Holding their necks down and forcing the two to relax, Xia Yu used his calming ability to put them into a deep sleep. Then, he found a secluded place to abandon them and started walking back.
As the hoarse-voiced man had predicted, the car wouldn’t reach the location Xia Yu wanted until noon, so there was no rush.
Returning to the villa and going upstairs to the second floor, Xia Yu saw the girls sprawled on the sofa and carpet. The original plan had been for them to eat out and return around 1:00 p.m. to pack their things, but it was only noon now.
“Aren’t you supposed to be shopping?” Xia Yu asked, puzzled.
“Don’t even ask. Most of the stuff there can be bought in District One. It was completely uninteresting,” Liu Manman replied.
“I bought this,” Kong Hanyue raised a wooden carving of a skull.
“This one was somewhat interesting too,” Hu Lianglu said, pulling out another wooden skull.
Xia Yu turned his gaze to An Siyao, who retrieved a wooden bow from a bag beside her and handed it to him.
This was a gift for him.
Xia Yu patted the girl’s head in appreciation and accepted the wooden bow.
“I was going to buy a crossbow, but Lianglu said we couldn’t bring it back,” Liu Manman said with regret.
Bows weren’t considered restricted items, but crossbows were classified as weapons.
“Are you still planning to go to the countryside this afternoon?” Sitting beside An Siyao, Xia Yu considered what excuse he would use to avoid joining them.
“Nope. I met a tourist on the way who had already been there. He said it was boring and full of bugs,” Kong Hanyue tapped the skull, venting her frustration.
“Then what are you going to do this afternoon?” Xia Yu asked.
“Go swimming again!” Kong Hanyue had already made up her mind.
“I’ll pass,” Xia Yu said.
Successfully using the excuse of suddenly feeling unwell, Xia Yu managed to avoid the activity. Only You Xue suspected that he was going to possess someone else’s body that afternoon.
After lunch, Xia Yu opened his list of marked individuals.
Currently, the marked individuals on his list were: Xu Youxiang, Ning Qiuer, Wen Ziying, Diao, and An Siyao. Additionally, You Xue did not occupy a slot.
Tina’s slot had been temporarily removed and replaced with Diao’s, since Xia Yu already knew where Tina lived and could re-add her anytime.
He clicked on Diao’s mark.
After a moment of darkness, he found himself above a goat directly beneath his feet.
Diao was preparing to attack the goat, diving down in a steep dive.
The dive was fast, and anyone else might not have reacted in time. However, Xia Yu had Agility Level 5, so he easily flapped his wings and climbed higher, avoiding a collision with the goat.
He didn’t extend his claws toward the goat, but the goat was still frightened. Losing its footing, the goat slid off the cliff.
The cliff was nearly vertical, and the goat rolled all the way down to the bottom, lying motionless.
“…”
Looking at the goat’s corpse, Xia Yu thought that he hadn’t even touched it—it was a clear case of framing.
Nonetheless, the highly principled Xia Yu still decided to give the goat a proper burial. He picked it up and placed it beside Diao’s nest.
After finishing, Xia Yu flew high into the sky, determined his direction, recalled the map he had seen on his phone earlier, and headed toward 11th Avenue.
From Haiming City to District 232, 11th Avenue was the closest route. The hoarse-voiced man had predicted the vehicle would take this road.
Perched on a streetlight along 11th Avenue, Xia Yu observed the traffic below.
The hoarse-voiced man hadn’t lied—after an hour, Xia Yu spotted the minivan.
Xia Yu didn’t act immediately. Starting trouble on a high-speed road could easily cause an accident. He followed the minivan, watching it exit the highway and drive onto a mountain road.
It seemed the men from Gray Reef Company intended to sneak into District 232 via a back route.
No rush—let them drive a little further.
Diao Yu flew leisurely, enjoying the feeling of the wind against his feathers, when suddenly a sense of unease struck him.
He veered sharply to the side just as a gunshot rang out, and a bullet grazed past his wing.
“Damn it! Missed!” the bald man inside the minivan lamented.
“Can’t even hit a bird?” the driver, a man with a crew cut, whistled mockingly.
“Alright, forget it. Don’t get spotted by the border patrol,” the man sitting in the front passenger seat, who had a middle part, said.
