Lu Yan unleashed his hundred-meter dash speed.

The entire set of movements was as smooth as flowing water. Little did he know, his agile figure and dashing retreating back were deeply imprinted in the eyes of the teammate he had mercilessly abandoned, dealing 10,000 critical damage to his teammate named Xiao Heng.

"Fuck," Xiao Heng snapped back to his senses and cursed, "What the fuck are you running for?"

Lu Yan actually felt something was off halfway through his run. The run itself was smooth, but it seemed like something was missing beside him.

But he didn't have time to think too much about it.

By the time he had already dashed to the garage entrance, he realized that the companion who had just agreed to "I'll count to three and we'll run together" hadn't kept up with him at all.

Lu Yan stopped in his tracks. At the garage entrance, he and Xiao Heng stared at each other from afar, a distance as wide as the Milky Way seemingly separating them.

...

Lu Yan also cursed, "...The hell! Why did you charge forward? Didn't we agree to run together!"

We agreed.

Agreed?

Xiao Heng recalled the look Lu Yan had given him just now. After Lu Yan gave the look, he even nodded at him, clearly saying: 'I'll count to three, then we'll go up and get them.'

'When did we ever say we were going to run together.'

A vein on Xiao Heng's forehead twitched violently. He realized their thought processes were on completely different wavelengths. Although having this kind of conversation under these circumstances was incredibly stupid, he still couldn't help but say, "Weren't we supposed to go together!"

The distance between the two was just too great; they had to shout at the top of their lungs to get their words across to each other.

Lu Yan: "Go what go! Who was going with you?!"

Xiao Heng: "Are you a dog?"

"Who are you cursing?!"

"You."

"..."

Lu Yan really wanted to turn around and walk away.

He had roamed the world for many years.

To be able to struggle and carve out a place for himself in the treacherous Lower District, he had never relied on his fists.

He was no brute.

"There are five of them, and two of us," Lu Yan said, pointing at the five large men in front of Xiao Heng. "Don't you think we should think this through?"

Xiao Heng: "..."

The five large men standing there were completely bewildered by the two of them. It had all happened too suddenly. The one who had been counting money forgot what number he was on. They looked at the guy outside the garage, then at the one in front of them. After a long pause, one finally spoke up, "Who are you two? What do you want?"

Xiao Heng didn't answer.

Lu Yan watched him methodically unbutton his well-tailored suit jacket, take it off, and casually toss it onto the motorcycle seat.

"What do we want."

After taking off his jacket, Xiao Heng reached up and loosened his tie. He finished the first part of the sentence with his eyes lowered, then he looked up at the men before him and said in a flat tone, "To fuck you up."

'This is a B king.'

Lu Yan was stunned by Xiao Heng's arrogant, B-king-like aura.

Originally, the jacket Xiao Heng wore was too formal, so formal that it clashed with the surroundings. It made you feel like he should be tearing up the roads in a luxury sports car, not standing face-to-face with five large men here.

Now that he'd shed the jacket, the atmosphere felt right.

"Don't be so arrogant, kid!" Although the man holding the money didn't know what was going on, the hot blood of a street tough was still burning fiercely. He stuffed the money into his pocket, spat on the ground, and sneered, "Looking to die? Don't think we're easy to mess with. Go ask around and find out who I am!"

Before the man could finish his sentence, a fist met his face—Xiao Heng had aimed this punch straight at the bridge of his nose.

Before the man could even react, two streams of blood slowly trickled down from his nose. "Do you know who I am?" Xiao Heng threw another fierce punch, then seized the man's wrist, pulling him closer. Before striking again, he said word by word, "I. Am. Your. Dad."

Xiao Heng probably felt that his tie, even loosened, was still hindering his performance. After dealing with the first guy, he simply yanked the tie off his neck completely.

Lu Yan watched Xiao Heng, feeling as if some kind of previously dormant blood in his body had been reawakened.

The man had already been thrown to the ground, where he lay curled up. He twitched in pain, cursing as he did, "What are you lot still standing there for!"

The other four men standing to the side finally snapped out of it, rolled up their sleeves, and charged forward.

The scene was extremely chaotic.

Although Xiao Heng could fight, taking on five people by himself was no easy task. Besides, this gang specialized in loan sharking; their combat capabilities were not to be underestimated.

Lu Yan stood at the garage entrance, a war raging within him.

'Help or not?'

...

'What's the point of fighting? Is there anything that can't be solved by running first?'

Lu Yan thought it over, and finally sighed. He decided to grab a handy weapon before going in to help.

But he couldn't see anything suitable around him.

