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

Neon lights can never penetrate the dark alleys of the backstreets.

The ace who caught up with Chow Sing-hung took out a cigarette.

A flash of purplish-red light from his fingertips ignited the cigarette butt with a "hiss".

He didn't rush to speak.

Leaning against the wall, he squinted and scrutinized Stephen Chow for a full ten seconds.

White suit.

suitcase.

A butcher's knife.

And what the manager was muttering about "space teleportation" earlier.

"Mon ami," the King of Cards exhaled a smoke ring, pulled three playing cards from his inner pocket, and twirled them between his fingers in a dazzling display of skill.

"Want to play a little game?"

"Guess the heart, and you can take the money in the box with you."

He tilted his head, his smile languid.

"If you can't guess... tell me, how the hell did you do that?"

Stephen Chow's eyes lit up: "Play cards? Great! I especially love playing cards!"

"I once played cards with a guy named Pierre Carson. Do you know him? I heard he's the God of Gamblers in France."

The King of Cards was overjoyed.

Throughout his many years in the gambling world, no one has ever dared to mention the words "God of Gamblers" in front of Remy LeBron.

He was just about to use a classic line to salvage the situation—

"How about we play Dou Dizhu?"

"...What?"

"Dou Dizhu! A national treasure of China!"

Stephen Chow counted on his fingers: "Four wild cards, three of a kind with two extra, and a royal flush doubles the winnings. Do you know how? If not, I'll teach you, I guarantee you'll learn it."

"I'm not discussing this with you..."

"We're one short for the three of us, can you call someone else? How about that group leader from before? Oh, he got knocked out. Never mind then."

Stephen Chow shook his head, answering his own question with extreme regret.

"One bet to decide the winner, and the stakes... let's do it in a more refined way. The loser introduces the other to three high-quality mutants, how about that?"

The King of Cards' forehead twitched.

He threw away the cigarette butt and stubbed it out with the tip of his shoe.

"I wasn't talking to you about playing cards!"

Before he could regain the initiative, Stephen Chow moved closer to him.

His expression was incredibly sincere, and his eyes were full of enthusiasm.

"We don't have to play cards. Cousin, I see you can precisely control the blast radius, release kinetic energy shock in a targeted manner, and even delay the detonation time..."

"How do you know it can be delayed? I haven't even..."

"When you were blasting the coffee table, you were two seconds late striking a pose. I've been watching people use firecrackers to blow up fishponds at the market since I was three. I can spot that much of a trick!"

The King of Cards was momentarily speechless. He was about to retort when Stephen Chow cut him off again.

Stephen Chow pulled out a small notebook: "It does not rely on gunpowder or detonators, is green and environmentally friendly, and has high blasting precision."

"Our country desperately needs this kind of talent! You're worth thirty imported rock drills plus two blasting engineers, cousin!"

"Come back to China with me? I'm a specially appointed expert in infrastructure blasting, with five social insurances and one housing fund, weekends off, and free meals and accommodation! Who knows, I might even be recognized as an advanced individual in work safety at the end of the year!"

The King of Cards looked at him with the same expression he'd given a patient who'd escaped from a mental hospital.

"I'm a thief." The strategist twirled his long stick in his hand. "My abilities are only used for self-defense and making money."

"Making money? You call this making money?"

Stephen Chow's tone conveyed a sense of heartache, like an older generation seeing their juniors take a wrong turn.

"I won a ton of chips, but before I even left the casino, security surrounded me! I won three times, and they just called in thugs to chop me up!"

"At best, you've 'lost everything after dealing with criminal gangs,' you don't even have a chance to break even!"

"You do the math!"

He counted on his fingers: "The casino takes a 5% cut, the tips are 15%, and the chance of being robbed is 30%—your actual return is negative! You might as well go work on a construction site! At least you won't get beaten up!"

The King of Cards was speechless for three seconds.

He was seriously considering whether to knock the chatterbox unconscious with a metal rod and then carry him to a roadside trash can to throw him away.

"Da da da!"

Footsteps could be heard coming from both ends of the alley.

A dozen or so gangsters wielding machetes filed in, completely blocking the alley.

The leader was clearly a mutant at a glance.

He is over two meters tall, and bone spurs have protruded from his shoulders, spine, and elbows.

She wasn't wearing a shirt; there was no way she could put it on.

He was dragging along a familiar face covered in blood, the very same person who had previously surrounded Gambit and Stephen Chow.

This guy tossed the half-dead team leader into a corner like trash: "On my turf, dereliction of duty is the same as stealing. Both are capital offenses."

He reached across his left arm with his right hand and pulled out a bone spear.

"Click!"

The bone spear grazed the team leader's ear and pierced through the brick wall.

"Kid, I'm in a good mood today. Hand over your winnings, kneel down and kowtow three times, and I might consider letting you leave alive."

The metal rod extended in his hand, and the King of Cards pulled out a few playing cards and held them between his fingertips.

"My friend," he said to Stephen Chow in a low voice.

"This guy's nickname is Bone Forger. He can generate bone weapons from his body, and his whole body is covered in bone armor for defense. The worst part is—he can absorb kinetic energy."

The strategist spoke rapidly: "My explosions are basically useless against him. The harder you explode, the more he absorbs. So I suggest you quickly take out that blade that can cut through iron like mud."

Stephen Chow didn't bring a knife.

He was also writing in his notebook.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, it'll be ready soon."

"'Bone Forging. Abilities: Bone growth, kinetic energy absorption.'" The pen scratched on the paper.

Potential applications: live reinforcement of tunnel supports, stress testing of seismic structures...

"What the hell are you writing?!"

"Write work notes."

Stephen Chow closed the notebook.

"Talent assessments must be conducted while they are still relevant; otherwise, they will be inaccurate."

The King of Cards takes a deep breath.

He retracted his long staff and flung out dozens of playing cards filled with purplish-red energy with his hands like butterflies flitting among flowers.

"Knock knock knock!!"

The series of explosions shattered into a mass in front of the bone-cast body.

Bricks and stones flew everywhere, and dust filled the air.

Bone Forge strode out of the firelight, laughing wildly.

Upon closer inspection, his body was covered with a layer of impenetrable bone armor.

"Is that all you've got?"

Bone Forged grinned maliciously and waved his hand: "Kill them!"

Gang thugs swarmed in.

The King of Cards wielded his long staff in a flurry of motion, unleashing bursts of energy.

He was extremely agile, but there were too many of them, and some of the thugs were even mutants.

They were forced to retreat step by step.

On the other side...

"Ouch! Don't hit my face! Don't hit my face!"

Stephen Chow, clutching the box, swayed from side to side like a drunken penguin.

A cleaver came down, and he happened to be bending over.

As the iron rod swept across, he was tripped up and the rod struck another thug directly in the face.

Five seconds later.

"Pat-pat, pat, pat..."

The belts of seven or eight burly men snapped in unison, and they all stumbled and fell over, pulling up their pants.

Upon seeing this scene, the King of Cards almost dropped his stick.

What the hell is this? Cutting a belt?

Who cut their belt while fighting?!

Bone Cast looked expressionlessly at the pile of his men on the ground, who were struggling to get up, and then at Zhou Xingxing, who was holding his briefcase and looking completely innocent.

With his legs bent, his half-ton body crashed down like a cannonball.

"Get out of the way, you idiot!" Gambit roared.