125: Chapter 125 Civil War Intensifies

"Mr. Yan, is your Underground Room on fire?"

When Liu Kun's call came in, Yan Zheng was squatting on the ground picking up the enamel mug that had been knocked over by the soundproofing board. A piece of the rim had chipped off, making it sharp to the touch. He rotated the mug half a turn, found a spot that wouldn't cut him, and gripped it.

"Mr. Liu, good morning."

"Forget 'good morning.' People over in Chinatown are saying that last night, Ninth Avenue was glowing with purple light, and some people smelled burning plastic. Don't tell me that was new tea."

Yan Zheng glanced at Scorch behind him. The Necromancer was standing next to the cooling pipe, the energy ball in its palm shrinking into a dark purple spark. The green phosphorus fire in its triangular eye sockets was as quiet as a new employee who had just started working and hadn't yet figured out the rules.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ≖ ⌓ ≖ )

"It definitely wasn't tea. It was new employee orientation."

"Your employee training is a bit loud. Old Jack asked me this morning if the Antique Shop has started selling cremation packages."

"Tell Mr. Jack that I am not expanding into the funeral business for the time being."

There was the sound of paper rustling on the other end of the line, along with Liu Kun's voice, muffled as he swore at someone, as if telling someone nearby not to interrupt.

"Let's talk business. It's been a full month since the act was enforced, and the number of attacks on U.S. registration centers has multiplied several times over. The Brotherhood isn't picking and choosing places anymore. Yesterday, a registration center in Chicago was bombed, and today, there's fighting in Boston again."

Yan Zheng dropped the broken enamel mug into the trash can. The bottom didn't land steadily, and it wedged crookedly against a wad of old newspapers.

"What about the X-Men?"

"Putting out fires everywhere. Cyclops and Storm were in Philadelphia the day before yesterday, and last night they flew to Baltimore. Their Blackbird is probably getting used like a taxi at this point."

"What about Project Purity's movements?"

"They've expanded. On the surface, they're called the Mandatory Containment Enforcement Team. The documents make it sound like they're rescuing stray cats, but in reality, they're just capturing unregistered Mutants."

Yan Zheng walked to the workbench and pulled open a drawer. Inside, a map of conflicts in New York was covered in red pencil marks. Red dots were crowded along the lines for The Bronx, Queens, Harlem, and Brooklyn, with small handwritten notes from Liu Kun stuck to the edges.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ㅍ ω ㅍ ˵ )

"Rescuing stray cats."

Hearing him repeat it, Liu Kun immediately replied.

"Don't laugh. That's what they said at their own press conference: 'Protecting dangerous super-powered individuals from societal harm.' I almost spat my noodles all over my phone when I heard it."

"Noodles?"

"Beef brisket noodles. Liu Kun has to eat too. You're the type of person who drinks tea like it's gasoline, so don't discriminate against carbohydrates."

Yan Zheng wedged his old phone between his shoulder and ear, picked up the red pencil with his fingers, and added a circle next to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

"How many conflicts are in New York today?"

"Four on the surface, maybe six in the shadows. The Morlocks say that a peripheral squad of The Brotherhood is going to The Bronx to take apart a temporary registration vehicle. Project Purity has two vehicles in Queens. Someone on Fury's side leaked a bit of information saying that S.H.I.E.L.D. is arguing internally about whether to intervene."

"Is Mr. Fury finally unable to sit still?"

"I don't know if he can sit still or not, but the people under him are about to go crazy. In their reports, they're now calling you the 'Underground Cleaning Anomaly.'"

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ✧ ᗜ ✧ )

"The names are getting less and less aesthetic."

There was a silence on Liu Kun's end, as if someone had handed him a piece of paper. After reading it, his speech slowed down.

"One more thing. Callisto sent word. She said that last night, Morlocks scouts saw Brotherhood scouts in all three of their peripheral tunnels. There weren't many of them, but the route was wrong."

"How is it wrong?"

"They didn't head toward the registration centers. They were skirting around underground traffic nodes, as if they were looking for city-wide broadcasting equipment and subway power stations."

Yan Zheng's red pencil stopped on the map. The tip poked through the paper, revealing the wood grain of the workbench underneath.

"Is Magneto coming?"

The other end of the line went quiet. Liu Kun didn't answer immediately. Someone nearby asked in a hushed voice if the boss was still going to talk, and Liu Kun shooed them away.

"Callisto's exact words: 'The Iron King is coming to handle New York personally.'"

"The Iron King."

