So, were all your past wounds inflicted on your face?

The first patient was a young police officer in plain clothes. The female officer who had brought him hurriedly asked Du Ruo to take a look, saying he felt cold all over and had no strength in him.

Since neither of them was in uniform, she had tried to help him out of the car herself, but the young officer’s legs suddenly went weak and he nearly collapsed to the ground, frightening her into a panicked cry.

“Don’t move. I’ll handle it.”

Seeing the condition he was in, Du Ruo’s heart tightened too. He put down his tea and strode over at once.

When he reached the young officer, he laid a hand against the artery in his neck to check his pulse. It was not as vigorous as that of a healthy person, but it was steady and continuous, with no sign that his life was hanging by a thread.

“He’s fine for now. Don’t worry.”

With one arm, Du Ruo supported the young man and led him across the courtyard to the sofa inside.

“Where was he struck?”

Du Ruo opened all the doors and windows to let the air circulate before turning to question the female officer.

“In the back, near the vest line. He was fine before getting into the car and even while riding in it. It was only after he got out that this happened.”

The female officer turned around and gestured to her own back. By now she was not nearly so tense. Seeing Du Ruo had somehow steadied her, and his calm expression seemed to give her a great sense of security.

“Mm, that explains it. Five hundred coins really are something.”

Du Ruo glanced at the time, then silently calculated, according to the bronze-man technique, the moment when the tidal current would flow through the various acupoints of the body. Just then, when the young man got out of the car, should have been the exact time when that current passed through the acupoint near the center of the back. The force left by that blow had affected the tide’s flow.

The bronze-man technique he had learned was used chiefly to block the circulation of vital energy and break through both soft and hard qigong. Its calculation of this tidal current was not nearly so precise. So Du Ruo could not help sighing a little.

Still, sighing aside, he turned the man over and used his hand to guide energy into the area over his back heart, kneading it carefully. The other party had not intended to kill him, or else it might simply have been that the attack had come too hastily for him to calculate the current’s position in time.

“Can you tell me the details? How did he end up getting hit?”

Du Ruo asked as he kneaded the acupoints. To strike someone to death was easy enough; to strike someone back to life was much harder. Of course, he was not trying to revive anyone—he did not know how—but merely checking the major meridians to see which acupoints had been struck. If any had been, he would need to disperse the force.

“The police and special tactical officers were evacuating the civilians. Once we spotted the suspect, we moved in to surround him. He was probably just as you said, Boss Du—not good at movement techniques. He vaulted over the wall and tried to run. The man had terrifying strength; a lot of our tactical officers were swatted aside. We police were only there to assist, but this fool thought he had learned a bit this year and could rush in to help. He got slapped away with one blow.”

As she spoke, the female officer looked as though she wanted to give the young cop a smack herself. If he had not been lying there with his eyes closed, she might well have done it.

“Normal. People who train hard day in and day out for decades build muscle memory. Ordinary people naturally can’t get close. So how was he caught in the end?”

Du Ruo smiled. It was normal for young people to be full of fire and spirit.

“Well, what else could we do? The shield-bearing tactical officers had no effect. Then the ones with rifles moved in, and the suspect saw more than a dozen assault rifles aimed at him. He froze on the spot and obediently put on shackles and handcuffs.”

The female officer mimed holding a rifle.

Du Ruo smiled and said nothing more. He also did not ask why they had not simply sent in the rifle team first. That was not his business, and he had no interest in making it his business.

“All right, there’s no real problem now. These next few days he can eat some foods that promote circulation, or go across to the tavern and buy some medicinal wine for the same purpose. He didn’t mean to kill anyone, so it’s nothing serious. Even if you hadn’t come to me, a few days’ rest would have been enough. If you’re still worried, you can take him to the hospital for another checkup.”

Du Ruo withdrew his hand. Aside from looking a little pale and lacking strength, the young officer was already much better. Of course, Du Ruo was careful not to promise too much. Best trust science, after all. A hospital checkup would not hurt.

“All right, all right. Thank you, Boss Du.”

“Mm. Drink more hot water, don’t eat anything cold, and keep away from air conditioning. Oh, and do you two want to stay for dinner?”

Du Ruo gave a few instructions, and though he asked whether they wanted to stay for dinner, he showed no sign of moving to prepare any.

“No, no. I’ll take this fellow to the hospital in a bit, then I still have to go back and report. I won’t trouble you any further. We’ll have Captain Huang come over specially to thank you.”

The female officer was quick to read the room and immediately understood that he had no intention of keeping them.

“Ah, thank you, Boss Du. I’m fine now. I can walk by myself.”

