Chapter 147: Close-Quarters Grappling

Oh, Golden Cicada Society, Golden Cicada Society. With all your abilities, why must you harm people instead of doing something good? What is even the point of doing this?
I knew that I would never, in this lifetime, become people like those in the Golden Cicada Society.
Time ticked away second by second. I watched as the lights downstairs went out. It seemed the two of them were getting ready to sleep after a fierce battle.
Yet, less than half an hour later, with my sharp ears, I caught a movement from inside the room.
The sound was faint. Had it not been for the dead silence of the night, even I might not have heard it.
How should I describe it? It was a dull thud, sounding just like a human head striking the floor.
In the dead of night, with both of them just falling asleep, it was impossible for someone to have simply fallen out of bed.
Even if someone did fall, a fall that heavy would surely wake them up, and there would be other noises.
My eyes shifted. Sensing something was wrong, I immediately vaulted over the wall and dropped onto the balcony of their room.
I slowly pushed the window open, slid two fingers through the gap in the curtains to peer inside, and saw the young woman lying on the floor with a pool of blood beneath her head.
Meanwhile, a figure dressed in a black night-crawling suit was hoisting the girl's boyfriend onto their shoulder, preparing to leave the room!
"Hey, busy working?"
With those words, I shoved the window open and sat right up on the windowsill.
Unhurriedly, I pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and clamped it between my lips. Tilting my head, I looked at him, and he was currently looking right back at me.
"Never mind, never mind. You go on with your work. I just couldn't sleep and happened to hear some noises, so I came down to take a look."
I let out a yawn and asked with a grin, "How much does the big boss pay you guys for this kind of work? Was it Lin Feng who paid you?"
Exhaling a puff of blue smoke, I continued, "Why don't you work for me instead? Name your price—whatever you want, as long as you take me to find Lin Feng."
Seeing me smiling away, the figure in the night suit knew I certainly wasn't here to chat with him.
After pondering for a brief moment, he actually hurled the man he was carrying straight at me!
I never expected him to pull such a dirty trick on me.
If I dodged, the man would undoubtedly be thrown right out. Since this was the fourth floor, falling like that while unconscious meant certain death!
I had no other choice. Spitting out my cigarette, I caught him tightly in a fierce embrace with both arms!
Because of the tremendous momentum, I tumbled backward, executing something like a backflip, and landed flat on the balcony floor.
And he crashed straight down on top of me.
I struggled to my feet, but before I could even steady myself, I felt a blur before my eyes.
The figure in the night-crawling suit appeared right in front of me without the slightest warning.
Without uttering a word, he threw a punch straight at the bridge of my nose.
Too slow to dodge, I took the blow square in the face.
Though my vision flashed with golden stars, I wasn't going to let him off easy.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled downward with force, and then, stepping back, drove a flying knee straight into the bridge of his nose.
With a sharp crack, his nasal bone shattered.
I didn't stop there. As his head whipped back, I grabbed his hair, jerked him upward, and slammed another punch directly into his broken nose.
With this, I guarantee that even if he found a orthopedic surgeon with decades of experience, there would be no way to fix that nose.
Right at that moment, he suddenly opened his mouth and spat a foul-smelling stream of black water right at me.
Instinctively, I raised my arm to shield my face.
Seizing the opening, he kicked me hard in the lower abdomen.
The moment I hunched over, he gripped my throat and shoved me violently against the railing of the balcony.
He put every ounce of strength into it. Judging by his look, he intended to send me over the edge!
As he choked me, I held my breath and frantically reached out to gouge his eyes.
I went for the kill, gouging out his left eyeball completely. Yet even so, he didn't utter a single groan!
Just as my strength was rapidly fading, the crackling sound of an electric current pierced my ears!
The person choking me finally loosened his grip.
"Jiang Huai! Are you alright?"
It was Wang Zihao! He was holding a stun baton in his hand!
Reclaiming my breath with great difficulty, I greedily gulped down the air.
Without even time to greet Wang Zihao, I snatched the stun baton from his hand and struck straight at the attacker's throat once more.
At the same time, I bit my finger and quickly traced a subduing incantation across his back!
"Break!"
A flash of lightning instantly contracted deep into his body, followed by a muffled thud the next second.
The man in the night suit levitated a few inches into the air before crashing to the ground, completely still.
I took a deep breath and spat out a mouthful of saliva.
At the same time, I casually wiped the fingers I had used to gouge his eye against the wall; they were stained with some unknown yellow fluid.
As Wang Zihao walked up to me, the body of the man in the night-crawling suit began to shrivel violently.
When I squatted down and lifted his mask, all that remained beneath it was a pitch-black, desiccated corpse.
"Are you alright?"
I shook my head. Glancing at Wang Zihao, I swallowed back the words that had already reached my lips.
"Take a breather. I'll go check if anyone is waiting downstairs."
Before his voice even faded, Wang Zihao made to leave, but I stopped him just in time: "Hold on, help me strip his clothes off!"