On the playground.
The boys lay on the ground, howling for a while, when suddenly they realized they had no wounds on their bodies.
They didn't know how it happened, but they had lost their balance and fallen to the ground—
but in fact, they hadn't suffered any terrible blow.
If there were any injuries, a few had fallen in awkward positions, either bruising their faces or spraining their ankles and wrists.
They stood up, supporting each other as they left the playground.
"It's over..."
Wu Xiaode muttered to himself, suddenly feeling something and turning to look back.
Several helicopters appeared in the sky.
It seemed as if they couldn't wait to land before someone opened the cabin door and jumped down from the helicopter.
It was a group of men and women dressed in black, who, as soon as they appeared, immediately rushed to Zhao Junyu's side to protect him.
"Young master?" someone whispered.
"It's nothing, I was wrong to dodge you earlier, sorry," Zhao Junyu said gently, adjusting his glasses.
Witnessing this scene, Wu Xiaode suddenly realized.
So that's it!
Zhao Junyu wasn't an ordinary person either; if not blinded by love, he had ways to protect himself!
One of the men in black stepped forward and asked quietly, "May I know what your relationship with our young master is—"
Moved by the moment, Wu Xiaode took out a badge.
Upon seeing the badge, the man in black instantly relaxed and respectfully said, "I see, thank you for your timely intervention."
Wu Xiaode nodded, his expression suddenly changing, and he ran towards the edge of the playground.
With a light jump, he leapt onto the wall, flipped over, and disappeared from sight.
The people in black looked at each other, somewhat at a loss.
The leader, who had been on the phone all along, quietly said into the phone, "It's over, the young master is safe now."
A cool female voice responded from the phone:
"Bring the young master back."
"Yes."
Zhao Junyu looked at the slowly descending helicopter and couldn't help but sigh, his expression somewhat dispirited.
He looked towards the crowd in the distance.
There he saw Sun Mingyue, her eyes wide with disbelief, staring back at him.
She seemed to understand something and swiftly started tapping on her phone.
Zhao Junyu felt his pocket vibrate nonstop, pulled out his phone, and saw it full of messages from her.
"Young master? The young lady is waiting for you," a man in black said respectfully.
The smile on Zhao Junyu's face gradually faded.
He handed his phone to someone nearby and said indifferently, "This phone is no longer secure; get me a new one."
"Yes, young master."
"Let's go, don't make my sister wait, she'll lose her temper."
...
Long Lake.
Moonlight scattered over Long Lake, casting snowy ripples on the water.
In a small pavilion, a woman sat leisurely, holding a fan.
No one else was around.
She attentively watched the holographic image projected on the table.
In the image, a boy of about seven or eight years old ran ahead, followed by nine other children of similar size.
The boy ran up the stairs, turned back to kick, and sent two of the children tumbling down behind him.
"Come on!"
He uttered a threat and continued running along the corridor.
The pursuers were reduced to seven.
The boy pulled out a chair from the classroom, struck another chasing boy in the stomach with it, and kept running.
He kept running and fighting until he'd knocked everyone down, then he finally stopped.
Gasping for breath, he leisurely walked over to a chubby boy, sat on him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him up to ask:
"Who just called someone an orphan without parents?"
The chubby boy stubbornly replied, "That's you, your family is dead, you're just an accident."
The boy swung a fist, punch after punch, until the other begged for mercy to stop.
—The projection ended there.
A male voice spoke, "Young lady, this is the earliest material we could find."
The woman asked, "What about the surveillance from the playground? Did they bring it up?"
"It's already been brought up," the man responded.
The holographic image changed.
The boy from the past had grown up.
He took the rose from Zhao Junyu's hands and gave it to Li Zheng, handling the whole scenario himself.
Then—
The fight.
He faced off against more than twenty men, cut through the entire group, and looked back to see everyone lying on the ground moaning.
The male voice spoke again, "It's been made clear, Li Zheng is one of their people."
"So, they wanted to stage an accident to kill my brother, is that it?" the woman said, smiling but not smiling.
"Li Zheng had a gun that leaked from the military, which was disarmed by Wu Xiaode on the playground," the man stated.
The woman pondered for a moment, then said softly, "Impressive Iron Wire Fist... I remember this boxing technique includes a secret level move that can take on a hundred opponents."
"Yes, young lady, that move had been lost for three hundred years; I don't know why it reappeared in his hands," the voice from the speaker said.
"Has his badge been verified?" the woman asked.
"It has been checked, it's real," the man replied.
"Then there's no problem; he's the hidden piece left by our ancestors, meant to emerge in our time of crisis," the woman said.
"Young lady, the young master has arrived," the man said.
"Hmm," the woman responded indifferently.
On the water, a small boat floated gently until it reached the front of the pavilion and stopped.
Zhao Junyu stepped onto the pavilion, his expression listless as he sat down across from the woman.