Chapter 31: A Swift Blow to Injustice

“Are you a new tenant? Which floor do you live on?” The landlady’s real intent behind this question was clearly: if you want to keep a tab, at least let me know where you live.

Xiao Ma smiled, remembering he still owed her dozens of yuan. He walked over and said, “I was just joking with you. I don’t live here, so there’s no need to look for me.”

With that, he placed a crisp, red hundred-yuan bill on the counter and turned to leave.

The landlady was taken aback by this sudden generosity. Where did this rich young man come from? Was he trying to hit on her?

As she pondered, she noticed the handsome show-off still sitting on the front steps, drinking water. The more she looked at him, the more attractive he seemed, and she began to let her imagination wander.

However, her husband soon returned on his electric scooter, and she quickly averted her gaze. After the usual bickering between husband and wife, she complained, “You’re only just getting back now? You only had to pick up the kid. Now there’s no time to buy groceries—you’d better hurry up and go.”

Her husband retorted, “You just like bossing me around. I have to pick up the kid and cook for you, and now you’re nagging me too? Why don’t you go buy the groceries yourself?”

The landlady wanted to say, “You’re unemployed and I’m supporting you, so of course you have to do these things,” but she held her tongue. Grabbing her wallet from the counter, she got up and left.

As she passed Xiao Ma outside, she seemed—whether intentionally or not—to exaggerate the sway of her hips.

Xiao Ma couldn’t help but marvel at his new body. Good looks and money really did seem to make everything easier. After indulging in a brief daydream, he admonished himself: now that he was, presumably, no longer a virgin and had some status, he needed to keep his composure. He must draw a clear line between himself and the losers of the world.

Soon after, a little girl with a backpack nearly as big as herself came skipping back home. Wang Xiao’ai saw Xiao Ma sitting on the steps. She popped her lollipop in her mouth, planted her hands on her hips, and stared at him.

Xiao Ma handed her the iced tea he’d bought earlier. She stopped posing, took the lollipop out with one hand, and grabbed the drink with the other.

Now both her hands were full, and with her oversized backpack slipping off, she bent over and wiggled to adjust it to a better position. Then she said, “Damin, you haven’t changed. These days I was really worried you’d turn into a great demon king. My dad in my previous life was one, and I don’t like demon kings.”

Xiao Ma didn’t really understand, but patted her head and said, “How about coming to KFC with me?”

For some reason, this little girl loved KFC. But this time she refused. “Not today. I heard my dad’s getting released today, so I want to go meet him.”

Since that was the case, Xiao Ma didn’t insist. He nodded. “Alright, another day then. Do you have enough change for the bus?”

“I do. Once I take off my backpack, I’m leaving. Damin, take care of yourself,” Wang Xiao’ai said with a mischievous grin. “I’ve used up all my primordial power. If you do something reckless, I won’t be able to help you reincarnate again.”

With that, she put the lollipop back in her mouth and ran upstairs.

Was she serious?

Xiao Ma was left speechless by this little spitfire. Could she really have some kind of supernatural power? In any case, he’d already encountered too many things lately that defied explanation, so he didn’t dwell on the “primordial little girl” issue. For now, he wandered off, not sure where to go, and, instead of taking the main road, he strolled down a back alley for nostalgia’s sake.

He hadn’t walked far when, in a filthy, stinking, secluded spot, he thought he heard a woman calling for help. But when he listened more closely, the sound vanished.

Influenced by this body, Xiao Ma felt both sleazy and paranoid. He pressed himself against the wall, peered quickly and furtively into a deserted alley—and his heart nearly froze: a scruffy man was holding a knife and robbing someone. By a twist of fate, the victim was the decent landlady.

Though her voluptuous figure hadn’t been harmed, the assailant had clamped a hand over her mouth and pressed a knife to her throat.

Xiao Ma had no martial arts training, nor any military background; his heart was pounding wildly. This body was pathetic, and his first instinct was to run. But despite his fear, Xiao Ma felt a flicker of heroism.

He had no idea how to rescue the landlady, but he forced himself to stay. At the very least, he could witness the scene—if she were hurt or worse, he could call an ambulance or try to staunch a wound. After all, statistics showed that many stabbing victims died not from the wound, but from bleeding out.

His thoughts were chaotic. Before he could make a decision, he heard running footsteps coming toward the alley entrance.

His heart almost leapt out of his chest. He looked around frantically—there was nowhere to hide. In desperation, he noticed a beer bottle among the piles of litter.

Without hesitation, he bent down and grabbed it.

Xiao Ma had no training in timing or spatial awareness, but this body seemed to know instinctively when to strike. At just the right moment, hidden at the mouth of the alley, he gripped the beer bottle, spun as if swinging a baseball bat, and hurled it with all his might.

Bang—

A perfect, explosive hit!

His timing was impeccable—the bottle smashed into the robber’s face as he ran to the alley’s entrance, bursting into a shower of blood and glass.

The bottle shattered under the combined momentum. The robber collapsed in a twitching heap, motionless.

Without delay, Xiao Ma kicked the knife far away. He hurried to check the alley. The landlady was unharmed, but pressed against the wall, gasping in terror.

“Oh, it’s you?”

Recognizing the handsome braggart, the landlady clutched her chest, still shaken and deeply surprised.

Her legs were so weak she could barely stand. If she were more familiar with this young man, she’d have thrown herself into his arms for reassurance.

Her heart was still pounding violently. But Xiao Ma, assessing the aftermath, realized this incident would have serious consequences. That blow had been so fierce—it was possible the man could die.

He couldn’t just run off. If something happened and the man died here without any explanation, it would be a big problem. For a fugitive, perhaps that didn’t matter, but Xiao Ma was an ordinary office worker and couldn’t shoulder such a burden.

But if he called the police, with no injuries to the victim, his actions could easily be seen as excessive force. To justify self-defense in such a case, he’d need to handle things correctly and find the right people.

That he could think through all this in just a few seconds was a sign that his mind had changed in some way, though he didn’t quite notice it.

“What should I do?” he wondered.

As he hesitated, the landlady picked up her bag from beside the half-dead robber, pulled out her phone, and called the police.

With things moving as they were, Xiao Ma could only grit his teeth and wait.

“Young man, don’t worry. We’ll wait for the police together. You did the right thing—you acted bravely for a just cause,” the landlady said. In her simple mind, that was all there was to it.

She had no idea of the real consequences.

Despite her shaky voice, her call was efficient. About ten minutes later, officers arrived from the nearest community station: one official and two assistants.

Upon arrival, the officer quickly realized what a headache this was—the suspect was badly hurt, possibly fatally, and, to make matters worse, was one of those troublesome “Divine Clan” types.

With the police present, the landlady felt much safer and calmed down. She came over and thanked Xiao Ma profusely. “Thank you, truly, thank you.”

But Xiao Ma felt rather embarrassed. In truth, his actions were hardly heroic—more a matter of self-preservation.

He hadn’t had the courage to cry out and confront the robber in the moment. By the time he acted, the robber had already finished robbing and was running away. The landlady hadn’t actually been hurt.

So technically, Xiao Ma’s intervention had merely recovered her phone and a few hundred yuan.

Reflecting on his state of mind, Xiao Ma realized he’d acted because there was nowhere to hide, and he feared the desperate robber might stab him in passing—nothing more.

To the simple-minded landlady, it might have seemed like heroism, but Xiao Ma knew it was just self-preservation born of paranoia.