Black Hand Yang Jia

On the street outside the docks, seven or eight tall motorcycles had gathered at some point. They brazenly lined up their bikes in the middle of the road, ridden by men with strange hairstyles, clad in leather jackets and dirty boots. Shiny rivets made them look like hedgehogs, and even though the motorcycles were stationary, their headlights were on, casting a blinding glare far ahead.

Not only did pedestrians avoid them, but even approaching vehicles, sensing trouble, steered clear from a distance.

Huang Mao excitedly rushed forward, bowing and scraping with a smile before a man who looked to be in his thirties with a pink mohawk.

The man waved him aside impatiently.

Huang Mao immediately crossed his arms, looking very pleased with himself, head held high in the eyes of his fellow workers.

Under the gaze of the crowd and the bright headlights, Xiao Xiao finally emerged from the docks. He carried his backpack, facing the shining lights as if confronting a pack of roaring, crawling monsters.

"Not a lot of them, but barely enough..."

Xiao Xiao saw that as soon as he came out, Huang Mao pointed at him, shouting something loudly.

The men on the motorcycles sneered. Some flashed their headlights, while others honked their horns forcefully.

The man sitting on the motorcycle in the middle beckoned him over with a finger.

A slight sense of nervousness welled up from the bottom of his heart. As a good student all his life, and then a four-year homebody after graduation, he was genuinely afraid of these people...

But he remained calm, silently walking towards them with his bag, while constantly reassuring himself:

"It's for learning, it's not embarrassing."

"..."

These earnest thoughts gradually calmed his gaze. He slowly walked the thirty-odd meters, arriving among the menacing thugs. He saw Huang Mao's smug face, and the tall man in the middle, sizing him up with a sneer. The man suddenly raised his voice, leaning forward in a tactical stance, and said, "So, you're the kid who pissed off my bro..."

Xiao Xiao raised his hand, swung his right arm in a wide arc, twisting half his body, and slammed it hard into the man's face.

He hadn't fought much before, so he didn't know the rules.

Was it okay to just start hitting?

"Slap!"

The leader's head snapped violently to the left, his neck making a "crack" sound. He saw stars, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

More importantly, he was stunned, unable to recover for a long moment.

The surroundings were instantly silent, as if even the motorcycles were frightened, not honking for a long time.

"Holy shit, holy shit..."

After a full two or three seconds, the surroundings erupted in chaos. The crowd woke up from their stupor, jumping up in a frenzy.

But by this time, Xiao Xiao had already shaken his numb hand, then took two steps back, used the momentum to leap into the air, and kicked the biker gang leader off his motorcycle.

Then, he followed through with a punch, slamming it into Huang Mao's face, who was standing blankly, at a loss.

From the moment he decided to act, he hadn't hesitated at all. He was in a state of excited tension, and time seemed to slow down.

He could clearly see the thugs cursing and yelling, grabbing their weapons – baseball bats, chains, and even gleaming daggers – and charging at him.

The surroundings were filled with swaying figures, and angry faces everywhere.

Very dangerous.

But Xiao Xiao had already considered this in advance. Theoretically, as long as he was careful, he could handle it.

So he kicked out hard, causing a cracking sound in the ankle of a thug who charged at him. As if he had eyes in the back of his head, he dodged a baseball bat swung at his head.

Turning around, he grabbed the attacker's joint and lifted it upwards. The attacker howled and released the baseball bat, staggering backwards.

Xiao Xiao caught the baseball bat and swung it back.

"Bang!"

The biker gang leader, who had just gotten up from the ground, was hit in the face with the bat, and saw stars again, squatting down and howling.

At this moment, Xiao Xiao's face was filled with a smile.

He had already entered Mind Burst state. In his vision, these flailing thugs were like a group of clumsy puppets.

As long as he remained calm and thoughtful, he could always plan how to dodge and counterattack before their attacks reached him.

This made his movements in the chaos seem very composed.

Each step forward and back, seemingly ordinary, always allowed him to evade the swinging clubs, and then unexpectedly kick out or throw a punch, always causing a thug to clutch his crotch or cover his nose and cry out in pain. To the eyes of the surrounding onlookers, his relaxed demeanor even suggested a mocking, carefree attitude towards his own life...

Facing such violent and bloody scenes, he moved like a dance, elegant and composed, yet using the most effective and violent means to exchange blows with them.

"Bang," "Bang!"

Xiao Xiao took a couple of hits during the fight. He was struck on the back by a baseball bat.

A sharp dagger also narrowly cut his right arm, and blood instantly soaked half of his sleeve.

But Xiao Xiao only staggered slightly, then looked down at his arm, a look of surprise on his face, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.

He became even more involved in the brawl, as if the more he was injured, the more he enjoyed the game.

