Chapter 6: The Convenience Store Video Goes Viral
Eight-thirty in the morning on the next day.
The first-floor lobby of Vought Tower.
Ryan was wearing that blue Janitor uniform, pushing a new cleaning cart—the old one had already been scrapped because he had twisted its handle into a pretzel—slowly mopping the marble floor.
The Cleaning Supervisor cowered in the corner, walking around Ryan whenever he saw him, keeping a distance of more than ten meters, with an expression on his face like he was dodging a bomb that could explode at any moment.
Ryan was very satisfied with this.
The giant LED screen in the lobby was playing the morning news.
The host was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, her makeup so exquisite it looked like it had been applied with skin-smoothing software, her smile so fake it could be wrung out like a wet towel.
"Today's hot topic! Last night, surveillance footage from a convenience store in Brooklyn caused an uproar on the internet—"
Ryan's mopping motion paused for a moment.
He looked up at the big screen.
The footage switched to a surveillance video.
The image quality wasn't very clear, but it was enough to see what happened.
A man wearing a Janitor uniform rushed out of the convenience store entrance, the ground shattering, and then he stood in front of a young couple.
Immediately after, a blue afterimage slammed over at high speed.
"Bang!"
The blue afterimage was sent flying, rolling several times on the ground.
And that man wearing the Janitor uniform stood in place, without moving an inch.
The news host's voice continued the broadcast.
"This 37-second video has received over two million views within six hours of being uploaded! Netizens have dubbed this mysterious man 'Brooklyn Superman'. Even more shocking, the blue figure sent flying in the video is suspected to be A-Train, a member of The Seven!"
"Vought International has not yet issued any response regarding this matter."
Ryan watched his own figure on the big screen, the corners of his mouth curling up uncontrollably.
Fortunately, the image quality was blurry, so his face couldn't be seen clearly.
"Currently, netizens' opinions on this matter are polarized."
A series of screenshots of online comments popped up behind the host.
"Netizen 'New York Veteran' says: That's awesome! Finally, someone can keep these Superhumans in check!"
"Netizen 'Vought Loyal Fan' says: Fake, right? This must be Vought's new marketing campaign; they're about to launch a new hero!"
"Netizen 'Rational Analysis' says: If this person isn't with Vought, then where did he come from? An unregistered Superhuman? That's the scariest part."
"And netizen 'Just A Spectator' says: Brothers, look closely, this person is wearing a Vought Janitor uniform! He is a Janitor at Vought Tower!"
Ryan saw the last comment, and the smile on his face froze.
The Vought logo was printed on the Janitor uniform.
He had forgotten to change his clothes when he rushed out last night.
( ° △ ° ||| )
"It's over, it's over, it's over..." Ryan looked down at the identical Janitor uniform he was wearing, a thin layer of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
If this was traced back to him by people from Vought...
[Ding! Online emotions are being harvested on a large scale—video views have exceeded 2 million, effective emotional points +180 after decay!]
[Current emotional points: 1277 / 10000.]
The system's notification sound interrupted his panic.
One hundred and eighty points, two million views could harvest one hundred and eighty points.
Although it was discounted after decay, the sheer volume of views made up for it.
If this video continued to ferment and exceeded ten million views...
Ryan quickly did the math in his mind.
"No, no, I can't panic." He took a deep breath and gripped the mop again.
"First, the video quality is very blurry; my face can't be seen clearly."
"Second, there are at least hundreds of Janitors in Vought Tower; even if they check the Janitor uniforms, they can't find out exactly who it is."
"Third, even if they find out, so what? My strength is greater than all of them combined; at worst, when the time comes—"
He gestured a slapping motion in his mind.
"What's there to be afraid of? I'm the Dandruff Superman."
He started mopping again, but his mind was already calculating his next plan.
The Janitor uniform issue had to be resolved.
He had to change his equipment when going out on patrol at night.
That black hoodie from last night was too ordinary and not recognizable enough. If he wanted to build online influence for the identity of "Preservation Walker," he needed an iconic image.
But he was currently broke as a church mouse.
Forget about high-tech battle suits; he couldn't even afford a decent jacket.
"Sigh, I'll just make do for now and deal with it once I get some money."
Just as he was mopping and lost in thought, the sound of hurried footsteps came from the end of the hallway.
The Cleaning Supervisor ran over, panting, with a strange expression—both fearful and fawning.
"Ry-Ryan, sir."
"What?" Ryan didn't even look up.
"That... the Human Resources Department upstairs called and said, said they want to re-evaluate your position."
"Evaluate? What do you mean?"
"I don't know either!" the supervisor wiped his sweat, "They just said to have you report to the Human Resources Department on the 38th floor at two in the afternoon and bring your ID badge."
Ryan's mopping hand stopped.
