Riding the Fated Swift Horse

"These people... who are these people?" Fang Xiaoxia stared, eyes full of astonishment, at the man in a suit sliding down a rope from the helicopter. Fully armed, a gun on his shoulder, he slid down the swaying line and dropped beside a Maserati doing nearly two hundred kilometers an hour, as if he had come only to exchange two sentences with Bai Zhou. Fang Xiaoxia felt there had to be some hidden tie between them. Bai Zhou's expression just then was extremely complicated. They had clearly known each other for a long time. The girl had always felt that layer upon layer of fog shrouded him. He surely came from somewhere great, but she had always forced her curiosity down and not pried. Even so, she had watched everything along the way with her own eyes. The Gem Witch had been willing, for Bai Zhou's sake, to cover the rear of her own accord. Now there were even a good many people coming by helicopter to help him. It seemed Bai Zhou was a decent man. He seemed to be doing something remarkable. Fang Xiaoxia felt a share in that glory. Because this remarkable thing seemed to have something to do with her. Like a malnourished little child laborer from the coal-ash yards of the Industrial Revolution, who would proudly thrust out his chest whenever anyone mentioned the glory of Great Britain. "You all..." At the wheel, Bai Zhou was about to say something, but the man before him was already hauled forcibly back up on the rope. Soon another man in a suit, his face full of stubble, came down in a rush, unable to wait. "I knew you couldn't be a bad man. Old Liu liked you so much. How could you be a villain in league with the Blood Worship Cult?" The man had not arrived yet. His voice came down first. Bai Zhou remembered him. He was the deputy section chief of the Supervision Section, more or less Big Brother Liu Zhen's second. He looked at Bai Zhou inside the car, and his shout came through the howling wind and rain. "The field team found me. After sounding me out a few times, they told me the truth... Honestly, I had guessed as much long ago." His expression was ashamed. "But with the truth laid out in front of me, it wouldn't be decent to keep pretending I was asleep." "There are no anomalies left inside the Resting Cemetery. But the field team that has been investigating in secret all along finally found, in the base, traces of unusual personnel movements." "...Truth is, the whole base is rotten through, top to bottom. Even in our section, only four or five people can be trusted, and every one of them has come now." He said, "So this time, when we came out, we never thought of going back." "This world is pretty disappointing. I've always known that. But what can you do, when the Major is willing to pay? Everyone has a family to feed. Once food and warmth are met, people want more... Following the Major, all of us could eat our fill." "But there's no reason a good man should have a knife pointed at him." Outside the window, the stubble-faced man's expression turned earnest. "You're like that. Old Liu was like that too." "So I don't intend to go on pretending to sleep." "After all, no one knows whether the next butcher's blade will come down on his own head." He said, "Less than half the field team came, plus five from the Supervision Section. Nine in all." "Avenging Old Liu—we aren't worthy of that." "But at the very least, we can't watch a kid like you suffer a false charge and be gunned down!" The storm roared. Inside the car, Bai Zhou drove in silence, now and then minding the state of the man outside the window. Beside him, Fang Xiaoxia covered her mouth and made not a sound, eyes wide, ears pricked, listening. "We've waited a long time for this day. We waited until today to hear again that you had shown yourself in the city." "Though we also know this handful of us is few and weak..." One hand on the rope, the stubble-faced man raised the other and pointed at the howling helicopter overhead. "But we've got the nerve!" Boom, boom, boom. The propeller's blast wheeled through the air, immense in its force. Machine guns strafed the Fine Arts Society killers surfing on skateboards behind them. Now and then came vicious curses and piercing screams. With those screams for background music, the man's account let Bai Zhou understand where this armed helicopter had come from. Branch 36 had no heavy firepower of this kind. But the supervision team from Special Control Bureau headquarters had flown in on a modified armed helicopter. The aircraft had been parked atop a building on the surface near the base, watched in shifts by the Bureau's field teams. Field Team C201 was one of them, and these past two days it had just rotated onto duty. And so the armed helicopter had been stolen by the very men set to guard it, and forced into the air anyway. "Right." "We don't know where you're going, and we