"An ugly death?"
Chen Xiaodao paid no attention to Su Jingxing, Kong Dabao, and the others. Instead, his gaze fell on the director of the Western District crematorium—Wu Shouhan.
"You are talking about my match tomorrow, aren't you?" he sneered. "Words sure spread fast. I didn't expect a busy person like you to know about it.
"So? You think I'm going to lose… no, what was it again—die an ugly death tomorrow?
"You think Duan Feihong's got the fight in the bag after leaving for a few years?"
"Don't put words into my mouth," said Wu Shouhan coldly. "I'm not interested in shooting the breeze with you, Chen Xiaodao. Your guys over there did a number on Old Liu. I want a solution."
"A what? A solution?" Chen Xiaodao snorted. "The prole hurt my son first. Am I expected to compensate him?"
"That's not true!"
"It was you who…"
"Hush!" blared Wu Shouhan, cutting the explaining staff short. He took a step forward and glared at Chen Xiaodao. "So what you are saying is, you are not going to do anything about what happened to Old Liu?"
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Chen Xiaodao with a sinister smile. He held Wu Shouhan's gaze without the slightest fear.
Even though Wu Shouhan wasn't weaker than Chen Xiaodao in terms of aura, the latter was a grade above him when it came to cultivation realms.
Chen Xiaodao was a seventh-grade while Wu Shouhan was only an eighth-grade.
However, Wu Shouhan wasn't a nobody. He was the director of the crematorium—a civil servant of Qinghe City!
Hitting only eighth-grade at his martial arts realm was certainly considered low for his age.
In this lifetime, he could forget about entering the seventh-grade, let alone sixth-grade.
However, that didn't stop Wu Shouhan from making connections. After decades of keeping his nose on the grindstone, the old man had established many connections. That included officials, businessmen, martial artists, and even military personnel.
Chen Xiaodao dared to break Old Liu's arm and leg, but he didn't dare to do anything to Wu Shouhan.
That was why Wu Shouhan dared to face him down,
If crematorium staff like Kong Dabao, Su Jingxing, or the others offended Chen Xiaodao, they would definitely suffer retaliation in the future.
Wu Shouhan wasn't afraid of that. The old man's face was expressionless, and his eyes were cold.
"All I want is justice to be served.
"Since you don't want to settle this privately, I'll have to ask Commissioner Qi over to be our judge.
"Oh, I almost forgot. Old Wang, fetch me the security camera footage," ordered Wu Shuhan.
"Right away." Manager Wang nodded, turned, and made to leave.
"Hold it," said Chen Xiaodao uncomfortably. When Manager Wang stopped in his tracks, Chen Xiaodao glared at Wu Shouhan and said in a deep voice, "Looks like you've got a soft spot for your employees, Director Wu."
Wu Shouhan ignored him and looked at Manager Wang instead. Frowning, he said, "Old Wang, what are you standing there for?"
"Yes, Director. I'm on it!" said Manager Wang, stifling a laugh as he strode away.
"I said hold it!" The veins at the corner of Chen Xiaodao's eyes twitched. He gritted his teeth and shouted, "Fine! You want compensation, right? 200,000 Great Yu dollars should suffice for an arm and a leg, yeah?"
"Far from it," said Wu Shouhan, his face void of emotion. "At least 500,000."
"Fine! 500,000 it shall be!" Chen Xiaodao ground his teeth and said coldly, "I'll arrange someone to bring 500,000 Great Yu dollars over right away."
With that, he turned around and left.
Seeing this, his group of subordinates dared not linger on and quickly tagged along behind him.
The noisy bunch disappeared into the corner.
"Uncle Wu, are we going to let them go just like that?" asked Kong Dabao glumly, his eyes fixed on the end of the corridor.
"What do you propose, then?" retorted Manager Wang irritably. "It's plenty good that the director managed to make Chen Xiaodao cough up the money."
