Two in the morning, in the east of the city, at Whispering Yinhua.
Whispering Yinhua was a shop specializing in purchasing silver and refining it into mithril, elixir silver, and pellet silver before selling it to customers.
Due to the nature of the trade—where a single sale could sustain them for three years—the shop was located on the second floor of an equipment store. The storefront was tiny, yet the interior was surprisingly deep. Though small as a sparrow, it had all the vital organs: not only an elixir refinement room and an alchemy lab, but also a massive silver vault.
Tonight, a gang of roving Transcendents from Rongcheng had set their sights on Whispering Yinhua's silver vault.
To be fair, these men were truly something else. They had already been wanted for prior offenses, and when Rongcheng initiated a citywide medical screening in response to Silver City's aberrant worm incident, they fled into the wilderness outside the city for fear of exposure.
After putting their heads together, they decided that the most dangerous place was the safest place. So, as soon as the restrictions in Silver City were lifted, they slipped inside.
If they managed to successfully steal a fortune in silver from Whispering Yinhua and slip out of the city overnight, the money from this single haul would keep them living comfortably outside the law for a long time.
Roaming crimes like this were notoriously difficult to investigate. Without Yu Xian, the chances of this gang pulling it off would have been remarkably high.
Right now, however, Yu Xian was sitting in the airspace above Whispering Yinhua, waiting like a hunter lying in wait.
He was pitch-black all over, completely non-reflective, so no one looking up would ever notice him.
Meanwhile, atop a tall building one kilometer away from Whispering Yinhua, Zhang Shou and Gong Qian held binoculars, monitoring the situation just as closely.
Additionally, perched atop a utility pole to the right of Whispering Yinhua, Qingniao crouched in the form of a bird, equally inconspicuous.
Just then, a minivan drove up from the front and stopped next to the utility pole. Five minutes later, five people got out of the vehicle and crept stealthily toward the alley beside the equipment store.
At the end of the alley, on the right-hand side, stood a door.
One of the men placed his hand against the door. Instantly, the metal warped, opening a hole large enough for an adult to pass through.
"Time to move," Yu Xian said with a smile upon seeing this.
Vandalizing the entrance was irrefutable evidence in the Transcendent world, so Yu Xian and the others had no need to wait until they actually broke inside the shop before striking.
In truth, different countries handled Transcendent criminals in different ways. Some nations had so few Transcendents that even criminals received leniency—such as being drafted into breeding programs.
Huaxia, however, had never wavered in its stance since the emergence of Transcendents: strict and severe. When dealing with Transcendent criminals caught red-handed, the tactical police units possessed the authority to use unlimited force—in plain terms, if they were beaten to death, they had it coming.
Precisely because domestic laws were so harsh on Transcendents, Yu Xian and Zhang Shou had never suffered harassment or bullying from any Transcendent back when they were ordinary citizens.
Hearing Yu Xian's call, Qingniao was the first to strike.
She dived from the top of the utility pole, transforming into human form the moment she entered the alley. Striking at three times the speed of sound, she kicked one of the criminals squarely in the torso. A crisp crack echoed as his ribs shattered, and his entire body flew backward, slamming hard into the wall at the end of the alley.
"Damn it, cops! Run!"
The remaining four criminals paled in horror. Three rushed back toward the mouth of the alley, while the one who had just opened the door gritted his teeth and bolted inside.
The three burst out of the alley; one darted to the left, while the other two sprinted toward the minivan.
Boom!
At that moment, Gong Qian descended howling through the sky, her tiny frame packing immense power.
She slammed down directly onto the minivan. The vehicle exploded on impact, bursting into roaring flames.
From a short distance away, the two criminals looked at Gong Qian standing atop the wreckage, completely ignoring the flames while cracking her knuckles. Promptly and practicedly, they dropped to their knees, clasping their hands behind their heads.
This violent little girl was way beyond anything they could handle.
The other criminal hadn't even run fifty meters before a bullet struck the ground right in front of him. He froze instantly. As bullet after bullet kicked up dust around his feet, he began trembling like a sieve and hastily raised his hands in surrender.
In the distance, Zhang Shou held a sniper rifle with a look of helpless exasperation. He had been aiming for the man's legs, yet hadn't landed a single shot.
Inside Whispering Yinhua, the masked criminal bolted forward desperately while searching for any window he could escape through.
Suddenly, he saw someone hanging upside down from the ceiling ahead. Before he could react, something seized the back of his neck, and his world spun out of control. By the time his senses returned, he was already out on the street outside Whispering Yinhua.
He was pinned face-down against the asphalt, someone's foot pressing firmly on his head.
"You'd better not move, or suffer the consequences," Yu Xian warned, keeping his foot planted on him.
His appearance on the ceiling wasn't to look cool. Rather, the bubble he had placed in advance inside Whispering Yinhua happened to be near the ceiling. To avoid dropping straight to the floor when stepping out of it, he had to coat the soles of his feet with energy to stick himself there.
What followed was simple: he directed a microscopic bubble behind the criminal, teleported behind him to grab him by the neck, and then teleported them both out onto the street.
The dizzying sensation the criminal felt was caused by the lack of gravity inside the bubble combined with oxygen deprivation from Yu Xian's grip on his neck.
Next, after slapping superalloy handcuffs on all five men, Yu Xian contacted Zhang Kai to come take them away.
The five criminals squatted in a row against the wall. As the team gathered together, Zhang Shou grumbled, "That's it? I thought they'd be some vicious, hardcore thugs."
"Since they're caught, I'm heading back to sleep," Gong Qian said, stifling a yawn.
Yu Xian nodded. "Alright. Good work, Vice-Captain."
"Mm, you too. Bye-bye," Gong Qian mumbled drowsily, her eyelids already drooping.
She rarely stayed up late; to grow taller, she had always maintained a strict sleep schedule, so staying awake past two in the morning was exceptionally rare for her.
Qingniao felt a bit uneasy letting Gong Qian go alone, so after letting Yu Xian and Zhang Shou know, she left with Gong Qian to return to the office dormitories.
Neither had a home in Silver City, so both currently stayed in the office dormitories—the very rooms where Yu Xian had once stayed with Zhang Shou.
Once Gong Qian and Qingniao were gone, the criminals began quietly exchanging glances.
In truth, the one they feared most was Gong Qian. Watching her crush a minivan into an exploding fireball with her bare body while coming out completely unscathed made it clear as day that even if they unleashed their ultimate trump cards, they stood no chance against her.
Without Gong Qian, however, the remaining two—Yu Xian and Zhang Shou—didn't seem particularly overwhelming. If they played their trump card, taking them down was definitely within the realm of possibility.
Five against two—the odds were in their favor.
Do we do it?
Let's do it!
Reaching a consensus with their eyes, one of the burly criminals let out a ferocious roar, lunging forward with both cuffed hands toward Yu Xian beside him.
Because they had been sitting against the wall, when Yu Xian dodged aside, the criminal's cuffed fists smashed directly into the masonry, obliterating the wall.
Another criminal swiftly moved behind the burly man, retrieved a syringe from the waist pouch behind him, and jammed it into the burly man's back.
Injected with the unknown drug, all the muscles across the burly criminal's body flushed crimson. His frame rapidly swelled in size, snapping the alloy handcuffs clean in two on the spot.
Chapter 53