Lu Yan scanned the area around the garage entrance, his gaze finally landing on a trash can by the green belt. A line of text was printed on the large, green bin: 120 Liter Mobile Trash Can.

Xiao Heng had never been in such a thrilling fight in his life.

The thrill wasn't because the fight was in the underground parking garage of Phoenix Terrace, nor was it because he was facing five burly men. It was because halfway through the fight, as he dodged an oncoming fist and kick, he turned his head and caught a glimpse of a half-man-high green trash can hurtling towards them from the garage entrance.

Lu Yan charged into the fray pushing the trash can. The process was concise and efficient—fast, ruthless, and precise. In less than three seconds, he ended the war—by directly shoving the nearest person into the trash can.

Xiao Heng: "..."

The five burly men: "..."

Ten minutes later.

The smoke of battle had cleared.

Lu Yan sat on the motorcycle, fumbled for a pack of cigarettes, and pulled one out with his mouth.

The welcome music playing at the entrance of Phoenix Terrace drifted all the way into the garage.

"Flowers and fine wine, a happy gathering to express our feelings

...

Come come come come come come come come

Friends, friends, let us join hands~~"

As the noisy speakers outside sang 'let us join hands', Lu Yan took the cigarette from his mouth and asked Xiao Heng, "You smoke?"

Xiao Heng grunted in affirmation.

Lu Yan couldn't be bothered to pull out the pack again, so he just handed over the cigarette in his hand.

"Not bad skills," Lu Yan said, pulling his hand back and resting it on the motorcycle's handlebars. "Trained before?"

"Dabbled in boxing."

Xiao Heng didn't say much. He lowered his head to light the cigarette. The corner of his mouth was split, and there was a bruise near his eye. As he lowered his head to smoke, his entire demeanor cooled down again, returning to how he was before the fight.

Then, a few seconds later, Lu Yan heard Xiao Heng return the compliment, "Your trash-can-pushing form isn't bad either."

Lu Yan: "..."

Xiao Heng turned his head and added, "Earth-shattering."

"Fuck," Lu Yan extended his hand. "Stop smoking, give me back my cigarette."

"Not giving it back," Xiao Heng said.

Sprawled haphazardly on the ground in front of them were the five burly men.

In the dim underground garage, the five men were curled up on the ground. After losing the fight, none of them looked too good. Not only were their clothes disheveled, but one of them even had a few vegetable leaves stuck in his hair.

The one with the vegetable leaves couldn't take it anymore. He picked the leaves, which reeked of spoiled food, from his hair and asked in a breaking, non-standard Xiajing City accent, "Big brothers, can you two stop chatting... What on earth do you want!"

"That woman from earlier."

Only then did Xiao Heng look at them properly. "How much does she owe you?"

The men were dazed from the beating. It took them a while to figure out who "that woman" was. "She originally borrowed six... six, six hundred thousand. After all the money she's paid back over the years, she still owes one... one million two hundred thousand."

"..."

"You loan sharks are all mathematical geniuses, huh," Lu Yan clicked his tongue. "You can even say a number like one point two million?"

It wasn't that Lu Yan didn't know what loan sharks were.

He had even seen someone, forced into a corner by loan sharks, go up to the sixteenth floor and jump in front of the police.

But seeing Kang Ru's situation firsthand was still shocking. Borrowing six hundred thousand and ending up with a debt of one million two hundred thousand after years of repayment. Who knew how much that one million two hundred thousand would snowball into... And the underground garage they were in now was less than two hundred meters from Phoenix Terrace, the place where Kang Ru "worked" to pay back the money.

The same thought popped into both his and Xiao Heng's minds: Kang Ru really hadn't touched the money Xiao Qishan gave her.

She might have left her child with the Xiao Family because she genuinely wanted the child to have a relatively normal living environment. Even being an illegitimate son was better than being the son of a prostitute entangled with loan sharks.

Lu Yan watched Xiao Heng finish half his cigarette before he pulled a wallet from his suit jacket.

Lu Yan: "You're going to pay it back for her?"

With the cigarette in his mouth, Xiao Heng couldn't speak.

"Do you have enough money?" Lu Yan didn't understand the world of the wealthy; carrying that much cash was beyond his comprehension. He felt his pocket. "If it's not enough, I can chip in..."

In his pocket were two bills.

One was a fifty, the other a five.

Seeing his reaction, Xiao Heng deliberately pressed, "How much can you chip in?"

'Chip in my ass.'

Lu Yan took his hand out of his pocket, looked at him and said, "I'll chip in with moral support."