"Nuwa No. 17, you can put that away now." Chu Bamboo spoke softly after making sure he had memorized everything. He breathed an inward sigh of relief as the screen of light dissipated.
"And now, I just have to wait three days!" Chu Bamboo walked out of the women's restroom and shot a peculiar glance at the sign. He still couldn't understand why on earth they had to install the device in a women's restroom.
As he was leaving, he couldn't stop thinking, 'What if I'd run into someone in the restroom… That would have been so awkward. And how would I even explain it?'
'I can ask Uncle Li next time! But I wonder, are there other exits to this underground base?'
His mind racing with stray thoughts, Chu Bamboo walked out of the police station. After a moment's consideration, he made his decision. He suddenly burst into motion, rushing toward the bank at top speed.
...
'So they were caught, just as I thought.' Chu Bamboo stood at the wrecked entrance of the bank, lost in thought. He looked into the distance, where an ambulance was parked. A very familiar figure was being carried out on a stretcher by doctors and nurses and loaded into the vehicle.
It was Lu Muxue! She was clearly in terrible shape.
After watching the ambulance drive off, Chu Bamboo turned his gaze to the other injured people inside the bank. A few doctors were administering on-the-spot treatment—which amounted to little more than handing out painkillers and giving antibiotic shots. For everything else, they had to rely on their own bodies to pull through. Go to the hospital? The cost was far beyond what an ordinary person could afford.
Lu Muxue was taken away because of her prominent background and wealthy family.
After all, in the Dream World, even ambulances were classified as Ancient Relics, and the cost of deploying one was astronomical. The same went for most of the life-saving equipment in the hospitals...
"Ah Zhu?" Li Kang's voice rang out, tinged with confusion.
Chu Bamboo turned to see Li Kang stepping out of a steam car. It was a plain-looking vehicle, devoid of any police markings.
"How did you—oh!" Li Kang abruptly slapped his forehead. "You must have asked someone at the station how to find this place... No, wait, they shouldn't have told you!"
"I have my connections," Chu Bamboo said calmly, sidestepping the question. Li Kang's eyes widened in realization. "Oh, right. Of course. It's you we're talking about."
"What happened to the bank robbers?"
"Their memories of us have been wiped, and they've been turned over to the regular police," Li Kang said calmly. "The rest is out of our hands."
After a brief pause, something seemed to occur to Li Kang, and his tone grew serious. "Right, Ah Zhu, you might not be aware, so I have to emphasize this! You cannot display anything Extraordinary in front of ordinary people. If you do, we'll detect it, and... well, it creates a massive amount of work for us! Besides, it violates the Extraordinary Management Act, and the consequences are severe."
"Even to be a hero?" Chu Bamboo raised an eyebrow. He'd already suspected as much, but that didn't stop him from wanting to learn the finer details.
"Even then!" Li Kang's expression was stern, but his tone quickly shifted. "Of course, if you just use a little bit of power beyond a normal person, something that doesn't completely defy common sense... then it's fine! After all, isn't Kung Fu all the rage these days?"
Chu Bamboo grew pensive. 'So all those popular rumors about Kung Fu have something to do with the Extraordinary?'
"Captain, I've been meaning to ask... who is this?" A woman also stepped out of a nearby car, her face full of curiosity. She wore a suit over a slender frame, and despite the thigh-high stockings, she carried herself with a poised, heroic air.
"He's..."
"Hello, Miss Ning Linglong!" Chu Bamboo stepped forward confidently, extending a hand to politely shake her fingertips. "I'm Chu Bamboo. You can call me Ah Zhu, or Bamboo. You should recognize me! Brother Ning must have mentioned me to you. In fact, I believe we've met before. Brother Ning just took me out for dinner a week ago!"
"Um... huh?!" Ning Linglong looked blank for a moment, then she jolted. "Wait, you—you're the kid who saved my dad eight years ago?"
Ning Linglong was dumbfounded. Her hand subconsciously gestured to a height somewhere below her own hip—Chu Bamboo's height the last time they'd met. 'Wait, but that was eight years ago... How did he recognize me instantly?'
She remembered. The unbelievable memories all came flooding back...
Eight years ago, Chu Bamboo had been just a little kid, yet he had somehow managed to rescue a drunk Ning Yu, who had driven his steam car into a river. He'd even managed to find their family through the police...
Ning Linglong remembered it vividly even now. When she heard the news of her father's accident, her mind went completely blank. She couldn't even recall how she'd gotten to the hospital. Her most profound memory was of arriving there, and after her mother learned what had happened, she had dropped to her knees right in front of Chu Bamboo with a thud. The doctor had said that if her father had arrived just twenty minutes later, he would have been dead.
"Un... Uncle Zhu!" Ning Linglong forced out the address, her expression stiff. She finally snapped back to reality and gave Chu Bamboo a deep bow. Even though she was five or six years older than him, there was no getting around the fact that he was her family's savior.
Li Kang: "...Huh?!"
Li Kang was floored. The sheer volume of new information made his brain short-circuit.
"How did you... I can't believe... Something like this..." Li Kang was stammering, completely flustered. After taking a long moment to sort through his thoughts and barely make sense of the situation, he managed to choke out, "Well, isn't that... quite the coincidence!"
Chu Bamboo raised an eyebrow. 'A coincidence? Hardly! The truth was, even if it hadn't been Ning Linglong who stepped out of the car—even if it had been one of the other Transcendents from the Captain's Office—Chu Bamboo could have found a connection to them. It was just a matter of how strong that connection would be.'
'Never underestimate the network I've built after clearing so many instances!'
"I-I-I-I'm so sorry!" Ning Linglong had lost all of her former heroic poise; she was now incredibly stiff and awkward. "N-no, it's not that my family is ungrateful! It's just... you and I don't really know each other... Oh, that's not right. How about this, I'll treat you to dinner in a couple of days as an apology! What am I even saying..."
"It's fine. Brother Ning and I go way back! Just relax." Chu Bamboo waved his hand magnanimously, a grin playing on his lips. "Niece."
Ning Linglong's expression was a sight to behold, but in the end, she could only nod stiffly and stammer, "...Alright, Uncle!"
Li Kang covered his face. He really couldn't take it anymore. Even though he understood the situation, the scene playing out before him was just too bizarre.
"You're really something else!" Li Kang said with a wry smile. "Vice Captain Ning is exceptionally talented and has limitless potential. Ah Zhu, you should... get to know her better!"
"Oh." Chu Bamboo feigned surprise. In reality, he was well aware that Ning Linglong held a very high position in the Special Operations Brigade; strictly speaking, she was second-in-command—referring to her rank within the regular police force, of course. However, he figured her corresponding position on the Extraordinary side was likely equivalent.