Neon lights shimmered across nighttime New York, lending the city a far more fantastical glow than by day.
Outside a narrow alleyway.
BOOM!
A figure plummeted from the sky.
The ambient glare of distant neon swept over him, catching a fleeting glint of bronze and gold in the gloom.
Qi Li activated his super smell. He gave the alley an inquisitive sniff, confirmed his quarry, and headed straight in.
He hadn't walked far before stumbling upon a crime in progress in a shadowed corner.
Qi Li spared it a glance.
"Robbery! Hand over your cash and every piece of jewelry on you!"
A young white man in a baseball cap brandished a handgun, holding up a married couple and their small child.
The husband looked ready to resist, while his wife clung desperately to their young son.
Just then, hearing unhurried, brazen footsteps approaching, the young man whipped around to look—and froze.
"B-Bronze!" Panic immediately washed over his face as he stammered out the newcomer's name.
Qi Li didn't break his stride. He merely lifted a finger and tapped the air toward him.
Clatter!
Shaking like a leaf, the young man dropped his pistol. He cast a terrified glance at Bronze, waited two agonizing seconds, and bolted.
Seeing this unfold, the father was about to offer thanks alongside his wife and wide-eyed young son, Wayne, to the superhero who had stepped in just in time—only to find the man already gone.
All they heard was a distant scream.
Tracking the scent deeper down the alley, Qi Li came to a halt before a heavy iron door and knocked firmly.
The door's viewing hatch slid open, and a pair of wary eyes peered through. But the moment they landed on him, the suspicion instantly melted into effusive warmth.
"Well, if it isn't the famous Bronze! Welcome, welcome!"
The iron door swung wide.
Deafening music crashed against Qi Li's ears.
A man in a suit—evidently a doorman or bouncer—approached him with an obsequious grin.
Qi Li strode calmly inside without hesitation. "What is this place?" he asked casually.
The guard glanced at him with mild surprise, but answered nonetheless. "The Red Rooster Bar. A playground for superhumans like yourself, sir."
It clicked at once for Qi Li.
He had heard about this place before, though he'd never cared enough to investigate it.
He hadn't expected that tracking the superhuman Stan had assigned him to handle would lead him straight here.
Then again, it was indeed the most likely place to cross paths with superhumans.
The pounding music grew louder by the second. After traversing a long hallway, Qi Li emerged into a raucous, overwhelming spectacle.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary bar, but every patron inside was anything but normal.
Qi Li looked up, eyeing the air in bewilderment.
Two interracial couples, stripped stark naked, were spiraling upward in tandem through midair.
He was all too familiar with that maneuver.
What genuinely surprised him was the Black man and Black woman currently apart from each other.
If he remembered correctly, they were the Nubian Prince and Nubia Thunder—a couple notoriously loving on television.
People certainly knew how to party.
Trust this society to coin the term "open marriage."
The stench in the venue was overwhelmingly pungent.
Covering his nose with one hand, Qi Li pressed further inside.
To his left, a thumb-sized miniature man sprinted along a long table, leaped into the air, and dove flawlessly between a woman's welcoming thighs.
To his right, someone's nose elongated like an elephant's trunk, rapidly snorting up a miniature mountain of white powder.
Directly ahead, a waitress held a tray while several bottles of liquor floated into the air on their own, gliding toward a nearby booth.
Nearby, another woman stretched her waist to absurd lengths, snaking behind another woman below her.
The male superhero Shockwave—currently flanking two muscular men with his arms around them, letting loose shockwaves from his palms to alternate tensing and relaxing their muscles—brightened visibly when he spotted Qi Li and eagerly called out:
"Hey, Bronze! Care to join us?"
Qi Li glanced at him and threw a punch.
Shockwave's eyes rolled back, and he dropped like a rock, instantly knocked cold.
A few minutes later, Qi Li finally left the chaotic, debauched carnival behind.
Coming up to a private booth, he pushed the door right open.
A thick blend of illicit powder and alcohol assaulted his nostrils.
Qi Li surveyed the men and women sprawled out in a stupor, completely exhausted from their revelry.
His nose twitched with a quick sniff, homing in on an ordinary, non-superhuman man with dyed white hair.
Just then, a superhuman in the room stumbled to his feet, blearily reaching for an enhancement drug.
Without a word, Qi Li hauled him up by the collar and let fly with both hands, slapping him dozens of times.
He didn't stop until both of the man's cheeks had ballooned and his eyes were completely clear and terrified.
Only then did Qi Li point toward the white-haired man and ask, "Who is that guy?"
The hoisted superhuman felt a searing sting run from his face straight down to his soul.
Terrified of another barrage of slaps, he rattled off with crystal-clear lucidity, "Osvaldo Danica! The guy who's always supplied our powder!"
Qi Li casually tossed him aside, kicked several unconscious bodies out of the way, snagged an unopened bottle of liquor, and marched over to the slumbering, exhausted Osvaldo.
He poured the entire bottle over the man's face.
Moments later.
