Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 26 First Failure

The intelligence was intercepted by Zhou Cheng in the early morning. The encryption level was low, using a disposable codebook that the Northern Alliance had discarded last month. The content was only half a sentence—"North River Wharf Warehouse, to be handed over tomorrow night—". The rest was truncated by interference, but the first few words were enough. Ye Xinghe slammed the printed intelligence on the table at the morning briefing and said a name: Duan the Cripple. No one remembered his real name. The file stated, "Duan, nicknamed Cripple, is an intelligence dealer on the periphery of the Northern Alliance. He is skilled at using talismans to disguise his identity and has long been active in the gray area of ​​the lower city of Ironthorn City." The Special Affairs Bureau had been keeping an eye on this line since the crack incident at the North River Agricultural Machinery Factory last year, but Duan the Cripple was as slippery as an eel, and all three attempts to catch him failed. Ye Xinghe's tone was very calm when he assigned the task, but Su Xinpei noticed that after he said, "The operation is scheduled for 10 pm tonight," he gave him a special look.

Su Xinpei sat in the back row of the conference room, an open notebook in front of him. A few lines were written on it: Target: Duan the Cripple, Dock Warehouse, 10 PM, High probability of carrying a talisman. He underlined the word "talisman" and closed the notebook. A talisman—a talisman of the Cult of Law. He'd seen one once last year at the Beihe Secondhand Market; a dark green glow emanated from under a black cloth. At the time, he didn't know it was called a "cost marker." Now he did. In the past year, he'd seen mirror images, rifts, incubation zones, and faced both larvae and mature forms, but he hadn't yet directly confronted a Cult of Law sorcerer. He remembered Old Iron Head saying that the Cult of Law sorcerers fought in a completely different way than warp entities—entities relied on biological instincts and spatial properties, while sorcerers relied on calculation. Talismans could create illusions, transfer costs, and instantly alter the information conditions of the battlefield. What you see with your eyes isn't necessarily the truth.

He suppressed the thought, spending the entire day at the neighborhood office handling the final stages of the year-end low-income assistance renewal process. Stamping, verifying, filing—the printer jammed twice, and the water dispenser needed a new bottle. Aunt He was organizing the January schedule in the inner room, occasionally peeking out to ask him to help move a stack of file boxes. After moving the boxes, he stood for a moment at the end of the corridor on his way to the water cooler, looking through the dusty glass window at the end of the corridor towards the gray rooftops and chimneys on the east side of the old district. The person they were going to arrest tonight was over there, just a few alleys away and a wall from the old dock.

He arrived at Tiegutang half an hour earlier than usual in the evening. Only Old Tietou was in the courtyard, sitting in a wicker chair with an enamel mug on his lap. A radio on a bench was broadcasting the weather forecast; the announcer said there might be showers in the lower district that night. Su Xinpei changed his shoes and walked to the center of the courtyard, not bothering with his stance. He took out the old sandbag from the storage room door and began practicing his punches. He started with the opening stance, practicing all eighteen moves from beginning to end, then finished his practice and began dismantling his secret techniques. He executed the sleeve-piercing, silk-wrapping, hammer-flipping, and elbow-probing palm strikes. Every punch landed on the same spot on the sandbag, the speed and power noticeably more concentrated than usual—the finishing move lacked a moment of relaxation, and the breath didn't fully settle when the fist returned, giving the feeling of deliberately trying to stuff something in but failing.

Old Tie Tou didn't comment on his punches. Only after Su Xinpei hung the sandbag back on the hook and prepared to leave did Old Tie Tou stand up from the rattan chair, walk to the tap, pour himself a glass of water, and say with his back to Su Xinpei, "There are three types of talismans in the sorcery tradition. The head of the talisman sets the target, the core of the talisman releases its power, and the foot of the talisman conceals the cost. If you don't know what kind of talisman that sorcerer is using, look into his eyes—stare at his hand as he looks at the talisman, stare at his hand as he looks at the table, don't keep staring at the light he shows you." After saying this, he turned on the tap, carried the kettle into the inner room, and left without saying goodbye.

