In the school's Small Woods, Zhang Tie and the guy on the ground had been grappling for only a short while. Zhang Tie hadn't even gotten his fill yet—he'd just climbed on top of the guy and landed fewer than two punches—when an immense force slammed into his back. Someone kicked him right off the man he was riding.
The force hit him, and Zhang Tie rolled forward with it. Then he sprang neatly to his feet. The moment he was standing, two people lunged at him from either side. Zhang Tie kicked the one on his right. That guy had some grit: he turned sideways and raised a leg, narrowly avoiding the kick to his waist and taking it on his thigh instead. As he grimaced in pain, he grabbed Zhang Tie's right hand with both hands. Zhang Tie's left hand had just managed to throw a punch when someone took it head-on, then caught his fist in both hands, too. Zhang Tie was just about to struggle free when a heavy kick landed in his lower abdomen. That one blow instantly took him out of the fight.
The whole fight was over in less than thirty seconds. When everyone was roughly evenly matched, one against six, one side caught completely off guard and the other launching a planned ambush, the outcome would have been the same for anyone. Besides, compared to the guys surrounding him, Zhang Tie, with his yellow skin and black hair, was clearly smaller. Fifteen-year-old Zhang Tie stood 1.75 meters tall, while even the shortest of his attackers was about his height. The tallest was over 1.8 meters and weighed roughly one and a half times as much as Zhang Tie. That was the difference between their races.
Zhang Tie was bent over, retching, when someone twisted both his arms and hauled him upright. The guys who had just attacked him sucked in breaths through their teeth as they rubbed the spots he'd managed to hurt, then closed in with malicious grins. The one Zhang Tie had been sitting on and beating also got to his feet. His mouth felt salty and wet. He touched it, and his fingers came away red with blood from his nose. He flew into a rage and strode forward, punching Zhang Tie in the nose just as Zhang Tie had done to him. Zhang Tie saw stars. His nose instantly throbbed with pain, and a salty, metallic liquid poured down his throat, making him cough. Damn it, Zhang Wei cursed inwardly. That debt had come due way too fast.
After that first blow to the nose, the others mercilessly rained punches and kicks on Zhang Tie, landing more than a dozen hits in no time. If they hadn't been holding him up by his arms, Zhang Tie would have collapsed on the ground already. Even so, all he could do was gasp for air. It felt as if he were a fish tossed onto the sand, choking to death. He couldn't even move a finger.
The guy raised his fist, ready to hit Zhang Tie in the nose again, but someone caught his hand.
"Enough, Doug. One more hit to his nose and the bone'll be completely shattered. You'll ruin his face, and then we'll be in real trouble!"
"Yeah, we agreed that we'd just beat the kid up to blow off some steam. A few punches each, but we're not killing him. Damn, I pulled my zipper up too fast this morning and ripped out a few hairs. It still hurts..." said the guy holding Zhang Tie's right arm.
"Big Head doesn't look like much when we spar with him. But today, when he really fought back, if there'd only been two of us, we might not have been able to stop him!" The speaker was the acne-covered guy who'd greeted Zhang Tie that morning and invited him to join in the fun: Barry, the lecherous fat bastard in Zhang Tie's class, the one who'd come up with and organized the classroom jerk-off sessions. He was one of the most notorious delinquents among the graduates of the Seventh National Boys' Middle School. At twelve, he'd stolen his father's money, found a prostitute, and proudly lost his virginity. He'd boasted about it to everyone ever since.
Doug, his nose bleeding, was busy rolling up strips of paper to plug his nostrils and stop the bleeding. He lifted his head and pointed at his injured nose, full of indignation. "You try it, damn it! You try it! There are six of us here, so why am I the unlucky one..."
As he spoke, Doug gave Zhang Tie another resentful punch to the stomach. Zhang Tie's already churning gut erupted. The lunch he'd just eaten gushed out of his mouth like a fountain, splashing Doug from head to toe with a steaming mess of freshly eaten food, barely beginning to digest. Everyone around them gaped. They stared at Doug, frozen in shock, two wads of paper plugging his nostrils and vomit coating his face and hair. Their faces twitched as they struggled to hold back laughter. The two guys beside Doug covered their noses and took two steps back, kicking him while he was down. The two holding Zhang Tie's arms hurriedly let go, afraid he'd turn around and do the same to them. That would be enough to make them weep with nowhere to turn—or die of disgust.
