Chapter 45: The Nation’s Strength

The two upstairs had their escape halted by a single event.

At the side entrance of the Shen Family Villa, Su Mingyao and Su Bingyao were just about to step outside when their footsteps came to a sudden stop.

Standing at the side door was a man clad head to toe in black. He radiated a steely resolve, his thick eyebrows pitch-black and prominent, his features chiseled and profound, his nose straight and prominent. In his hand, he held a flat copper plate, and resting atop it was a spoon made of the same material—an odd-looking contraption.

Su Mingyao took a wary step back, eyes fixed on the stranger. “Who are you?”

The side door Su Mingyao had chosen was quite remote, typically used only for hauling out household trash and the like. Aside from the cleaning staff, ordinary people rarely came this way. This man didn’t look like any janitor, which meant he had to be a resident from one of the other villas in the neighborhood.

So why would someone from another villa show up at the Shen Family Villa’s side entrance?

The black-clothed man offered no reply. Instead, he lifted the Compass in his hand. The spoon’s handle pointed straight at Su Mingyao.

“There you are. I’ve found you.”

He stated it matter-of-factly.

Su Mingyao’s body hair stood on end in an instant!

“You need to come with me.”

The man ignored Su Mingyao’s question entirely and didn’t introduce himself. He simply issued the command.

This was no friendly visitor!

Sensing danger, Su Bingyao immediately stepped in front of Su Mingyao. “Run! Go find Luo Shang!”

After their encounter with Luo Shang, they now knew the world held people with Supernatural Abilities. The aura emanating from this black-clothed man felt eerily similar to the glimpses of power Luo Shang occasionally let slip.

It was the primal awe and dread one instinctively felt in the presence of a superior being.

Su Bingyao’s gut told him this man was another with a Supernatural Ability, just like Luo Shang!

As mere mortals, they stood no chance against him. But Luo Shang could handle it.

Luo Shang was a force capable of annihilating the world itself. In theory, nothing in this world could surpass him—and the pressure from this black-clothed man was far weaker than Luo Shang’s anyway. Calling for Luo Shang was the smart play.

Besides, they were key players in the “plot” Luo Shang insisted on following. Even if he didn’t hold Su Mingyao in the same regard as others—maybe even disliked him a bit—Luo Shang wouldn’t stand by while Su Mingyao got snatched away.

Not when Su Mingyao was central to “following the plot”!

That alone gave them solid backing.

