Chapter 21: Nothing to Repay With

Seven or eight thugs armed with steel rods and machetes encircled Lu Feng, yet he stood motionless where he was. Dawei, their swaggering leader, assumed Lu Feng was paralyzed with fear and laughed haughtily, jabbing his finger into Lu Feng’s chest. “We just want money. If you don’t want a beating, hand over your cash. Fancy this woman? Two thousand for a time, ten thousand for the whole night. Fair price, right?”

Lu Feng frowned in disgust as the man’s finger prodded him. “Take your hand off me.”

Dawei snorted derisively, continuing to jab Lu Feng’s chest with his finger. “So what if I poke you? If you annoy me, I might even cut you up!”

Lu Feng’s face darkened. Suddenly, his right hand shot out like lightning, seizing Dawei’s finger and bending it back with tremendous force.

A loud crack.

A howl of agony.

Dawei’s finger snapped, and he shrieked in pain. Without hesitation, Lu Feng hooked his foot behind Dawei’s legs, grasped both of his arms, and hurled him away.

Dawei crashed into the wall and then thudded to the floor. Clutching his broken finger, he howled in agony, sweat beading and rolling down his forehead.

Seeing their boss so swiftly dispatched, the other thugs hesitated. One of them shouted, “Cut him down!”

They all charged at once, swinging steel rods and machetes at Lu Feng.

Lu Feng’s face showed not a hint of fear as the weapons came at him in a blur. The woman in the room, however, went pale with terror. She had lived in Baiyun District for years and knew all too well what men from the Lianhong Society were capable of—quick to violence and utterly ruthless.

A machete swung at Lu Feng from behind, but he lunged forward, planted a foot on the wall, used the rebound to spin, and unleashed a perfect roundhouse kick like a steel whip.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Seven or eight thugs were struck almost simultaneously, the blows landing on their heads with crisp, echoing cracks.

Shouts and screams.

All seven or eight men collapsed to the floor, howling and clutching their faces, their weapons clattering around them. A few spat out blood-tinged teeth.

Dawei still gripped his broken finger, groaning in pain. In the blink of an eye, he saw all his men strewn across the ground. Terror-stricken, he scrambled ten meters away before struggling to his feet. Glaring at Lu Feng, he gritted his teeth and demanded, “Who are you? Leave your name if you have the guts!”

Lu Feng glanced over at him coolly. “My name is Lu Feng. If you want revenge, come and find me.”

“I’ll remember you! You’ve wrecked my turf tonight, and my boss will make you pay!” Dawei spat out, then turned and staggered away.

The rest of the thugs, still writhing on the floor, scrambled and crawled off as well, desperate to escape further punishment.

The woman in the room stared at Lu Feng in a daze, unable to believe what she had just witnessed.

Lu Feng turned to her, voicing his doubt. “Do you know me?”

She snapped back to herself and nodded, “I recognize you, though you might not know me. That accident at the crossroads on Galaxy Street—you saved my daughter, Xiaoxiao…”

At the mention of her daughter, her face turned deathly pale. In a panic, she rushed out the door, fleeing toward the back street, her lips repeating her child’s name, “Xiaoxiao… Xiaoxiao…”

Lu Feng hadn’t expected this coincidence—he had really run into the little girl’s mother, Chen Lan. As the events of the past days came together in his mind, everything became clear.

This woman was indeed Chen Lan. That day, trying to escape her debt, she had planned to leave with her daughter, only to be caught in a car accident, lose too much blood, and fall unconscious, ending up in the hospital. The hospital had called her home, but the call was intercepted by Lianhong Society’s gang. Three thugs were sent to the hospital and dragged mother and child back here.

Lu Feng had traced them here using the name of Xiaoxiao’s kindergarten on her backpack and, with some inquiries at a food stall, had learned Chen Lan had been seen on this street. He’d come to try his luck and, against all odds, found her.

Now Chen Lan was running in a panic to find her daughter, surely afraid the gang would seize Xiaoxiao.

Lu Feng hurried after her. Once outside the alley, he saw Chen Lan dart into a dilapidated apartment building, the word “Demolition” scrawled in large characters on the wall.

Chen Lan rushed up to the third floor, threw open a door, and called, “Xiaoxiao!”

A little girl sat on a small stool, writing. Hearing her mother’s voice, she looked up with a smile and called, “Mama…”

Chen Lan ran to her daughter, scooped her up and pressed her face close, fighting tears. “Be good, Xiaoxiao. Come with Mama, don’t cry or fuss, alright?”

It seemed this wasn’t the little girl’s first experience of such hardship. Clinging to Chen Lan’s neck, she sobbed, “Don’t cry, Mama. Xiaoxiao will be good.”

Chen Lan wiped away her tears, hurriedly packed their clothes and her daughter’s schoolbag, then picked her up and headed for the door.

Lu Feng had been standing at the entrance. Seeing that Chen Lan was about to leave, he resolved to escort them away. Otherwise, when Dawei and his men returned, there was no telling what suffering mother and daughter might endure.

“I can’t stay here. They’ll sell me off to Cambodia and I’ll never see my daughter again. You should go too—you’ve beaten their men, and they won’t let you go. They’re deadly. You can’t fight them,” Chen Lan said breathlessly as she ran with her daughter and Lu Feng beside her.

“I’ll see you out first,” Lu Feng replied. He hurried ahead, flagged down a taxi, opened the door, and helped Chen Lan and Xiaoxiao into the back seat, then got in himself.

Chen Lan, with no time for hesitation, urged the driver, “To the train station, please!”

As the taxi pulled away, she glanced back at the streets behind. Only when she saw no one was following did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Where are you going? Have you got tickets?” Lu Feng asked.

“I’ll buy them at the station—I haven’t had time,” Chen Lan replied.

“What if there aren’t any left?”

“We’ll just go wherever we can. If we stay, they’ll catch up to us at the station for sure,” she said, holding her daughter’s small face in her arms.

Lu Feng considered for a moment, then took out the bank card Su Dao’an had given him and handed it to Chen Lan. “Here’s some money. Take it.”

Chen Lan hesitated, clutching the card but not pulling it away. She didn’t want to accept charity, but she desperately needed money—even a few hundred yuan would help. She didn’t even have enough for tickets. The Lianhong Society, worried she’d run off again, hadn’t left her a cent.

“You saved my life. I don’t know how to thank you. I shouldn’t take your money, but I really…” Her voice broke, and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand as tears spilled from her eyes.

Never in her life had she felt so desolate.

Desolation—a pain so deep that even covering your mouth can’t keep the tears from falling.