Start with push-ups to gain experience

Chapter 543 High-Level Thugs, Blood Thorn Mercenary Group
The room was dark.

Only a few faint rays of light seeped through the fabric of the curtains, outlining the silhouette of the person pressed against the wall.

The man had a standard square face, thick eyebrows, and large eyes, which should have made him appear resolute and dignified.

But at this moment, his face was ashen white, and blood was still dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Fine beads of cold sweat gathered on his forehead, sliding down his temples and dripping onto the back of his hand, which was gripping his throat like an iron clamp.

Fang Cheng stared intently at the other person's contorted face, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes:
"How could it be you?"

The "enemy" he had subdued with a single move turned out to be Chairman Shen's personal bodyguard from the East City Gang.

Fang Cheng recalled that he had met the other party once at the club's annual meeting six months ago.

At that time, the crowd was huge, and the applause was thunderous.

Fang Cheng stood on the podium, receiving a thick stack of cash red envelopes personally presented by Chairman Shen as an outstanding employee.

The man, dressed in a sharp black suit, followed behind Chairman Shen like an iron tower.

At that time, his gaze was as sharp as a hawk's, and he exuded a fierce aura that kept strangers at bay.

Even just a glance from afar reveals that restrained yet explosive power.

Fang Cheng hadn't taken him seriously at the time, and didn't even know his name.

He was just a dutiful and highly skilled enforcer.

Unexpectedly, their second meeting would take place under such a life-or-death situation.

Just as the two were staring at each other in the darkness, the atmosphere became tense.

"crunch-"

Suddenly, the sound of a window being forcefully pushed open came from downstairs, followed by an angry roar:

"Hey! What's going on upstairs in the middle of the night?"

"Is it a demolition or an earthquake? Can't people get some sleep?!"

Clearly, Fang Cheng's sudden, explosive stomp not only cracked his own floorboards, but the loud noise also disturbed his sleeping neighbors on the eighth floor.

The sudden outburst of curses broke the tense silence in the room.

Fang Cheng's eyes narrowed. Ignoring the shouts and curses from downstairs, he leaned forward and lowered his voice, shouting sharply:
"Tell me, what are you doing hiding in my house?"

The strength in his hand did not loosen at all after recognizing the other person; on the contrary, it tightened a bit.

The man's throat bones made a faint cracking sound as if they were about to break.

Due to extreme oxygen deprivation, his originally pale face quickly turned purplish-red, his eyes widened, his eyeballs bulged, and he made gurgling sounds in his throat.

His hands weakly clawed at Fang Cheng's wrists, his legs dangling in the air and kicking wildly, his whole body like a fish out of water, on the verge of suffocating and dying.

Upon seeing this, Fang Cheng frowned slightly.

If this guy dies, the trail will be gone.

He then snorted coldly and loosened his grip on the other person's throat slightly.

But the muscles in the body remain tense, maintaining a vigilant posture ready to exert force again at any time.

"Huh...huh..."

Fresh air rushed into my lungs.

The man gasped for breath like someone who had just been rescued from drowning, then burst into a heart-wrenching cough:

"Cough cough! Cough cough cough..."

The cough was so violent that it caused the entire chest cavity to vibrate violently, as if the lungs were about to be coughed out.

But he didn't have time to catch his breath, seemingly afraid that Fang Cheng would strike at him the next second. He then endured the excruciating pain and said in a hoarse voice:

"Fang...Fang Cheng, don't do it..."

"My name is Ah Le. Do you remember me? I work for Chairman Shen!"

Fang Cheng remained expressionless, his eyes still cold, and asked again in a deep voice:

“I don’t care who you are. Why are you hiding in my house? Tell me the truth, or I won’t hesitate to send you on your way.”

As they spoke, a chilling killing intent locked onto Ah Le.

Ah Le looked terrified, as if recalling the terrifying scene just moments before when the other party pounced on him like a ferocious beast.

The overwhelming power and speed left this former underground boxing champion with no chance to react.

He dared not hide anything any longer, his eyes filled with a pleading look that bordered on despair:

"Help... help..."

"I've come to ask for your help... The guild leader is in trouble, someone wants to kill him! Only you can save him!"

Fang Cheng was taken aback upon hearing this, and carefully observed the other person's eyes by the dim light.

Fear, anxiety, despair—but not a moment of hesitation.

The genuine reactions that people instinctively show when they are on the verge of life and death are something that even the best actors cannot fake.

As Fang Cheng's gaze moved downwards, he noticed that Ah Le was still clutching his abdomen.

The black jacket was soaked, and warm, viscous blood was seeping out from between his fingers and dripping onto the floor.

It seems he wasn't lying.

Seeing this, Fang Cheng released his grip.

puff.