Su Mingyao caught on instantly. Without a second’s hesitation, he spun on his heel and bolted back into the Shen Family Villa.

~~~

Baffled by the games the younger generation played these days, Old Master Shen finally decided to bow out of the scene between the engaged pair. Let them hash things out however they pleased—he truly couldn’t keep pace with kids anymore…

With that thought, Old Master Shen rose to take his leave. Shen Changqing stood at once to see him off, while Luo Shang got to his feet and took a couple of token steps.

[Old Master Shen has left. This fits the plot’s progression,] Luo Shang said.

If it matched the plot, all was well! Shen Changqing exhaled in profound relief. Luo Shang’s confirmation lifted a massive weight from his chest.

Old Master Shen departed, leaving Luo Shang and Shen Changqing in the living room. As he walked away, he pondered whether Su Mingyao and Su Bingyao were still holed up in the study now that Shen Changqing had come downstairs. Maybe he should pay them a visit?

Just then, a figure came barreling toward him, flashed past in a blur, and raced straight for the living room.

…Hold on?

Old Master Shen rubbed his eyes.

Wasn’t that Su Mingyao? Why was he sprinting like that? And heading right for the living room, where Shen Changqing and Luo Shang were talking…

Had his grandson fobbed Su Mingyao off without mentioning he was meeting Luo Shang downstairs? Was Su Mingyao fed up with waiting and come looking?

But that scenario hinged on Shen Changqing playing both sides—neither willing to drop Su Mingyao nor Luo Shang.

Old Master Shen didn’t peg his grandson as the type.

He’d have to have a talk with the boy sometime… Shen Zhijian mused.

Lost in thoughts of the tangled love lives of modern youth, he made his slow way upstairs.

Su Mingyao kept running farther away, but Roland made no move to chase. His gaze settled on Su Bingyao, who stood firmly in his path. The man was visibly on edge—eyes flicking rapidly, lips quivering, hands balled into fists—yet he refused to yield ground.

Roland said, “Sir, it seems you have the wrong idea about this.”

He drew out his badge and offered it for Su Bingyao to see.

The gilded lettering stood out boldly on the credentials:

“Captain of Execution Team One, National Anomalous Affairs Bureau”

“Mr. Su Bingyao, you’re Su Mingyao’s older brother. Have you noticed anything unusual about him lately?”

Roland said.

After showing his credentials to Su Bingyao, the man had finally calmed down enough to hold a proper conversation.

Su Bingyao took the documents Roland handed him and scrutinized them for a long while. He found nothing suspicious about them—in fact, the official seal stamped on them stood out prominently and didn’t look fake at all.

“……Dragon Group?” Su Bingyao muttered.

He hadn’t read many web novels, but back in his chuunibyou days, he’d heard the rumors about this outfit. Legend had it that the country harbored a top-secret agency dedicated to handling off-the-books matters—like supernatural abilities and the like—with the outside codename “Dragon Group.”

Roland wore a helpless expression.

This was how ordinary folks usually reacted the first time they encountered them. They didn’t have any teams with codenames like that; blame urban fantasy web novels for the misconception!

“It’s not the Dragon Group… but whatever, you can think of it that way,” he said in the end.

“Has your brother Su Mingyao shown any anomalies lately? Like suddenly flying or acting like he’s hiding something from the family?” Roland asked.

Any anomaly capable of shaking the seismograph was no trivial matter. In theory, a mere personal awakening of supernatural abilities shouldn’t trigger it at all. The Eight Dragons Spitting Pearls was an exceedingly rare event, one that almost always heralded the birth of something powerful enough to threaten the nation’s very foundations.

The first tremor had come with the emergence of the Shenzhou Nine Tripods, symbols of supreme authority and unified prosperity. No sooner had this divine artifact appeared than it sparked supernatural phenomena across the land. The Nine Tripods were then distributed nationwide, suppressing the outbreaks of anomalies in every region. With the tripods holding down the strange and malevolent forces, no major supernatural incidents arose. Any minor slips could be swiftly handled by response teams.

The second tremor stemmed from the excavation of Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum. Qin Shi Huang had fashioned the Terracotta Army, unleashing a hundred thousand Yin Soldiers. Most of these soldiers lacked any conscious awareness, merely wandering the tomb’s depths. They heeded only Qin Shi Huang himself or the orders of the General. Releasing them into the world would have spelled catastrophe for the nation.

Fortunately, they had found a General whose mind remained intact. He could command the entire host of Yin Soldiers. After negotiations, he agreed to keep them in check and prevent any from leaving the tomb—in exchange for a steady supply of yang energy to maintain their suppression.

To that end, the nation opened a section of Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum to the public as a tourist site, drawing crowds from every corner of the country and the globe. The Yin Soldier General demanded a hefty amount of yang energy, but with the tourist numbers so vast, siphoning just a trace from each visitor had zero impact on their daily lives. At worst, they felt a sudden chill and sneezed. The arrangement had held steady ever since.

Now this was the third time.

Roland knew their searches—guided by the seismograph’s direction—had turned up only petty anomalies so far, with no hint of anything major surfacing.

That very fact had ratcheted up the pressure from every quarter, making the investigations more exhaustive than ever. They weren’t letting even the tiniest oddity slide.

Over a dozen supernatural incidents had already been resolved, but all of them were small potatoes, nowhere near the scale to rock the nation.

So what had set off the seismograph this time?

Were their efforts falling short, or did this anomaly possess its own cunning awareness, concealing itself with masterful skill?

B City topped the list of suspects. A freak weather event had cropped up there once before, and something capable of warping the skies was no minor affair. They pinned their greatest hopes on B City, figuring it the likeliest hotspot among S City, M City, and itself. That was why they’d dispatched Roland, captain of Execution Team One.

And yet, following the compass’s lead, he’d found zilch of note thus far—only two incidents.

One was the Dead Fish Straight Mouth business, where that Pretty Boy angler had spouted cryptic nonsense. Roland had flagged it for later digging.

This latest lead, though, pointed straight at a person!

Could the power emanating from this individual truly threaten the entire country?

Did his supernatural ability rival the full might of the state apparatus?

Roland figured he’d soaked up plenty of national backing, positioning him as the top overt supernatural powerhouse domestically. Even so, modern weaponry would make short work of him—he’d vaporize under a missile strike.

If Su Mingyao had unlocked nation-shaking supernatural might, what sort of force did that imply?

But if he wielded such power, why bolt at the sight of him?

Roland just couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Roland planned to probe for more information and report it to the Think Tank for analysis.

The first step was to question the people around Su Mingyao and see if they had noticed anything unusual.

Now that he knew the other party wasn’t some evildoer but a legitimate arm of the national government, Su Bingyao relaxed a little—though not entirely.

They had only detected Su Mingyao, who had been reborn, but missed Luo Shang pulling the strings from behind the scenes? Su Bingyao wondered.

Of course, Su Bingyao didn’t think this was because Luo Shang’s power was too weak. No, it was because Luo Shang was too strong, able to perfectly conceal his presence.

That was how it always went in wuxia novels—the more ordinary and unremarkable someone seemed, the more formidable they truly were.

Should he reveal the secret of rebirth to this agent from the national agency? Su Bingyao hesitated.

And then there was the matter of Luo Shang…

In any event, Su Bingyao knew that even if every force on Earth united against him, they couldn’t touch Luo Shang. The man could casually annihilate the world; calling him the creator wouldn’t be overstating it.

Roland noticed his hesitation.

“Don’t worry, we won’t do anything to him. If the anomaly on his body isn’t handled properly, it could end up harming you all—and even him.”

“And we have plenty of experience on our side. We can help,” he said confidently.

No, that’s completely impossible… Su Bingyao thought, silently rebutting him inwardly as Luo Shang’s overwhelming strength flashed through his mind.