Gentle and Easygoing

After settling his luggage, Zhou Kai explained the current situation to Lu Yan in a few brief sentences.

He found it difficult to bring up such a mess with his own sister, Zhou Qing, so he simply claimed he had ended his lease and moved in to squeeze in with her to save on rent.

Upon hearing this, Lu Yan paced back and forth in anxiety, her heels clicking rhythmically against the floor.

"That's strange. You're usually so low-key and easygoing, how could you get into trouble... Who exactly did this?"

Easygoing, huh? Forget about that.

Zhou Kai pulled at the corner of his mouth, his smile turning cold.

"Sister, be careful when you go out lately. Try not to be alone. If anything happens, wait for me."

Zhou Kai's voice suddenly dropped.

Since someone had set their sights on him, those around him had effectively stepped into a hunting ground.

Zhou Qing was being watched over by Sui Die; that woman was unfathomable, and dealing with a few flies would surely be effortless for her.

But Lu Yan was different.

She spent almost every day with him, making her an obvious target—a ready-made weak point.

Using his loved ones as bargaining chips?

The temperature in Zhou Kai's eyes plummeted to freezing.

"Don't worry, it will be fine after a while."

Zhou Kai comforted her softly.

The smile on his face remained unchanged, but the tension at the corners of his eyes and the faint, fierce glint in his gaze...

Once he cleared away the troublesome elements, everything would be fine.

"Mm, alright then."

"If something happens, don't keep it from me. We'll face it together."

Lu Yan nodded blankly, though an indescribable feeling welled up in her heart.

She was actually... a little glad about this sudden turmoil.

This way, Zhou Kai had a perfectly legitimate reason to live with her.

By the time he finished moving and rushed to the gym, he was already late.

It wasn't a big issue, however, because Chen Ping was also late.

Seeing Du Feng instructing students in the member area, Zhou Kai asked casually, "Where is Senior Brother Chen Ping? I haven't seen him today."

When Du Feng saw it was Zhou Kai, his lips moved as if to speak, but he swallowed his words, finally squeezing out only: "You're here."

"Senior Brother Chen has some family matters to attend to; he won't be back until tonight."

"Got it."

Zhou Kai nodded, asked no further questions, and went to a corner to start his warm-up.

In the afternoon, Fischl called to say she wanted to finish the remaining tutoring sessions for the week back-to-back, but since they were out, she asked him to come over after seven in the evening.

Zhou Kai had no objections.

He hung up the phone and continued practicing his boxing.

After training for a while, his undershirt soaked with sweat, Zhou Kai stopped and began to pace slowly around the gym to rest.

This was his first time truly observing the environment of the gym.

Falcon Wing Boxing Gym had four floors, but only the first and second were open to the public, filled with members and beginners coming and going.

In Chen Ping's words, these people were just for show for now, still in the stage of tempering their bodies and refining their foundations, far from being ready for the real stage.

Zhou Kai himself had only spent a week or so, yet he was already ranked among the top of these students.

But something was strange...

What about those who, like Senior Brother Chen Ping, are true inner-door disciples who have formally apprenticed?

Why can't I see a single one in the entire gym?

It wasn't just the formal disciples; even Wu De, the middle-aged man with the goatee he had met that day, hadn't shown his face again.

This likely had nothing to do with Chen Ping's sudden business today.

Zhou Kai thought carefully and realized with a start that from the very first day he arrived, the place had felt desolate.

The so-called masters taking turns managing the gym had resulted in him seeing only Wu De.

"It really is pitifully thin on the ground."

Zhou Kai now believed seven or eight parts of the online rhetoric about "ancient martial arts declining and fading away."

He observed the student area for a while longer and reached a new conclusion.

"The decline of ancient martial arts is likely eighty percent due to this backward evaluation system."

"Look at these students; they all seem to treat punch force as the gold standard, as if a higher number actually equates to fighting prowess."

But what is the use of looking solely at punch force?

Martial arts practitioners are not canned goods rolling off an assembly line; their heights, weights, and physiques are all different.

Some are as fast as ghosts, while others are as agile as apes.

