**Chapter 4: The Veteran's Mission**
A few minutes later, Yang Zhisheng stood up and opened the door. Yu Man walked in with a smile.
"I've taken care of the loose ends for you. Next time, be cleaner about it. There was blood everywhere—it was a hassle to clean up."
Yang Zhisheng closed the door and pointed at Zhou Ming: "I didn't do that."
"Him?" Yu Man looked surprised, which quickly turned into an amused smile. "It seems our young friend has quite a few secrets he's hiding from us."
Hearing this, Zhou Ming feigned a bitter smile and said, "Everyone has secrets, don't they?"
By this point, Zhou Ming had mostly digested the assassin's combat experience, and his consciousness was no longer so sluggish.
Unfortunately, he had only absorbed pure combat experience, with no memories mixed in, so Zhou Ming didn't get any information about the assassin.
"You're right." Yu Man nodded and extended her hand to Zhou Ming. "Welcome to our team."
Zhou Ming was stunned for a moment, then smiled, extended his hand, and shook Yu Man's.
Although these two had acted approachable from the beginning of this world until now, the inherent arrogance of experienced reincarnators toward newcomers had always been present.
It wasn't until now, with Zhou Ming's strength being recognized by them, that they changed their attitude and treated Zhou Ming with a more equal relationship.
Releasing his hand, Yu Man sat down on another chair nearby.
"I've deleted the surveillance footage of your fight with that assassin in the hallway. I watched the fight—that assassin was not ordinary."
"Far superior reaction speed and marksmanship, definitely not something you newcomers could handle. And this was still within your twelve-hour protection period…"
"So that assassin wasn't targeting you. Their target was us."
Yang Zhisheng said from the side, "This time, you were unlucky and suffered an undeserved calamity—you took a bullet for us."
"Only targeting you, not us? Two waves of assassins?" Zhou Ming suddenly understood. "The Main God must have arranged other identities for you, right? And your missions probably have nothing to do with ours."
Yu Man smiled. Since Zhou Ming had been recognized, there was no need to hide things anymore; it was better to just say it outright.
"Our mission is to eliminate the Cronus Organization, with a time limit of thirty days."
"Although our mission has nothing to do with yours, the performance of newcomers will affect the final evaluation of our mission, so we won't abandon you."
*The Main God truly gives newcomers a lot of preferential treatment,* Zhou Ming thought to himself, licking his lips and asking another question.
"I want to ask, if a newcomer participates in your mission, will there be an additional reward after the mission is completed?"
Yu Man and Yang Zhisheng exchanged glances, their gazes toward Zhou Ming now filled with even greater appreciation.
"Of course. The better you perform during the mission, the higher your final evaluation will be, and the more generous rewards you'll receive—including rewards for some high-quality special items."
"The Main God Space's exchange list is almost endless and all-encompassing. But high-level exchange items generally require corresponding prerequisite conditions to be met."
"The main mission provided by the Main God is certainly your first choice, but to become stronger, you need to delve deeper into the resources of this world, trigger more events, and strive to make your final evaluation higher."
At this point, Yang Zhisheng reached out and patted Zhou Ming's shoulder, saying, "Potential and courage are two important factors for surviving in the Main God Space. Kid, I think highly of you."
Zhou Ming smiled faintly, fully accepting Yang Zhisheng's praise without any embarrassment.
"If we had enough information now, we could immediately start acting."
"It's a shame the Main God gave us too little information. About the Cronus Organization, we know absolutely nothing except its name!"
Yu Man sighed, but Zhou Ming heard another meaning in her words.
The assassin he killed was the "information" the Main God had given to the two experienced reincarnators.
If an experienced reincarnator had faced that assassin, considering the mission content and the comparison of their strengths, it was very likely they would have captured the assassin alive and extracted information about the Cronus Organization from him.
But that clue was now broken. To understand the Cronus Organization, they would have to find another way.
"Sorry," Zhou Ming apologized directly.
"Don't misunderstand. I'm not blaming you. In that situation, whether it was me or Yang Zhisheng, we would have prioritized killing the opponent rather than risking our lives."
Yu Man explained, "Reincarnators always prioritize preserving their own lives as their primary goal. This is the consensus of almost all reincarnators who live long in the Main God Space."
"I'm only saying this because I hope you're mentally prepared."
"Your mission and our mission run in parallel. If you want to participate in our mission, you must make a choice—it's impossible to balance two missions."
"Furthermore, your mission time is only ten days. In our mission, which has a thirty-day time frame, how much you can participate within ten days is also a problem."
"It's possible that in the end, you won't do well in either, and your final evaluation will be lower than if you had focused on one mission."
Zhou Ming was silent for a while, then nodded and said, "I understand."
"As long as you know what you're doing," Yu Man said. "Let's go to my room and meet up with the others."
...
On the rooftop of a tall building, two figures were busy working with their heads down.
"Done." Zhou Ming stood up and clapped his hands.
"Just one more left, right?" The other figure also stood up. He was He Yunxiao, another newcomer, 24 years old, and a programmer.
"Yes, we have one last task assigned to us." Zhou Ming nodded. Neither of them lingered, shouldering their bags and descending the stairwell.
They had just installed a hidden pinhole camera here, monitoring a large area of the rooftop.
From that area, Miss Adele's hotel room could be seen, and they could also conceal themselves well, making it an excellent sniper position.
This was one of the action plans decided after the discussion among the six: targeting Miss Adele's room, installing surveillance at all suitable sniping locations nearby to prevent Miss Adele from being taken out by a long-range shot at the hotel.
