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Page 54

In addition, there were several credit cards and debit cards from different banks, along with a forged bank credit report that appeared to show that "Anthony Chen" had maintained a good repayment record and excellent credit score over the past few years.

Elias even went so far as to forge him a community college diploma with a major in business administration.

Everything was breathtakingly perfect. This man, with his unparalleled skill, created a living, breathing person out of thin air, weaving a twenty-two-year-long life story for him. From that moment on, Chu Hang vanished, replaced by Anthony Chen.

"The rest of the money." Chu Hang placed a backpack containing $50,000 in cash on the table.

Elias didn't even bother to check; he simply nodded casually and put the backpack under the table. He poured himself a glass of amber-colored whiskey and pushed one towards Chu Hang as well.

“This is the most perfect ‘work’ I’ve ever done.” Elias took a sip of his drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and said hoarsely, “I used some old connections that I haven’t touched in many years to implant an orphan file for you that actually existed but has long been officially cancelled. From a system perspective, you, Anthony Chen, have existed from the moment you were born. Even if the FBI turned your file upside down, they wouldn’t find any flaws.”

"Thank you." Chu Hang picked up his glass, the ice cubes clinking against the glass, but he didn't drink it.

“One last piece of advice.” Elias gazed at him, his eyes becoming complex, a mixture of admiration and pity. “Anthony, this set of tools in your hands is both a ticket to high society and an invitation to hell. It can give you everything, or it can shatter you in an unexpected moment. How you use it is up to you. Good luck.”

Chu Hang nodded, put down his wine glass, picked up the file folder containing his new life, and turned to leave the dimly lit studio.

He didn't look back.

The next morning, Anthony Chen, dressed in a brand-new casual suit and with his hair neatly combed, walked into the largest Citibank in downtown.

He appeared calm and composed, walking with an air of nonchalance, just like the other white-collar workers rushing around. He took a number, waited in line, and then sat down at an empty counter.

"Hello, I'd like to make a cash deposit." He smiled and handed his savings card and the canvas backpack containing more than $50,000 in cash to the rather capable-looking Black woman behind the counter.

The woman's eyes flashed with barely perceptible surprise upon seeing the large bag of cash, but her excellent professionalism prevented her from asking any further questions. She took the bank card and began typing skillfully on the keyboard.

This is the most crucial step. If Elias's forged identity has any flaws, the bank's system will issue an alert immediately, and endless trouble will follow.

Chu Hang's expression remained unchanged, but his heart skipped a beat. His fingers, resting on his knees, unconsciously tapped lightly against the seam of his trousers.

Time seemed to be stretched out at this moment.

He could clearly hear the crisp sound of the teller typing on the keyboard, the whooshing sound of the money counting machine at the next window, and even the subtle rustling sound of the security guard in the corner of the lobby shifting his heels as he stood for too long.

"Mr. Chen, is that right?" The teller looked up with a professional smile on her face.

"Yes." Chu Hang's heart jumped into his throat.

"Your account information has been confirmed." The teller said, and began to put stacks of cash into the money counting machine, which sang merrily. "Please sign here."

When Chu Hang smoothly signed his name, "Anthony Chen," on the deposit slip, he knew that he had finally acquired an identity that allowed him to stand in the sunlight in this era. From that moment on, he was no longer the ghost hiding in the shadows, unable to see the light.

The deposit process went exceptionally smoothly. Every single dollar of the $55,300 was deposited into his new account. Looking at the crisp new numbers in his bank account, Chu Hang felt for the first time truly that he was grasping the pulse of this era.

He politely thanked the teller, put away his bank card and receipt, and turned to walk towards the bank entrance.

He was in a good mood, even a little lighthearted. His next step was to open a stock account at a brokerage firm, and then quietly wait for Yahoo to go public, turning that $100,000 into a million, or even ten million. A brand new future was beckoning him.

Just as he pushed open the heavy glass door of the bank and the blinding sunlight shone on his face, his steps suddenly faltered.

