Night Raider Type-III Armed Helicopter!

Rain crashed down in sheets. The wind howled. Flames clawed flamboyantly at the sky and stretched the shadows of the two figures at the rooftop's edge far out across the dark. "Jump!" Bai Zhou said. "We have to jump." "Jump again?" Fang Xiaoxia's eyes went wide. She remembered jumping off that lump of tin before. "From here? Are we riding the paper airplane again?" The girl looked rather expectant. "Not this time." Bai Zhou shook his head. "The paper airplane is on cooldown. We can't board that vehicle again anytime soon." Fang Xiaoxia was struck blank. "Then how do we get down?" She looked him over from head to toe, and found not a single "tool" on him that could fly. Except the closed... black umbrella in Bai Zhou's hand. Could it be this? Fang Xiaoxia blinked twice. But then she thought it over. This was an umbrella, not a parachute. There was no way he could drift slowly down out of the sky under an umbrella like a character in an anime... There wasn't, right? Going by everything that had already happened, Little Fang did not dare make any reckless claim. After all, not even the most childish cartoon or the most unreasonable fairy tale had ever had anyone ride a paper airplane at four hundred kilometers an hour... But before Little Fang could think any further, Bai Zhou's hand had already come down on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid." His voice carried encouragement, as if he were about to do something. "Where we come from, there's a story that goes like this." Bai Zhou told it offhand. "A hen hatched a strange chick out of an egg. It had black feathers and a pointed head." "This chick often envied the eagles in the sky, and longed to soar as freely as they did. "But the mother hen and its brothers and sisters all told it, don't be a fool. You're a chicken. You were born to be penned up by humans and eaten. You're destined for the ground. A chick can only walk on land." This story...? Fang Xiaoxia's eyes were blank. It sounded a bit like the Ugly Duckling! "I think I can guess what happens next." Expectation came into Fang Xiaoxia's eyes. Sure enough, she soon heard Bai Zhou say, "Until one day, on a certain cliff, it met an eagle." "The eagle said, you aren't a chicken. You're an eagle. You were born a creature of the sky, and you have the power to fly." Fang Xiaoxia put on an expression that said she had known it all along. "I can guess the rest." "The eagle taught the chick to fly, and then the chick went back to the eagles?" "And while it was teaching, the eagle maybe even kicked the chick off the cliff." Fang Xiaoxia's expression turned odd. "In the panic, the chick flapped its wings and learned to fly." Stitching the fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling together with that chicken-soup story of an eagle teaching a chicken to fly... Where had this patched-up tale even come from? Fang Xiaoxia muttered it in her heart. "Not quite." But Bai Zhou shook his head. "The aged eagle did kick the chick off the cliff. But the chick flapped in midair for ages and still couldn't fly. At the critical moment the eagle came down out of the sky, opened its beak, and swallowed the helpless chick straight into its belly." "'Thank heaven for this meal it has granted,' so said the aged eagle." Fang Xiaoxia: "?" Oh no. This chicken soup was toxic! "So this story tells us not to trust a stranger's words so easily." Bai Zhou offered the moral he had learned. "And you must see clearly who you are. Don't harbor unrealistic delusions." The instant the words fell. Bai Zhou's hand suddenly drove hard. Standing at the edge of the rooftop, Fang Xiaoxia felt a shove come through the palm he had set on her shoulder. "...What?" Her weight pitched. Her feet stepped suddenly onto nothing. In the instant the wild wind poured into her ears, Fang Xiaoxia finally understood what had happened. Unable to believe it, the girl turned her head toward the boy beside her. The last thing to enter her eyes was Bai Zhou's profile in the wind and rain, blurred, and calm. The white dress flew in the wind. The girl was pushed by the boy from the top of the rooftop. The view stretched and warped with the speed of the fall. The girl's cry deformed in the wind. "Murder! This is murder—ahhhhh!!!" Falling. Falling. Icy rain slapped at random across her face. But right after that, a black shadow leapt from the