don't know what you mean to do... but you must not walk into the Special Control Bureau and deliver yourself! Best not to go near any official department again." The stubble-faced man warned him gravely. "After that inspection team came down, the show looked grand, but in truth they've been blind with their eyes wide open every day, eating, drinking, and amusing themselves in the base, locking eyes with the Major in a blank stare, each understanding the other without a word..." "The field team tried reporting them in an anonymous letter. It didn't mention the crucial parts—but the letter sank without a trace. They did nothing. Everything went on as usual." "Clearly there's an understanding between the Major and the higher-ups that we don't know about!" So you just stole their aircraft? Easy steal! Bai Zhou grumbled it in his heart, and felt little surprise at the supervision team's open-eyed blindness. "These past few years, the Special Control Bureau's biggest sponsor every year, and its closest partner, has been the Zijing Group." The stubble-faced man went on analyzing. "Not only the Bureau. Plenty of other powers have drawn very close to the Zijing Group too." "The way I see it, the Zijing Group has probably been bound up tight with the Special Control Bureau for a long time!" "Maybe standing directly behind all of this are the Bureau's higher-ups and the Zijing Group!" Not necessarily... On the surface, Bai Zhou kept listening. In his heart he had already quietly given his answer. Only Bai Zhou knew that the Zijing Group and Major Luo were, in some measure, actually two separate powers. This ambitious Major Luo, who dreamed that red might surpass purple, had long since started an operation of his own. The forces under his command were considerable in scale. That did not stop the Major from doing his work behind the Zijing Group's untouchable prestige and borrowed authority, making others believe that all of it had been the Major's doing. "So once this job is done, we don't plan to stay in Tinghai any longer." The man in the suit grinned. "Our families are all on the aircraft. We've brought enough gold and portable valuables to live out the rest of our lives in style, and we won't have to worry anymore about being treated by the Major as expendables and dying an untimely death who knows when." "Before the authorities react, we'll leave Tinghai outright and fly as far as we can." He gestured at the automatic rifle across his chest. Magazine packed, a round chambered, the rifle was poised to fire. "Maybe tomorrow our names will turn up on a wanted notice right beside yours. Just don't know whose bounty will be higher." He even offered Bai Zhou an invitation. "So, you coming with us?" "You can get on the aircraft right now. We won't even charge you for a ticket!" As he spoke, his curious gaze also took in Fang Xiaoxia in the passenger seat beside Bai Zhou. The girl was awfully pretty. But... On the road of Bai Zhou's flight, why was there a girl keeping him company? Wasn't this kid from Wancheng, without a soul to turn to in Tinghai? The man in the suit was surprised, but he did not ask. "Thank you. Thank all of you... but you go on ahead." In fact, at this moment, with this helicopter, flying out of Tinghai before the authorities reacted was the best chance they had of getting out alive. Their direct superior had no time just now to bother with them at all. Even if these defectors left in the helicopter, the Major's gaze would not fall on them in the slightest. ...But if Bai Zhou boarded too, it would be different. The aircraft would certainly be shot down. Then no one would escape. By now, Bai Zhou understood as well. This stage had always been centered on him and on Fang Xiaoxia beside him. How could the protagonist flee the stage? Unless he overturned the stage itself! "I still have another place to go." So Bai Zhou said, "Only by getting there can I make those people pay the price they owe." As he spoke, he looked seriously at the man. He hesitated, then asked with a trace of extremely unpracticed awkwardness: "So, Uncle, can I leave this place to you?" "..." Looking into Bai Zhou's eyes, the stubble-faced man hanging from the rope outside the window suddenly could not speak. He had imagined Bai Zhou overjoyed that an aircraft had come for him. He had also prepared the words to persuade Bai Zhou to leave with them. He no longer had the heart to see this child, only just come of age, go on framed as a criminal and left wandering in hardship. Before he came here, the Bai Zhou in his eyes had only been a child: an orphan from Wancheng, pitiable in his origins, and the disciple left behind by Liu Zhen, who had died a wrongful death. This disciple had only wanted to speak for Liu Zhen, and for touching a secret he was being hunted by the Major. But how long had this child even known Liu Zhen? They, these "old