Murder and arson bring glory; building bridges and repairing roads leave no trace. Lu Renjia, a man of a hundred lifetimes of virtue, is nothing more than a third-rate vocational college graduate in the real world, drifting aimlessly through his days just to scrape together three meals a day. A mysterious old beggar, a sudden “Evil God System”—the moment he became a qualified host, the four mysterious Primordial Realms, the countless Great Thousand Worlds, and the dazzling Little Thousand Worlds all came flooding in. “Since being a good person doesn’t put food on the table, then let me be the worst of the wicked!” Lu Renjia declared in a deep voice.
Chapter 40: How Many Punches?
After Sloan, the leader of the “Brotherhood,” spoke, the assassins throughout the restaurant erupted into a frenzy, as if it were a summer carnival. With a friendly smile on his face, Sloan—without waiting to see if Lu Renjia would agree—went ahead and pulled up a stool, then began to explain: “Our ‘Brotherhood’s’ dueling tradition has been passed down for centuries—it’s called the ‘Throne of the Brave’! The time limit is ten seconds… Both combatants may use any part of their body—aside from weapons—to attack the person sitting on the stool… If the person being attacked can’t withstand the assault… they may surrender… Of course, passing out, dodging, or counterattacking also counts as a loss… As for who attacks first, that’s decided by flipping a coin…” “Damn… Isn’t this that ‘ask a question, take a punch’ game Wesley Gibson played with the Repairman? Looks like this is an upgraded version… Ten seconds? Although the Repairman gains superhuman strength after activating the ‘Assassin’s Heart,’ he still possesses at least seven to eight times the speed of an ordinary person, right? By that calculation… ten seconds is enough for him to land a hundred or two hundred punches…” Lu Renjia cursed silently to himself. True to the saying, “You may lose the battle, but don’t lose face,” Lu Renjia shoved his hands into his pockets, putting on an air of nonchalance. But the repairman, his fighting spirit at its peak, had already pulled a thick bundle of bandages from his pocket and was busily wrapping his fists. With a smile on his face, Sloan pulled five coins from his pocket, casually picked up an iron bowl from the table, and dropped the coins into it. Without even shaking it, a clinking sound rang out from within the bowl as he waved his hand. Sloan’s incredibly concise movement caused Lu Renjia to raise an eyebrow. He thought to himself, “Whether in speed or control, he’s definitely reached a level twenty-five times that of an ordinary person… Though he lacks inner energy, his physical stats match those of a late-stage second-tier martial artist. If he were to unleash the ‘Assassin’s Heart,’ he might be even stronger…” With a dull “clang,” Sloan slammed the iron bowl down on the table. Every member of the “Brotherhood” in the dining hall held their breath, their eyes fixed on Lu Renjia and the repairman. “This method of guessing coins, as verified by our ‘Brotherhood’ over hundreds of years, is absolutely fair… Numbers represent heads, and patterns represent tails! Will there be more heads or more tails? Who goes first?” Lu Renjia couldn’t help but nod. He had originally thought Sloan would toss the coin to guess heads or tails; if that had been the case, with his keen eyesight, he would have had at least a 70 percent chance of winning. However, guessing the number of heads or tails inside the bowl this way was essentially a test of luck. As one of the “Brotherhood’s” top five masters, the repairman—who held the home-field advantage—showed plenty of sportsmanship. Still busy wrapping a bandage, he shrugged and laughed, “A guest from afar… I’ll let you go first… Don’t worry, I’ll definitely never guess the same thing as you…” Although he’d conceded the first move to Lu Renjia, the look of contempt in his opponent’s eyes left Lu Renjia feeling quite annoyed. “Luck is part of one’s strength, but I’ve always had terrible luck… so I have to make up for it in other ways… That’s why I’m confident that even if I were to sit on that stool first, I could last ten seconds… Since I walked in here with my head held high, I’ll walk out the same way… I’m betting on ‘front’…” Lu Renjia said coldly. The Repairman sneered, “Pfft… True skill isn’t something you just talk about! We who walk the fringes of the world see the darkest underbelly of this realm… As an assassin, of course I’d choose the dark side…” “Heh… It seems you’ve both made your choices, so I’ll reveal the answer now…” With that, Sloan slowly turned the upside-down metal bowl right side up. “Hahahaha… Repairman, finish him off… Let him see just how formidable our ‘Brotherhood’ is!!” “Repairman!!! Go for it… crush him with your fists…” “Make him count sheep in three seconds… Hahahaha… There are still plenty of empty beds in the Russians’ infirmary…” The moment the metal bowl was lifted, the entire restaurant erupted. Of the five coins, only two showed the numeric pattern on the heads side. Amid the raucous clamor of the “Brotherhood” members in the restaurant, it seemed that luck—something that had never once favored Lu Renjia—had become an ironclad rule. The Butcher pulled a wad of bills straight out of his greasy pocket and waved them around. “Nobody better try to steal this from me! I’ll be the banker on this one… If that Huaxia kid can last three seconds, it’s three to one… five seconds, five to one… ten seconds, ten to one…” The Butcher’s gruff voice instantly drowned out the clamor in the restaurant. Lu Renjia, standing closest to the Butcher, felt a sharp pain in his eardrums from the man’s thunderous voice. His mouth twitched as he thought to himself, “Why do butchers all have such loud voices? No wonder Zhang Fei was able to drive back a hundred thousand troops with just his booming voice…” Since he’d lost the bet, Lu Renjia took it in stride and sat down on the stool Sloan had brought over. On the surface, he appeared calm and unconcerned, but deep down he remained on high alert. The old hands like Master Xuan Kui had told him that every mission was like dancing on the edge of a knife—the slightest misstep could cost him his life. “Thank goodness I’ve cultivated the *Vajra Invincible Body Divine Art* to the ‘Iron Bones’ realm… I should be able to withstand the Repairman’s attack now, right?” With that thought, Lu Renjia couldn’t help but glance at the Butcher, who was busy acting as the bookie and collecting bets. “Fatso… I’m betting I can last ten seconds! Five hundred thousand… are you in?” As he spoke, Lu Renjia reached into his coat and pulled out a Huaxia Public Bank debit card. The Butcher froze. “Fatso”—that insulting nickname. It had been years since anyone had called him that. Ever since he’d become one of the Five Great Masters of the “Brotherhood,” anyone who’d dared address him that way had ended up as a pile of minced meat. This time, however, upon seeing the bank card wobbling in Lu Renjia’s hand, the Butcher didn’t get angry. After all, in all this time, no one had ever managed to withstand ten seconds of uninterrupted attacks from the Repairman on the “Throne of the Brave.” “When someone’s lining up to hand over money, I’m certainly going to take it all!” With that, the Butcher snatched the bank card from Lu Renjia’s hand, stuffed it into his greasy pocket without even glancing at it, and as he strolled past the Repairman, he murmured, ““Don’t go easy on him… let that cocky Chinese kid count sheep. If he wins, I’ll split the winnings with you…” “Crack… crack… crack…” The repairman cracked his knuckles, producing a series of popping sounds, and flashed a confident smile. “Just you wait…” “Since this is a fair contest, let me make one thing clear: my wrist strength is 1. 5 metric tons, and I can throw twenty punches in a second… If you’re scared, just admit defeat, and I’ll let you off…” The repairman said haughtily, staring at Lu Renjia. To his surprise, Lu Renjia didn’t bat an eye. He waved his hand and laughed, “No way… That 500,000 is what I’ve saved up over the years to buy a house. You guys have no idea—property prices in Huaxia’s Shendu are skyrocketing every day; they’ve already hit 70,000 to 80,000 Huaxia yuan per square meter…With this money, I’d only be able to buy a bathroom. But if I happen to win… then when I return to Huaxia, I’ll be able to buy a big house… So even if it costs me my life, I’ll hold out for ten seconds…” No one in the restaurant took Lu Renjia’s joke seriously. As an assassin, who would be foolish enough to settle down in one place? However, seeing Lu Renjia’s calm and composed demeanor, even Fox—who had been hoping to see Lu Renjia make a fool of himself—was somewhat taken aback. As for Sloan, though the smile on his face didn’t waver, a flash of sharpness flickered in his cloudy eyes. He thought to himself, “He’s no ordinary guy… Could it be that, like that Li guy, he’s trained in some kind of protective martial art?” The Repairman’s expression shifted slightly. The “Brotherhood” still maintained friendly relations with Lu Renjia’s organization. Although Fox had instigated this contest, the Repairman didn’t dare to go all out—after all, if he were to knock out Lu Renjia, the exchange student, he wouldn’t be able to explain himself to the “Brotherhood.” That was why the Repairman had laid out his wrist strength and punch speed one by one, hoping Lu Renjia would back down when faced with the challenge. Little did he expect this guy to actually take him on. Fuming, the Repairman’s expression darkened, and he said coldly, “You need to be alive to spend your money… If you don’t even have your life left, what good is even the biggest house? The final resting place of a human life is nothing more than a tiny urn… Are you ready?” Lu