His pupils contracted to the size of pinpoints in an instant.

Across the street from the bank, next to a black Chevrolet sedan, stood two people he least wanted to see at that moment.

One of them was a tall, serious-looking Black man dressed in a sharp black suit. His signature bald head and the single eye covered by a black eye patch stood out conspicuously in the bustling crowd.

Nick Fury.

The other was the young detective beside him who looked somewhat green, but whose eyes were equally sharp and revealed a cleverness.

Phil Coulson.

They seemed to be talking to someone, their eyes occasionally sweeping over the crowds coming in and out of the bank, as if searching for something.

S.H.I.E.L.D.! They haven't given up! And they actually found their way here!

Chu Hang's mind raced instantly. How did they find this place? Was it a coincidence, or did they possess clues he was unaware of? Were they looking for him?

A chill ran down his spine and straight to his head. The freedom and new life he had just gained seemed like a colorful soap bubble in the sunlight, ready to be burst at any moment by those sharp eyes.

He forced himself to calm down.

Don't panic. Panic is the greatest enemy.

He immediately turned around without hesitation and walked back to the bank lobby, heading naturally towards the ATM as if to check his balance. With his back to the door, he used the corner of his eye to watch Fury and Coulson's every move through the reflection of the gleaming glass door.

He saw Fury finish the conversation, his single eye, sharp as a hawk's, scan the bank entrance once more. His gaze even lingered on Chu Hang's back for a fraction of a second.

At that moment, Chu Hang felt as if a cold needle had pricked his back. He could clearly sense that Fury's gaze was full of scrutiny and suspicion.

But in the end, Fury looked away. He didn't seem to find anything amiss in this well-dressed, refined "ordinary white-collar worker." Perhaps he just felt the figure looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't quite place where he'd seen him before.

After all, the current Anthony Chen, in terms of both temperament and appearance, is completely different from Chu Hang, the soldier who fought bloody battles on the battlefield fifty years ago, or the "frozen man" who wore prison clothes and looked emaciated in the Pegasus Project base.

Fury and Coulson got into the car, and the black Chevrolet quickly merged into the traffic and disappeared at the end of the street.

Only after the car completely disappeared from sight did Chu Hang slowly breathe a sigh of relief. He then realized that his back was soaked with cold sweat.

He didn't leave immediately. He stayed in the bank for another ten minutes or so, making sure no one was watching him, before quietly leaving through another side door and quickly disappearing into the maze of streets and alleys.

Walking through the bustling crowd, Chu Hang's expression returned to calm.

But the ease and comfort he had felt just moments before were gone.

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Chapter 65 Cat and Mouse Game

He did not return to the hotel.

He stepped into an old public phone booth, the cold receiver pressed against his ear.

He inserted a few coins, dialed the hotel's number, and told the front desk in the most concise tone that he had an urgent matter and needed to check out early, and that all his personal belongings left in the room could be discarded.

The crisp sound of the phone hanging up was his farewell to the brief comfort of the past. He didn't look back, but walked straight to the other side of the city, towards an unknown hiding place.

He needs a new hideout, a place that is less conspicuous and harder to find.

This time, hotels as temporary accommodations are clearly not an option.

He flipped through the densely packed rental advertisements in the newspaper, eventually focusing his attention on an old industrial area in the city that was a mixed bag with a high turnover of people.

There, he found an apartment ready for rent. The landlord who greeted him was a middle-aged man with a beer belly and an oily face, whose eyes were filled with only a desire for money, and who didn't care about the tenant's background or origins. This was exactly what Chu Hang needed.

Chu Hang revealed his new identity—"Anthony Chen." He signed a one-year lease under this name and very decisively paid six months' rent in cash in one lump sum. This almost ostentatious and generous payment method made the greasy landlord grin from ear to ear, his face crinkling with wrinkles. He immediately shoved the keys into Chu Hang's hand, skipping any further questioning, as if afraid this fat sheep would fly away.

