A Big Fish

"Hahaha, I'm invincible!" Feeling his entire body surging with explosive power, the burly criminal couldn't help looking up at the sky with his arms spread wide, completely euphoric. Then, he snapped his head down, locked onto Yu Xian with a manic laugh, and lunged forward, throwing rapid punches. Yu Xian, however, merely shifted left and right, casually evading each blow with small steps. The burly criminal failed to realize that all his attacks had been completely read. He felt exceedingly good about himself, lost in the delusion that he could shatter the earth with a single punch. This man was named Sun Youhu, technically a martial artist. Adopted by a master at a young age to temper his sinews and bones, he had succumbed to a common human perversity: never cherishing what came easily, and always obsessing over what he lacked. He had zero interest in martial arts; all he wanted was money—a massive fortune! Lacking dedication to his training and repeatedly sneaking down the mountain to gamble, he was ultimately expelled from his sect upon reaching adulthood. Thereafter, he chased wealth and pleasure, using the meager strength gained from his half-hearted training to bully ordinary people for cash. In the end, he was reported and swiftly crushed by the combat police. For robbing a mere ten yuan, he was sentenced to twenty years. In prison, he met these like-minded scoundrels. Once released after serving their sentences, the five of them hit it off immediately and began roaming from city to city, committing crimes wherever they went. At thirty-eight years old, he had only Insect-rank strength—essentially a weakling. Yet after injecting the mysterious drug, he felt as though he could kill an ox with a single blow. It felt magnificent. "Die, die, die, die, die!" Seeing that he couldn't land a single blow on Yu Xian, Sun Youhu instinctively broke into the Tiger Fist he had practiced for decades without ever mastering. Faced with Sun Youhu's sudden shift in style, Yu Xian simply dropped toward the ground. A tiny spatial bubble on the pavement expanded rapidly; Yu Xian passed through it, emerged in a bubble suspended in midair, and brought a foot down directly onto Sun Youhu's head. "What did you inject yourself with?" Yu Xian asked, looking down at Sun Youhu beneath his foot. Were he not curious about the injection, he had the power to crush Sun Youhu to death with a single stomp right then and there. How could Sun Youhu possibly answer? He immediately clawed at his own head with both hands, but Yu Xian lightly kicked off and vanished into thin air. Before Sun Youhu could even react, a kick caught him across the cheek, sending him crashing heavily into a wall. The next moment, Yu Xian turned his gaze toward the other criminals who had injected the drug. A short criminal immediately kicked off a wall and lunged forward. Yu Xian furrowed his brows slightly and produced a cluster of bubbles. One of them collided with the charging criminal, whose eyes rolled back into his head as he instantly lost consciousness. In the dark of night, the spatial bubbles were practically invisible. Before the remaining three criminals could realize what was happening, bubbles struck them. In less than five seconds, all of them were incapacitated. Sun Youhu struggled up from the collapsed wall, grabbed a handful of broken masonry bricks, and hurled them at Yu Xian. But Yu Xian vanished instantly and reappeared behind him. A kick struck the back of Sun Youhu's head, and Sun Youhu rolled his eyes back, blacking out on the spot. During the fight, Yu Xian had already attached a bubble to the back of Sun Youhu's head. Whenever he wanted to strike, he could have taken him out in an instant. However, Yu Xian had been practicing how to teleport faster lately, and this was an ideal opportunity to hone his skills on them. At present, he could compress the entire teleportation process to within one second. His goal was to execute it within 0.01 seconds. Once he could do that, his movements would become far swifter and more effortless, enabling him to pull off even more miraculous maneuvers. About ten minutes later, combat police cruisers arrived. Stepping out of his car, Zhang Kai first ordered his subordinates to load the unconscious criminals into the vehicles. He then walked over to Yu Xian and Zhang Shou, asking