Tianhai Third High School's back alley was a narrow passageway piled with garbage cans and reeking of sour, rotten food.
Far from the bustle of the teaching buildings, it was a natural venue for all kinds of "private deals" and "settling grudges."
Lin Xiao leaned against the cold, damp wall covered in graffiti. The bandages securing his right arm were hidden beneath his oversized school uniform sleeve. His complexion was better than it had been a few days ago, but the exhaustion caused by overexertion and the feeling of depletion at -1.4 deep in his eyes still clung to him like a bone-deep affliction.
He had just obtained some black-market information from Fatty Wang, brought in by Skinny Monkey—information about a peddler of low-grade Energy Stone fragments with a decent reputation and relatively "fair" prices.
The price was the few hundred yuan in cash he had left, plus Fatty Wang's lunch money for next month. The pressure of Source Energy Points hung over him like a sword suspended above his head, forcing him to take the risk.
"Brother Xiao, Skinny Monkey said the guy's called 'Old Ghost.' He usually hangs around the back entrance of the secondhand market. He really does have some good stuff, but his prices are vicious. And supposedly, he has some shady connections with Scarface Qiang's people."
Fatty Wang rubbed his hands, worry written across his chubby face. "Are we really going to deal with him?"
"Not going? Wait around to be bled dry?"
Lin Xiao's voice carried a hint of hoarse coldness. He pinched the few thin bills in his pocket. "We can't afford those things in the black market that cost tens of thousands. This kind of loose stock is our only chance. Scarface Qiang? Hah, wasn't that Zhang Kun under him scared into wetting himself by a single word from Su Qingxue?"
At the mention of Su Qingxue, the corner of Lin Xiao's mouth habitually curled into a roguish smile, but a trace of gloom swept through the depths of his eyes.
The questioning on the rooftop—"Those deep-blue eyes reflecting the vortex of stars"—was like a cold needle stabbing into his heart.
The secret of the Modifier had ultimately revealed the tip of the iceberg.
Su Qingxue's fear and wariness had deepened. Using this "shield" would probably not be so convenient in the future.
Just as he was calculating how to exchange his last funds for those scant Source Energy Points...
The light at the mouth of the alley suddenly dimmed!
Three figures blocked the narrow exit like ghosts.
The leader stood nearly a meter ninety tall and was built like an iron tower.
His hair was shaved down to a close-cropped stubble. A hideous scar, like a centipede, slashed diagonally across his face from his brow to the corner of his mouth, twisting whenever his facial muscles moved and making him look even more vicious.
He wore a tight black tank top. His muscular arms were knotted with bulging flesh and covered in blue-black tattoos, radiating the aura of a wild beast—he was none other than Scarface Qiang, a minor leader on the outskirts of the Blood Wolf Gang!
Two equally vicious lackeys followed behind him. One casually weighed a switchblade with a blood groove in his hand, while the other cracked his knuckles with an ear-grating series of pops.
Three pairs of eyes, like hungry wolves that had locked onto their prey, fixed on Lin Xiao with undisguised savagery and amusement!
The air instantly solidified!
The pungent stench of garbage mixed with a cold killing intent, making it hard to breathe!
Fatty Wang cried, "Oh, God!" His soul nearly fled his body, the color draining from his chubby face as he instinctively shrank behind Lin Xiao, trembling like a sieve.
Lin Xiao's heart sank!
Every muscle in his body tensed instantly!
A sharp pain shot through the fractured bones in his right arm, reminding him of his current weakness. His Source Energy Points were depleted, his physical condition was terrible, and he was facing a gang leader whose strength was absolutely above that of a two-star martial artist, with two clearly formidable thugs beside him...
A desperate situation!
Yet the roguish smile of careless amusement on his face appeared reflexively the moment Scarface Qiang showed up. It was even brighter and more provocative than usual!
"Well, well, isn't that Scarface Brother?"
Lin Xiao's voice brimmed with exaggerated enthusiasm, as if he had run into an old friend. He even raised his left hand and waved casually. "What brings you, a great deity, to this heap of garbage? Looking for me?"
Scarface Qiang narrowed his snake-like eyes slightly and looked Lin Xiao up and down. His gaze lingered on Lin Xiao's clearly unnatural right arm and pale face for a moment before his mouth split into a cruel arc, revealing smoke-yellowed teeth.
"Lin Xiao?" His voice was hoarse and low, like sandpaper scraping against rusted iron. "Sure enough, you're a brat who doesn't know when to quit. You crippled Zhao Hu and still dare swagger around the school? Do you really think that just because you've latched onto that girl from the Su family, nobody will dare touch you?"
He took a step forward. His heavy foot came down on the sewage-slick ground with a dull splash.
An aura several times fiercer than Zhang Kun's, like solidified icy water, instantly enveloped the entire alley!
Fatty Wang could barely breathe beneath the pressure, his legs going weak.
"Zhao Hu's debt is due."
Scarface Qiang stared at Lin Xiao as though he were looking at a corpse. "I'll break both your legs and one arm. Consider that the interest. Su Qingxue? Hmph. She can protect you for a while, but not for a lifetime! No matter how powerful the Su family is, they can't extend their reach into Blood Wolf Gang territory!"
A naked threat!
A death sentence drenched in the smell of blood!
The two thugs behind him also advanced with sinister grins. The switchblade flashed coldly in the dim light, while the man cracking his knuckles looked even more vicious.
The conflict was about to erupt!
The smile on Lin Xiao's face did not change in the slightest. Instead, it grew even brighter.