The 38th floor? The Human Resources Department?
He knew the floors of Vought Tower very well.
Floors one to ten were public areas and the public lobby.
Floors eleven to thirty were office areas for various departments.
Floors thirty-one to fifty were for mid-to-high-level management.
Floors above fifty-one were exclusive floors for The Sevenand the executives.
The Human Resources Department was on the 38th floor, belonging to the mid-to-high-level area.
A bottom-level Janitor being called to the mid-to-high-level Human Resources Department only had two possibilities.
Either a promotion.
Or—being investigated.
Ryan's persecution paranoia kicked in right on time.
Have they already tracked me down?
Found me through the Janitor uniform?
It can't be that fast, right? The video has only been circulating for a few hours.
Or does Vought have an internal AI facial recognition system? Although the video quality is blurry, with Vought's technical power, maybe they could lock onto me through body shape, height, and gait?
"Ryan, sir? Are you alright?" the supervisor looked at him cautiously.
"I'm fine." Ryan's expression returned to calm.
Screw being afraid.
Even if they found me, so what?
What could they do to him?
Send security to catch him? The security guards' bullets couldn't even penetrate his Janitor uniform.
Send The Seven to catch him? That skinny dog A-Trainwas scared off by him.
Send Homelander?
Ryan thought about it.
If Homelander actually came...
Then he would face him head-on.
Anyway, Laser Eyes couldn't penetrate his Bio-field.
"Fine, two o'clock in the afternoon, 38th floor, got it." Ryan continued mopping.
The supervisor ran off, relieved.
Ryan watched the water marks drawn by the mop on the marble floor, quickly deducing various possibilities in his mind.
"If Vought really has tracked me down, then going to the 38th floor this afternoon will be a trap."
"But if it's just a normal job reassignment, then it's just a false alarm."
"Regardless of which one it is, I must prepare for the worst."
He looked up and glanced at the surveillance camera in the corner of the lobby.
The camera's red indicator light was blinking.
Ryan flashed a brilliant smile at the camera.
Then he lowered his head and continued mopping.
On the lobby's LED screen, that 37-second convenience store surveillance video was played again.
In the footage, the man stood in place, and A-Trainslammed into him and was sent flying.
Outside the footage, the man wearing the same Janitoruniform held a mop, mopping the floor unhurriedly.
Same building.
Same clothes.
No one noticed this coincidence.
At least not yet.
Ryan picked up the mop bucket and walked to the next area.
When passing under the big screen, he muttered a sentence in a voice only he could hear.
"Two million views, and it only gave me one hundred and eighty points."
"Too little."
"I have to find a way to multiply this number by several dozen times."
His gaze swept across the elevator area at the end of the hallway, the floor indicator light above the elevator door flashing numbers.
38.
Two o'clock in the afternoon.
Whether it's a promotion or a trap, he has to go.
But before that, he still had half a day of mopping to do.
"Damn Janitor work." Ryan muttered, rinsing the mop vigorously in the bucket.
"Once I save up enough emotional points, the first thing I'll do is quit."
His phone vibrated.
He took it out and glanced at it; it was a text message from an unknown number.
The message only had one line—
"Two o'clock in the afternoon, 38th floor, don't be late. —E"
E?
Ryan stared at that letter for three seconds.
His hand tightened around the mop.
"Interesting."
Chapter 7: Is the 38th Floor a Setup?
1:55 PM.
Ryan stood at the elevator entrance on the 38th floor, looking at the dark gray matte metal door at the end of the corridor.
A bronze plaque hung on the door: Personnel Department.
The corridor was quiet, a bit too quiet.
Ryan pinned his work ID to his chest and glanced at the text message on his phone again.
E.
This letter had triggered his persecution mania all morning.
E could be the first letter of many names.
But within Vought International, there was only one "E" that was most feared—
Edgar.
Stan Edgar.
The CEO of Vought International, the true mastermind behind the entire company.
If this person was looking for him, then it was a big deal.
"But not necessarily," Ryan comforted himself. "Maybe E is just the abbreviation for some personnel manager's name, like... Edward? Emily? Ellen?"
He stood in the corridor for ten seconds, deciding not to waste any more time.
Just go.
Worst case, he'd tear down the 38th floor.
He pushed the door open and walked in.
The office area of the Personnel Department was larger than he had imagined, but it was unusually deserted today.
There was no one at the twenty-something desks, the computer screens were all black, and only the door to the separate office at the very back was half-open, revealing a sliver of light.
"Is anyone there?" Ryan called out.
No one answered.
He walked to the office door and tapped his hand twice on the door frame.
"Come in."
A woman's voice.
Not Edgar.
Ryan pushed the door open and went in.
The office was not large, with a black walnut desk placed against the window, on which sat a laptop and a desk lamp.
A woman was sitting behind the desk.
