Liu Ruyan frowned. "Eagle Eye actually confirmed he's dead?"
Liu Mingqing nodded, a little sheepish. "Yeah. The boss told me personally—Chen Xiao died. We took his name off the list." He slapped Chen Xiao on the shoulder with a forced laugh. "I didn't want to believe it at first. You're the kind of man who survives madness—then the boss said you single-handed the Tang family and got wiped out by a nuke. He saw the mushroom cloud himself, so I believed it. Never thought I'd run into you again."
"A nuclear bomb? Couldn't you invent a better lie?" Fatty barreled over, eyes wide and utterly incredulous. In his mind a nuke meant absolute annihilation—he'd been scared stiff twice already and still couldn't get over it. No matter how strong Chen Xiao was, surviving a real nuke was impossible. Liu Ruyan's face went pale. "No one survives a nuclear blast… that fireball melts steel walls, people… nothing could have walked out of that."
Liu Mingqing hesitated, glancing at Chen Xiao for confirmation. Chen Xiao gave a faint smile. "I was there. The 'nuclear bomb' did hit—badly."
"Holy—don't scare me!" Fatty yelped, nearly fainting.
Liu Ruyan clutched the unsigned leaflet Liu Mingqing produced from his bag and snatched it, eyes scanning. She visibly froze. The top slot was a complete dossier, everything crossed and annotated—ranked number one: Chen Xiao.
Rank: 1Name: Chen XiaoCurrent location: Jiangnan CityHistorical achievements: Annihilated Lin family; breached Jianghe Grain Warehouse; single-handed strike against the Jiangnan Tang familyCombat assessment: Dual-talent holder, max SSS potential. Proficient water manipulation, suspected shape-shifting. Physique resists most thermal weapons.(Status: Deceased, removed)
Chen Xiao rolled his eyes. "Thorough. Eagle Eye actually lists everything I did recently."
Fatty stomped, furious. "The Tang family lied to the world!" Liu Ruyan trembled. "The Tang family… used a nuke on you? Just to kill you? And they failed?" Outrage and disbelief warred across her face. The Tang family had spun their mushroom cloud into a justification—some monstrous villain nuked for humanity. But if the cloud had been staged to hide one man's survival, it was both petty and obscene.
Chen Xiao took the paper back to study the official version Liu Mingqing said he had—the one the boss had just updated.
Rank: 1Name: Li TailongCurrent location: Dachang CityHistorical achievements: Unified Dachang's eight major forces; killed a third-order new humanCombat assessment: Sole heir of Shu Mountain martial lineage. Peerless swordsmanship; sword qi forms prismatic arc. Possible vitality-boost technique.…
Rank: 2Name: Yang BaiyingCurrent location: Dachang CityHistorical achievements: Assisted Li Tailong; fought a hundred enemies alone…Combat assessment: Dual-talent holder, max SSS. Suspected elephant awakening. Physique resists some thermal weapons.…
Rank: 3Name: Gu XuCurrent location: Liangzhou CityHistorical achievements: Single-handed kill of Daping City's Rat King; battled ten S-rank fighters aloneCombat assessment: Confirmed SSS talent. Suspected canine lineage. Specializes in pursuit and assassination.…
The list went on. Chen Xiao skimmed quickly—most names were unfamiliar. He felt oddly detached, then his eye snagged on the top name. Li Tailong—who was he? Chen Xiao had never heard of such a figure in his old life. Either Li Tailong had been hidden, or he'd only recently erupted. Either way, the rankings were a different world now.
Notably, very few Jiangnan or Jiangbei fighters showed up in the top thirty. The highest Tang family figure, "White Sheep," sat around twenty-first—hardly impressive to Chen Xiao. He scanned down and finally found names he recognized.
Rank: 30Name: Jiang YunHanCurrent location: Jiangbei City
Rank: 31Name: DashanCurrent location: Jiangbei City
He snorted. Eagle Eye still underrated Jiang YunHan—listing him as SS when Chen Xiao privately suspected his friend had already breached SSS. The Little Monk's absence from the top tier was also curious, given the boy's dormant potential. Rankings were a snapshot—and often behind the curve.
Chen Xiao folded the paper and handed it back to Liu Mingqing. "It's detailed. Don't tell anyone I'm alive."
Liu Mingqing's face went white. "I—uh—my department…" He shuffled, eyes darting like a man with a guilty secret.
Chen Xiao gave him a thin smile. "Relax. I know what to do." The words weren't a joke. In the apocalypse, "knowing what to do" could mean a dozen things—most of them final.
Liu Mingqing swallowed hard and nodded. Outside the villa, Fatty whimpered and adjusted his belt. Liu Ruyan watched Chen Xiao with a complex expression—curiosity, irritation, and something like calculation. The Eagle Eye list fluttered in the room like a reminder: reputations could be bought, lies could be sewn, but real strength showed up on the battlefield—and Chen Xiao was still breathing.
The Yakuza Witch's eyes flicked toward him once more. "You really weren't dead."
Chen Xiao pocketed the paper and shrugged. "Rumors travel faster than truth." Then, quieter: "Now I've got a new problem list to solve."
Fatty brightened uselessly. "Hey, me too—can you solve my pork quota?"
Chen Xiao tossed the page back into the pile and stood. "Let's talk strategy."