Li Wei's Cheat

"Ah, they're fighting!" Before Seraphine could get a good look at her father's constipated-looking scowl, her attention was drawn to the sudden turn of events outside the window.

The two men who had been confronting each other across the street suddenly started fighting.

Li Wei struck first.

He smashed a loaf of bread over the fat man Aubrey's head.

Humiliated and in pain, Aubrey quickly lashed out in fury.

He was clearly stronger than Li Wei, and his bloated body was nowhere near as clumsy as it looked. The fight soon became completely one-sided.

Aubrey knocked Li Wei down again and again, while Li Wei got back up time after time.

Before long, both of them were bleeding. Blood ran across the ground.

Yet neither of them stopped.

"Th-this..." Seraphine's little face went pale.

She had never seen anything so brutal and terrifying. In Piltover, such things were rare.

The two men fighting looked as crazed and bloodthirsty as wild wolves from a storybook.

Why did people hurt each other like this?

Seraphine didn't understand.

"Dad." She instinctively turned to her factory-owner father. "Go get someone to help Li Wei! It looks like that fat man is going to beat him to death..."

You want me to save that brat?

The old man's face was still dark.

"This isn't our business, Nini. It's just two Zaunites fighting. What's there to save?"

"Besides, you saw it too. Li Wei struck first—since he started this himself, he should suffer the consequences himself."

He deliberately concealed part of the truth and lectured his overly naive daughter with a straight face.

Erwin actually knew exactly who that fat man was and why Li Wei had struck first.

If this had been twenty years ago, if he had been standing there, he would have bitten back like a beast too.

But things were different now.

He was a Piltover business owner. He was a father.

As a father, he only wanted Seraphine to stay far away from that Zaun boy.

As a business owner, he wanted even less to offend the Iron Fist Gang leader's younger brother, that hateful fat man Aubrey, over some insignificant apprentice.

If Li Wei had merely been unable to repay his loan shark debt, then with his daughter pleading and acting cute like this, he might have softened and helped.

But Li Wei had now been driven to attack Aubrey, to strike the Iron Fist Gang leader's brother, thoroughly offending him.

This was Piltover. Zaunite gangs couldn't cause much trouble here.

As a Piltover business owner protected by the Enforcers, even a small-time one, Erwin had no reason to fear the Iron Fist Gang or any Iron Foot Gang.

But even if shit didn't hurt anyone, stepping in it was still disgusting.

What if those thugs sent people to make trouble every few days and made it impossible for him to do business? He was only a small business owner. He couldn't summon Enforcers at a moment's notice like Piltover's great tycoons to fend off harassment.

The cost of saving Li Wei had already far exceeded what he was willing to pay just to satisfy his conscience.

"I don't have the ability to save him. Seraphine, stop watching!"

"You don't even know what kind of person Li Wei is, so don't pity him so casually."

"Maybe..." Watching the brutal scene across the street, Erwin could not help hesitating.

But he still took his daughter's hand and awkwardly lectured, "Maybe he brought all this trouble on himself. Zaunites all love drinking, gambling, and borrowing from loan sharks. If they get beaten, they deserve it."

Lying was wrong, but teaching his daughter to stay away from Zaunites was absolutely not.

That was his experience as a Zaunite.

So Erwin said it anyway.

"But..." Seraphine still couldn't bear it.

Her gaze kept drifting toward the Zaun boy whose face was covered in blood but whose expression remained resolute.

"There's no but. Come back and finish your meal!" Her father deliberately raised his voice.

"Come here, darling." Her mother also coaxed gently. "Tell Mommy about the new song you wrote yesterday."

"Mm..." Seraphine lightly bit her lip, her expression full of reluctance. Her pale fingers gripped the windowsill, refusing to let go for a long time.

But having grown up entirely under her parents' protection, she ultimately did as she always had and silently obeyed them.

She let go, drew the curtains, and pretended that nothing had happened outside—that she had seen nothing.

But just then—

"Wait!"

Seraphine turned to leave, but her steps stopped before the window.

"What is it?" The couple was baffled.

"I heard it..." She looked almost possessed.

"What?"

"He's singing. I can hear him singing again!"

Seraphine spun around excitedly and yanked the curtains open.

"It's him—"

"He's the one singing!"

Li Wei had been angry the whole time.

But he had not attacked Aubrey in a moment of rage because he was angry or humiliated.

He attacked because he knew that though it looked as if he had a choice, he actually didn't.

The moment Aubrey blocked him on the street, he had already lost that choice.

