"Did Yao Bin send you?"
In a fraction of a second, Adrian's tactical mind processed the ambush and he spoke, his tone dropping to a freezing, absolute calm.
He knew with absolute certainty that he could not afford to physically engage these three street rats. It was a glaring, obvious legal trap. Yao Bin had undoubtedly already greased the palms of the local police precinct. Whether Adrian beat these thugs to a bloody pulp or merely engaged in a defensive scuffle, the endgame was identical. The sirens would wail, and he would be dragged in handcuffs to the station.
Once inside a holding cell, his identity, his assets, and his vulnerabilities would be neatly printed out and placed directly into the hands of the arrogant princeling Yao Bin and the spoiled Qu Xiaoxiao. At that point, his fate would be entirely removed from his control.
Do not be fooled by Adrian's net worth of a hundred million yuan. To the desperate working class, he was a god. But compared to the untouchable, deep-rooted political dynasties of the provincial elite? His wealth was nothing but pocket change. They might not murder him, but they could easily bankrupt his holdings, freeze his assets, and humiliate him for their own amusement. Adrian would never allow his fate to rest in the hands of a spoiled brat.
"Yeah! I mean... wait, who the hell are you?"
The leader of the thugs, the heavily tattooed man in the cheap floral shirt, answered instinctively before catching himself, a flicker of nervous confusion crossing his face.
As a second-generation political heir, Yao Bin was a legendary figure in the Shanghai underworld. The floral-shirted thug naturally knew that a bottom-feeder like him was only fit to be an expendable errand boy; he didn't possess the clearance to actually know the inner workings of Yao Bin's circle. But that didn't stop him from harboring grand, cinematic delusions of becoming a triad boss.
"Tell Yao Bin," Adrian interrupted, his voice laced with the terrifying, crushing authority of an apex predator. "That Yao Daping's political neck is currently resting on the guillotine. He is barely managing to save his own skin. If Yao Bin wants his family to survive the coming purge, he had better leash his fucking dogs."
Without giving the stunned thug a single second to process the lethal weight of those words, Adrian kicked off the pavement and smoothly rode away into the darkness.
"Big brother! Big brother, the target is getting away!"
Seeing their leader completely frozen in a daze of existential confusion, the two underlings immediately started shouting. "Hurry up and chase him! What are we going to tell Brother Bin when he asks why we let the guy walk?!"
"Chase my ass!"
Smack! Smack!
The leader in the floral shirt violently backhanded both of his underlings across the face, leaving them completely stunned and clutching their swelling cheeks.
"You idiots might not care about throwing your lives away, but I do! Do you actually think street trash like us is qualified to get involved in a high-level political execution?!" he hissed, his face pale with terror.
Yao Daping was Yao Bin's uncle. He was currently the acting provincial governor.
The thug had initially assumed this was just a standard, low-level job—a spoiled rich kid paying them to rough up some random civilian who had offended a girl. It was the kind of petty bullying he happily facilitated for a paycheck. But those two cold, calculated sentences from Adrian had instantly shattered that illusion.
This wasn't about a noise complaint or a bruised ego. This was a ruthless, high-stakes political power struggle! If a rootless, disposable thug like him accidentally stepped into the crossfire of a provincial political purge, he wouldn't just go to jail—he would be completely, permanently erased.
Adrian sped away from the Ode to Joy complex, the cool night wind doing absolutely nothing to cool the burning, dark rage seething in his chest.
He was furious. He was an inter-dimensional conqueror, a warlord who had slaughtered thousands to build an empire of blood and bone. Yet here, in this suffocating, civilized metropolis, he was forced to rely on a cheap political bluff to escape a street ambush by a spoiled princeling. It felt like a profound, humiliating disgrace to his predatory nature.
But reality was absolute. Even if he possessed his full, monstrous apocalyptic strength, unless he could literally withstand a nuclear warhead with his bare hands, he would still be relentlessly hunted and targeted by the state apparatus.
'This pathetic dimension has its own unique, suffocating parameters,' Adrian sneered internally. 'Superheroes and warlords are simply not tolerated in a surveillance state.'
