Making a Move

The bodyguards beneath the Zhenyuan Escort Agency sign slowly parted, opening a path through the crowd. Just as everyone was about to figure out where the questioning voice had come from, a figure swift as lightning appeared in the middle of the street like a phantom.

The whole street was in turmoil: a woman weeping, the aroma of roasted chestnuts, resentful commoners by the roadside, and shopkeepers hanging back with their "nothing to do with me" attitude. Every scene, every image, proclaimed the fractured, grotesque face of society.

Human lives were as worthless as weeds, and the powerful trampled on order as they pleased... Those in power did nothing for the people's welfare.

This was the Great Xin Republic...

In an instant, Luo Bin's thoughts churned. In just one month, he had risen rapidly from the bottom to become someone the Chen Family valued. He had missed the grinding hardship of struggling to survive at the bottom, and had even let the unspoken rules of a society where ordinary people had no control over their own lives fade from his mind...

Only now did he understand again... When the people prospered, they suffered; when the people perished, they suffered.

This was absolutely the best moment to step in. First, he could earn the gratitude of all three families. Second, he could hone his combat experience and skills against a powerful opponent. Third, he could vent some of the anger these ordinary people, whose souls had returned to their hometowns, had left behind.

When Luo Bin activated [Phantom], he arrived beside Zhao Changhe at an inscrutable speed.

Sitting upright on his black horse, the dashing young master Shao Yancheng frowned in an instant. His eyes fixed on Luo Bin, now right before him, and he narrowed them slightly as he sized up the young man in the suit.

A tremor stirred deep within him. In the three years since he had returned from Jinmen to Ping City, this was the first time he had encountered someone so young who posed such a threat... The last had been that young man from Gushang Peace-Waves Society in Jinmen, who was on the verge of reaching Profound Mastery.

Before Shao Yancheng could speak, Luo Bin let out a faint snort and flashed over to stand before Chen Manqing and the other two.

Though Zhao Changhe was a scapegoat the Shuo Gang had dragged out to draw everyone's ire, he was far stronger than ordinary people—a Martial Master at the middle stage of Golden Skin Pass. Seeing Luo Bin move at such an uncanny speed, he could barely track the afterimage with his eyes.

Frowning, he tested him. "Young master, you're quite a stranger in Ping City. And that thing you just said... You'll have to pay for those words!"

The Jiang Family was riding high in Ping City. They had secret ties to the city government, foreign merchants from Balun and Yingluo Kingdom, and the Tianhai Public Security Bureau. On top of that, they had recently swallowed up the fat the Chen Family had been forced to spit out.

They were incredibly powerful now!

With Shao Yancheng, a Jade Bone Pass Great Martial Master at the heart of the Jiang Family's faction, holding the fort, Zhao Changhe had nothing to fear. He was just about to continue berating Luo Bin when—

Bang!

Zhao Changhe took a kick and staggered back several steps, his expression turning a little flustered as he drew the short blade at his waist.

Luo Bin saw that the Hand Grenade King was already at a safe distance from Chen Manqing, Sun Shuhua, and the others. Only then did he turn toward the three women. Calmly, he took off his suit jacket, tugged open the corner of its notched lapel, and removed his tie, revealing a white shirt stretched over a sturdy, muscular frame.

"Miss Sun, could you hold on to my suit for a while?"

Chen Manqing, Sun Shuhua, and Su Yu had planned to run back to the Department Store and reconsider if speaking up failed to cow the crowd. After all, no matter what, life had to come first.

In their eyes, these gang members might have been low-class, but there was no dispute that they were infamous for their underhanded and ruthless methods.

Chen Manqing was the first to recognize Luo Bin. Just as he had when she'd sulked and deliberately refused to speak to him at Qunyu Garden, he still wore that springlike smile that put people at ease—but it wasn't meant for her.

Sun Shuhua froze for a moment. Once she saw Luo Bin's face, she suddenly came to her senses.

Wasn't this... the young man who had saved her in that shabby building north of Long Wind Pier? The one she had even called... her husband.

At the thought, the sweet and lovely Sun Family Eldest Miss flushed scarlet, her earlobes red as if they might bleed. "Oh... Oh, of course! Don't worry, I'll take good care of your clothes. I won't damage them or get them dirty. If I do, I'll pay you back with five better suits!"

"No... Ten suits!"

Luo Bin couldn't help laughing at that. He nodded. "All right. You said it."

He glanced over the Shuo Gang members by the roadside, Shao Yancheng watching from horseback, and the escort guards in the distance, then fixed his gaze on Zhao Changhe.

"Sure enough, a dog's habits still have something to do with its master. So stupid, treating human lives like weeds."

"I wonder if you'll still be so cold and indifferent when you're about to die."

As soon as Luo Bin finished speaking, two burly Shuo Gang men charged at him, trying to seize him. Zhao Changhe hadn't even caught his breath after the pain before he charged in with his short blade. With Shao Yancheng of Jade Bone Pass right there, what did he have to fear?

Luo Bin stood where he was, calm as a cloudless sky.

The Shuo Gang men grabbed Luo Bin by the arms, but no matter how hard they pulled, he didn't budge an inch. The next second, an irresistible force crashed down like an avalanche, hurling the two men away.

The arm they had just been tugging at emitted a dense series of crackling sounds, like beans popping. A faint golden sheen rippled over Luo Bin's skin, and his taut muscles bulged another size beneath its radiance!

"Hiss—"

Before anyone else could react, several knowledgeable Martial Masters from the Zhenyuan Escort Agency were already hissing in shock. The pressure radiating from the young man in the white shirt at the center of the street was no weaker than that of a middle-stage Jade Bone Pass Martial Master... Yet that face, which looked only sixteen or seventeen, made it feel utterly absurd.

Wei Ang stared blankly. "So he wasn't bragging. With strength like that, he really could kick down the door of a martial arts school!"

"So young, and with such a bright future ahead..."

"Exactly. As the saying goes, 'Golden Skin is easy to attain, Jade Bone is hard to achieve.' To possess Jade Bone Pass strength at such a young age—he's a born martial arts prodigy!"

Even though Chen Manqing and the other two were watching from a distance, they could still clearly feel the scorching heat and suffocating pressure rolling off the young man who had placed himself in front of them.

Chen Manqing felt it most keenly. Her talent for martial arts was ordinary, and she had never trained, but in recent days she had spent a great deal of money and resources cultivating Wu Gou. She had naturally learned a great deal about Martial Masters, whose status represented half the world's force. She also knew all too well what it took for a boy from the bottom to push his strength to such a terrifying level in less than two months...

What kind of talent did that require?

The unease in Chen Manqing's heart had eased a little when she and Sun Shuhua faced the danger together. But seeing Luo Bin's suffocating strength made her heart clench all over again...

"Why didn't he let me hold his clothes? The Chen Family is clearly closer to him..."

All kinds of jumbled thoughts filled Chen Manqing's mind.

A proud smile, as if she shared in his glory, appeared on Sun Shuhua's pretty face. She grabbed Su Yu, who stood beside her with her lips slightly parted, and launched into a spirited introduction of Luo Bin.

"Su Yu, Su Yu! He's the one who saved me last time. He's so young, but he's incredibly strong. If it weren't for him last time..."

In the middle of the street.

In the blink of an eye, before the shock had even faded from the two Shuo Gang men's faces, they were hoisted into the air as if Luo Bin were lifting a great bronze vessel. Their abdomens took the full force of a battering ram, and they spat blood in a furious spray before crashing hard into the muddy roadside.

The lines etched into the ground were strikingly graceful.