The blond youth, his face contorted with rage, charged forward, brandishing his switchblade with reckless abandon.
Xiang Ri sneered disdainfully. From the boy's movements alone, it was evident he was nothing more than a small-time thug who swung a blade wildly without skill. He lacked both strength and speed—a pitiful creature whose survival until now seemed nothing short of miraculous.
But the so-called trash showed no awareness of his own inadequacy. With unrelenting viciousness, he lunged ahead, his eyes blazing with hatred, as though he yearned to dismember Xiang Ri on the spot.
Initially planning to counter only when the youth entered his attack range, Xiang Ri suddenly changed his mind. He couldn't tolerate the insolence of such scum glaring at him with such audacity. Without hesitation, he surged forward. Caught off guard, the blond thug barely registered the movement before Xiang Ri delivered a precise upward kick.
A wet, almost surreal "pop" echoed—the peculiar sound of a liquid-filled sack bursting. In an instant, the blond youth was propelled into the air, not backward but straight upward.
Reaching a height of four or five meters, his ascent halted before he plummeted back to the ground.
With a resounding "thud," his body struck the concrete floor. Unconsciousness claimed him instantly, evidenced by his silent collapse despite the brutal impact.
The surrounding gang of over a dozen hooligans stood frozen, utterly dumbfounded by the scene before them. Rationality screamed at them that this couldn't be real, yet their own eyes testified otherwise. Were they hallucinating?
At first, they had believed subduing the injured, bespectacled man would be laughably easy. Sending the blond youth alone had seemed sufficient. Some even felt a fleeting twinge of pity, assuming the bespectacled youth had been paralyzed with fear as the blond charged. After all, they knew the blond youth well—his brutality left countless victims crippled for life.
What happened next shattered their assumptions. Not only did the blond fail, but he was also sent flying by the very man they had dismissed as powerless. The trajectory of his flight—so unnaturally vertical—made the whole spectacle seem like something out of an action movie.
Among them, the most shaken was the youth with the mole. Unlike the others, he understood the impossibility of what had just occurred. Even a professional strongman would struggle to kick a man of over 75 kilograms, standing at 1.8 meters tall, into the air. Propelling someone backward a few meters was plausible, but this?
Now he understood why Xiang Ri had remained so composed. It wasn't an attempt to stall for time or intimidate them into retreat. No, it was because, in Xiang Ri's eyes, they were no more than ants—creatures he could crush at will.
Chuchu and Shi Qing maintained expressions devoid of any particular emotion. To them, there was nothing remarkable about the situation; in their hearts, they had long regarded a certain individual as someone who had transcended the limitations of mere humanity.
"Shall we continue, gentlemen?" Xiang Ri asked, a subtle, self-satisfied smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he surveyed the gang members, still frozen in shock by his display.
"We concede defeat!" The youth with the mole was a man who could accept failure with grace. However, in his heart, he had already sent the entire family of that man named Ma a thousand curses. No wonder the man had been so generous this time—ten thousand for a single broken leg. It became clear that he must have known about the target's... peculiarities, yet had failed to warn them. Could it be that he sought to use them as pawns in a scheme of treachery?
The mole-marked youth couldn't help but entertain this notion. After all, he and Ma had crossed paths often enough to be well aware of his dark dealings. Perhaps Ma felt their existence had become a threat, and so had set this plot in motion—a cunning move indeed. "If you're ruthless," he thought, "then I shall show no mercy."
In truth, the man named Ma was most unjustly accused. He had no inkling of the extraordinary abilities of Xiang Ri, and the reason he had paid such a hefty sum was entirely due to the humiliation he suffered at the hotel, which had caused his intelligence to regress to that of a child. Thus, he foolishly agreed to such a deal, thinking ten thousand for a leg was a fair price.
Yet, the youth with the mole did not share this understanding. From his perspective, the sudden generosity of Ma—who was known for his miserly ways—along with the announcement of such a "task," confirmed his suspicions.
After considering his next words, the mole-marked youth, eager to extract more information, beat Xiang Ri to the punch, saying, "Would you like to know who hired us for this job?"
"Let me guess," Xiang Ri said with a confident smile, "It must be some lowlife named Ma who wants you to do this."
"Exactly, it's him!" The youth with the mole gritted his teeth in rage, now more certain than ever of his initial suspicion. From Xiang Ri's calm demeanor, it was clear that he had already anticipated Ma's involvement, showing no sign of surprise.
The youth's resentment only grew, and he couldn't help but desire vengeance against the man named Ma. "Do you know what kinds of 'good deeds' he's been involved in?"
"Oh?" Xiang Ri's interest piqued. He had already planned to settle scores with the man named Ma after this ordeal, and now, being given a chance to learn of his misdeeds firsthand, was nothing short of fortuitous.
"He's a drug dealer!" The mole-marked youth's words struck Xiang Ri like a thunderclap. He had never imagined that his former "high school classmate" was involved in such a "glorious" line of work.
"Anything else?"
"He uses students to smuggle for him. As far as I know, many students from the nearby Finance University are under his control, helping him transport drugs!"
Upon hearing this, Xiang Ri's eyes gleamed with realization. "Are you telling the truth?"
"Absolutely!" Without hesitation, the mole-marked youth laid out the entire sordid "rise to power" of Ma, leaving Xiang Ri dumbfounded. Even Chuchu and Shi Qing, standing nearby, could hardly contain their fury. The actions of this Ma were less a "rise to wealth" than a tale of theft, bloodshed, and drug trafficking!
"Well, well, it looks like we've caught a big fish now!" Xiang Ri exclaimed, his tone tinged with excitement. Of course, his excitement was not without reason. He had been struggling to find a way to impress a certain female police officer, and now, it seemed, fate had delivered an opportunity right to his doorstep.