Chapter 460: Inquiry in the Rain

The downpour arrived without any warning.

At 6:47, when the Jiang Hai City Weather Bureau issued a red alert, the curtain of rain had already hammered the whole city through. Steam rose, the streetlights' glow was ground into fragments by the torrent, and visibility did not exceed twenty meters.

South City. The hillside villa district.

Su Ming knelt on one knee on a thick root of an old locust tree, his waterproof tactical suit clinging to his body, rainwater streaming down his jawline, and he reduced even his blinking rate to the minimum.

His right index finger rested on the tactical earpiece.

"Liang Wen, is position three on the west side ready?"

A crackle of electricity sounded through the earpiece, followed by Liang Wen's trademark, irritable voice: "The Dark-Blooded King is in place, bathing in the storm of destiny, waiting—"

"Speak in human language."

"Arrived, arrived, arrived."

Su Ming's eyelid twitched.

Around the villa—in the shrubbery, behind the artificial rock, and in the shadows of the parking lot—twenty-six people lay in ambush: fourteen Federation special agents and twelve Eden Garden elites.

Federation and Eden Garden personnel were mixed together—half a year ago, this sight would have blown up global news.

But now no one had the mood to argue about sides.

Because whatever was inside the villa was ten thousand times more important than any stance.

Su Ming turned his head to glance at Xu An in the left-side shrubbery. The barefoot boy stood in the mud, the sutured black lines on his mouth glimmering dimly in the rain, a Red Wood Ruler slung diagonally across his lower back. His eyes stared hollowly toward the villa, a gaze that seemed less at a building than at a coffin.

"Boy," Su Ming lowered his voice.

Xu An's pupils shifted.

"Your side, don't act prematurely."

Xu An gave no reply.

Su Ming disliked dealing with silent types, but now there was no room for choice. He switched the earpiece to the encrypted channel: "Shadow Lord, what's the situation on your end?"

Jiang Yuan's voice echoed from the underground drainage tunnel, steady as a dead line: "The Underground Parking Garage entrance is sealed. Thirty-seven Shadow Soldiers have been deployed; if Zhang Yuanqing runs from the ground, he must pass through my mouth."

"What about Chen Shao?"

"He's on the eastern ridge," Jiang Yuan paused, "the Demon Eye's psychokinetic field has already unfolded; any spatial fissure within four hundred meters, he can choke it the instant it appears."

Good.

Su Ming ran through all the nodes in his mind.

Jiang Yuan sealed the underground, Chen Shao locked the space, Liang Wen and the Federation special agents blocked the front, Xu An and Eden Garden elites cut the rear route. Qin Zhixia coordinated checkpoint placement three kilometers out with the Third Administrative District Branch, forming the outermost interception net.

Heaven-Earth Net.

Blocking a monster that had already stepped half a foot into the S Ji threshold.

Honestly, Su Ming wasn't even sure if it was enough.

His fingers curled slightly inside his tactical gloves— that unease had not dissipated.

It was too smooth. From Intelligence to positioning, from modeling to operational deployment, everything ran green.

It was as if someone had paved the road for you, just waiting for you to walk on it.

Forget it.

The villa's lights flickered in the downpour; Fatty Liu Zhen was probably still trembling in the basement wine cellar, clutching a bottle of red wine. Twenty-four private security kept guns at the ready, and the motion sensor lights swept the area every three seconds.

Su Ming licked his rain‑wet lips.

What he didn't know was that behind the load‑bearing column twelve meters beneath the villa, Zhang Yuanqing had already arrived.

Basement.

The only light in the darkness was the blood seeping from the fissure on Zhang Yuanqing's wrist.

The blood wasn't red; it was scarlet— three shades brighter than arterial blood, viscous enough to cling to walls, each drop striking the thumb‑sized grip in his palm, the splash pattern resembling an Electrocardiogram waveform.

Zhang Yuanqing hung head‑down.

His feet were fastened to the ceiling conduits, his whole body like an inverted bat. The faded old shirt was soaked with dense black resentment, its hem fluttering slightly in the airflow.

A smile hung on his sunken‑eyed face.

The smile was odd— not mad, not wild, but with a forensic‑doctor's precise rigor— as if he were dissecting a complex organ and confirming the standard course of a vessel.

Satisfied.

Calm.

And a hint of uncontrollable excitement.

"213."

His hoarse voice echoed in the basement, the curve of his mouth refusing to flatten.

"An Yuan Coal Mine, 213 lives lost."

The grip began to heat up.

Scarlet light seeped from his palm, crawling up his forearm along the vessels like growing roots. The basement temperature dropped fifteen degrees in three seconds, and his breath turned to white mist.

Zhang Yuanqing closed his eyes.

An editor interface unfolded deep in his consciousness, rows of rule code lining up automatically, awaiting his input of parameters.

