Chapter 147: Devastating Blow

"Come on, try this! There's only one bag left!"

The Fatty pulled a bag of peanuts from the pile of food in front of him and casually tossed it to Zhu Tianyi, who was sitting beside him. "If only we had some booze, that would be absolute perfection! It's still a bit of a pity right now." Zhu Tianyi tore open the package, poured a handful into his mouth, swallowed, and spoke.

"Fatty, you're being too uncool! Didn't you say that bag was the last one?!" Although Lixi was missing an arm, he was in decent shape now. The bandage issued by the state was simply miraculous; the bleeding had stopped just minutes after it was applied. While Lixi was still getting used to it, it didn't cause any major hindrance to his movements.

Lixi brandished the empty peanut wrapper in his hand. He had bought this for one hundred thousand cash. Now that they were in a desperate situation, money had become trivial to them. To satisfy their cravings and indulge their taste buds, they had been buying food from the big fatty one after another. There was no help for it; out of the eight people present, only the big fatty had a massive pile of provisions stacked in front of him, featuring all kinds of goods imaginable.

That pile of food had also earned the Fatty a tidy little profit. One hundred thousand per portion, take it or leave it. None of the people present were short on cash—to be honest, one hundred thousand genuinely didn't feel like real money to them. As elite special forces operatives for the state, their compensation and benefits were frighteningly generous. However, because they constantly stayed in secret strongholds, they practically had nowhere to spend their money, meaning even the poorest among them possessed tens of millions.

Therefore, they were more than happy to spend one hundred thousand for a bit of amusement. Besides, that money wasn't going into anyone else's pockets anyway. After spending these past few hours together, everyone had come to view the Fatty as a walking treasure. Now that they had downtime, they all used the Fatty for entertainment, and as long as he could make money, the big fatty didn't care at all what attitude they held toward him.

"One hundred thousand!! For a bottle of Tsingtao!!" The Fatty shouted loudly, lifting a canned beer he had dug out from somewhere. "No way!! You actually managed to dig up a bottle of beer?!" Seeing the canned beer hoisted high in the Fatty's hand, the Smiling Tiger couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, though his exclamation was mostly in jest.

"I'll take it!" Zhu Tianyi's eyes were sharp and his hands fast. The moment he saw the Fatty lift the can, he lunged forward and snatched it right out of his hand. "You owe me two hundred thousand, don't forget!!" The Fatty made sure to remind him.

*Puff~~~*

The sound of the beer can popping open echoed out. Afterward, with a very smug expression, Zhu Tianyi took a gentle lick. "Mmm! Truly a rare, peerless vintage of fine wine!!" Since one hundred thousand couldn't possibly buy just any ordinary beer, showing it off to the poor bastards who had no alcohol to drink was definitely a solid choice.

"If you weren't my superior officer, I would have gone over there and beaten you up long ago." The simple-minded Lixi voiced what everyone was thinking. His words immediately drew a chorus of agreements from the others, though Zhu Tianyi maintained his intoxicated expression. Drinking a can of beer on an occasion like this was truly one of life's great pleasures.

***

"Little Zeze!! Push harder and knock that old geezer down! I'm saving the Fatty's snacks for you!!" While eating and drinking here, everyone naturally hadn't forgotten Li Runze, who was currently engaged in combat with the General. By now, Li Runze and the General had been fighting for an hour and a half, yet victory and defeat remained undecided.

Li Runze kept circling around the General, hitting him with a surprise strike every now and then, while the General gave as good as he got. Li Runze ran ahead and the General chased from behind, but the General's speed simply could not compare to Li Runze's, so up to this point, the General hadn't even managed to brush the hem of Li Runze's clothes.

However, Li Runze's attacks were far too insignificant against the fully armored General, which was why the fight had dragged on until now. At first, everyone had been worried sick about Li Runze, but after half an hour passed, they realized that with Li Runze's current fighting style, blind worrying was completely unnecessary. Another half hour went by, and everyone gradually lost interest in watching. At that moment, the big fatty dumped the entire contents of his backpack onto the ground, instantly capturing everyone's attention.

Even so, when the big fatty announced the price of one hundred thousand per bag, he still subjected himself to everyone's contempt. Still, snacking while watching a fight definitely felt amazing, and besides, none of them cared about a mere hundred thousand. If this mission was successfully completed, the bonus would be many times greater than one hundred thousand anyway, so Old Niu was the first to pick out a bag.

