Professional Runner—Zhou Xufang

Monday.

There was a light rain pouring outside. The freezing winter wind had brought with it a layer of mist that enveloped the capital. The cold pierced right down to the bone, and this sort of weather had been continuing for the past few days, indicating that winter was just around the corner.

7:30 pm, the evening news program had just ended.

By 8 pm, Tang Ying had finished packing up and subsequently walked over to knock on the door of the resting lounge next door.

"Come in."

Probably because of her career, she would always focus on the other person's voice first. Of all the members of the TV station, his voice sounded the most pleasant to her ears.

Tang Ying pushed open the door but remained standing outside. "Senior, I'll send you off."

Her senior, Zhou Qingrang, was the only person working for the TV station who had taken less than 3 years to become the news anchor for the daily report.

He had changed out of the formal suit he wore on set into a thick and heavy winter coat. Sitting atop his wheelchair, he politely refused his junior's offer.

"No need for that."

There were tens of thousands of lights outside his window. They were all coming from individual apartments, office buildings, and the like, but they all felt devoid of life's pleasures.

He was lucky enough to be born with beautiful, masculine features, just like the men depicted in ancient paintings. However, his painting wasn't the type that was crafted from an array of colorful pigments but instead, a plain black and white portrait made with one single stick of black ink. Even so, he was a man that was full of nuance and character.

The man was far from what you'd call a "young man". There were already shallow wrinkles at the end of his eyes, which perhaps, was partly the reason why he did not like smiling. He wasn't a big fan of conversing either. Despite this, his temperament was exceptionally good, always treating the people he knew with extreme gentleness. That being said, the people he knew, with the exception of his workmates, were few and far between.

His legs weren't in great shape either. His left leg had been amputated, and as such, he had been relying on a prosthetic leg ever since three years ago. His right leg had been operated on numerous times before and there were still steel nails that had yet to be removed, which was why he rarely stood up from his wheelchair.

Although he was wheelchair-bound, he had never troubled others due to his disability. There was a pair of crutches that he kept on his wheelchair but it was a rare scene to see him use said crutches.

Tang Ying was one of the very few that had witnessed such a scene. He was bent over and exerting great strength on his crutches, walking one step at a time at a snail's pace.

"Let me send you off." She was still hesitant to see her senior go alone. Brushing her hair, she added, "It's raining outside, the roads are slippery."

He did not utter a single word, instead, he merely shook his head in silence.

It was only through stubbornly pushing forward could his mind be as settled as still water. Tang Ying stood quietly at the door for quite a while before leaving. The next time she saw him would be at the entrance to the TV Station's headquarters.

He parked his wheelchair at the top of a flight of stairs. The doorman stepped forward to ask if he needed any assistance but was quickly rejected. Picking up the crutches on his wheelchair, he braced his legs as he struggled up from his seat. He rested his weight completely on a single crutch as the other was used to pick up his wheelchair. One step at a time, he slowly made his descent down the stairs. Because of the strength needed to lift the wheelchair while supporting himself, the back of his hands were covered in a net of popped-up veins.

The street lamps reflected off the puddles on the ground, turning silhouettes of passersby into mere phantoms. The entire experience was made eerier with a thick mist that occupied every inch of the capital.

His residence wasn't too far from the TV station's headquarters. Using his crutches, he placed down the wheelchair and slowly sunk back into its seat. Taking his time, he made his way back home. Although the journey wasn't too far a distance, there was one part where he had to go up a slope. As the ground surface was slippery, his wheelchair almost slid backward just as he was halfway through clearing the slope.

A hand reached forward from behind and stopped the wheelchair from sliding back.

Zhou Qingrang turned back to look at the good samaritan, but due to the bad lighting, he couldn't make out the person's face clearly. The only thing he noticed about her was that she was sporting an all-black outfit.

"Thank you."

She continued pushing the wheelchair until they got over the slope. "No problem."

She was a young lady.

He said his thanks once more as he reached for the back wheels of his wheelchair. Pushing it with tired arms, he continued on his way home slowly.

So that was him.

Zhou Xufang stood there for a long time before putting on a wireless earpiece. "Help me cut off the surveillance camera at Begonia Bay."

"What are you planning to do?" A question came through her earpiece in the form of an artificially synthesized voice.

Xufang replied with something entirely off-topic. "His legs aren't too good."

Maintaining a distance of ten meters, she trailed behind Zhou Qingrang. As she stalked her target, she removed multiple articles from her backpack—a jacket, a mask, a baseball cap, etc, and one by one, she put them on, masking her identity.

"His legs aren't too good. I gotta look over him until our job's complete."

Without further questioning, Shuang Jiang replied, "Understood."

It wasn't even 30 seconds later that Shuang Jiang's robotic voice came back over the earpiece. "The distance between Begonia Bay and his TV station is only 800 meters. There are four surveillance cams along the way, I have already set up a jamming signal. You have five minutes."

"Got it."

She pulled down the brim of her cap and with a single leap, she jumped onto a nearby rooftop.

As the ground was slippery, the journey home that usually took ten minutes now took Zhou Qingrang twenty minutes.

Old Man Ji, who was working the night shift as a security officer at the small residential area, was standing out in the open, smoking a cigarette. However, he stomped on his cigarette as soon as Zhou Qingrang and his wheelchair came into his view. "Evenin' Mister Zhou."

Zhou Qingrang nodded in response to the greeting.

Old Man Ji was well over his sixties. He had just retired from his job at a pharmaceutical factory six months ago and here he was, still working a job. "You've got a package at our office. Need ya' to come and get it personally."

"Thank you."

"Let me push you there."

He did not reject the old man's offer. "Sorry for the hassle."