Su Xinpei kept those words in mind and pushed his bicycle away from Tiegutang.

At 9:30 PM, he changed into dark civilian clothes, attached a micro-communication chip behind his ear, and replaced his toolbox with a lightweight waist bag containing two spare titanium alloy talisman plates, a talisman engraving knife, and a pair of thin gloves. Ye Xinghe assembled a four-man team—himself, Su Xinpei, Xia Liyuan, and Deputy Doctor Liu. Li Dan remained at the front line to guard the perimeter, while Zhou Cheng was responsible for communications and surveillance from the rear. The plan was simple: the abandoned warehouse at the Beihe Wharf, where Duan the Cripple would meet with the Beilian liaison. Ye Xinghe and Su Xinpei would lead the main attack, Xia Liyuan would guard the back door, and Deputy Doctor Liu would wait at the alley entrance. Duan the Cripple himself had difficulty walking and wouldn't be fast in a fight; the difficulty wasn't in capturing him, but in the fact that he possessed at least three different types of unregistered talismans.

Su Xinpei made his way into the dock area through a back alley. The Ironthorn City North River Dock had been abandoned for years; the cranes were rusted to the bone, the container yard was overgrown with waist-high weeds, and the air smelled of silt mixed with diesel fuel. The warehouse was located on the easternmost side of the dock, its windows all sealed shut with sheet metal, leaving only a rusty roller shutter door. Su Xinpei crouched behind a scrapped forklift opposite the warehouse, took out a rune-carving knife from his waist pouch, held it in his right palm, and placed his left hand on his knee to release the pressure. His perception range was much wider than a few months ago—after mastering the basics of skin refining, his skin was more sensitive to temperature and vibration than before. He could sense a slowly moving heat source behind the north wall of the warehouse, probably separated by a sheet metal layer and a brick wall. The heat was slightly lower than normal, uneven, and there was a noticeable cold spot on his left leg—it must be Duan the Cripple.

Ye Xinghe lowered his voice through the earpiece: "He's moving. Heading west—no, he's retreating back to where he started. What is he waiting for?"

"They may have already detected that the external signals have been blocked." Su Xinpei withdrew his aura slightly, maintaining only the perimeter of the warehouse as a perimeter of surveillance. Zhou Cheng simultaneously transmitted a set of comparison data from the backend. Among the known talismans used by Duan the Cripple last year, two were registered as "illusion type." One record explicitly stated that it could create a fake body, and the other could interfere with individual soldier communications. Su Xinpei drew a very simple symbol classification on his combat shorthand notebook—illusion talismans first, interference talismans and fake body talismans as the second layer, and the third layer being explosive talismans that directly injure people. If Duan the Cripple's first layer is breached, he will most likely use illusion talismans to create a misjudgment first, and then use a fake body to escape. He is very unlikely to directly detonate the costly attack talismans—the cost of the talismans is deducted from the ancestral master's account. Duan the Cripple is used to running errands and bargaining for others; he doesn't do unprofitable deals.

"Take action," Ye Xinghe ordered.

Su Xinpei got up from behind the forklift and crept along the warehouse wall toward the left side of the roller shutter door. Ye Xinghe flanked him from the other side, their feet landing simultaneously in opposite directions. The roller shutter door wasn't locked, and Ye Xinghe pulled it open. Su Xinpei was the first to slip inside—the warehouse was dark, with only an emergency light in the corner casting a pale white glow. Under the light, several stacks of old wooden crates were piled up. Duan the Cripple stood in front of the crates, a canvas bag beside him, its opening open, filled with talismans—yellow, red, and purple—stuffed bulging in layers, the air thick with the smell of burnt camphor wood. He looked much older than in the file photo—losing a leg was indeed inconvenient. Leaning against the crates, his upper body was steady, and he had already prepared a talisman in his hand. The cinnabar on the talisman wasn't completely dry, and the damp surface made the dark green light of the talisman look like duckweed floating on water.