“No worries. Even if we are spotted, we can just force our way through,” the man in the back seat, who was combing his hair into a messy style, said.
“Yeah, look at this—haha, a machine gun!” the bald man patted the bag in his lap.
“I heard that was a golden eagle. Rare to see one. Let’s shoot it down and have eagle soup tonight!” the crew-cut driver, who had mocked the bald man earlier, chimed in.
The man with the middle part said nothing more. He felt the others were jealous of his normal hairstyle and were just opposing him on principle.
He took out his frustration on the two underlings at the back: “Stay alert!”
The two drowsy underlings quickly opened their eyes and looked at the three hostages beside them.
The hostages, handcuffed, were Zhu Mengbing, Li Hua, and the butler.
The rest of the irrelevant people had already been dealt with by Gray Reef Company.
“Damn it, the eagle flew too high. Can’t shoot it,” the bald man pulled his head back into the van, grumbling.
The others didn’t take it seriously, assuming the golden eagle above would eventually leave.
But after another hour, the black shadow was still there.
“What’s going on with this eagle? Is it really planning to attack us?” the bald man scratched his head in confusion.
“Must be because of your shot. When you get out, it’ll skewer you,” the driver with the crew cut laughed.
“I heard eagles hunt by using their claws to crush the prey’s skull. Your head’s perfect for that,” the man with the messy hair joined in.
They all laughed and joked, not taking the eagle above seriously.
Another half hour passed, and the bald man noticed something was off.
“Wait a second, isn’t that eagle getting closer?” He pulled out his gun and aimed at Xia Yu.
Xia Yu flapped his wing and flew to the other side of the van. The bald man scrambled to the other window.
The messy-haired man shoved him aside: “Come on, it’s just an eagle. What’s the big deal? I’ll get a hunter to catch one for you later.”
“That’s not it. I feel like this eagle is really targeting us,” the bald man frowned.
“Even if it is, what can one eagle do? It can’t even lift our van,” the messy-haired man tried to reassure him, but suddenly there was a loud bang as a stone landed on the van’s windshield, cracking it into a spiderweb.
Startled, the driver nearly drove the van into the ditch beside the road and slammed on the brakes to stop.
“What the hell was that!” The people inside were still shaken, frantically looking for the cause.
The messy-haired man looked toward the front of the van, puzzled, when he noticed the bald man’s wide-eyed stare at the left window.
He quickly turned to look too, his eyes widening.
What did he see? The golden eagle had picked up a stone from the ground!
Seeing the eagle flying back up, aiming again, the messy-haired man and the bald man shouted: “Drive! Drive now!”
Though confused, the driver immediately started the van again.
Because of the sudden movement, the stone Xia Yu dropped didn’t land accurately on the windshield but instead hit the roof, leaving a shallow dent.
“What the hell!” The people inside were shocked.
“It’s that eagle! It dropped a stone from above!” the messy-haired man revealed the truth.
Everyone in the van, even the driver, turned to glare at the bald man.
In their eyes, the golden eagle was the bald man’s fault.
Putting themselves in the eagle’s position, if someone had suddenly shot at them while they were flying peacefully, they would retaliate too.
Faced with his companions’ disapproving looks, the bald man gave a nervous smile. He opened the window and stuck his head out: “Let me check what’s going on—Oh crap!”
The bald man quickly pulled his head back in just as a stone scraped past the side of the van. If he hadn’t retracted his head in time, the stone would have hit him directly.
The bald man was relieved at his own agility, while Xia Yu was slightly annoyed.
What’s with this bald guy? Shouldn’t he have invested all his points in strength? Why did he put points into agility?
Grabbing another stone from the ground, Xia Yu flew high into the sky, calculating the exact moment and location to drop it.
This wasn’t a simple task, given the van’s high speed and the winding road, but for Xia Yu, it was still manageable.
Because he had the Shooting Level 4 skill.
After completing the calculations, Xia Yu flew ahead of the van and released the stone.
The stone was on track to hit the cracked windshield precisely, shattering it completely, but the van braked suddenly, causing the stone to land only on the hood.
The van wasn’t just hard to target—it could also react quickly, making it very troublesome.
“Quick! Don’t let that eagle get any more stones!” The bald man and the one with the middle part leaned out of the windows, firing at Xia Yu.
Xia Yu climbed higher, dodging their attacks and flying away.
