63: Chapter 63 The Hunt Begins

"Zhenzhen, Tiantian, I have a cat at home that can do backflips. After the movie tonight, how about I take you both back to my place to see it?"

Yellow Hair flashed a sleazy smile and bantered with his two female companions, deliberately blocking the path in front of the handcart Chu Xuan was pushing, moving at a snail's pace.

Chu Xuan raised an eyebrow at the man, feeling the sensation given to him by the Phantom Demon, and couldn't help but let the corners of his mouth curl upward.

What a coincidence!

Ahead, the three burly men who were initially preparing to blockade Gate 4 had already approached. They walked with hurried steps, observing all the pedestrians around them with vigilant and scrutinizing gazes, which naturally included Chu Xuan pushing the handcart.

When these three burly men passed by Chu Xuan and his handcart...

Before they had even walked a few meters, a voice rang out simultaneously in their earpieces: "G5, take note. G5, take note. The target just walked past you; he's right behind you."

The three of them jolted and turned around at the same time.

Greeting them was a pair of eyes looking back with a faint silver glint.

After a momentary daze, the three men pounced like hungry tigers past Chu Xuan, heading straight for Yellow Hair.

Yellow Hair had no power to resist and was immediately pinned to the ground by the three burly men, letting out a mournful wail, while the two young girls were also brought under control.

All the pedestrians around focused their attention there, and those men in suits who were closing in from different directions no longer held back and charged forward with large strides.

Amidst the commotion, Chu Xuan pushed his handcart and silently left the crowd from the side.

Chu Xuan wasn't worried about these ordinary people without any special abilities, because inside this Small Commodities Market, there were four other buildings—A, B, D, and E—just like this Building C.

A total of five shopping malls were arranged in a ring, enclosing the crisscrossing pedestrian streets in the middle into a circle. The items sold within were a diverse mix, covering everything from food, clothing, housing, and transportation to retail and wholesale.

And outside these five ring-shaped malls, a larger circle of a Food Street was formed.

People from the surrounding University Town, residential areas, and even further away preferred to come here, with daily foot traffic reaching as high as fifty thousand.

Today happened to be Saturday, so it was incredibly crowded and bustling.

Here, except for inside the malls and near the entrances and exits where surveillance equipment existed, there were few cameras elsewhere.

After leaving the chaotic crowd near the Gate 4 exit of Building C, Chu Xuan pushed his handcart and soon turned a corner, leaving a package in inconspicuous corners or on temporary dining tables near snack stalls from time to time.

When only two packages remained, Chu Xuan reached a fork in the road. The group of burly men in black had already converged from all directions, numbering about twenty.

Some held electric batons, some held telescopic batons, and some reached into their coats to draw guns, but sensing the surrounding crowd passing by, they tucked the guns back in.

"Stop! Don't run!"

A group of burly men approached with a menacing Aura, which truly startled the people around them. They scrambled to get out of the way but didn't go far, instead stopping to watch the commotion as spectators.

Chu Xuan didn't stop, but he didn't run either. He just silently pushed the handcart to the side of the road where it wouldn't be in the way, and then he charged straight at them.

Relying on his overwhelming attributes and perfect-level Mixed Martial Arts, and given that these people couldn't use firearms, Chu Xuan took them all down in less than a minute.

In such a short time, some busybodies in the crowd hadn't even had time to take out their phones to film a video.

"Tell Tao Jiajia that I've already seen her, and I'll be over shortly."

Chu Xuan approached one of them, spoke close to the earpiece, and deliberately lowered his voice, making it sound somewhat cold and sinister.

After speaking, Chu Xuan snatched a handgun and two magazines. Under the horrified gazes of the surrounding crowd, he ignored the handcart and calmly departed carrying the two packages.

Relative to the entire Small Commodities Market, this was just one corner. After causing a slight commotion, the bustling scene was quickly restored following Chu Xuan's departure.

Two minutes later, Chu Xuan had circled halfway around and entered the inner ring pedestrian street from the intersection between Buildings A and B. The roads here were crisscrossed, lined with small shops, and it was somewhat noisy and chaotic, but it had a strong sense of everyday life.

Chu Xuan casually went to a roadside clothing store, found an empty fitting room, opened one of the packages, and then quickly took off his stevedore clothes and changed into a trendy outfit.

Next, he put on a white curly wig, wore brownish-gray aviator sunglasses, stepped into a pair of versatile shoes, and then picked up the crossbody bag containing the Oil Lamp and walked out of the fitting room.

