107: Chapter 107 The Shadow of the X-Men

"When the day of the fight comes, I need to know who falls first."

Before the fight even started, he saw the referee.

November 11th, 1:20 PM, Manhattan Central Park.

Two-week countdown to the mutant registration act vote.

Yan Zheng sat on a bench on the west side of Sheep Meadow, with a canvas bag beside him containing those Zeiss 8x binoculars and an old edition of the Flora of New York.

He was reading.

To be precise, he was watching people in the intervals between turning pages.

The lawn in Central Park had already turned yellow this season, covered in a thin layer of withered leaves that slid a few centimeters along the ground when the wind blew. There were fewer tourists than usual, more than half of the benches were empty, and dog walkers held their leashes tightly, walking faster than usual.

Yan Zheng turned a page, his gaze drifting over the top edge of the book spine toward the pedestrian walkway at the northern end of the lawn.

Four people.

The four people walking on the path were completely out of place among the surrounding pedestrians wearing windbreakers and baseball caps.

The leading woman was tall with short black hair and dark brown skin, wearing a sharply tailored dark gray coat, her steps leisurely.

Yan Zheng closed the flora book and rested it on his knees, reaching his right hand into the canvas bag to touch the binoculars without lifting them.

There was no need.

Through the Mental Link, he sent a remote command to No. 8 Skeleton Soldier.

No. 8 was not in Central Park. No. 8 was lurking during the day on the roof of an apartment building in the Upper West Side, two kilometers away.

But the system's remote passive scanning function did not require the creation to be present. Yan Zheng's own Mental Power radiation range was already sufficient.

He closed his eyes, and his Mental Power extended northward from the Central Park bench, passing through the withered yellow lawn and several bare elm trees.

The system panel popped up the scanning results.

The first one.

[X-Gene signal detected. Target 1: Female, height approx. 175cm. Gene activation level: Top-tier. Ability type: Weather Manipulation. Material value assessment: Extremely High. Vital signs: Robust. Status: Unable to harvest.]

Yan Zheng's Adam's apple bobbed.

The second one.

[Target 2: Male, height approx. 183cm. Wearing red quartz visor on face. Gene activation level: High. Ability type: Optic Impact Blast. Material value assessment: High.]

[Target 3: Male, height approx. 178cm, apparent age around twenty. Gene activation level: High. Ability type: Cryogenic Molecular Control. Material value assessment: High.]

[Target 4: Male, height approx. 185cm, abnormal back anatomical structure. Gene activation level: Mid-to-High. Ability type: Flight Wing Generation. Material value assessment: Mid-to-High.]

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ✧‸✧)

Four rows of gold-bordered assessments, all four qualities were High-tier or above.

His fingers unconsciously rubbed the cover of the flora book twice, his fingertips pressing against the cloth texture of the spine with much more force than when normally turning pages.

"Storm. Cyclops. Iceman. Angel."

"Mr. Charles Xavier's prized disciples. The core combat echelon of the X-Men."

Yan Zheng opened the flora book, pretending to look at an illustration on a page, his gaze drifting over the top of the pages to stare at the group of four on the path.

They weren't walking fast.

Storm was in front, speaking with a young mother pushing a stroller, her tone gentle and her gestures soft. The young mother's gaze lingered on Storm for a few seconds, her expression changing from tense to bewildered, before she finally nodded and continued pushing the stroller.

Cyclops walked two steps behind Storm, his red quartz visor gleaming with a dark red luster in the afternoon sun. Every few seconds, his head turned slightly, scanning the surrounding crowd and buildings.

Iceman and Angel walked at the very back. Iceman had his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, the temperature of his fingertips causing a thin layer of frost to form on the pocket fabric. Angel wore a loose trench coat, his back bulging with two unnatural curves, the cut of the coat clearly having undergone special modifications.

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ≖⌓≖˵)

"A reassurance patrol."

"Professor Xavier sent them to make appearances in human communities to show a friendly gesture. Trying to lower the public's fear of Mutants before the bill vote."

"A public relations tactic."

His gaze lingered on Storm for an extra three seconds.

The assessment line in the corner of the system panel was still hanging there: Weather Manipulation, Top-tier, material value extremely high.

"Weather Manipulation."

"Storms, lightning, hail, tornadoes. All meteorological phenomena within the atmosphere are within her range of control."

"If I could get this gene and splice it into the core module of a Scourge-class creation..."

Yan Zheng's fingers froze on the pages of the flora book.

He turned that thought over in his mind, looked at the other side, and then discarded it.

"No."

"Even the weakest of the four, Angel, is Mid-to-High tier. Storm is Top-tier."

"Going after her is equivalent to declaring war on the entire X-Men."

"With my current legion size, even fighting Project Purity's four-man field squad requires deploying three creations. Fighting the X-Men?"

Yan Zheng's gaze shifted away from Storm, landing on a withered leaf on the ground in front of the bench.

Pushed by the wind, the withered leaf slid two centimeters, getting stuck in a mud crack at the edge of the lawn and stopping.

"If you can't digest it, you shouldn't force-swallow it."

"This Yan has basic manners at the dining table."

He closed the flora book, put it into his canvas bag, pulled out his phone from the side pocket, and saved a copy of the gene scan data of the four people from the system panel into an independent file.

He thought for two seconds about the file name.

"Mr. System, create a new folder."

"Name it 'Wish List'."

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ✧ᗜ✧˵)

[Folder created: Wish List.]

"Save the genetic data of Storm, Cyclops, Iceman, and Angel inside."

"Mark the priority: Storm is the highest, Angel is the lowest."

"Add a note: Living target, currently unobtainable, long-term observation."

[Saved. Current targets in Wish List: 4.]

Yan Zheng stood up, slung the canvas bag over his shoulder, and walked south along the path at the edge of the lawn.

Behind him, more than a hundred meters away, the X-Men group of four continued north along the walkway, the distance between them widening.

He didn't look back.

After walking twenty steps, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was a text message from Old Jack.

He pulled out his phone and took a look.

A line of text: Boss, there's movement from The Brotherhood. A batch of newcomers has arrived from the direction of Westchester, quite a lot of them.

Yan Zheng read the text message twice, his thumb rubbing the edge of the screen.

"Westchester."

"Xavier's School's territory. The Brotherhood sending people in that direction—are they planning to cause trouble at their old rival's doorstep?"

"Or is Magneto testing the X-Men's bottom line regarding the Act?"

He slid his phone back into his pocket, his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting a bright white arc in the afternoon sun.

"Mr. System, keep the Wish List on hold for now."

"You can't rush the menu of the living; you have to wait for the right timing."

"But if the Act passes in two weeks, and the X-Men and The Brotherhood really start fighting..."

Yan Zheng stepped on a dry, cracked sycamore leaf on the path, the crushing sound of its veins crisp and brief.

"Those who fall on the battlefield don't get to choose who harvests them."

"Mr. No. 8."

In the Mental Link, a green pulse lit up.

"Change the patrol route tonight. Extend it five kilometers toward Westchester."

"Let's see what kind of caliber these newcomers from The Brotherhood are."

"And while you're at it, count how many Metal Manipulation users they brought along."