Volume One: First Signs of Brilliance Chapter Forty-Eight: Fury

If earlier he had only been sixty or seventy percent sure that Du Wen was the person they were looking for, now he could say with absolute certainty—one hundred percent! There was no mistake. The young man before his eyes was unmistakably the one they had been seeking all along.

With a maniacal laugh, the bald brute swung his fists, each blow resembling an iron hammer, or perhaps something even more terrifying. Every punch seemed capable of smashing through anything in his path, annihilating all obstacles. The force behind his every move was utterly savage.

Before he knew it, Wang Jue had been forced back into the room. As he evaded the man's blows, he strained with all his might to restrain himself from retaliating. Several times, he nearly lost control, but in the end, he managed to hold himself back.

Stay calm. Stay calm. Wang Jue was calmer than he had ever been in his life—even as his home was being reduced to ruins, he did not strike back.

"Let's see how much longer you can dodge, boy!" the bald brute bellowed, his voice echoing through the house. Outwardly, it seemed he held the advantage, but he knew very well that every one of his attacks had been deftly avoided by this young man.

With another furious roar, the bald brute lunged—not with a calculated strike, but simply with the intent to seize Wang Jue. His massive body hurtled through the air like a mountain crashing down. He showed no concern for potential counterattacks. Perhaps he underestimated his opponent, or perhaps he was prepared for anything. Maybe he was even willing to take some damage, so long as he could capture the nimble Wang Jue.

"Ha! Finally caught you!" the bald brute laughed, his face twisted in a grotesque, almost deranged grin, as if he had already succeeded.

But the laugh died as quickly as it had come.

A moment before he was certain he had Wang Jue in his grasp. But in the next instant, his entire body froze. Not only did his laughter come to a halt, his body seemed to have struck an invisible barrier, rendering him motionless. Then, with no time to resist, his hulking frame was sent flying backward, crashing heavily to the living room floor. Blood gushed from his mouth, staining his chest and lips—a clear sign of serious injury.

The bald brute stared at Wang Jue in disbelief, his eyes wide. Though not dead, the blow had so devastated his body that he felt he might pass out, vision swimming between darkness and light. If not for his exceptional constitution, that single strike from Wang Jue would likely have sent him straight to the underworld.

Nearly every piece of furniture in the room had been smashed to bits. Wang Jue gazed expressionlessly at the bald brute, who lay slumped on the floor, staring back at him with a fixed, glassy stare.

Crunch...

Crossing the few meters to the fallen man, Wang Jue stepped on bits of debris, each step accompanied by a crisp crackling sound. For the first time, he had been thrust into a situation where his very life was at stake. The terror still lingered, but a rush of relief at having survived washed over him. Standing over the bald brute, Wang Jue’s eyes glinted with a savage light. Without hesitation, he stomped down hard on the man’s shin.

Crack!

The sound of shattering bone filled the room.

“Agh…” The agony Wang Jue inflicted with that one stomp drew a low, guttural moan from the brute. Wang Jue showed no mercy to someone who had just tried to kill him. If not for his recent breakthrough in cultivation, if not for having just learned fundamental footwork techniques, he would never have escaped that earlier assault. He knew all too well—if he had failed to dodge even once, he would be the one lying on the ground, writhing in pain.

From their brief exchange, Wang Jue sensed that this bald brute was definitely at the Spirit-Nurturing level—a formidable opponent. He dared not let his guard down for even a moment.

Crack!

With another heavy stomp, the other shin snapped under Wang Jue’s heel. If one blow was not enough, then two, or three—at the very least, he needed to cripple this monster first.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A series of stomps shook the house to its foundation; the commotion was so intense that the neighbors must have wondered if the building was about to collapse. Yet, strangely, no one came to investigate—perhaps someone had called the security patrol, but not a single bystander dared approach. After all, not everyone was foolish; most people knew which situations were safe for curiosity and which were best avoided.

Ignoring the terror and mute rage in his assailant’s eyes, Wang Jue realized that the chaos in his home could no longer be hidden. He pulled out his phone and called Lan Yiyi.

Beeeeep...

Wang Jue couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly things had escalated: they had just parted ways, and now he needed to contact her again.

Soon, the call connected, and Lan Yiyi’s voice came through the line: “Wang Jue?”

“Captain Lan, it’s me!” Wang Jue explained as quickly as he could: “Something happened here—someone attacked me. I’ve crippled him, but I’m not sure if he’s going to die.”

“Give me your location,” Lan Yiyi replied calmly.

