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

A few days ago, the sunlight outside the Civil Affairs Bureau still carried the warm fragrance of osmanthus blossoms.

The warmth of the red booklet pressed against my chest still seems to have lingered.

The camera cuts to the next scene.

At this moment, all that remains in Jinghai City is a continuous, cold rain in the dead of night.

A dead-end alley behind the Nancheng shantytown.

Rainwater cascaded down the moss-covered brick walls, creating black puddles in the uneven, muddy ground.

A rat with a long tail scurried under the trash can.

The trash can had long been overturned. Spoiled leftovers mixed with rainwater emitted a pungent, sour stench that assaulted one's nostrils.

Zhao Tiezhu was wearing a black tactical raincoat.

Raindrops pelted the reflective bald head, making a loud, pattering sound.

He was holding a steel riot control fork in his hand. The fork tip was pressed firmly against a dark shadow in front of him.

The leather boots slid back half an inch as they stepped into the mud.

"Stay still! Don't fucking move!"

Zhao Tiezhu gritted his teeth. The veins on his thick arms bulged as he used every ounce of strength he had.

The guy pinned against the wall by the riot fork was a skinny thug who looked to weigh less than 100 pounds.

He was wearing a ripped denim jacket. He was so thin he was skin and bones, like a withered stick.

But this simple hemp stalk suddenly unleashed terrifying brute force.

The skinny monkey kept his head down.

A hissing sound, like a wild animal snoring, came from his throat. His chest heaved violently.

He suddenly raised his face.

By the dim light of the streetlamp at the alley entrance, one could see a strange blue powder coating around his nostrils.

Those eyes were bloodshot. The whites of their eyes were turned outwards.

Even the depths of his eye sockets glowed with an unnatural, eerie blue light.

"roar--!"

The skinny monkey let out a loud howl. It was a sound that no human could make.

He did not dodge the riot control fork.

Instead, it lunged forward head-on at the steel fork. The bones in its shoulder made a sickening cracking sound; the joint was clearly dislocated.

But he didn't even flinch. It was as if he had completely lost the ability to feel pain.

Two withered hands clung tightly to the red brick wall behind them.

The crevices under my fingernails were full of dirt. My knuckles were white.

He roared and forcefully pried half a loose brick off the wall.

He turned around, took the half brick, and smashed it against the cement utility pole next to him.

"Clang!"

A muffled thud. The brick shattered into powder.

A fist-sized dent was punched into the surface of the utility pole. Pebbles flew everywhere.

Skinny Monkey's own finger bone was also protruding from his flesh, the white bone fragments exposed, blood mixed with rainwater flowing down.

He was still laughing wildly.

He waved his rotten hand wildly, like a mad dog.

"My goodness, has this grandson eaten gunpowder?"

Zhao Tiezhu swallowed hard. His palms, gripping the riot control fork, were covered in sticky sweat.

He dared not pull out the antimatter gun.

The instructions from above are that this is a local security case, and we cannot use heavy weapons that could cause death.

"Put on the restraints! Quickly!"

Zhao Tiezhu roared.

Several SWAT officers wearing heavy stab-proof vests rushed forward.

Three riot shields pressed forward simultaneously, forcefully cornering the skinny monkey against the wall, rendering him unable to move.

Several thick nylon cable ties were quickly wrapped around his wrists and ankles.

It tightened tightly. The clicking sound of the plastic gears meshing was particularly crisp in the rainy night.

The skinny monkey was still struggling frantically under the riot shield.

Its body thrashed about like a mudfish on a cutting board, splashing water everywhere.

Suddenly, he froze.

Its mouth was wide open, and two hissing sounds came from its throat, like a broken bellows leaking air.

A mouthful of white foam mixed with blue powder gushed from the corner of his mouth.

His eyes were fixed on the sky, and his limbs twitched violently twice as if electrocuted. Then he stopped moving.

"Call an ambulance!"

Zhao Tiezhu threw away the riot fork. He stepped forward and used two fingers to probe the skinny monkey's carotid artery.

It jumped extremely fast, like a motor about to explode. Its body temperature was frighteningly high, burning your hand even through the rain.

Two hours later. Second basement level of the Municipal Public Security Bureau. Special Investigation Team's Technical Laboratory.

The cold white shadowless lamps illuminated the room as bright as day.

The air was filled with a strong smell of hydrogen peroxide disinfectant.

The centrifuge hummed on the control panel. The red indicator light flashed rhythmically.

Su Xiaoxiao was wearing a white lab coat that was two sizes too big.

A pair of goggles were perched on the bridge of his nose. His hair was casually tied up in a bun with a black hair tie.

She was holding a pair of long-handled tweezers.

Clamped in the tube was a test tube filled with a clear liquid. At the bottom of the test tube, a little blue powder, scraped from the thin monkey's nasal cavity, had settled.

Her wrist swayed slightly.

