108: Chapter 108 The Brotherhood's Recruitment

"By the way, count how many Metal Manipulation users they brought."

Four days after this order was issued, the answer hadn't returned yet, but the guest arrived first.

November 15th, 6:03 PM, Hells Kitchen, Ninth Avenue.

The Antique Shop's closing time was exactly 6:00. Yan Zheng had just flipped the handwritten business sign to the 'CLOSED' side, and the lock hadn't been fully turned yet.

The air pressure changed.

It wasn't the kind of change caused by wind outside; it was the backfilling of negative pressure caused by a high-speed object cutting through the air inside the shop. Yan Zheng's hair was blown, and the stray locks on his forehead flipped back by half an inch.

In the unfinished cup of black tea on the counter, a ripple appeared on the surface of the tea.

In the Mental Link, the Thunder Guard's silver-white pulse flickered, but it didn't trigger the alert threshold.

Because from appearance to stopping, it took less than 0.2 seconds in total.

A silver-haired young man stood three steps in front of the counter, his hands in his pockets, the corners of his mouth curled up, his posture as casual as if he were in his own living room.

He looked to be in his early twenties, lean, with high cheekbones, his silver-white short hair combed back into a slicked-back style, wearing a dark blue flight jacket with the zipper only halfway up, and a faded lightning symbol printed on the black T-shirt underneath.

Yan Zheng's hand was still resting on the door lock.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ )

He released the door lock, turned around, and the expression on his face transitioned smoothly from slight astonishment to the gentle smile of a shopkeeper, the connection as natural as if he had rehearsed it thirty times.

"Sir, this shop is already closed."

The silver-haired young man tilted his head and scanned the shop. His speed was so fast that the trajectory of his eyeballs was almost invisible, and his head just swayed slightly before stopping.

"Your shop is quite interesting." His speaking speed was extremely fast, with the interval between each word compressed to one-third of a normal person's, yet his pronunciation was clear. "Bronzeware, porcelain, and a Song Dynasty long sword. But there's a smell here. Disinfectant? No, a bit more pungent than disinfectant. Formaldehyde?"

Yan Zheng walked back behind the counter and gently pressed something underneath the countertop.

In the Mental Link, the Thunder Guard in the Underground Room received a Level 2 alert command.

"Your nose is very sharp, sir." Yan Zheng smiled and took a white porcelain cup from the tea set rack at the bottom of the counter. "It's a preservative used for restoring ancient books; the smell is indeed not very friendly."

"Give me a break." The silver-haired young man pulled one hand out of his pocket and drew a circle in the air with his finger, so fast that it left a trail of afterimages. "You know what I'm here for, and I know you're not just some Antique Shop owner. Can we save some time? Time isn't worth much to me anyway, but I have three more missions to run today."

Yan Zheng lifted the teapot and poured hot water into the white porcelain cup. The stream of water was steady and didn't tremble at all because of the other person's words.

"Then please introduce yourself, sir."

"Quicksilver." The young man grinned, revealing neat white teeth. "From The Brotherhood's Outreach Department under Magneto... what was it called... oh, liaison officer. Simply put, I'm an errand boy."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ⌓ ≖ ˵ )

The teacup was pushed to the edge of the counter, toward Quicksilver's direction.

"Please."

Quicksilver glanced at the teacup, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Too slow."

His figure blurred for 0.1 seconds.

The teapot in front of Yan Zheng was lifted and put back down, the white porcelain cup was filled to ninety percent, the lid was tilted by five degrees, and the teapot handle was facing the opposite direction.

Quicksilver was already holding the cup, taking the first sip. When his lips touched the rim, he got burned, frowned, and placed the cup on the display cabinet next to him.

"Too hot."

Yan Zheng straightened the lid of the teapot without commenting on the other person's behavior.

"Mr. Quicksilver, what is the reason Magneto's Brotherhood has come to find me here?"

Quicksilver's fingers tapped a rapid rhythm on the glass surface of the display cabinet, like machine-gun fire.

"Do you really not know? Or are you pretending not to know?" He tilted his head to look at Yan Zheng, his speaking speed still three times that of a normal person. "Over the past four months, seventy percent of the gangs in Hells Kitchen have been purged by a certain force. Three of The Hand's strongholds vanished overnight. That Military outpost in the Red Hook District was blown to smithereens. Kingpin? He simply disappeared from the power map of Manhattan."

Quicksilver pointed his index finger in Yan Zheng's direction.

"These events took The Brotherhood's intelligence department two months to piece together into a single thread. The end of it points to a Chinese man who runs an Antique Shop, lives on Ninth Avenue, and whose neighbors all say he's a very good person who often helps old ladies fix clocks."

Yan Zheng picked up his own cup of half-cooled black tea and took a sip.

"The neighbors are telling the truth."

"Cut the crap." Quicksilver leaned his hands on the counter, his body tilting forward, two strands of his silver-white short hair falling over his forehead. "My Lord Magneto is very interested in you. His exact words were: to be able to carry out a purge of this magnitude on human territory, you are either an extremely dangerous Mutant or an extremely dangerous non-human. Either way, it's worth a discussion."

Yan Zheng put down the teacup and crossed his hands on the counter.

"What does Mr. Magneto wish to discuss?"

Quicksilver's expression changed from a grinning face to a serious one. Although it only lasted two seconds, Yan Zheng caught that transformation.

"War is coming."

Quicksilver's speaking speed finally slowed down a bit, with an extra 0.1-second interval between each word.

