Regarding the matter of awakening lightning abilities after transformation

"it is good."

He heated a cup of milk, then took a few cookies from the cupboard and soaked them in it before brushing his teeth again, drying his face. In the mirror, he saw no joy or sorrow, his expression indifferent.

With her fingertips touching the corners of her lips, controlling a slight upward grin, the girl gave up after about half a minute and walked out of the washroom.

As they approached the door, An Zhishui suddenly called out to her.

"Um... I'm also keeping a close eye on the news from China..."

Gu Cheng bit her lip lightly and answered the girl with her back to her, "Really? What did you find?" Her tone was calm and gentle, but the slight trembling of her hand on the doorknob still revealed the girl's not-so-calm heart.

"After returning to Beidu, Su Wanxi has stayed at home and hasn't left. I heard that the Su family has recently been contacting a psychologist."

"She is now living at Grandpa Su's house in the suburbs."

"..."

"Aren't you worried that telling me all this will affect our future plans?" Gu Cheng rubbed her hair, pretending to be nonchalant.

An Zhishui lowered her eyes, remained silent for a few seconds, and replied, "I'm worried, but there are some things that you'll think about even if I don't say them." She propped herself up on her arms, her knees supporting her elbows, and her smooth, fair fingertips peeked out from the cuffs of her knitted sweater.

Gu Cheng stood quietly for a moment, then smiled with relief: "Thank you, I understand." She sensed the warmth hidden in An Zhishui's words, not from their shared interests as superiors and subordinates, but from their long-term friendship and mutual care.

"There's no need to keep a close eye on Su Wanxi. It's enough that I know she's safe." The girl gently stroked the hem of her clothes, her gaze as tender as the moonlight.

"Work is never-ending. It's getting late, so I'm going to bed now. See you tomorrow."

"Good night." An Zhishui took a sip of juice and got up to pack up her computer.

Gu Cheng pushed open the bedroom door. Because her right eye had adjusted to the light, her vision was finally not so dark. She saw Ling Yi lying on the bed, with a fluffy brown bear doll covering his face.

Her smooth black hair adorned her fair skin. Seeing how peacefully she was sleeping, Gu Cheng couldn't bear to disturb her. She quietly climbed into bed and snuggled under the covers.

Sweet dreams~

......

In the northern capital of China, in an old house far from the city center, Su Wanxi accepted the hot tea handed to her by the housekeeper, her gaze wandering towards the flower garden.

As September draws to a close and October begins, the osmanthus flowers are in full bloom. The small, orange-red flowers, mixed with pale yellow blossoms, sway in the morning breeze, and their intoxicating fragrance can be smelled even from the balcony.

"Xiao Xi." Hearing someone call her, Su Wanxi let go of her hand that was holding onto the railing and turned to walk into the house.

An elderly man, nearing seventy, sat on the sofa. His hair was completely white, and his chiseled face was covered in wrinkles. He tugged at his lips, but his complexion was not bad. Su Wanxi obediently responded, "Grandpa," and then sat down next to the old man.

Su Changqing gave birth to two sons and one daughter for the Su family, but the old master Su's favorite was neither his eldest grandson Su Wanshan nor his youngest son Su Yuanjun, but his granddaughter Su Wanxi.

"What's wrong? Don't you like seeing this old man looking so gloomy all day long..." Grandpa Su said kindly. He was usually tough on the younger generation, but he rarely lowered his authority in front of his granddaughter.

Su Wanxi lowered her long eyelashes and answered with a tired smile, "I'm not unhappy, it's just that I haven't had much to do lately, so I've become lazy." The environment here is quiet and undisturbed, which is much better than staying in the noisy city.

"Missing your little girlfriend?" Old Master Su chuckled.

Grandpa, why... Su Wanxi remained silent upon hearing this, but soon realized that the old man's attitude seemed different from that of her father and brothers.

"Hmm." She tentatively agreed, and Old Master Su nodded: "If I remember correctly, her surname is Gu, and her given name is Cheng..."

"Is that the little girl on your phone screen? She's quite pretty." Accustomed to the incomprehension of her family and friends, Grandpa Su's words instantly struck a chord with Su Wanxi, and she couldn't help but smile: "Yes, it's her."

She's not only beautiful but also very gentle, though sometimes she can get agitated like a kitten.

Chapter 216, Section 221: This thing is more useful than abilities.

Rest the butt against your shoulder blade, pull the safety to switch to single-shot mode, take a deep breath, align your right eye with the crosshair and the target, and gently hook your index finger on the trigger.

The bullet left the barrel with a crisp gunshot. Gu Cheng pulled up her goggles, her light brown hair being lifted by the movement, revealing her smooth, white forehead.

