Chapter 9: In a Fight, It's All About Whose Head Is Harder

"Wu Jing? Who's Wu Jing? I don't have time to mess around with you here."
The young man thought Xing Xiaolong was being deliberately difficult. With his temperament, he didn't like to argue with thugs, so he took his girlfriend's hand and said, "Xiaoxiao, let's go. There's no need to get tangled up with a lowlife like him."

"Did I mistake him for someone else? Or is this place..."
Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Xing Xiaolong, and he realized what kind of world he had entered. This only strengthened his resolve to carry out his plan.

"Shorty, think you can just run off without paying? If I don't deal with you today—"
Xing Xiaolong shouted, lunging forward with a massive fist, channeling all his strength into a simple but effective straight punch aimed squarely at the young man's back.

"Shorty?"
The young man clearly hated the nickname, his face turning grim. Since Xing Xiaolong had already made his move, he stopped hiding his own skills.

With a quick sidestep and a subtle shuffle, he easily dodged Xing Xiaolong's punch.
Seizing the opening, he instantly switched from defense to offense. Like lightning, he shot an uppercut that landed precisely on Xing Xiaolong's exposed chin.

The whole sequence—defense to counterattack—flowed smoothly and seamlessly.

"Damn, those were some slick moves. This guy is definitely a trained fighter, probably someone who's been practicing combat sports since childhood. My luck is really something—every time, I run into the real deal."

Struck on the chin, Xing Xiaolong's body involuntarily arched backward. He staggered back three or four steps before barely steadying himself, spitting out a mouthful of blood mixed with the taste of iron. Internally, he was cursing his own misfortune.

He had thought he'd found an easy target, but instead, he'd kicked a steel plate.

Standing six-foot-one, with a physique honed by years as a military guard, Xing Xiaolong had learned crawling techniques, grappling, and army martial arts. He could easily handle one or two ordinary people in a fight.

But only ordinary people.

He wasn't one of those legendary soldiers—the very best, who survive brutal selection and hellish training to become special forces operatives.

Now, facing an opponent who had clearly trained in combat from a young age and whose build was even more solid than his own, Xing Xiaolong was simply outclassed.

But since the fight had already started and he had thrown the first punch, Xing Xiaolong had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold out, hoping to last until the police arrived to "rescue" him.

As for begging for mercy...

No matter the branch, soldiers are men of iron who bleed but don't shed tears. Such disgraceful acts were beneath him.

At the roadside, Xing Xiaolong and the young man who looked like Wu Jing began a "street brawl," quickly attracting a crowd of onlookers eager for drama. Someone promptly called the police.

The young man's girlfriend, seeing her boyfriend was thoroughly dominating the fight, didn't rush in to help nor panic and scream like most girls would when faced with violence. This alone made it clear she was no ordinary girl.

Though Xing Xiaolong was constantly on the losing end, chased and pummeled by the young man's masterful techniques, a twist of fate allowed him to discover an astonishing secret—

His body's resistance to blows had increased dramatically.

Although the young man's fists and kicks still hurt, Xing Xiaolong was certain he wasn't actually injured at all.

It was as if he had mastered the "iron body" techniques once reserved for scouts and special ops—now forbidden and as notorious as the "Eighteen Black Dragon Hands." His ability to take a beating had at least doubled.

Why his body had changed so suddenly, Xing Xiaolong didn't know. But one thing was certain:
This unexpected transformation was definitely tied to the CF Store inside the golden ring.

The reason there were no signs yet was likely because the main page of the CF Store remained pixelated and hadn't officially authorized him to enter—it was simply inaccessible for now.

There were still many confusing aspects of the CF Store's rigid interface. None of these puzzles could be solved at the moment; he could only hope to find answers once the special training ended and the store officially opened.

Now confident in his new "passive skill" of enhanced resilience, and fired up from the fight, Xing Xiaolong switched tactics. Instead of dodging and stalling for time, he began to take hits head-on, looking for chances to strike back at the young man.

As for the youth who resembled Wu Jing—a national youth-level martial arts champion—he knew exactly how much damage his blows should inflict. Normally, two or three punches would knock someone out.

Yet the big oaf before him, whose clumsy, leaky fighting style should have made him easy prey, had withstood his attacks for so long without falling. Instead, he seemed to grow more energetic and aggressive the longer the fight lasted.

Such formidable endurance couldn't help but earn his respect.

On one side was a hot-blooded martial arts champion; on the other, an equally fired-up young man. Once a fight like this broke out, it would only escalate, and it wasn't uncommon for someone to get seriously hurt when tempers flared.

Luckily, both men ended up flushed and bruised, their faces and bodies covered with welts and lumps, their match essentially a draw.

Finally, the police arrived!

Fighting in public and disturbing the peace required no explanation. Several officers rushed in, slapped a pair of silver bracelets on each man, and brought them to the police station, locking them in the holding cell.

The holding cell was a temporary detention room, where suspects were kept before formal interrogation, detention, or transfer to the lockup. It was much like a solitary black room.

With the adrenaline of the fight fading, Xing Xiaolong, now having achieved his goal of entering the police station, knew full well that he was the instigator and that the young man was, in truth, his innocent victim.

He even felt a little guilty.

To show his remorse, Xing Xiaolong, rubbing his swollen and aching black eye, smiled and greeted the young man: "Hey, shorty, you're pretty damn tough. You really did a number on me—are you a pro?"

Even though his resistance had doubled, Xing Xiaolong wasn't invincible. Where he could only take one punch before, now he could maybe take two. At first, his frantic dodging meant he hadn't been hit much, but as the fight went on and he discovered his improved resilience, he started trading blows recklessly, resulting in his battered appearance.

Of course, while Xing Xiaolong looked miserable, the young man hadn't escaped unscathed either. Thanks to Xing Xiaolong's reckless tactics—willing to take a thousand points of damage just to hurt his opponent by eight hundred—the young man now sported a black eye and a swollen lump on his forehead, courtesy of Xing Xiaolong's iron-hard head.

It was precisely this shameless, almost ruffian style that irritated the professional fighter, who regarded Xing Xiaolong with genuine contempt.

When Xing Xiaolong greeted him, the young man merely snorted coldly, turned his head away, and ignored him completely.