Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

A clean and decisive slash! A flash of cold light!

"what!"

Lou Yufan's hand, which was about to draw his gun, was chopped off by Zhang Dabiao.

Lou Yufan was there, clutching his arms and wailing wildly!

Zhang Dabiao was stunned. He swore he hadn't meant to be so cruel, but it was a completely subconscious act.

It's American-style iaido, you're about to pull out your weapon, so I'm already being merciful by only cutting off your hand.

But I felt a little regretful after I finished cutting it all down.

They should cut off his left hand, but keep his right hand for signing. His patents are still in his hands. Even if they have to kill him, they should at least get the patents back first.

What a miscalculation.

Lou Yufan clutched his wrist, rolling and convulsing on the ground, blood splattering from the severed wound, creating a gruesome and bloody scene.

"Guards! There's an assassin!"

Lou Yufan's scream pierced the floorboards, and almost instantly, hurried footsteps echoed from downstairs. Zhang Dabiao frowned, about to deliver the final blow, when three men rushed up the stairs. The leader was a lean man, none other than Qu Wu, Lou's servant in Hong Kong, though Zhang Dabiao didn't recognize him. He clutched a gleaming dagger, and behind him stood two burly men who looked like laborers, each carrying a steel pipe.

"You son of a bitch! How dare you hurt my young master!" Qu Wu roared, waving his hand. "Brothers, chop him up!"

Before he could finish speaking, Qu Wu lunged forward, his dagger aimed straight at Zhang Dabiao's chest.

Zhang Dabiao, who was clutching a bloodstained watermelon knife, felt a surge of murderous intent despite possessing such a weapon. Seeing the dagger coming at him, without thinking, he flicked his wrist, and the watermelon knife slashed down with a whoosh.

He didn't hold back a single ounce of strength in that strike.

He only intended to knock Qu Wu's dagger away, but who knew that the strength of this body was so outrageous—it was an explosive force far beyond that of ordinary people, as if a sleeping tiger was hiding in his body, which had just been awakened and was pouncing down with an angry claw.

"Pfft—"

The sound of flesh and bone separating was both shrill and muffled.

Qu Wu's entire right arm was cleaved off at the shoulder, the severed limb crashing to the ground with a thud, his fingers still twitching unconsciously.

The air fell into a deathly silence.

Qu Wu froze on the spot, first looking down at his empty shoulder, then at his arm rolling at his feet. The ferocity on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an almost blank terror. A few seconds later, a pig-like scream pierced his throat: "My hand! My hand!"

The scream woke the other two workers, who roared and swung steel pipes at Zhang Dabiao's head. Zhang Dabiao dodged to the side and stabbed him with a knife in return.

There was another "poof" sound.

The watermelon knife pierced through the burly man's back, blood gushing down the blade. The man's eyes widened, the steel pipe he was holding fell to the ground, he looked at his chest, and then his body went limp and collapsed.

The last worker was terrified and turned to run away.

Zhang Dabiao was now in a bloodthirsty frenzy, or rather, the brute force within him had completely spiraled out of control. He caught up in two steps and swiftly brought his knife down.

"Snap!"

The blade struck the worker squarely on the neck. The force was so great that it severed his entire head. The head rolled a few times on the floor before coming to rest at Lou Yufan's feet, its unseeing eyes still staring intently at him.

"vomit--"

Lou Yufan looked at the severed head at his feet, then at the two bloodied corpses on the ground, and at Qu Wu, whose shoulder was spurting blood. He finally couldn't hold back any longer, and his stomach churned violently. But just as he was about to vomit, he felt a warm liquid flow down his trouser leg—it was urine and feces.

He was so scared he peed his pants and defecated.

The office was eerily quiet, save for Qu Wu's suppressed sobs and Lou Yufan's chattering teeth.

Zhang Dabiao was also dumbfounded.

He was still clutching the blood-stained watermelon knife in his hand, drops of blood dripping from the blade onto the floor, creating a small, bloody puddle.

He looked at the two corpses on the ground, then at his own hands, and felt a wave of nausea rising in his stomach, as if something was blocking it.

kill……

When he used to scare people by saying things like "I'll chop you to death with one stroke" or "I'll kill you," it was all just empty talk and showing off. But when the knife actually cuts through flesh and splits bones, when a living person turns into a corpse in front of you, the feeling is completely different from what he said.

It was a chill that seeped into your very bones, along with a heavy, suffocating sense of guilt.

"You...you..." Qu Wu clutched his bleeding shoulder, trembling with pain, but still gritted his teeth and shouted in a tone of fear and anger, "You have no sense of martial arts rules! You wield such a large cleaver, and your strength is so great, you're at least a half-step grandmaster! We're just ordinary people, it's one thing for you to fight us, but to kill us right away...you have no martial ethics!"

Zhang Dabiao slowly turned his head and looked at Qu Wu's face, which was contorted with pain. A surge of anger suddenly rose up.

He grinned, his laughter tinged with a hoarseness and madness: "Talk about martial ethics?"

"A half-step Grandmaster? I've got a Qi-transforming horse technique!"

He took a step forward, the watermelon knife scraping against the floor with a screeching sound, which startled Lou Yufan and Qu Wu, causing them to shrink back in fright.

"Your young master wants to kill me, and he also wants to kill my brother in Beijing, to wipe us both out!" Zhang Dabiao's voice suddenly rose. "You came at me with knives and steel pipes, ready to chop me up! And now that you realize you can't win, you're talking to me about江湖规则 (jianghu rules) and 武德 (martial ethics)?"

"My rule is simple: whoever tries to kill me, I'll kill them!"

He held the knife and approached Lou Yufan and Qu Wu step by step, his eyes as cold as ice.

Lou Yufan was terrified. He scrambled backward on all fours, the filth in his pants emitting a foul odor. As he crawled, he incoherently cried out, "Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I'm useful! I'm useful!"

"I'm the one managing your brother Zhang Dabiao's lighter patent! I'm the one who pays the taxes every year!"

"I am the patent holder! He doesn't have Hong Kong residency, so my name is on the patent."

"Only I can register it! If I die, the patent will be invalid! It will be gone forever!"

Zhang Dabiao paused in his steps.

Lou Yufan, as if grasping at a lifeline, quickly continued, "I know I embezzled your money! But the Lou family's foundation is still intact! Just give me some time, I'll pay back a little each year, I'm sure I can pay it all back! I definitely can!"

Looking at Zhang Dabiao's cold face, he suddenly remembered something and, with a sob in his voice, uttered something that caught Zhang Dabiao completely off guard:

"I even treated you to a meal!"