It looked like these people had come looking for him, and Li Xingkong was already prepared to fight.
After all, they didn't look like they were going to let him go.
"All right, I got it. You Freedom City sons of bitches can get lost."
The bald owner barely reacted. He just glanced at the photo and started shooing them away. After all, the thugs didn't look like welcome customers.
Though the thugs had numbers on their side, the owner looked too fierce. They only shouted a few words about the high bounty and urged him to keep an eye out.
Before leaving, the thug in charge was even in the mood to show Li Xingkong the photo of himself on the wanted notice.
When the thug brought it over, Li Xingkong was ready to strike.
"Kid, find this guy and you'll be set for the rest of your life. Take a good look, and report him right away if you spot him."
Looking at the photo held up in front of his face, Li Xingkong was a little speechless. The guy had the photo in hand and was looking right at the person in it. Was he blind?
"Keep an eye out. Damn Divine Land People all look exactly alike to me. Ptooey!"
After giving Li Xingkong a quick look at the photo, the thugs slunk away.
Well, Li Xingkong remembered a classic joke: people of different skin colors had a hard time telling members of other races apart.
Just like how he now thought all black people looked exactly alike.
It was hard not to crack up, but it was true.
Once the group left, the inn fell quiet again. The owner went back to cleaning up, as though the bounty he'd just seen held no appeal for him.
"You're not interested in the bounty?"
Li Xingkong was curious. Surely an ordinary person would be tempted by such a high bounty.
"How could a Freedom City dog's mouth ever spit out gold?"
The owner wiped a plate, unhurried.
"If that bounty ever actually gets paid out, it'll only be because Luke Morgan's mouth and ass have been switched around. At least his ass can really spew something."
Li Xingkong was amused by the owner's words. It seemed this man's reputation really did precede him.
"Although I don't know what you did, you'd better run, and fast. He might not be the biggest shot in all of Prisoner Continent, but he's one of the top bosses, and the others are happy to give him face."
The owner even wanted to help Li Xingkong.
Li Xingkong took a sip of water. He had originally thought that once he slipped out of Freedom City, everything would be fine. But he truly hadn't expected the whole of Prisoner Continent to be an intricately tangled web. As long as he remained in it, he would be in danger wherever he went.
Well, I'd better pick up the pace first thing tomorrow and get out of here as quickly as possible. Best to avoid conflict if I can.
He slept peacefully through the night. After all the commotion of the past few days, Li Xingkong had hardly slept well at all.
Early the next morning, Li Xingkong packed his things and set off once more on the road to Nature City.
Following the road had its advantages: he wouldn't get lost. But it also had its drawbacks. The road didn't go straight there, so if he followed it, he had to take its winding route.
A lonely road stretched to the horizon, with two or three abandoned buildings here and there along the roadside. Walking down a road like this gave him a distinct sense of apocalyptic loneliness.
With Li Xingkong traveling on nothing but his own two legs, the scene looked even lonelier.
He had only gone less than twenty kilometers from the inn when four or five convoys had already passed him.
There hadn't been so many vehicles yesterday, but suddenly there were more today. They were probably looking for him too.
Li Xingkong thought these people were seriously nuts. How could a normal person possibly have made it this far in such a short time?
Not that he was a normal person.
"Beep, beep!" Another horn sounded behind him, and Li Xingkong could only slow his pace a little again.
Two SUVs drove past him, their windows wide open. A group of strangely dressed young people were partying wildly inside.
As they passed Li Xingkong, they even tossed some trash at him, accompanied by bursts of laughter.
"Damn, what a bunch of assholes."
Li Xingkong didn't stop the cars and give them a beating over something like that. It wasn't worth it.
But after going a little farther, the two vehicles suddenly turned and headed straight for Li Xingkong.
They drove up around him without stopping and began circling him instead.
"Yoo-hoo, look what we found!"
A sunroof opened, and a young man dressed like a cowboy poked his head out, swinging a length of rope in his hand.
"Haha, it's a walking 200,000!"
The others were just as brazen, as though Li Xingkong had already become a walking bundle of cash.
Indeed, he was a pedestrian who looked too weak to truss a chicken. Surrounded by so many people and their cars, what could he do?
"Just my luck."
By the looks of it, he had spent all that time dodging trouble, only to run into it anyway.