Losing his support, Ah Le slumped down the wall and fell heavily to the ground.

The violent struggle just now seemed to have reopened an old wound in his abdomen.

He curled up in pain, clutching his wound tightly with both hands.

He looked as if he had just returned from the brink of death, breathing heavily and weakly, without even the strength to lift his head.

Fang Cheng looked down at his miserable state and shook his head inwardly.

To be honest, if I hadn't sensed the other party's weak aura and signs of serious injury before entering the room, and if I hadn't deliberately held back seven-tenths of my strength when I attacked, I would have been much stronger.

Otherwise, with that chokehold, this guy's neck would have been broken long ago, and he'd be reporting for duty right there below.

Fang Cheng didn't look at Ah Le lying on the ground anymore. He walked to the window and pulled the curtains open a crack.

He quickly glanced downstairs through the edge of the fabric from the side.

The streets were deserted and seemed rather quiet.

The barbecue stall was nearing the end of its business, and the owner was wiping the greasy table with a rag.

My Land Rover was parked quietly in the corner next to a bunch of electric scooters.

There were no suspicious signs in the surrounding area either.

At the entrance of the tenement building, two figures were lurking in the shadows.

One is tall and the other is short, with very different appearances.

It was Da Chui and the monkey who were ordered to guard the stairwell.

Fang Cheng's eyes flickered slightly, and he raised his hand to press the switch on the communicator next to his ear:
"Monkey, have you found anything?"

"Reporting to the Chairman, no abnormalities have been found."

The monkey's crisp voice immediately followed:
"President, have you caught the target? Do you need our help?"

"Yeah, if that kid doesn't behave, I'll go up and loosen his bones!"

Then, a deep voice came through the communicator, and Big Hammer chimed in, full of eagerness.

"Need not."

Fang Cheng replied calmly and directly:
"I can handle this. You can go back to the monitoring room first, and let me know if anything happens."

"Yes, Chairman." The two replied immediately, without asking any further questions.

After confirming that the outside was safe, Fang Cheng walked to the TV cabinet, opened the drawer, took out a roll of gauze and a bottle of Yunnan Baiyao, and casually threw them on A Le.

"Take care of it yourself."

Then, he pulled up a chair, sat down opposite Ah Le with an air of authority, and casually pressed the switch on the floor lamp next to him.

Snapped.

The warm yellow light suddenly turned on, dispelling the darkness in the room.

The light illuminated Fang Cheng's overly calm face, and also revealed Ah Le's disheveled appearance clearly.

Without any hesitation, Ah Le grabbed the medicine bottle and, with a "rip," tore open his blood-soaked jacket and shirt.

There was a shocking wound on his left abdomen, with the flesh turned inside out and the brown intestines even faintly visible.

Although it wasn't fatal yet, it was still bleeding profusely, which looked quite horrifying.

He forcefully bit open the medicine bottle cap and haphazardly sprinkled the white powder onto the wound.

"hiss--"

The moment the powder came into contact with his flesh, Ah Le grimaced in pain.

His whole body was trembling, and the veins on his forehead were bulging, but he still managed to hold back from crying out.

Then, he picked up a piece of gauze and wrapped it haphazardly around his waist a few times, barely managing to stop the bleeding.

After doing all this, she leaned weakly against the wall, looked up at Fang Cheng, and whispered:

"Thank you."

"I'll give you five minutes to explain things clearly."

Fang Cheng stared intently at him and said in a deep voice:

"Shen Wei is the head of the Dongcheng Gang. In the underworld of Dongdu, who dares to mess with him? And who injured you like this?"

"Not a criminal organization."

Ah Le took a breath and shook his head.

He braced himself on the floor with both hands, shifting his body slightly upwards, trying to sit up straight as much as possible to preserve the last shred of dignity:
"It's... the Bloodthorn Mercenary Group."

"Bloodthorn?"

Fang Cheng raised an eyebrow, having never heard of this name before.

"They're a bunch of lunatics who take dirty jobs on the black market."

A flicker of barely concealed fear flashed in Ah Le's eyes, and he swallowed hard.
“They are not ordinary people. Like you... just like you, they all have powerful and terrifying special abilities.”

Fang Cheng leaned back in his chair, seemingly oblivious to his unspoken meaning:
"go on."

“Last night, the chairman took a dozen or so of our trusted brothers and drove a convoy to the secret base to carry out some business.”

Ah Le took a deep breath, adjusted his posture to reduce the pulling sensation on his abdominal wound, and slowly recounted that nightmarish experience:

"On the way to the base, I noticed an SUV following us."

"Even though the other party followed from a distance, based on my experience, I could tell at a glance that it was the work of an expert."