In her early thirties, with short dark brown hair, wearing a sharply tailored black suit.
Her face wore that kind of professional, lukewarm smile.
"Ryan? Ryan from the Cleaning Department on the first floor of Vought Tower?"
"That's me."
"Sit." The woman pointed to the chair opposite her.
Ryan sat down, but only on the edge of the seat, ready to stand up at any moment.
"Relax, this isn't an interrogation room." The woman opened a folder in front of her. "My name is Ashley, head of the Public Relations Department at Vought International."
Ashley.
Ryan's brain raced.
He remembered this name.
In the original story, Ashley was the PR head of Vought International, that unfortunate woman specifically responsible for cleaning up the messes of The Seven and handling public relations crises.
She wasn't from the Personnel Department; she was from the Public Relations Department.
Running to the Personnel Department's office to meet with a Janitor was, in itself, not normal.
"Ms. Ashley, what is it?" Ryan asked.
Ashley pushed the folder in front of him.
"Last night, something happened in Brooklyn. A convenience store surveillance video was uploaded to the internet, and the view count has already exceeded five million."
"Oh? What video?" Ryan controlled his expression very well, looking innocent.
Ashley stared at him for three seconds, then pressed the play button on the laptop.
The 37-second video appeared on the screen again.
A man in a Janitor's uniform. Vought's logo. A-Train getting sent flying.
After the video finished playing, Ashley closed the laptop and placed her hands crossed on the desk.
"The Janitor's uniform worn by this person in the video is the standard work uniform for the Cleaning Department on the first floor of Vought Tower."
"We pulled yesterday's clock-in records, and only three employees from the first-floor Cleaning Department left their posts between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Two of them are in their fifties, and one is in his early twenties."
"The height and build of the person in the video only match one of them."
Her gaze landed on Ryan's face.
"That's you."
Ryan tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest.
"Ms. Ashley, are you interrogating me?"
"I'm not interrogating you." Ashley's tone was very steady. "I am discussing a business deal with you."
"Business?"
"Yes." Ashley stood up and walked to the window, speaking with her back to Ryan. "The spread of the video has exceeded our expectations. Five million views and still growing; it's expected to break ten million within today."
"This video poses a potential threat to Vought International's brand image. An unidentified Superhumanwearing a Vought Janitor uniform getting into a conflict with a member of The Seven in public—if public opinion ferments in an unfavorable direction, the company's stock price will be affected."
"So you want me to shut up?" Ryan asked directly.
Ashley turned around, that professional smile still hanging on her face.
"Quite the contrary."
"Company executives are very interested in you."
"A person hiding within Vought International who possesses unknown superpowers—if handled properly, this could turn into a very good story."
"For example: An ordinary Janitor at Vought Tower steps up in a moment of crisis to save citizens, revealing hidden superpowers. He is a product of Vought International's culture, a testament to the flowering of the heroic spirit from the grassroots."
After hearing this, Ryan almost laughed out loud.
The thought process of these PR people is truly bizarre.
He almost beat A-Train to death last night, and today the Public Relations Department wants to package this incident as a "positive Vought International promotional case"?
"Ms. Ashley." Ryan leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "What you're saying means you want me to be a promotional tool for Vought International?"
"It's letting you be a hero." Ashley corrected. "There are contracts, compensation, and resources. Vought International will give you an official superhero identity, arrange media interviews, and build a personal brand. Your income will go from a Janitor's hourly wage to a seven-figure annual salary."
"And in exchange?"
"All public actions require approval from the Public Relations Department. Your image, statements, and appearance arrangements will all be managed by me."
Ryan was silent for a few seconds.
Then he stood up.
"Sorry, I'm not interested."
Ashley's smile finally showed its first crack.
"Are you sure? Do you know what rejecting Vought International means?"
"What does it mean?" Ryan tilted his head.
"An unregistered Superhuman using superpowers in public and attacking a member of The Seven." Ashley's tone changed. "If you don't choose to cooperate, then the other way of handling this won't be so friendly."
Ryan walked to the desk, bent over, braced his hands on the desktop, and leaned close to Ashley's face.
The distance between the two was less than a foot.
"Ms. Ashley." Ryan smiled. "The things you just said, if they were said to an ordinary super-powered person, might really scare them."
"But have you ever thought about one question?"
"What question?"
"A-Train hit me at full speed and was sent flying." Ryan held up a finger. "Do you think anyone else in your company can do what A-Train couldn't?"
Ashley's expression stiffened for a moment.
Ryan straightened up and put his hands back in his pockets.
"Tell your boss I don't need Vought International to arrange an identity for me. I handle my own affairs."
"However you want to characterize that video, that's up to you. But don't come to me to negotiate terms."
"Because you don't have the capital to negotiate with me."
