Are you trying to get yourself killed?

"Li Guizhi sent you?" Jiang Xun snorted. "Why didn't she come herself? Did I traumatize her when I chewed her out yesterday?"

The bald man's mouth twitched, the flesh on his face bunching together. "You've got a fucking mouth on you. I'm damn well going to loosen those bones of yours today!"

Jiang Xun set the bowl on a rock by the road, straightened up, and rolled his wrists.

He knew he couldn't take six people.

Besides, these weren't the little punks at school who only knew how to throw their weight around. These were real local thugs who swaggered through the village.

They held their clubs as casually as chopsticks and didn't even spare the camera standing nearby a second glance.

But Jiang Xun had never learned to back down in his life.

He pushed up his sleeves, exposing two thin forearms, and curled his lips. "Sure, but before you start-"

He jerked his chin toward the bushes by the road. "This show records everything. When it airs and you're famous on TV, don't say I didn't warn you."

The bald man froze for a moment and instinctively turned to look at the camera.

In that second, Jiang Xun charged straight at the tall, skinny man on the far right, driving his shoulder into the man's chest and knocking him bodily into the ditch.

The wooden club flew out of his hand. Jiang Xun caught it in midair and swung it back into the bald man's knee.

The bald man swore angrily, his leg buckling as he dropped to one knee. But he was tough and thick-skinned; the blow hadn't put him out of the fight at all. Instead, he reached back and seized the other end of the club.

Both of them pulled at once, the club locked between them for two seconds.

Only then did the others react, swarming around him.

One wrapped his arms around Jiang Xun's waist from behind, squeezing as tight as a python. Another swung his fists at Jiang Xun's ribs, while a third kicked at the backs of his knees, trying to force him down.

After taking several punches to his side, Jiang Xun jerked his head back, smashing the back of his skull squarely into the nose of the man holding him-

There was a sharp crack. The man howled and let go, blood spurting from his nose and smearing half his face.

Jiang Xun seized the chance to break free and kicked the man in front of him in the lower belly.

The next second, he heard a rush of air behind his ear-

There was no time to dodge.

The wooden club struck his back solidly with a dull thud.

Jiang Xun staggered forward two steps. His back felt as though someone had poured oil over it and set it alight, the burning stretching from his shoulder blades down to his spine.

He clenched his teeth and forced the sweet, metallic taste rising in his throat back down.

The bald man had already climbed to his feet. He approached with the club in hand, the flesh on his face twisting into a vicious grin. "What makes a city brat think he can throw his weight around here? Get on your knees and call me Grandpa, and I'll go easy on you."

The others closed in again, cutting off every escape route.

Behind the bushes, the director jabbed the button on her walkie-talkie. "Stop filming! Get over there and stop them! Hurry!"

Four crew members dropped their equipment and rushed out from behind the dirt slope.

But they were far away, and the dirt road was full of ruts and potholes that made their footing uneven as they ran. Even the fastest was still a hundred meters or so from the scene.

The director roared into her walkie-talkie, "Run faster!"

Before she had finished speaking, someone came charging down the mountain path on the monitor.

Shen Wangjing had run straight down from the cornfield halfway up the mountain, the hoe handle clutched in a hand accustomed to farmwork, every muscle in his body taut.

His dark eyes were no longer pools of stagnant water. A heavy fire burned in them, impossible to suppress.

The bald man heard the footsteps and turned to look. The vicious grin instantly froze on his face.

Five years ago, on the day Shen Dayong jumped into the river, the bald man had gone along to watch the commotion too.

Seven or eight burly men had blocked the courtyard gate, clubs and iron pipes in hand, insisting that Shen Dayong owed each of them a large sum of money, though none could produce any proof.

Some threatened to burn down the house. Someone had already smashed the window glass, scattering shards onto the legs of the old man in the wheelchair. The old man trembled all over, his lips quivering, unable to utter a single word.

The bald man had watched Shen Wangjing walk out of the kitchen-a fifteen-year-old boy who hadn't finished growing, thin as a pole, who drove that gang of bandits out of the village with nothing but a chipped woodcutting blade.

After that, those men never dared set foot in Shiban Village again.

Only Li Guizhi still dared to come around every few days and make a scene.

Everyone knew that this taciturn boy who kept to himself in the village never lifted a finger against a woman throwing a tantrum.

It was precisely this that Li Guizhi relied on when she came to their door time and again, using the Shen family as a living target to establish her authority in the village.

"Who hit him?"

Shen Wangjing's voice wasn't loud. It could even be called low and steady, but the wooden club in the bald man's hand clattered to the ground.

"It wasn't me-it was Li Guizhi! Li Guizhi sent us!" The bald man backed away with both hands raised. "We were just doing what we were told!"

Shen Wangjing took a step forward, his face cold.

The bald man turned and ran.

With their boss running away, which of the other five dared stay? They scrambled after him at a frantic sprint. One lost a shoe and didn't even dare turn back to pick it up.

A trail of yellow dust rose along the dirt road. In the blink of an eye, the men were gone.

Jiang Xun braced his hands on his knees, caught his breath, and looked up.

Shen Wangjing still stood where he was, gripping the hoe, his back rigid. His black T-shirt, washed almost white, was soaked with sweat and clung to his back, the outlines of his shoulder blades clearly visible beneath the fabric.

Before Jiang Xun could look more closely, Shen Wangjing suddenly turned around.

At last, a distinct expression appeared on that perpetually unchanging face-his mouth pressed into a cold, hard line, his brows lowered, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Jiang Xun paused, then broke into a grin and laughed.

"What are you snapping at me for? I didn't lose." He straightened, baring his teeth briefly at the pain in his back, but the corners of his mouth stayed lifted. "What brings you here? Finished working in the field?"

Shen Wangjing ignored the pointless question. His gaze swept over Jiang Xun before settling on the gray mark the wooden club had left across his back.

A streak of dirt ran across the white T-shirt, with faint traces of blood seeping through the fabric beneath it.

Only after Jiang Xun recovered did he remember why he had trekked all this way over the mountain.

He turned to look for the bowl he had left beside the road. Luckily, the scuffle hadn't knocked it over. The food was still sitting safely on the rock.

Jiang Xun bent to pick it up. "Good thing the bowl didn't break. I saved this for you. Almost wasted a perfectly good bowl of food-"

The rest of his words caught in his throat.

The instant he bent over, the bone in his back that had taken the blow gave a sudden spasm of pain. His vision went dark, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

He was forced to freeze halfway through bending over, looking just like a little shrimp struck by a pressure-point paralysis technique.