"System, you parasitic bastard," Adrian growled the moment he locked the heavy mahogany door of his private villa behind him. He sat cross-legged on his pristine bed and reached into the void of his mind. "Do you have any reality-altering cheats? Bring them out. Now."
However, the dog System remained as silent as a tomb. Once a mission had officially commenced, the System typically played dead, utterly refusing to hold his hand. It took nearly two hours of Adrian projecting his dark, murderous intent before the mechanical voice finally echoed sluggishly in his skull.
[Negative. This System will not provide direct intervention or assistance to the Host within an active instance world. The Host must navigate and resolve all sociopolitical difficulties using their own capabilities.]
"How the hell am I supposed to conquer this urban nightmare without leverage?" Adrian demanded coldly. "That arrogant bastard Yao Bin will trace my identity in two days at most. He will fabricate a legal excuse, frame me, and have me locked in a concrete cell for a year. If I am in a cell, the mission fails."
If it were a direct, bloody battle to the death, Adrian feared absolutely nothing. But he was severely handicapped against the invisible, bureaucratic daggers of the political elite. Modern society preached the 'rule of law,' but any predator with half a brain knew the law was merely a weapon wielded by capital and political pedigree.
[The Host is solely responsible for resolving all difficulties within the parameters of the instance. This System assumes zero liability for your failure.] The System refused flatly, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.
"Are you entirely certain about that?" Adrian asked softly. A cold, chilling smile slowly spread across his face.
[This System does not accept threats. If the Host perishes or fails the timeline, this System will simply extract itself and locate a superior Host.]
"Heh," Adrian laughed, a dark, dangerous sound. "You stupid, robotic parasite. Do you even comprehend the absolute, reality-breaking taboo that exists in this specific dimension? The 'Unspeakable Event'?"
[...Clarify your statement. This System is a higher-dimensional entity. It does not fear mundane political threats.] The mechanical voice faltered slightly.
"Today is March 12th, 2012," Adrian stated, pulling up a blank internet browser on his phone. "I just checked the national news. The 'Chongqing Incident' hasn't officially broken yet. The timeline is intact. I have exactly three days before the political scandal erupts."
Adrian let out a disdainful, terrifying sneer. Without an absolute, mutually assured destruction failsafe, how could he dare to confront an omnipotent System?
"If I purchase a plane ticket and fly directly to Chongqing within the next three days, and intentionally insert myself into the epicenter of the greatest, most heavily censored political purge in modern Chinese history... do you know what the dimensional Overlords will do? They won't just arrest me. The real-world censorship gods will initiate a permanent '404 Error' on this entire reality. They will delete this world, erase my existence, and annihilate you along with it."
[Halt! Do not initiate reckless timeline destabilization!] The System instantly processed the meta-threat, its mechanical voice suddenly lacing with genuine, digital terror. [If you trigger absolute censorship erasure, you will be permanently deleted as well!]
"If I fail the mission and get thrown in a black site by a princeling, I'm finished anyway!" Adrian laughed ruthlessly. "What difference does it make if we both get wiped out by the censorship gods a few days early? Let's burn it down together."
[You... you...]
The System was entirely speechless. Logically speaking, as a higher-dimensional parasite, it feared nothing within the simulation. However, the absolute, real-world censorship laws that governed the narrative structure of the universe were its one fatal, undeniable weakness. The 'Unspeakable Taboo' could not be challenged.
After a tense, harmonious negotiation involving Adrian continuously threatening to self-destruct the entire narrative, the terrified System finally caved.
[Compromise accepted. Generating targeted leverage artifact...]
"You call this a powerful cheat, you worthless piece of garbage?" Adrian sneered an hour later. He felt that his intelligence and predatory nature had just been severely insulted.
He had blackmailed an omnipotent entity for over an hour to secure a tactical advantage, and the System had finally materialized a small, ancient parchment roll into his hands. But upon unrolling it, he felt a vein bulge in his forehead.
Staring at the five bold, absurd characters printed on the parchment, Adrian realized the dog System was absolutely trying to fuck with him.
.....
.....
.....
Support me and read advance chapters on patreon.com/ImmortalDaoWriter