With three superpowers at his fingertips, he could dominate the 1970s.

Upon hearing this, Seventeen immediately flapped its wings rapidly.

"Alright, host, we'll just teleport there in a bit, that'll save us trouble."

Jiang Zhiyu hummed in agreement, but didn't rush to get up.

She sat in the private room for another half hour, until the last rays of sunlight outside the window completely faded and the streetlights lit up one by one, before slowly standing up and finishing the last cup of tea.

I left the restaurant and walked along the side alley. I turned into a corner piled with cardboard boxes, looked around, but there was no one there.

A flash of light and shadow.

The next second, Jiang Zhiyu was already standing at the foot of the wall in the back alley of that antique shop.

She pressed her back against the wall, not in a hurry to move. She probed the wall with her spiritual energy, layer by layer.

The small shop that was visible was already closed. The wooden door was bolted from the inside, and a faint light shone through the crack.

Her spiritual power probed further down, and there was still the person in the basement.

The person was still curled up in the corner, breathing weakly, almost touching the ground as they gasped for breath.

Her spiritual energy then traveled up the old wooden stairs on the second floor, and there the old man was sleeping soundly.

Jiang Zhiyu narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Seventh, above."

She had barely finished speaking when she vanished.

When they reappeared, a person and a small machine were already standing in the second-floor bedroom.

Before Jiang Zhiyu could even raise her hand, Seventeen's wings flapped open. A layer of extremely fine white mist emanated from its body, silently spreading onto the old man's face.

The old man's nostrils twitched, his snoring paused for a moment, then subsided, and he slept even more soundly than before.

Jiang Zhiyu tilted her head and glanced at it, her eyebrows raised high.

"Oh."

She lowered her voice.

"You're getting better and better at following my lead."

Seventeen flapped its wings triumphantly twice, and the blue crystals flashed.

"That requires a host."

It moved a little closer, looking like an old partner.

"From now on, I'll handle the dirty and tiring work. You just need to use your brain and give me directions."

Jiang Zhiyu smiled slightly, ignored the comment, and walked straight out the door.

The old wooden staircase in the attic creaked and groaned underfoot. She wasn't in a hurry, descending step by step, the wood beneath her groaning. Reaching the back of the shop, she focused her mental energy on the mechanism.

Jiang Zhiyu reached out and pressed down along the corner of the cabinet.

"Click."

A single wooden board behind the cabinet was silently pushed open, revealing a narrow opening leading to the ground.

A stench of decay mixed with mold assaulted my senses.

Jiang Zhiyu immediately took half a step back and touched her nose with the back of her hand.

That smell wasn't built up in just a day or two. Rust, sweat, old wounds, and dampness all mixed together.

She stood at the cave entrance, letting the foul air dissipate on its own. Once the pungent smell in the air had lessened slightly, she began to descend the narrow wooden ladder, step by step.

The basement was small and square, with only a small incandescent light bulb flickering overhead.

The iron cage was placed right in the middle.

Seventeen poked half its body out of the space. Its gaze fell on the person curled up in the iron cage, and its wings fluttered to a stop.

"Host."

Its voice suddenly dropped to a very low hue.

"this……"

Jiang Zhiyu also paused.

Seventeen leaned closer and took a closer look, her voice tinged with disbelief.

"How come you've changed so much in just a few months?"

Jiang Zhiyu raised an eyebrow and fixed her gaze on the face of the person in the iron cage.

People are now so thin they look unrecognizable, with a thin layer of skin covering their cheekbones and their eye sockets deeply sunken.

"Let's go outside first and talk about it then."

She lowered her voice.

"This isn't a place to talk; it's too suffocating."

She reached out and grabbed the padlock; the lock's internal springs clicked open. The lock clattered into her other hand without making a sound.

Jiang Zhiyu opened the cage door and bent down to go inside.

The man's body was limp, offering no resistance whatsoever. She wrapped her arms around him and lifted him from the cold floor tiles. With that embrace, her heart sank again.

A once tall and strong adult man now looks like he weighs less than 100 pounds when held in someone's arms.

Her shoulder blades were pressing against her arm, segment by segment, causing a sharp, uncomfortable pain.

She glanced at him. The bruises around his eyes were alarmingly deep, his lips were chapped and peeling, and there was a faint ligature mark on his neck that had scabbed over, then broken open and was oozing blood.

Jiang Zhiyu pursed her lips, said nothing, and gently tapped her fingertip, sending a drop of spiritual spring water down his lips.

The man's Adam's apple bobbed slightly, but he remained unconscious.

The spring water only kept him alive for a while; others rescued him, but in the end, it was all for naught.

She carefully laid the person flat in the small room at the far end of her own space, and then used her mind to lay out a clean, soft couch and placed the person on it.

Seventeen.

She got up and dusted off her hands.

"Host, what about that old man upstairs? Should we take him with us? Lock him up and interrogate him slowly."

Jiang Zhiyu nodded coldly.

"Take them all with you. Anyone who dares to touch our people will pay the price."

Before the words were finished, Seventeen gently folded her wings.

The old man who was sleeping soundly on the second floor, along with the thin blanket on his bed, disappeared from the bedroom.

Jiang Zhiyu stood in the middle of the basement, then slowly turned around.

Her mental energy swept through the small basement once more, carefully. Aside from the cold, empty iron cage, there was nothing else worth seeing.

She wrinkled her nose, turned around, and went up the narrow staircase.

Upon entering the shop, her gaze fell upon the rows of old counters.

"Since we're already here..."

She muttered to herself.

"There's no reason to leave empty-handed."

She thought of the emaciated body she had just taken into her spatial dimension, and the coldness in her eyes deepened.

"We'll see."

She raised her hand and gently traced the edge of an old wooden cabinet with her fingertips.

"You tortured us to this state, and this little bit of food isn't even enough to fill a tooth gap? Let's find out who the mastermind is before we go for compensation!"

Seventeen's wings immediately began to flap merrily.

"Host, you're in charge."

Jiang Zhiyu stopped wasting words. With a burst of spiritual energy, all the truly valuable old items in the shop entered her spatial dimension, including antiques from abroad.

After sweeping the shop, she went into the accounting room in the back.

The drawer was pulled open, one section at a time.

Underneath the third compartment, there was a neatly stacked pile of banknotes.

She counted it: sixty thousand US dollars.

Jiang Zhiyu smiled and put the stack of banknotes into her spatial storage intact.

"You poor wretch! How come you only have this much?"

She muttered something to herself.

Seventeen was so happy that his wings trembled.

"Host, how about we find someone rich...?"

Jiang Zhiyu ignored it, glanced around the shop one last time to make sure there was nothing else worth taking, and then turned and left the shop.

The back alley was very quiet.

She walked a couple of steps along the wall and turned at the street corner. The streetlights cast a dim yellow glow, and a jeep happened to be slowly driving by from the other end of the street. Jiang Zhiyu raised her hand and waved.

The car slowly came to a stop.

Jiang Zhiyu opened the car door, gave her uncle's address, climbed into the back seat, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

As the car moved forward, the engine began to hum softly.

She placed her fingertips on her knee and tapped it twice slowly.

"Seventeen. Keep an eye on them and make sure they don't wake up."

"Don't worry, host!"