Fists can't cross Tianjin

Chapter 29 Rearing

The sky was bright.

In the courtyard, a commotion erupted as chickens and dogs scattered.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The peeling paint on the wooden door was slammed shut with a deafening roar, and dust fell from the door frame.

"Open the door! Open the door now! We need to check your household registration!"

Before the people inside could react, the wooden door was suddenly pushed open.

Several policemen wearing dark blue cotton overcoats and liberation caps strode in. Their bright red collar insignia stood out starkly against the dusty courtyard.

Following closely behind were several middle-aged women from the neighborhood wearing red armbands.

"Don't move! Don't move!"

The head of the neighborhood committee was a plump old woman. Pointing at the panicked residents in the courtyard, she shouted in a shrill voice, "The police station is here to check for vagrants! Everyone, take out your household registration booklets! Nobody is allowed to wander off!"

The once quiet courtyard instantly erupted into chaos.

These days, "checking household registration" and "catching vagrants" are the words that ordinary people fear hearing the most.

"Who is Chen Zhuo? Which room does Chen Zhuo live in?" The dark-faced police officer in charge asked with a stern expression, his eyes sharp as he scanned the entire area.

Old Wang, wearing an old military overcoat, walked out of the house trembling, clutching his family's household registration booklet tightly in his hand. "Officer, Chen Zhuo... he left yesterday afternoon."

"Gone?"

The stern-faced police officer frowned, looked Mr. Wang up and down, and asked, "Where did you go? Did you get a letter of introduction?"

"They said they went back to their hometown to visit relatives...letter of introduction...I don't know about that." Grandpa Wang didn't dare to say anything carelessly, for fear of causing trouble for himself.

The police officer gave a signal to the person next to him, and two young police officers immediately rushed into the small house that had collapsed halfway.

After a series of rummaging sounds, the two men emerged empty-handed: "Chief, it's empty. Even the bed is cold."

"Damn, he's a seasoned veteran, he's quick on his feet."

The stern-faced policeman muttered a curse under his breath, closed his notebook, and said, "Dismissed! Notify the officers at the train station and long-distance bus station to keep an eye out for this man!"

Only after watching the police officers and neighborhood aunties leave in a large group did the residents in the courtyard dare to breathe loudly. They looked at each other, wondering what serious crime the usually quiet driver had committed.

Only Lin Xiaoman, hiding behind Grandpa Wang, looked anxious: "Uncle... Brother Chen... he'll be alright, won't he?"

Grandpa Wang turned around, glanced at Lin Xiaoman, then at the empty, dilapidated house, and sighed deeply.

"Good riddance."

A complex light flashed in the old man's cloudy eyes. "If I leave, I won't have to suffer like this anymore. As long as I don't get caught, the world outside is vast..."

At the alley entrance, a cold wind was blowing.

The tabby cat was pushing a brand-new Flying Pigeon heavy-duty bicycle, hunched over and waiting at the base of the wall.

Upon seeing the police officer come out, he immediately greeted him with a big smile, took out a pack of Daqianmen cigarettes that he hadn't been willing to smoke, and skillfully handed one over.

"Officer, thank you for your hard work! How's it going? Have you caught that vagrant who assaulted someone?"

At this moment, where was the arrogance that the tabby cat usually displayed in front of the thugs?

With his back bent and his back hunched, his face beaming like a chrysanthemum, he looked exactly like an honest citizen who had been bullied and was seeking protection from the organization.

The stern-faced policeman didn't accept the cigarette, waved his hand dismissively, and said somewhat dejectedly, "We came up empty-handed. The neighbors said he ran away yesterday afternoon, saying he was going back to his hometown to visit relatives."

"They ran away?"

The cat's hand, holding a cigarette, froze in mid-air, and his smile almost vanished. "This...this can't be, right? Officer, that kid broke someone's bones! If he gets away, who knows who he'll harm next..."

"Alright, now that we've opened a case, we'll issue an arrest warrant."

The police officer tightened his belt impatiently. "If you have any news, report it to me immediately. Also, try to avoid causing trouble in the future."

"Yes, yes, yes, we will definitely cooperate with the government's work, we will definitely cooperate."

The tabby cat nodded and bowed repeatedly, watching the police officers ride away on their bicycles.

Until that touch of navy blue completely disappeared at the entrance of the alley.

The humility and smile on the tabby cat's face were like a layer of melted wax, instantly collapsing to reveal the ferocity and ruthlessness beneath.

"Brother Cat, what should we do...?"

Several of Erga's men rushed over.

"Smack! Damn it, he got away!"

The tabby cat angrily threw the cigarette in its hand onto the snow and crushed it to dust with its stomping.