"Is this guy crazy?"

Most of the bikers were already lying on the ground. Even those who weren't were feeling increasingly cold inside, their arms limp, no longer daring to attack.

Damn it, this guy was not only skilled, but also ruthless. The key was that he seemed to get even more excited when he was injured...

Mixing it up on the streets, you see plenty of tough guys, but how many get even more excited at the sight of blood? Especially when everyone there could see that Xiao Xiao was genuinely thrilled, practically about to burst out laughing.

Who the hell would want to fight someone like that?

"How could I not be excited?"

Meanwhile, Xiao Xiao's thoughts were very simple. He was truly on the verge of laughing out loud.

Found it.

He'd spent a whole day and night pondering the route he should take, unable to make a final decision. Then this sudden brawl gave him the answer.

He wasn't excited by the act of hitting people. He wasn't a pervert; why would he find hurting others fun?

But taking those hits, especially that knife wound, had instantly hit his sweet spot: "So, this is what I was missing."

Logically, with his Mind Burst ability and his Violence Factor-enhanced body, he could have avoided getting hurt against these sluggish puppets. But during the fight, he'd discovered his weakness: in the chaos, some attacks were unexpected, or his vision couldn't catch them, making it impossible to calculate effectively and come up with a plan to dodge or counter in time.

His thinking ability wasn't the problem; it was his information-gathering ability.

That knife, that burning wound, instantly made Xiao Xiao understand the problem he'd been agonizing over. How could he not be happy?

The battle ended in three minutes. The biker gang lay scattered on the ground, groaning, with their motorcycles toppled over.

Xiao Xiao stood in the middle of the chaos, shaking the blood off his hand.

He sighed contentedly, forcing himself not to look too excited, and picked up his backpack. After all, he had to catch the subway.

But after walking a short distance, he suddenly remembered something and turned back to smile sincerely at the bikers lying on the ground.

"Thanks..."

"..."

"He actually thanked us..."

The bikers were beyond tears, especially their leader, who was the most injured but hadn't even had a chance to fight back. It took him a while to recover.

Seeing his brothers beaten so badly, and the mocking looks from the bystanders, he flew into a rage. He grabbed the yellow-haired guy, who'd already received special attention, and slapped him hard across the face twice.

"This is the little punk you were talking about?"

"This is the kid you said would cry if you just stomped your foot?"

"..."

"That kid's got something going on..."

Of course, neither the biker gang, driven to the brink of collapse, nor Xiao Xiao, who was analyzing things seriously and feeling satisfied, noticed that a pair of red eyes had been watching everything in silence.

Like a hunter lurking in the shadows, greedily eyeing its prey: "Brutal, ruthless, seems to really enjoy the pleasure that comes from pain..."

"Where did Yang Jia find such a madman? He doesn't treat those people like people at all. I think he sees them as toys. I wouldn't be surprised if he killed those thugs."

"But the way he gets excited when he attacks, yet is also careful not to break them, I kind of like that..."

"..."

"Hurry up and take care of him and come back."

Another voice instructed in his earpiece, "Remember, don't let Yang Jia notice you've been involved, even if it's a request from the Black Forest, it doesn't mean we want to tear up our relationship with her."

"Afraid?"

Hearing his words, the voice in the earpiece chuckled, "You're in intelligence gathering, don't you understand that woman Yang Jia?"

The red-eyed man paused slightly and said, "I know she seems to have been doing well recently, but..."

"Using the word 'well' shows you still don't take her seriously enough."

The man in the earpiece sneered, "This girl named Yang Jia is indeed young, and she's only been in the Dante Organization for three years, but you'd better not underestimate her."

"She's one of the fastest-rising rookies in the last four years, and her mentor just happens to be the one who was respected by everyone in Black Gate City before."

"Heh, Black Hand Yang Jia..."

"Do you really think you can get that title so easily?"

"She's the woman who once wiped out an entire Prayer Secret Organization without batting an eye..."

"After dealing with those tricky people in Black Gate City, it was already our mistake that we accidentally attracted this woman, who had already settled in the north, to return to Black Gate City to help them rebuild. Now, we all know she wants to rebuild the previous Black Gate City organization. If we still haven't learned to take her seriously and fear her, then maybe all our efforts will really be in vain."

"..."

The red-eyed man didn't expect him to speak so solemnly. After a long silence, he whispered, "Then what should we do?"

"What to do?"

The man in the earpiece sneered, "Get rid of him!"

"But do it cleanly. With your current ability, it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"..."

The red-eyed man paused, then chuckled softly, "If I can't even take care of a guy with at most 200 Points worth of enhancements, then I really wouldn't have the face to follow the Shepherd..."