"Don't mention it."

Zhou Xufang stood on the other side of the road, watching the wheelchair enter the residential area.

"Xufang, we have a problem."

Zhou Xufang looked up to check out the height of the fence surrounding the residential area.

Through her earpiece, Shuang Jiang explained to Xufang. "There are two men thirty meters north of Begonia Bay's main entrance. One of them is Tian Xing's men while the other man's identity is unclear. There are also people waiting near the elevator shaft as well as the emergency escape of Block 9."

Zhou Qingrang's room was located in Block 9.

She had just delivered the goods and there were already people waiting to ambush Zhou Qingrang.

Essentially, Shuang Jiang's statement could be implied as a question to Zhou Xufang on her next move—"What's the plan?"

She calculated the height of the fence and began retreating backward. Once again, she cleared the obstacle with just a single leap.

"There's no other choice then."

She picked herself up from the ground and wiped the rainwater off her hands. Xufang then produced a pair of black gloves from the pocket of her overcoat. "I'll have to use brute force."

At the entrance to the stairwell shaft of Block 9.

Two men came out from behind the door. "Chief Xiaoluo, Zhou Qinrang is already on his way up here."

The shadow cast on the ground was that of a well-built man. He was wearing a black, monochromatic suit, and his face was squarish in shape with deep-set eyes.

Through his earpiece, a woman's voice advised. "Don't scare him off just yet. Make sure that the item is in his hands."

"Understood." Just then, a dark shadow streaked past his eyes. Instinctively, he turned around to check the coast. "Who's there!?"

There was nobody behind him and the place was dead silent. As they had already sabotaged the voice-activated lighting on this floor, the entire place was shrouded in darkness, and only certain parts remained barely visible due to the lights reaching down from the floor above.

"What's the matter?"

"It's nothi–"

The man had not even finished his sentence before he felt a pair of hands grapple around his neck. He raised his head and his pupils constricted. "You, you are…"

The other person's face was covered with a face mask. Although he could tell that the face was no bigger than the size of his palms and on its feet were a pair of canvas shoes that only a woman could fit into.

A woman.

When had she appeared in front of him!?

The man wanted to open his mouth to scream, but that was only a signal for her to press even harder on his neck. In a split-second, she yanked off his wireless earpiece and whispered a sentence into its receiver. "I don't care who you are. Don't you dare lay a finger on Zhou Qingrang."

After that, she threw the earpiece onto the floor and crushed it with her heel. It was then that she looked up and released her grip.

The man stumbled backward with a hand over his neck. "What are you?"

What was she?

On the arms of her black coat, there was a stitching of an English alphabet—Z.

The man was tongue-tied. "Yo-you are…"

She stepped backward before springing forward into the air. Her left foot pushed against the wall, providing enough force to propel her right leg into the man's neck, knocking him out cold.

He collapsed onto the ground with upturned eyes.

Zhou Xufang straightened her cap and went up to the second floor.

There were a handful of vehicles parked on the roadside opposite of Begonia Bay. Right in front of the convoy was a black Bentley. Its windows were rolled down, revealing a man in the co-driver seat speaking into his phone.

He was speaking in a respectful tone. "Chief Xiaoluo."

Over the past few years, the leader of the Luo family had grown weaker and weaker, his physical condition deteriorating by the day. His eldest son, however, suffered from Down Syndrome, while his second son had passed away a long time ago. As such, the person temporarily in charge of the Luo family was Luo Qinghe. Everyone serving under the company's flag could only refer to her as Chief Xiaoluo.

"Continue, Secretary Han."

"Is there a Plan B if we fail to obtain the item tonight?"

Han Feng was Luo Qinghe's secretary. He had been under her wing for the past three years and his dedication toward her had gradually become more pronounced over time.

"Yes, there is. But. Make sure that you don't mess this up. The consequences, if you do so, will be extremely heavy."

"Understood."

Luo Qinghe hung up first.

Han Feng put on his earpiece. After yelling through it a few times, not a single soul's reply could be heard. He got out of the car just in time to see a man running out from the underground carpark with a terrified look on his face.

It was one of the men he had just dispatched.

Han Feng walked over. "What's the issue?"

Sweat was pouring down the other man's face as he looked around nervously. He was mumbling something unclear but Han Feng could make out some parts of his words. "That...that female thing...came outta nowhere...blink of an eye...got up...like, like, like a female spirit…"

'A female spirit?"

Han Feng sneered at the man before kicking his calf brutally. "Dumbass, I sent so many men and you couldn't even capture a cripple for me." He turned back and barked out orders toward the cars behind his. "I want you all inside Block 9. I don't care what methods you use, I want that thing here tonight."

As soon as he had said that, a man came walking out from behind a street lamp.

"What thing?"

Han Feng raised his head, a chill running down his spine. "Master Qiao."

It was the heir of the Qiao family, Qiao Nanchu.

Despite the rain pouring down relentlessly, he was not holding an umbrella. Leaning against the street lamp, his hair was covered by a layer of mist. The man raised an eyebrow. "So you do recognize me."

As the favorite grandson of the Qiao family's leader, everyone in the imperial capital recognized the man standing before him.

"Then, you should know where I work, right?" He continued his monologue, and without waiting for a reply, he started dialing a number on his phone. "Sir Cheng, there are a few suspicious individuals right where I am. Would you like to come round for a check?"

Of course, the Qiao family was involved with law and order.

Han Feng's facial expression remained unwavering. "Master Qiao, what is the meaning of this?"

"I was sent by Jiang Zhi. You should recognize him, no?" He said as he pointed toward a car parked nearby. "Said a 12 million yuan watch was stolen from him. Naturally, I'm here to arrest the perpetrator."