"Duan the Cripple, Special Elephant Bureau. Squat down, place your hands on my—"

Before Ye Xinghe could finish speaking, Duan the Cripple crushed the talisman in his hand. The instant the scraps fell from his fingers, a dark green light exploded in the warehouse, instantly filling the entire space. Su Xinpei instinctively closed his eyes, and when he opened them, two Duan the Cripples stood before him—two identical men, dressed in the same dark work clothes, leaning against the same old wooden crate, even their left hands in their pockets were exactly the same. The two Duan the Cripples moved simultaneously towards the back door, one to the left, the other to the right.

"It's a fake body. Two targets, one person, one location. Don't follow the wrong one." Su Xinpei didn't chase either of them. He stood still, closed his eyes, and focused all his attention on his dantian, instantly maximizing his internal energy circulation—after mastering the initial stage of skin refinement, the skin's sensitivity to external signals had reached the first level. The fake body had no body temperature, no heartbeat, no breathing; the location of the fake body's pulse was deathly still. His energy sense detected a very faint body temperature at the end of the right passage, moving towards the back door. He opened his eyes and said, "Back door, left. Xia Liyuan, block the right fake body, leave the person to Captain Ye." Then he chased to the left.

Duan the Cripple fell. His legs were weak, and as he ran, his left foot scraped against the brick floor, sending sparks flying. He clutched his canvas bag tightly. Su Xinpei approached from the side, less than ten steps away, and saw Duan the Cripple vault over the metal barrier, his lame leg dragging behind him, groaning as he crawled into the narrow alley to the left of the back door. Su Xinpei vaulted over the barrier and saw at the entrance of the alley that Duan the Cripple's canvas bag had a purple talisman—head down, feet knotted in a complex way. He'd seen something similar before. Old Tie Tou had mentioned it once in the Iron Bone Hall's storeroom: when sorcerers retreated, they would first release several waves of illusions to separate the crowd, leading people into narrow spaces, using the talisman as bait to delay them. He shouted, "Back door, left alley—" to Ye Xinghe and Xia Liyuan in his earpiece, then reached out to grab Duan the Cripple's shoulder.

This should have been a sure thing. Duan the Cripple slammed his right hand on the ground, sending it crashing into a pile of scrap paper and wet mud on the brick floor. The purple talisman seal, pushed out by his fingers, instantly turned into a wisp of blue smoke. The instant the smoke stopped, Su Xinpei's left fist was already half an inch from Duan the Cripple's shoulder. At the very moment his knuckles touched Duan the Cripple's shoulder, Duan the Cripple's entire right arm, shoulder and hand, slid out of his grasp—not to dodge, but because the arm shattered into a dark green cloud of dust very close to Su Xinpei's knuckles. The outline of his shoulder, along with the dust, seemed to evaporate like liquid, reforming into a transparent, reflective mass in an extremely short time before completely dissipating. Su Xinpei's hand passed through that reflective mass, grasping at empty air. His elbow, unable to stop in time, slammed into the wall, his fist creating a shallow dent in the brick surface, sprinkling brick dust all over his hand. Not the real body—this was also an illusion. Duan the Cripple placed a decoy talisman in the left alley behind the back door. As soon as he climbed over the barrier, he was led behind a fake wall. The position of Duan the Cripple lying on the ground was fake; he was using the talisman to conceal himself. The Cripple himself had already circled around to the other side of the fake alley and squeezed through the narrow gap between Ye Xinghe and Xia Liyuan's encirclement and blockade.

The Special Meteorological Bureau's search yielded nothing. Ye Xinghe and Xia Liyuan chased after them through two alleys, finding only a few sheets of yellow paper from a canvas bag lying outside and an empty talisman box. Duan the Cripple had vanished.