rooftop's edge at the end of her vision, faster even than she was falling! Bai Zhou plunged into the storm-tossed heights. The instant his figure drew near Fang Xiaoxia, both arms opened and spread to either side. "Rrrip!" Beneath both ribs, the black gliding windbreaker suddenly thrust out two sheets of fiber membrane. Like wings, they billowed open in an instant, joining the coat from beneath his ribs to his cuffs. "Shua!" The black shadow skimmed through the air, as if a bat had crossed a pitch-black rainy night. Using the falling figure of the screaming girl in the white dress as his line, the gliding shadow had only to reach out and lock her firmly into his arms. "An eagle is born belonging to the sky. But a chick is not necessarily unable to beat its wings." Only then did Bai Zhou's voice arrive, still clear in the howling wind. Fang Xiaoxia's scream cut off short. The sound choked in her throat. All she could do was instinctively seize the cloth at the chest of the person in front of her. Like a koala hugging a tree, she wound all four clumsy limbs around the boy's waist, and kept squirming and rubbing against him, unable to stay still. "But you were never any ugly duckling to begin with, little fire dragon." He spoke low beside the girl's ear. "You belong to this world." "Besides, a creature like a human is born longing to fly." Fang Xiaoxia stared, dazed. Riding the inertia of the dive, they passed through the turbulent air. A smooth arc skimmed the low sky, and in the blink of an eye they had flown a long way. Like a knight of the dark night crossing the heights, the pitch-black windbreaker spread and became gliding wings. There always seemed to be an endless supply of wondrous gear on this man. "What are you, Batman?" Fang Xiaoxia muttered. She had thought she was finished. But just as Bai Zhou had said before, in the air beyond the elevated bridge— "You jump, I jump." The roaring wind echoed at her ears. The icy rain was cut off by the airflow. The heart of the girl clinging tight to the boy thudded without stop, and her cheeks flushed so red they were nearly purple. Luckily it was dark, and none of it showed. "Thud!" Two streets away, Bai Zhou bent his legs slightly. With a muffled sound, he landed smooth and steady, the girl in his arms. Water sprayed from a puddle brimming with rain. The instant Bai Zhou's feet touched down, the gliding wings snapped shut with a shua, folded, and quietly shrank back inside the windbreaker, as if they had never been there. "Sorry. This was the most efficient way to escape." Bai Zhou said calmly. "Also, you can let go now." "...You're holding on too close. I can hardly breathe." Bai Zhou felt he was about to suffocate. Facing the girl in his arms, he did not dare move either hand at all. They simply hung in the air. "Oh—oh oh oh!" Fang Xiaoxia at once let go of the limbs wrapped around Bai Zhou as if she had been shocked, and like a startled rabbit she hit the ground and hopped backward. Her white canvas shoes splashed in a puddle. The water struck the white socks showing at her ankles, and her heels pattered on the soaked ground. Bai Zhou raised a hand and seriously smoothed, twice, the stubborn tuft the wind had mussed on top of his head, then propped the somewhat misshapen collar of the windbreaker back up. "We have to get in a car again." "Where are we going next?" Bai Zhou thought seriously. In his mind he called up a map of Tinghai City he had seen a long time ago. "The highest mountain in Tinghai City... it's called Zhenlu Mountain, isn't it?" Bai Zhou asked. "The view from there ought to be the best, too." "It should be." Fang Xiaoxia nodded, uncertain. After all, she rarely went out. No friend would ever call her away on a trip, and she herself would never go climb a mountain alone. "A lot of people say you'll have good luck if you see white egrets there, but if we go at this hour we definitely won't see any... Why bring it up all of a sudden?" "We're going there. Now." Bai Zhou settled on the destination, as if the plan were already complete in his hands. "It's so late. What are you going there to do?" Fang Xiaoxia asked, curious. "To the highest peak in Tinghai?" "Because I need the highest stage." Bai Zhou said, "On Tinghai's highest stage, I'll expose someone before the entire world." "The highest stage?" A mutter rose in Fang Xiaoxia's heart. A big star? You're awfully flashy. "But we have to