Su Jiannan, dressed like a successful businessman, had just stepped out of a black luxury sedan when a ruddy-faced, broad-bodied middle-aged man approached him.
"Mr. Su! What a pleasure to meet you!"
The middle-aged man immediately grasped Su Jiannan's hand with enthusiastic warmth. His palm was rough and wide as a palm-leaf fan, with the powerful grip of some kind of beast. Su Jiannan's face twitched almost imperceptibly. He gave a brief squeeze and quickly let go.
"Likewise, likewise. I didn't expect Boss Zhou to come greet me personally. Seems your side is taking this project very seriously."
"Goes without saying!"
Boss Zhou's fat face split into a smug grin, and his words came out like a machine gun.
"After all, this is a newly discovered Jingchu cultural site. The municipal government is treating this like a treasure—talking about 'developing cultural industries' and 'establishing cultural confidence.' They organized this academic symposium before they'd even finished exploring the ruins. Once those experts wrap up their conference, us construction investors have to follow right up. Haha, competing for GDP these days is like fighting a war..."
Then Boss Zhou smacked his forehead dramatically. "Aiya, I got carried away talking! Can't keep Mr. Su—a client who's contracted our big project—standing around chatting. Tonight's on me. Mr. Su, let's head over to that time-honored Tianxiang Tower!"
Su Jiannan read the room. Seeing Boss Zhou's enthusiasm was hard to refuse, he didn't decline. "Alright, alright, I'll join Boss Zhou for a good drink then—"
He was about to walk off when he felt someone tug at his sleeve.
A girl had stepped out from the sedan's back seat. She wore an elegant matching skirt suit, her skin smooth as mutton-fat jade. Her face combined the distinct features of a European with the gentleness of an Eastern woman—enchanting and alluring, yet with a proud air.
The girl furrowed her brows slightly. "Dad, drink less tonight. Watch your health."
"Got it! Dad will listen to you!" Su Jiannan readily agreed with his precious daughter, Su Xiaoqiang. "It's getting late. Xiaoqiang, just take a little walk around and head back early, okay? Have Uncle Li drive you. Dad booked the presidential suite at the hotel..."
The two businessmen then cheerfully headed off toward their drinking destination. But Su Xiaoqiang figured her dad definitely wouldn't take her words to heart and would keep drinking despite his health condition.
"Boring. What's there to even see here..."
Su Xiaoqiang glanced at Uncle Li waiting by the car like a motionless statue, then turned and walked toward the brightly lit area.
Suddenly, a red-haired man approached from the roadside and stopped Su Xiaoqiang. He asked in standard Mandarin, "Excuse me, do you know how to get to this place?"
Su Xiaoqiang stared at the phone screen he was showing her. She blinked—it was a foreign phone brand she'd never seen before... But seeing his urgent expression, she didn't chat further and just pointed him in a direction.
'Strange. On his phone screen... did I just see something about "getting silenced"...? Must have been seeing things.'
Su Xiaoqiang buried the odd feeling and thought about asking if he wanted a ride in her family's sports car.
When she looked up again, the red-haired man had already vanished.
What the hell, how did he disappear so fast?
Old Tang felt like he was going to die.
"Bro, you've got the wrong guy! I'm really not Shirou Emiya! Uh, spare me, good sir!"
Old Tang had just popped his head out from the ruins to speak when he was met with merciless sniper fire from the other side.
Wildly flying projectiles formed multiple straight lines of metal streams, shattering glass windows to pieces. Even the thick concrete was blasted full of densely packed shallow craters.
After silently cursing "what a freak," Old Tang pivoted like the wind and fled at top speed.
This ruin-like area was an abandoned building zone far more remote than the Chu Culture symposium venue. One glance was enough to identify it as a failed development project where the developers had fled and no one had taken over.
Old Tang had gotten lost while looking for the mission location and unknowingly wandered here. The moment he tried to sneak into one of the buildings, he'd been sniped by the enemy.
Approaching him was the lean young man Zhou Yuxuan. At his feet, countless exposed steel rebars from the concrete disassembled and converged, forming sharp, spinning projectiles.
True Word Art: Iron Flow—known in the West as Sequence 80, Word Spirit: Iron Flow.
This ability could control metallic elements within a domain, using them to attack or create objects.
Zhou Yuxuan combined the projectiles created by his Word Spirit with an auto-loading artifact (alchemical gun) made through his family's artifact-refining techniques, producing an enhanced shotgun effect. Add in the dense steel rebars surrounding them, and it created an environment of nearly unlimited ammunition replenishment—though even without the rebars, spent bullets could be recalled by the Word Spirit.
"Shirou Emiya, are you too afraid to face me in battle?"
Old Tang, still hiding, shouted back his complaint: "You've got the wrong person! The guy you're talking about is my buddy. He's not here yet. Plus he's from Japan—I can't speak a single damn word of Japanese!"
"..." Zhou Yuxuan stopped walking. He'd only seen Shirou's file. An unremarkable small fry like Old Tang had been overlooked. After flipping through materials for a while, he finally found a jovial face among a pile of hunter profiles:
"You're Ronald Tang?"
"Yeah, that's right. Me, Old Tang, Bro Emiya's longtime partner."
"Then why aren't you moving together? Why did you abandon your companion and come here alone? Emiya aside, this is no place for a hunter of your caliber. Or did you somehow obtain information you shouldn't have?"
Zhou Yuxuan's face was stern. This location was originally the gathering point for disciples of hybrid clans like the Zhou family, scheduled for tomorrow, close to the ruins. Random hunters weren't allowed to mix in here. Their gathering point should have been the symposium venue much further away.
"Bro, I was wrong, bro! I just simply got lost, that's all! It's really not that complicated!" Old Tang's face was practically crying.
"The files show you're a veteran hunter who's completed numerous high-level missions. And you'd make such a rookie mistake as getting lost?"
"...I'm so sorry for making such a rookie mistake!"
Old Tang was screaming internally. These days, people didn't even believe you when you told the truth!
Zhou Yuxuan was about to say something more.
Suddenly, an intense warning surged through his heart.
Whoosh—
Zhou Yuxuan only had time to retreat half a step before a metal arrow embedded itself in the ground. The arrow easily pierced through a chunk of steel-reinforced concrete just centimeters from his foot—its power and precision were absurdly high.
He looked up. On the building's rooftop, a red-haired man stood holding a black bow, arrow in hand.
"Would you be Shirou Emiya?"
Zhou Yuxuan called out. He found it strange—he hadn't seen Shirou arrive from any direction using any vehicle before going up the building. Could he have actually run straight across the rooftops to get here?
Shirou Emiya on the rooftop stepped forward and responded: "That would be me."
Then, from the center of the building below, a dirt-covered head with droopy eyebrows popped up. "Ahhh, Bro Emiya, you finally made it! Damn, my luck's always been good before, but this time Old Tang here took the hit for you!"
"What's going on exactly?"
"Come down first and we'll talk, bro."
And so Zhou Yuxuan watched as Shirou Emiya leaped from the rooftop, then used a balcony to flip and swing into Old Tang's floor.
[End of Chapter 6]