Under the afternoon sun.

A black sedan stopped at the entrance to an alley not far from the mainland auto repair shop.

Lu Feng got out of the car, looked around, and, noticing that no one was paying attention, gestured towards the inside of the car, "Thanks, I'll pay you back as soon as I can."

"Really not considering it?"

The driver was a woman with slightly dark skin and tattoos identical to Lu Feng's on her arm.

She wore a scar on her neck, and her usually fierce gaze appeared unusually gentle, "After all, we're old friends. If you join us, we'll give you a share… I heard your little sister started university, and the loans at Tianmen University aren't cheap. Without a windfall, you might just be stuck paying it off for life."

"Spare me, I don't want to get mixed up in that stuff anymore. As for the student loans… I actually think there's nothing wrong with spending a lifetime peacefully paying back a loan."

Lu Feng smiled, shrugged, "Worse comes to worst, we're still around, right?"

"That kind of talk?"

Laila looked slightly astonished, "That doesn't sound like you.

"My little brother and sister are doing well now, they don't need me anymore."

Lu Feng sighed softly, looked up, and glanced at the familiar scenery in the distance, "When I was a kid, I thought if I wanted to rise to the top, to stand out, I had to be ruthless, strong, and commanding. After struggling for so many years, from Cliff City to Central Earth, to that wretched mud pit, I didn't gain anything.

At first, I thought holding a gun would dominate my life, but later I realized that once I took up a gun, that was all my life would amount to.

I desperately wanted to crawl back from Central Earth because I didn't want to live in the gutter anymore."

He said, "The gutter is the same everywhere."

With that, he hesitated, then took the holster from his lower back and handed it over.

Laila stood frozen, opened the holster, and looked at the familiar handgun within, a weapon passed down through the generations of the Parachute Battalion's spearheads, her disbelief deepening, "Are you serious?"

"Weren't you always envious of this?"

After making his choice, Lu Feng no longer had any burden, just smiled, "Here, take it as payment for the debt. Just charge me less interest."

Laila didn't speak, just gazed at him somberly.

After a long while, she suddenly said, "Pretty good."

"Hm?"

"I mean, it's best this way, to live a peaceful life. A life that doesn't depend on a gun, that's the real good life."

Her expression was indescribable, it was hard to tell whether it was the joy of empathy or an inner resentment, but in the end, she just said, "Congratulations."

"Thanks." Lu Feng waved his hand, turned to leave, but then he heard a voice behind him.

"There's one more thing."

Laila sighed helplessly, "I remember you mentioned... that kid with the burn scars on his face, who looks quite decent?"

Lu Feng nodded, "My brother, what about him?"

"Just be careful. Recently someone's been looking into him."

Laila, smoking a cigarette, holding back irritation, "No news on Desert Market, they bypassed it completely, seems like a bounty has been opened with the local gangs, probably didn't hold their farts in."

Lu Feng, stunned in place.

Then he saw what she handed back to him.

The gun.

"Think about it, Old Lu." Laila said, "You want to put down the gun and have a good life, but sometimes, you can't live peacefully without a gun."

Lu Feng instinctively reached out his hand, but the moment he touched the holster, it was as if he had been electrified, and he stiffened.

After a while, his fingers unfolded, clenched tight.

"Thanks," he said.

"I still miss the days when you were in Central Earth—back then, you wouldn't let such cowardly words slip out."

Laila shook her head, no more chit-chat, "I'm off."

A step on the accelerator.

The sedan sped away without hesitation.

Leaving just Lu Feng standing there, as if dazed, standing for a long time, then lowering his head to light the soggy cigarette at the corner of his mouth.

With his head bowed, he breathed silently.

So, in the shadows untouched by sunlight, his gaze gradually became fierce.

"Bro, you're back?" The youngest worker peeking from the shop door looked over, "Stop dawdling, come on back and move the brake pads inside, or Ma is going to scold you again!"

"Oh, yeah, coming!"

Lu Feng, as if awakening from a dream, looked up with a gentle smile on his face, but just slapped his head, "Look at my memory! Be right there…"

But his phone started to vibrate frantically again.

Sending his heart down into the abyss.

Caller: Lu Ling.

"Bro, help! Someone is trying to catch me! There are several of them, and…and…" The familiar choked voice arose, like a terrified shout, "Don't come over!!!"

Click!

Cracks appeared on the screen.

Without a second thought, Lu Feng ran, bolting inside the shop, ignoring everything else, jumped in the delivery van, and floored the accelerator.

But it was still too late.

Ten minutes later, when he arrived at the scene, all that was left was chaos.

Half an hour earlier, in the Northern Mountain District at East Road Market, there was commotion and bustle.

"Hey sister, how much for this grouper?"

Lu Ling wove through the narrow passageway, looking at the seafood swimming deftly in the tank, "That's way too expensive, can't you give me a discount? It's obviously been days. You're pumping in so much oxygen and they're almost flipping over, how is that fresh?"

"Okay, I'll take half a pound, no, a full pound of prawns!"

Minutes later, the girl brimmed with joy as she emerged with two bags, comparing what she bought against the shopping list from Lu Ma. She pondered whether to buy a chicken for dinner since her second brother said he would be home, considering the freshness of a freshly slaughtered bird and the convenience of a motorcycle ride with a trailer hitch.

Then, she felt a rough hand brutally grasp her hair.

Yank!

