Chapter 72

Chapter 72: I Want To Skip Class

“Ughhh… disgusting. Even nastier than my clones. What the hell is this ability?” muttered a slouching cop after successfully shooting down a Pseudo-Human. 

He looked with revulsion at the suspicious goo that had burst from its forehead and now clung to his hand. He seriously considered amputating the arm he’d pulled the trigger with.

The way the fluid squelched reminded him of a certain… dream he’d had in fifth grade. One with colors. The kind of dream that leaves a boy waking up to a mess he doesn’t understand, unable to tell his parents, but overwhelmed by a vague, nauseating sense of shame.

“Someone reported this thing last week, right?” asked another officer in a hazmat suit, collecting a sample of the goo into a test tube.

“Yeah. But who had time to deal with it then?” the lazy cop grumbled, reaching to scratch his ear—only to realize his helmet was in the way. “It wasn’t aggressive at the time, and it barely showed up. We figured it wasn’t a priority. Aside from that one attack on the guy in black, it mostly pulled pranks—like shoving people into septic pits. Immature, but nothing lethal.”

“Falling into a septic pit can be fatal. Just because you could climb out doesn’t mean everyone’s got powers,” the cop in the hazmat suit said flatly. He peeled off his gloves and poked at the lifeless figure on the ground. “Looks like there are different types of these things.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ones that run around causing trouble? When you touch them, they’re like clay—soft, easy to break even with a stick. But the ones that stay hidden? The ones no one sees? You can’t even break them with bullets. Their insides are way more complex—like they’re deliberately trying to mimic human anatomy.”

You didn’t need a lab to tell the materials were completely different.

“Sounds like a zombie invasion game. Different enemy types. Like newspaper zombies, giant zombies… maybe they got tired of crafting the good ones, so now they’re mass-producing garbage units. I mean, look at the kind of ugly people we’ve got in the world—don’t tell me it’s not because Nuwa got tired and started slinging mud lazily.”

“Speak for yourself, ugly. I’m not the problem here,” the cop in the hazmat suit snapped. 

“That’s not what I meant. What I’m saying is—weren’t there only a few people who’d seen these Pseudo-Humans before? Aside from that attack on the man in black, they stayed in the shadows. Now suddenly we’ve got a ton of these crappy versions popping up everywhere—it feels like someone wants us to notice them.”

Who in their right mind attacks a police chief? Unless it’s one of those morons from Tian Xing Dao.

Sure, not everyone recognizes the chief, but in a crowd of people, what are the odds someone singles him out? It’s too convenient.

“Pseudo-Humans spotted in the slums—two of them. White Whale’s District is the closest, go there first. Everyone else, finish up and rendezvous ASAP. Might even beat her there—wait, you’re going the wrong way!” The dispatcher’s voice buzzed through the public channel.

“Can’t we just figure out who’s making these damn things already?” the lazy cop muttered bitterly.

It had only been two days, and they’d already taken out dozens.

—

As an undercover agent, Jim wasn’t like those legendary infiltrators who worked their way up in the mafia over decades. He felt more like a guy thrown into a low-rank “Werewolf” game where no one took it seriously.

Even he could tell that the Tian Xing Dao organization was a joke. Sooner or later, they were going to get wiped out by the authorities. This wasn’t a shounen anime—idealism and burning resolve didn’t beat organizations with structure, resources, and discipline.

The real problem was that the cops were too swamped to deal with Tian Xing Dao at the moment. They had to deal with the space-time murders, Pseudo-Humans, illegal N1202 trade…

Jim’s ability was fire control—not impressive enough to get him recruited as an ability user cop, while underage, and definitely not enough to make him an effective infiltrator. 

This whole mission was mostly just a chance to wipe the slate clean for a guy who hadn’t technically committed any crimes yet.

His old man had given him a smack and a warning before he went in: “If you’re undercover, you’ll have to do things you’d rather not. Just make sure you don’t get exposed.”

Still, when he was given the mission to recruit Mi Xiaoliu, he was utterly baffled. They’d barely just met. Not enough time to really know each other (Don’t overthink that), and Mi Xiaoliu didn’t seem to have any special qualities at all.

When Jim brought this up to the Crimson Walker, the man had only given him one cryptic answer:

“Because he comes from the Fallen City.”

