Chapter 29: How Many Eyes Does Lord Horse-King Have?
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After introducing himself, Du Youbang once again fixed his icy gaze on Song Ren.
The other two condemned prisoners looked over as well.
Of the four men, three had now given their names.
Only Song Ren remained silent, making him stand out all the more.
Xu Shao, the bald man, rubbed his egg-shaped head and spoke with evident interest. “Among those present, we have a dismemberer, a family annihilator, and a former boss from the golden age of the underworld.”
“So, would you mind telling us about your glorious achievements?”
“Or perhaps I should help you remember?”
By the end of his speech, the bald man’s expression had grown increasingly strange. Blood vessels stood out in his eyes.
He flexed his fingers, a suppressed tremor running through his voice. His entire body was quivering with excitement.
“It’s been far too long since I last tasted the ultimate pleasure of tearing a living man apart.”
“Ha… ha… Brother, want to play?”
Song Ren raised his head and glanced at the bald man.
He was not surprised that a man of this type would be among the condemned prisoners on this journey. He simply found him repulsive.
He turned back to look at the other two prisoners, who were waiting calmly for the show to begin.
Song Ren’s voice remained even. “I heard the warden say that once we leave Stanley Prison, it won’t matter where anyone here dies, or how.”
Lu Zhengyang frowned slightly. Something about the man’s tone was wrong.
Du Youbang watched coldly from the sidelines.
At that moment, the bald man seemed to suffer some kind of fit. His body gradually hunched over, and his breathing became inexplicably labored.
“That’s right, that’s right. So, why don’t we become friends?”
“When it comes to friends, I’m always so~ very passionate.”
Song Ren lowered his eyelids, a cold glint slowly filling his eyes. “You don’t look passionate to me. You look more like an animal in heat.”
The bald man’s grin widened brilliantly. “Is that so?”
“My friends used to praise me that way too. And now you’re saying the same thing.”
“I think you must really want to be my friend.”
As he spoke, he strolled toward Song Ren.
Beneath Song Ren’s tranquil gaze, he watched the man without blinking. Only when the bald man had come within five paces did he speak again.
His expression had turned grim and frigid. “Hey, Baldy.”
The bald man’s eyes gleamed with bloodlust, his excitement mounting. “Yeah? What is it? Have you agreed to be my friend?”
Song Ren deliberately stepped forward. His voice sank so low that even the air seemed to solidify.
“Do you know how many eyes the Horse King Lord has?”
The words had barely fallen when the roar of the speeding vehicle rumbled around them.
Song Ren suddenly lunged forward.
Xu Shao had only just blinked when an icy face was already before him.
His heart jolted. The bloodlust surging through him rapidly turned cold. He had just reached out to seize Song Ren by the throat when a sharp pain exploded in his calf, forcing him to retreat half a step on instinct.
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Song Ren seized the collar of his prison uniform and yanked him forward, sending him stumbling.
Reflected in the bald man’s pupils was a knee driving straight into his face.
He raised both hands to shield his jaw, but the violent impact still snapped his head backward.
In the hurried glance he cast around, the figure that had been standing before him had vanished.
Song Ren twisted beneath his armpit and moved with incredible speed to the bald man’s back.
Shoulder lowered, elbow dropped.
The knuckles of his clenched fist had gone white, his hard features devoid of the slightest excess emotion.
His fist slammed into the other man’s unguarded lumbar spine.
A searing pain tore through Xu Shao’s lower back, and half his body began to go numb.
A trace of anguish had only just appeared on his face when Song Ren hooked his chin from behind.
Song Ren took a large step backward. Xu Shao staggered, his body dragged violently backward until he toppled.
Bang!
Another short, vicious knee strike crashed between the bald man’s shoulder blades.
His body hung suspended for the briefest instant.
The next moment, Song Ren had already lowered himself.
His elbow smashed into the back of the bald man’s head.
Immediately afterward, he braced his palm against the man’s back and drove his entire body upward.
The hoof-shaped mark on Song Ren’s back grew hot once more.
With a single punch, he sent the bald man’s whole body rising at an angle.
The next instant, beneath the swaying glare of the incandescent lamp, the bald man lay facing the ceiling, his body hovering slightly in midair.
And before the widened eyes of the other two prisoners, Song Ren’s fluid, dazzling martial arts unfolded strike by strike.
Using Xu Shao’s spine as a board, Song Ren unleashed his fists and feet in a merciless torrent the instant the man began to fall.
Straight punches, cannon punches, sweeping strikes, stone-splitting blows, knee strikes, grappling blows, elbow strikes, twin overhead frames, iron bridges and rooted stances…
From beginning to end, the bald man never had the slightest chance to resist.
His anguished howls were gradually drowned beneath the storm of fists and feet.
Under the thunderous, muffled impacts, bone and flesh shattered inch by inch.
The brand-new prison uniform was battered into tatters beneath the onslaught.
And the back beneath it, tattooed with a vivid peony, was reduced within moments to a bloody ruin.
The bald man’s body seemed almost to float in the air, suspended for several full seconds.
Fragments of flesh and blood sprayed in every direction.
His entire back was twisted at grotesque angles, broken beyond recognition.
His waist, spine, shoulder bones, the back of his head—
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Not a single inch of skin remained intact across his waist and back. At the final moment, when his body crashed down, blood and froth were still spilling from the bald man’s mouth, his eyes already vacant.
Thud!
His body hit the floor, the impact reverberating dully through the container.
The burly Lu Zhengyang stared, utterly dumbfounded.
He craned his neck and swallowed hard, his face filled with terror.
Du Youbang, once the boss of the Benevolent Righteousness Society and a man feared by countless other gangs, had fallen silent as well.
Killing was not what shocked them.
Between them, the two men bore responsibility for several, even more than a dozen deaths. How could corpses frighten them?
What truly filled them with dread was the ferocity Song Ren had displayed from beginning to end.
In less than two minutes, he had beaten a vigorous condemned prisoner to death with his bare hands.
Most terrifying of all was that back, suspended in midair and battered until it was nearly torn apart.
It was something neither man had ever witnessed before.
What kind of person was this man?
Du Youbang glanced at the bald man lying dead-eyed on the floor, then at the blood flowing from the container. He unconsciously pressed his lips together and stared deeply at Song Ren.
For the first time in his life, he felt genuine fear of another man.
Song Ren wiped the blood from the back of his hand and leaned against the corner once more.
As he closed his eyes to rest, he also suppressed the surging heat in his chest.
It was the first time he had beaten someone to death with his fists and feet.
It had been—
far too exhilarating.
At that moment, no one seemed to care about the lifeless body on the floor.
The container fell utterly silent. The incandescent lamp hanging overhead continued to sway, and everything seemed almost as it had been before.
…
The truck carrying the container eventually stopped outside a secluded villa.
The surroundings were nothing but barren hills and wilderness, with a solitary villa standing ahead.
All around was silence, broken only by the faint rustling of crickets and other insects.
Someone opened the container from outside, and at the same time, the incandescent lamp went out.
A shaft of pure moonlight pierced the scattered clouds and shone through the open doors.
The driver, who had just opened them, froze.
The figure lying in a pool of blood inside was impossible to miss.
Dressed in a suit and leather shoes, the driver’s expression darkened. “Who did this?”
Song Ren raised his head from the corner. “I did.”
The driver shot him a gloomy look, then suddenly broke into a smile and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Beautifully done!”
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