He turned and walked toward the door.
"Also." He stopped at the door and looked back. "Who sent that text message?"
"What text message?" Ashley frowned.
"The one signed E."
A hint of confusion appeared on Ashley's face.
"I didn't send it. I called the Cleaning Departmentsupervisor through the internal system."
Ryan stared at her for two seconds.
She didn't seem to be lying.
That text message wasn't sent by Ashley.
Who was that "E"?
Ryan didn't ask again; he pushed the door open and walked out.
Ashley's voice came from behind him.
"Ryan, you'd better think clearly. Vought International will not tolerate a Superhuman out of their control operating on their turf."
"If you refuse to cooperate now, the next person to come talk to you won't be me."
Ryan didn't even turn his head.
"Then I'll wait."
"But a word of warning." His voice drifted back from the corridor.
"The next person who comes to find me, remember to dress sturdily."
The elevator door closed behind him.
The 38th floor fell into silence again.
Ashley stood in front of the window, staring at the elevator indicator light as the number jumped from 38 to 1.
She took out her phone and dialed a number.
"It's connected."
"Yes, he refused."
"His attitude is very tough; he's not afraid of threats at all."
"He asked about the text message... No, I didn't send it."
The person on the other end of the line said something, and Ashley's expression changed.
"I understand. I will continue to monitor him."
She hung up the phone and placed it on the desk.
Outside the window, the V logo of Vought Tower was shining with golden light in the sun.
Ashley looked out the window and murmured.
"This guy... is not quite right."
Chapter 8: Need to Change Clothes for Going Out at Night
After coming out of the thirty-eighth floor, Ryan had been thinking about that text message.
"E."
It wasn't sent by Ashley.
Then who could it be?
Edgar?
If the CEO of Vought really sent a text to a Janitorpersonally, that could only mean one thing—Edgar already knew his identity, and even earlier than the Public Relations Department.
This wasn't good news.
But it wasn't entirely bad news either.
Because Edgar didn't send people to capture him directly, but sent a text message instead.
This showed that Edgar's attitude was "observation," not "elimination."
"Old fox." Ryan muttered to himself.
He returned to the first floor to continue mopping, but his mind was rapidly formulating a new action plan.
First: He had to change clothes when going out tonight.
The Janitor uniform was already exposed and couldn't be worn again.
Second: He needed a fixed, recognizable image.
The identity of "Preservation Walker" had to be established.
Third: The popularity of the convenience store video was still rising; he had to take advantage of this momentum to continue building his presence in Brooklyn and roll the snowball of emotional points bigger.
Fourth: Be careful of Vought's people.
After work, Ryan didn't go straight back to his rental apartment.
He went to the largest second-hand market in Brooklyn.
He only had seventy dollars left from last month in his pocket.
He rummaged through a pile of rags for twenty minutes and finally picked out a few items: a dark gray hooded long coat, a black scarf, and a pair of five-dollar sunglasses.
It cost thirty-two dollars in total.
Back at the rental, he put these things on and stood in front of the mirror.
"Hmm..."
The person in the mirror looked like a homeless man crouching on the streets of New York waiting for welfare.
But at least he didn't look like a Janitor anymore.
"It'll do." Ryan pulled the scarf up, covering half his face, "I'll get something cooler once I have money."
10:00 PM.
East Brooklyn.
Ryan, wrapped in that gray long coat, stood on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, overlooking the neighborhood below.
Brooklyn was unusually lively tonight.
Perhaps due to the viral effect of that convenience store video, there were many more police cars patrolling the streets, and several street-corner drug dealers who usually ran rampant had retreated into their dens.
But this didn't mean crime had disappeared.
It had just moved to more hidden places.
With the panel's enhancement, Ryan's hearing was much more sensitive than an ordinary person's.
He closed his eyes and focused his attention on the sounds.
The sound of the wind.
The sound of cars.
The blurry electronic music from a distant bar.
Further away, in a basement a few streets over, someone was using a power drill to cut something.
Further still—gunshots.
Very dense gunshots.
Accompanied by the ear-piercing screech of tires rubbing against the ground.
"Location... southeast, about six blocks away."
Ryan opened his eyes.
He didn't rush over, but first took out his phone and opened Blackie's livestream room.
The room was named "Black Noir's Late Night Patrol," and the current number of online viewers was 216.
The screen showed a street in Brooklyn, where Blackiewas holding up his phone with a cracked screen, walking around the street looking left and right.
Someone in the comments was asking—
"Blackie, will we see that Preservation Walker tonight?"
"Yeah, that tough guy who crippled a super-powered person with one punch yesterday!"
"He's here, he's here, I'm only watching this stream to see him!"
Seeing these comments, the corner of Ryan's mouth curled up slightly.
He turned off his phone and leaped from the roof.