Either he resisted and fought his way out in blood, or he surrendered and became a slave controlled by the gang.

That fat man would never give him a third option and let him leave freely.

So Li Wei made the first move.

He tried to gain the upper hand through a sneak attack, then flee amid the chaos.

But the fat man was incredibly tough, and much more agile than expected. Not only did Li Wei fail to escape, he was dragged into a fight with a huge disparity in strength.

"Bastard—"

A fist came crashing toward him like a meteor hammer, slamming into Li Wei's head, which was barely bigger than the fist itself.

Aubrey, whose head had been split open by the bread, flew into a furious rage and screamed madly.

"How dare you!"

"How dare you lay a hand on me, Aubrey!!"

Li Wei was knocked to the ground by one punch, blood gushing from his nose.

Baku watched miserably, but he didn't dare move.

Janna curled up in his pocket and couldn't help either.

Just as Aubrey had said. How could he dare?

"Of course I dare!" Li Wei wiped away the blood and stood up again.

Because he wasn't without a cheat now.

He still had the original owner's memories—the memories of a Zaunite.

As long as he immersed himself in those memories, he could "become" a real Zaunite.

Zaunites would never surrender. They would only bite back at their enemies like madmen, no matter how strong or terrifying those enemies were.

Because other than their lives, they had nothing left to lose. And if the enemy wanted to take even that life away, then there was nothing left to fear.

"Die!" Aubrey raised an arm as thick as a pig's leg and brought it down like a bear's paw.

But Li Wei didn't dodge.

He met that slap head-on.

This is hilarious. It doesn't even hurt.

Compared to the knife his own uncle had stabbed into his back in the original owner's memories, this was so weak he could barely feel it.

Even a mine overseer's whip had more force behind it.

So not only did Li Wei refuse to dodge, he took the slap like a mad dog that had lost its mind, then turned and sank his teeth into Aubrey's arm.

"Ahhh!" Aubrey howled in pain.

Li Wei expressionlessly tore off a chunk of flesh from his arm and casually spat it onto the ground.

"Ahhhh!" The large, burly Aubrey was still howling.

But Li Wei, several times thinner than him, was already using his teeth and nails again, savagely tearing at his flesh.

"Y-you're asking to die!!" Aubrey's eyes flashed with murderous rage from the pain.

He was still huge and immensely strong, so he soon ripped Li Wei off himself like lifting a chick and hurled him heavily to the ground.

But Li Wei immediately climbed back up.

Then came another desperate bout of biting and tearing, like an undead zombie that could not be killed.

Another punch knocked him down.

He staggered back to his feet.

Another punch sent him sprawling.

Then he got back up again.

Like he had eaten the Nika Fruit, doing endless sit-ups.

"Ahhhh!" Li Wei was clearly more injured, but the only one screaming was the fat man Aubrey.

Gradually, he actually became afraid.

When he saw Li Wei walking toward him covered in blood, Aubrey instinctively took two steps back.

"Y-you bastard."

"How the fuck are you so hard to put down?"

"Because I'm a Zaunite." Li Wei clenched his blood-soaked fist. "And you're not."

Aubrey had merely been born in Zaun and dressed like a Zaunite.

A real Zaunite would not keep howling so pathetically just because a piece of flesh had been bitten off. A real Zaunite would not instinctively want to retreat after losing this little blood.

This guy had long since been softened by Piltover's honey jar. He had forgotten who he was.

Li Wei gave the fat man, who had been beaten to tears, a disdainful glance. Then he turned, picked up the black bread with a chipped corner, dusted it off, and prepared to leave.

"Y-you think you can run? Once I call my brother over, he'll find you and your sister and tear you to pieces!" Aubrey roared miserably.

But Li Wei did not even acknowledge him. There was even a hint of contempt in his eyes.

"Hahaha..." Someone in the crowd laughed.

"Who's laughing? Who's laughing?!"

Aubrey flushed red and looked around.

No one was laughing, yet it felt as though everyone was laughing.

They looked at him as if he were trash.

Even though he was the Iron Fist Gang leader's younger brother, he was still trash.

Or rather, having such a powerful older brother protecting him only made him seem even more useless.

"Li Wei, you... stop right there!"

Aubrey's roar suddenly became beastlike.

"Hm?" Li Wei had a bad feeling.

When he turned around, he saw Aubrey pull a small glass bottle from his pocket.

The stopper had already been removed, and it contained a pale purple liquid.

"That is..." Li Wei's pupils contracted.

"Shimmer?"