It was late at night when the area around the warehouse was cleared. Su Xinpei put the talisman back into his pouch, sat on a rusty mooring post at the edge of the dock, and brushed the brick fragments off his knuckles. Ye Xinghe walked over, stood next to him, and lit a cigarette; this time, the lighter finally lit. The two were silent for a while, then Ye Xinghe said, "The affairs of the Fa Cult are always troublesome. Next time you encounter something involving illusion magic, notify me first." His tone wasn't accusatory, but more of a handover—as if he were passing on a difficult problem he had been carrying for a while to another shoulder.

Su Xinpei hummed in response, offering no further explanation. He knew Ye Xinghe wouldn't blame him—Duan the Cripple had used a combination of decoys and illusionary talismans, a tactic rarely seen in the Special Elephant Bureau's operational records. But he also knew the problem wasn't just with the talismans. He hadn't anticipated Duan the Cripple would set up a delaying bait along the retreat route. The action of flipping over the barrier and grabbing was an instinctive reaction honed by his muscle-strengthening abilities—the muscle-strengthening made his body fast enough, yet fast enough for the opponent to exploit, precisely stepping onto the opponent's pre-set reaction chain. If he hadn't rushed to close in, but instead first blocked the escape routes on both sides, then made another low-profile blockade, Duan the Cripple might not have been able to squeeze out from behind that fake alley.

He sat on the mooring post for a moment, then stood up and put the talisman back into his pouch. Ye Xinghe stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into a rusty iron bucket next to him, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Go back and rest."

It was already two in the morning when he got back to his apartment. Su Xinpei took off his coat and went to the bathroom to wash the brick dust and talisman residue off his hands with soap. There was a little purple powder under his fingernails, remnants left from the burning talisman, which took three washes to remove. He didn't go to sleep immediately, but sat at the table, staring at the control panel.

The progress bar for Tendon Refining on the panel had already passed the Proficiency stage, while Leather Refining was still at the Beginner level. The progress bar for Western Runes was increased when he last upgraded the basics, but it was still far from being truly usable. He flipped to the Practical Experience section—the progress bar hadn't moved.

His practical experience remained unchanged. Last time, smashing the reflection in the mirror outside the fire door had given him a huge boost in experience points. Tonight, he chased someone through three alleys in close combat, but the system didn't award any points. It wasn't that the system was malfunctioning—he knew perfectly well that tonight's operation hadn't been successful. The system only records effective experience, not ineffective efforts. He had only made contact with Duan the Cripple for a fleeting moment, not enough time for his training to retain any useful information.

He hung his coat on the back of the chair, turned off the light, and lay down in the darkness. The cracks in the ceiling remained unchanged. He remembered Old Tie Tou's words in the storage room—"Winning every time is for gods, not humans. Losing once is to give yourself a lesson, to know where you should get back up next time." He closed his eyes in the darkness, breaking down tonight's defeat into three parts. The first part was intelligence—he hadn't figured out the type of talisman Duan the Cripple was using beforehand, and the combination of illusion and decoy was too low on his priority list. The second part was tactics—he misjudged the situation in the narrow alley behind the warehouse, chasing too hastily, failing to first lock onto the target with surveillance before suppressing him, instead allowing his body momentum to be swayed by the opponent's talismans. The third part was perception—his aura wasn't yet able to detect the energy anomalies when the talisman was activated before the illusion was triggered; his cortex's sensitivity to magical fluctuations needed to be raised another level.

These three pieces of information lead to the same conclusion: sorcerers are not prey that can be caught with mere fists. He needs common sense in this area—the orientation of runeheads, the efficacy of rune cores, cost markings, and the mechanisms by which soldiers perceive space and aura. Others might not repeat what they've heard at the gambling table in such detail.

Failure becomes experience. This is his last act of defiance.