friends," were clearly the ones who most ought to speak for Liu Zhen. So conscience outweighed fear and reason. They had decided to defect, and to take this pitiful child away with them. But when the man's eyes met Bai Zhou's, he suddenly understood that he might have gotten something wrong. The injustice was real. Speaking for Liu Zhen was real. But Bai Zhou did not need pity in the least, and he was not the hardship-wandering child they had imagined. These eyes should not have belonged to an eighteen-year-old child. This was a man. A man strong within. A man bearing a great deal upon his shoulders. This man had things of his own to do. What he had decided could not be stopped. When he appeared in everyone's sight, he had not been what they imagined, shivering under a bridge. He had been driving a Maserati through a grand rainy night, leaving a band of unimaginable Extraordinary killers with nothing but his exhaust to swallow, and even a dazzlingly pretty girl sitting beside him! The last time they met, he had still been shy-faced. Faced with an unfamiliar Tinghai, he had found everything he looked at new... No one could imagine what he had been through in the time since they parted. But the stubble-faced man knew that, before Bai Zhou, he no longer needed to say anything more. Because he saw, deep in Bai Zhou's calm gaze, the flames of vengeance burning fiercely. That earnest look had a shadow of the Liu Zhen of those days—and yet it was more than Liu Zhen could match. "Old Liu, you taught a fine disciple." The stubble-faced man suddenly let the words out. "But that line you just said—I don't like it." "What was that? What do you mean, can this place be left to us?" "If we can't even manage this, then wasn't this helicopter stolen for nothing? Didn't we come all this way for nothing?" He snorted and turned to look at the paint tide surging down the long street behind them. With a clack, the firearm moved. Hanging from the rope by one hand, the man raised the muzzle and pulled the trigger. "Before the young take the stage of the mystical world—" "Which of us old fellows was never young?" Everyone had a high-spirited youth. Though his whole heart had been set on running, in this moment, seeing the youth who would not run, the man suddenly felt his younger self return to his body for a while. "Boom! Boom, boom, boom!" The cannon overhead thundered. The automatic rifle in his hands spat tongues of fire. Magic runes blazed along the gun and, under the wash of the rain, opened into a deep blue light. A metal flood of bullets poured into the storm and struck the oncoming crests of paint until they tottered. No more words were needed. Bai Zhou nodded hard, stamped the accelerator, and sped up through the curve. "Boom!" The engine roared. Water sprayed. Not long after, the Maserati and that Night Raider Type-III armed helicopter parted at a crossroads. The killers from the Fine Arts Society were all held back behind them. Bai Zhou even heard the roar of missiles. Even so, he could not help worrying. He rarely met with other people's kindness, and had almost never asked a favor of anyone. But once he bore someone's goodwill, Bai Zhou would worry whether that person might pay for it, even sacrifice something because of it. "Don't worry." Standing at the front of the car, Crow saw his worry and spoke up to reassure him. "Before the Titled rank, Extraordinary have no way at all to deal with something flying in the sky. Even at the Titled level, so long as a helicopter flies high enough, Extraordinary can only stare." "The Special Control Bureau's Night Raider is loaded with a great many weapons meant for Extraordinary. It was made to be the peerless arm an official department uses against them." Crow looked thoughtful. "I just didn't expect they could steal even this..." At those words, Bai Zhou finally let out a breath. To him, the older men flying that armed helicopter were aid he had never imagined. "Who are they?" Fang Xiaoxia asked then. Bai Zhou thought a moment, then answered, "They're my former... mm, colleagues." Colleagues, and also enemies who had once faced him in a life-or-death clash. It all went back to that rainy night—when he had just come out of the Michelin French restaurant, let Field Team C201 go, and given them a few leads... Even so, Bai Zhou had never thought there would be a day like today. Speaking of it, that night had also been his first meeting with this puffing little fire dragon beside him. A willow planted without intent had grown to give shade. There was a saying: those who keep the right way find much help; those who lose the way find little. Just as they had said, though the Special Control Bureau was dangerous and this world was dark, there were always a few people who, at certain moments, would not go on pretending to sleep. So long as one walked the right road, companions would gather