Six blocks, for someone who could fly at Mach 2, was less than three seconds.
But Ryan didn't fly.
He chose to jump between rooftops, controlling his speed slightly so as not to create a Sonic Boom, but it was still fast enough.
Thirty seconds later, he arrived at the source of the gunshots.
A silver-gray armored cash transport truck was parked on the side of the road, the vehicle body covered in dense bullet holes.
Hundreds of shell casings were scattered on the road next to the truck.
Four modified black SUVs surrounded the truck in a fan shape, with two to three heavily armed thugs crouching next to each vehicle.
Shotguns, submachine guns, large-caliber rifles—the firepower was as fierce as a war.
The two security guards of the transport truck were already lying under the truck, one with blood streaming from his head, the other frantically calling for backup on the walkie-talkie.
Two police cars were parked in the distance, four officers huddled behind the car doors, completely unable to lift their heads due to the suppressing fire from the other side.
A bullet shattered the windshield of a police car, and an officer cursed, pulling his head down even lower.
"Where did these lunatics get this kind of military-grade weaponry?!"
"Control Center! Control Center! We need Special Action Team support! And superhero support!"
"Where is The Seven?! Where is The Seven at a time like this?!"
Ryan stood on the edge of the opposite rooftop, looking down at the scene.
"Fine, since they called for superhero support..."
He pulled the scarf up, ensuring it covered half his face.
Then he walked to the edge of the roof.
Beneath his feet was a seven-story apartment building, about two hundred meters in a straight line from the transport truck, with a vertical height of about thirty meters.
Ryan loosened his neck.
"First time trying to smash down from high altitude; I don't know if it'll look cool when I land."
He took two steps back, took a running start, and then kicked off with both feet—the concrete railing of the roof shattered and flew, his body soared into the air, tracing a high arc, and then smashed down towards the transport truck at a speed approaching free fall.
The sound of the wind filled his ears.
The ground rapidly enlarged in his field of vision.
"BOOM!!!"
He smashed onto the hood of the transport truck.
The entire armored truck's front end was dented inward by more than half a meter, all the bulletproof glass shattered, all four tires burst simultaneously, and the wheel hubs carved four deep grooves into the ground.
The asphalt road around the landing point cracked into a web of spiderweb fractures with a diameter of five or six meters.
A shockwave spread out in all directions with him as the center, pushing the two nearest black SUVs several meters away, and several unstable thugs were directly flipped to the ground by the blast wave.
Dust and debris flew everywhere.
All the gunshots stopped in that instant.
There was silence for about three seconds.
Then Ryan stood up from the dented hood, patted the dust off his hands, and said in a tone like he was taking a walk outside his home, "Hi, good evening everyone."
Everyone was stunned.
The police were stunned.
The security guards were stunned.
The thugs were stunned.
One thug who climbed up from the ground had his mouth open, his gun dropped on the ground, and he didn't even react to pick it up.
Ryan looked around at the four SUVs and the dozen or so thugs.
"Cash truck heist? Are you for real?"
He clicked his tongue, "Do you know there's surveillance everywhere now? This level of IQ isn't enough for robbing."
"Shoot! Shoot him!"
A thug who seemed to be the leader reacted and roared at the people beside him.
Immediately, a dozen gun barrels aimed at Ryan simultaneously.
Dense gunfire rang out again.
Bullets flew from all directions, hitting Ryan, emitting a series of "ding ding ding ding" metallic clashing sounds.
It was like an iron rain.
Ryan stood on the dented hood, not moving an inch.
The gray long coat remained intact in the hail of bullets, and the scarf was flicked a little by a few bullets, then fell back down.
Those bullets were deflected by an invisible force field less than two millimeters from the surface of his body, bouncing around on the ground with a constant clanging.
Fifteen seconds later, the gunfire stopped sporadically.
The ammunition ran out.
Ryan looked down at the ground full of shell casings and deformed bullet heads.
"Is that it?"
The thugs looked at each other, their faces pale.
"Just this much firepower?"
Ryan's tone carried a hint of sincere disappointment, "Didn't you eat compound v for lunch, you weaklings?"
The thug leader's lips trembled twice, and then he did something that even Ryan didn't expect.
He dragged a rocket launcher out from the trunk of the SUV.
"Yo." Ryan raised an eyebrow, "You have this thing too?"
Chapter 9: A Rocket Launcher Is Just an Itch
The sound of the rocket launcher firing was ten times louder than a gunshot.
A rocket trailing an orange-red exhaust plume flew straight toward Ryan's chest.
Ryan stood on the hood of the armored truck, watching the rocket get closer and closer, even able to see the serial number on the warhead.
He didn't dodge.
It wasn't that he didn't have time; it was just unnecessary.
"Boom——!!!"
The rocket struck his chest.