The powder dispersed in the liquid, immediately producing tiny bubbles as if it were boiling.

A layer of white frost quickly formed on the test tube wall.

"Hiss... This thing is really weird."

Zhao Tiezhu sat on a metal stool next to him, holding an ice pack and grimacing as he applied it to his bruised arm.

"That skinny guy looks like he could be blown away by a gust of wind, but he almost knocked me over in the alley just now. Where does he get his strength?"

He snorted and complained, sucking in the cold air.

Su Xiaoxiao put the test tube back into the stainless steel rack.

Tear off the medical latex gloves on your hands and throw them into the yellow medical waste bin.

"Where does strength come from? It comes from risking your life."

She pulled up a swivel chair and sat down. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

A long electrocardiogram line appeared on the screen. There were also a bunch of complex chemical molecular structures.

"The test results are in."

Su Xiaoxiao pointed to a string of flashing blue gibberish on the screen.

"This stuff is called 'Stardust' on the black market. It's not a synthetic drug native to Earth; it contains fragments of extraterrestrial cell stimulants."

She turned her head and looked at Zhao Tiezhu. Her expression was very serious.

"It can instantly sever the brain's pain nerve protection mechanism and forcibly drain all the ATP energy from muscle fibers."

"To put it simply, take one breath, and for ten minutes you'll have superhuman strength, like a superhero."

Su Xiaoxiao swallowed.

"But ten minutes later, the internal organs will fail rapidly due to overwork. That skinny monkey is still on a ventilator in the ICU right now. Even if he survives, he'll lose ten years of his lifespan."

Zhao Tiezhu gasped.

He threw the ice pack on the table. Water droplets dripped down the surface.

"What was the person who made this thing thinking? Isn't this just playing with human lives like firecrackers?"

The heavy, soundproof door to the laboratory was pushed open.

Lu Jingyan walked in, carrying an old stainless steel thermos with peeling paint on the edge.

He changed into a clean white shirt. The top button of the collar was undone, revealing his strong collarbone.

My body still carried the dampness of the night rain outside.

"This isn't a game. It's a live clinical trial."

He walked to the table, placed the thermos on the glass surface with a muffled thud.

Lu Jingyan reached out and picked up the color lab report that the printer had just printed out.

The paper was still a little warm.

He kept his head down, his gaze sweeping over the spectral analysis charts in the last few lines of the lab report.

His black eyes were unfathomable.

"Those underground workshops on Earth cannot purify such stable high-dimensional residual substances."

He twirled the thin paper between his fingers. The paper made a soft rustling sound as it rubbed together.

Su Xiaoxiao nodded.

She pressed the Enter key. The chemical formulas on the big screen faded away, and a massive corporate structure diagram popped up.

"The boss is right. I just followed the synthetic auxiliary materials of this batch of 'Stardust' and did a reverse big data screening on the Global Trade Network."

A futuristic silver mountain peak logo appeared in the center of the screen.

"The procurement flow of high-purity ionic solvents used in pharmaceutical manufacturing, as well as purification equipment."

Su Xiaoxiao bit her lower lip.

"The ultimate wholly owned entity points to a multinational pharmaceutical giant."

She pointed her finger at the screen.

"Peak Technology"

"A Nasdaq-listed conglomerate. It holds 40 percent of the world's high-end biopharmaceutical patents. Its headquarters are located in the CBD of our Jinghai City."

Zhao Tiezhu stood up abruptly.

The metal stool scraped across the ground with a piercing, high-pitched sound.

"A chaebol? A legitimate, publicly listed company, secretly engaging in this kind of life-shortening, harmful stuff?"

He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles cracked.

"These beasts in suits are more ruthless than gangsters!"

The laboratory fell silent.

The centrifuge stopped spinning and emitted a "beep" sound.

This is troublesome.

The opponents are not interstellar smugglers hiding in air-raid shelters, nor are they thugs wielding knives.

It is a multinational conglomerate with hundreds of top lawyers and a strong capital base.

Without solid evidence, ordinary police officers couldn't even get through the revolving glass door of their company.

Lu Jingyan remained silent.

He held up the lab report.

Under the pale, shadowless light overhead, I looked at the anti-counterfeiting watermark of a silver mountain peak visible through the back of the paper.

The man's hard jawline slowly tightened.

The muscles on the side of his face clenched into a hard outline.

He no longer possessed the superpower to reverse time. Nor did he have the system that made his words law.

But what he held in his hand was the white foam spit out by the victim, the most inviolable bottom line of the rule of law on this land.

Lu Jingyan slapped the test report onto the stainless steel workbench.

The paper is laid flat on the table.

He picked up his thermos, unscrewed the lid, and took a sip of water. His Adam's apple bobbed.

Lu Jingyan stared coldly at the logo of the NASDAQ-listed conglomerate on the lab report: "No matter how big its shell is, if it dares to spread drugs in Jinghai City, it has to leave its claws behind."