When the torrential rain covered the neon light and smashed on the food delivery box, and I squatted under the eaves of the convenience store and counted the last crumpled change, I never thought that the old man walking into the rain curtain with a stooped back would push me into a vortex of fate intertwined with blood and fire three months later.
The delivery boy's uniform made his shoulder blades ache, but what was even more uncomfortable were the numerous traps set by the Zhao Group. With a swipe of a pen, they can freeze my account and void my contract; with a smile in a suit and tie, they can turn the hard-earned money I earned in the underground boxing ring into a talisman. It wasn't until the lights on the boxing ring pierced the blood scabs at the corners of my eyes that night that I realized that kindness is not about kneeling down to beg for mercy, but about standing up and punching.
The martial arts notes left by the mysterious old man are like a ball of red-hot iron, tempering my bones day and night in my chest. Ouyang Hao patted me on the shoulder and said, "Brother, those of us who practice martial arts must have a temper." He didn't know that what really transformed me was not the moves and routines, but the tears in Lin Yuexue's eyes when she was slapped by her father. Suits and leather shoes replaced the oil-stained work clothes, but every time I unbuttoned my cufflinks, there was always a scar from the torn takeout order on the inside of my wrist.
When Zhao Yu's bodyguard threw me into the hospital, he said: "You are just a stinky beggar who can't get up." Three months later, I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his office, watching him rolling back and forth on the carpet and wailing, but suddenly I remembered what the old man said before he died: "The most unbearable loneliness is when you can crush all the rules."
If power can really change the world, are the hands that hold it destined to be stained with blood?