The fireball from the explosion engulfed him entirely, sending heat waves and shrapnel flying in every direction, and the wreckage of the armored truck was blasted backward, flipping over.
The orange-red flames burned in the dark night for several seconds.
"Got him!" the head of the thugs clenched his fist in excitement.
His henchmen behind him also breathed a sigh of relief, and some even laughed out loud.
Then, the smoke cleared.
Ryan stood in the middle of a shallow crater created by the blast, the asphalt under his feet blackened and bubbling from the intense heat.
His long gray coat was covered in a layer of black soot, and a corner of his scarf was scorched.
But he himself—
Didn't have a single hair harmed.
His Bio-field had formed a protective layer less than two millimeters thick on his skin; never mind a rocket, even if they threw him into a volcano for a bath, it would be just the same.
Ryan brushed the dust off his chest and sniffed.
"Hmm... the smell of gunpowder. Not bad, better than the disinfectant smell on my Janitor uniform."
He looked up at the head of the thugs.
The thug leader's smile hadn't even faded before his expression shifted from triumph to blankness.
Then came fear.
Fear, thorough and deep from the soul.
"No... impossible..." his voice trembled.
"Why impossible?" Ryan stepped out of the shallow crater and walked toward the thugs. "Your intel is flawed. A rocket launcher is just a big firecracker to a Superhuman."
"Run! Run!!!"
The thugs finally broke, dropped their guns, and turned to run.
Ryan shook his head.
He bent down, picked up a piece of metal shrapnel that had been blasted away, and tossed it casually.
The shrapnel flew out with a whistling sound, shearing off the rearview mirror of an SUV before bouncing onto the ground and carving a spark-filled furrow into the pavement.
The thugs were so startled by the noise that they tripped, and two of them fell flat on the ground, covering their heads and screaming.
Ryan walked over to them one by one.
The first one, he grabbed by the collar and tossed onto the curb like a bag of trash.
The second, he kicked in the rear, sending him flying five or six meters until he landed face-first.
The third one knelt on the ground with his hands up, crying out, "Stop hitting me, stop hitting me, I surrender!"
Ryan stopped in front of him.
"If surrendering worked, what would we need the police for?"
He slapped him.
Not a full-power slap, just using less than one percent of his strength.
But for an ordinary person, this slap was enough to make him spin twice on the spot and then collapse straight down.
The thug leader was the last one.
He was huddled behind the SUV, clutching the empty rocket launcher shell, muttering to himself as if praying.
Ryan circled behind him and bent down.
"Hey."
"Ah!!!"
The thug leader shrieked, threw away the rocket launcher, and curled into a ball, covering his head with his hands.
"Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I have a wife and kids!"
"Kill you?" Ryan kicked the rocket launcher aside. "What a waste of energy."
He reached out, grabbed the thug leader by the back of his collar, and lifted him up like a chick.
"I have a task for you."
"Wh-what task?"
"Go back and tell everyone in your circle—Brooklyn is under new management."
He let go.
The thug leader sat down hard on the ground, and a dark patch appeared in his crotch.
Ryan couldn't be bothered to look at him again and turned around.
The police in the distance watched everything with their mouths agape, some holding up their phones to film.
Ryan gave them a thumbs-up.
"You can come over and take them in now."
Then he noticed a figure.
At the base of the wall at the alley entrance, a scrawny Black boy was squatting there, holding up a phone with a cracked screen, aiming it this way.
Blackie.
Ryan walked over.
"You again?"
"Hehehe." Blackie grinned, his phone held perfectly steady. "I heard the explosion and ran over! I live around here!"
"Aren't you afraid of dying?"
"I am! But I'm more afraid of missing good content!" Blackiescrolled through his stream, the viewer count on the screen jumping around. "Look, look! There are three thousand people watching right now!"
"Three thousand?" Ryan leaned in to take a look.
Online viewers: 3247.
Nearly seventy times more than the 47 from last night.
The chat was scrolling so fast it was getting hard to read.
"Holy sh*t!! He tanked a rocket launcher!! What kind of monster is this!!"
"Preservation Walker! It's the Preservation Walker from yesterday!"
"Is this guy for real?? He's tougher than The Seven, right??"
"Why hasn't Vought International reported on this guy?"
"So cool, so cool, so cool!"
"I live in Brooklyn! I'm going out to find him and get an autograph!"
Ryan watched the chat, the corners of his mouth curving upward.
Three thousand people, live.
With the recording playback and subsequent spread, the view count for this video wouldn't be low.
[Ding! Harvesting emotions from live stream in real-time. Positive worship emotion accounts for 87%, negative fear emotion accounts for 13%. Current harvesting rate: +0.3 points per second.]
Zero point three per second.
Doesn't sound like much, but the stream was still ongoing, and the viewer count was still rising.
