Chapter 167: Chapter 165: Vow to Kill Fu Lingjun! - The Beginning
BANG!—
A single gunshot shattered the deathly silence of the entire venue.
Everyone shuddered, their eyes searching blankly for the source of the sound.
But in the instant after the shot rang out, a neat, bloody hole appeared between Zhao Tianpeng’s eyebrows.
Zhao Tianpeng’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Fu Juemin. He seemed to want to say something, but ultimately, he just fell backward, his face a mask of bitter unwillingness.
On the main stage, Zhou Feibai’s expression turned icy as he noticed something was wrong. With a shift of his feet, his body was about to lunge toward the ring like a goshawk.
But just then, dozens of figures leaped out from the crowd like tigers. The one in the lead roared in a sharp voice!
"Fu Lingjun! You think you can get away with offending our Young Master Luo Chengying?!"
Zhou Feibai, who had already started to move, came to an abrupt halt. Everyone else was frozen in shock.
The next second, the man who had just shouted took the lead, guiding several dozen fierce men straight toward the main stage.
"By order of Young Master Luo Chengying, we swear to kill Fu Lingjun! All others, get the hell out of the way!"
"By order of Young Master Luo Chengying, we swear to kill Fu Lingjun! All others, get the hell out of the way!"
"By order of Young Master Luo Chengying, we swear to kill Fu Lingjun! All others, get the hell out of the way!"
These men, disguised as common folk, all had sharp eyes and ferocious auras. Their mouths were all roaring to kill Fu Lingjun.
Their slogans shook the heavens, and their killing intent was palpable!
Yet as they passed the Eye-Opening Platform, they didn’t even spare a glance for Fu Juemin, who was standing right there. They just charged headlong toward the main stage.
The scene was so bizarre that not only were the common people in the audience dumbfounded, but even the Martial Arts Sect Leaders and Hall Masters and other distinguished guests on the stage couldn’t make heads or tails of it, exchanging bewildered glances.
Zhou Feibai, frowning slightly, was a bit closer. When he got a clear look at the dark, heavy objects each of these men was carrying, his pupils shrank. A bone-chilling horror seized him in an instant!
"You!..."
He stared at Fu Juemin in the distance, his face filled with disbelief. Before he could speak, the instinct for survival took over.
He dove violently to the side, shamelessly rolling under the wooden framework of the main stage.
At almost the same moment, the dozens of men had reached the foot of the stage.
Their eyes were ice-cold. With mechanical precision, they raised the light machine guns in their hands—weapons that glinted with a hard, oily sheen and had compact stocks. They aimed the muzzles at the faces on the stage—faces that were blank, or filled with suspicion—and yanked the triggers!
"RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT—!!!"
Dozens of muzzle flashes flared in unison as the frantic gunfire, like popping soybeans, merged into a single roar!
As the muzzles jumped wildly, brass casings rained down like a torrential storm, tracing dazzling arcs in the sunlight.
Zheng Jicang, standing at the very front of the main stage as the general steward of this Martial Arts Association, was torn apart by the first hail of bullets before he could even scream.
The long rosewood table holding the incense burner instantly splintered into sawdust. One after another, the exquisite teacups on the table exploded into puffs of porcelain dust.
Gasps and screams had just begun to rise before they were drowned out by the gunfire. A crimson mist of blood, mixed with wood splinters and dust, exploded violently across the stage and spread...
The figures on the stage who, moments before, had been sitting upright, or smirking coldly, or leisurely waiting for the show to unfold, were now like stalks of wheat reaped by an invisible scythe, twitching and tumbling in various postures amidst the rain of bullets...
The meticulously constructed platform for the powerful and influential had, in the blink of an eye, turned into a slaughterhouse of flying flesh and blood.
In this place, in this day and age... anyone qualified to sit on that main stage had, more or less, a reason to die.
The moment the first gunshot rang out, the deathly stillness below the stage was shattered by a wave of primal panic.
The dense crowd at the edge of the venue scattered like an anthill into which a boulder had been dropped!
Crying, screaming, trampling... all order collapsed in an instant. The surging tide of people rushed desperately in every direction, cursing their parents for not giving them two more legs.