Wang Jue quickly provided his address: “I’m at Neighborhood Three…”

After Lan Yiyi hung up, Wang Jue pocketed his phone and stared at the bald brute, who now lay on the ground like a pile of mud, his gaze as sharp as a blade, carrying a murderous intent even he didn’t realize he possessed.

He had just narrowly escaped death. The fear of teetering on the brink of annihilation was not so easily dispelled. In a sense, Wang Jue was already someone who had “died” once, yet he had never truly known what death felt like. Now, after this ordeal, he finally understood what it was like to brush so closely with the end. Unless one had experienced it, one could never truly comprehend it.

Having calmed down, Wang Jue grew curious: how had this brute found him in the first place? He felt as if he had been swept into a vast, inescapable whirlpool. Thinking back, the strangeness had begun when the bloodied man gave him that mysterious box. Now, with this bald brute showing up at his door—he didn’t know either of them. Throughout the entire affair, he was the one left in the dark.

At least he had survived. If not for his golden finger that enabled his recent breakthrough, if not for Lan Yiyi’s meticulous guidance in footwork, he would already be dead. Who knows what else might have befallen his home?

For some reason, Wang Jue suddenly felt grateful to his cousin. If not for him, Wang Jianbin and the others would have been home. Alone, Wang Jue had barely escaped being struck several times, each time skirting the edge of death. If his parents had been there and taken hostage, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

While waiting for Lan Yiyi to arrive, Wang Jue, having nothing better to do, questioned the bald brute lying on the ground: “Since you’re not going anywhere, why don’t you tell me who you are? How did you find me?”

The brute opened his mouth, as if to reply, but the pain from his shattered legs left him gasping for breath. Finding himself unable to speak, he simply closed his mouth. Oddly, there was not a trace of panic on his face—if anything, he wore a look of mockery, his eyes brimming with resentment and murderous intent as he glared at Wang Jue, making no effort to conceal his desire to kill him.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t even speak, let alone move. Wang Jue’s earlier strike had landed square on his throat. It was a miracle he wasn’t dead; talking was out of the question.

The throat is one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body. Striking it was a practical tip Wang Jue had picked up from Lan Yiyi earlier that afternoon, never expecting to use it so soon. The effect had been immediate. The brute was instantly incapacitated—if not for his remarkable constitution, his head might have been knocked clean off. Given the man’s size and strength, blows elsewhere on the body would have had a very different outcome. Had Wang Jue failed to deliver a decisive blow, he would be the one sprawled on the ground now.

As for breaking his legs, Wang Jue did so out of caution and as a way to vent the terror he had just experienced. He didn’t know how long a person would be incapacitated after a throat strike, so, just to be safe, he broke the brute’s legs to ensure his own safety. If anything unexpected happened, he could still handle it—a brute with legs was a nightmare, but one without was nothing more than a target. If he couldn’t deal with such an opponent, he might as well give up martial arts altogether.

Why hadn’t Wang Jue killed him? The answer was simple. First, he didn’t dare. Though this man had tried to kill him, he was still a living, breathing person. If Wang Jue accidentally killed him in the heat of battle, so be it, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill someone already incapable of fighting back. No matter how much he hated him, he couldn’t cross that line.

Second, Wang Jue wanted answers. He needed to know what was happening, what trouble he had stumbled into. He couldn’t just sit around, ignorant, waiting for the next disaster to find him.

Seeing that the brute stubbornly refused to speak, wearing the expression of a “dead pig unafraid of boiling water,” Wang Jue’s anger flared again. Unable to contain himself, he kicked the man a few more times, each blow drawing more blood, before finally stopping.

With no answers forthcoming, Wang Jue felt both helpless and frustrated. He had hoped to extract some information before Lan Yiyi arrived, but the brute was impervious to both threats and violence, unwilling to divulge anything.

Unable to learn what he needed from the man, Wang Jue realized he now had to face not only these mysterious attackers, but also the imminent arrival of Lan Yiyi. Swept into this vast and inexplicable maelstrom, Wang Jue felt a deep-seated sense of gloom.

“Is this what they call ‘trouble falling from the sky while you’re sitting at home minding your own business’?” Wang Jue shook his head with a bitter, self-deprecating smile.

Now, all he could do was pray that he truly possessed the value Lan Yiyi had spoken of—enough, perhaps, to keep him alive. Otherwise, when these people came looking for him again, not only would he be unable to escape, but his parents and sister might also be dragged into the disaster.

That was something Wang Jue was determined never to allow.