Since someone had broken the ice, and since they truly didn't care about a hundred thousand, the others each bought one or two bags of snacks from the Fatty and began eating with great relish.

Lying on the ground with his eyes narrowed, Song Nianqiang seemed to have fallen asleep. However, the big fatty refused to believe that Song Nianqiang would genuinely fall asleep under these circumstances, so he picked up a bag of "Master Kong" instant noodles and tossed it at Song Nianqiang.

"Hey!! Qiangzi, don't tell me you've fallen asleep!!" the Fatty said as he tore open a bag of melon seeds, tossed one into his mouth, and continued, "What do you know? This is called feigning sleep. I'm preparing myself for the battle ahead." Song Nianqiang said as he sat up, tossing the bag of Master Kong back to the big fatty. "Got water?"

"Yeah! Wahaha." With that, the big fatty rummaged through the pile of food, fished out a bottle of mineral water, and tossed it to Song Nianqiang. The water they had brought was relatively ample; they could hold out for a few days without food, but without water, everyone would collapse within a day. Therefore, aside from the freak Song Nianqiang who hadn't brought a single thing, everyone else was carrying a few bottles of water.

Downing the bottle in one breath, Song Nianqiang casually tossed the empty mineral water bottle toward the platform. "I'm saying, Little Zeze, hurry up and finish the fight already. How much longer do you expect us to wait? I've already taken a nap!!" Raising his voice, Song Nianqiang shouted loudly toward Li Runze, who was still skirmishing with the General on the platform.

The nickname "Little Zeze" filled Li Runze with incomparable depression. It was rumored that on a certain island, there was also an action star named Koizumi, except that person starred in romance films—though adult romance films were also a pretty strong selling point.

After fighting the General for an hour and a half, Li Runze's patience had truly worn thin. Therefore, running forward a short distance, he unbuckled a pair of combat gloves from his waist and quickly slipped them onto his hands. These gloves looked quite similar to his previous pair, but their power was worlds apart.

***

"Wait a second!! What's the rush?!" After putting on the gloves, Li Runze clenched his fists and tested them out, though he immediately added another warning, "Whoever calls me Little Zeze again, I'll risk my life with them!!" Finishing this sentence, Li Runze's body twisted in mid-air, and he suddenly charged straight toward the General.

Seeing that the fellow who had blindly fled all this time was actually attacking him, the General felt a sudden surge of joy. The tiger-head saber in his hand flipped, its cold glare flashing under the candlelight, and he slashed down toward Li Runze. However, Li Runze's speed was simply too fast; the saber cleaved through Li Runze's afterimage, while Li Runze had already arrived behind the General. Blue electrical arcs were crackling and flashing across his combat gloves.

He rapidly raised his fist. As Li Runze's fist rose high into the air, bolts of current surged across the gloves, ultimately coalescing to form a layer of blue energy that completely covered the surface.

*Thump~~~~*

The might of that single strike actually pierced right through the General's armor. The General's entire shoulder blade was smashed to nothingness by Li Runze's punch, taking one of his arms along with it. Fortunately, it wasn't the arm the General used to hold his saber; otherwise, the General's combat capability would have plummeted drastically.

Even so, this blow dealt massive damage to the General. Dazedly glancing down at his empty arm socket, the General flew into a rage. Although he could not feel pain, the fact that someone had dared to damage his physical body constituted an unforgivable sin, and the General had already sentenced this person to death in his heart.

Yet the outcome left the General somewhat dumbfounded. Before he could even turn around, he suddenly discovered that a blue fist had materialized in his own chest, and that very fist instantly transformed into a claw and retracted. This blow nearly severed the General's vital life force completely; fortunately, the crucial mechanism sustaining the General's life did not lie in his heart, or else this single strike would have killed him outright.

"Roar, roar, roar...!"

Verging on a frenzy, the General roared furiously without stop, and the tiger-head saber in his hand whirled into an impenetrable defense. Just as the General prepared to launch a counterattack, Li Runze backed far away. Subsequent events proved that Li Runze's choice was entirely correct, because if one dared to let the General close in at this moment, they would be reduced to a pile of minced meat within a single second.