The vast Martial Arts Association venue instantly descended into apocalyptic chaos.
Fu Juemin stood on the ring, listening to the deafening roar of bullets. He took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter.
He stepped down from the ring and walked calmly toward the exit, passing through the spreading gunpowder smoke and the stream of fleeing people.
From under the stage, a gray figure shot up like a falcon, hurtling toward his back with a sharp gust of wind!
But before the gray figure could get close, Big Cat and Kitty had already moved to intercept, flanking him from the left and right.
THUD!
The muffled sound of fists and feet colliding exploded outward. The three figures met and separated in a flash.
A Ghost Camp man who heard the commotion immediately spun around with his machine gun, unleashing a wild spray of bullets at the gray figure. "Fu Lingjun! You think you can escape?!"
As several streams of hot lead swept toward him, the gray figure, both furious and indignant, no longer dared to continue the fight. With a few leaps, he vanished into the chaos...
From beginning to end, Fu Juemin never once turned his head.
With a cigarette between his fingers and one hand in his trouser pocket, he strolled all the way out of the venue.
A dozen or so Qinglian Gang members escorted him into a car. The driver, sitting in the front seat, asked respectfully.
"Young Master, where are we heading next?"
Fu Juemin turned his head slightly, gazing through the car window at the distant square, now shrouded in blood and dust.
The winter sun fell upon his face, making his handsome features appear all the more distinct.
In that moment, his eyes held only the stillness of a deep pool.
"To Shao Fengji first."
Fu Juemin retracted his gaze and said lightly, "Buy a box of the rose and red bean paste cakes Aunt Ding likes so much."
The car started, driving smoothly away from the chaos.
From the slowly closing window, a murmured whisper drifted out.
"This whole affair..."
"...has only just begun."
......
The dozens of elite men with machine guns didn’t bother chasing the few individuals with superb skills who had fled at the first opportunity. They simply raked the entire main stage, from top to bottom, emptying all their magazines. Then, like a well-trained army, they holstered their weapons, turned, and swiftly dispersed.
Like dozens of water droplets merging into the fleeing tide of people, they vanished without a trace in an instant.
They left behind only a scene of utter ruin, a venue filled with the stench of gunpowder and blood.
The group from the Five Victories Martial Arts Hall stood frozen in place, utterly dumbfounded. They felt waves of numbness tingling their scalps.
Before Fu Juemin had taken the stage, these teenagers had imagined countless ways he might handle the crisis. But they had never, ever expected... that this would be the outcome?!
At this very moment, the three words "Senior Brother Fu" began to grow infinitely larger in their minds, gradually taking on a mysterious and majestic aura, something between a god and a demon.
Ye Zhenren hadn’t even lowered his rolled-up sleeves.
He had guessed that with Fu Juemin’s temperament, this matter would not end peacefully, but he had never imagined... it would be this brutal!
"Sigh..."
A long sigh, yet it could not express the myriad complex and sorrowful emotions in his heart.
Elsewhere, Zhang Yi stared blankly at the shattered, blood-soaked main stage, a tumultuous storm raging in his chest.
After a moment, he snapped back to his senses.
A flicker in his eyes showed his gaze had turned resolute.
He slowly pulled the square "Martial Arts Scholar" token from his robes, but without even looking at it, he tossed it onto the ground.
Then, he took the hand of the boy beside him and strode off in the direction Fu Juemin’s car had gone.
.....
「An hour later, at the Old City God Temple Square.」
Yellow and white police tape was stretched across most of the square, separating the scene from the sparse crowd of onlookers who had dared to run back for a look.
Carriages and cars were parked haphazardly around the square. The ground was still littered with firecracker debris from the earlier celebration, but the air now echoed with shrill cries and whimpers.
"BLEARGH—"
A young Patrol Police officer, new to the job, finally couldn’t take it anymore. He rushed to the side and began to vomit, his face a ghastly shade of green.
It was only then that he began to understand. ’So what if they were high officials or powerful dignitaries? All those big shots who were usually so high and mighty they wouldn’t even deign to look at him... once they were dead, they were just a pile of rotten meat. And somehow, even more disgusting than an ordinary pile of rotten meat.’
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