Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

Outside the airport, an ordinary redneck leaned against the railing.

A white man in his fifties, with gray stubble, wearing a plaid shirt and work jacket, his jeans worn faded at the knees, and his shoes stained with mud.

These kinds of people are common in the suburbs of New York; they drive beat-up pickup trucks and do manual labor, and nobody gives them a second glance.

But his presence here is quite unusual—according to his activity patterns, he should be eating a sandwich near a construction site in New Jersey at this time, not at an international airport.

What's even more unusual is the old flip phone in his hand.

That phone usually only receives one call, rings three times, then hangs up and calls back from another phone in a different location. For three years, this rule has never been broken. But now he's holding that phone to his ear, making a call—the first time outside of one-way communication.

The call lasted less than ten seconds.

"He only exchanged $200."

Whether it was a misperception or not, after saying that, the redneck heard what sounded like a sigh of regret coming from the other side.

87 Say hello

Zhang Qiliang raised his hand and hailed a taxi.

The taxi pulled over, the window rolled down, revealing a black man: "Hello, welcome to America."

"How much does it cost to go to Wall Street?" With a background in programming, Zhang Qiliang's English was decent, and after several attempts, he could rattle off words without any problem.

“This is a big order,” the black guy whistled. “About $320.”

Zhang Qiliang rubbed the banknotes in his hand, speechless with emotion.

"Excuse me," Zhang Qiliang said, taking out a 10-yuan note, then thinking for a moment, he exchanged it for a 5-yuan note and handed it through the car window: "I'm sorry to bother you."

"You're welcome, Bro. Which way is the subway?" The black guy happily took the bill and blew Zhang Qiliang a kiss.

Forget about the subway; Zhang Qiliang wasn't going to take advantage of any of America's social welfare benefits. He took out his phone and looked at the offline map he had downloaded on the plane.

It's only 20 kilometers, so I'll just consider it exercise.

As a result, the New York media was in luck.

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WABC TV, Hotline Room

7:27 AM.

Jennifer Morris pushed her coffee cup aside and answered the 47th hotline call of the day.

"WABC News Hotline, do you have any leads?"

“Uh, I’m on Van Wyck Expressway, toward Queens,” a young male voice said on the other end of the phone, with the sound of wind in the background. “There’s someone running on the road.”

Jennifer's fingers hovered above the keyboard for two seconds.

"and then?"

"And then? He ran on the road!"

Jennifer rolled her eyes.

Today I've already received three "suspected UFOs," two "bear sightings in Central Park," and one crazy person who confidently claimed a mutant turtle appeared in Times Square.

"Sir, someone running in the street isn't news. Eight million people live in New York every day—"

Forget about running away, when there are plenty of clues, even running naked wouldn't get you a spot!

"You don't understand!" the other person interrupted her, their voice becoming urgent. "He ran incredibly fast! Extremely fast!"

Jennifer sighed. "How fast can it be? Faster than Bolt?"

On the other end of the phone, the young man's voice was filled with "Are you fucking kidding me?": "Bolt? Bolt is a tortoise in front of him!"

Jennifer hung up the phone.

A few seconds later, the phone rang again.

It's still the same number.

Jennifer stared at the screen, hesitated for a second, then answered: "Sir, I already said—"

"I got it!" came the panting voice, as if he'd been running. "I fucking got it! Do you want it? $50! Only $50, fucking!"

Jennifer hung up again.

Two minutes later, Jennifer quickly redialed the number: "Deal!"

"It's $500 now!"

“FU…”

“The BBC has made an offer! It’s $550 now,” the young man opposite said, not even having time to argue. “Madam, you have 10 seconds to consider!”

--------

BBC Morning News Live

Five seconds left in the countdown.

Anchor Brian Harrison adjusted his tie and flashed a standard professional smile at the camera.

"Five, four, three—"

The director's hand clicked through his headset: "Brian, insert breaking news!"

"When?"

"Now!"

Before Brian could even wipe the professional smile off his face, the scene had already cut off.

After a 0.1-second pause, Brian instinctively turned to the second machine, his speaking speed instantly switching to "emergency news mode":

“We’ve just received some shocking—uh—visual material. BBC News is tracking a breaking news story from Queens. Let’s jump into the control room—Jim, what’s going on?”

