I am a swordsman in a strange city

The sword in Chapter 74 of the video recording

After finishing her meal, Xu Binling lay down and went to sleep in the cave she had dug herself.

Every time she returned from eating out, she would rush back to the cave, for only there could she feel at peace.

She felt that no one was staring at her, and there were no harsh, blinding lights.

So she immediately crawled into the cave, and her racing heart quickly calmed down.

With a peaceful mind comes tranquility, and she soon drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly, she heard someone say in her dream: "Summon Donald Deco immediately, bring Pei Ju to Cave Seven."

Another voice said, "Donald Deco is enough!"

Xu Binling woke up with a start, her whole body in a panic, like a frightened rabbit.

There were no other ideas, only one thought: to do as instructed.

She took out a notebook and hurriedly wrote the sentence down. Then, following the prompts in her dream, she tore off the page with the sentence written on it, folded it into a paper crane, found a needle, pricked her finger, and placed the needle on the paper crane's eyes. She mumbled something indistinctly, as if reciting some words.

After thinking about it, he blew a breath near his mouth and immediately threw the paper crane in his hand into a cave next to him.

After throwing it away, she quickly retreated into her sleeping cave, hugged her head, curled up into a ball, and trembled in the deepest part of the cave.

After a long time, she gradually calmed down, then climbed out of the cave, peeked out from the entrance, looked outside, looked up at the ceiling, and sniffed to see if any unfamiliar scents were coming in.

These days, she has become increasingly sensitive to smells. When she walks down the street, she can smell the scent on everyone and distinguish what they have just eaten.

She was somewhat bewildered because she realized there were no enemies and was puzzled by her sudden fear.

However, she couldn't remember what had just happened or what she had done, and she fell asleep in the cave once again.

……

Pei Ju stood there, clearly seeing people turning to look at him in that instant, and the street scene at that moment was like the view seen from a high-speed train.

As so many eyes turned toward him, a sudden clamor filled his ears. This clamor was chaotic, like the wind, or like curses, yet it all converged together, like a torrent rushing toward Pei Ju.

In that instant, Pei Ju felt like an ant, an overconfident ant challenging an elephant.

This is the terrifying power of magic; it can instantly shatter an opponent's fighting spirit at the mental level, rendering them powerless to resist.

But at this moment, Pei Ju, like a stone in the river, raised the branch in his hand. The branch fell, as if it were rubbing against the air too fast and produced a flame.

A sword swung down.

The illusion vanished in an instant.

Those who were watching him didn't look at him anymore. The people were still the same, but they were all walking on their own. Some of them seemed to be frowning in discomfort for a moment, while others rubbed their temples.

The smile that had been on the old man's face as he faced Pei Ju vanished at that moment, replaced by surprise as the endless emotions in his eyes.

"You can actually break my spell?" the white-haired old man said in surprise. Pei Ju didn't see his mouth move, but the voice appeared directly in his mind.

“What’s so difficult about breaking a spell?” Pei Ju walked forward, approaching him.

The elderly white man immediately said, "Stop."

How could Pei Ju possibly stop? The old man waved both hands at Pei Ju, as if directing the train to start. At the moment he waved his hands at Pei Ju, the houses on both sides and the cars on the street formed two dazzling torrents.

Pei Ju felt as if he had fallen into a time tunnel, the entire space was rushing by rapidly, and although he had sped up, he was falling further and further away from the old man, who seemed to be riding a high-speed train, quickly disappearing into the distance.

Soon he would become a black shadow and disappear from sight. At this moment, Pei Ju had already transferred the sword to his left hand, turned to the side, and bowed.

He clenched his left palm into a fist, drew his right hand, and simultaneously stepped forward, drew his sword, and swung it out. The branch seemed to be carrying light, drawing an arc as it slashed into the void ahead. His sword seemed to have found some gap, as if it had found a weakness, and pierced into it with an unstoppable force.

The light stream, which resembled a time tunnel, collapsed instantly, and everything returned to normal. The old man's body, which had been about to disappear into the void, reappeared.