The muscular man who jumped out of the van didn't utter a word; he just dragged the girl towards the van as if she were about to fall to the ground. In a sudden panic, Lu Ling's eyes widened, and a scream of terror rose instinctively, but she was cut off by the man's preemptive roar, "Prodigal woman, where have you stashed the family's money?!"

Another gaunt man rushed over, clamping onto her legs, "Come on, sweetheart, listen to your uncle. Your mother is so upset she can barely stand. Just come back and apologize."

She didn't even get the chance to speak. Surrounding onlookers dispersed, standing at a distance, pointing and murmuring.

"Listen to Granny, let Granny take you back home, okay?"

An old woman from who knows where moved in close, clutching a damp handkerchief and pressing it against the girl's face.

Lu Ling froze, her mind flashing back to something her older brother had once said, and instinctively, she held her breath. With a swing of her bag, she smashed it against the man's face, sending grouper and prawns scattering all over—a total mess.

With her now free hand, she grasped at something.

It was the grim face of the old woman.

Without a second thought, she dug her index finger into the woman's eye with all her might!

A piercing scream erupted.

Amid the crumbling sensation at her fingertips, the old woman finally let go, staggering backward, her eyes bleeding profusely as she screamed in agony. But Lu Ling finally seized the chance to struggle, her raised leg furiously striking the face of the man holding her legs.

She hit the ground.

No longer concerned with the hand pulling her hair.

Using both hands and feet, she sprinted forward, oblivious to the pain on her forehead and the back of her head. And with that, a chunk of her scalp, along with a handful of hair, was torn off.

She couldn't even catch her breath.

As she staggered dizzily into the crowd, toppling over stalls, she pushed her motorcycle forward, ignited it, overturned a bicycle ahead, and charged onto the road.

"She's running?"

The man still clutching strands of her hair was taken aback, not expecting such a scrawny young woman to react so quickly. Ignoring the screaming old woman, he leapt into the vehicle.

"Chase her! Chase her down!"

The worn-out van revved up and took off, doggedly in pursuit.

But amidst the panic, Lu Ling was too distraught to discern the direction. Unaware of where she was headed, she was soon cornered by the van in a blind alley.

No way forward.

"Is anyone there? Anyone?"

She violently knocked on the tightly shut iron door beside her, crying out, "Help! Somebody help me! Open the door!"

There seemed to be a faint stir behind the door, but in the end, no one answered.

Only at the entrance of the alley, the door of the battered van slowly opened, and the man from before jumped out, sneering and flicking away the hair entwined around his fingers.

"Run, you little bitch, keep running!"

Behind him, the driver and another person also jumped out, this time there would be no negligence or carelessness; they both were carrying something in their hands.

Black plastic bags were wrapped around their knives and iron bars, sending chills down the spine.

Lu Ling staggered back a step.

Silent now.

She ditched her phone that hadn't yet connected and pulled out an aged flat-head chisel from the toolbox of the motorcycle, gripping it tightly.

Sadly, she still had no strength to resist.

With just a few hits, she was knocked to the ground, and no matter how she struggled, the iron bar smashed onto her forehead until she was silenced. Then, skillfully, several people tied her up, threw her into the car, and sped away. By the time Lu Feng arrived, it was already too late—it was supposed to be this way, without any surprises.

But unfortunately, there's always something unexpected.

Like the fact that Lu Ling, who was too lazy to walk when it was her turn to buy groceries and couldn't drive, texted her older brother last night asking if she could borrow the motorcycle.

Like the fact that after seeing the message, Ji Jue agreed without a second thought, and hence today he didn't take his usual route by bike.

Like that motorcycle, the beaten-up little lamb that lay unnoticed behind Lu Ling.

Like the inexperienced calf horse, who hadn't grasped the situation from the start.

There were too many unfortunate accidents.

So much so, that the unfortunate story was only just beginning.

In the instant it sensed its benefactor, who bought it chicken legs, was under threat, the dormant Niúmǎ-brand motorcycle let out a bone-chilling, deafening roar.

As if thunder boomed!

No, it was more like a bomb had been ignited at close range!

The ramshackle plastic shell shattered in an instant, and then a fearsome mechanical face rose from the wreckage, bellowing mightily!

Five chaotic but sharply fearsome claws extended from behind the wheels, joined by a tail bristling with barbs, gleaming coldly.

Amid the deafening noise akin to a racecar engine's roar, the little calf horse leapt, soared over Lu Ling's shoulder, and pounced directly onto the man in the lead.

It opened its maw, clamped onto his head, and viciously snapped shut.

Amid shrill screams, its claws slashed down, effortlessly tearing his right arm to shreds, pressed down, trampled, and the rear wheel ground over his face.

Mad! Frenzy! Spin! Spin! Spin!!!!

Flesh and scarlet blood spattered onto the mudguard, the screaming abruptly ended, and then, with the sound of ribs breaking, the little calf horse leaped into the air again. It executed a left straight kick with the rear wheel, a right roundhouse with the front, and after its jaws crushed a leg, tossed the shattered limb aside with a shake of its head.

Then abruptly, it smashed into the last 'survivor.'

And then, there were no survivors.

Only Lu Feng's confused voice came through from the newly connected phone.

Ten minutes later, when Lu Feng arrived at the scene, he saw three maimed and barely breathing guys lying on the ground, about to expire.

And there was 'something' that looked like a scooter, lying at his sister's feet, wildly wagging its mudguard in an apparent display of affection.

Attempting to lick her feet, begging to be petted, and trying to act cute in exchange for chicken legs.

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