Little Brother, Did You Get Impatient?

"See – he did it again! Miss Policewoman, you must arrest this dangerous man!" the middle-aged woman crowed, and waved her hand before her chin with a disdainful snort.

"He kicked my nephew to the ground, and now another young man. This dangerous man – he'll bring harm to anyone around him! Put him in jail!"

"Senior Du, what is going on here? How…"

Senior Du Lang was just an investigative reporter, not a bodybuilder nor martial artist. How did he manage to perform such a high-angled sweeping kick with great speed that not even her, a professional martial artist and kickboxer-in-training, couldn't accomplish or track with her gaze?

Wang Xiang blinked and trained her attention onto Du Lang's frowning countenance. The latter seemed to rub his chin and think for a moment, before abruptly crouching on his feet and reaching for the youths unconscious on the ground. The middle-aged woman began to hoot at the peak of her voice, shrill and disconcerting to the ear.

"Get him away from my nephew! Don't let him touch my nephew – ack, what are you people doing!?"

Du Lang ignored the imitation airhorn blaring before him and continued inspecting the bodies of the youths. He reached for the closest and flipped him around to inspect his countenance when the muscles of the right hand relaxed, revealing the sharp and pointed edge of a silver-coated balisong. The clattering of the fan knife onto the asphalt, despite masked into the tidal wave of bustling consumers and a completely ignited middle-aged woman, was received by Wang Xiang's ears, and her eyes widened at the weapon present on the ground.

"Senior Du, where did this knife – from the suspects?" the policewoman nodded, and made way to flip over the other unconscious youth.

"Two innocuous-looking civilians in possession of a fan knife and a military-grade bowie knife…"

"What are you doing to my nephew! Let go of my nephew, this instant!"

The middle-aged woman burst through a pack of busily talking and laughing group of students as she swam towards Wang Xiang and Du Lang crouched around two young men. Her triumphant and vicious glare bored holes into Du Lang's torso, then abruptly froze when she noticed the presence of the two knives, one still deeply clenched by the young man despite the mild spasms and frothing of the mouth. Then, as one might have expected, her fury exploded and spilled all over her surroundings with the noxious stench of righteousness and vitriol.

"You, you, you despicable man! Trying to plant those knives into my nephew's hand and frame him as a criminal!" she howled.

"Confess your sins, and hand yourself to the police! Miss Policewoman, you must take him into custody, or my surname isn't Sun!"

"You shut up for a moment!"

Wang Xiang retorted with a feisty glare, and signaled on her microphone for the remaining police officers to converge onto her position. They circled around the two unconscious youths, and two of them engaged in probing their pockets for anything suspicious or illicit. They were bound by law on usual cases in that they were forbidden from searching the bodies of unconscious suspects, but the presence of the knives and Wang Xiang's testimony captured on their live cameras provide sufficient exception.

Just within five minutes, one of the policemen had discovered several packets containing a white powder. However…

"Junior Wang Xiangxiang, you said that Du Lang was responsible for taking them down? And he performed a sweeping kick to their necks but didn't cause any breakage?"

Wang Xiang pecked her head repeatedly, and Du Lang pretended not to hear as the junior policewoman greatly exaggerated his capabilities and reforged his identity from that of a wimpy reporter to an awe-inspiring martial artist. Alas, just as the middle-aged woman surnamed Sun was silenced by a policeman waving the numerous packets filled with suspicious powder before her gaze, Sibyl's warning rang in his head once more.

[Detected severe threshold of danger to the host. Initiating <Improved> curse model Distort Time, 20% output.]

The chains erupted from the black sphere and stabbed into the ground and the skies, and the people surrounding him froze in the middle of their movements. The sudden lack of the usual torrent of sound splashed a bucket of glacial water over Du Lang's senses, and he inadvertently shivered and narrowed his eyes.

Severe threshold of danger… this was the first time that Sibyl had used such a phrase. Knives, bats towards the head, and other assaults – they were categorized as 'mild', even if they might have left permanent wounds on his person. If it was severe, did it mean that he now faced an unexpected life or death situation?

"But from where?"

Stopping time in response to an incoming threat was useless if he couldn't trace the danger to its source!

Du Lang ground his teeth and suppressed the urge to curse, and quickly paced around the clearing encircling Wang Xiang and the police officers. 20% output of the curse model given his current capabilities meant that he only had just a bit more than thirty seconds at his disposal, and him standing aimlessly in space had wasted almost half of the precious time.

Wang Xiang remained crouched besides the unconscious youths, and there was a healthy distance separating her from pedestrians and onlookers. The other three police officers stood closer to the sea of people, and it was impossible for Du Lang to obtain any sort of information given the amount of time he had –

BANG!

"F*ck – a firearm!?"

The shout had barely left his lips when the chains vanished into the surroundings. The tumultuous sound of tens of thousands of people shouting at their phones, conversing with friends, and maintaining their merry lives aptly buried the muffled pitch of a shotgun blast, but the initial rapport filtered into Du Lang's ears that had readjusted themselves to an environment of silence. Du Lang's body jolted at the percussive blast, but found that his body remained unharmed.

He was unharmed, but his eyes seemed to have barely caught onto the silver silhouettes crashing through and ravaging the left torso of the policeman who stood just beyond Du Lang's original position. A small plume of blood scattered through the air and stained the asphalt, and before Wang Xiang and the others could react, the senior policeman had collapsed onto the ground.

The experienced veteran immediately shoved his palm against the wound once the sensation of pain had registered in his brain. Alas, all it took was the few seconds of delay for shattered fragments of bone, muscle, and organs to spill from the gaping holes and convalesce on the road.

