10: Chapter 10 Night Patrol Hunter

There was no answer to this question for the moment, but Yan Zheng was not in a hurry.

A good hunter never chases prey; he waits for the prey to reveal itself.

December 19th, nightfall.

The Underground Room of the Antique Shop was filled with the mixed scent of cheap leather and machine oil. Yan Zheng had spent the entire day wrapping soft cowhide gaskets around every joint of the two Skeleton Soldiers, fixing the edges with sewing needles, and finally applying a layer of Vaseline to the friction surfaces.

He lifted the arm of one Skeleton Soldier, moved it back and forth a few times, and tilted his ear to listen.

"Hmm, it's basically silent now."

He then moved the knee joint of the other one; the slight sound of leather rubbing was completely drowned out by the vibration of the heating pipes in the air.

Yan Zheng: ( ˊ ᗜ ˋ )

"It's much better than the original; it'll do for now."

He rummaged through the old wardrobe and found two sets of worn-out winter clothes the original owner had collected—a gray hooded cotton jacket with black pants, and an old military green overcoat with jeans—and put them on the two Skeleton Soldiers respectively.

A flat cap, a scarf, gloves—nothing was left out.

He stepped back two paces, tilting his head to inspect his masterpiece.

"...They look like two junkies fresh out of a relief shelter."

"Perfect. In Hell's Kitchen, no one will give them a second look."

The Skeleton Soldiers looked at each other, the phosphorous fire in their hollow eye sockets flickering innocently.

"The rules for walking at night are the same as last time: maintain a thirty-meter distance, no walking side-by-side, and if you encounter passersby, stop and pretend to be drunk."

He pulled out a map of the Hell's Kitchen district he'd scrounged from the laundry owner and slid his finger along several streets marked in red.

"Tonight's route: walk west from 47th Street to 11th Avenue, then turn back via 45th Street. This loop is the border zone between the Irish Gang and the Russian Gang. After the dock shootout, both sides are retaliating against each other, and sporadic conflicts are most frequent at night."

Yan Zheng: ( ⌐ ■ _ ■ )

"I'll be sitting in the shop drinking tea while you take the night shift for me. If you run into lone thugs committing crimes, don't be polite—act."

"Remember one bottom line: do not kill anyone proactively. Knocking them out or crippling them is fine, but you are not allowed to kill them."

"If one of them happens to have bad luck and kicks the bucket while you're fighting, that's fate; it's not on us."

The phosphorous fire in the two Skeleton Soldiers' eyes flickered simultaneously.

"Go."

The dark green and black mist wrapped around two humanoid silhouettes as they silently slid out through the gap in the Underground Room's back door, merging into the December night.

Yan Zheng returned to sit behind the cash register, poured himself a cup of hot water, and closed his eyes.

The moment the Mental Link was opened, his perception split in two.

On the left was the view of Skeleton Soldier No. 1: hazy and gray, with the characteristic eerie green halo of phosphorous fire at the edges, like wearing a pair of low-quality night-vision goggles. The resolution wasn't high, but the outlines were clear enough.

On the right was the view of Skeleton Soldier No. 2: the same gray-green tone, the same low pixel count.

"Processing two video feeds at the same time makes my head feel a bit swollen."

Yan Zheng rubbed his temples and adjusted the distribution of his attention: seventy percent on No. 1 and thirty percent on No. 2, just enough to maintain the basic follow command.

"This is probably what it feels like to watch two surveillance monitors; I'll get used to it."

Skeleton Soldier No. 1 walked slowly along the sidewalk of 47th Street. After the sound-dampening modifications, its gait was much smoother; from a distance, it really did look like a homeless person hurrying along with their neck hunched.

There were few pedestrians on the street. Occasionally, one or two passersby wrapped in thick coats walked past quickly, and no one gave No. 1 a second look.

No. 2 followed thirty meters behind, walking silently.

Eleven minutes later, No. 1 turned into a side alley near 11th Avenue.

Yan Zheng's mental touch captured sounds within the perception range of No. 1.

Two male voices, rough and slurred, and a thinner voice pleading for mercy.

No. 1 stopped at the entrance of the alley, and Yan Zheng saw the situation inside through its vision.

Two thugs in leather jackets had a middle-aged Asian man cornered between a trash can and a wall. One was grabbing his collar, while the other was rummaging through his pockets.

"I beg you, this is all the cash I have in my wallet, and my credit card is maxed out..."

"Shut up and hand over your phone, too."

"The phone is old; it's not worth anything."

"When I tell you to hand it over, you hand it over. Why so much nonsense?"

One thug raised his hand and slapped the middle-aged man across the face, knocking his glasses flying.

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ _ ˘ )

"Alright, that's enough."

He issued an order via the Mental Link.

"No. 1, go in. Take the one on the left first. Aim for the back of the neck and take him down in one hit."

Skeleton Soldier No. 1 suddenly accelerated. The scarf under its flat cap fluttered in the night wind, and the entire skeleton, wrapped in the old cotton jacket, pounced like a gray shadow.

Thug A was just stuffing the middle-aged man's phone into his pocket when he caught a glimpse of a tall, thin figure closing in from behind.

"Who the f—"

The bony fist, wrapped in a cotton glove, struck the left side of his neck with precision, the force perfectly calibrated between "knocking out" and "breaking the spine."

Thug A's words were cut off in his throat; his eyes rolled back, and he fell face-forward, stiff as a board.

Thug B reacted quickly, jumping back a step while simultaneously pulling a switchblade from behind his waist with his right hand.

"You're f*cking asking for it—"

No. 1 didn't give him a chance to finish.

