Chapter 173: The Capture

That night, the other side. 

A no-name bar, with a battered exterior, like any bar you'd find in any part of the city where the poor live.

It has an old sign, with neon lights emblazoned with the words "Bar," and many parts of it have been extinguished due to bad connections, but no one has bothered to fix it. 

The bar door opened.

After getting off work, Agent Liang Ye came out with an unfinished bottle of wine after a night of partying. 

He was flushed and wobbly on his feet, but he seemed in a good mood. The bartender at the front desk today was a young girl in fishnet stockings, new here, with a sweet accent that almost melted him. 

That made him have a few extra drinks tonight, more fun than usual.

So when he got out from a group of guys with blue dragon and white tiger tattoos on their bodies, it was already much later than usual. 

Liang Ye hummed a ditty while picking up the wine bottle and pouring wine into his mouth from time to time.

At this moment, he didn't look like a well-trained warrior, much less a superhuman with extremely dangerous power. He looked like a completely ordinary drunk, still immersed in the pleasure of sleepless nights and unable to get over his nerves. 

It's also possible that his shambling gait tricked others into thinking he was harmless—especially those who were spying on him with nefarious intentions. 

Liang Ye staggered across the deserted street, and when he passed a certain shadow, he downed the rest of the liquor in the bottle in one gulp, then abruptly picked up the bottle and slammed it into the darkness on one side. 

Clatter. 

The wine bottle shattered against someone's body, and glass shards splashed in all directions. Liang Ye stretched his arms and pulled a man out of the darkness. Unprepared, the watcher was slammed onto the sidewalk by him and let out a low, muffled groan. 

Alcohol didn't anesthetize him but instead paralyzed the watchers who were keeping an eye on him. 

Liang Ye laughed: "If you think I can... 

...Huh?" 

When he saw the person he trampled on, he froze for a moment. 

The man was clearly wearing the uniform of Secret Service Nine. 

It's one of our own. 

"Are you from the service?" Liang Ye frowned, "Then why...?" 

Before he could finish asking, there was a dense tingling sensation behind him. 

Liang Ye immediately realized that there was more than one person in ambush. 

In the darkness around him, soldiers were ambushed at every corner and on the high platforms. They fired an anesthetic bomb at Liang Ye, and a large piece of the anesthetic needle hit his back, quickly sending the drug into his bloodstream. 

But he didn't fall.

With a low growl, he kicked away the soldiers under his feet and dragged his unsteady body into the back of the building next to him. Suddenly, several soldiers grabbed the zip line and dropped from above, blocking his path. 

With a low growl, Liang Ye charged between them, kicking one soldier head-on, then locking onto the next. The second soldier tried to shrink back and dodge, but the skills he had learned his whole life were no match for Liang Ye.

With a long arm, Liang Ye grabbed his shoulders and pulled him forward with all his strength. A knee strike knocked him to the ground. 

But in that time, a few more anesthesia needles stuck into his back and waist. 

More soldiers jumped down and surrounded him. 

"The target is still moving! The threat is not neutralized!" 

"Damn! How is this possible? This dose should be enough to bring him down…" 

"There's a change in the action; the target hasn't fallen," the leader shouted into his headset. "Request to re-evaluate the mission's feasibility. If the target releases a phantom…" 

"No need. Continue as planned." 

A warm voice came from the other end of the headset. 

"Don't worry, Captain; what you're afraid of won't happen. He won't release the phantom. After all…" 

On the aircraft carrier, Professor Miyazaki paused before the microphone on the other end, wearing a confident smile. 

"…No one understands the peculiarities of the Nine Branches better than me. Every one of those peculiarities is no exception." 

Sure enough, as he said, Liang Ye didn't unleash his destructive phantom that terrified everyone. 

But he struggled with all his might; his body was nearly a hedgehog from the anesthesia needles, yet he still tenaciously took down several agents. 

Finally, four ropes bound his limbs, pulling them apart in a large X, causing the veins all over his body to bulge from the strain. 

He raised his head and roared like a trapped animal. At that moment, everyone's hearts trembled violently, as if they expected thunder and electricity to explode in the next second, flipping them upside down like fried fish. 

…But that didn't happen. 

Liang Ye collapsed. 

"Report, target secured. Ready to bring him back now." 