"That's what they call him in the underground circles. Don't judge his nickname for being cheesy; he can twist subway tracks into a pretzel."

"I'm not judging. It's quite intuitive."

Yan Zheng put down the red pencil and walked to the center of the Underground Room. Scorch's triangular eye sockets followed him. Knight, Gunner, Brute, and the other creations stood by in turn. The phosphorus fire throughout the Underground Room was pressed into an eerie color by the dark purple light on the new Necromancer.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ≖ ‸ ≖ ˵ )

"What else did Callisto say?"

"She said that if Magneto comes to New York himself, Professor X will definitely come. Once the two sides clash, all of The Brotherhood's peripheral squads will be mobilized. Registration centers, police stations, TV stations, bridges, subways—everything could turn into a battlefield."

"The scale of death?"

"She didn't give a number. She just told you to prepare bags in advance."

Yan Zheng looked down at the box of body bags under the workbench. The lid had warped from the heatwave last night and wouldn't close, revealing the neatly folded black plastic inside.

"She's getting better at business."

"Mr. Yan, are you really going to get involved? That's Magneto and Professor X, not some street-level Brotherhood squad."

"Mr. Liu, let me correct you: I am not getting involved."

He raised his hand and tapped a few high-conflict areas on the map, then drew lines connecting the Queens registration sub-center, The Bronx traffic node, and the Harlem underground entrance.

"I only clean up after they're done fighting."

Liu Kun sighed, as if he had put down his chopsticks.

"Every time you say 'clean up,' my warehouse ends up short a batch of formalin."

"Put it on my tab."

"Of course it's on your tab. The problem is that the supplier asked me recently if I'm planning to open a seafood market."

Yan Zheng looked at the map, his fingertip pausing on the point in the northwest where the Project Purity vehicle had disappeared. The signal had cut out halfway through the tracking, which meant there were shielding facilities there.

"How is the investigation into Project Purity's northwest facility going?"

"I found three possible locations: an abandoned pharmaceutical factory, an old Military storage area, and a private logistics park. The documents are abnormally clean."

"Abnormally clean means someone has scrubbed them."

"I have people watching them, but if Magneto comes, the people tailing them might all have to pull back."

"Pull them back. People are more valuable than information."

The other end of the line went quiet again. After a while, he lowered his voice.

"Mr. Yan, that sentence actually sounded quite human."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ Ծ ω Ծ )

"Mr. Liu, your misunderstanding of me has always been quite deep."

"I don't misunderstand you. I just still want to live until retirement."

After the call was disconnected, Yan Zheng didn't put the phone down immediately. Liu Kun's call log was still lit up on the screen, and a message from Old Jack popped up on the side. The content was only one sentence.

"Don't come for a drink tonight. The smell on the street is wrong."

Yan Zheng looked at the sentence and placed the phone face down on the table.

"Mr. System, update the real-time conflict map. Reorganize the six Reinforced Skeleton Soldiers into a corpse-collection squad. No. 8 and No. 9 are responsible for Queens, No. 10 and No. 11 for Harlem, and No. 12 and No. 13 for The Bronx."

[ Updated. ]

"Knight, Brute, Gunner, and Scorch, remain in the Underground Room and stand by."

Scorch's palm flame flared up for a moment, and the temperature in the Underground Room rose accordingly. Yan Zheng turned his head to look at it.

"Mr. Scorch, don't be nervous. You aren't going out for now."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ ˵ )

"A new employee running into Magneto on their first day? The workers' compensation insurance wouldn't cover it."

At this moment, the system panel popped up a relay message from the Morlocks tunnel.

[ Emergency contact from Callisto. ]

[ Content: Core members of The Brotherhood have entered New York. Magnetic field anomalies are covering the northern end of Manhattan. Suspected to be Magneto's advance deployment. ]

Yan Zheng's fingers pressed against the edge of the map, crinkling the paper.

"Reply to Callisto: All Morlocks are to retreat into the secondary tunnels. Do not go near the main subway lines. Do not touch any metal doors."

[ Sent. ]

He walked to the entrance of the Underground Room and looked up at the stairs leading to the first floor of the Antique Shop. Faint sounds of car horns from the street drifted down from upstairs, along with police cars passing by in the distance, their sounds muffled by the walls.

"Gentlemen, the weather is about to change for the harvest season."

He reached out and picked up the gray coat hanging on the wall. The cuff had a curled edge from being scorched by the heatwave last night. He tried to smooth it out, but it wouldn't flatten, so he left the curl as it was.

In a battle of that magnitude, casualties would not be calculated in terms of people.