be quick." Bai Zhou turned to look at the golden flame-light on the far horizon. In the perception of the ritual, ever since the two of them had parted, the Gem Witch—who knew Bai Zhou's identity—had been excited past all limit, simply as if she had been pumped full of adrenaline. Anyone who didn't know better would think Bai Zhou had promised the witch some outrageous reward before he left... "We don't have much time left." He raised his hand and glanced at his wristwatch. "Best to finish everything that needs doing at the same time the witch finds a figure of enough standing." He had not forgotten the plan he had discussed with the witch before. Settle the troubles they had run into one by one, including the problem of Fang Xiaoxia's body. Everything at present was in fact advancing in order, according to Bai Zhou's plan. Only time... The time on the wristwatch was already nearing 11:30. Until midnight, only half an hour remained. In this last half hour, Bai Zhou still had a great deal to do. He had to ruin the Major's plan. He had to make the whole of the Major's Ascension to Sainthood appear before the world. On this, Bai Zhou already had his plan set. All of it had to be prepared within this half hour. And for the Major, who was about to complete the final step of his Ascension to Sainthood and could not permit any variable to interfere, this half hour was without question a desperate countdown between life and death. The man surnamed Luo would spare no cost to wipe him out, this unstable factor. Both sides were racing the clock. For instance... now. On the silent long street, Bai Zhou glanced toward the distant intersection. Besides the urgent sound of wind and rain, a rhythmic shua-shua—like many brushes scraping the ground at once—came out of the depths of the hazy fog, and rapidly closed on the two of them. "What... what is that?!" Fang Xiaoxia's eyes widened, a cry breaking from her mouth. At the end of the long street, beneath the dim streetlights, a gaudy multicolored "tide" came surging in a scramble. Only on a closer look did one see it was not a colored sea wave, but something thicker and more vivid: oil paint. The sharp stink of ink carried across half a street, sickening. As if they possessed life, they rushed, writhed, spread, and climbed over the ground—and at last formed a crest of paint several meters high! Atop that brilliant crest, a dozen or so figures loomed and faded... They wore outlandish clothes of violently contrasting colors, their hair dyed in different vivid shades, and every face was covered by a strange mask, crying or laughing, blank or abstract. "The Fine Arts Society!" A chill struck Bai Zhou's heart. Of course the Fine Arts Society did not consist of only two Master Painters. It also had a heap of level-4 Painters and level-5 Painters. Those were the Society's true backbone. And now—they had come. Some stood with arms spread, surfing the crest of the oil-paint tide. Some knelt on one knee upon their boards as if riding wild horses. Others spun in handstands atop the wave... Every one of them held a different pose. The movements were mad, and yet somehow carried a beauty and a harmonious rhythm, like a performance on a stage. But from their bodies Bai Zhou vaguely sensed the power of Intent. That meant there was no shortage among them of level-5 Extraordinary of Painter rank. The rest, he feared, were level-4 backbone members of Painter rank as well! Even these waves of paint, surging at them from across the street, looked to be spawned from beneath the colored skateboards at their feet. Wherever they skated, there was "spray." "Street art that fouls the eyes." Bai Zhou muttered. He reached backhanded into his coat, as if to draw something from the Trojan Horse. "Someone really ought to let those traffic officers see this lot. Speed limits and height limits are nothing." Even as he groped inside his coat, he cursed. "Why doesn't the city ban surfing!" Surfing in the city... Fang Xiaoxia did not know what expression she was supposed to wear. Damn it. Damn it all. Never in her life had she imagined she would live to hear that phrase and not find it out of place. A paper airplane leaping a great bridge, a black coat jumping off a building to glide, and skateboard surfing in the middle of the city... Why did this mysterious world of yours look like this? Where were the witches? The secret arts? The curses? The martial artists and the knights, the ringing cuts of saber and sword? But... it was thrilling too. A thrilling, romantic world. And it really could kill. "What do we do now?" Of her own accord, the girl clenched Bai Zhou's hem. The surging killing intent needled her. The sky-choking flavor of absurd humor made her head swim, and her lips trembled. But the moment she turned her head, her eyes flew wide. Beside Bai Zhou, at some moment she had not seen, that Maserati had appeared. The battered Maserati was covered in dents. Even the front bumper was smashed. Yet it was still as elegant as a swan. "This, this, this!" Fang Xiaoxia could not believe it. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. When...? She suddenly remembered Bai Zhou groping in his coat just now. You pulled this thing out of your coat too?! Fang Xiaoxia had thought that when they bailed out at the elevated bridge, this expensive lump of iron had already sunk to the bottom of the sea. At the time, she had even ached for Bai Zhou over it for quite a while. After all, a car that expensive! But now... Bai Zhou was already seated in the modified sports car. The butterfly doors opened on their own. "No time to explain. Get in!" Fang Xiaoxia scrambled in and buckled her seat belt with practiced hands. "Go." Bai Zhou stepped on the accelerator. "Zhenlu Mountain!" According to Bai Zhou's plan, and the newest clues he had learned at Fang Xiaoxia's home... he would make that place tonight's destination. Let every entanglement and every scheme be buried in that mountain, cast aside upon Tinghai's highest stage. Let everything end there! "Vroom!" The familiar shove into their backs came over them. Eight exhaust pipes spat flame. In a blink they had flashed down the empty long street. Even the surging rain could not catch them. Seated in the passenger seat, the engine's familiar roar filling her ears, Fang Xiaoxia watched in the rearview mirror as the paint tide rushed after them like something gone mad, and held her breath. "It feels crazy, somehow... Everything that's happened tonight is more absurd than a dream." For some people, going wild meant coming out at midnight for skewers and a stroll. For her, it meant driving a wing-beating swan at 11:30 at night, up a mountain to look for egrets. The girl murmured, "If I told anyone, they'd definitely think I was a lunatic!" Crazy enough. But it sounded seriously cool, too! The gaudy python of paint devoured everything in its path. Streetlight poles were drowned to half their height. Cars parked at the curb were plastered over windows and hoods with sticky paint, hissing with corrosion, the paint screaming as it was stripped away. Wherever the tide passed, the ground was covered in strokes of color, like one abstract oil painting after another—yet the heavy rain soon washed them thin, and then they were gone. The paint tide chased from behind. Ahead, the trident-badged Maserati rode the wind and broke the waves through the rain, darting nimbly left and right, using the bends to slow the pursuit. At the same time, Bai Zhou closed rapidly on Zhenlu Mountain. "You're right. But this dream isn't going to hold together much longer." Bai Zhou cursed. "Because our Miss Swan seems to be almost out of fuel!" After they had driven two streets, the Maserati's fuel gauge entered the dangerous red. It had covered too much road. The battle-tested Maserati was about to go on strike from an empty stomach. "Then what do we do?" Fang Xiaoxia trembled. "Can we call a cab?" "What car would dare take the order?" The Maserati kept flying. Bai Zhou's gaze swept quickly over the vehicles parked along the curb. He was a full-fledged A-rank wanted criminal, with superb lockpicking skills. Could he really be fretting over a lack of transportation? He had to find a way to "borrow" one. But an ordinary car would not do. The paint tide surged too fast. Only a professionally modified Maserati had been able to shake those pursuers off. He needed the fastest one he could find... "Rumble—" Just then, a huge black shadow swept across the sky. A rolling echo sounded overhead. "There's more?" Fang Xiaoxia raised her head, despair in her eyes. "Who is it this time?!" One wave had yet to settle before the next rose. Wolves ahead, tigers behind. An uninvited guest took the stage again! "...No way?" Crow, standing at the nose of the car and pointing the way, frowned and lifted her