Chapter 60: The Path of the Strong

“My son, Jiang Yong—do you remember him?” Jiang Liliang asked through gritted teeth.

“That scum?” Hua Tianyu narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Jiang Liliang. There truly was a resemblance between the two.

“I have to admit, the two of you look just like a pair of scoundrels,” Hua Tianyu said with a curl of his lips.

“Hua Tianyu, you’re courting death!”

“Hua, if I don’t teach you a lesson, you really won’t understand who you’re dealing with!”

“Do you even realize your own worth? How dare you act so arrogant here?”

Hua Tianyu’s words were like a drop of cold water tossed into the boiling oil of Yongxing Hall, causing an immediate stir.

Yet, now that Jiang Liliang saw Hua Tianyu standing before him, he suppressed his fury. The prey was already in the cage; it was time to play.

He waited for the uproar among his men to subside before speaking in a cold, sinister voice: “Hua Tianyu, I’ll give you one last chance—come with me quietly, or I’ll break both your arms and legs today.”

Hua Tianyu let out a soft laugh, unconcerned. “You say that as if if I went with you quietly, you wouldn’t break my arms and legs anyway. Do you take me for as much of a fool as your son?”

“Hua Tianyu, do you really think that with just the dozen or so people by your side, you can take us on?”

“Not at all,” Hua Tianyu replied calmly.

Jiang Liliang smiled arrogantly. “So you do understand your situation.”

“You’ve misunderstood,” Hua Tianyu said, hands clasped behind his back, his face composed. “I mean that even without them, I could still have you all eating out of my hand.”

Jiang Liliang was so enraged he burst out laughing, repeating “Good! Good! Good!” three times in a row. “You’re an outsider, so perhaps you really don’t know the Jiang family. But after today, if you’re still alive, I promise you’ll never forget us!”

“Is the Jiang family really so impressive?” Hua Tianyu retorted.

“The Jiang Family Martial Arts School claims to have over ten thousand members. In reality, it’s probably less, but there must be at least seven or eight thousand. It’s ranked among the top three underground forces in Shangjiang City,” Xiayang interjected solemnly.

“Yongxing Hall is one of their branches. It’s not the largest, but there are easily a thousand members,” he added.

Jiang Liliang’s face showed a hint of pride at Xiayang’s words.

“Hua Tianyu, I don’t need a thousand men. The forty or so I brought today are enough to beat you all into dogs!”

Hua Tianyu narrowed his eyes. From his perspective, these forty men were indeed different from common thugs—clearly some skill among them.

But, in Hua Tianyu’s estimation, that was all.

Behind him, Wang Ming suddenly noticed something, his face draining of color. He leaned in and whispered, “I recognize a few of those guys in black. They’re usually leaders in the various clubs. Why are they all here today?”

Hua Tianyu nodded inwardly—no wonder they seemed different from ordinary street punks. So these were the minor bosses of Yongxing Hall.

Seeing the fear among Hua Tianyu’s group, Jiang Liliang’s arrogance grew. “Only now do you realize you should be afraid? Too late! I brought this many men today. If I don’t cripple every last one of you, Yongxing Hall might as well shut down in North Shangbei!”

Beside him, Feng Wenthu, clad in gray, could barely contain himself. “Master Jiang, give me ten men and I’ll cripple them all!”

A savage grin twisted Jiang Liliang’s face. “My son wants to break every bone in Hua’s body himself, and he wants those two girls, Lin Lin and Tian Li, alive as well. Leave those three breathing. As for the rest—I never want to see them again.”

“You really think your precious Yongxing Hall is something special?” Hua Tianyu said lightly, a faint smile playing at his lips.

“Try it and see for yourself. In North Shangbei, you’ll learn soon enough who you can’t afford to cross!” Jiang Liliang spat on the ground and shot Feng Wenthu a look. “Go!”

“Yes, sir!”

Feng Wenthu barked the order, leading ten men armed with baseball bats and steel pipes, charging forward with a roar.

Feng Wenthu was not someone to be compared with the likes of Jiang Bo. The men he trained could each hold their own, able to run an entire club by themselves.

As for Jiang Bo and Yue Yongyan, they’d struggle to keep order in one club, never mind leading a dozen or so of Yongxing Hall’s elite.

That’s why Feng Wenthu was so confident, charging straight for Hua Tianyu, while his ten men rushed at Lin Lin’s subordinates.

Taking on two at once was nothing for these men. Yongxing Hall ran rampant in North Shangbei—where did their strength come from? From these men in black, who fought and clawed their way to the top.

If Jiang Liliang and his brothers gave the Jiang Family Martial Arts School a foothold in the underworld, it was these minor bosses—like the black-clad men Jiang had brought today—who allowed it to grow and thrive.

Word was, this group they were facing was from some “Starlight Bar.”

Starlight Bar? What a joke—that tiny place was beneath notice. Yongxing Hall couldn’t be bothered to take it over, and collecting protection money from such a small venue would only invite ridicule.

Otherwise, they could have wiped them out in a matter of minutes.

“Aargh!”

Just as Hua Tianyu was about to intercept Feng Wenthu, Lin Lin let out a fierce shout and charged forward.

Feng Wenthu was unarmed, so Hua Tianyu wasn’t worried Lin Lin would be at too much of a disadvantage. He stood aside, ready to cover her, while keeping an eye on the rest.

Judging by her moves, Lin Lin’s martial arts were taught by her father, Lin Luohua. The difference was, Bear had undergone special modifications from Long Po’s medic, Bian Que, allowing him to unleash the full, powerful potential of these techniques.

Lin Lin, being a woman and never having undergone such transformation, could only tap into a fraction of Bear’s power.

Yet even with less than a tenth of that strength, she fought Feng Wenthu on equal footing.

From years of fighting experience around the world, Hua Tianyu assessed Lin Lin’s strength as equivalent to a beginner-level gene-enhanced warrior—about the lowest tier among foreign powers.

Gene-enhanced warriors like her were worlds apart from the gene-enhanced super-warriors Hua Tianyu had faced in his final battle—between them were two higher ranks: elite and special forces gene warriors.

Each level was further divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced stages, with intermediate overwhelming beginners.

So a beginner gene-enhanced warrior was only just stepping into the ranks of the powerful, though already formidable compared to ordinary people.

But in the Jiang Family’s Yongxing Hall here in Shangjiang City, that kind of strength was already a mainstay.

Still, for someone as young and unmodified as Lin Lin, without any special training, reaching this level was a testament to her remarkable talent.

And Hua Tianyu could see—Lin Lin still had room to grow.