Chapter 90: An Eye-Opener
That evening, Yu Xian appeared in a bamboo forest at the edge of Bamboo City out of thin air. There, he happened to see a giant panda with a round, chubby cub. Yu Xian loved pandas. When he had visited the forest previously, he had been in a hurry to reach Ice City. Otherwise, he would have found a way to give one a good head rub and feed it some bamboo.
Now that he had time, he first went home, took a shower, and teleported back to Bamboo City. He was ready to spend some time with pandas.
Yu Xian cautiously approached the giant panda. Channeling his inner drama queen, he spoke to the giant panda with an utterly serious expression and cast an affectionate look at the little panda cub. "Auntie Panda, I like Xiaomei very much. Please let Xiaomei come with me!"
The giant panda sat on the ground, unfazed as she snapped a stalk of bamboo and chewed it at a leisurely pace. From behind her backside, the little panda cub peered out, looking on with curiosity.
Yu Xian immediately pushed his luck and slowly walked toward the giant panda. "Auntie Panda, since you aren't objecting, I'll be taking Xiaomei with me!"
At his action, the giant panda dropped the bamboo and curled one of her paws into a fist. Yu Xian immediately teleported away without a second thought. The giant panda possessed Eagle-rank strength. He definitely would not be able to withstand even one swat from her.
Supernatural creatures were highly intelligent. This was especially true for supernatural creatures that often lived among humans. Most of them could basically understand human speech.
Seeing that Yu Xian had run off, the panda cub curiously cried out to the giant panda. "Mom, is my name Xiaomei?"
The giant panda remained calm. She picked up another stalk of bamboo and scolded him with a growl, "Idiot. You're a male panda. At most, you can be called Little Doggy!" [1]
The panda cub protested. "But I'm a panda, not a dog."
The giant panda said flatly, "Then Little Kitty."
The panda cub continued to cry unhappily. "But I'm a panda, not a cat!"
The giant panda smacked the little one and sent him rolling across the ground. "Got an itchy backside, do you? Always fussing over nothing."
Without a doubt, she was definitely his biological mother. She didn't hesitate for a single second when it came to throwing hands.
***
Elsewhere, Yu Xian had no idea that his little improvisation had led to the panda cub getting beaten. He was sitting by the window in a small noodle shop, slurping down a bowl of bamboo-infused noodles in rich chicken broth.
This type of noodle was a specialty of Bamboo City. The noodles carried a rich bamboo fragrance, which gave them a very distinctive flavor. Those who liked it would probably love it, while those who did not would probably be unable to keep eating it after one bite.
Yu Xian felt that he belonged to the former category. With Super Gustation, he could tell that the noodles had been made from high-quality bamboo leaf extract and flour. They had also been cooked in a clear, sweet chicken broth, and paired with all kinds of high-quality ingredients. The flavor was nothing short of exceptional.
Having eaten eight bowls of noodles in one go, Yu Xian walked out of the noodle shop with a deeply satisfied expression. Vampires normally hated the smell of garlic. If they stayed too long in an enclosed space filled with garlic, they could even pass out. However, after awakening Super Stomach and Super Gustation, Yu Xian seemed to have become immune to garlic. At the very least, he could now eat garlic with great relish and did not feel the slightest discomfort.
Afterward, he tried striking up conversations with a few more panda cubs. Without exception, their mothers drove him away as though he were a yellow-haired biker punk.
He played around for a little over ten minutes, then teleported to Emerald City and continued flying toward Ice City. Around midnight, a city without walls appeared before him. The city was so vast that even from the sky, he could not see its edges.
Even though it was already midnight, the city was still brightly lit. Cars streamed along the roads like endless rivers of light. Yu Xian had arrived in Yanjing.
As he slowly descended, multiple invisible gazes instantly locked onto him. He looked toward a nearby skyscraper. With his vision enhanced by Silver Blood, he saw a young woman holding a cane standing at the very top of the building, staring right at him.
The woman wore a black dress, and her red hair billowed in the wind. An eyepatch covered her left eye. When their gazes met, her right eye gleamed with a sharp edge, giving Yu Xian the impression that she was wild and unruly.
Tiger rank? As expected of Yanjing. There are so many experts here.
Yu Xian withdrew his gaze and landed on the ground. A moment later, a police car pulled up beside him. An officer from the Combat Police unit in black battle armor got out. Saluting, he said, "Hello. Please show your identification."