His lips moved, his voice so low only he could hear it.

"Three hundred watchdogs. Two hundred thirteen souls suffocated in gas and rubble. Enough. Use them as firewood… forge a courtroom for me."

The wound on his wrist tore deeper.

The blood surged out suddenly faster, and the villa's foundation emitted a low, muffled hum—not from the building itself, but something underground breathing.

Meanwhile.

One kilometer away: Qiu Ce Yuan.

The evening study room was so quiet you could hear the rain striking the windows.

The fluorescent light buzzes overhead, flickering occasionally, while the students' pen tips scrape the paper with a rustle. Some sneakily play on their phones, blocked by the front rows; others lie on the desk, pretending to read but actually dozing.

Lu Yu sits in the third-to-last row by the window.

He maintains a standard reading posture—left hand pressing the textbook edge, right hand holding the pen, spine slightly curved, breathing even. His school uniform's zipper is pulled up to the top, and the collar covers half his chin.

His eyes are closed.

He is listening.

Not the sounds of the classroom, but the sound of that thing inside his body.

Since two minutes ago, the force within him that had been forcibly suppressed to the lowest limit suddenly stirred. It isn't the agitation of hunger, but more like—

Resonance.

A tremendously massive, resentment‑laden energy is rapidly expanding not far to the south; a kilometer away, the thing in his chest begins to push outward wildly.

His scalp tingles.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up one by one.

Lu Yu opens his eyes.

In that instant, the knuckles of his right hand gripping the pen turn white—not from tension, but from suppression.

He quickly glances out the window.

A torrential downpour blinds everything, but he doesn't need to see. That direction, one kilometer away, slightly south.

The energy is still rising.

This magnitude......

Lu Yu's throat catches a breath.

He has seen this magnitude before.

In a past life.

This isn't ordinary Weird foraging, nor a runaway wild legend. Someone is creating something—something huge. Huge enough to swallow an entire one‑kilometer radius.

A radius of one kilometer.

He turns his head to glance diagonally ahead.

Chen Yao sits there, quietly turning the pages of a psychology supplemental reading. The light falls on her profile, her eyelashes casting tiny shadows, complemented by the repaired Old Hairpin at her temple, clean as a painting.

Lu Yu's gaze lingers on that hairpin for 0.3 seconds.

Then he closes his textbook, raises his hand to borrow a pen from a front‑row classmate, and returns it, the whole process so natural no one notices.

He stands up and walks toward the classroom back door.

Passing the podium, the duty teacher looks up at him briefly.

Lu Yu points toward the exit, his lips silently forming three words.

"Go to the bathroom."

The duty teacher nods, lowers his head, and continues grading assignments.

Lu Yu pushes open the back door, steps light and swift, turning from the Corridor toward the Stairwell.

No one in the classroom notices his departure.

Chen Yao's hand pauses while turning a page, her eyes flicker, peripheral vision scanning the empty seat. Then she flips the page, resumes reading, her face unruffled.

Stairwell.

Lu Yu takes three steps as two down the stairs, his footfall almost silent. Reaching the First Floor lobby, he avoids the main entrance—guard cameras and the duty Instructor are there—and instead circles to the east side utility passage, pushing open a half‑closed iron door.

The downpour slams against him.

His school uniform becomes soaked within three seconds.

He hunches, hugging the base of the teaching building's outer wall, sprinting toward the perimeter wall. Rain drowns out his footsteps; lightning tears the sky open then closes, each flash pinning his Shadow to the ground for an instant.

He runs fast, yet unhurried.

The route was pre‑mapped. Camera blind spots, guard patrol intervals, the lowest section of the wall—all stored in his mind.

The wall is right ahead, three meters two centimeters tall.

Lu Yu takes two running steps, plants his foot on the wall, grabs the ledge with both hands, pushes with his arm strength, and flips his body upward—

At the moment his right leg plants on the wall top and his left hand braces the rough concrete, ready to pull over, the whole motion freezes.

He isn't the one who stopped.

It's that he heard a sound.

The sound comes from behind. Despite a distance of several tens of meters, through the all‑covering rain curtain and roaring thunder, it pierces his ear with crystal clarity.

Warm and mellow.

Elegant.

Even with a hint of concern.

"Lu classmate, with such heavy rain, where are you off to skip class?"

Lu Yu perches on the wall top, rain streaming in thick strands from his forehead and hair, blurring his sight.

He does not look back.

But his right hand, the one clinging to the wall ledge, slowly curls its five fingers.

At the window beside the end of the Corridor, Chu Che props the black straight‑handle rain umbrella, his coat collar upright, half‑covering his chin.

Rain fog coats the gold‑rimmed glasses, yet the eyes behind the lenses shine excessively.

Lightning strikes again.

The world flashes white for an instant.

The two stand opposite each other across the torrential rain, neither moving.