The apartment wasn't large, a standard one-bedroom unit. The furniture looked like relics from a bygone era, and the wallpaper was peeling, revealing the weathered walls beneath. Fortunately, everything was relatively clean. More importantly, the apartment window faced a chaotic, noisy alleyway, offering multiple escape routes. For Chu Hang at this moment, this hidden layout provided a far greater sense of security than any luxurious suite in a five-star hotel.

The first thing he needed to do after settling in was to spend money. This money, "borrowed" from the casino, had to be laundered as quickly as possible and transformed into a useful tool for him.

He went to a large electronics store and, using his newly issued credit card, bought himself a top-of-the-line personal computer and a printer for the 1990s. Back in his apartment, he drew the curtains, shutting out all outside prying eyes. In this brand-new, absolutely safe haven, he began the first real step in his plan for this era.

Open a securities account.

In the 1990s, online brokerages were still a nascent phenomenon, unknown to most people. With his decades-advanced financial knowledge, Chu Hang effortlessly found a fledgling online securities firm destined to become an industry giant. Using all the legitimate information about "Anthony Chen," he meticulously filled out the tedious and daunting application forms online.

Throughout the entire process, his nerves were taut like a bowstring. He couldn't be sure of the extent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance network, nor did he know if every network operation and every data transmission he made would silently leave a line of cold code on a server in some secret base. It was like dancing on the edge of a cliff, every step fraught with unknown risks.

Three days later, a letter bearing the brokerage firm's logo quietly sat in his new mailbox. Inside the envelope was a notification that his account had been successfully opened.

Without a moment's hesitation, Chu Hang immediately transferred all the remaining $5 in his bank account to his newly opened securities account. Only when the screen displayed "transfer successful" did he breathe a long sigh of relief, and his tense body relaxed.

The money has undergone a transformation. From a pile of easily traceable cash, it became a bank deposit, and then from a bank deposit, it became a string of numbers fluctuating in a securities account. After these two crucial transformations, the difficulty of tracing it increases exponentially. Even with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s extensive resources, linking this money to the mysteriously disappeared Asian young man at the "Queen of Spades" casino is virtually an impossible task.

He is safe for now.

Meanwhile, a black Chevrolet sedan was driving smoothly down a city street.

Phil Coulson handed a file to Nick Fury in the back seat, his voice tinged with undisguised frustration: "Sir, we've lost him. That Asian guy who caused trouble at the Queen of Spades has vanished into thin air. We've checked all the nearby surveillance footage, but we haven't found any trace of him."

Fury didn't speak immediately, but took the document and carefully flipped through it page by page with his single, sharp eye. The air in the car felt heavy because of his silence.

"What about the bank?" he asked in a low voice, devoid of emotion.

“We’ve checked,” Coulson replied immediately. “There was indeed only one large cash deposit of $55,300 that day. The depositor’s name is Anthony Chen. We’ve retrieved all his information.”

Coulson paused, seemingly organizing his thoughts, before continuing his report: “His background is exceptionally clean. A Chinese orphan, born in San Francisco, with a complete Social Security record and credit report. A community college graduate with no criminal record. To be absolutely certain, we even contacted California authorities to verify his birth certificate, and everything matched. He's like the most ordinary American citizen, so ordinary that you'd easily blend into a crowd.”

“An ordinary citizen?” Fury sneered, casually tossing the file onto the seat next to him. “Would an ordinary community college graduate become aware of our surveillance across the street the moment he steps out of the bank after depositing his money?”

Coulson fell silent. He, too, felt an inexplicable eeriness about the whole affair. That day at the bank entrance, he had clearly seen through his binoculars that the young man named Anthony Chen, the instant he stepped out of the bank, paused almost imperceptibly, before immediately turning back inside. That beast-like reaction speed and superhuman alertness were not qualities an ordinary person should possess.