"Fuck..."
Splattered awake, Osvaldo instinctively cursed before he could even open his eyes properly.
The next second, he found himself dangling in midair as scorching pain erupted across both cheeks.
Before long, Osvaldo fell thoroughly in line.
Recognizing Bronze, he whined aggrievedly, "Bronze! If you want product, just say the word! I'll put you first in line and give you a discount! What need is there to—"
Smack!
Another slap.
Any trace of grievance vanished from Osvaldo's face.
"Where's Cast Iron?" Qi Li asked.
Osvaldo froze. "Cast Iron? You're not here for..."
Qi Li leveled a look at him.
Osvaldo reflexively shrank back, hastily changing his tune: "Cast Iron came to get a shipment two hours ago and left right after!"
No wonder this guy smelled more like Cast Iron than anyone else.
On commission from Vought's CEO, Stan Edgar, Qi Li's target on this assignment was none other than Cast Iron.
As for the reason:
His vile habit of drinking the blood of children who had died of leukemia, cystic fibrosis, and similar terminal diseases had been widely exposed.
Major outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post were already onto it; even after pulling strings, calling in favors, and shelling out PR hush money, Vought could only suppress the explosive scandal until tomorrow morning at best.
This was of a vastly more severe nature than superhumans accidentally killing a few bystanders or snorting powder.
It struck at the superhero brand image and Vought's stock price.
The best solution was to strike first—ensuring Cast Iron died a hero's death tonight to offset or outright overshadow the shockwave of tomorrow's scandal.
Normally, Vought handed dirty work like this to Black Noir.
Now, however, they had an undeniably better candidate for superhuman affairs.
Sure enough, the moment he heard about Cast Iron's heinous acts, Qi Li had agreed with righteous indignation and set out immediately.
At first, he had gone straight to the address Vought provided to apprehend Cast Iron, only to find the place empty. He then activated his super smell and tracked the scent all the way here.
Tracking him further, however?
New York was a metropolis of over ten million people. Picking out Cast Iron's trail amid millions of densely tangled scents—compounded by countless non-human odors—was no simple feat to accomplish in a single night.
Qi Li stared coldly at Osvaldo. "Where did Cast Iron go?"
Osvaldo shook his head frantically. "I don't know!"
Smack!
Qi Li flicked his wrist lightly and said flatly, "Next time, your head pops."
Clutching his swollen cheek, Osvaldo saw not the slightest hint of humor in Qi Li's expression. His pupils contracted violently as his mind raced.
Seeing Qi Li's palm poised to deliver the final strike, sparks practically flew from his gears before he finally sputtered, "I... I only know Cast Iron owns a mountain villa outside New York City! He and his team party there every so often to enjoy the goods I supply! The address is..."
Having committed the address to memory, Qi Li suddenly thought of something.
His nose twitched slightly, catching the faint metallic tang of dried blood lingering on Osvaldo.
"You're the one who supplied Cast Iron with the blood of those dead kids?" Qi Li asked.
Osvaldo swallowed hard. "I... My job is catering to the secret needs of superheroes! Cast Iron and the others asked for it, so I delivered! Besides, I paid for it! It was real cash on the barrelhead!"
Qi Li narrowed his eyes, seizing on a crucial detail. "'The others'?"
Realizing he had let too much slip in his panic, Osvaldo's face filled with instant regret.
Yet under Qi Li's suffocating, unyielding stare, terrified for his life, he could only spill everything with a trembling voice:
"Cast Iron likes tasting the despair in the blood... Card Burst thinks cards made from human skin handle better... Listening Ear joined some radical offshoot of the Mormons and likes holding purification rituals where he... eats human flesh... And then there's Wind Butterfly—her favorite hobby is crafting bone trinkets, but she won't touch adult bones."
Qi Li was truly having his eyes opened.
"So you're the one supplying them?" Qi Li asked.
Osvaldo hastened to explain, "I didn't do anything else! I bought it all for top dollar from the parents of those deceased kids! Truly! I'm not lying to you! At first, I had to go door-to-door asking around, but now plenty of parents call me themselves to negotiate prices!"
He added, "There was no other way. The kids were already dead, and the parents were drowning in debt, desperate for cash to scrape by. I was helping them!"
"And saving them the funeral costs to boot, right?" Qi Li offered with a sudden smile.
Osvaldo nodded eagerly, forcing a sycophantic grin.
Qi Li's smile vanished in an instant. He shook his head. "I bet you knocked on their doors under the pretense of medical research."
Panic washed over Osvaldo's features. "I..."
BANG!
In a flash, Osvaldo's head burst like a smashed watermelon, shattering into pieces.
A woman beside him happened to wake right at that moment. The instant she opened her eyes, she caught a thick, direct splatter across her face.
One blink, two blinks, three...
There was no third.
Her eyes rolled back, and she passed out cold.
Wiping the blood from his hands, Qi Li walked calmly out of the bar.
Getting his bearings, he shot into the sky, flying toward the outskirts of New York.
Chapter 91