Yu Xian nodded, took out his ID from his spatial ring, and handed it to the officer. His identity was swiftly verified. The officer saluted again, returned his ID, and warned him that Yanjing was a no-fly zone. If he wished to travel by air, he would need to file an application and obtain approval beforehand.
Yu Xian's arrival by air had clearly put the entire Combat Police on high alert. After his identity was verified, no other officers of the Combat Police unit came to verify his identity again. Police cars did not stop even when they passed by him.
Yu Xian took out his phone and contacted Bat. "Bat, I've arrived in Yanjing. I'll bring Zhong Wuliang's body straight to you. Send me your location."
—Send me yours instead. I'm driving right now.
Vampires were all night owls, so Yu Xian did not stand on ceremony. He sent Bat his location, and Bat said he would arrive in fifteen minutes.
Yanjing had been expanding nonstop. The Thirty-Fifth Ring Road had been completed years ago. Currently, Yu Xian was standing in what would eventually become the Thirty-Sixth Ring Road.
Since each ring road was larger than the last, the total length of the Thirty-Sixth Ring Road was absurdly long. Because of that, Yu Xian estimated that Qilin's headquarters should be somewhere around the Thirty-Fourth or Thirty-Third Ring Road. Otherwise, there was no way Bat could arrive so quickly.
He sat down on a roadside bench meant for pedestrians to rest on. As he did, he casually attached many ultra-tiny spatial bubbles to the grooves on the back of the bench. For some reason, it gave him the strange feeling of secretly sticking boogers to the back of a chair.
Fifteen minutes later, a bulletproof off-road vehicle stopped in front of him. The window slowly rolled down, and the young man in the driver's seat looked at him. "Get in."
Yu Xian stood up, opened the passenger door, and got into the car before asking, "Bat?"
Bat had a presence very similar to his own. However, Bat's complexion was much paler, even carrying a faint blue tint, which made him look more like a dead man.
Yu Xian, on the other hand, had two beating hearts, so his complexion was much closer to that of a normal person. His skin was merely on the fairer side, closer to what people would call a cool-toned pale complexion.
Bat introduced himself while driving. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Bat."
Yu Xian smiled. "Nice to meet you. I'm Salted Fish. Are we heading to headquarters now?"
Bat gave a faint nod and turned his attention back to the road. Yu Xian noticed that Bat was not much of a talker, so he lowered his head and went back to scrolling on his phone. He was looking through Yanjing food recommendations. Once he reached Ice City and placed down a spatial bubble there, he would come back here and eat to his heart's content.
Half an hour later, Bat pulled into an unremarkable building. After parking the car, he swiped his keycard at the door and led Yu Xian inside.
The moment Yu Xian stepped into the building, he was stunned. The building looked utterly ordinary from the outside, but its interior was brimming with futuristic technology. On top of that, the inside of the building had been spatially expanded. Even a tiny room was larger than a soccer field.
A profound sense of culture shock washed over Yu Xian. He felt utterly out of his depth, his eyes overwhelmed by the dazzling surroundings as he hurried to keep up with Bat.
The dragon-kin girl was seriously beautiful. There was also a mermaid manipulating a current of water as she passed by. He even spotted a masked descendant of Leizhenzi. Just catching a glimpse of him left Yu Xian's head tingling with a strange, static numbness.[2]
As they passed certain rooms, he could see through the huge glass windows that zombies, malevolent ghosts, vengeful spirits, and demons were bound tightly with chains, talismans, and magical artifacts, while researchers collected special tissue samples from their bodies.
As expected of headquarters, they really have every strange thing imaginable. It's definitely an eye-opener!
1. 小美(Xiǎoměi), literally "Little Beauty," is a feminine, gentle, and sweet-sounding given name in Chinese, which is why the mother panda is so irritated when her male cub thinks it might be his name. By contrast, 二狗 (Èrgǒu), literally "Second Dog," is a 贱名 (jiànmíng), or lowly/humble name. In traditional Chinese culture, particularly in rural areas, parents would sometimes deliberately give their children ugly, lowly, or seemingly "worthless" nicknames. According to old superstition, a child with a cheap, insignificant name is less likely to attract misfortune, since evil spirits overlook them and pass them by. ☜
2. 雷震子 (Léizhènzǐ) is a thunder-associated figure from the Chinese mythological novel Investiture of the Gods. He is often depicted with wings, a fierce appearance, and supernatural powers and is best known as the adopted son of Ji Chang, King Wen of Zhou. ☜