How was he supposed to buy clothes without money? He couldn't exactly charge into a mall bare-chested. Troubled, Li Yang looked around in all directions. Then his eyes suddenly lit up, and he stared straight overhead.
Both sides of this narrow alley were residential buildings. Since they were residential buildings, there had to be plenty of clothes hanging from the balconies. Li Yang was now looking at the clothes above his head.
"Hehe, this one!" Li Yang smiled as he looked at the clothes on the second-floor balcony overhead. A strand of pure Innate True Qi shot from his hand, easily bringing down a shirt and a pair of pants. Using Innate True Qi for such a trivial matter as taking clothes was truly like using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken.
Li Yang looked at his military trousers. When he trained like mad in the training room, military trousers had still been the most comfortable, but wearing them out on the streets would have been rather unconventional. He immediately changed into this borrowed outfit.
"My eye isn't bad. They fit perfectly!" Li Yang smiled faintly, then calmly walked out.
"Hey, buddy, you still haven't paid this month's protection fee!" A fierce-looking burly man stood bare-armed at the entrance of a small restaurant and bellowed loudly.
A fat-headed man in his forties or fifties, with a little potbelly, immediately came out of the restaurant. The moment he saw the burly man, he called out, "Ah, isn't this Brother Yang? Come, come, come. Just say what you want to eat. No rush on the protection fee. After you're done eating, let Brother Yang take it with him. I guarantee Brother Yang will be completely satisfied."
The moment Brother Yang heard that, a smile appeared on his face. Led by the fat-headed owner, he headed into the restaurant.
"Hey, Brother Yang, wait a moment!"
Suddenly, a familiar and cordial call rang out. Hearing himself addressed so intimately, Brother Yang immediately turned around to see who it was, wondering whether it was some brother he had made at some point.
"You are?" Brother Yang looked at the man before him in confusion. He made many brothers every day on this road, and he truly couldn't remember many of them at a glance. Yet after looking closely at the person before him, he seemed genuinely familiar, but Brother Yang simply couldn't recall who he was.
The person before him was Li Yang. Smiling warmly, Li Yang familiarly patted Brother Yang on the shoulder and said, "We drank together before. Don't you remember?"
People like Brother Yang drank almost every day, and naturally, the brothers they knew were brothers made over drinks. At Li Yang's words, Brother Yang became even more muddled...
"Still can't remember? Sigh, I remembered you, Brother Yang, but Brother Yang can't remember me!" Li Yang looked into Brother Yang's eyes, appearing deeply disappointed—at least, that was what the fat-headed owner saw.
But in Brother Yang's eyes, Li Yang's gaze was like a bottomless abyss, and waves of dizziness flooded his mind.
Li Yang looked at the burly man's expression and smiled faintly. Now that his mind was even stronger, using Hypnosis had become even easier.
"Brother Yang, let your buddy borrow your phone for a moment!" Li Yang's smile appeared exceptionally friendly. Brother Yang, already hypnotized, dazedly took out his phone and handed it to Li Yang.
Li Yang immediately dialed his younger brother Li Shuo's number. "Hello, A Shuo, it's me! I'm over here. Send someone quickly!" The phone's satellite positioning system would make it easy for Li Shuo to learn Li Yang's current location.
"Hey, Brother Yang, go in and eat first. Your buddy here is waiting for someone!" Li Yang returned the phone to Brother Yang, who had recovered from his hypnotized state. Brother Yang was still muddleheaded, but Li Yang's hypnosis still affected him. Hearing Li Yang's words, he entered the restaurant.
Li Yang walked to the mouth of the alley and waited for Li Shuo to arrive. Now, he could only rely on his own brother.
Five minutes. Only five minutes later!
A black sedan stopped in front of Li Yang, and a familiar figure immediately rushed out.
"Brother!"
Li Shuo was beside himself with joy. For an entire year, he had used every means possible to seek information about Li Yang. Later, through people in the military, he received the news that Li Yang had been secretly tried and sentenced to death.
That news had nearly driven Li Shuo mad with pain. Since childhood, he and Li Yang had depended on each other for survival. Though they had a mother, she was a workaholic who buried herself in work day after day and rarely communicated with her children. The two brothers had lived in such an environment for sixteen years, and their brotherly bond was exceptionally deep. They both loved their country and both wanted to contribute to it, but Li Shuo had entered the underworld while Li Yang had entered the military.