When a real fight breaks out, victory or defeat is decided by a hair's breadth.

Judging strength purely by a punch force data point—what kind of nonsense is that?

Zhou Kai ignored the various gazes cast his way by the surrounding students.

He walked up to the sensor in the student area used to record punch force.

Without much wind-up, he twisted his waist and drove his hips forward, slamming a Cannon Fist into the padded target.

Thud!

The pad emitted a muffled sound that seemed to tear through the air.

Accompanied by a rapid series of electronic beeps, the data for Zhou Kai's punch surged straight to the very top of the large screen.

[509Kg!]

The boost to his physique from the Chariot Mark was far beyond imagination; without the mark, this number would have barely exceeded four hundred.

A full-power punch should be able to hit six hundred, and if I push the Chariot Mark to its limit, it could go even higher...

He glanced at the number in second place on the leaderboard, which was 155 kilograms lower than his casual strike, and Zhou Kai immediately had a measure of the situation.

It seemed he had the private tutoring from Senior Brother Chen in the bag.

If he really had to eat from the same pot as this lot, it would be a form of mental torture for them.

Zhou Kai's gaze didn't linger on that number for even a second.

He turned and walked away.

The expressions of the surrounding students shifted from the flippancy of watching a spectacle to rapid solidification, finally morphing into a terror as if they had seen a ghost.

"What the fuck?"

"Half a ton? Are you kidding me?"

"Is this something a human can hit? Is the machine broken?"

Zhou Kai, who had already walked quite a distance away, did not care about the commotion behind him.

At a little past six in the evening, Zhou Kai packed his things, preparing to leave.

Just then, Du Feng stood in front of him like a post.

He scratched the back of his head, his expression somewhat awkward: "Uh... how about you stay and wait for Senior Brother Chen to return?"

Zhou Kai's heart stirred; he could tell at a glance that Du Feng had something more to say.

He decided to be blunt: "Senior Brother Du, if you have something to say, just say it. No need to beat around the bush."

Du Feng slapped the back of his head: "Ah, you saw right through me."

His eyes darted around, and he lowered his voice, acting like a thief: "It's just... do you remember Wang Jinquan, the guy you beat into the hospital two days ago?"

"I heard he's looking for people to deal with you. For the next couple of days, why don't you just stay at the gym?"

"With Senior Brother Chen around, there aren't many people in Xishan City who would dare to touch you."

Zhou Kai thought as much, but he put on a curious expression: "Oh? Then tell me, what kind of people does Wang Jinquan usually find to mess with me?"

He casually took an energy drink from his bag and handed it to Du Feng.

Zhou Kai smiled with an air of harmlessness: "Senior Brother Du, have a drink and take your time. I'm actually quite curious."

Du Feng took the drink and said with a bitter face: "I have nothing to do with Wang Jinquan, mind you. I actually... I find him quite annoying too."

Zhou Kai understood Du Feng: he wasn't very brave and feared trouble, but his conscience was intact.

When it mattered, he knew where he stood.

This was likely the reason why Chen Ping was willing to give him a bit of respect.

"You must be careful."

Du Feng emphasized this several times before he finally spoke.

Xishan is not a port city, but decades ago, it was a major hub for river transport.

However, in recent years, a series of water conservancy projects—dams and power stations—were built upstream, causing the river's flow to plummet.

Dreaming of resuming navigation was nothing more than a pipe dream.

But the path of the water transport was broken, and those who made their living from it were not willing to be buried in history along with it.

The Water Transport Gang, which had entrenched itself in Xishan and survived repeated crackdowns, still lurked in the shadows of Xishan City today, like a leech.

Relying on the connections, resources, and manpower they had accumulated in their early years, they opened bars, operated arcades, ran supermarkets, and established chains of convenience stores.

They earned even more money than they ever did back when they were working the waterways.

As for that Wang Jinquan, it is said that he has inextricable ties to the Xishan Canal Gang.

"The rumors in the underworld say that Wang Jinquan's father was a veteran enforcer for the Canal Gang. Since you put his son in the hospital, these people are more than likely going to come looking for trouble."

Du Feng's face was etched with worry.