The shop owner had been busy attending to customers from start to finish. He glanced at Chu Xuan out of the corner of his eye but didn't bother to care.

When Chu Xuan returned to the Food Street outside, he already saw a large number of uniformed law enforcement officers appearing, and even armed personnel with live ammunition. The number of burly men in black suits had also increased again.

However, most of these people were scattered around a commercial van near the street entrance of the market, which was heavily guarded. The remaining people began to set up controls around the various entrances and exits of the entire Small Commodities Market.

"Tao Jiajia really went to great lengths to catch me... Official behavior shouldn't be this aggressive. After all, I'm one of the few survivors who escaped from the dormitory and have shown abilities beyond ordinary people. At the very least, they should have tried to communicate with me further, whether through incentives or appeals to national duty. They shouldn't have directly resorted to force for an arrest like this, and even used firearms..."

Chu Xuan's heart suddenly stirred. He opened his phone again to check the text message Tang Zheng had just sent, his gaze fixing on one particular sentence.

—Those people just now aren't good news; they're not on the same side as Qin Qing.

"An internal issue...?"

Chu Xuan sneered.

Power struggles, official infighting—he didn't want to deal with that mess. Regardless of the reason, since this Tao Jiajia was being so coercive, he wouldn't let it slide.

A flash of killing intent crossed his eyes. Having experienced a life-and-death escape in the dormitory and finally surviving with great difficulty, the current Chu Xuan was no longer some kind-hearted soul.

"Kill them, cause a scene! They all deserve to die..." the Phantom Demon's voice drifted into his ears. "I can feel your mood. Don't have any reservations; it doesn't matter even if you turn the world upside down, because I'm right behind you..."

"Heh..."

Chu Xuan narrowed his eyes slightly, suppressing the irritability in his heart.

The immediate priority was to hunt Strange Creaturess to obtain enough spirituality value to enter the dream.

Communicating with Future Tang Zheng in the dream to find a way to resolve the hidden threat of the S-rank Specter within his body was the top priority. As for some clowns, it wouldn't be too late to deal with them once he had a free hand.

Many thoughts flashed by, and Chu Xuan noticed that two more people were following him.

He looked back inconspicuously a few times. Those two clearly weren't sure of his identity either; they were just following based on positioning. It wasn't until they had followed him for a long distance that they gradually confirmed his identity.

However, with a sharp glare from Chu Xuan, the two immediately became groggy. By the time they regained their senses, Chu Xuan had already long gone.

Next, Chu Xuan found one of the packages he had left earlier. Finding a corner where few people noticed, he quickly completed a second outfit change, and even the package containing the Oil Lamp was swapped.

This time, Chu Xuan wore casual clothes and a baseball cap as he entered a Ken-Old-Man Fried Chicken shop and went into the restroom.

With the support of 10 points in his agility attribute, Chu Xuan, like an ape, pushed aside a grid-like aluminum ceiling tile at the top of the restroom, stuffed the backpack containing the Oil Lamp inside, and then moved the tile back to its original position.

When he walked out again, the Investigation Team could no longer identify Chu Xuan's physical features.

This was mainly because most of them were waiting for Chu Xuan to "walk into the trap" or were stationed at the outer perimeter controls.

Except that on their professional equipment displays, the red dot representing Chu Xuan kept moving rapidly within the market, but never arrived at the commercial van by the roadside.

And Chu Xuan's operation to hunt Specters officially began at this moment!

The first person was that Yellow Hair.

Although the Investigation Team had already confirmed that Yellow Hair was caught by mistake, they still brought him and his two female companions onto the vehicle for a detailed interrogation before releasing him.

A normal person would have lost the mood to keep shopping after such an ordeal, but that Yellow Hair was still wandering around the Food Street with the two young girls.

"Brother, long time no see, I've missed you!"

Chu Xuan lowered his baseball cap, went up and hooked his arm around Yellow Hair's neck, then jerked his chin toward the two girls. "You two go back first. I haven't seen my brother in a long time; we have something to chat about for a bit."

The two girls were initially a bit unhappy and wanted to say something, but in an instant, their eyes became slightly dazed, and they actually left obediently.

"Who the hell are you..."

Yellow Hair cursed and tried to struggle, but Chu Xuan held him in a headlock and forcibly dragged him toward the adjacent Building A, then pushed him through the first-floor restroom window.