"The killer is you!" All the channels on TV were airing this news.
A murder case, solved through the sharp reasoning of the intelligent police commissioner, was revealed. The audience wasn't too surprised. They just found it amusing that even the big-bellied commissioner had some skills.
However, the police commissioner in the station was drenched in sweat. 'Damn it!' he thought. 'How did I end up being outwitted by Phantom Thief Kid?' This was the worst embarrassment he'd ever had, and he felt like he'd lost all face—this was a disaster of epic proportions. The worst part was, at the end of the news, the fake commissioner revealed his true identity, and it turned out to be none other than Phantom Thief Kid, the very person the commissioner had sworn to catch.
The viewers watching at home spat out whatever they were eating. This was a huge twist. They'd expected the police to catch the killer, but instead, it was a thief who had disguised himself as a police commissioner and caught the killer. It was an unexpected turn of events.
The ticker on the screen read, "Phantom Thief Kid Catches the Murderer," a true shock within a shock. The audience was stunned. Phantom Thief Kid didn't play by the rules. If he was stealing something, the viewers understood; if he disguised himself as the commissioner, the viewers still understood. But if he pretended to be the commissioner, did the commissioner's job, and even showed off top-notch reasoning skills to catch the criminal, the audience couldn't comprehend it. Was he just messing with them?
After ventriloquism, disguise, and magic, Phantom Thief Kid had now shown a new ability—reasoning. Everyone was crushed. A thief who could reason? That was too much for them to handle.
The police commissioner was scolded by the governor and became even more determined to catch Phantom Thief Kid. The truth about the fake and real gems was also revealed through the news. It turned out that Roberts had falsely accused Phantom Thief Kid due to a financial crisis, and the fans breathed a sigh of relief. As expected, Phantom Thief Kid still had principles, and in the end, he took the real Deep Sea Blue gem.
Liu A'dou placed the gem in Phantom Thief Kid's base in the Antarctic as a souvenir from the event. The reasoning was a small matter. After all, how could one be a bully in the world of detectives without reasoning skills? This case wasn't that complicated. Once the victim's three children were ruled out as suspects, it became clear that the butler was the murderer. And Phantom Thief Kid was exceptionally skilled at finding things—whether gems or weapons, nothing could escape his eyes.
Liu A'dou didn't know that an article with an extremely high click rate had appeared online, titled "The Thief of the Hero World, The Hero of the Thief World." It described Kid's actions in detail, comparing him to Batman in the world of thieves. The author, clearly a resident of Gotham City, had first been a fan of Batman and later turned their attention to Phantom Thief Kid. They now linked the two heroes together. The article was well-written, and Liu A'dou basically agreed with it, though he thought of himself as inferior to Batman.
Shifting his focus back to studying knowledge from another world, Liu A'dou acquired a lot of useful information, including cultivation techniques and high-tech knowledge. However, much of it was not applicable to him. Some of the scientific knowledge closer to current science was packed up, and whenever possible, he planned to send it back to his home country.
The plans for the second half of the year were already set: Elsa's concert, Transformers toys, and a Transformers movie. Liu A'dou could only sneak in some study time for otherworldly knowledge, which brought back memories of his past exams, filling him with a sense of fulfillment.
Time quickly passed, and June was approaching. Liu A'dou felt the most exciting and well-loved alien-bashing scenes were about to unfold.
A few superheroes from the Avengers team were finally getting ready to reassemble.
In a simple rented apartment in New York, Steve Rogers returned, exhausted, to his long-awaited temporary residence. He greeted his neighbors and closed the door to rest.
Captain America and the military arrived in the Middle East, only to find that, even in the twenty-first century, war had not yet ended. It was exhausting. After a nap, he regained some energy by pounding on a punching bag. Sitting alone in a dim kitchen eating bread and eggs, he felt incredibly pitiful. No friends to share his feelings with, ever since he woke up, he had been looking for something to calm himself down, but had found nothing. The barrage of bullets only briefly made him forget that he was an old relic from the forties. Every time he closed his eyes, memories from the past would flood his mind like moths to a flame.
His muscular body pressed against the wooden table, making the old furniture in the apartment creak and groan. But it didn't bother him, because like these things, he too was an old relic. He'd chosen this old apartment because he couldn't adjust to rooms filled with all sorts of strange gadgets.
After breakfast, Captain America would go to a nearby boxing club to train. Since becoming a super soldier, he had never slacked off. Train, then go home to rest, no entertainment, completely out of place in this trendy city.
One day, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly visited Captain America's training place.
"I hope I'm not interrupting," the director said, watching Captain America hit the punching bag even harder when he entered. He could see the pressure in his movements.
"What's the matter?"
"New mission."
"I'm not your agent, and I just got back from the Middle East. I don't feel like rushing to another battlefield," Captain America responded. He wasn't really fond of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a secret organization. He was a soldier, a man of the battlefield, who fought enemies openly. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sneaky ways reminded him of Hydra, and he didn't like them at all.
Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't even asked for his consent to wake him from the ice and throw him into this strange new era. He had to face a completely unfamiliar world—no friends, no family, no lover. Captain America was unhappy and naturally showed the director little respect.
He pushed his muscles to hit the bag even harder.
"I need you to save the world," the director said, trying to appeal to a higher cause.
Captain America grunted, gathering all his strength in his fist and punching the bag so hard it flew off, the bag splitting apart, and the chain holding it to the ceiling snapped. The power in his punch was clear. "I was hoping you'd have a better excuse. I didn't expect it to be this ridiculous. Sorry, but I'm busy. If you need someone to save the world, go find Superman."
Times had changed quickly. Back in World War II, Captain America had been treated like Superman, but now he was just an old soldier troubled by his thoughts every day.
If the director could have found Superman, he would have already done it. But unfortunately, Superman wasn't someone you could just find whenever you wanted.
"Steve, we need you. Really. When we found you, we also found something else."
Captain America stopped. He had a bad feeling. When he crashed with the Hydra leader, there had been nothing of value on the plane. He gave the director a questioning look.
"The Tesseract," the director said. "We found the Tesseract next to you. We've been trying to control its power, but now someone's taken it."
"You shouldn't have picked it up," Captain America said coldly. "At this point, what do you want from me? My fight with Hydra ended long ago."
"I'm afraid our enemy this time isn't local," the director said. "They're aliens."
Captain America needed to brush up on his knowledge of aliens, from Star Wars, Alien, to Predator, and Men in Black.
"The mission briefing has already been left in your apartment's living room."
No sense of privacy. Maybe I should move to a place where no one can find me, Captain America thought.