After being rejected by Russell once again, Perkins didn't continue to tempt him, returning to her usual ice queen persona.
After chatting with Perkins for a while and learning about the major events in the assassin world over the past week, Russell paid the bill for her and left the bar.
He had been busy activating the "Venom Symbiote" this past week and hadn't paid attention to the assassin world.
Besides the Punisher seemingly targeting assassins, he also heard something quite interesting.
Another assassin organization in New York, the Brotherhood, which claimed to act on behalf of God, had experienced an assassin defection.
And the one who defected from the Brotherhood was none other than Cross, their ace assassin.
Although they were both assassins, the Brotherhood's assassins and the Continental Hotel's assassins were completely different things.
First, the Brotherhood's assassins didn't kill for money; they killed for so-called justice.
Or rather, they believed they were doing God's work.
God, through a magical Loom of Fate, would display the target's name in code.
Their job was to eliminate the target after their name appeared.
As for why the target had to die, they didn't care.
It was all God's will!
Furthermore, these Brotherhood assassins, who didn't kill for money, possessed a flashy technique called bullet bending.
Normal bullets fly straight!
You can predict where a bullet will land by looking at the muzzle.
But the bullets shot by Brotherhood assassins using bullet bending could curve or go straight, forward or backward.
If needed, these bullets could even draw circles in the air.
While this was highly unscientific, the great scientists of this world, like Mr. Don, Uncle Tan, and Brother Di, should have long been accustomed to such things, perhaps not even having the inclination to open their coffin lids for a look.
It's just bullets that can curve; it's no big deal.
Some people can even swing on lightning!
Like the one at Russell's place.
Even before transmigrating to this world, Russell had heard of the Brotherhood's reputation.
Their bullet bending and conscious control of adrenaline left a deep impression on him.
Although he had some interest in these two abilities, he hadn't interacted with Brotherhood assassins after becoming a peer.
They were a group of brainwashed individuals.
Without clear benefits, interacting with them would bring far more disadvantages than advantages.
Sloan, the current leader of the Brotherhood, was not a good person.
Cross's defection indicated that he had also discovered this.
More importantly, in Russell's opinion, people who would interpret the erroneous threads woven by a weaving machine as the mysterious language of fate weren't very bright.
It was perfectly normal for a weaving machine made a thousand years ago to produce some errors when weaving threads.
Even modern computers develop strange bugs after running for a long time.
Let alone an antique weaving machine from a thousand years ago.
As for interpreting the target's name from the threads, that wasn't particularly special either.
The "Monkey and Typewriter" theorem!
Given enough monkeys, enough typewriters, and enough time, there will inevitably be one monkey that types out Shakespeare's "Hamlet" perfectly.
This theorem seems counter-intuitive, but in the field of mathematics, it is a provable theorem.
While the "Monkey and Typewriter" phenomenon cannot be replicated in real life, it is entirely possible for a weaving machine's erroneous threads to form a name in binary.
What's even more clever is that the Brotherhood's ideology is an unfalsifiable logical loop.
If the Brotherhood kills the target, the dead person certainly cannot affect the world or others anymore.
But similarly, even if the target would have become a good person who saved the world in the future, they wouldn't have that opportunity because they are already dead.
The moment the Brotherhood killed the target, the target was definitively labeled as an evil person.
Conversely, if the Brotherhood doesn't kill the target.
Then any serious consequence caused by the target in the future could be attributed to fate's hint.
Even if this serious consequence was just an accident, in the Brotherhood's eyes, it was because they didn't kill according to fate's instructions.
In Russell's view, these people in the Brotherhood were just like the millions of Americans who believed the Earth was flat.
Equally naive!
You can't entirely blame the Brotherhood's assassins for believing that a weaving machine can weave the language of fate.
After all, this is a beautiful country that promotes happy education.
Those millions of Americans who believe the Earth is flat are more or less the "talents" cultivated by happy education.
Russell didn't doubt the existence of extraordinary powers that could predict the future in this world, but such power would absolutely not appear on an antique weaving machine.
However, having said that, although the people in the Brotherhood didn't seem very smart, he was still quite interested in the abilities of bullet bending and conscious adrenaline control.
If there was a chance, getting these two abilities wouldn't be bad.
Russell fantasized in his mind about the scene where he consciously controlled his adrenaline and discussed the mysteries of the universe with Diana.
If Diana were also wearing her armor, it would be even more perfect.
Just as he was lost in thought, the driver stopped the car.
"Sir, we've reached the destination ahead. I can only take you this far!"
"Why?"
Russell was still immersed in his pleasant imagination and hadn't noticed the situation ahead.
"The place you're going is blocked by the police, and there are fire trucks."
The Indian driver said in his distinctly accented Indian English.
Uh...
Russell then pushed the unhealthy images out of his mind and looked ahead.
The driver was right; the building he was going to was now blocked by the police.
Firefighters were evacuating the people inside the building, and high-pressure water cannons were spraying wildly at a street-facing window on the fifth floor.
Looking at the window that was still occasionally showing flames, Russell's expression turned a little grim.
The room that was on fire was his office.
Fuck!
"Ten minutes, back to that hotel we were at earlier, and these are yours!"
Russell didn't get out of the car, took out two hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, and waved them in front of the driver.
"No problem, sir, hold on tight!"
Heavy rewards bring forth brave men!
This Indian driver proved that point well.
In New York's less-than-ideal traffic, the driver took less than seven minutes to get Russell back to the Continental Hotel.
After giving the money to the driver, Russell walked into the Continental Hotel with a gloomy face.
Although he didn't know which bastard had burned down his office yet, one thing was clear: he was very angry, especially angry.
An anonymous call from who knows where disrupted his plan to activate the "Venom Symbiote," leading him to play a truth game with Diana.
He had just come to the Continental Hotel to find a hacker to investigate the anonymous call, and before he could contact the hacker, his office was burned down.
While this could just be a coincidence, Russell didn't see it that way.
He initially thought the anonymous call was arranged by S.H.I.E.L.D., but now it seemed more likely to be Hydra.