The cowboy suddenly threw the rope in his hand, sending a practiced lasso flying straight at Li Xingkong.
An ordinary person really wouldn't have had time to react. It could catch a horse every time, so it was even easier to use on a person.
Li Xingkong didn't dodge. Just as the rope was about to loop around his neck, he raised one hand and grabbed it.
The rope snapped taut between their hands, and the cowboy quickly pulled hard, trying to drag Li Xingkong off his feet.
Unfortunately, he didn't know how strong Li Xingkong was now.
Li Xingkong simply gave the rope a fierce yank, and the cowboy was pulled straight out through the sunroof. He didn't have the slightest chance to resist before he tumbled off the vehicle.
"Oh, shit! Teach him a lesson!"
The others in the vehicle were a little slow to react to what they'd seen, but when they saw the cowboy come off worse, they quickly made their move.
As for Luke Morgan wanting him alive, as long as he was breathing, that counted, didn't it?
A good number of guns, long and short, poked out of the windows, though most were handguns. They rarely had any use for guns with too much firepower.
It was the first time so many guns had been pointed at him, and Li Xingkong was a little unnerved. But he wasn't about to stand there and take it.
Fixing his eyes on one of the vehicles, Li Xingkong stomped down and launched himself at its front.
He moved so fast that he left afterimages. Before the people in the vehicle could fire, they had already lost sight of him.
Li Xingkong's target was the driver. Using the tremendous momentum of his lunge, he smashed his fist into the passenger-side window.
Normally, while a shattered car window was dangerous to the people inside, it wasn't fatal.
But what if the glass had been shattered by a truck slamming straight into it?
Under that tremendous impact, the kinetic energy carried by the broken glass shards was nearly that of small-caliber bullets.
So, after the glass shattered with a bang, the shards burst in every direction inside the vehicle, staining its entire interior red in an instant.
Many of the flying shards also pierced the other windows and shot out. It was as though a fragmentation grenade had been tossed into the vehicle's enclosed interior.
There was no telling whether the people inside were dead or alive. Naturally, the vehicle was no longer under control and shot straight ahead.
It careened off the road and plunged headfirst into the roadside.
In the blink of an eye, one vehicle had been wrecked, and there was no telling whether its occupants were alive or dead.
The people in the remaining vehicle were frozen with fright. The driver stopped circling and immediately sped off, trying to escape.
How could Li Xingkong let them get away? They had already attacked him, so of course he couldn't let them off.
Though the SUV was going all out, it could only reach 120 to 130 kilometers per hour on a road like this. And the people inside had been frightened, which affected the driving too.
Li Xingkong went all out and took off after it.
Both were moving at high speed, but a car was an external object. No matter how skilled the driver, he couldn't become one with it. Running was different.
As he chased them, Li Xingkong scooped up a handful of stones along the way. That punch had packed a punch, but it had also done considerable damage to his body. After all, force was mutual.
After he had run for a few seconds, the driver was already terrified.
He could see in the rearview mirror that the person chasing him was getting closer and closer.
"D-devil!"
The driver was scared witless. Watching Li Xingkong draw closer, he felt his blood pressure rise and his heartbeat grow louder, as though his heart were about to explode.
Then he fainted.
The vehicle was going at 120 kilometers per hour, and the driver had fainted. How did the passengers feel?
Li Xingkong didn't know, but he figured it had to be awful.
As he chased the vehicle, he suddenly felt as if it were about to explode: the doors flew open, and several people tumbled out.
Maybe they had seen too many movies where people jumped out of cars and thought it was safe. But the truth was, if they stayed put and buckled up, they might have kept their miserable lives. Jumping out really left them nine chances of death for one of survival.
Well, Li Xingkong slowed down. He hadn't even made a move yet, and another vehicle full of people had been taken out.
The people who had jumped were still struggling on the ground. Li Xingkong didn't dare approach them, even from a distance. It was just a little too bloody.
In fact, this was the first time he had struck so hard.
There was nothing he could do. He hadn't really fought anyone to the death before, so it was only natural that he couldn't hold back at a time like this.
Seeing that no one else was attacking him, Li Xingkong returned to where the vehicles had surrounded him. His belongings were still there.
Right, there was a cowboy too. As Li Xingkong picked up his things, he remembered the guy he had yanked out of the vehicle.
Where had that guy gone?