Passerby

"I understood one thing when I was very young: I wouldn't die."

"I tried jumping from the tenth floor and injured a passerby."

"I tried throwing myself into a river, but someone happened to be diving nearby."

"I tried taking poison, but it turned out I had bought a counterfeit."

"I tried electrocuting myself, but the voltage tripped the breaker."

"I tried cutting my wrists, but my constitution was special and my recovery was astonishing. Before I could bleed to death, the wound had already healed."

"I tried lying on the railway tracks... but the railway staff found me, reprimanded and educated me, and my parents even grounded me for a month."

"A nuclear war erupted without warning. A Nuclear Bomb detonated above my head, its searing white light illuminating heaven and earth. I thought I was finally going to be free... but I still didn't die. Instead, I was strangely reborn and continued living in this world!"

"But this time... I might really die."

"Not beneath the destruction of the stars, but beneath one man's fist. That punch came crashing toward my skull, its Fist Intent shattering my soul as the aura of death surged into my face. I realized that, as it turned out... I feared death too."

"Little bastard, get lost!"

"Wang Gang!"

A furious roar echoed beside his ears, accompanied by the sound of gunfire.

That shot forced the figure lunging toward Baili Qingfeng to twist violently and evade the bullet. The fist originally aimed at his skull also changed from a punch into a sweeping blow, landing on his shoulder.

"Bang!"

The next moment, Baili Qingfeng, who had just passed the mouth of the alley, felt as though a truck had slammed into him. The crisp sound of breaking bones rang out, half his body instantly went numb, and his figure was involuntarily blasted away by that terrifying force. After flying six meters, he crashed heavily onto the ground, then rolled twice with the momentum. His knees and palms were scraped open, blood pouring freely.

"Hahahaha, Jiang Ziheng, you useless wretch! You dared bring people to ambush me, and now you're running!?"

After sending Baili Qingfeng flying, Wang Gang let out a wild laugh. Strength exploded beneath his feet, and the tiled floor shattered apart under the force. Borrowing that momentum, his whole body shot forward like a sharp arrow, at a speed of...

Over thirty meters per second!

"Anyone who blocks me dies!"

Ahead of Wang Gang, a spear-wielding man not yet thirty was struck head-on. For a moment, he seemed to have been hit by a cannon shell. Baili Qingfeng could even see the invisible ripples formed as the air exploded from the impact.

"Bang!"

A devastating blow!

A fist mark caved directly into the man's chest, his ribs breaking in unison. The berserk force seemed to pierce through his body, bursting from his back, shredding the clothes there, and then...

His figure was just like Baili Qingfeng's...

No!

Even worse than Baili Qingfeng's.

Baili Qingfeng had flown six meters, while he flew three meters before crashing heavily into a wall, cracking the cement surface. Blood mixed with fragments of internal organs sprayed from his mouth...

He wasn't going to make it.

This was the first time in Baili Qingfeng's two lives, spanning more than thirty years, that he had seen a dead person.

And this person had been beaten to death by someone's bare fist right in front of him.

He was an Outstanding Student who loved studying and understood physics. Breaking a person's ribs with a fist required a force of one thousand newtons, but the injuries on that man clearly couldn't be explained by strength alone.

Was he a monster?

Or was it...

Martial arts?

Wang Gang vanished.

His pursuit of Jiang Ziheng gradually receded into the distance.

From the other direction, he could still hear someone making a call: "Send an ambulance immediately, yes, the entrance to Xizi Alley. A Martial Artist Vendetta... There's also a passerby accidentally injured by Wang Gang. He'll probably need his funeral arrangements prepared too..."

The voice gradually faded, and soon there was no sound at all.

Baili Qingfeng lay there for a while. Several bones had been broken, and his injuries were rather serious. With wounds this severe...

It would probably take a day or two to recover.

Go to the hospital?

There was no need to trouble the hospital. The admission and discharge procedures were too troublesome.

Thus, Baili Qingfeng—the passerby who, according to that person, would probably need his funeral arrangements prepared—wobbled to his feet. Although his shoulder still hurt terribly, knowing that it hurt was a good thing. It proved that his injuries were recovering.

Baili Qingfeng came to stand before the middle-aged man who had been beaten to death.

A dead person...

He wasn't afraid.

A person lived only once, between life and death.

Besides, he couldn't die anyway.

He looked the man over.

"A special national department? The Dragon Group? Or a martial arts expert? A successor of a hidden sect?"

Baili Qingfeng watched for half a minute. Only when a burst of Alarm Bell sounded from the mouth of the alley did he withdraw his gaze.

He didn't stay there any longer and chose to leave.

At the alley entrance, he saw several medical workers hurriedly carrying stretchers inside. As for Baili Qingfeng...

His expression was normal, and he could move and walk. They barely gave him a glance.

Baili Qingfeng's home was just a short distance past the corner. It was in the Old City District, in a dilapidated two-story building. Though it was old and worn, whenever it was demolished, this little building could make the family rich overnight.