"Blackie." Ryan patted his shoulder.
"What?"
"Your phone is trash; the image quality looks like a mosaic." Ryan frowned at the cracked screen. "I'll get you a better one next time."
"Really?!" Blackie's eyes lit up. "I want the latest model! One that can shoot 4K!"
"Fine, fine, finish filming tonight first."
"There's more tonight?!"
"Of course there is." Ryan straightened up and turned to look toward the deeper parts of East Brooklyn.
The lights there were dimmer, the streets narrower, and there were more dirty things hidden away.
"Tonight, I'm going to uproot Brooklyn's crime hubs one by one."
The chat on Blackie's phone exploded.
"He said he's going to uproot them one by one!!"
"Ahhhhhh, is tonight the night of the Brooklyn purge!!"
"I'm not sleeping! Nobody sleep tonight! Everyone stay tuned to the stream!"
Ryan didn't say anything more and turned to walk toward the East District with long strides.
Blackie hurriedly chased after him, shouting into his phone as he ran.
"Hey guys! Stick with me! The Preservation Walker says he's doing a major cleanup tonight! I'm streaming the whole thing! If anyone dares to leave, I'm going to be pissed!"
Online viewers: 3586.
Still rising.
Ryan walked in front, listening to Blackie's chattering commentary behind him, the corners of his mouth curving.
This kid is actually quite useful.
[Ding! Current total emotion points: 1583/10000.]
Still short by over eight thousand.
"No matter," Ryan thought. "After tonight, this number will multiply several times over."
He quickened his pace.
In the darkness ahead, the first target was already waiting for him.
Chapter 10: Clearing Three Strongholds in One Hour
East Brooklyn, the first target.
A three-story old apartment building, its exterior walls covered in graffiti and broken windows, the iron roll-up door on the ground floor tightly shut.
Ryan stood under a streetlamp across from the building and listened for ten seconds.
From behind the iron door came muffled laughter, the beeping of electronic scales, and the rustling of plastic bags.
A drug den.
"Blackie, retreat to the street corner, don't get too close."
"Got it!" Blackie obediently jogged to a corner twenty meters away, propped his phone on a trash can lid, and aimed the camera steadily at the apartment building.
Live stream viewers: 4,200.
The chat was scrolling frantically.
"It's happening, it's happening!"
"He's about to make a move!"
"I know this apartment building! That's a Lopez Gang hideout!"
Ryan walked up to the iron roll-up door, extended his right hand, and hooked his five fingers under the bottom edge of the door.
And then—
"Screech!!!"
With one hand, he ripped the entire iron roll-up door, along with its frame, right off the wall.
Bricks shattered, dust billowed, and the tens-of-kilograms-heavy iron door was crumpled into a ball by him like a piece of newspaper and tossed casually to the roadside.
The sound of the iron door hitting the ground made the whole street shake.
The drug dealers behind the door all jumped up, startled by the commotion.
A large table was covered with white powder, electronic scales, and stacks of cash. In the corner, several suitcases were piled up, their zippers undone, revealing packages pressed into brick shapes.
Six people.
Two were packaging, two were counting money, one was on the phone, and one was high in the corner, grinning foolishly at the wall.
"Who?! Who the f—ck—"
A burly man with tattooed arms pulled a modified handgun from under the table and pulled the trigger at the doorway.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three bullets.
Clink, clink, clink.
Three crisp sounds.
The bullets bounced off the air in front of Ryan and rolled a few times on the ground.
They didn't even touch his clothes.
"Are you done?" Ryan asked.
The tattooed burly man froze for a second, then let out a strange yelp, dropped the gun, and turned to run toward the back door.
Ryan took a step forward.
With 80 tons of base strength exploding into one leg, his speed was so fast that the few drug dealers couldn't react at all.
Within one second.
The first person was lifted by his collar and slammed head-first into the table. The tabletop shattered, white powder exploded everywhere, and the man was pinned face-down into the table hole, his limbs flailing.
The second person had just turned around when a slap landed on his face. He flew sideways and slammed into the wall, creating a human-shaped crater.
The third and fourth people tried to jump out the window, but Ryan grabbed one in each hand, clenching their ankles and holding them upside down like two fish.
"Put me down! Put me down!"
"Are you sure?" Ryan shook them; the two men's heads were only ten centimeters from the ground. "If I let go, you both land on your heads."
The two immediately fell silent.
The tattooed burly man ran to the back door, only to find it blocked by an old refrigerator that he couldn't move.
He turned back and saw Ryan strolling toward him, carrying his two brothers.
"Don't... don't come over!"
"Not running anymore?" Ryan tilted his head. "I thought you were going to give me a hundred-meter sprint."
He tossed the two men in his hands onto the ground and walked up to the tattooed burly man.