The team leader wiped his cold sweat, glancing at Liang Ye, who lay unconscious on the ground, feeling a mix of confusion and concern. 

Once the phantom was summoned, it was clear it had the power to take them all down effortlessly. But why did he refuse to act, even when forced into this situation? 

… 

"Very well, thank you for your hard work. Bring him back." 

After Professor Miyazaki ended the communication, another line quickly connected. 

This was another operation team, and the target they were trying to apprehend was another special individual with phantom powers from Secret Service Nine, a little girl named Fana. 

Her situation was also a mental health concern. Fana's issue wasn't a secret in Secret Service Nine; everyone knew she envisioned her phantom as her long-gone mother. However, opinions on her mental evaluation thus far deemed her controllable. 

Apparently, someone had decided she was no longer so manageable. 

"Report, no signs of the target found," someone announced. 

"What do you mean, no signs?" Professor Miyazaki frowned. 

"She's not in her room," the leader replied. "It's suspected she may have sensed something or discovered our presence in advance. From the traces left, it appears she escaped through the window." 

"Hmm... alright. Based on previous observations, the Phantom in Red does have an instinct independent of the anomaly itself, so it's not surprising you were detected," Professor Miyazaki acknowledged. "You all should leave the team for now; I'll address this later." 

After speaking, he frowned in thought for a moment. Shortly after, someone rushed in. 

"Sir!" 

"What is it now?" He turned to the agent. 

"It's Agent Luo Yajun..." the agent said quickly. "He vanished from the interrogation room." 

Professor Miyazaki: "..." 

… 

Somewhere in Jiangdu, an abandoned factory. 

The electronic shackles released by the universal breaker fell to the ground. Luo Yajun glanced at Batman beside him, a somewhat strange expression on his face. 

"So you really want to come and go as you please."

He rubbed his wrist and looked at Batman. "I thought you'd take me to a bat safe house or something. I was just wondering what a lair like yours would be like... you don't live in a cave, do you?" 

Batman ignored him. He didn't care.

He just pondered for a moment, then looked back at Luo Yajun and said seriously, "I didn't do it." 

He was referring, of course, to the video that seemed to show him assaulting his teammates. 

Honestly, he didn't care what others thought of him, and he didn't even care if they condemned him for it. None of that mattered to him. 

But with Batman, he wanted the other man to believe he was innocent, even if the rest of the world didn't think so. 

"I know," Batman said calmly. "That's why I'm here." 

"You know?" 

Hearing this made Luo Yajun feel a little relieved but also puzzled. 

"But how do you know? I mean... the evidence seems convincing, doesn't it? All I have is empty testimony. Maybe I'm mentally unstable from the pressure down below. 

But the child who was killed was wearing a closed-circuit surveillance system, and the real-time video is almost impossible to fake..." 

"Almost." Batman interrupted him, continuing in a hoarse voice, "Someone recorded that video in advance and manually overwrote part of the camera's footage. 

It was a video taken ahead of time, and your appearance was replaced using AI face-swapping technology. The technique is advanced, and the dim lighting makes it hard to spot any flaws." 

Luo Yajun was taken aback for a moment, then quickly regained his composure. 

"So they need someone who can manually overwrite the surveillance content..." 

"Someone inside the Secret Service with high enough clearance," Batman continued. "This isn't a one-off incident. You're being targeted." 

"Yeah, it's obvious," Luo Yajun rubbed his temples. "I didn't believe it before, but now I think what those pharmacists said may be true. 

As for the others, it's hard to say. Only Liang Ye is probably a little stronger. I've seen him take shots; he shouldn't be so easy to control..." 

"No," Batman said calmly. "He won't summon the Phantom."

Luo Yajun was taken aback. "Why?" 

"Because it's against the rules. Agent Liang Ye is afraid of the power of his own phantom. He worries that he won't be able to control it, so he imposes the constraints of 'rules' on himself. He will only unleash the phantom's power when he's allowed." 

Luo Yajun was stunned for a moment. "Even if someone wants to harm him?" 

"I'm afraid so," Batman continued in that eerie voice. "Someone is targeting you, someone with power who knows everything about you. 

And..." 

He paused, his voice dropping a few degrees. 

"...I think I already know who that guy is." 

Luo Yajun: "!"