“Ran off?” the man with the middle part asked, touching his thick hair and letting out a sigh of relief.
“Probably,” the others relaxed too.
The three handcuffed hostages at the back felt a little disappointed.
They had been hoping for an opportunity to escape, but the golden eagle had left so easily.
“Hey, you two, go take that stone off the hood,” the bald man ordered the two underlings in the back.
The two underlings stood up and cautiously exited the van, glancing around the sky to confirm the eagle was really gone before walking toward the front.
Below the cliff, Xia Yu observed the two underlings getting out of the van and sighed at their carelessness.
He spread his wings, grabbed a new stone, and flew into the sky.
At that moment, the two underlings were just lifting the stone. Everyone’s attention was on the stone, so no one noticed Xia Yu approaching.
By the time they finally noticed, it was already too late.
Xia Yu had already released the stone in his claws. It landed precisely on the cracked windshield, shattering it completely and falling in front of the steering wheel, cutting the driver’s hand.
“Damn it!”
As the driver cursed, Xia Yu dove again, grabbing the shoulder of one underling at the front and pushing him toward the cliff’s edge.
Both the man and the eagle fell together.
Even with his Strength skill, Xia Yu couldn’t lift an adult human while in the form of an eagle, so he could only push.
“Ahh!” The underling screamed as he looked down at the cliff below.
Falling from this height, there was no way he could survive.
Xia Yu didn’t intend to kill. He flapped his wings hard, slowing the fall so the underling could grab a tree halfway down the cliff and sit on it.
Then Xia Yu flew back up.
Unaware of the situation below, the group of villains assumed the underling had died and didn’t bother to check. The man with the middle part replaced the injured driver, and with a stomp on the gas, the van sped off again.
Facing the fleeing van, Xia Yu wasn’t in a hurry—it was all part of his plan.
He had already completed the first phase: breaking the windshield.
Picking up two smaller stones, Xia Yu flew above the van. On either side, the bald man and the one with the messy hair shot at him, but Xia Yu flew high and, with his precognition ability, could easily evade their bullets.
Xia Yu released the two stones in his claws, letting them land on the van’s roof. Then he grabbed two more stones, throwing one at the bald man and one at the messy-haired man.
The bald and messy-haired men immediately pulled back inside the van. When the stones landed, they peeked out again, but Xia Yu was already gone.
At that moment, Xia Yu had landed on the van’s roof, in a blind spot for the two men.
He picked up the stones he had previously dropped on the roof, moved to the front of the van, and extended his claw, holding a stone.
The driver with the middle part saw a stone suddenly appear above him and was startled. But he quickly judged that the stone would fall through the broken windshield and land in front of the steering wheel, posing no danger to him.
He was proud of his cleverness.
“You idiot! Stop the van!” the injured driver beside him shouted in alarm.
At the same time, Xia Yu released the stone.
As the stone approached, the man with the middle part suddenly remembered something—he was on a fast-moving van. The stone, originally meant to hit the steering wheel, was now heading straight for his head.
“Ahh!” He was hit by the stone and instantly lost consciousness.
The injured driver quickly grabbed the man’s leg and slammed on the brakes.
After the screeching tires came a heavy silence.
Ignoring the unconscious man with the middle part, the bald man and the messy-haired man turned to the injured driver: “What do we do now?”
No one dared to take the driver’s seat—it was too dangerous.
“Get out! Let’s fight that eagle!” the injured driver, enduring the pain, drew his gun.
The injured driver, the messy-haired man, and the bald man cautiously opened the van doors, first tossing out the last remaining underling to scout, then jumping out themselves.
They looked into the sky, searching for the golden eagle.
“There it is!” The bald man spotted Xia Yu in the air, and they all raised their guns, firing at him.
Xia Yu hovered at just the right height—not too high to make them think they couldn’t hit him, but not low enough to actually be in danger.
He intentionally wasted their bullets, repeatedly making diving feints.
As the four men joyfully fired, the injured driver’s phone rang.
While still shooting, the injured driver answered the call.
On the other end was a high-ranking official from Gray Reef Company, who wanted to check their situation. Hearing the gunfire, the official’s expression darkened: “Can you hold out?”
“We can!” The injured driver was confident he could defeat an eagle.
Hearing this, the official relaxed and asked: “Which team are you fighting against?”
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