The Skeleton Soldier's movements were without hesitation, without probing, and without any of the psychological games that appear in human combat. When the order said to hit, it hit; when the order said where to hit, it hit there.

It parried the switchblade thrust with its left hand and slammed its right fist into Thug B's temple.

Thug B's switchblade clattered to the ground, and he slid down against the wall, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth.

It took less than four seconds.

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ ꒳ ˘ )

The middle-aged Asian man crouched on the ground, shivering, looking up at the "homeless person" in front of him, his lips trembling for a long time.

"W-who are you? Th-thank you..."

Skeleton Soldier No. 1 looked down at him, then turned and walked out of the alley, its scarf fluttering in the cold wind.

The middle-aged man stared blankly at the figure disappearing at the alley entrance, only reacting after a long while, scrambling away toward the other end of the alley.

Yan Zheng opened his eyes and took a sip of the hot water.

A new notification popped up on the system panel.

[Detected Undead Creation participating in effective combat.]

[Mental Power EXP + 0.3. Current EXP progress: 0.3 / 5.0.]

"Zero point three."

Yan Zheng looked at the number, his fingers tapping lightly against the side of the cup.

"Once I save up five points, my Mental Power limit increases by one."

"At 0.3 per battle, that's about seventeen battles to raise Mental Power from eight to nine."

"If I can run into two or three battles during the nightly patrol, I can level up within a week."

He closed his eyes again, and the Mental Link returned to the Skeleton Soldiers' vision.

"Keep walking; tonight has only just begun."

For the next two hours, No. 1 and No. 2 walked back and forth through the border zone three times.

The second battle occurred in a parking lot on 45th Street, where Skeleton Soldier No. 1 caught two thugs smashing a van's window to steal things, resolving it in a few quick strikes.

[Mental Power EXP + 0.3. Current EXP progress: 0.6 / 5.0.]

The third battle was in a dead-end alley, where Skeleton Soldier No. 2 discovered a drunkard chasing a young woman. Yan Zheng switched control to No. 2 and took the drunkard down with a chokehold from behind.

[Mental Power EXP + 0.2. Current EXP progress: 0.8 / 5.0.]

"Zero point two, less than the previous two times. Probably because the opponent was too weak."

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ ̩ ̩ ̩ ε ˘ ̩ ̩ ̩ )

"The lower the combat intensity, the less EXP. Reasonable; the system doesn't support slackers."

Just as he was about to order the two Skeleton Soldiers to return, an anomaly was suddenly captured within the perception range of No. 1.

It wasn't a sound.

It was a vibration.

A very slight, rhythmic vibration coming up from the ground beneath No. 1's feet.

No, it wasn't the ground.

It was overhead.

Yan Zheng focused his consciousness on No. 1's perception and turned the reception sensitivity to the maximum.

No. 1 was walking at the intersection of 46th Street and 11th Avenue, with a row of three-story old apartments on the left and an abandoned parking lot enclosed by wire fencing on the right.

The source of the vibration was the roof of the apartment building on the left.

Someone was standing up there.

Yan Zheng controlled No. 1 to look up.

Under the brim of the flat cap, the faint perception of the phosphorous fire could barely make out the silhouette of a person on the edge of the apartment rooftop.

It wasn't Daredevil.

The build wasn't right.

This person was a whole circle wider than Matt Murdock, with shoulder contours that were flat and horizontal, like a moving low wall.

Moreover, several protrusions on his body presented the cold texture of metal in the phosphorous fire's perception.

Gun barrels, magazines, buckles on a tactical vest.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ° ᷄ ω ° ᷅ )

A full set of military equipment.

The figure stood motionless on the edge of the rooftop, like a stone statue.

But the angle of his head was facing the street where Skeleton Soldier No. 1 was located.

He was watching.

Or rather, he was observing.

Yan Zheng made a judgment within two seconds.

"No. 1, stop, lean against the wall, and pretend to fall. No. 2, speed up, take the other side of the street, and don't look up."

Skeleton Soldier No. 1's legs went limp, and its whole body slid down along the base of the wall, posing like a homeless person who was too drunk to walk.

The scarf covered most of its "face," and the flat cap was crooked on its "head."

A perfect drunkard's sprawl.

Yan Zheng's Mental Power maintained passive monitoring of the rooftop direction within No. 1's perception, not daring to make any active probing moves.

Fifteen seconds passed.

The figure didn't move.

Thirty seconds.

The figure turned in a different direction, facing north, as if observing another street.

Then he took a step back and disappeared from the edge of the rooftop.

Yan Zheng slowly opened his eyes, the hot water cup in his fingers making a slight clinking sound.

"Military equipment, solo operation, scouting from a rooftop."

"Not Police; Police don't wear that stuff. Not military; soldiers wouldn't be lying on the roof of a residential building in Hell's Kitchen in the middle of the night."

He put down the water cup and tapped his index finger against the cash register twice.

"The nights in Hell's Kitchen sure are lively."

"A blind lawyer with god-tier hearing beating up thugs all over the street, and now a fully armed lone ranger scouting from the rooftops."

Yan Zheng summoned the two Skeleton Soldiers back to the Underground Room, closed the Mental Link, and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment.

A moment later, he opened his eyes again, his lips curving into an arc.

"However, if this gentleman squats on the roof every night, he must have seen a lot of interesting things."

"Perhaps one day in the future, he can also become a good neighbor."

Yan Zheng turned off the desk lamp, and the Antique Shop plunged into darkness.

The last sentence drifted lightly into the air, sounding like he was talking to himself, and yet also like an invitation issued to someone unseen.

"Of course, provided he doesn't get in the way of me collecting corpses."