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

The silence between the two did not last long, as the sound of hurried footsteps drew closer.

The King of Cards twirled his long staff halfway around and turned his head to look at the man still standing next to the headless corpse.

"We should make our escape."

Stephen Chow heard it too.

He didn't leave immediately, but squatted down next to the bone-cast corpse and examined it for a few moments.

"Tsk, these are truly rare and excellent materials."

"This high-density calcium carbonate variant is of really good quality."

The King's eye twitched twice.

He glanced at the faint beam of a tactical flashlight at the alley entrance, then at Zhou Xingxing, who was squatting on the ground studying the corpse.

"Are you crazy?"

The King of Cards lowered his voice and shouted something.

"They're coming! Are you still rummaging through corpses looking for change?"

"Why are you asking for change? Can't you have any standards?"

Stephen Chow ran his fingers along the largest bone spur on the spine, flicked the tip of his fingernail, and listened to the echo.

"Its hardness is at least 7 on the Mohs scale and above. Apart from corundum and diamond, you can't find a third natural material that can reach this level."

He looked up, his face beaming with excitement as if he had found a treasure.

"This is called recycling usable, high-quality natural resources, a concrete manifestation of our Huaxia special agents' fine tradition of diligence and thrift!"

After saying that, Zhou Xingxing pulled out the pig-slaughtering knife and cut into the base of the three hardest bone spurs on the back of the bone-cast man.

His technique was as skillful as slicing a freshly roasted duck.

The blade bypassed all hard obstacles, moving along the gaps between bone and soft tissue.

After a few crisp clicks, the three white bone spurs were completely removed.

As the King of Cards looked at the three bloody bones, he felt a throbbing pain in his brainstem.

"What exactly do you want to do with this thing? Make soup to supplement calcium?"

"Why supplement with calcium? This is top-quality orthopedic teaching material and high-strength drill bit material!"

Stephen Chow pulled an old newspaper from the nearby trash can and wrapped the three bone spurs in it.

"I'll take it back to China and give it to Leonardo da Vinci to do some research. Maybe he can develop a new type of tunnel boring machine drill bit component."

Stephen Chow shoved the wrapped newspaper package into the briefcase that was already full of US dollars.

"If it's really not needed, it can be sent to the orthopedics department of a medical school as a teaching model to collect some donations. These are all legitimate projects to recover lost state-owned assets."

He patted the surface of his briefcase, and before he could utter a few witty remarks, a bullet grazed past his white felt hat.

"Damn it!"

The King cursed under his breath, no longer having time to waste words with him.

He raised his hand and flung out more than a dozen playing cards filled with purplish-red energy, which struck the load-bearing walls on both sides of the alley entrance.

A series of explosions created a shockwave at the end of the dark alley.

"This way!"

The King of Cards lifted the rusty manhole cover next to him and jumped into the dark sewer entrance first.

Stephen Chow, carrying his suitcase, slid up and followed.

Before jumping, he didn't forget to wave towards the alley entrance.

"Hey you capitalist street hustlers! The mountains and rivers remain green as ever! Next time you travel to China, I'll treat you to grilled cold noodles! Twenty yuan per person, that's all!"

He jumped into the sewer.

The manhole cover closed up overhead, shutting out the sounds of gunfire and noise from the ground.

Stephen Chow pinched his nose as soon as he landed.

"Ugh, what the hell is this smell?"

He groped his way forward in the dark while ranting and raving.

"Which contractor actually gets the municipal engineering jobs in your US?"

"This sewer system lacks wet and dry separation and a fresh air circulation system, resulting in biogas concentrations exceeding the standard by at least three percentage points!"

I stepped on an unidentified object and it made a "plop" sound.

Stephen Chow glanced down at it, then quickly looked up again, his expression pained.

"You didn't even install a grease trap? The grease buildup and blockage rate is at least 40%!"

"If this happened in our neighborhood committee, the Safety Supervision Bureau would have fined us into bankruptcy long ago!"

The King of Cards walked ahead, holding a faintly glowing playing card in his hand for illumination.

He listened to the never-ending chatter behind him, the fingertips of his right hand holding the cards gleaming slightly.

He seriously considered for three seconds whether or not to shove the bomb in his hand into the other person's mouth.

"Shut up, buddy. If you say another word, I'll throw you into the septic tank over there."

"Septic tanks? You guys have septic tanks here?" Zhou Xingxing perked up. "That means the city planning isn't completely rotten yet! There's hope! There's hope!"

"Ferme ta!" the King of Cards finally blurted out a French swear word.

Stephen Chow wisely kept quiet.

There was silence for about twenty seconds.

"How many millimeters thick is the pipe wall?"

The King of Cards tossed the powered-up playing cards behind him.

Stephen Chow turned his head to dodge, and the card flew past his ear, embedding itself in the pipe wall behind him with a "bang," creating a fist-sized crater.

"Okay, okay, I won't say anymore."

......

In a suite at a star-rated hotel in Las Vegas.

Stephen Chow threw his white suit on the sofa and slumped inside.

He reached out and grabbed the bunch of black berries from the fruit plate, picked one, and popped it into his mouth, chewing it until the juice flew everywhere.

The King of Cards leaned against the bar, toying with two sharp-edged metal playing cards in his hand, staring at the man who was spouting nonsense.

He couldn't understand the logic behind this guy's actions at all.

Just half an hour ago, this man in the counterfeit suit dismembered the bone-casting machine into eight pieces.

But now, this dangerous individual is rummaging through the free snacks in the coffee table drawer like a street urchin who hasn't eaten for three days.

Zhou Xingxing tore open a bag of nuts and poured them into his mouth. While chewing, he picked up the room bill on the table and started looking at it.

"You're living such a decadent life!"

"This tiny bottle of sparkling water costs fifteen US dollars! Is this water poured from Guanyin Bodhisattva's jade vase, or does drinking it grant immortality?"

He sprang up from the sofa, opened the small refrigerator next to him, and skillfully tried to stuff all the liquor inside into his suitcase.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, the King of Cards threw away his deck of cards.

The metal rod slid into his palm and extended, pressing against Stephen Chow's forearm.

"My patience is very limited."

"Who exactly are you, and what is your purpose in following me?"

Stephen Chow calmly reached out and pushed away the potentially deadly charged long stick, his tone carrying a hint of earnestness.

"We're all civilized people, why are we using knives and guns?"

Stephen Chow took something out of the inside pocket of his suit, wiped it casually on his clothes a couple of times, and then held it by the edges with both hands and handed it to the King of Cards.

"Since we've all been through life and death together, it's a kind of fate that we've met. Let's get to know each other better."

The King frowned as he looked at the object in his hand—a crumpled business card still bearing traces of ballpoint pen ink.

He took the cheap card with suspicion, looked at the strangely arranged Chinese and English characters on it, and slowly read them aloud.

"Director of the Overseas Special Talent Introduction Office of the 749th Bureau of China, codenamed Ling Lingqi?"