The Fallen City—a place outside the jurisdiction of the Federation.

Ever since a massive meteor crash a century ago, habitable land on Earth had drastically shrunk, much like the aftermath of nuclear fallout. Most affected zones remained unsafe for any living creature.

But there were exceptions.

The Fallen City was one. Built near the edge of a small crater during the LV5 Great Destruction by survivors on the run, it was more of a large town than a city. 

Perhaps the radiation was milder there, or perhaps that meteor was different somehow. The place lacked resources and comforts, but humans could survive there.

Law and order were non-existent. Kids learned to steal before they could talk. Even if you grew up to be rich, you’d more likely become Bruce’s murdered parents than Batman.

Compared to that, even a chaotic city like Fanzui City looked like a model community.

But the Fallen City had one defining feature: a 90% ability awakening rate.

There were similar locations—Sulfur Coast, Blazing Island, Sunfire City—each with its own terrifying mutation history. The ones listed were just the better-known examples. Plenty of other settlements didn’t even count as villages.

So what was the real plan in targeting Mi Xiaoliu? To build influence in the Fallen City?

They hadn’t even established a foothold in Fanzui City, and now they wanted to expand into one of the most dangerous territories out there?

“Old Liu (Six), your wallet’s legit, huh?” Jim said after a long pause, trying to ease into the conversation. “I tried to buy a new one last week and got scammed. The thing was fake—looked real, but it was totally empty. I tried to argue, and the guy called me crazy.”

Mi Xiaoliu quickly stashed her wallet back into her pocket, clearly suspecting Jim might be one of those money-grubbing types Sasha kept warning her about.

Jim chuckled awkwardly. “Hey, have you noticed Yiwen still hasn’t come to class? You went to see him, didn’t you? What’s wrong with him?”

Yiwen had actually been discharged for a while now, but she was swamped with the Pseudo-Human cases and hadn’t had time to return to school.

“I don’t know,” Mi Xiaoliu replied, focusing on her third-grade homework.

“What if… we skip class to go visit him?” Jim suggested. He knew someone picked Mi Xiaoliu up after school—now was his window.

“Skip class?” Mi Xiaoliu tilted her head. First time hearing the term.

“Master, skipping class is considered bad behavior in the student phase,” Sasha chimed in, worried. “And doing it just to see that white-haired boy is not worth it.”

“It just means sneaking out. You’ve never done it, have you? Tell you what—I’ll buy you dinner afterward.”

Jim knew his desk mate well enough: offer food, and the kid was usually on board.

“Okay.” Mi Xiaoliu nodded, then raised her hand.

“Mi Xiaoliu, what is it now?” the chubby teacher sighed.

“I want to skip class,” Mi Xiaoliu said earnestly, standing up.

Heli had told her that if anything came up during class, she had to raise her hand and inform the teacher first.

The teacher took a long breath. “Get out.”

“Okay.” Mi Xiaoliu obediently left the classroom, pausing to look back at Jim with a puzzled expression, as if asking, “Why didn’t you raise your hand too?”

She had taken the teacher’s reaction as approval.

…

…

It was a bit nerve-racking, but they’d done it—successfully skipped class.

Jim had expected Mi Xiaoliu to react like most kids his age—treating rule-breaking like a capital crime—but the kid had gone along even more easily than he’d hoped.

This, after all, was the same person who’d once made even the strictest teacher lose their temper and give up. Never judge a book by its cover.

If their roles were reversed, maybe he would be running Tian Xing Dao by now.

But even thinking that made Jim feel guilty.

Sure, they got along fine most of the time, but tricking him out like this? If the Crimson Walker ended up doing something shady, Jim didn’t care about his undercover mission anymore—he’d put an end to it himself.

And if Mi Xiaoliu said yes? That meant Jim had just brought him into a criminal ring. But if he said no… he might report him. Or worse, they’d never be friends again.

After getting off the train, they had to walk a long way. Aside from Mi Xiaoliu stopping now and then to catch his breath, they said nothing.

Jim led him to the rendezvous point—an old scrapyard near the slums, the kind of place where you’d never find surveillance cameras.

“Nice to meet you, Mi Xiaoliu.” A man in red emerged from a rusted shipping container—the Crimson Walker.