The young policeman got up from the sofa. His complexion was much better now, with at least some color back in his face. After thanking Du Ruo, he left with the female officer, and was already able to walk on his own.

Watching the two of them go to the tavern across the way to buy medicinal wine, Du Ruo smiled. It really was about time to start cooking. His appetite had actually been growing larger and larger lately, and ordinary meals were beginning to fail to satisfy him. If he paired them with potent medicinal wine, he could eat a huge amount of meat in one sitting.

He did not dislike meat. If he grew tired of it, he could always change his tastes now and then. What he disliked was cooking for himself. So these days, when he sat down to eat, he would drink some medicinal wine. He was not short of money now; there was no need to skimp on food and drink. Only...

“Boss Du, we’re here to freeload a meal.”

Hearing that voice, Du Ruo hurriedly put away the medicinal wine.

These past two days, Li Qiyao and Xiang Yuanyuan had been coming over to eat. Before, they had still cooked at home, but after Li Qiyao discovered that Xiang Yuanyuan had been sneaking sips of cooking wine, they stopped using the stove on the second floor altogether and brought all the seasonings over to Du Ruo’s place.

Of course, they did not come empty-handed. They would order food from the little shop next door and bring it over. So now Du Ruo could only drink his medicinal wine in secret.

If Xiang Yuanyuan caught him and was not allowed to have any, Du Ruo suspected she might be just like Yaya—seeing fish she could not eat, then rolling on the floor and throwing a tantrum.

...

The three of them ate dinner in cheerful harmony, but things on the cousin’s side were not nearly so peaceful.

The drive back took just over four hours. The cousin had set out early after Du Ruo left, and by the time she got home it was just right for lunch. The moment she opened the door, the whole house was filled with the fragrance of food.

“You’re back. How was your time with your sister? Come wash your hands and eat. I made your favorite crab. I bought the freshest ones at the market today.”

Her husband, Huang Wei, was not especially handsome, but he was refined and gentle-looking, and with an apron tied around him he gave no hint of any violent tendencies. He could also cook very well. He was not short of money to begin with, and he would occasionally arrange small romantic gestures. No wonder the cousin had chosen not to divorce him, but instead to go learn boxing.

Perhaps she simply could not bear to let her husband go on harming other people. Or perhaps she could not bear to lose that relationship.

“Okay.”

The cousin said little, set down her bag and keys, and sat down at the table to eat.

Everything was perfectly normal until after the meal, when Huang Wei started gaming.

“What kind of dogshit game is this? I’ve spent over a hundred thousand, I’ve burned through all my daily stamina, and it still won’t drop me a set. Dammit...”

He sat on the sofa with his phone, cursing under his breath. He tugged at his collar. Two buttons on his short-sleeved shirt popped off, but Huang Wei did not care at all. Leaning against the cushion, he seemed to find every position uncomfortable, and he picked it up and flung it aside.

“Here we go again...”

The cousin, scrolling on her phone from the other end of the sofa, was not surprised at all. Her husband was fine most of the time, but once his emotions ran high, nothing he saw would look right to him. This was only the beginning. If things still did not go his way later, he would definitely start yelling or breaking things.

“I am so done with this... Other people get weapons and rare cards, and I get nothing. Dammit... I’m playing your damn game...”

The angrier Huang Wei got, the more he shouted. Lying on the sofa, he kicked one foot twice, apparently still unsatisfied, then grabbed his phone and hurled it. With several sharp crashes, a perfectly good phone was smashed into a folding-screen wreck in just a few blows.

After venting his anger, he kept cursing as he put on his slippers and headed toward the room. There was a computer in there.

“Tch, so useless and still obsessed with gaming...”

The cousin curled her lip. She knew that after smashing his phone today, he would definitely buy a new one tomorrow, and that in a little while the sound of the keyboard being smashed would probably come from the room.

In truth, it was not as though she had no reason to be beaten. At times like this she could have stayed far away, or gone out shopping and come back with nothing to worry about. But she just had to be sharp-tongued, especially when facing Huang Wei’s foul temper.

Of course, now she had more confidence. Even so, she had never actually fought him for real, so she was still somewhat uneasy. She looked casual enough on the surface, but in her heart she was already rehearsing how she should make her opening move.

Sure enough, before long, the sound of things being smashed came from the room.

Only by evening did Huang Wei come out. His face was dark. Seeing his wife still lying on the sofa playing with her phone, he stormed over and began to curse.

“Do you not know how to cook? If I don’t cook, then you don’t eat either, is that it?”

“Didn’t you already get mad enough to be full? You still need dinner?”

The cousin glanced back at him and gave a contemptuous curl of her lip.

“Hah... I’m hungry. Order takeout.”