Then, he looked towards the ground at Old Liu, who was starting to get woozy. He uttered an encouragement. "Hang in there, Old Liu. The ambulance will be here soon."
"Yeah, Old Liu. You must not fall asleep here."
"The director has secured 500,000 Great Yu dollars for you! It's not the time to sleep."
"Old Liu, hang in there!"
The others came back to their senses and began cheering Old Liu on to prevent him from losing consciousness.
"I won't sleep, I won't sleep," promised Old Liu, shivering, his face pale as a sheet.
Su Jingxing stood at the side and studied him. Mixed feelings bubbled up inside him.
To some martial artists, ordinary folks like Old Liu were nothing but personal punching bags.
On the Earth Star, human nations had already chased their nemesis—barbarians—into the Boundless Mountain Range.
But that didn't mean the nations were at peace. There were often conflicts between nations, and small-scale wars broke out from time to time.
The Yu Nation also had enemy nations, as well as hidden threats within its borders.
Putting the calamity caused by the Extraterrestrial Devil Insects aside, there were the evil organizations that would cause a huge commotion from time to time.
That being said, it was still a stable nation overall.
Among all the countries, Yu Country was ranked third in terms of safety.
However, even in such a safe country, the citizenry was often harassed and bullied by martial artists. Most ordinary people dared not provoke martial artists.
The strength and authority of the Martial Suppression Office was the only thing that kept the situation under control.
This reflection made Su Jingxing reach a conclusion—the only way to not get bullied was to become strong!
Seventh or sixth-grade was far from enough.
The only way to decide his own fate was by reaching the first-grade.
Wan Rong?
He was nothing but a temporary obstacle in Su Jingxing's journey to first-grade.
…
Soon, the ambulance arrived, and out came a couple of doctors who carefully moved Old Liu onto the stretcher and carried him into the ambulance.
Manager Wang and the leader of Corpse Collection Team 2 got on the ambulance and accompanied him to the hospital.
Su Jingxing and Kong Dabao continued transporting corpses.
After the incident, Kong Dabao was in a huff for a long time, cursing from the Dagger Gang to Chen Xiaodao as he moved the corpses.
From his cursing, Su Jingxing learned that the child Old Liu had accidentally bumped into was Chen Xiaodao's godson. Back when Chen Xiaodao was younger, he suffered an injury in his lower regions that left him infertile. Owing to that, he adopted three godsons.
Under his tutelage, his three godsons were all full of themselves.
Roughing up other students, verbally abusing teachers, and bullying girls in school were par for the course with them.
This time as well, the kid had bumped into Old Liu first before falling over.
Yet, the young imp falsely accused Old Liu of knocking him down.
Without bothering to find out the truth, Chen Xiaodao ordered his subordinates to break Old Liu's arm and leg.
The only silver lining was that the incident happened at the entrance of the farewell ceremony hall, which was under video surveillance.
Had it happened outside, Old Liu would have gotten nothing in return for his broken arm and leg.
Chen Xiaodao had come to the crematorium with his band of hoodlums to bemoan the death of his right-hand man. In truth, however, he had only shown up at the farewell ceremony to maintain the facade of someone who valued brotherhood.
This decision ended up putting Old Liu through hell.
If it wasn't for Wu Shouhan, Old Liu would've had nowhere to report the wrongs that had been done to him.
As far as Su Jingxing was concerned, killing a person like Chen Xiaodao would be akin to enforcing justice on behalf of the heavens!
…
Wei Jiajia had only managed to trade the Eight Steps Rising Dragon with Su Jingxing for three requests.
Given the limited amount of chances, she had to make the most out of every request.
Therefore, as soon as Su Jingxing agreed to her first request, Wei Jiajia immediately began spreading the news—to those who were either coveting the Wei family's business or watching from the sidelines—that the Wei family was ready to strike back.
And the first step of that was challenging Chen Xiaodao to a public fight!