

Qi Ming: “A little. Not always accurate.”

His master, the elderly archaeology professor Sima Hui, was a Jianghu child from the old days.

He possessed some outlaw skills and was a true inheritor of the “Jin Dian,” whose mastery could make him famous across the seas.

But Qi Ming only learned from him martial techniques like “Scorpion Climbs the City” and “Kui Star Kicks the Dipper,” never delving into the arts of predicting fortune or the broad principles of physiognomy, and only had a superficial grasp of divination.

He said this only to invent a new excuse to reveal clues from the original Diga series.

Under these circumstances, saying “I have a friend who knows something” would be too risky—it might expose him.

Yamana immediately perked up: “Team Member Qi Ming, are you serious?”

Kishida: “Victory Team is scientific. Can such superstition really be taken seriously?”

Nishijo Nagi also thought Qi Ming was desperate and grasping at straws—your reckless, impulsive image has nothing to do with those fortune-tellers.

Besides, in her memory, during the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, both sides studied psychic abilities, yet ultimately agreed that science remained the most effective path.

Qi Ming: “It’s free anyway—might as well believe a little.”

This explanation made everyone think he had no real confidence.

Morohoshi: “So… how are you going to do divination? I remember you need turtle shells or something like that.”

Qi Ming recalled his master’s words and mimicked them: “To cast a hex and count the numbers, any object will do—where the mind reaches, heaven’s mechanism appears.”

After speaking, he picked up three pens from the desk, tossed them carelessly onto the table, then pretended to be intensely focused.

His solemn, reverent demeanor deterred anyone from interrupting; after a long while, Morohoshi finally asked: “What does this hex indicate?”

Qi Ming thought to himself: How would I know? Once, while visiting a temple in Hangzhou, he’d casually drawn a fortune slip—the text left him utterly confused.

The Taoist priest said interpreting it cost fifty yuan; a nearby girl warned Qi Ming not to waste money—he could just search “fortune slip interpretation” online, where detailed explanations were available—truly, all things were interconnected.

Though he fundamentally didn’t understand divination or interpretation, that didn’t stop this half-baked amateur from bluffing in front of his teammates’ knowledge gaps.

If this worked now, it would make it easier to use this excuse later to reveal plot details from the original series.

Qi Ming: “Factories… Team Member Emi, mark the abandoned factories near areas with high concentrations of missing persons.”

Morohoshi: “So this is your divination result? The Crow Man’s base is in an abandoned factory?”

Qi Ming: “Yes.”

Emi marked dozens of factories; Qi Ming continued: “Filter them—keep only those with large flocks of crows nearby.”

In his memory, the original Diga series showed the Crow Man’s Earth base was an abandoned factory swarming with crows.

Emi nodded and quickly narrowed the targets to nine.

Yamana still didn’t believe: “Are you sure this will actually work?”

In this fused universe, Qi Ming dared not guarantee anything: “The accuracy of hexes depends on harmony between mind and heaven’s mechanism—perhaps a hair’s breadth difference leads to a thousand-mile error. Use it only as reference.”

After issuing his disclaimer, Qi Ming prepared to depart with Lucia.

He would visit each of the nine abandoned factories, and act only when Lucia sensed something.

Nishijo Nagi, concerned for the Umeda siblings, approved of Qi Ming’s plan—she believed even a one-percent chance deserved a hundred-percent effort.

“Emi, lend me your gun.” Qi Ming extended his hand.

“Oh, okay.” Emi handed him her Victory Hyper Gun.

Morohoshi: “Don’t you have enough with one gun? Why two?”

Qi Ming: “Two isn’t enough.”

He went to find Dr. Yabu and said he was about to pull off a big job.

Before 007 went on a mission, Q always gave him top-tier gear—he hoped Yabu could give him something powerful enough to suppress a dozen aliens at once.

Dr. Yabu: “You mean heavy machine guns to suppress a dozen coordinates?”

Qi Ming’s eyes lit up: “Do you have a Victory Hyper Machine Gun that can fire hundreds of laser rounds per second? I want one.”

Dr. Yabu: “Why not just ask for a Tiger tank?”

He was in charge of Magmas Power Systems, not weapons R&D.

In the end, after personally negotiating, he only secured for Qi Ming one [Dunk-Shooting Gun].

Qi Ming recognized this weapon—it was often carried by the sharpshooter team member, Shinkai.

“A sniper rifle type… ” Qi Ming caressed it lovingly, his eyes sparkling with delight.

Seeing his satisfaction, Dr. Yabu felt his effort had been worthwhile.

He asked curiously: “How’s your aim?”

Qi Ming: “One hundred percent accuracy.”

After completing all preparations, Qi Ming changed into a black leather suit suited for concealment.

After holsters his dual pistols and donning black sunglasses, an aura of “Half-Man, Half-Ghost, Supreme Marksman” naturally emerged.

He picked up Lucia and followed the route Emi had planned, beginning his visits to the nine factories swarming with crows.

When he reached the fifth factory, night was deep; Lucia tugged at Qi Ming’s sleeve.

She could feel—Zara was here!

“Finally found it.” Qi Ming nodded—this must be the Crow Man’s lair.

In the original series, after receiving a distress signal from his cousin, Team Member Shinkai went alone to rescue him—and was captured too.

His cousin bitterly complained: “I asked you to save me, not to join me!”

So though confident in his own skills, with this precedent in mind, Qi Ming decided to wait for his teammates to arrive before acting.

Coincidentally, when Qi Ming arrived here, the time agreed upon by the five aliens had arrived.

Now, they would launch a joint assault, storming the human world and conquering Earth.

(End of Chapter)