Fortunately, due to the seaside hotel's location, there weren't many suitable sniping positions, and with Yu Man and Yang Zhisheng—two experienced reincarnators with rich combat experience—this plan became feasible.
As for the surveillance equipment, it was all provided by Yang Zhisheng.
It was then that everyone learned that Yang Zhisheng's enhancement direction was that of a cyborg; over sixty percent of his body was not flesh and blood, and he had powerful control over electronics and machinery.
Zhou Ming and He Yunxiao quickly arrived at the building below another sniping location.
The six of them were divided into three groups, two people per group: Zhou Ming and He Yunxiao were one group, Yang Zhisheng and Zhang Changlin were another, and Yu Man and Zhao Ting were the third.
Their group was the only one without an experienced reincarnator. He Yunxiao, who was completely unaware of the battle in the hotel corridor (the experienced reincarnators had explained that battle to the three newcomers as an encounter between Yang Zhisheng and an assassin), thought he was taking care of Zhou Ming—a sign of the experienced reincarnators' trust in him.
Little did he know, the actual situation was quite the opposite.
"We've eliminated the hidden dangers at the sniping points near the hotel, but our mission target doesn't seem like someone who will obediently stay at the hotel. You'll see—in the next few days, she'll definitely be running all over the place, and we'll have our hands full."
After taking the elevator to the upper floors, the two switched to climbing the stairs to the rooftop. He Yunxiao panted and talked non-stop.
The poor young programmer, though his hair was still thick, clearly showed the physical weakness brought on by prolonged sitting.
"Perhaps," Zhou Ming replied casually.
He already had a preliminary plan in mind regarding the choice between the main mission and the Cronus Organization mission; three days was his bottom line.
Within three days, if he could obtain enough information about the Cronus Organization, he would choose to abandon the main mission and follow the two experienced reincarnators to participate in the mission to destroy the Cronus Organization.
Otherwise, he would directly give up on this side mission and focus solely on completing the main mission.
So, three days later, he would likely not care about Adele's life or death at all, would leave this place directly, and naturally would no longer have to worry about how to protect Adele.
Of course, before that, his focus was still on the main mission.
"Wait!" Just then, Zhou Ming suddenly heard faint footsteps from above the stairs and quickly called out to He Yunxiao.
Normal people going up and down stairs wouldn't have such light footsteps, unless they were deliberately treading lightly, or… well-trained and had already formed a habit.
"What's wrong?" He Yunxiao was confused, then saw Zhou Ming pull out the pistol from his waist.
"Holy shit!" He Yunxiao exclaimed, but Zhou Ming frowned. A pair of Straw Sandal Gu silently slipped onto the outside of his shoes.
He heard the faint footsteps from upstairs disappear.
"You stay here and keep quiet." Zhou Ming pushed off with both feet, lightly jumping over eight steps at once, leaping onto the landing at the stairwell's turn.
He landed silently, like a cat with padded paws, his movements elegant and agile.
He had previously used Jin Strength Gu to increase his strength, and Straw Sandal Gu made his body more agile, but that leap of eight steps was something he achieved with his own power.
He saw no one.
Zhou Ming held his gun, hesitating whether to go up another floor, when a strong sense of danger suddenly erupted. He saw a dark gun muzzle aimed at him from the gap in the stairs above.
*Bang!*
Zhou Ming's body shot out like lightning a split second before the gun fired, and with the speed boost from the Straw Sandal Gu, he narrowly dodged the shot.
*Bang bang bang!*
Zhou Ming raised his gun and returned fire, but the dark muzzle upstairs retracted.
"This guy is not on the same level as that previous assassin."
This thought flashed through Zhou Ming's mind, and his body darted upstairs at an even faster speed.
The newcomers' twelve-hour protection period had passed, so it was no surprise that they would encounter assassins.
During this time, Zhou Ming's true qi had automatically refilled, and with the Water Armor Gu, a head-on shootout with an assassin one-on-one meant the opponent was sure to die.
Indeed, the moment he rushed around the stairwell corner, Zhou Ming saw the assassin waiting for him with a gun raised.
The instant the assassin saw his figure, he pulled the trigger.
The bullet whistled out, and the assassin retreated at the same moment, preparing to dodge Zhou Ming's attack.
In the assassin's imagination, even if Zhou Ming fearlessly charged forward, enduring the bullets, the accuracy of his forced shots would be greatly reduced, and he was confident he could dodge Zhou Ming's bullets.
But he didn't expect that his bullet hitting Zhou Ming's body wouldn't even cause Zhou Ming to flinch.
Where he couldn't see, a layer of water film covering Zhou Ming's clothes rippled violently, dissipating the bullet's impact.
Zhou Ming charged forward, enduring the bullets, and fired three more shots in quick succession.
The Main God-enhanced Firearms Lv1, combined with the combat experience absorbed from the previous assassin, made Zhou Ming's marksmanship excellent.
None of the three shots missed. They hit the assassin's left arm, right arm, and left leg respectively, instantly rendering him mostly incapable of resistance.
After steadying himself, Zhou Ming fired another shot, hitting the assassin's right leg. Then he rushed forward and, with a *snap*, dislocated his jaw.
This was to prevent him from biting a poison sac hidden in his teeth to commit suicide. Although Zhou Ming didn't know if the assassin in front of him had such a thing, it didn't stop Zhou Ming from believing it.
Isn't that how it always happened in TV shows from his previous life?
After subduing the assassin, Zhou Ming immediately pulled out his phone to contact Yang Zhisheng, telling him that he had captured someone alive and asking him to come and handle it quickly.
The gunshots just now had been quite loud. To mitigate the impact, it was best to get a professional to deal with it.