Jim's voice came through the earpiece, panting as if he were running: "Stop talking nonsense, look at screen one! The dashcam footage!"

Brian looked at the monitor in front of him.

The image is not very clear—it has the wide-angle distortion typical of dashcams. It has a timestamp; the bottom right corner shows: 08:52:17, Van.Wyck. Expressway, Eastbound.

The scene shows a typical highway.

The morning rush hour hadn't started yet, so the traffic wasn't too congested, but it wasn't empty either.

Cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks were driving normally at speeds of fifty or sixty miles per hour.

A shadow cuts in from the right side of the screen.

Brian's eyes couldn't keep up!

What the hell?

Brian watched intently.

A person?

Wearing an ordinary dark coat, ordinary trousers, ordinary—

He's running!

In the video, a silver Toyota Camry is driving in the left lane.

The man caught up from the right lane and drove alongside the Camry.

They stood side by side for about a second.

Then he overtook it!

He surpassed it! Surpassed it! Surpassed it! Surpassed it?

They overtook a car that was traveling at least 55 miles per hour!

Brian opened his mouth, then realized he had forgotten to speak.

Jim yelled through the earpiece, "Speak! Speak! Stop spacing out!"

Brian took a deep breath, and professional instincts took over his tongue:

"Dear viewers, what you are seeing now is—uh—the footage from a dashcam. The time is 8:52 a.m. today, and the location is Van Wyck Expressway. In the footage, this—this running gentleman—please allow me to repeat—is—overtaking a vehicle that is driving normally."

What the hell am I even saying?! Brian took another deep breath, trying to sound—at least in terms of his voice—more professional:

"We cannot currently confirm the man's identity or the reason for his running, but BBC News is doing its best to verify—"

In the video, the person overtook another pickup truck.

This time it's much clearer.

That stride.

Although Brian is not a track and field expert, he has watched Bolt's videos.

Bolt's stride is 2.44 meters, which is already the human limit.

The person in the picture—he estimated—had a stride of at least four or five meters.

Every step I took felt like being launched by a slingshot.

And the posture—

That's so fucking easy.

It wasn't the ferocity of a sprint, nor the desperate struggle of gritting one's teeth.

It's like running, with the upper body almost completely still, only the legs moving, and it's a very calm and leisurely kind of movement!

“Jim,” Brian whispered, covering his earpiece, “is this fucking real?”

"How the hell should I know!" Jim yelled back. "Keep playing! Footage number two is ready! Cut in three seconds!"

"—Three, two, one, cut!"

Screen switch.

This time it's from the surveillance camera view of a street-side shop.

The angle is lower, the image quality is worse, but the distance is closer.

The scene depicts an ordinary street in Queens.

On both sides were typical New York neighborhood shops—laundry shops, pizzerias, and grocery stores.

There are occasional pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars on the road.

Then, that gentleman rushed in from the right side of the screen.

This time the distance was closer. I could make out the color of the clothes—dark gray or black. I could make out the hair—short black hair. I could make out—

That gentleman wasn't even looking where he was going.

His eyes were fixed straight ahead, as if he were looking at something very far away.

Then he walked past a UPS truck parked on the side of the road.

The distance was too close, so close that we almost bumped into the rearview mirror.

But in that instant, his body shifted slightly to the side—

It's been wiped away.

There wasn't even a slowdown.

Brian's professionalism finally crumbled completely:

"Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing now—we don't know what this is either. But you can see that this running gentleman is crossing Queens at a speed that completely defies human limits. Based on his speed as he passes these stationary reference points, we have a preliminary estimate—Jim! Did you get the estimate?!"

Another voice came through the earpiece; it was from the group of idiots in the data analysis team, their voices equally filled with disbelief:

"In the Van Wyck segment, the reference point is that Camry, traveling at approximately 55 miles per hour. His overtaking time—wait a minute—rewind—is 1.7 seconds. Assuming the Camry is 4.8 meters long, the distance he traveled during the overtaking process—damn—"

"Say!"

"At least 70 miles per hour! 112 kilometers per hour!"

Brian opened his mouth, realizing that he had forgotten to speak for the third time.

112 kilometers per hour.

Humans? Running?