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

In the dead of night, the special heavy prison was so quiet that you could hear the occasional drip of cold water from the pipes.

The surveillance camera in cell 302 was flashing red light regularly. But if you looked closely, you would see that the red light was distorted by a very thin layer of blue mist, and the image transmitted back to the main control room remained frozen on the image of four people sleeping soundly with their heads covered.

"This 'blinding technique' won't last long. My current cultivation level is less than one-tenth of what it used to be, so I can only maintain it for half an hour at most."

Chen Beixuan sat cross-legged beside the squat toilet in the corner of the cell, his face ashen. Large beads of sweat dripped down his thin cheeks, and his hands, which once could split the sky, were now trembling uncontrollably.

He practically emptied his coffers to create this new world, which was built by four "chosen ones."

Chen Beixuan bit his tongue, spitting out a mouthful of scalding blood essence. His hands moved rapidly, forming hand seals, forcefully activating the last trace of his original true energy. The blood essence transformed into a ball of eerie green flame in mid-air, silently attaching itself to the arm-thick steel fence of the sewer.

The hissing sound of melting was particularly jarring in the quiet night, and a pungent smell of burnt metal filled the air.

Chu Tianjiao lay on the ground, relying on his explosive and architectural intuition honed over many years as a war god, precisely guiding the burning point of the flames.

"A little to the left. Yes, that stress support point." Chu Tianjiao lowered his voice, his eyes burning with fervor. "As long as this node is burned off, the entire structure of this broken fence will collapse. Old Chen, your fire is even more effective than the high-energy thermite in the army."

Gu Yanchen and Ye Fan stood on either side of the heavy, airtight door, listening intently to the sounds of the prison guards patrolling outside the corridor.

"Hurry up and burn it! The smell of this sewer is unbearable; I've never suffered like this in my life!"

Gu Yanchen covered his nose. Once a CEO whose contracts were worth billions, now his hands were covered in rust and grime. "Once we escape, I'm going to buy a private island in the Pacific and build a new world without any police or laws!"

"That's right! A dragon stranded in shallow waters is mocked by shrimp. Once I reunite the 100,000 soldiers of the Northern Frontier, I will repay this humiliation of being trampled on a sewing machine a hundredfold!"

Ye Fan gritted his teeth and echoed, the Dragon King's dignity transforming into an infinite desire to escape. "I'll make that damned cop Lu Jingyan kneel at my feet and sing 'Conquer'!"

"It's connected!"

Chu Tianjiao let out a low shout, interrupting their grand plan. He exerted force with both hands, bending the steel fence that had been melted by the pill fire, revealing a dark opening barely large enough for one person to squeeze through.

The air in the sewers was filthy, a mixture of excrement, rotting matter, and the pungent smell of disinfectant.

Four men who once stood at the top of the world now looked like four dirty rats, crawling forward on their hands and feet in the cramped, damp underground pipes.

Leading the way was Chu Tianjiao, who possessed an exceptional sense of direction and swiftly navigated the intricate underground pipe network. Chen Beixuan brought up the rear, coughing up blood weakly as he crawled, his bright orange prison uniform long since stained a foul-smelling black by sewage.

"Brothers, hold on!"

Gu Yanchen, while retching in the middle, encouraged everyone, "This is called 'no pain, no gain.' Think about the glamorous world outside, think about the humiliation we suffered being humiliated by that guy surnamed Lu! Today, this trip through the sewers is the baptism of our triumphant return!"

"Old Gu is right. Once we've built our new world, I'm going to flatten this lousy detention center and build public toilets instead!"

Thirty minutes of crawling in the dark felt like an eternity. Sewage soaked their prison uniforms, and rats scurried around them, but this did not break them; instead, it fueled their thirst for revenge.

Just as they were about to faint from the fumes from the methane gas in the pipes.

Suddenly, a faint whistling sound of night wind came from ahead.

Chu Tianjiao's spirits lifted, and he suddenly increased his crawling speed, pointing to the round cast iron manhole cover above his head, his voice trembling with extreme excitement.

"Exit! It's the exit! We're out!"

The four men were so excited they almost burst into tears; this was the light of freedom they had been searching for!

