David Foster was troubled; he absolutely couldn’t say it was because of some inexplicable premonition... After thinking for a moment, he smiled and said, “That new young teacher in the Youth League Office asked me to clean up the office today.”

Emily Sullivan sighed, “Seriously? It’s not like we’re actual laborers.” Her aggrieved expression was incredibly cute.

David Foster laughed and said, “So let this poor guy take some worries off the young lady’s shoulders.”

Emily Sullivan smiled and said, “Pfft, can’t think of anything better to say? Let’s just hurry up and go together.” With that, she turned her bike’s handlebars toward the teaching building.

David Foster felt a bit flustered and said, “Listen to me, be good.”

In his moment of panic, he blurted out “be good,” which made the usually cheerful and carefree Miss Zou blush deeply. The two of them stood there on that straight road for a long while before Emily Sullivan finally whispered, almost like a mosquito, “Then I’ll go first... but... you always leave evening study early, and this is the only time each week we can walk together...” Her voice grew softer and softer.

Hearing this, David Foster felt his heart bloom into a hundred and twenty-eight petals, but his face broke into a silly grin, and he said blankly, “Be good, go on ahead... Or, you could wait for me at the Electronics Building, I’ll be at most ten minutes late.”

Hearing him say “be good” again, Emily Sullivan was so embarrassed she gave a light “pfft,” hopped on her bike, and rode off toward the school gate as if escaping.

David Foster stood there, grinning foolishly as he watched that adorable sky-blue 24-inch bicycle disappear at the school gate, still not quite back to his senses. Young love always easily changes a teenager’s temperament. At this moment, David Foster’s chest was filled only with the urge to hurry to the Electronics Building. Who cared who was waiting for him outside, or whether there was going to be a fight? Why bother hiding his abilities at a time like this? In the Buddhist scriptures he’d read recently, the old monk of the Linji school put it well: “At this moment, if you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet the patriarch, kill the patriarch; if you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. Whether inside or outside, kill whatever you encounter!”

A gust of hot wind blew by, and the young man strode toward the school gate with his head held high and chest out, humming the most popular song of Yilian Jie at the time, “Wake Up.” Unfortunately, the few thugs waiting outside the campus for a fight couldn’t hear the lyrics.

“Wake up, wake up quickly, do you know you’re killing your own life...”

Chapter 9: Asymmetric Combat

Ever since David Foster discovered the secret of his own body, he’d noticed that sometimes he did things a bit “out of line.” The reason they were out of line was that when he focused intently on something, he’d forget to hide his body, which was as tough as refined steel. Luckily, in the past, whenever he zoned out, he was usually squatting in his own little black room piled with junk—so splitting bricks with his palm or using his thigh as a chopping board for slicing meat—these perverse behaviors were never exposed in broad daylight.

But today he was a bit absent-minded, mainly because he’d been thrown off by this thing called love.

So when seven or eight fists, each as big as a rice bowl, came raining down on him, he completely forgot to dodge, and couldn’t be bothered to anyway. His mind was still savoring the blush on Emily Sullivan’s face just now. For him to remember that a fight was about to start was honestly a pretty tall order.

With a series of bangs, David Foster looked in surprise at the burly men nearby, who were clutching their fists in pain and collapsing to the ground. Only then did he remember he should probably do something.

So he leapt back, left hand forward, right hand swept back and slightly raised, striking a Wong Fei-hung pose. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the ground and, in a tone so cool it was over the top, said, “How many of you are left? Come at me together.”

Even David Foster himself felt a bit disgusted, but there was no helping it. If he didn’t put on the airs of a martial artist, no one would believe that when a fist hit someone, it was the fist that hurt. And the only martial artist’s pose he knew—besides the disgustingly showy one from Kant’s number one bodyguard—was Jet Li’s move, which he’d spent ages learning in the underground video hall.

The leader of the thugs was a middle-aged man. The cigarette dangling from his mouth had long since fallen to the ground in shock. He frowned, blinked a few times, and slowly walked over, looking at David Foster, thinking to himself, “This guy’s just a student. How come I didn’t even see him make a move, and my guys are already down?”

He tentatively asked, “You’ve trained, haven’t you, brother?”

David Foster looked at him calmly and smiled, “Trained since I was a kid.”

“No wonder you’re so cocky?” the man spat, then pulled a machete from his coat. At the time, the most popular weapon among street thugs was this kind of twelve-inch machine tool blade—good steel, not too long, easy to carry.

It was already past five in the afternoon, but the sun’s heat hadn’t lessened at all. There were few pedestrians on the street, and the corner shaded by plane trees was very quiet. Seeing the man dare to pull a knife in broad daylight, David Foster couldn’t help but frown and said, “Can’t we talk this out first?”

“Third Brother said, in this place, only we get to act tough. If we run into someone tougher, then there’s nothing to say—beat him until he’s not tough anymore.” The middle-aged man thought David Foster was scared and grinned viciously, his teeth yellow.

The “Third Brother” he mentioned, David Foster knew who that was—one of the most notorious figures in the county, the very Samuel Reed that William Harris had warned him about a few days ago.