head. A tremendous sound traveled through the dark night sky. The vast black shadow gradually closed in. The rotors turned with a shua-shua, and wind and rain alike were driven back by the turbulent air. "Night Raider Type-III helicopter!" Crow's face was grave. "An armed helicopter of the Special Control Bureau. Why would it be here at a time like this..." The armed helicopter modified by the Special Control Bureau, carrying heavy cannon and enchanted missiles, was a true weapon of slaughter. An Extraordinary below Titled rank who met an enchanted missile was, basically, dead, with no way back to life! Bai Zhou's expression was just as grim, because the first thing he saw were several pitch-black... missiles hanging beneath that helicopter! Life-and-Death Intuition warned him like mad, until Bai Zhou felt thorns at his back. From that thing, Bai Zhou sensed a lethal threat! Then. "Boom. Boom." Two missiles flew. "Damn it!" Bai Zhou hauled the wheel around, as if a mortal enemy were upon him. But the two missiles, whistling as they split the air, only skimmed low past the body of the car and flew straight for the paint tide chasing behind him. "Boom!!!" The explosions answered at once. Someone screamed. Several of the people "surfing" the paint were blasted off immediately. "Wrong people! You hit the wrong people!" Some of the Fine Arts Society's higher-ups, those who knew what was going on, shouted up at the helicopter in the sky. "They're our own!" What greeted them was the roaring machine gun on the helicopter. Ruthless bullets poured like rain, booming. It left Bai Zhou and Fang Xiaoxia, in the Maserati, staring dumb. Right after that, the helicopter's cabin door crashed open. Several helmeted figures leaned out from there, their outlines flickering in the night. Bai Zhou's eyes widened. His heart lagged half a beat. "They're..." Bai Zhou's lips moved twice, but no words would come. A brilliant searchlight swung around and lit the road ahead of the Maserati through the wind and rain. The roar of the rotors filled their ears. The helicopter dropped toward the low sky, and the figures poised by the cabin door grew clearer and clearer. "You mean to hunt our colleague..." Their voices crossed the wind and rain from afar, passed over Bai Zhou, and went straight to the many killers of the Fine Arts Society: "Did you ask us first?" Some were familiar to Bai Zhou. Some he had met only once. All of them wore the suits particular to the Special Control Bureau, and the wild wind lifted their ties. Bai Zhou recognized them, and because of that he drew a deep breath. Because among them were former colleagues of his from the Supervision Section of the Black Box Maintenance Department at the Special Control Bureau. All of them had been Liu Zhen's subordinates. They had done team-building together, and had driven to the school together over the matter of Liu Huahua. And some were pursuers from the Special Control Bureau whose lives Bai Zhou had once spared on a midnight street, and whom he had warned without saying too much. Field Team C201! On this night, agents of the Supervision Section and Field Team C201—though they hardly knew one another—had mixed together. Ignoring the Special Control Bureau's rules of secrecy, they flew an armed helicopter with missiles slung beneath it and swept, bold as anything, across Tinghai's rainy night. Like divine troops dropped from heaven, they appeared upon a battlefield where they were never supposed to be! "Leave this to us..." The searchlights blazed. Huge gusts of air whirled and shook. A low voice came from afar. A length of rope was let down from the cabin and hung above the Maserati. "Keep going. Do what you want to do. Do what we cannot do!" A man in a suit, armed to the teeth and gripping an enchanted automatic rifle, slid down from above with a whoosh. Bai Zhou recognized him at a glance. He was the leader of Field Team C201 from before. The man Bai Zhou had once defeated hooked a hand on the rope, looked toward Bai Zhou racing in the sports car, and, expressionless, gave a thumbs-up. "Seems what you said back then was right." Wind and rain swayed the rope in his grip. His eyes lowered slightly, and his tone was complicated as he looked at Bai Zhou. "But you were wrong about one thing." "Not everyone is willing to be a cockroach. There are still those who refuse to sink into the same filth—" He said, "Just like you."