“I reminded the chairman and signaled the driver to take a detour. Then we drove around the suburban towns and villages several times, specifically navigating those complicated alleyways.”

At this point, Ah Le frowned, his tone somewhat confused:

"But strangely, no matter how we circled around, that car always managed to pinpoint our tail, as if it had a tracking device installed on our car."

"Seeing that they couldn't shake them off, the chairman made a decisive move and ordered the car to be stopped in a secluded area. After the brothers got out of the car, they pulled out their guns and hid by the roadside, intending to ambush the other side."

Ah Le gave a bitter laugh, his eyes revealing regret:

"At the time, we all thought that the people following us were spies sent by the Red Tiger Gang or other mortal enemies, and we wanted to catch them and get to the bottom of it."

"result……"

His voice suddenly trembled, and his fists clenched involuntarily, clearly indicating that the memory had caused him great psychological trauma.

"What happened?"

Fang Cheng pressed on with a deep voice.

"Those people... they're not ordinary people at all, they're demons!"

Ah Le's pupils contracted, as if he were seeing that bloody scene again:
"As soon as their car stopped, I saw a guy who was as thin as a bamboo pole rush over. He only ran a few steps before he vanished into thin air."

"As soon as A-Yong, who was standing at the front, raised his gun, before he could pull the trigger, his hand was severed at the root, and then a line of blood spurted from his neck, and his head rolled directly to the ground."

"There was another guy who looked like a foreigner, standing dozens of meters away. He just raised his hand and waved it, and another brother next to me was engulfed in flames."

"He screamed and rolled around on the ground, then stopped moving in the blink of an eye, burned to a crisp."

"But these aren't the most despairing things..."

Ah Le swallowed hard, his voice so low that only he could hear it:
"The most terrifying one was that muscular monster. When bullets hit him, it was like hitting a steel plate, only sending up a few sparks, without even breaking his skin."

"He rushed into the crowd, and with a casual wave of his hand, the van was overturned like a toy."

"Then, the monster grabbed the driver, Old Black, by the head and crushed it as easily as cracking a walnut."

"Amidst Old Hei's screams before he died, the monster actually... actually opened its huge mouth full of fangs and bit off half of Old Hei's shoulder, then began to chew it up on the spot!"

At this point, Ah Le suddenly closed his eyes, seemingly unable to bear to look:

"In less than a minute, all the brothers were dead, without even having a chance to scream... Guild leader, he was just captured by those monsters like that."

Fang Cheng, however, remained calm, as if listening to a trivial matter.

Then, they astutely grasped the suspicious points:
"And how did you escape?"

Facing those level of superhumans, especially when they were surrounded by multiple people.

Even though Ah Le seems to have undergone some kind of enhancement and his physical abilities far exceed those of ordinary people, his survival rate is almost zero.

"The chairman was injured at the time. When he saw that things were not going well, he pushed me and told me to break through the encirclement and report the news."

Ah Le opened his eyes, his face filled with pain:
"I knew that staying would only mean certain death, and I wouldn't even be qualified to take a bullet for someone, so I gritted my teeth and ran deeper into the woods."

"That muscular monster was trying to hunt me down, but their leader didn't seem to care about someone as insignificant as me and shouted to stop him."

"That's how I managed to survive thanks to my familiarity with the terrain."

Ah Le chuckled self-deprecatingly, but the fear in his eyes was genuine.

"Later, I went to an unlicensed clinic to get my wounds treated. After calming down and thinking it over, I realized that they might have deliberately let me off the hook."

"Either they only care about the important goal of the chairman and don't care about killing me at all."

"Or they're planning a long game, hoping I'll lure out the other elites of the East City Gang so they can wipe them all out in one fell swoop."

"So you didn't go back to the guild?"

"Not yet."

Ah Le took a deep breath and shook his head:

“I originally wanted to go to the club to find you, but I was worried that those people would be setting up a perimeter around the club, so I didn’t dare to go near.”

“This afternoon, I disguised myself and sneaked over to Jiuchang Street. You weren’t home at the time, and I asked the neighbors, but I couldn’t find out anything.”

“I figured you’d eventually come home at night, so I waited outside.”

"I waited until after nine o'clock, but you still didn't show up. I couldn't bear the pain of my injuries, I was hungry and tired, and being outside was too conspicuous, so I broke the lock and went inside to catch my breath."

"I never expected that this moment of relaxation would cause me to fall into a deep sleep."

"When I heard the door open, my mind was still foggy. I just thought it was an enemy chasing after me, and I didn't identify the person immediately. I'm really sorry!"

At this point, he looked up at Fang Cheng, his face full of guilt as he apologized for his presumptuous behavior.

(End of this chapter)