"The Registration Act will be voted on in two weeks. Once passed, the human government will use a piece of legislation to turn all Mutants into traceable prey. My Lord Magneto said this is a declaration of war. We will not sit by and wait for death."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ͈ ꒳ ˘ ͈ )

"So?"

"So all Mutants with abilities should choose a side." Quicksilver returned to his normal speed, as fast as a player set to 1.5x speed. "Are you standing on our side, or are you waiting to be shot into paralysis by human inhibitor injection guns? Or are you waiting for those people from Project Purity to tie you onto an operating table? You must have seen their methods, right? People are being dragged away in The Bronx every week."

Yan Zheng's finger gently drew a circle on the counter.

"Mr. Quicksilver."

"Yeah?"

"I am not a Mutant."

Quicksilver's movements stopped.

Not a physical stop; his body was still swaying slightly, and the tips of his silver hair were still swaying slightly due to his previous high-speed movement. But his expression froze for 0.5 seconds.

"What did you say?"

"I am not a Mutant." Yan Zheng repeated, his tone calm, as if stating a fact about the dating of an antique.

Quicksilver stared at him for two seconds, his eyeball scanning frequency noticeably increased, sweeping back and forth over Yan Zheng's face, hands, and body silhouette.

"Impossible. Our detectors have detected high concentrations of unconventional energy residue near your shop, and the spectrum is highly consistent with Mutant gene activation signals."

"Perhaps your detectors need calibration."

Quicksilver's mouth opened and then closed. His fingers tapped another rapid rhythm on the display cabinet, the intervals even denser than before, revealing irritation.

"Then what exactly are you?"

Yan Zheng pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and the light reflected from the lenses slid across Quicksilver's face.

"An antique dealer."

Quicksilver sneered.

"An antique dealer who can erase Kingpin from the map of New York?"

Yan Zheng didn't respond to that, moved his hand away from the counter, picked up the cup of cold tea, and took another sip.

"You can tell Mr. Magneto that if there are opportunities for mutual benefit in the future, I would be very happy to... communicate."

Quicksilver stared at him for three seconds, the emotion in his eyes changing from confusion to a complex expression mixed with admiration and annoyance.

"You've got guts. Refusing My Lord Magneto's recruitment in the current situation is equivalent to hanging yourself on a target."

"I didn't refuse." Yan Zheng's smile was standard, very gentle, very much like an Antique Shop owner. "I just told the truth."

Quicksilver's body began to blur.

"I will convey your words. But I must remind you of one thing." His voice produced a slight Doppler effect during his high-speed movement, the pitch fluctuating high and low. "Two weeks from now, New York will become a battlefield. Those who don't pick a side will die the soonest."

The air pressure changed again, and a ripple appeared in the teacup on the counter once more.

Quicksilver was gone.

The Antique Shop returned to silence, with only the buzzing of the exhaust fan and the ticking of the old wall clock in the corner of the counter.

Yan Zheng stood there for five seconds, his fingers motionless on the counter.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ‸ ≖ ˵ )

He walked to the back door of the shop, pulled it open a crack, and cold air surged up from the Underground Room.

"Mr. Thunder Guard."

A silver-white pulse flickered in the Mental Link.

"Lift Level 2 alert."

The pulse returned to stability.

Yan Zheng closed the back door, walked back to the counter, sat down, and pressed his fingers against his temples twice.

From the time Quicksilver entered the shop to when he left, it took less than three minutes in total.

In those three minutes, Yan Zheng's heart rate remained at seventy-two, never exceeding seventy-five for even a second.

But his brain was working very fast now.

"The Brotherhood's intelligence network is wider than expected."

"They have locked onto the purge operation in Hells Kitchen, and might even know about the E.S.S. outpost."

"Quicksilver's speed made No. 8's Sentinel system completely ineffective; it wasn't triggered upon his entry or exit."

He picked up the enamel cup wanting to drink tea, realized it was empty, and put it down again.

"I've been noticed by more people."

"Fury, Project Purity, and now The Brotherhood."

"Three directions are watching me at the same time."

A scalpel was taken out of his pocket, the blade spinning once against his index finger; the cold touch of metal made his thoughts half as clear again.

"But Mr. Quicksilver gave me a piece of information."

"The Brotherhood's detectors detected unconventional energy residue."

"This means their technical means can perceive the spectral characteristics of Undead Energy."

"If Magneto comes in person, his magnetic field perception precision will be more than ten times that of the detector in Quicksilver's hands."

Yan Zheng put the scalpel back into his pocket, stood up, walked to the business sign on the wall, and flipped 'CLOSED' back to 'OPEN'.

"However, Magneto won't come in person."

"If he comes, it won't be recruitment; it will be judgment."

His fingers rubbed the edge of the door frame, the cracks in the wooden paint feeling rough under his fingertips.

"Mr. Quicksilver helped me convey a vague message. Mutual benefit, not picking a side."

"How will Magneto interpret this?"

"He will interpret it as me being an independent force with confidence, having utilization value, and not worth forcibly annexing for the time being."

Yan Zheng turned the door lock all the way, and put the key into his pocket.

"But this buffer period has an expiration date."

"Two weeks."

"After the bill is voted on, Magneto will no longer accept vague answers."

He stood in front of the locked door for two seconds, his gaze looking through the glass door at the streetlights on Ninth Avenue outside, the yellow light blurring into a circle in the evening mist.

"Within fourteen days, I need to make my trump cards thick enough that no one will dare to easily flip them over to look."