Shock appeared on his face, but his shock quickly turned into horror, because he saw a black thing, a tree branch, and on the branch, a dazzling light seemed to be condensing and stabbing towards him. He wanted to dodge, wanted to use his proud ability again, but that light had already extinguished his consciousness.

The elderly white man fell backward, a twig embedded in his forehead, and the protruding part quickly scattered into wood chips as Pei Ju let go.

He turned and left.

People nearby witnessed this and scattered in panic; some called the police.

Police officers arrived quickly, and after learning about the situation, someone pointed in the direction Pei Ju had left.

Immediately, some people chased after him, and upon seeing Pei Ju, they immediately drew their guns and surrounded him.

Pei Ju stood there without moving. Some people tried to step forward and hold him down, but they couldn't budge him at all. He stood there like a javelin, completely immovable.

However, someone immediately took out handcuffs, handcuffed him, and took him back to the police station, where he was soon transferred to the Detective Division.

Jin Fengyue sat there, watching a video with the others.

In the video, an elderly white man with white hair is standing there, but every now and then, many static dots appear, interspersed with horizontal lines, obscuring the person. After the static disappears, the video becomes clear, but the person in the video has disappeared.

The video is composed of many segments, which are then combined together. Each segment is filled with static before the people in it disappear.

The multiple short videos were combined to form a long video, which ended near a bus stop. At this point, a young man appeared in the video.

Jin Fengyue reached out and pressed pause, saying, "Has the identity of this old white guy been verified yet?"

A female voice replied from the side: "Boss, the match is confirmed. It's Donald Deco, an internationally wanted criminal. He has a nickname—'The Time Thief.' He's ranked on the dark web's assassin list and has killed many people, including some political figures from small countries. His abilities are bizarre; even if he misses, no one can catch him. He's basically disappeared for the last ten years or so. I never expected him to be in our Hai City."

"What are his abilities?" Jin Fengyue asked.

"I don't know exactly how many, but at least there's one ability to traverse the void, an ability called the 'Thought Torrent,' and another called 'Thought Implantation,' also known as the 'Thought Trojan Horse.' As for the other abilities, I'm not so sure."

Upon hearing this, everyone realized that these three abilities alone were terrifying enough.

Jin Fengyue nodded, pressed the space bar, and the video continued playing. They knew that the young man who got off the bus was about to face off against this highly notorious and mysterious killer.

Some people in this room had seen this young man before, because he had been here before. His unique temperament, long hair, and appearance were unforgettable.

As they knew, the infamous and enigmatic assassin was dead. But they wanted to know how Pei Ju had killed him.

In the video, they saw Pei Ju walk step by step, break off a branch, strip off all the leaves, and scatter them in the flower bed, leaving only a branch in his right hand.

Those who had seen the assassin's brow wound immediately realized where the broken branch had come from. Just then, the video suddenly became blurry and jittery, with static and slashes appearing. Everyone knew this was Donald Deco using his abilities.

This is common sense: when someone is using powerful abilities, they can alter the surrounding magnetic field, which can obstruct and interfere with cameras.

Amidst the flickering images, they saw Pei Ju raise the branch in his hand.

The moment Pei Ju raised the branch in his hand, he seemed to be glowing in the video, especially the branch in his hand, which looked like it was on fire.

As the branch fell, the shimmering snowflakes and horizontal lines vanished instantly.

Jin Fengyue suddenly pressed pause, then rewind, repeatedly watching Pei Ju's movements of swinging the tree branch. After several repetitions, someone asked, "Boss, what's wrong?"

"It's okay. Don't you guys think that when his branches fall, it's like they're gliding through the gaps between the snowflakes?"

"No way, boss, could this really happen?"

"I think I have that feeling."

After watching it several times, someone said, "Boss, there's a lot of skill involved in that sword strike."

"If there's no trick to it, how could this spell be broken? If I'm not mistaken, this Donald must be using a flood of consciousness."

“You’ve practiced swordsmanship. Look at this sword slash. What does it resemble? Doesn’t it resemble a stone cleaving through the flowing water of a river? Doesn’t it resemble a knife standing upright in the wind?”

