American comic: From Beijing with Love, starting with a mutant.

That's too late!

Old Li, along with the safety rope and the rubble, plummeted straight down to the ground!

At that moment, Mortimer's leg muscles suddenly bulged under his camouflage uniform.

The trouser legs were stretched taut, and the knees were bent to their limit.

With a whoosh, it shot up from the ground, its vertical jump precisely cutting into the trajectory of Old Li's fall.

In mid-air, he ripped off his sun protection mask.

The edge of the counterfeit mask got caught on his nose, pulling at it and causing him some pain.

But he couldn't care less about any of that.

Old Li was falling in despair, the wind howling in his ears, and he couldn't open his eyes because of the wind.

I opened my eyes in a daze and suddenly saw a strange face with everted lips right in front of me.

His eyes were wide apart, his bright yellow pupils had shrunk to the size of pinpoints, and there were rough bumps on his skin.

Old Li's mind went blank.

Before he could even exclaim, Mortimer opened his mouth.

A tongue shot out of his mouth, passing through the gap between Old Li's armpit and waist.

Then tighten.

Old Li suddenly felt a tightening around his waist.

His descent was abruptly halted, and he bounced in mid-air as the safety rope buckle hit his knee, causing him to wince in pain.

Immediately afterwards, Mortimer's body twisted in the air.

He twisted his waist, spread his limbs, and pressed himself against a protruding rock face next to him.

All the skin surfaces in contact with the rock face simultaneously secrete mucus, adhering him to the vertical cliff.

From taking off to rescuing the person and then sticking to the rock face, he completed the whole action in one go.

The people present were so quick that they hadn't even had time to react.

With his tongue taut, Old Li hung precariously three meters below the toad-man, swaying precariously.

All the workers stood frozen in place, heads tilted back.

They stared at the long pink tongue, with a large, living person wrapped around it.

No one has ever seen such a rescue method.

Stephen Chow stood still, took out his phone from his pocket, and took a picture.

The accompanying text reads: "Special equipment test successful; application submitted for increased hazardous operations allowance." A photo of the site is also attached.

Director Wang replied with a message a few seconds later.

"Not wearing a seatbelt? You're going to write a self-criticism when you get back."

Stephen Chow put his phone back in his pocket, pretending he hadn't seen it.

On the rock face, Mortimer began to retract his tongue.

His tongue muscles were incredibly strong, allowing him to lift Old Li steadily.

At the same time, he crawled down the cliff face, alternating between his limbs.

Before long, the toad-man placed Old Li safely on the flat ground.

Old Li's legs went weak the moment they touched the ground, and he collapsed to the floor, panting heavily.

He was covered in slime.

The smell was a bit fishy and damp; it wasn't exactly pleasant.

But he couldn't care less about that. He stared at that toad-like face for a long time, his lips trembling, unable to utter a single word.

The workers finally realized what was happening and swarmed around them.

In the United States, at this time, the Toad Man is often met with screams, stones, and gun barrels.

Last time in Brooklyn, Mortimer pulled a drunk man from the subway tracks to save someone. When the drunk man opened his eyes and saw Mortimer's face, his first reaction was to pull out a switchblade from his pocket and stab him in the collarbone.

The toad-man didn't even fight back.

He was afraid that if he fought back, the next day's newspaper headlines would read "Mutant Monster Attacks Innocent Citizens."

The toad-man instinctively shrank back, adopting a defensive posture, and made muffled gurgling sounds.

He knew all too well what was going to happen next.

They cursed and swore, threw things at him, and stared at him like he was a monster.

"Holy crap! Dude, your waist strength is amazing!"

Hearing the sound, Mortimer paused and peeked out through his fingers.

The speaker was a young laborer, his face covered in mud, his eyes staring straight at him.

"Is this some kind of acrobatics or martial arts? I've seen those Shaolin monks spitting needles on TV, but this is even more amazing than that!"

Another older worker squeezed through the crowd, stretched out his calloused hand, and patted Mortimer's shoulder blade twice.

"Those muscles! No wonder you didn't need ropes to get to work, turns out you've got real skills! You've been hiding it well!"

