With his guard up, Bi Xiao's demeanor remained unchanged, as if he was completely unaware of the woman's subtle probing and naturally revealed much of his information.
The two enjoyed their conversation, and after breakfast, the woman did not linger excessively or leave any contact information, much like a casual encounter between strangers.
Bi Xiao left the restaurant and walked towards his apartment, remaining vigilant but noticing no signs of surveillance.
"Alone?" Bi Xiao speculated in his mind.
In the following period, as Bi Xiao expected, he continued his morning runs, stayed at home studying, and used his self-taught IT skills to earn US dollars.
Although not every time, the woman occasionally met him for breakfast.
As their encounters increased, they grew familiar and extended their conversations to many topics, including the infamous serial killer whom Bi Xiao openly admired.
Nowadays, few young people do not admire such a righteous judge.
The woman, called Jenny, also revealed her information. She was a 26-year-old psychologist who had recently moved to Queens, living in an apartment about a hundred meters from Bi Xiao's and planning to open her own practice. She enjoyed staying active, playing tennis among other sports.
It seemed normal, but Bi Xiao didn’t trust it, and he noticed that her physical condition was far superior to that of an average adult male.
It seemed that some organization had noticed or perhaps suspected his identity, hence their proximity and observation.
Police? FBI? Agents?
Bi Xiao thought it might be the latter. The woman's demeanor and expertise in psychology and linguistic skills suggested she was an absolute expert and could easily disarm people, especially men, making her seem more like a spy.
S.H.I.E.L.D.?
This led Bi Xiao to think of the Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D.
Indeed, the more one does, the more one exposes, and the murder cases unfolding in Queens were too localized to ignore.
A precise drop, yet Bi Xiao did not plan to lie entirely low. Hiding was only an initial sign of weakness.
Now, with his individual combat skills surpassing those of ordinary people, he needed to advance aggressively, setting his sights on other groups.
Vampires, or the Werewolves.
"Not of my race, their hearts must be different." For these extraordinary life forms, Bi Xiao had one attitude: they were his nourishment.
Especially vampires and werewolves, they were the greatest sources of his growth experience.
When a hunter targets his prey, no reason is needed. Just as vampires target young, beautiful girls, Bi Xiao targeting vampires and werewolves followed the same principle.
The next day, instead of staying home as usual, Bi Xiao sought out a jewelry store to buy silver. Compared to gold, silver was cheaper at four dollars a gram, and he planned to forge weapons specifically designed for vampires’ unique physiology.
A long sword over a meter in length would weigh about one to two kilograms.
That meant using pure silver would cost between four thousand to eight thousand dollars. However, this was impractical mainly due to the material properties of silver, which is very brittle. Typically, vampire hunters’ weapons were primarily steel with a silver coating.
Because silver has a bactericidal effect, it was particularly lethal to vampires.
He didn't need much silver.
Still, Bi Xiao purchased about two kilograms of silver, enough to forge four or five silver swords and several daggers.
In the U.S., there are specialty stores selling swords as collectibles, not cheap, especially for custom orders. He found a reputable forge where a cross-shaped long sword cost about four hundred dollars each, and custom orders were more expensive.
He ordered four cross-shaped long swords and two Gurkha-style curved knives, short-bladed weapons.
The total cost was four thousand dollars.
The number of weapons indicated Bi Xiao’s psychological threshold against the vampires: not fearing the quantity but fearing excessive use that could damage the weapons.
During the forging of the cross-shaped swords and Gurkha curved knives, Bi Xiao began his preparations.
Over the next two nights, he staked out various New York venues: nightclubs, bars, upscale restaurants, and hotels, silently observing. His enhanced senses gave him an intuition similar to Spider-Man's.
More like a weakened version of Superman, with superior hearing that allowed him to hear the flow of human blood and the beating of hearts, though his sight couldn't penetrate to the molecular level like Superman, he could see under the skin.
Combined with his hearing, it was like X-ray scanning.
His strong sense of smell added to this, essentially allowing him to see through anyone in front of him, whether human or ghost.
As Bi Xiao had thought, New York had many vampires. He even tracked some to their lairs, estimating thousands, most prevalent in bars and nightclubs.
Places like Manhattan's business center also had many.
Queens actually had many as well, but recent events there had caused the vampires to hide, and Bi Xiao didn’t bother searching them out.
He planned to start cleansing from Brooklyn towards Manhattan.
As for Jenny, since she wanted to play her role, he would not expose her. The longer it dragged on, the lesser the human government's threat became.