"A Shuo!" Li Yang fiercely embraced his brother.
Suddenly, Li Shuo's expression shifted. He looked around before saying to Li Yang, "Brother, we'll talk when we get back." He then pulled Li Yang into the car and drove away...
Around eight that evening.
Inside the Number Two Base of the Life Research Institute.
"Li Yang, this is your dinner for tonight... Li Yang, Li Yang!" A researcher in a white coat stared wide-eyed at the empty training room.
"What! Li Yang is gone?" Old Man Bai Yang glared at the researcher before him and roared.
Though Bai Yang was nearly a hundred years old, when he widened his eyes and roared, his imposing manner was anything but ordinary.
"Yes, we've searched everywhere. We've searched the entire second floor of the base, but we can't find him. Should we thoroughly search the first and third floors as well?" The researcher appeared extremely anxious. Among the researchers working on the Gene Potion, who did not know Li Yang's importance? He was the first expert they had created with over ten thousand crystals.
"Idiot! This base uses iris scans for all entry and exit. How could Li Yang possibly enter the first or third floor?" Bai Yang shouted in rebuke.
The researcher immediately fell silent as a cicada in winter.
"But if he couldn't leave the second floor of the base, how could he not be found on the second floor?" After a long while, the researcher gathered his courage and spoke.
Upon hearing this, Bai Yang was instantly stunned. Right—if Li Yang could not leave the second floor, how could they not find him there? Bai Yang immediately ordered, "Search the first and third floors at once. Order all researchers to join the search. Search carefully. You must find him for me!"
Watching the terrified researcher leave, Bai Yang became even more restless. Suddenly, Old Man Bai Yang smacked his forehead. "Ah, I'm so flustered I've muddled my head. Wouldn't it be enough to search with Spiritual Sense?" Naturally, the result of Old Man Bai Yang's search with Spiritual Sense was obvious.
But from that day onward, every researcher at the Number Two Base of the Life Research Institute remained puzzled. They stayed puzzled until death itself—just how had Li Yang left the base?
"Brother, Meng Tian sent this over. He said you had sacrificed yourself for the country, so he handed all your assets over to me." Li Shuo handed a gold card to Li Yang.
Li Yang took it, then smiled and asked, "A Shuo, have you prepared the plane ticket and ID for New York?"
New York, the center of the world economy, was also home to the headquarters of the Underground Boxing Ring and the place where international underground forces were most concentrated. The starting point of Li Yang's revenge plan was New York.
Hearing this, Li Shuo immediately took a plane ticket and a new ID from his pocket and prepared to hand them to Li Yang. But just as Li Yang was about to take them, Li Shuo pulled them back and urged him once more, "Brother, are you really going to New York? Give it up. How could one person possibly destroy the Shenglin Group? You should join my Hong Bang. We brothers can join forces. With the Hong Bang's immense power as one of the world's five great gangs, we have a chance of destroying the Shenglin Group. But by yourself, how difficult would that be?"
Li Yang smiled faintly. "A Shuo, it's only interesting when there's a challenge. Besides, letting the Shenglin Group be destroyed all at once would be letting Lin Tianyu off too easily. I want to torture him slowly, make him walk step by step toward destruction. I want him to despair. I want him to suffer a fate worse than death. Only then can I vent the hatred in my heart." The cold gleam in Li Yang's eyes was almost tangible, making hearts tremble.
"Tomorrow morning, I'll take a plane and leave. For now, let's just drink and enjoy ourselves, brothers. Ah, don't make that face. Fine, fine, I promise you. If your brother fails, A Shuo, then use the Hong Bang's power to help me. Is that enough?" Li Yang said with a smile.
Only then was Li Shuo satisfied.
"Come, drink!" The two brothers, Li Yang and Li Shuo, drank merrily, utterly forgetting that they would part the next day.
In the vast sea, fish could leap; beneath the high heavens, birds could fly. What storms of blood and wind would the unrestrained Li Yang stir up in New York, where international underground forces were most concentrated?
The first volume officially ended!
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