"Senior Tang!"

Wang Xiang's ears picked up on the strange series of sounds, and her head snapped up to witness the pained expression of her senior officer and the grievous wound scored across his torso. The woman screamed in shock and worry and made to approach, but was staved off by a trembling, stalwart hand.

"I'm fine for now – shot came from the left. Old Chen, you're slow – stay with me, call for medical aid and scan the surroundings!" the man ordered with a pale countenance dripping with sweat.

"Xiangxiang, Xiao Man, Du Lang, you all search! The impact wasn't like steel or lead bullets but that of ceramic – hurry up and start searching!"

"…roger!"

Wang Xiang's eyebrows trembled at the gruesome sight decorating the road just below the wounded policeman's ribcage. Her hand faltered in their attempt to salute, and she dragged Du Lang as the remaining police officers engaged in their duty. Thirty seconds after the blast and the injury, the first public scream rent across the surroundings.

"A man's been shot! A police officer has been shot!"

"Call the ambulance! Someone, quick, call!"

"Senior Tang was shot from the left. Spread out, look for anyone suspicious!" the police officer nicknamed as 'Xiao Man' thumped his chest and roared.

��Du Lang, we won't ask you to fight anyone. Just look for them– I know you have experience in that field!"

"…fine!"

Du Lang shouldered his briefcase and raced towards the northern end of the street as Wang Xiang searched the southern side, and Xiao Man examined the periphery. The numerous faces painted with stark fright, surprise, and confusion streamed along either side as he plunged into the current of strolling citizens. His feet didn't cease their movement as his eyes continued to scan his surroundings, and he strained his ears for any warnings from Sibyl.

"Wraith, give me a topological mapping of the street and all nearby buildings!"

Given how the black sphere had a recent track record of freezing and failing to execute commands and functions it was created with, Du Lang held little expectation for its success. After giving the command, he carelessly threw it to the edge of his vision to prevent its appearance from distracting his efforts.

Usually, especially if an incident as violent and surprising as this one were conducted, it was difficult to find the culprits as they would be able to blend into the public within a matter of seconds. Although the city-wide surveillance would eventually reveal the perpetrators, expecting a group of police officers to track down a select number of suspects in the heat of a moment, and an environment filled with thousands of innocent bystanders and easy escape points was just a euphemism for impossible.

And yet…

"A bomb to my doorstep, and a shooting towards my position…"

Du Lang held the nagging suspicion at his heart and continued to run. He wasn't professionally trained to quickly discern the disposition of a certain individual at first sight and only held a limited range of skillsets as a journalist and reporter. Hence, the best he could do was take the role of bait and lure the shooters into taking another chance now that he was separated from the Wang Xiang and the other police, or survey the possible escape paths if the former possibility was false.

As he continued to run, the corner of his vision caught onto a backend alley extending from the side of a ground-level restaurant. Du Lang pondered for a few seconds and diverged from his original path and into the darkened corridor, where he was separated a bit more from tsunami of now alarmed and shocked citizens.

"Wraith, anything?"

The unfilial creation of his had decided to live up to its name, for the topological mapping was only completed by ten percent. The sheer difference between the scaling of his condo's living room and a major street in Jingdou had overwhelmed the processor within the fuzzy sphere, and the crimson eyes had dimmed in their brilliance. It was busy decrypting all of the curse models at Du Lang's behest, and the added strain of mapping an entire city road wasn't of any help.

"Abort the most recent task, and map surrounding audio of the secondary pathways of this street," Du Lang tapped his forehead and sighed.

"Only display those that contain a density of less than ten people. Human voices only."

This time, the information required to process was of lesser magnitude, and much to his delight, Wraith had produced a clean and organized map of all of the secondary and minor pathways and alleys leading from the primary street racing across the city. The unfilial child finally decided to pay an act of respect, and Du Lang cracked a grin.

See – this was what he had wanted! An AR overlay that could display him information at ease, similar to the manga and animation protagonists in futuristic stories and novels, the sheer ease of convenience!

Look, there were pulsing red dots littered across the several dozen minor pathways, indicating that they belonged to small groups of people. One was even just around the corner… wait.

"Around the corner?"

Du Lang frowned, and paled after cross-referencing his position to the map displayed by Wraith. He adjusted the briefcase's position on his shoulder to minimize any clutter or loose straps, and tiptoed along the wall of the restaurant towards the dark passage extending along the back wall. As he got closer, his ears picked onto the frustrated voices, and their contents caused his blood to freeze.

"Little Seven, why did you miss? We were supposed to take the journalist out, not some dingy policeman. Look, now we're going to be permanently wanted criminals for messing with law enforcement."

"What was I supposed to do? Look, the guy suddenly swapped places the moment I pulled the trigger! He was standing in place just before then, but as soon as I shot, he had retreated towards the west, and the policeman was the only one that was there!"

The shuffling of feet and annoyed grunts crept from their feet and bent around the corner to trickle into Du Lang's ears. His hands slowly curled into fists, and a bead of sweat gently trickled down from his forehead.

"Little Brother, you sure you just weren't impatient?" another voice teased. "You are a quick shot in our group, from guns and on the bed."

"F*ck, no! I swear to the heavens, the man was there when I shot!" the aggrieved man swore and spat on the ground.

"Look, we can talk sh*t of my shooting, but why did you have to drop the gun? Now 'those' people are going to be pissed off that we –"

Ring!

Right then, the Xiaomi in Du Lang's pocket that had its speakers replaced burst into an ear-splitting wail. The voices around the corner immediately stilled at the sudden stimulation, and Du Lang just couldn't help but curse.