“This ‘Anthony Chen’ identity is too perfect.” Fury tapped rhythmically on the car window with his fingers, his deep gaze fixed on the rapidly receding street scene outside. “It’s so perfect it’s like a meticulously crafted forgery. But we can’t find any trace of forgery. That leaves only two possibilities. Either we’re incredibly unlucky and have stumbled upon an ordinary person with exceptional skills who happens to have a large sum of cash urgently needing to deposit in a bank. Or…”

He paused for a moment, a cold glint flashing in his single eye, as if it could pierce the night outside the car window.

"So... what do we do now? Should we monitor him 24 hours a day?" Coulson asked.

“It’s no use,” Fury shook his head, rejecting the suggestion. “He’s already alerted, like a startled deer. Following him will only alert him and make him hide even deeper. Besides, we have more important and more pressing matters to deal with right now.”

He turned to Coulson, his tone unusually serious: "Has the energy residue analysis report from the Pegasus Project base come out yet?"

Coulson immediately became serious and said, "It's out. Based on the analysis of the residual energy fluctuations at the scene, in addition to the energy characteristics produced by the Kree's light-speed engine explosion, we also detected a third abnormal energy source. Its properties are completely the same as the energy in the 'Frozen Man' sealed in our files, which is the energy inside Chu Hang's body. However, its intensity and activity are several orders of magnitude higher than the data we recorded."

Fury's pupils contracted sharply; the shock of this news far surpassed anything he had experienced before.

"You mean, Chu Hang... is at the explosion site?"

“Uncertain.” Coulson shook his head cautiously. “But what is certain is that the explosion was either directly related to him, or it created another energy entity like him, or even far stronger than him. Sir, we may have inadvertently opened a Pandora’s box.”

Aliens, mysterious energy entities, ghosts whose origins are unknown... This world is becoming increasingly dangerous and unfamiliar at a speed he could not have predicted.

"List Anthony Chen's file as a 'potential threat,' tentatively at the yellow level. Suspend all active investigations and switch to passive observation mode." Fury finally issued the order, his voice resolute. "Concentrate all resources and find that missing Air Force pilot, Carol Danvers, and that 'frozen man' named Chu Hang. I need to know exactly what happened at the Pegasus Project base that day!"

"Yes, sir!"

Fury's decision inadvertently gave Chu Hang a precious breathing space.

For the next few months, he lived a life of almost ascetic discipline. He completely isolated himself, like a sponge, frantically absorbing everything about the era.

Every morning, without fail, he would spend two hours browsing the latest financial news and various industry reports, analyzing stock market trends and future economic prospects. Yahoo's IPO date had been announced, like a countdown; he simply needed to fire all his bullets precisely at the right time.

Then came an hour of physical conditioning training. Although the Super Soldier Serum had pushed his physical abilities to the limits of humanity, long-term, targeted training allowed him to better control this powerful yet unfamiliar body, making full use of every bit of strength.

He devoted almost all of his remaining time to training in controlling the vast and mysterious spatial energy within his body.

His progress was unbelievably rapid. From initially only being able to barely move small objects, he could now make a coin hover silently in a room, and use his telekinesis to precisely unscrew a bottle of soda from several meters away. He even began experimenting with more advanced applications, distorting the light around his body. While he was far from achieving complete invisibility like in science fiction movies, he could already make his figure appear blurry and indistinct under surveillance cameras, like a swaying, distorted ghost.

This sense of control over his power, accumulated little by little, gave him an unprecedented sense of security. This was his greatest asset in surviving in this dangerous world.

During the long wait for Yahoo to go public, Chu Hang began to think about longer-term issues.

He can't always passively wait for the plot to unfold, like a leaf drifting with the tide. He needs to take the initiative and seek out the "resources" that can make him stronger.

Although the system was still dormant, the core functions of the [Super Copier] had not disappeared. He firmly believed that as long as the system awakened, he would be able to replicate those coveted abilities once again. Therefore, he had to find those powerful ability users in advance and make all the necessary preparations.