Someone stared at the tongue that had just retracted and couldn't help but give it a thumbs up.

"This thing is much better than imported safety ropes."

"What safety rope? This is called a flexible lifting device!"

"It's a biological version, so it's green and environmentally friendly."

"When we evaluate advanced equipment at our construction site in the future, will Lao Mo have to go on stage to receive the award?"

"How do I write 'Outstanding Tongue Performer' when accepting an award?"

A group of people were talking at once, their words a jumbled mess.

But no one there had any ill intentions.

Old Li has finally recovered.

He scrambled over, grabbed Mortimer's dusty hand, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Dude! You're like my own father!"

Old Li held onto the toad-man's hand tightly, refusing to let go.

The sticky substance on Mortimer's palm hadn't dried yet, but Old Li didn't care at all.

"If it weren't for your magical... seatbelt, I'd be dead down there today!"

"I have two kids in school. My wife just called before you came to say that our younger child got first place in the class..."

Old Li became incoherent towards the end, shaking Mortimer's hand back and forth.

No one at the scene treated him like a monster, and no one avoided him.

The group of construction workers, covered in mud, simply patted him on the shoulder to express their gratitude.

On construction sites, a skill that can save lives is a gift from the gods.

Whether you use your hands or your tongue, being able to pull a person alive off a cliff is a real skill.

An old man in the distance stared at the toad-man's face for a few seconds and frowned.

He whispered something in Lao Liu's ear, but Zhou Xingxing heard it.

"Old Liu, this guy... he's too weird, isn't he?"

Old Liu glanced back at the old master.

"So what?"

"They saved our brothers, so why do you care what they look like?"

"Cangjie had a dragon-like face and four eyes, King Wen had four nipples, Xiang Yu had double pupils, and Liu Bei had hands hanging down and knees bent."

"Looking strange is called a natural birthmark!"

"What's wrong with other people being so discerning?"

Zhou Xingxing found that Lao Liu's rhetoric was very skillful, much better than the writing materials of the public relations department of Bureau 749.

The old man paused for a moment, glanced at Old Li who was still wiping away tears, remained silent for a few seconds, then turned around, flipped over a dry towel, and handed it to Mortimer.

Mortimer took the towel, his yellow eyes wide open.

Old Liu squeezed in and took out the pack of cigarettes that Zhou Xingxing had just given him, stuffing it into Mortimer's pocket.

"Old Mo! Nothing more to say! A true tech genius! Comrade Zhou was right, you're amazing!"

"Add some dishes for lunch! Slaughter two free-range chickens! Stew a big pig's trotter for Lao Mo to nourish his body!"

The toad-man plopped down on the ground, opened his mouth wide, and burst into tears.

The crying was loud and unpleasant, a mixture of snot, tears, and green mucus, accompanied by strange gurgling sounds from the throat.

Her wailing was interspersed with incomprehensible English and tangled pinyin.

"Thank you...no, don't hit me...no one hit me...Old Li calls me master..."

The workers patted Mortimer on the back.

Some people offered him cigarettes and lit them, while a young worker squatted down to massage his back.

"Alright, alright, it's all in the past. Let's have a drink tonight to calm our nerves."

Old Li was still holding his hand.

"Old Mo, brother, you're my benefactor! From now on, if anyone on this construction site says a bad word about you, I, Old Li, will be the first to get angry!"

Mortimer cried even harder.

Stephen Chow stood on the periphery of the crowd, watched for a moment, and then silently turned his head away.

He lit a cigarette, took two puffs, then pulled out his old phone from his pocket and opened the mutant wanted list in his photo album.

Laughter came from behind him as someone took a hard hat and placed it neatly on Mortimer's head.

The toad's face was covered in tears and snot, but its mouth stretched all the way to its ears, revealing two rows of crooked teeth.

The crying gradually turned into intermittent laughter.

The sunset glowed red on the mountaintops of Tiankeng Village, smoke rose from the construction site, and the aroma of stewed chicken and pig's trotters mingled with the smell of gunpowder from blasting rocks, spreading in the wind.

That was the most comforting, earthy smell the toad man had ever experienced in his life.