Over the three-hundred-meter journey, the abrasions on his palms healed, and the cuts on his knees scabbed over. By the time he reached the building, he peeled off the scabs, revealing tender, fair new flesh beneath. There wasn't a trace of injury, as though nothing had happened.

His astonishing recovery had come with him through rebirth.

"I'm back."

Baili Qingfeng called out as he entered.

"You're back. Did the job search go smoothly?"

His father Baili Hong's voice came from the kitchen.

"It was a health supplement sales company. They sell unlicensed products. It didn't seem reliable."

"If you really feel bored, sign up for a training course. There's no need to take a summer job."

"I'll keep looking. If I really can't find work, I'll learn something."

As he spoke, Baili Qingfeng changed his shoes, went upstairs, entered his bedroom, and dropped onto the bed.

His shoulder still throbbed. The reckless attempts at suicide during his childhood had given Baili Qingfeng a high tolerance for pain. In any case, he would recover soon enough, so he couldn't be bothered to think about it.

Lying on the bed, Baili Qingfeng stared at the somewhat dilapidated ceiling and seriously pondered a question.

"I was just a student who happened to pass the alley entrance. I was completely clueless, yet a middle-aged man named Jiang Ziheng shoved me over to block the way? Wang Gang, whose path had been blocked, had such a violent temper that he punched me, intending to kill me? He could have told me to move. I would have listened and moved."

There was no answer.

The image of Wang Gang's punch came to mind again, along with the suffocation that had risen from his very soul and the tremor of his instinct for survival.

At that moment, he had truly thought he was going to die.

To Wang Gang, he had been as insignificant as a...

Tiny ant.

An ant that could be crushed with a casual hand.

So he hadn't told him to move. He had simply thrown a punch, as though an ant had blocked a person's path. A person wouldn't move the ant aside or wait for it to crawl away—they would simply crush it beneath their foot.

"Death... If that shot hadn't interfered and his punch had struck my head, could it have killed me? Would I have died?"

That question lingered in Baili Qingfeng's mind.

Wang Gang was the only man in his life who had made him feel the aura of death. The spiritual impact had been too powerful, so powerful that it had taken root in his mind and refused to fade, forcing him to keep turning the question over.

Would he die?

This question...

Only Wang Gang could answer it.

Baili Qingfeng tossed and turned on the bed.

Half an hour, one hour, two hours, three hours...

"This world..."

Baili Qingfeng sat up.

"Having lived a second life, I wanted to quietly be an Outstanding Student who excelled in academics, morality, and physical education, a student who loved studying, so I wouldn't fail those people from my previous life who had been heartbroken, disappointed, and despairing because of me. Yet two groups of people fought to the death and dragged a harmless passerby like me into it. One disregarded my life and used me to block the way, while the other directly tried to kill me. Now my heart is panicked and confused. This confusion comes from the unknown, from curiosity, and from... death! I yearned for death because I had no attachments, but people had to learn to cherish things. Since I had returned from death, I should cherish being alive and live well... As for those who make me afraid and disturb my heart..."

Face them head-on!

With a fearless heart, face them head-on!

Wang Gang. Jiang Ziheng.

"They want to kill me, so I'll kill them."

"Study martial arts?"

At the dining table.

Baili Qingfeng's father, Baili Hong, who had just finished reheating the dishes, and his older sister, Baili Die, who had just returned from work, both looked up at him in astonishment.

"You want to study martial arts?"

"Yes."

Baili Qingfeng nodded. "It's summer vacation, and I want to find something to do. So I want to study martial arts."

"That's fine. Martial arts can strengthen your body, and at a critical moment, they can help you protect yourself. Go to Sanshun Town and look for your Second Grandfather. Your Second Grandfather knows martial arts and has taught several disciples. He's somewhat well-known throughout the surrounding neighborhoods."

"Okay."

Baili Qingfeng nodded.

"By the way, you two siblings need to be careful recently. I heard from people at work that a group of fugitives escaped to Wuhe City. The authorities sent out a notice. If you see anyone acting or speaking strangely, whatever you do, don't gather around or provoke them. They're said to have taken lives, and they're extremely vicious. Ordinary people like us can't afford to provoke them."

Baili Hong warned them.

"The Alarm Bell over at Xizi Alley rang for half the day today. Could they have caught those fugitives?"

Baili Die asked.

Her company was located nearby.

"Who knows? The world's been getting more chaotic lately. The Steel Empire and the Lanka Kingdom have already gone to war, while the friction between our Xia Kingdom and the Aurora Empire in the north has grown increasingly intense. There have been four war marches in the streets this month, and even our workplace is organizing war donations. I don't know whether there'll be a war. In any case, just be careful."

Baili Hong spoke.

Baili Qingfeng said nothing. He didn't tell his father and sister that he had encountered the vicious fugitives they were talking about that afternoon, or that one of them had struck him with a palm powerful enough to kill an ordinary person.

Although this father and this sister weren't his biological parents, a year had already passed since his rebirth. A year of living together day and night was enough to cultivate some affection.

Affection...

It was the most difficult thing in this world to understand.

It warmed people, inspired people, hurt people, and destroyed people.