Villain? No, I'll catch up with the protagonist after passing the civil service exam.

A cold wind swirled and blew past the rooftop of the unfinished building, carrying with it cement dust.

Lu Jingyan placed one foot on the assassin's back. The tread pattern on the sole of his military boot pressed firmly against the cervical vertebra.

He pulled out silver police handcuffs from his waist. With a "click," the gears meshed. The cold metal rings locked into K's dislocated wrist.

"Illegal use of large-caliber firearms in urban areas."

Lu Jingyan looked down at him. His voice was slightly muffled by the wind, but it was devoid of any emotion.

"The crime of endangering public safety is now being investigated. Get up and follow me."

Killer K looked like a dead dog with its spine broken. His face was pressed against the rough cement floor, his mouth full of blood and spittle, and he was struggling to breathe.

Two kilometers away. IKEA store.

The piercing fire alarm was still ringing in the lobby. The overhead fire sprinklers sensed the smoke and began to spray water with a hissing sound.

Water droplets fell onto the gray fabric sofa. A dripping sound.

Su Xiaoxiao curled up in a corner behind the sofa, hugging her knees.

The carpet was soaked and smelled musty. There were shards of glass mixed in, and they stung my leg a little.

She slowly lowered her head.

His gaze fell on his right shoulder.

A small hole, the size of a fingernail, was burned through the light-colored trench coat. The edges of the fabric were charred and curled.

A Gauss warhead was firmly embedded in the heavy black tactical vest inside.

The bullet was deformed. Its surface glowed with a dark red light and was emitting wisps of blue smoke.

The air was thick with the stench of sulfur mixed with the burning smell of metal. It made one's throat dry.

Su Xiaoxiao extended her index finger and carefully touched the bullet.

"hiss--"

Her fingertip had barely touched the burn when she recoiled. She shook her hand; a small patch of redness appeared on her fingertip.

Suddenly, the bloody mark on the back of Lu Jingyan's hand when he tackled her flashed through her mind.

The bright red bloodstains looked particularly jarring on the hands of this man, who was always obsessively clean.

Su Xiaoxiao's eyes immediately reddened.

My nose felt sore and swollen. An uncontrollable anger surged from the bottom of my heart to the top of my head.

"How dare you hit my man..."

She clenched her teeth. Her voice was thick and nasal, with a hint of crying, but mostly filled with fierce determination.

"You really think all I do is shop around and pick out sofas?!"

She grabbed the muddy canvas bag next to her. The zipper rattled as it was pulled.

He reached in and pulled out the black military tactical tablet.

Press the power button.

The blue light from the screen shone on Su Xiaoxiao's face, which was covered in dust and water droplets. The little girl's brows were tightly furrowed, like an angry little animal.

Ten slender, pale fingers hovered above the virtual keyboard.

"Smuggling Gauss rifles, huh? With electronic fire control modules, right?"

She sniffled and muttered angrily.

"As long as your damn gun is electrified... as long as it's connected to the internet, I'll go down the internet cable today and dig up your ancestral graves!"

He slammed his finger down on the screen.

"Da da da da—"

The rapid tapping sounds mingled with the sound of water.

Because her hands were still shaking, she accidentally pressed the wrong letter. She quickly pressed the backspace key twice, took a deep breath, and forced herself to steady herself.

Access to the supercomputing main core of the central command center was revoked.

The command box popped up on the screen at lightning speed.

"Start the reverse sniffing node," she muttered.

Press the back of the tablet directly against the still-hot bullet on your shoulder.

Enable near-field radio frequency capture.

The progress bar popped up in the center of the screen. The red percentage number started climbing.

Ten percent. Forty percent. One hundred percent.

"drop."

The system beeped softly. A foreign IP address, disguised with thirteen layers of deception, popped up on the screen.

"Gotcha. 'Night Owl's' underwear."

Su Xiaoxiao wiped her eyes haphazardly with the back of her hand, wiping away the troublesome tears onto her sleeve.

She continued typing. This time, her fingers moved so fast they were barely visible, tapping loudly on the glass screen.

The data stream cascaded down the black background like a waterfall.

Bypass firewalls. Crack dynamic keys.

"One layer... two layers... this is really dilapidated. The defense code looks like it was chewed by a dog, and they dare to show it off like this."

While complaining, she hacked into the opponent's core server.

The screen flickered.

They directly cut into a financial hub hidden deep within the dark web.

The screen was filled with a dense array of offshore accounts. Each account was followed by a long, dizzying string of zeros.

Su Xiaoxiao looked at the numbers and sneered.

"You have money to hire someone to commit murder? You must have too much money to burn."

She opened the global transfer operation page. Her finger hovered over the input box.

"Let me see... Hmm, the National Charity Federation. And the Jinghai City Police Officers' Families Compensation Fund for Those Who Died in the Line of Duty."

She filled in the recipient information.

When entering the transfer amount, she didn't even count; she simply pressed and held down the "9" key on the keyboard until the input box was full.

"I'm donating it all to my mother. Consider it doing you bastards a good deed!"

He pressed the Enter key heavily with his index finger.

"send."

The green numbers on the screen came to life instantly.

Like a reservoir with its floodgates opened, it began to throb and surge wildly.

One billion. Five hundred million. Ten million.

Asset figures plummeted at an imperceptible speed, like an avalanche.

Right at this moment.

The black market trading points hidden in various underground corners of Jinghai City have also fallen into chaos.

A henchman who was counting alien smuggling engines suddenly received a beeping error from the card reader in his hand.

A red light illuminates on the screen, displaying "Transaction failed, insufficient balance."

Immediately afterwards, the entire black market's internal network went black. Red sirens wailed mournfully in every air-raid shelter.

The owners of underground banks were so frightened by the empty accounts on their terminals that they collapsed to the ground.

The entire vast underground black market network suffered a devastating funding shortfall within seconds.

the other side of the city.

In a dark and damp basement.

Red wine was scattered all over the floor, mixed with shards of broken glass from wine glasses. It crunched underfoot and felt sticky and slippery.

Qiu Kun's eyes were bloodshot and red.

He slumped over his desk, his hands gripping the surface, staring intently at the high-spec computer monitor in front of him.

The blue progress bar on the screen is clearing the final data transfer.

"Stop...stop right now!"

He roared like a madman. His voice was as hoarse as a broken gong.

He clenched his fists and slammed them hard onto the mechanical keyboard. Keycaps flew everywhere, hitting his face and stinging.

He gripped the screen with his ten fingers. His fingernails made a screeching sound as they scratched the glass.

"That's ten years' worth of hard work! Ten years' worth of money!"

No one answered him. The computer didn't stop running because of his yelling.

The last jump ended.

The image remains still.

All the offshore accounts and all the hidden assets have been transformed into rows of clean and neat numbers.

0.00.

In the dark basement, the Shadow Boss stared at the account balance on the computer screen in front of him, which instantly jumped to "0.00", and let out a howl more desperate and miserable than a vengeful ghost.