"Where did this stuff come from?"
"I don't know! I'm just watching the place!"
"Oh, watching the place." Ryan nodded.
Then he lifted a foot and stomped on the floor in front of the tattooed burly man.
The floor cracked with a "crunch."
"Asking again."
"It's... it's the goods supplied by the Morales Family! Their warehouse is in the abandoned factory on East 3rd Street!"
"Abandoned factory on East 3rd Street." Ryan memorized the address. "Got the third stronghold."
He turned around, picked up the drug dealers one by one from the floor, and tied them all together in a bundle using the packaging tape from the table.
He didn't even spare the one who was high and grinning at the wall.
The man was still laughing while being tied up, muttering, "Mommy... I see a rainbow..."
"That's not a rainbow you're seeing." Ryan wrapped the tape around his wrists a couple more times. "What you're seeing is your luck for tonight."
The six people were tossed to the roadside by the door like dumplings.
Ryan took out his phone and checked the time.
10:27 PM.
From entering to clearing the scene, it took less than four minutes in total.
"First one, done."
He gave a thumbs-up to Blackie at the street corner.
Blackie was so excited he almost jumped up, filming non-stop with his phone aimed this way.
The live stream chat was going crazy.
"Four minutes!! He cleared an entire drug den in four minutes!!"
"This is so cool, this is just so cool!!"
"The Seven couldn't even take down one drug den in a year, okay!!"
Viewers: 12,800.
Ryan didn't linger and headed straight toward the second target.
The second stronghold was four blocks away, an underground fight club.
Two bodyguards stood at the door, both 1.9 meters tall; one look and you could tell they were enhanced humans who had used compound v.
Ryan couldn't even be bothered to speak.
One in his left hand, one in his right, the two bodyguards were tossed down the stairwell like two bowling balls, tumbling down a dozen steps into the basement.
The basement was in chaos.
Gambling, drugs, illegal arms trading, all mixed together.
Ryan took six minutes.
He kicked down three doors and beat up eleven people, including two super-powered individuals—one who could discharge electricity and one with enhanced strength.
The one who could discharge electricity struck a bolt of lightning at Ryan, but the current slid over his Bio-field like a tickle.
Ryan grabbed the man by the arm, lifted him up, and said one thing to him.
"Your voltage isn't even enough to charge my phone."
Then he slapped him.
The one with enhanced strength was even less durable; Ryan kicked him in the chest, and he flew straight out, smashing through a wall and embedding himself in the brickwork, unconscious.
When the second stronghold was cleared, the time was 10:41 PM.
Blackie followed behind, panting, his phone barely steady in his hand.
Viewers: 47,000.
Nearly 50,000.
The chat was unreadable, the entire screen filled with scrolling text.
"This isn't a human! This must be a robot!!"
"50,000 people! We are 50,000 people watching one man take on the entire Brooklyn underworld!!"
"Did Vought International see this? This is what a superhero is!!"
"Preservation Walker! Preservation Walker! Preservation Walker!!"
[Ding! Massive influx of Emotion Points! Offline +350, Online +480. Current total Emotion Points: 2960/10000!]
Nearly 3,000.
But Ryan didn't stop.
"Blackie, keep up."
"Com... coming! Wait for me! My shoelace came untied!"
Ryan headed toward the abandoned factory on East 3rd Street.
The third stronghold.
The one the tattooed burly man gave up—the Morales Family's supply warehouse.
This would be the biggest fish of the night.
He walked for about five minutes, and the abandoned factory appeared at the end of his view.
A large, drab factory building, surrounded by a chain-link fence, with three trucks parked at the entrance.
People were moving goods.
A lot of people.
And—
Ryan's pace slowed down.
Two figures stood on the roof of the factory.
The silhouettes of the two figures were very clear under the moonlight.
One tall, one short; the tall one had hands on hips, and the short one was clutching something.
Ryan narrowed his eyes.
On the tall one's chest, a metal logo reflected the moonlight.
He had seen the shape of that logo countless times on promotional posters at Vought Tower.
"Oh?" Ryan stopped in his tracks.
Blackie ran up from behind, one hand on his knee panting, the other holding up his phone.
"W-what's wrong? Why did you stop?"
"Blackie." Ryan's voice was very calm.
"Hm?"
"Tonight's stream might be a lot more explosive than you imagined."
Blackie followed Ryan's gaze toward the factory roof.
The two figures were still standing there.
The moonlight illuminated the tall one's face.
Blackie's phone almost dropped to the ground.
"That... isn't that..."
Viewers: 53,000.
The chat stopped instantly.
Then, hundreds of the same message flooded in at once.
"That's a Vought superhero!!"
"Why are they here?!"
Ryan's mouth curled up.
"Preservation Walker's fourth job of the night; looks like I'm destined for overtime."