"Sigh, why are you saying this? Once the spell is broken, you can say whatever you want."

Jin Fengyue did not participate in the discussion, but instead pressed the space bar. He was surprised. When he saw Pei Ju before, he knew that Pei Ju must have already joined the company. However, if the other party was still a swordsman, then there was no need to pay too much attention to him.

The reason for having him sign up for professional certification was twofold: firstly, to bring Pei Ju into the national regulatory system; and secondly, because he believed that a stable job would provide a stable income, and secondly, by entering the national supernatural system, he could do many things, such as receiving a bonus for killing a wanted criminal like today.

Without entering the country's supernatural system, the appearance and information of many wanted criminals are unknown, or they may be exposed by mysterious events in some places. If someone is well-known in this field, even if they are not a government official, they will be invited and given an appearance fee. If they play a significant role, they can also receive additional bonuses.

Of course, there was another reason: he knew Pei Ju's father and grandfather, who were his juniors, and he didn't want his juniors, who had no parents to look after them, to be led astray into darkness.

There are too many such cases, especially since he saw a melancholy aura about Pei Ju that day.

In the video, Pei Ju's sword fell, and the entire video suddenly became clear.

Then we saw that the two people stood there for a few seconds without moving, which suggests that they were having a conversation.

But Pei Ju moved quickly. The instant he moved toward Donald, snowflakes burst forth, instantly engulfing Pei Ju and making the entire video unreadable. However, the snowflakes quickly dissipated, as if they had never appeared.

The video shows Donald lying on his back, and Pei Ju throwing away some sawdust from his hand.

In the video, he didn't hesitate and turned around and left.

Jin Fengyue looked at the last part repeatedly, and after confirming that she couldn't see anything, she sighed and said, "What do you guys think?"

"Well, boss, I think we should release them and give them a reward."

Some of the others nodded, while others remained silent.

“You write the report on this matter,” Jin Fengyue immediately pointed to the person who had just spoken.

Then someone else said, "Boss, I think his mental state isn't very good."

Jin Fengyue remained silent.

"Should we give him a psychological evaluation and report it to the mental health department?" someone whispered.

Although he spoke softly, everyone heard him, and for a moment, everyone fell silent and looked at Jin Fengyue.

Because everyone knows very well that if someone is suspected of having problems and goes through the mental health screening process, they will definitely be found to have issues.

There have been cases where people were diagnosed with problems after entering the facility and were detained for months or even years for treatment.

“Let’s not rush things. Let me talk to him. He might just be silent because of a family crisis. Look at him this time, he’s very calm and shows no signs of harming innocent people,” Jin Fengyue said.

No one else spoke. With his words, the person writing the report knew how to write it.

"No one is allowed to leak this video. It must be sealed and marked as a Level 3 Top Secret. And you better keep your mouth shut."

Jin Fengyue said very seriously, as he thought of something else that stirred a feeling of excitement in his already cold and aloof heart.

Pei Ju is still imprisoned.

But suddenly things became lively on the dark web.

Donald Deco is dead.

The rankings on the dark web assassin leaderboard are very important; everyone pays close attention to the activities of those at the top of the list, especially the top 100.

However, some people say that rankings are not that important, because people ranked below 100 are not weak, and there may even be a terrifyingly powerful person among those ranked below 1000. They just do fewer tasks, which does not mean they are not strong.

Donald Deco was confirmed to be mentally unstable. Those who had seen him said that he already had an air of madness and depravity, and could go insane or become a monster at any time.

Who killed him?

Whispers echoed from a cave deep in the darkness.

"Pei Ju, Pei Ju!"

Who is Pei Ju?

Where is Pei Ju?

In the realm of the extraordinary, there is a saying that those who are targeted by darkness never have a good ending and will eventually fall into darkness.

In the cell where Pei Ju was imprisoned, he was curled up asleep under the light, a sleeping habit he had developed at some point.

Suddenly, the lights went out.

In the darkness, there seemed to be the sound of dripping water.

The sound was not loud at first, but it was very clear in the silent darkness, and slowly an echo appeared, as if this were a hollow and deep cave.

(End of this chapter)