At three in the morning in Linhai City, the CBD neon lights still licked at the shadows of office workers pulling overtime. Su Kai stared at the bug on his computer screen, his fingers tapping out a weary rhythm on the keyboard. The coffee machine beside his desk exuded a burnt, bitter aroma, much like his life at twenty-four: a spine bent under the weight of rent, an edge worn down by workplace manipulation. His only glimmers of light were the Kamen Rider Decade figure on his desk and his grandfather’s words: “This Rider can connect to all the light.”
Then, late one night, a cry for help in an alley shattered the calm. Just as he thought he’d run away as usual, the old figure box his grandfather had left behind suddenly lit up. The sound effect “Kamen Ride - Decade!” exploded in the night sky. Red armor wrapped around his trembling body, and the instant his punch broke through the darkness, Su Kai realized there was a courage hidden in his ordinary life that even he had never noticed.
But the mask brought more than power. It also brought an endless manhunt. “Phantom Shadow,” an organization backed by the overseas group “Night Owl,” clung to him like a bone-deep infection, tightening the screws with workplace harassment and threats over his rent. Lin Lan, technical lead of the police’s “Shadow Hunt Task Force,” was frantically tracking this “mysterious third party” through fragments of surveillance footage showing a red blur. Su Kai was walking a tightrope: he had to use Faiz’s speed to erase the traces of his battles, while pretending at morning meetings that “last night was just another ordinary overtime shift.” Even the Driver hidden in his wardrobe grew hot in the dead of night, as if asking him: Do you want to be a Rider hiding behind armor, or an ordinary person brave enough to face life head-on?