Of the six bullets fired, two hit the bullseye, one landed between the eight and nine rings, and the rest missed the target. Overall, the shooting results were less than satisfactory.

Good marksmen are made by being fed bullets, Su Wanxi once warned. At that time, Gu Cheng had both eyes and the keen vision of an awakened being, but now... The girl sighed and looked at the AK12 beside her.

In Lanjiang, she learned how to disassemble firearms and perform basic shooting. In Novorossiysk, she tried using monocular rangefinding combined with electromagnetic field-assisted aiming, but judging from the results, she hadn't mastered it yet.

Just like learning the Soviet language, all you can do is keep practicing and trying repeatedly. After opening the ammunition box marked 5.45X39mm and loading the bullets into the magazine, Gu Cheng put her earmuffs back on and prepared for the next round of shooting.

The new AK12 she was holding didn't look as cool as the previous versions, but the Picatinny rail on top connected perfectly with the receiver cover extension, greatly improving the weapon's stability.

Jiang Xuewei had two main considerations for having her train with this gun instead of the Type 95 she was used to: First, the AK-12 was currently uniformly issued to the Soviet army, with many distribution channels, making it difficult to trace the owner. Second, apart from being unsuitable for night shooting, the AK-12 had significant advantages in other combat situations, making it suitable for small-scale urban warfare.

In addition, An Zhishui added a third point on her own initiative: when in Rome, do as the Romans do; when carrying out a mission in the Soviet Union, one should of course use Russian guns.

......

"Good afternoon, Jiang Xiaojie. Interested in having a stuffy nose party?"

It was rare to hear a familiar language while in a foreign country. Gu Cheng turned her head to look at the source of the voice. A middle-aged man of about thirty was standing behind her. He had blue eyes, brown hair, a narrow and high nose, and thin lips like two elm leaves. He had the typical appearance of a European.

Andrei Gavrilovich Ivanovsky, a Novosibirsk native, lives on Sampsonsoyev Street in St. Petersburg and is a regular at the "Line and Dot" club, just like Gu Cheng.

The information flashed through her mind, and the girl asked him in a low voice, "Can you speak Chinese?" Although his Mandarin was not very standard and had a regional accent, at least she could understand him.

Andrei replied with some pride, "I'll discard a portion in order to find old-fashioned Chinese boots." After saying that, he touched his head, his soft, wavy hair being squeezed back and forth by his broad, thick knuckles.

Tsk, he's even picked up the retroflex ending... Gu Cheng didn't mean to mock him; she was just curious about how Andre's Chinese teacher taught him.

"What are we competing in?" she asked.

The man raised the AK-105 in his hand, and the gleaming muzzle swayed slightly, momentarily aiming at the girl.

Gu Cheng felt a chill run through her body. She quickly lowered her body, swung the butt of her gun at Andrei's left leg, and at the same time reached out and pushed the muzzle aside. The man fell to the ground with a thud, his arms supporting him on the wooden board so he didn't fall completely flat.

"Don't point your gun at me." Never point your gun at anything you don't want to shoot; this is a hard and fast rule in firearms training.

Andrei was completely bewildered, but he slowly realized the problem after hearing the other party's explanation.

"I'm so sorry, it was my oversight." He apologized repeatedly in Soviet language. "During training just now, I realized we were out of bullets."

Andrei took out the magazine, which was empty. Gu Cheng's furrowed brows did not relax. The AK series does not have a bolt hold-open device, so this method of judging the number of bullets by weight is hardly safe.

After a long silence, the girl gripped her gun again and spoke coldly: "I got agitated. What did you say you wanted to compete in?"

Andrei rubbed his aching left calf and couldn't help but swallow: "Ten shots."

"...If the total score is the same, then the time spent will be used."

My God, this girl looks so delicate and weak, how come she strikes so quickly and ruthlessly? Andrei began to question his life.

......

Gu Cheng was unaware that Andrei had already labeled the Chinese girl as unfathomable. She was hesitating whether to activate her ability to assist aiming, as single-eye ranging and single-eye aiming were completely different experiences.

"The enemies of the future are not fixed targets, and mental strength will also be exhausted. We must always leave some room for the unexpected."

After a moment, she chose to relinquish her ability to control the weapon, aiming solely by instinct and pulling the trigger.

The final bullet hole results showed that Gu Cheng hit 81 points, while Andrei was slightly worse, only getting 77 points. As an enthusiast, the latter could accept this result.

"Want to come again, Sister Jiang Xiao?"

"No, you can continue." Gu Cheng declined softly. She had been in the Soviet Union for almost half a year, and she couldn't keep speaking the Moscow suburbs dialect. According to the procedure, she would spend the rest of her time learning the Soviet language.