of themselves. "Boom! Rumble..." Three streets later, the speeding Maserati gave a feeble shudder. After a few mournful cries, this striving swan finally burned through its last drop of fuel. "You worked hard, pal." Bai Zhou murmured it, then climbed out over the butterfly door without hesitation. His gaze swept quickly through the rain. A few sedans were parked along the long street under the night. Beside them was a narrow alley. Behind the wet walls lay piled garbage, and... Bai Zhou's eyes burned. His sight locked onto a certain vehicle. "What do we do now?" Fang Xiaoxia got out after him. She turned her head and suddenly stared. "What are you..." Bai Zhou flung aside a black tarp with a rustle and pushed some old object out of the alley. Creak. Creak... It was a rust-spotted old pedal tricycle. Wilted yellow vegetable leaves and plastic bags were even scattered in the cargo bed. Without a doubt, this was a pedal tricycle someone used to sell vegetables, and its age seemed greater than the two of them put together. "Don't worry." Bai Zhou slapped the saddle twice, then swung himself up cleanly. "I hid a Rolex gold watch back where it was, under a trash bag. It ought to be enough to compensate the owner." "This isn't—this isn't about the gold watch!" Fang Xiaoxia was struck dumb, stammering. A moment ago she had still been tearing along in a Maserati at two hundred and eighty kilometers an hour. Now Bai Zhou had pushed an old vegetable tricycle out from the roadside and wanted her to hurry up and get on... and it was pedal-powered? Fang Xiaoxia was a little dazed. Even so, her feet obediently broke into a run. The girl strained for a good while before she climbed into the cargo bed, full of mud and rotten leftover leaves. She quickly gathered a few of the huge cabbage leaves that were still more or less whole, patted them, and barely put together a crude cushion. Then the girl in the white dress sat down on that cold, slippery cushion of cabbage leaves. Icy rain beat her face. Sitting in the filthy bed, Fang Xiaoxia lifted her head, looked at the man before her, and suddenly, for no reason she could name, broke into a laugh. "Back in a convertible, everybody." "Hold this." Bai Zhou tossed her the black umbrella. Seated on the saddle that dug into him, he set both feet on the rusty pedals with a slap. His expression was serious. "Someone told me an automatic doesn't have as high a ceiling as a manual... By the same logic, cars that haven't been modified all have a limit on their speed." "But a pedal one doesn't. The only limit on pedal speed is your own body. Physics won't betray us." Bai Zhou said, "So this is our new mount." "Of course, it still needs a little modification." The words had not even finished falling. Bai Zhou had already drawn out a paintbrush. His hands moved fast enough to leave afterimages. Spirituality flowed all around. Bzz, bzz, bzz! The rusty handlebars, the creaking reddish-brown frame, the three flat tires... every detail of the tricycle was swiftly inscribed with a string of complex, obscure miniature runes. An acceleration micro-ritual. A reinforcement micro-ritual. A balance micro-ritual. Less wind resistance, reinforced materials, a balanced frame... Ritual after ritual was branded onto the vehicle. Then every rune bloomed with light in a single hum. Ritual complete! The utterly ordinary tricycle seemed to come alive all at once, possessed of some uncommon grace. Though it was still an old pedal tricycle. "Hold on!" Bai Zhou gave a low shout without looking back, then drove hard with his legs! Creak!! The tricycle groaned as if it were about to fall apart. Then, with a boom, it vanished from where it had stood. Like an arrow leaving the string, the battered vegetable tricycle tore toward the end of the rainy night. Bai Zhou's pedaling legs blurred into two streaks. Pedals and chain roared madly under the overload. The tires left a chain of dazzling red sparks across the ground. Violent airflow tore the storm open. The scenery on both sides rushed backward until nothing could be seen clearly. The girl sitting on cabbage leaves in the bed only felt that this tricycle did not seem much slower than any sports car. Sparks and lightning all the way. The lone pedal tricycle melted into the dark. No one could catch them, not the wind, and not the rain. Like a knight carrying a princess, riding the swift horse fate had destined for them. Soon Bai Zhou, huffing as he pedaled, saw the outline of a high mountain enter his eyes. Zhenlu Mountain! The final destination was here! The diligent pedicab driver Bai Zhou felt his spirits lift. His hands clenched the handlebars, and even his pedaling grew stronger. But in the next instant, he slammed on the brakes! The tires dragged a chain of sparks across the ground. Inertia sent the girl in the back slamming her head into Bai Zhou's waist. Screech. The