Renjia nodded, circulating his deep Nine Yang True Qi throughout his body. He gradually activated the *Vajra Invincible Body Divine Art*—a defensive technique that made him as tough as a turtle’s shell. In an instant, every pore on his body contracted and sealed shut, and every bone within him became as hard as steel. Seeing that Lu Renjia was ready, the repairman glanced at Sloan, who—at some point—had clenched a stopwatch in his hand. “Time’s up…” Sloan said as he pressed the button on the stopwatch. No sooner had Sloan finished speaking than—*whoosh*—Lu Renjia felt as if a gust of wind had swept across his face; the repairman’s unadorned straight punch struck him squarely on the chin. Sitting upright on the stool, Lu Renjia felt as if he’d been struck by a bowling ball hurtling at breakneck speed. Under the force of the impact, he braced his core, anchoring himself firmly in place. “Spit…” Lu Renjia spat out a mouthful of blood. Although he possessed the *Invincible Vajra Body Divine Art*, with his current inner energy—merely at the late second-tier level—he had only reached the second level, the “Iron Bones” realm. He had not yet attained the “Invincible Vajra” realm, where true qi forms a protective barrier and defense is peerless, as he had in the world of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Demon Cult Leader*. Shaking his dizzy head, Lu Renjia muttered coldly, “One punch…” Seeing Lu Renjia spit out a mouthful of blood-stained saliva, shake his head, and then seem fine, the repairman was utterly shocked. Although he hadn’t activated the “Assassin’s Heart” with that punch, it had still carried at least 800 kilograms of force. For an ordinary person, such a blow would likely have left them dead or crippled. As if thoroughly enraged by Lu Renjia, the Repairman’s expression darkened, and his powerful heart began to race. From his seat on the stool, Lu Renjia watched as, in the blink of an eye, a flush of red spread across the Repairman’s pale face, and his two muscular arms instantly swelled to the thickness of an adult’s thigh. Witnessing the repairman’s transformation only strengthened Lu Renjia’s desire to obtain the “Assassin’s Heart.” He thought to himself, “Is this the transformation brought about by the ‘Assassin’s Heart’? To be able to multiply one’s physical stats in the blink of an eye… Hmph, I wonder what changes I’ll undergo once I get my hands on the ‘Assassin’s Heart’…” “Are you ready? That was just an appetizer… I’m curious to see just how many punches you can actually take…” the repairman said in a deep, booming voice. “Smack, smack, smack, smack…” “Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack…” The sound of fists striking flesh filled the air, like a continuous burst of firecrackers. Everyone in the entire restaurant was stunned; even the Butcher, the Gunsmith, and Fox—the three elite members of the “Brotherhood”—stared intently at Lu Renjia, who sat there composed. The Repairman could throw twenty punches in a single second; at this moment, he seemed to have gone berserk. With “Assassin’s Heart” activated, his burly arms moved so fast they created afterimages. Meanwhile, Lu Renjia, forced to take the blows, gritted his teeth as his head, chest, and abdomen were pounded by a storm of attacks. Fox, the instigator of it all, was utterly shocked to see Lu Renjia still gritting his teeth and holding on despite such a relentless barrage. “That damn guy—is his durability really that strong?” The Butcher and the Gunsmith shared Fox’s thoughts. “No way… The Repairman can kill a water buffalo with a single punch… and this Chinese kid has actually managed to last this long?” the Gunsmith thought to himself. No one was more anxious than Butcher. After all, as the bookie, he’d taken the 500,000 bet Lu Renjia had placed. If Lu Renjia really managed to last ten seconds, that would mean a ten-to-one payout—a total of 5 million. Although Butcher had amassed a considerable fortune during his years in the “Brotherhood,” having to cough up 5 million all at once would still be a massive blow to his wallet. “Repairman… you’re not going to go easy on him, are you…? Beat the hell out of him!!!!” the Butcher shouted. He swung his fists with fierce force, his heavy, cannon-like punches slamming into Lu Renjia. This storm of blows certainly left Lu Renjia battered—not only was his hair a disheveled mess, but the corners of his mouth, the edges of his eyebrows, the rims of his eyes, and the bridge of his nose were all split open. But in reality, the Repairman knew all too well the pain he was enduring. With every punch he landed, the Repairman felt as if he were striking a rock. “Aaaargh!!! Just die already…” The Repairman roared in fury, his entire body twisting backward like a shrimp in boiling water as he unleashed the power from his waist and abdomen in an instant, sending a left hook hurtling straight toward Lu Renjia’s temple.