As they left the shooting range, a black Chevrolet sedan stopped at the street corner, and Jiang Xuewei rolled down the window.

“We have a new mission,” she said.

Chapter 217, Section 222: The Complete Plan from Infiltration to Retreat

Unlike An Zhishui, who arranged extra income for Gu Cheng in Novorossiysk, Jiang Xuewei mentioned a task rather than a commission.

Once in the car, she handed Gu Cheng a stack of documents, then turned to adjust the bugging device: "The investigation we had recently made progress. The holy selection ceremony that Mr. Nikita mentioned will be held tonight." Jiang Xuewei had not relaxed her contact with Nikita, and she implied in her words that she also wanted to become a formal follower of "The Raven."

"The information is all in the documents. There are about two hours left before the operation begins..." She glanced at her watch, her knuckles making a soft creaking sound as she moved.

The Holy Selection Ceremony has specific requirements regarding the number of participants. Apart from the clergy appointed by Han Ya, there are only four participants, including Nikita and Jiang Xuewei. Jiang Chenyan is not among them.

“According to the information provided by Mr. Nikita, my first step is to go to 31 Piskarev Street for a security check,” Jiang Xuewei said calmly, stroking the steering wheel. “They need to make sure the person chosen for the ceremony is not carrying any electronic devices.”

Gu Cheng nodded to indicate that she understood. Just like in crime dramas, several criminal members were responsible for checking and confirming that everything was correct before blindfolding the hostage for transport to prevent the journey from being leaked.

"My ability is to hide listening devices and locators in the shadows and thus bypass security checks, but there is one major prerequisite."

"No other awakened individuals are allowed inside the vehicle."

Activating the ability will inevitably cause a tide. Jiang Xuewei's shadow traversal will leave golden ripples when it affects the shadow. As long as you are an awakened person, you can see it clearly when you open your spiritual vision.

"So you've come up with a Plan B?" Gu Cheng asked, looking at the follow-up plan, which outlined the first, second, and third steps for her to launch the miniature locator onto the vehicle.

“Yes, there’s an even safer Plan C.” Jiang Xuewei chuckled, covering her mouth as she handed Gu Cheng a silenced pistol. “This operation mainly relies on you. There are definitely signal jammers inside the venue, and it’s not convenient for Zhishui to hack in directly. You can use your ability to adjust the electromagnetic field. As long as the signal frequencies overlap even once, the mimic ghost can gain complete control of the surveillance.”

This sounds a bit tricky... Gu Cheng put down the document and rubbed her temples hard.

"Well... I can't exactly go infiltrating dressed like this, can I?" Today she was wearing a smoky brown suit jacket, jeans, and warm cotton socks. The biggest problem was the pair of hard-soled leather boots that made a lot of noise when she stepped on the ground.

"The shoes and clothes with optical camouflage are in the back seat. You can change now." Jiang Xuewei rolled up the window and parked the car at a secluded corner.

......

Watching Jiang Xuewei get into the black van, Gu Cheng sat back in the driver's seat, touched her earlobe with her left hand, and pressed the miniature transmitter in her right hand against the window sill, ready to go.

"Hiss...cough..."

After the busy tone, there was a woman's soft cough, accompanied by a few barely audible breaths. "I heard it." An Zhishui and Gu Cheng spoke at the same time, the latter quickly following the van and checking the locator's functionality on the computer.

A red dot representing Jiang Xuewei appeared on the screen, closely adjacent to the white dot representing Chevrolet.

"Whoosh~" A soft inhalation came through the earpiece again, which was the pre-arranged signal from Jiang Xuewei, indicating that everything was normal.

She blended in... The girl put down the transmitter, and the black van in her field of vision gradually drove away. She did not choose to chase after it all at once, but instead followed the navigation and kept a half-street distance from the red dot.

This is the safe distance calculated by An Zhishui based on the road conditions, ensuring that she won't alert the enemy and can arrive at the scene as soon as an accident occurs.

Stepping on the gas pedal slightly to accelerate, the Casting Bridge, the Marble Palace, and the Pushkin House Museum... As the scenery outside the window continued to recede, Gu Cheng gripped the steering wheel tightly, his brows furrowing involuntarily.

"If they wanted to get to Vasilyevsky Island, they could have taken a completely different route..."

The other party was so cautious that they abandoned the shortest route to the East Palace Bridge, instead taking the route from Kazan Cathedral to the Koster Mall, and finally passing the Bronze Horseman statue.

Did they drive around most of St. Petersburg just to erase the Chosen Ones' sense of direction? Gu Cheng didn't quite agree. She was worried about being targeted, so she deliberately parked her car nearby.

I hid the transmitter, turned off the display, and went downstairs to buy a cup of orange sparkling water.