curiously, "Don't you guys ever sleep at night?" "Captain Zhang, look at the dark circles under your eyes. Do you really have the nerve to lecture us?" Zhang Shou smiled energetically. Over the past few days, he had badgered the doctors at the Qilin local office to prepare a painless medication for him to trigger his passive reset. Every day shortly before midnight, he would proactively refresh his status. Theoretically, he wouldn't even begin feeling sleepy until noon the next day. Yu Xian explained, "We just happened to pick up movement from these foolish thieves, so we came over to lie in wait. Looks like we caught a big fish after all." As he spoke, he told Zhang Kai about how Sun Youhu and the others had injected the drug, multiplying their strength tenfold. "Tenfold? Are you sure?" Zhang Kai's eyes widened. Yu Xian nodded. "I tested it specifically. Otherwise, I would've kicked that big guy to death long ago." With his current strength, never mind Sun Youhu gaining ten times his power—even with twenty times, Yu Xian could still have crushed him with a single kick. "Then we definitely need to dig into this thoroughly," Zhang Kai said seriously. The three decided to return to the Public Security Bureau together to interrogate Sun Youhu and his crew once they woke up and find out where the drug had come from. "Tenfold... that's ridiculous. If it works across any rank..." Zhang Kai murmured incredulously as he drove. Yu Xian sat in the back seat and remarked calmly, "It's unlikely to work on every rank, or it'd be completely broken." At lower ranks, it was manageable, but if it worked on Tiger ranks or Dragon-ranks, the implications would be terrifying. Upon returning to the Public Security Bureau, the five suspects were placed into separate interrogation rooms. Yu Xian followed Zhang Kai into Sun Youhu's interrogation room. "Wake him up," Zhang Kai instructed a young combat officer nearby. The young officer delivered several sharp slaps across Sun Youhu's face, swelling his cheeks, but successfully stirring him from unconsciousness. "Sun Youhu, thirty-eight years old, released from prison six months ago. After getting out, you partnered with your fellow inmates Zhong Fa, Kang Jimao, Wang Hao, and Xu Long to commit multiple robberies and burglaries, injuring or crippling fifteen eyewitnesses in the process. Am I correct?" Zhang Kai opened a folder and selectively read through Sun Youhu's criminal record. Sun Youhu felt a burning pain in his cheeks. Glancing at Yu Xian, he snorted coldly, "Since you already know everything so clearly, kill me, slice me up... do whatever you want!" "I'm asking you: where did the drug you injected today come from?" Zhang Kai pivoted sharply. Sun Youhu stiffened his neck and stayed silent, glaring viciously at Yu Xian. "Given the financial situation of scumbags like you, buying it was definitely out of the question. Spill it... where did you steal it from?" Yu Xian asked with a smile, looking at Sun Youhu. Zhang Kai said sternly, "Leniency for confession. You should know by now that we never go easy on Transcendent criminals. If you don't want us using our methods on you, you'd better answer the questions honestly." In an instant, Sun Youhu recalled the first time he had ended up in the Public Security Bureau, acting like a brazen rogue and refusing to confess. He had assumed the police couldn't touch him without evidence, but they had never intended to bother with evidence in the first place. Remembering what followed made his legs shake involuntarily even now. "In... in the Cloud Warehouse north of the city." "Which warehouse number?" "Thirty-five... no, Warehouse 32. We just wanted to steal some food, but we didn't expect to find a lot of high-tech-looking equipment inside. We didn't dare mess around, so we just grabbed a briefcase and ran. The drugs were inside it." "Where is the briefcase?" "Threw it away." "Where did you throw it?" "A dumpster on an outer street in the south of the city." "How did you know what the drug does?" "Jimao... no, Kang Jimao injected... injected a dog with it. We saw the dog get stronger, and the only side effect was that it was listless for two days." Having obtained the answers they needed, Yu Xian and Zhang Kai exchanged a glance. After issuing a stern warning to Sun Youhu, they promptly left the interrogation room.