Huang Wei forced down his temper, took a deep breath, and patted himself down. Only then did he remember that his phone had been smashed, so he told his cousin to order delivery.

“Honestly. If you’re bad at something, just practice more. Why copy other people by smashing your phone?”

The cousin opened the delivery app and prepared to place an order, but her mouth would not spare him. The words slipped out before she could stop them.

The moment she said it, she knew something was wrong. Turning her head, she saw that Huang Wei’s eyes were already red, and with his sleeves rolled up, he clearly could not hold himself back any longer.

“I told you to order takeout. What the hell are you running your mouth for?”

Standing behind her, Huang Wei swung a slap at her.

The cousin instinctively straightened up, then stood.

Bang.

His hand struck the back of the sofa instead. The pain instantly robbed him of his reason. He snatched up the cushion from the sofa and hurled it at her, but missed and slammed it into the coffee table instead.

Crash-clatter.

Everything on the coffee table scattered to the floor. Then a woman’s shrill scream erupted from the room, along with the occasional cry of pain from a man, while the sound of slaps rang on and on without stopping.

...

“No way. That damn bastard next door beats his wife every day. What kind of man does that? I can’t take this anymore.”

The family next door had originally been eating dinner. Hearing the sounds of fighting from the cousin’s home, the homeowner—a man in his fifties—slammed his bowl and chopsticks onto the table, rose, yanked the door open with force, and headed next door. His wife saw her husband in that state and hurried after him.

Bang!

“The hell, beating women isn’t a kind of man—”

The neighbor’s door was kicked open by the old man. As he spoke, he strode inside, and the scene in the room quickly came into view.

The cousin had her foot on Huang Wei’s toes, one arm wrapped around his arm, and her other hand resting on his shoulder. She was screaming at the top of her lungs while, in the middle of the shrieking, she kept slapping his face hard.

When the cousin had once asked Du Ruo how she should hit someone after a takedown, he had only told her two words: “Slap the face.”

Clearly, she had mastered the essence. She had her eyes shut and did not dare look, and she was so nervous she was screaming, but that did not slow her hand from smacking Huang Wei across the face again and again.

Huang Wei was pinned to the ground with his arm trapped and had no way to resist. All he could do was twist his face aside to keep the blows from landing squarely.

“Sorry, wrong house. Continue.”

Seeing this, the neighbor exchanged a glance with his wife, murmured that under his breath, and silently closed the door again before leaving.

At that moment, the neighbor stood there in a daze, feeling as if his whole worldview had been shaken. He even began to suspect that the occasional bruises on the cousin’s face in the past had actually come from Huang Wei’s face hitting her.

The chaos in the cousin’s home went on for more than ten minutes, and only when other neighbors called the police did the officers arrive and finally rescue Huang Wei.

The matter became quite a scene and both families’ parents were notified. Yet this time, unlike before, Huang Wei’s face was swollen like a pig’s head, already medicated and wrapped in gauze, and he was shouting about domestic abuse. Meanwhile, the cousin had bandages wrapped around her hand and was explaining to the police that it had only been ordinary family scuffling.

“I want a divorce.”

Huang Wei shouted thickly at the police station entrance.

“Xiao Wei, married couples squabble all the time. A spat at the bedside ends with harmony at the foot of the bed, you know? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to teach my girl properly and have her apologize to you.”

Li Qiyao’s aunt held Huang Wei’s hand and kept soothing him, though for some reason the smile at the corners of her mouth could not be suppressed.

“Oh my, look at that beating. She really didn’t hold back, did she? How could she be so cruel? Weiwei, come home with Mom for a few days and rest up until your wounds are better before you go back. Pfft—sorry, son, I couldn’t hold it in. Hahahaha...”

Huang Wei’s mother had originally worn an expression of grievance and heartache for her son, but staring at her son’s pig-headed face, she only found it more and more amusing the longer she looked. Before long, the others in the police station lobby started laughing too, the whole place filled with merriment.

“Cough. Let me tell you this: we can handle domestic violence cases too, especially when the two of you have been at it for so long.”

Inside the interview room, an old policeman sat across from the cousin. Hearing the laughter outside, he could not help pausing for a moment before continuing:

“From now on, you absolutely cannot fight for this long again, understand? Look at your wrist—you’ve hurt it. And another thing: when you hit someone in the future, don’t scream like that. You made the neighbors misunderstand. All right, there’s nothing serious here. Go back and apologize properly to your husband. You’ve got a long life ahead of you yet.”

After saying a couple of things, the old policeman let the cousin leave. Since someone had filed a report, they had to respond. The matter between the cousin and her husband was actually fairly well known, and the neighbors all knew about it, so the police could only count it as criticism and education... more or less.