He initially thought it was just a simple setup.

First, they invited Xie Cheng, thinking it would be a piece of cake, but they didn't expect that kid to be so difficult, even Xie Ganzi was defeated.

This forced him to abandon his contempt and engage in official dealings.

They had hoped that with the help of the authorities, even if that kid was highly skilled in martial arts, he would have to obediently surrender.

But no matter how much we planned, we never expected that this kid would run away ahead of time!

Once he ran away, things completely spiraled out of control.

The clue about the three thousand yuan is still on that kid!

If the money can't be recovered, there's no way to explain it to the official in charge.

If the man can't be caught, Gangzi's whereabouts will also be unknown.

He dared not reveal Gangzi's whereabouts. So, he had been secretly searching for him with his men for the past few days, but without any success.

If that madman Batel comes back and finds his younger brother missing, dead or alive, wouldn't he turn this HQ district upside down?

In that case, it will be the tabby cat who suffers!

"Oh shit!"

The tabby cat slapped the handlebars, resigned to its bad luck, and said, "Let's go back first..."

……

Meanwhile, inside the air-raid shelter, Chen Zhuo sat cross-legged on the ground, shirtless, tearing at a large piece of charred pork.

As he ate a large amount of meat, his stomach began to churn violently, making a rumbling sound like muffled thunder.

Calories.

A surge of heat exploded from the stomach, pumping through the blood to every part of the body.

"call--"

After finishing the last piece, Chen Zhuo let out a long breath, stood up, and casually grabbed a hard wooden stick about the thickness of a wrist from the side.

"Bang!"

He swung the stick violently, striking his own left ribs hard.

The blow was delivered with no restraint; the dull thud echoed through the narrow air-raid shelter, sending chills down one's spine.

If an ordinary person were hit by this blow, several of their ribs would break on the spot.

But Chen Zhuo's body only jolted violently.

The moment the stick touched his skin, all the muscles in his body tensed up, his pores closed, and the skin in that area bulged up as if inflated, forcefully withstanding the enormous force.

"snort……"

Chen Zhuo groaned, a fine layer of cold sweat appearing on his forehead.

pain.

Excruciating pain.

But within this pain was a tingling sensation. It was the feeling of force penetrating to the bone marrow, vibrating through the bones.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

He gritted his teeth, and the wooden stick in his hand fell like raindrops. Back, chest, thighs, arms... each blow was powerful and heavy, making the flesh tremble and making crisp "snap" sounds.

The "Pai Da Gong" in Xingyi Quan.

To develop "copper skin and iron bones," you must first treat yourself like a piece of iron and temper yourself through countless trials.

But this is not just about being beaten.

While striking, Chen Zhuo kept his mouth tightly closed, forcibly controlling the closure of all the pores on his body through a special breathing technique.

To master the "Iron Armor" technique, you must lock your breath.

It's like a pressure cooker; only by locking in the steam and preventing heat loss can you truly develop your strength, even to the point of penetrating your bones.

But it's too hard.

Each time a stick strikes, although the skin and flesh withstand it, the shockwave surges wildly within the body. If the pores cannot contain it, this force will damage the internal organs.

This kind of training is playing with your life.

Every upheaval, both internal and external, is a minor injury to the body. Without sufficient nutrition and medicinal nourishment, the more intense the training, the faster the death.

Chen Zhuo practiced for a while, then suddenly stopped.

"hiss……"

He gasped and stopped.

On his left arm, a bruise was visibly swelling, turning a frightening purplish-black color. It was from exerting too much force earlier, damaging the deep fascia.

"medicine."

Chen Zhuo reached out and touched the safflower oil wrapped inside a bag on the ground.

He fell down.

empty.

Only a few drops of murky residual liquid dripped down the bottle opening, landed in my palm, and were instantly absorbed by my burning skin.

"That's all..."

Chen Zhuo sighed.

Now that we've reached the Iron Armor stage, the third level of Ming Jin, we need to strike the body, which naturally consumes safflower oil very quickly.

In particular, in order to deepen the practice of "Pai Da Gong", each forced locking of energy will lead to a large amount of blood stasis and internal heat accumulation, which requires safflower oil to promote blood circulation, remove blood stasis, and unblock the meridians.

Without medicine, this method of practice becomes a death warrant.

If you keep training like this, you'll ruin your health before you even get your bones strong enough.

"I need to go buy some safflower oil..."

Chen Zhuo stood up, grabbed his coat from the ground, and haphazardly wrapped it around himself.

He buried the pile of frozen meat on the ground back into the dug hole, piled some discarded bricks on top, and then crawled out of the air-raid shelter.