Chapter 361: I’ll Beat the Crap Out of You

“Ah!” With both arms destroyed, the man howled. Even though he was lying on the ground, he still raised his leg, kicking at Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu caught his ankle single-handedly. The man’s furious expression froze on his face.

How could that be? How could a single palm block the power of a leg—and hold it so firmly? 

With professional training, the explosive strength of the human thigh is two to three times that of an arm. The man recalled those unbelievable feats Xiao Yu had just performed: leaping from the 12th floor onto his glider, clinging to walls, bounding between buildings. And now Xiao Yu grabbed his full-force kick as though it were nothing.

‘Is he even human?!’

Xiao Yu’s foot lashed out, breaking the man’s leg.

“Arrgh!” The man let out a pained wail.

But something else equally astonishing happened. With three limbs already crippled and only one leg intact, the man somehow pushed himself up. Using inertia, he braced his sole remaining leg against the ground and launched himself at Xiao Yu, opening his mouth to bite Xiao Yu’s neck, his face twisted like a vicious specter.

A normal person would have been scared stiff by such a sight. 

Who had ever seen someone this terrifying—still trying to kill with just one intact leg? How ruthless could he be?

‘When humanity evolved, did you hide somewhere? Otherwise, how are you so fierce?’ Xiao Yu remained calm. 

As the man’s head got within about a meter, Xiao Yu slapped him across the face, shattering numerous teeth and sending him flying sideways.

“That all you’ve got?”

Xiao Yu sneered at the man sprawled on the ground.

“Ah…” The man, resilient as a cockroach, still tried rolling upright. 

Xiao Yu’s leg came down. He stomped on the man’s last functional leg, breaking it.

“Keep going,” Xiao Yu said coolly, watching the man roar and wail in agony. “The more you act like that, the more fired up I get.”

The man’s savagery flared briefly—he even opened his mouth as if to spit at Xiao Yu, but—Boom!—Xiao Yu’s foot crushed down on his mouth, smashing his jaw.

“Come on, keep going.”

Withdrawing his foot, Xiao Yu stared at him impassively. All trace of brutality drained from the man’s bloodied face, replaced by terror and dread. His body trembled uncontrollably—whether from pain or fear was unclear.

‘My old master was right in my past life.’ Xiao Yu gazed at him.

A good person can’t be a cop. You have to be more ruthless than the criminals, more merciless—otherwise you’ll be the one who’s afraid, and you’ll be the one who dies. But if you’re harsher than they are, it’s the criminals who’ll fear you. Then you can catch them, or kill them. Isn’t that logic simple enough?

The criminal was scared now.

A few security personnel carried him away for treatment. If they didn’t, he might die. Without another glance, Xiao Yu turned away and headed back toward the nearby apartment.

‘Extreme agent? Huh… ptui. I’ll beat the crap out of you!’

***

When Xiao Yu took the elevator back up to the 12th floor, he found three group leaders waiting: Wang Dong, Zhou Lie, and Shen Mei. The woman Xiao Yu had knocked unconscious earlier had come to. She sat with clenched teeth, head lowered.

“What’s going on?” Xiao Yu asked, stepping up to the coffee table. On it sat a laptop belonging to the woman, with a mini external hard drive plugged in.

“The data on the hard drive has been destroyed,” Shen Mei said. “There was spy software on her computer, and everything has been wiped.”

“Huh?” Xiao Yu frowned. “So while I was busy downstairs, she was already destroying it?”

“Yes.” Wang Dong nodded, brows furrowed. “We’re not sure if they’d backed up the stolen information somewhere else.”

If the hard drive and computer data were destroyed, could there still be a backup? Absolutely. Cloud storage maybe? Given enough time and bandwidth, it could be uploaded in an instant.

“This is troublesome,” Xiao Yu said, settling onto the sofa and eyeing the laptop. “With the capital’s external network sealed, the data can’t get out. From the moment of the theft to their escape and our pursuit they’d only have time to upload it once.

“In a situation where the outside network is blocked, they might have tried storing data to a local cloud server. But that doesn’t sound right. They wouldn’t be that stupid. If we just check every company’s cloud servers based on the file size, we’d find it. There are only so many cloud providers, so I doubt they went that route.

“They must’ve known they couldn’t escape. To complete their mission, they’d do anything to transmit the files. So…” Xiao Yu abruptly turned to the woman. “So the files aren’t on any cloud drives, are they?”

She remained silent, but her pupils contracted slightly, though her expression didn’t change.

‘Got it right, then…’ Xiao Yu smirked and went on,

“How would you transmit software when external networks are blocked? A piece of software that can still be sent out, presumably on a timer, right? Because you assumed we wouldn’t keep the network shut down forever?

“Thus, it must be timed. The server’s in the capital, able to upload the data and forward it to another country. Timed, uploaded, forwarded… an email, right? Only email services fit those conditions.”

Xiao Yu kept his gaze on her. Her pupils dilated, then contracted again.

“Looks like I’m on target,” he said, grinning before glancing at the three group leaders—who were all standing there, mouths agape. “Have the tech folks check any local email provider. Foreign ones won’t work with the network blocked, and there aren’t many domestic mail servers in the capital. Focus on large file attachments or scheduled sends from about half an hour to forty minutes ago. You’ll find it.”

The woman’s face finally changed. She stared at Xiao Yu, terrified, as if he were a monster or a devil.

The three group leaders weren’t much different. Their expressions seemed to say: Why aren’t you off ascending to the heavens? What are you still doing among us mortals?

Xiao Yu merely smiled at his senior colleagues.

In a moment of brilliance, when you pull off some big showy move, everyone ends up astonished.