Chapter 105 – There Must Be Something Fishy About This
“This guy really is persistent.”
Though firmly siding with Yi Ning, Lu Zheng still couldn’t help but admire the man on screen—Rigil—who, despite taking several punches from Yi Ning, still stubbornly held her door open with his toe.
Was the job market really this cutthroat nowadays?
A salesman with this level of perseverance.
Despite being met with displeasure, even getting beaten, he still forced his foot into a customer’s doorway while continuing to pitch his product.
With that kind of spirit, how could he not be a top sales performer?
Too bad perseverance alone couldn’t defeat violence so easily.
After beating up Rigil, Yi Ning turned her head away with disdain, kicked his toe out of her doorway, grabbed the handle, and was about to shut the door.
Failing to block the door, Rigil’s expression turned terribly sour.
But as Yi Ning’s arch-nemesis, Lu Zheng was convinced—
Rigil’s sour face wasn’t just from getting kicked. More likely, it was also because of Yi Ning’s relentless tongue.
Even though the camera angle prevented Lu Zheng from seeing the lower half of her face, he knew her well enough to imagine the scene.
Yi Ning probably threw in a sarcastic jab, then spat at him, and finished with a crude insult.
What else could have pissed him off so much?
Lu Zheng sat up slightly, hand on the mouse, ready to fast-forward once Rigil left.
You’ve been thrown out—what more do you want?
Even a professional hero like Lu Zheng had a hard time entering Yi Ning’s base. A mere salesman dared trespass?
But to his surprise, right after Yi Ning kicked his foot away, Rigil instantly transformed his body into metal and grabbed Yi Ning’s door.
“What the hell?”
This sudden twist left Lu Zheng caught off guard.
He leaned so close to the screen he nearly pressed against it.
Since when did salesmen have powers?
Oh wait, that wasn’t the point!
The Hero Association didn’t restrict registered ability users from any particular jobs.
As long as it was a legal profession, even street sweeping was fine.
The problem was.
Lu Zheng didn’t remember anyone in D-City’s registry having metalification powers.
This guy was an unregistered ability user.
A major red flag!
Lu Zheng immediately sent the photo to Qiu Yu, along with his suspicions, and asked her to investigate.
He also recalled the ability signal detected near Yi Ning’s base earlier that morning.
It seemed the source of that signal was likely this so-called salesman.
But that raised another issue.
When he came to Yi Ning’s base at noon to ask about that signal, she hadn’t told the truth.
Lu Zheng had spent enough time with Yi Ning to know her temper.
That girl was petty and vengeful. Outside of when her evil schemes got foiled, any slight or dissatisfaction was something she’d obsessively remember.
The man in the footage had shown up to her door uninvited, tried to sell her something, and forcibly stopped her from closing her door.
With Yi Ning’s personality, even if she got compensated later, she’d still hold a grudge.
She’d want both the benefits and the payback.
That was the real Yi Ning.
But this time, she let that man off lightly, choosing not to exploit an easy and justifiable chance to retaliate.
There had to be something fishy about this!
Combining it with earlier speculations, Lu Zheng boldly deduced that the man on screen was almost certainly from the Freedom Alliance.
And he must have proven his value in some way—enough for Yi Ning to consider sparing him more profitable.
Only this explanation made sense.
Such a flawless deduction—
If the time and place were right, Lu Zheng probably would’ve leapt up and shouted, “There’s only one truth, in the name of my grandfather!”
But unfortunately, his deduction had one glaring hole—
The man’s ability was metalification.
It didn’t match their earlier theory of fusion abilities at all.
Lu Zheng scratched his head in frustration.
It was common knowledge: all ability users could only have one power.
Whether it was magic through communion with elemental mana, martial arts through cultivation of “qi,” or those mysterious, seemingly divine superpowers—they all followed this rule.
If someone had a talent for sensing mana, they could only use magic—no amount of martial arts training would let them sense qi.
Likewise, those with qi-sensing talent could never use magic, no matter how deeply they meditated or read spellbooks.
Superpowers had never been observed in magicians or martial artists either.
It was like a restriction imposed by the world.
You only got enough skill points to invest in one category—no cross-classing.
“Sigh—this is driving me nuts!”
Lu Zheng scratched his head, stuffed his phone back in his pocket, and hit play to keep watching the footage.
Let’s see what happens next.
He lowered his head.
On screen, the fully metalified Rigil gripped Yi Ning’s door tightly.
Even through the footage, his rage was visibly simmering.
He leaned into the gap in the door, face twisted, and began saying something.
But before he could finish, an invisible force flung him back.
Rigil comically rolled across the ground, tumbling out of frame. The door to Yi Ning’s base was blown halfway open by the force.
Due to the camera angle, Lu Zheng couldn’t see Yi Ning clearly—only that she cheerfully pulled something out and waved it.
From his past experiences, Lu Zheng confidently guessed it was her usual remote control.
She had probably activated her base’s defense system to blast him away.
Though come to think of it, Lu Zheng didn’t remember seeing her use that gadget before.
Was it new?
Lu Zheng rubbed his smooth chin while watching the spot where Rigil had rolled out of frame.
Soon, Rigil reappeared from the same edge of the screen.
But this time, he had canceled his metalification and was holding something in his hands, bowing and scraping to Yi Ning.
How did this guy change attitudes so fast?