As if he had not heard the bloody threat, he tilted his head and asked in an extremely irritating, curious tone:
"Scarface Brother, can I ask you something? That big idiot Zhao Hu... Is he lying in the hospital eating liquid food, or can he gnaw on a chicken leg by himself now? That arm of his... Tsk, tsk, the bone was sticking right out. Did they manage to reattach it? What did the doctor say? Will he still be able to hold a bowl for the rest of his life?"
Boom!
Lin Xiao's airy words, filled with mockery and insult, were like a ladle of cold water thrown into boiling oil, instantly detonating the powder keg!
"You're fucking asking to die!"
The scar on Scarface Qiang's face twisted instantly into an enraged centipede!
Killing intent surged in his eyes! A violent murderous aura erupted like a volcano!
He had never expected Lin Xiao to remain this arrogant while at an absolute disadvantage—to dare expose Zhao Hu's wounds and slap him in the face!
The two thugs behind him roared as well. Like hyenas provoked into a frenzy, the switchblade and fists came with fierce winds as they lunged at Lin Xiao from both sides!
Their targets were his legs and his intact left arm!
Their attacks were vicious and utterly merciless!
"Brother Xiao!" Fatty Wang screamed in despair!
Lin Xiao's pupils contracted! Every nerve in his body tightened to its absolute limit!
He abruptly leaned against the wall to his side, narrowly dodging the switchblade stabbing toward his thigh!
At the same time, his left hand shot out like lightning—not to block, but to deliver a vicious uppercut. Carrying the condensed force of the optimized Long Fist, it struck precisely against the inner side of the wrist of the other thug's punching hand!
Crack!
A faint sound of bone fracturing!
"Ah!" The thug shrieked, his punching arm instantly going limp!
But Scarface Qiang's attack was the truly fatal one!
The instant his men lunged, his hammer-like fist, trailing a shriek that tore through the air and a faint ocher glow of True Qi, came from behind yet arrived first. Like a cannonball fired from its chamber, it shot straight at Lin Xiao's face!
Its speed and force far surpassed Zhang Kun's! This was the true killing move of a martial artist who had lived by the blade!
There was nowhere to dodge!
Lin Xiao could even feel the sting of the wind scraping across his face!
The shadow of death instantly enveloped him!
At that critical moment—
Humm!
A chill far colder and more immense than the one in the cafeteria, carrying a biting killing intent, descended from the direction of the alley's mouth like a polar storm, without warning!
It swept through the entire narrow space in an instant!
The temperature plummeted!
The dirty water remaining on the ground even condensed into tiny frost crystals at a speed visible to the naked eye!
The dust in the air froze and fell in soft rustles!
Time seemed to freeze once more!
Scarface Qiang's certain-to-hit fatal punch halted stiffly less than ten centimeters from the tip of Lin Xiao's nose!
The fury on his face was instantly replaced by extreme terror!
An icy, soul-freezing pressure, like an invisible iceberg, slammed into him!
The blood throughout his body nearly froze!
The circulation of his True Qi instantly slowed to a crawl!
The two thugs behind him were even more like men struck by a restraining spell, frozen in place with boundless terror on their faces, their screams stuck in their throats!
A cool, aloof figure appeared soundlessly at the mouth of the alley, like a moon goddess stepping through the ice.
Su Qingxue!
She was still dressed in that spotless white martial arts uniform, but what radiated from her now was no longer cool detachment. It was killing intent as biting as ten-thousand-year-old black ice!
Her gaze was so cold that it held not a trace of warmth, like two swords tempered in icy poison, locked firmly onto Scarface Qiang!
The increase in mental power brought by opening the Jade Balance Meridian made her pressure even more condensed and oppressive now!
"Dogs of the Blood Wolf Gang," she said, her voice colder than ice. Every word seemed to carry shards of frost and struck clearly at everyone's heart. "Who gave you the nerve to touch my man?"
Scarface Qiang's face turned deathly pale the instant Su Qingxue appeared and he heard the words "my man"!
Cold sweat poured down his forehead in beads!
He felt as though he had been thrown into an ice cavern, even his marrow trembling!
A martial artist from the Su family!
And such a young martial artist, with such overwhelming power!
How could she be here? Had she really come in person for this thug?
Overwhelming fear instantly crushed his fury and killing intent!
Scarface Qiang knew that he could not avenge this grudge today!
At least not here, not in front of Su Qingxue!
He stiffly and with immense difficulty slowly withdrew the fist halted in front of Lin Xiao.
The movement was filled with humiliation and unwillingness, yet there was nothing he could do.
He glared viciously at Lin Xiao, his eyes filled with venom and the menace of Just you wait. Then, facing Su Qingxue, he forced a few words through clenched teeth with extreme reluctance:
"Su... Miss Su, it's a misunderstanding. We'll leave right now!"
After saying that, he did not even dare look at Su Qingxue again. Leading his two men, who were like frightened birds, he squeezed out of the alley in a panic like a stray dog, practically crawling as he disappeared into the light at its mouth.
Only the cold chill, the frozen frost, and Lin Xiao remained in the alley. He leaned against the wall, wearing a roguish smile that was playful despite his narrow escape. Beside him, Fatty Wang had collapsed in fright.
And at the mouth of the alley stood Su Qingxue, radiating biting killing intent like an ice goddess.
Her gaze, like two ice spikes, slowly withdrew from the direction in which Scarface Qiang had vanished before finally settling on Lin Xiao's roguish face, which seemed to suggest that everything was under control.
Her eyes were still cold, but compared with when she had faced Scarface Qiang, they now held an extremely complicated, indescribable anger and profound weariness.
"Lin Xiao," she said, her voice carrying a cold storm compressed to its absolute limit. "You'd better give me an explanation! About your 'eyes'! And just how much trouble have you gotten yourself into?"
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