Chapter 72 – Violent Counterattack

In the crowd, a shifty-looking man saw Su Lifeng actually take the initiative to head toward a less populated area, and a flicker of excitement immediately crossed his face. He glanced left and right, signaled to a few others in the mass of people, then moved to cut him off.

Without letting anything show, Su Lifeng slowly walked to an empty corner by the wall. Only then did he stop.

“Did Jiang Qianqian send you?” Su Lifeng asked, turning around.

The men had been pretending to simply pass by as they approached him. The man in the lead had just pulled a club out from behind his back and was about to launch a sneak attack, only for his target to suddenly turn around.

He froze, then snarled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Whoosh!

As the wooden club came swinging down, Su Lifeng nimbly sidestepped, grabbed the club from the side, and at the same time lashed out with a flying kick that slammed heavily into the man’s abdomen.

The others had just clenched their fists, ready to swarm Su Lifeng the instant he was stunned by the club or knocked to the ground. Instead, they suddenly realized the script had changed.

The one screaming was their boss. The one who had been sent flying was also their boss.

And Su Lifeng was now holding the wooden club, swinging it straight at them.

“Fuck, this guy’s tough! Get him, brothers! I’m gonna kill this bastard!” The man on the ground had never expected things to play out this way. He only thought he’d been caught off guard. After a moment of dazed shock, he endured the pain and cursed in fury, struggling back to his feet while pulling a fruit knife from his pocket with one hand.

“Hmph.” Su Lifeng knocked two men over with two consecutive swings of the club. The moment he saw the man pull a knife, he immediately reached out, seized the man’s wrist, and squeezed hard.

The other man let out a scream of agony. Whether or not his wrist had been twisted to the point of breaking, the knife instantly fell from his hand. But Su Lifeng had no intention of letting him off. As his fist clenched, the Exoskeleton surfaced at once, and the punch landed heavily on the man’s body with a short, sharp sonic boom.

Bang! A dull impact rang out.

This time, the man could not even scream. The others, who had been about to pounce, clearly heard a series of cracks instead, and a chill shot up from the soles of their feet.

He had broken ribs with his bare hands! Who knew how many he had broken in one blow? Even a real martial artist probably wouldn’t be much more terrifying than this!

This was far from the first time they had done something like this. Breaking people’s arms and legs in a chaotic beating was nothing new to them. But having their own bones broken by a refined-looking young man like this? That was a first!

After that punch, Su Lifeng threw another, then another. Only after three rapid blows: bang, bang, bang, did he kick the man away like a sack of grain.

“So… so ruthless.” The closest thug stared, dumbfounded. The fist he had been about to swing at Su Lifeng wavered in hesitation.

Smack! He hesitated, but Su Lifeng did not. A single swing of the club smashed into his face, instantly drawing another scream, along with several teeth that flew out in pieces.

Only now did these men finally react to Su Lifeng’s merciless and unusually decisive counterattack. How was this them teaching Su Lifeng a lesson? This was clearly Su Lifeng beating them one-sidedly!

And he seemed to have no sense of restraint at all. His only bottom line was not killing anyone. But judging by the state of their boss, he already looked half-dead!

“F-Fuck… what kind of student is this…?”

“Go, go, go!”

The men immediately turned to flee, while some reached out to drag their boss away.

Su Lifeng had no intention of chasing them down. After dropping the wooden club, he frowned.

He was certain these men had some connection to Jiang Qianqian. But judging from the reaction of their leader just now, he really did not seem to know Jiang Qianqian personally.

“Either way, after this, she should finally learn to rein herself in.” Su Lifeng thought again of that cat. “I was planning to give her another warning, for Jiang Yushi’s sake. But since things have turned out like this, you can suffer a little first…”

Su Lifeng had no intention of getting dragged into Jiang Qianqian’s personal grudges, but since she insisted on pestering him again and again, he naturally wasn’t going to be polite. That cat had been lunging at him; it wouldn’t do anything to Jiang Qianqian. Whether it would scare her half to death, however, was another matter. When Jiang Qianqian picked up the cat, he hadn’t seen any Precognitive Vision from her. But when that girl picked up the cat, her laughing face had instantly turned despairing and miserable, her eyes filled with blood.

That was why Su Lifeng had immediately spoken up to warn her.

If Jiang Qianqian hadn’t insisted on taking the cat by force, Su Lifeng would have bought it himself.

“I guess this counts as bringing disaster on yourself,” Su Lifeng thought. Then he called Gouzi. “Help me look into a few people. You’re all…”

The thugs supported one another as they made their way back to the car. Naturally, they drew countless stares along the way.

“Hey, Young Master Zhu, what you told us wasn’t right at all! That guy’s practically a martial arts expert! Us? We got beaten to hell… What? Useless? Screw you… What about the money?! Hello? Hello?!”

The thug who had been on the phone glared bitterly at his screen, then clenched his fist and slammed it into the steering wheel. “Damn it! Boss, what do we do? He won’t pay! Boss?”

The thug turned his head, only to find his boss staring wide-eyed, as if he wanted to say something. But the moment he opened his mouth, he spat out a mouthful of blood. From his eyes alone, it was clear he was about to die of sheer rage…

By then, Jiang Qianqian was already sitting in a black sedan parked outside Zhangjiayuan, the cat cage in her arms.

In the driver’s seat, Zhu Hao put down his phone and turned to glance at Jiang Qianqian.

“So? Did you teach him a lesson?” Jiang Qianqian had already heard the result from Zhu Hao’s muttered “useless,” but she still couldn’t help asking.

Zhu Hao smiled faintly, his drifting gaze landing on the cage in Jiang Qianqian’s hands. “No. They failed. Looks like he’s much more capable than you said.”

“Didn’t you say you had that person helping you?” Jiang Qianqian said unhappily. She even forgot to ask how someone like Su Lifeng could possibly have beaten those thugs who made a living hurting people.

“I do. But she’s been busy with something else lately and can’t spare any attention for me for the time being… I’ll go talk to her again. Since this got botched, if she still won’t help me, I might not be able to hold on much longer. So maybe very soon, I’ll be able to help you myself.” Zhu Hao spoke in a strangely disjointed way, reaching his hand toward the edge of the cage.

At the sight of that gesture, Jiang Qianqian’s scalp prickled for no reason. She quickly pulled the cage aside. “Don’t touch it!”

“Meow!” A low cry came from the cat inside the cage.

Zhu Hao froze for a moment, then looked up at his cousin and smiled. “Since you like it, then take good care of it. You don’t usually enjoy looking after pets, so don’t neglect this one… Haha, I’m joking. Don’t worry. I’ll handle Su Lifeng for you.”

Through the cage, Zhu Hao glanced at the cat’s dim, eerie eyes, and a meaningful smile appeared on his face.

Meanwhile, Su Lifeng had also received Gouzi’s report. “Hm? It was Zhu Hao? You said he refused to pay? In that case, he never planned on having them keep it a secret, did he?”

Gouzi said from the other end, “Exactly! That guy is way too arrogant! If he hadn’t pissed off those people, I wouldn’t have been able to find out this quickly.”

“Arrogant?” Su Lifeng thought back to Zhu Hao’s patient, smiling expression and shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like it…”

“Then what was he doing it for?” Gouzi asked.

And that was exactly the question Su Lifeng was pondering…