pedal tricycle that had come all the way in sparks and lightning stopped. Someone had blocked the knight's swift horse. "Ow, ow, ow..." The girl clutched her head, looked up in a daze, and suddenly held her breath. Because at the foot of the mountain, atop the last streetlamp at the end of the long street, stood a masked man in a long robe. The wind lifted his robes. Rain was shut out by the formless domain around him. He simply stood there atop the lamp. Living color flowed across the mask, then slowly gathered into an extremely abstract portrait. The nose was not a nose. The mouth was not a mouth. It was more like several geometric patterns assembled together. Those horrifying features, under the dim yellow light, were eerie beyond words. A Painter—Picasso! A chill struck Bai Zhou's heart. He swung the tricycle sideways, braced one foot on the ground, and looked up through the swaying rain. Behind Picasso on the streetlamp rose the towering shadow of Zhenlu Mountain in the rainy night. The time was 11:46:31 p.m. Bai Zhou knew this was the last powerful enemy he had to face before he dealt with the Major. The knight had mounted his swift horse, but he could not forget to take up his swift blade. As Fang Xiaoxia put it when she played games, this was facing the final boss. Only... "You like standing on streetlamps too?" Bai Zhou asked, perfectly sincere in his puzzlement. "I don't understand. Why are you imitating Luo Jiu?" Bai Zhou blinked twice, and the figure atop the streetlamp stalled. "Or are you secretly imitating him while he isn't here?" "Pretty pathetic, Senior Master Painter." In the crashing storm, under the dim yellow streetlamp, both their shadows were drawn long. Beneath Fang Xiaoxia's wide-eyed stare, Bai Zhou, seated on the saddle in front of her, slowly drew a violet-gold saber and a black short rod. One blade, one rod. One on the right, one on the left. The blade hummed. Battle intent surged. "And besides, doesn't the mystical world always talk about prophetic taboos?" Bai Zhou offered a kindly reminder: "Extraordinary who like standing on streetlamps had better take care they don't end up hanged from one." "...Heh." After a long silence, an ugly cold laugh came like the shriek of an owl in the night. Boom! A formless Spirit Intent Domain unfolded. Surging paint descended from the sky like a river of blood. "Sharp tongue. I hope your blade has the same edge!" Picasso on the streetlamp said coldly: "Why have you come to this mountain? Do you think there's someone here who can save you? Or do you think that if you hide in the mountain, no one will find you?" "None of that works anymore." A gloomy gaze swept over Bai Zhou and finally settled on Fang Xiaoxia, making the girl feel as if she had fallen into an ice cave. "You've made enough of a scene. It's time to go back..." "The one who ought to go back is you, isn't it?" A low voice came, unhurried, and cut off Picasso's cold murmur. Then came footsteps. Tap. Tap. A tall figure appeared at his ease, emerging slowly from the darkness far away. "Who!" Picasso's sharp gaze shot that way. An old man with elegance and flashiness written all over his face appeared beneath a distant streetlamp. He held an umbrella. His exquisite suit looked as if he were going to someone's funeral, and a red rose was pinned at his chest. "You? Who are you?" Picasso looked puzzled. The Fine Arts Society, as an assassin syndicate, had full intelligence on every powerhouse in Tinghai City. Yet he of all people could not recognize this flashy man. And about this man there was neither an Extraordinary's Spirit nor Intent. Which meant... "Where'd this little punk come from?" Picasso let out another hoarse cold laugh, as if he did not count the man worth a glance. But beneath the streetlamp, Bai Zhou was struck dumb. Because this mysterious arrival was clearly... "Principal!" Bai Zhou drew a deep breath. His expression could not stay calm. The principal of Yuanmeng Middle School, the School Demon's former gatekeeper, the quasi-King of Wicked Desires of the minor secret realm! How could he be here? The Principal's gaze went to the tense Bai Zhou, and he gave him a mild nod. "Once this matter is settled, I have something to give you." He said, "But for now, you may continue forward." Under Bai Zhou's stare, as if he had seen a living ghost, the man with the rose at his chest slowly furled the black umbrella overhead, cloth rustling twice. Then this gentleman of a principal gradually became expressionless. His gaze moved back to the streetlamp, toward the painter-killer who had just called him a little punk. "Stopping a man from going to save his own girl is not something a gentleman ought to do." The tall figure came on at an easy pace. The Principal's eyes narrowed, his tone rather stern. "As this child's teacher—" "I cannot stand idly by and watch such vile conduct!"