“At ease!”
“Attention!”
“Dress right!”
“Eyes front!”
Loud, crisp commands resounded throughout the wastelands beyond the thirteenth district. With each shout, a dozen or so men with swollen, black-and-blue faces whimpered, yet they really did carry out each and every command.
This was none other than Scarface and co. Ye Zichen stood with his hands behind his back and watched them run in circles.
“Look at yourselves! What are you doing? Quit crying! Stick your chest out, look up, suck in your gut, and tense those glutes!”
Ye Zichen had somehow gotten his hands on a willow branch. Whenever someone’s posture failed to meet his standards, he’d whack them with it. Scarface and co. had long since lost track of how many times they’d been whacked. In order to avoid a beating, they stood, trembling as they maintained a posture that satisfied Ye Zichen’s standards. They dared not act out.
Whack! Whack! Whack!
When he saw that all of them were standing steady, Ye Zichen whapped the backs of their necks.
Their muscles tensed. They stood there like soldiers, meticulously still.
Their skin burnt and cracked beneath the intense, baking heat of the sun. Sweat dripped down their faces, yet strangely, none of them circulated their spiritual energy to disperse the heat.
“Let me tell you, I had no desire to bother with you, but then you had to go and push your luck. You got your beating, but have you learned your lesson?”
Ye Zichen stood, hands behind his back like a gangster, and arched his brows. He glanced at the men to his left. They stood in military formation. None of them dared speak. They shut their mouths, stuck out their chests, and faced the burning sun, their hearts filled with bitterness.
“And then there’s you guys……” he looked right. “You’re this scar-faced guy’s little bros, yet you just abandoned your boss and tried to run off on your own? You’re a team, aren’t you? Don’t you know that you need to look out for each other? Even if it’s obvious you can’t defeat me, so long as one of you remained behind, you ought to have taken action! Don’t you understand that miracles take courage?”
“This isn’t a matter of courage…..” One of Scarface"s subordinates muttered. He thought no one could hear him, but Ye Zichen immediately cupped his ears.
Whack!
Ye Zichen roared in fury, “you talk too much! It seems you’re in good spirits. So you’ve had enough rest, then? Good! Scarface, lead your subordinates and start running laps!”
Thud.
When he heard this, Scarface knelt to the ground. His face, still red with heat, was filled with undisguised bitterness.
“Sir, this humble one had eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai. Surely an esteemed figure like yourself can find it in himself to forgive his lessers’ mistakes? Please, don’t torment us any more. We’ve already run for dozens of miles beneath the sun. You even sealed our spiritual seas, and all this time, we’ve yet to take even a single mouthful of water. If you keep this up, you won’t even need to do anything; we’ll all just die of thirst.”
“Shut up.” Ye Zichen furrowed his brows and smacked Scarface upside the head, then glowered down at him.
“You can’t even endure this little bit of hards.h.i.+p? If you’d been born during the War of Resistance against j.a.panese Aggression, you definitely would have been a deserter.”
However, when he saw their pitiful demeanor, Ye Zichen couldn’t help but sigh. “Forget it. Why am I so soft-hearted? Let’s just end this here, then. Take out every treasure you have on you.”
Scarface and the others froze, then stared blankly at Ye Zichen. None of them moved an inch.
“What are you looking at? This is a robbery! If you want to live, take out your treasures! You ought to know, where there’s life, there’s hope! Surely you’ve heard that ‘a bad life is still better than a good death?’ Treasures are just external objects. If you’re alive, you can get new ones in the future, but you only have this one life, right?”
Although they were unwilling, he was right.
Both Scarface and his subordinates tossed spatial pouch after spatial pouch onto the ground.
Once they’d taken out all their treasures, Scarface respectfully gathered them up and placed them before Ye Zichen.
“Are you certain that’s all of them? You’d better not try anything funny. I’ve got quite the temper and don’t like other people hiding things behind my back…..”
Before he"d even finished his sentence, Scarface pulled a spatial ring from his breast pocket.
Don’t look down on spatial rings. Even if the s.p.a.ce inside was small, they were still worth a fortune. Just about everyone in the G.o.d Realm had a spatial pouch, but only people of some status could possess a spatial ring.
Although the s.p.a.ce inside wasn’t large, if Scarface could pull out a spatial ring, it was clear he’d done quite well for himself.
As he took out his ring, his entire face distorted.
His heart truly ached!
Ye Zichen still didn’t seem particularly pleased. “So is this it?” he asked probingly.
When he heard the suspicion in Ye Zichen’s voice, Scarface knelt. “Sir, this is all there is! We’ve already given you all of our meager savings from the past few hundred years. If you don’t believe us, you’re welcome to search us.”
Scarface’s expression was utterly brave and sincere. If an ordinary person saw it, they might really let him go. Unfortunately, he’d run into Ye Zichen.
“Alright then, take off your pants!”
…..
In the wastelands outside the thirteenth district, Ye Zichen hefted the spatial pouches he’d swiped as well as two spatial rings. He wore a self-satisfied grin.
“Hiding things from me? When I first started hiding things, you hadn’t even been born yet,” Ye Zichen snorted in contempt. He’d found the second spatial ring just now, hidden away in Scarface’s underwear.
When he found it, Scarface seemed as if he had nothing left to live for, but Ye Zichen didn’t go easy on him…..
If he showed mercy on people like that, he’d consider himself an idiot.
They seized others’ possessions by any means necessary. They never even considered showing mercy on their victims.
This could be considered teaching them a lesson.
He turned to the youth behind him and called out, “Wu Di.”
Even as Wu Di acknowledged his call, he saw a spatial ring and several spatial pouches flying towards him.
He instinctively caught them, but when he saw what was in his hands, he hurriedly shook his head and returned the treasures. “Senior, I can’t accept these.”
“They’re for you! Take half as a greeting gift.” Ye Zichen frowned and pushed the treasures back.
“Senior, nevermind seizing their treasures, my odds of simply surviving Scarface and the others’ pursuit without your help were minuscule. I’m extremely grateful just to be alive right now. I’d be ashamed to accept such gifts before I’ve even repaid your kindness.”
Wu Di respectfully refused and stepped back. When he didn’t relent, Ye Zichen didn’t press the matter. He put the rings and pouches into his pocket.
He had yet to even look inside. In truth, these treasures didn’t even enter his eyes.
He’d stolen scarface and the others’ possessions in order to give them to this kid, but now Wu Di didn’t even want them.
“Senior, there’s something this junior ought to warn you about,” said Wu Di suddenly. Ye Zichen nodded at him, indicating that he should continue. “I advise you to leave the thirteenth district as fast as possible. The Axe Gang…. Is no pushover!”