Fan Dazhi cried out in pain, crouching down and clutching his head as fists rained down on him.
He gritted his teeth without a sound, his body trembling slightly beneath the relentless blows.
The ruffians, their bodies hollowed out by wine and women, soon grew breathless from the beating, their blows gradually losing strength.
A vicious gleam flashed in the brutish leader's eyes. He strode forward with a roar, gathered all his strength, and raised his right foot high, driving a crushing kick into the center of Fan Dazhi's hunched back.
Thud!
The muffled impact sounded strange, like a heavy object striking leather. Fan Dazhi shuddered violently and gave a stifled groan, but did not collapse as expected.
Instead, the brutish leader sucked in a sharp breath. A piercing ache and numbness shot back through his heel, as though he had kicked not a human body, but a lump of pig iron wrapped in cowhide.
Shocked and furious, he refused to believe it. He flattened his hand into a blade, his muscles swelling, and chopped viciously toward the vulnerable back of Fan Dazhi's neck with a sharp rush of wind.
"Enough!"
Just as the hand strike was about to reach Fan Dazhi's neck, the Black-Robed Youth, who had been watching coldly from his seat, finally spoke in a lazy voice.
He leisurely lowered the leg he had propped on the armrest and leaned forward slightly. A faint, thoughtful glimmer passed through the depths of his sinister eyes as his gaze lingered on Fan Dazhi's plump body, which looked bedraggled but remained curled up without falling despite so many heavy blows. The rasp of his nail filing finally stopped.
*This cowardly little fatty had such profound protective true qi-and he could unleash it instantly? In that case, there was real hope