"Ah..." Doug let out a bizarre cry. He didn't bother hitting Zhang Tie again. Instead, he sprinted off at a speed none of them had ever seen before, vanishing in an instant. He was probably off somewhere to clean himself up.
After Doug ran off, the other five burst out laughing without holding back. But after emptying his stomach, Zhang Tie suddenly felt clearer-headed. Gasping heavily, he struggled up from the ground. When Zhang Tie got to his feet, the two closest guys even took a wary step back, afraid that although he could barely walk, he might launch another indiscriminate slime attack...
Standing unsteadily, Zhang Tie forced himself to attention. He looked at the bear-like figure who had somehow appeared behind them and managed to squeeze out a smile. "Captain Colin..."
"Haha, you think you can attack us when we turn our backs, Big Head? Do you take us for idiots? Or have you read too many low-level knight novels?"
"Still want us to beat you up again?"
"Haha, that trick's so childish. I stopped using it years ago..." The fat Barry laughed shamelessly, his shoulders bouncing and his rolls of fat wobbling.
"Is that so?" came the calm voice from behind them. In an instant, the five smug guys froze like quail trapped in ice. First their bodies went rigid, then their faces turned pale, then sweat broke out on their heads, and finally their calves began to tremble on their own. Zhang Tie couldn't help marveling at how they could pull off so many difficult expressions and movements in such a short time. When he heard Captain Colin speak, he kept his expression calm, but his mind raced...
The most terrifying man in all of Black Flame City, One-Eyed Dragon, slowly emerged from the Small Woods behind them, arms folded. His single eye glittered like a gray wolf spotting a chick, sweeping across their faces with a lofty, scrutinizing air.
"C-C-Captain Colin!" The five men's tongues all tied themselves in knots.
"What's going on here?" Captain Colin asked, looking down his nose at them.
"We were just... just..." Barry stammered, but Captain Colin cut him off with a harsh rebuke.
"Shut up. Did I ask you to speak?" Colin glared at the five, then turned to the battered-looking Zhang Tie and pointed at him with a finger like a club. "You tell me. What's going on here?"
When Captain Colin questioned Zhang Tie, Barry and the other four went white, nearly scared out of their wits. They stared at Zhang Tie with wide eyes, their faces full of pleading and despair. If Zhang Tie told the whole story, Barry would stake the chastity of his own asshole on it: Captain Colin, hearing how several students had blasphemed his beloved goddess, would make sure they never had the ability to defile a woman again. Under Black Flame City's special education system and because of certain special courses, every boys' middle school was allowed several student fatalities each year, and no one would investigate.
"Reporting to Captain Colin, we were making a bet..." Zhang Tie had made up his mind. What kind of boys' school would it be if the students didn't fight? He'd gotten into plenty of fights over the years. He'd taken a bit of a beating today, but it was no big deal. Hadn't his dad always told him to spare others when he could? Still, he'd make them pay a little.
"A bet..." Captain Colin frowned slightly, then looked at Zhang Tie's calm face. He turned back to Barry and the other four. "He says you were making a bet. Is that right?"
A bet? Of course it was a bet. The five nodded like starving chicks that hadn't eaten in three days.
"What were you betting on? What was at stake? Do you intend to lie to the wise Captain Colin?" Captain Colin looked at Zhang Tie as if to say there was no fooling him.
"We bet that they'd gang up and beat me. If they couldn't make me admit defeat, I'd get to beat them up in return, and they'd have to give me all the money they had on them today! They've already lost. Please bear witness for me, Captain Colin..." Some of the five relaxed when they heard Zhang Tie, while others looked as if they had a toothache. Even now, the kid hadn't forgotten to claw some money out of them to make up for getting beaten.
As Zhang Tie spoke, he wiped the blood from his nose and walked over. Right in front of Captain Colin, he punched each of them in the nose and kicked them in the stomach. In an instant, all five were bleeding from the nose, their heads nearly bowed to the ground as they sucked in painful breaths. Not one dared fight back.
After the five men had gotten back to their feet, Zhang Tie held out his hand to them. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a gesture everyone understood...
Beat people up and then make them cough up money. At that moment, Zhang Tie felt that life couldn't get any better.