Chu Tianjiao took a deep breath, and with a sudden burst of strength from the bulging muscles in his arms, he pushed upwards with all his might. The heavy cast iron manhole cover was slowly pushed open, and a burst of fresh air, carrying the scent of dirt and the coolness of early autumn, instantly flooded the nauseating sewer.

That was the long-lost taste of freedom!

"Hahahaha! Lu Jingyan, you still can't hold us back after all!"

Despite being covered in a foul stench and filth, and feeling weak, Chen Beixuan was the first to emerge from the well. He opened his arms, ready to embrace the hard-won night sky and deliver a powerful declaration of "The Immortal Venerable has returned."

However, the ecstasy on his face didn't even have time to fully bloom before it froze completely into ashes.

"Snapped!"

"Slap! Slap! Slap!"

A series of blindingly bright searchlights suddenly lit up from all directions without warning.

Several extremely dazzling beams of light, like sharp swords, instantly tore through the night sky over the outskirts of the city, illuminating this remote sewer outlet as bright as day, making even the dust in the air impossible to hide.

The bright light blinded the four "immortals" who had just crawled out of the darkness, and they could only instinctively raise their hands, which were covered in excrement, to shield their eyes.

And right at the center of that blinding halo.

A comfortable outdoor folding chair is quietly placed less than three meters from the well opening.

Lu Jingyan, dressed in a black casual windbreaker, leaned back in his chair with his legs crossed in an extremely languid posture. The night breeze ruffled the wisps of hair on his forehead, and his signature gold-rimmed glasses reflected a cold and mocking glint in the bright sunlight.

He held his ever-present thermos in his hand, gently blew on the goji berries floating on the rim, and then slowly took a sip.

"Hey, four of you, you're climbing pretty fast."

Lu Jingyan put down his cup, looked at the four "protagonists" who were sticking out halfway and covered in a foul stench, and curled his lips into an extremely mocking smile.

"In the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, have they switched to dredging the city's underground pipe network?"

Dead silence.

Utter silence.

The four people at the bottom of the well felt an extreme chill that ran from head to toe, instantly freezing all their blood and the nascent hope of revenge.

How is that possible?

What is he doing here?!

"Surprised? Unexpected?"

Zhao Tiezhu, leading a whole squad of fully armed special police officers, emerged from the shadows with a grin, the riot batons in his hands flashing with eerie blue arcs of electricity in the night.

"Our Captain Lu has been waiting for you guys in this cold wind for over half an hour. He's even drunk three cups of goji berry tea. Your escape crawling speed needs some improvement."

Looking at the impenetrable gun barrels around him, Gu Yanchen's legs went weak, and he slid down the well, collapsing onto his backside in the sewage. His grand blueprint for building a "new world" instantly vanished into a laughable bubble in the face of Lu Jingyan's faint smile.

Chu Tianjiao was so angry that he trembled all over. The humiliation he felt as the God of War made him dig his nails into the flesh of his palms, drawing blood.

"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

Ye Fan completely broke down. He clung to the edge of the well like a madman, shouting at Lu Jingyan with all his might, tears streaming down his face, mixed with muddy water.

"We deliberately avoided all surveillance! Chen Beixuan's deception technique can even block infrared light! We even calculated the patrol time difference precisely!"

"How did you even find us?!"

Their plan was so perfect, every step meticulously calculated, even sacrificing the immortal's life essence. Why, then, did they appear as pathetic as invisible circus clowns in front of this policeman?

Lu Jingyan stood up and looked down at the four desperate, distorted, and collapsing faces in the well.

He didn't explain any profound tactics, nor did he mock their foolishness.

He simply raised his hand and tightened the lid of the thermos. Then he extended his slender finger and pointed to a small, black metal device, no bigger than a matchbox, emitting an extremely faint green light, in the corner of the wall inside the well.

"Surveillance? Who told you I rely on surveillance?"

Lu Jingyan's voice was soft, yet it was like a heavy iron hammer, shattering the last pride and understanding of these "chosen ones".

"These days, cameras alone aren't enough to deal with 'protagonists' like you who are covered in cheat codes."