Kneeling and Apologizing

Su City was a city of the Awakened.

Having Awakened meant having power.

In this era, having power meant having everything.

Therefore, the material life in Su City was abnormally rich.

However, this was the material life of the Awakened; such a privileged existence was obtained by sacrificing the social status of ordinary people.

The society of Su City had degenerated into a jungle era where the weak were prey to the strong, only maintaining a glamorous surface due to the vestiges of past civilized life.

Its essence was a class-distinct society of disparity with the Awakened at its core.

The Awakened were equivalent to the nobility of ancient times.

With force, they could acquire immense wealth from ownerless resources, thereby widening the gap in material possessions.

As the material gap widened, it would, in turn, exacerbate the gap in military strength, and so on and so forth.

The society of Su City had already begun this trend.

The Awakened were the nobles, and ordinary people were the commoners.

They merely lived on the same piece of land, but to the nobles, the commoners were essentially nothing.

It should have been this way, it should have been.

Gu Yunzhang firmly believed this, but these barbaric outsiders had broken this rule.

The life of an ordinary person had triggered a bloody battle, and as the losing party and the one who had struck first, he now needed to “apologize.”

Kowtow in apology.

In front of the West District’s Chief, he had to kowtow and apologize to that monster named Meng Fanhai.

With a strange shuffling sound, a pair of flip-flops appeared before Gu Yunzhang’s eyes.

Meng Fanhai stood before him.

The temperature was already quite low now, and this beachwear attire was probably something even a typical Awakened couldn’t withstand.

But compared to Meng Fanhai’s powerful strength and bloody methods, his strange attire was not worth mentioning.

“We’ll do this by the rules,” Meng Fanhai squatted down, his line of sight level with the kneeling Gu Yunzhang.

Gu Yunzhang did not dare to meet his gaze and had to lower his head to look at the ground.

Meng Fanhai paid no mind to Gu Yunzhang’s avoidance, and carefully placed a flat metal thumbtack in front of him.

The point faced upward, positioned exactly in the center of where his forehead would touch the ground when he kowtowed.

Then he placed an empty glass beside him, unscrewed a bottle of strong white liquor, and poured it full with a gurgling sound, carefully filling the liquid to be level with the rim of the glass.

This was the “kowtow apology” of Su City, a punishment that the losing party in a power struggle must accept.

It was a punishment that gambled with one’s life.

The thumbtack was about one centimeter long, made of a special material, and almost indestructible.

What Gu Yunzhang had to do was kowtow toward the point of the tack, using his own forehead to smash down on it.

And there could be no cheating in the kowtow.

He had to use his own forehead to strike the ground with enough force to generate sufficient vibration, thereby causing the cup of strong liquor placed beside him to spill.

The spilled liquor had to form an unbroken circle, without a single gap.

During this process, the thumbtack would embed itself in his skull.

If it damaged his brain, he would die from a cerebral hemorrhage.

If he didn’t die, only then could he, after finishing the “kowtow,” pick up the glass of strong liquor and drink it all in one gulp.

The thickness of an adult’s frontal bone is between 0.95 and 1.2 cm.

With the skin, this value would be even greater, but the skin could be compressed and could not be calculated as an accurate value in the “kowtow.”

Removing the flat base of the tack, the pure length of the pin was a standard 1.15 cm.

His probability of death was about fifty percent.

But if he didn’t do it, he would be killed immediately by Meng Fanhai, who was the “executor.”

“Please, these are your rules,” Meng Fanhai’s tone was contemptuous.

In his eyes, this method was too gentle, because the fellow kneeling before him still had a fifty percent chance of survival.

He wanted Gu Yunzhang to die, because Gu Yunzhang had killed his, Meng Fanhai’s, man.

Meng Fanhai slammed the half-full bottle of liquor onto the West District Chief’s desk with a loud bang, the liquor splashing out of the bottle from the reverberation.

It was clear that he had no respect for this “District Chief.”

But Gu Yunzhang did not dare to be disrespectful.

This District Chief could be considered to be in the middle to upper echelons of the Yue family.

There were two powers in Su City that could not be provoked: one was the Yue family, and the other was the Wei family.

These two family-centered powers possessed great strength even before the apocalypse.

After the apocalypse, very fortunately, they also possessed the strongest Awakened forces.

In their continuous development and expansion since then, they had virtually turned the entire Su City into their family business.

It could be said that they were the true masters of Su City, the true rule-makers.

The military did not dare to make a move on Su City precisely because of their existence.

They were the kings of this place.

Only these barbaric outsiders who knew nothing would be so careless about such a power.

Gu Yunzhang was well aware of their power, so he did not dare to disobey, because this was the rule, the rule set by the Yue family.

Gu Yunzhang looked at the tack before him, its sharp shape displaying the fear of death.

Being stabbed to death with a knife and actively ramming your face into a knife to kill yourself, although these two methods of death were not different on a physical level, on a psychological level, the latter brought a much greater fear.

And Gu Yunzhang was now the one who had to actively ram into the knife.

He closed his eyes and slammed his head down hard.

Blood flowed from the top of his head.

The sharp pain told him that the tack was already embedded, but this was just the beginning.

He looked at the glass beside him; only a single drop of liquor had spilled out.

Despite his fear, he knew he had to continue.

After the first kowtow, there was no need to aim for a specific spot for the subsequent ones.

Because the tack was already embedded in his skull, no matter where he kowtowed, he was driving the tack into his own brain.

The sound of thudding echoed continuously in the room.

The more he kowtowed, the deeper the tack would be driven.

If he wanted to end this terrible torment quickly, all he could do was strike harder the next time, so that more liquor would spill out of the cup.

However, as the liquor in the cup spilled out, the liquid level dropped, making it even more difficult to spill, requiring greater force and more kowtows.

This also meant he was getting closer and closer to death; the tack would only be driven deeper and deeper with each blow.

That one-centimeter-thick frontal bone was the last line of defense for his life, and how much of that line was left now?

0.03 cm?

0.02 cm?

0.01 cm?

Or even… thinner?

Gu Yunzhang’s arms were already trembling with fear.

He felt as if he were playing a game of Russian roulette, and his head was the hammer.

Each strike of the hammer would increase the probability of his death on the next strike.

Meng Fanhai looked at the man kowtowing with all his might, and he finally experienced a bit of the fun of this game.

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

Perhaps this so-called kowtow apology was not as boring as he had imagined.

Perhaps it was much more effective for punishing those traitors than simply killing them.

Finally, the spilled liquor from the cup formed a complete circle.

Gu Yunzhang’s kowtowing was over.

Meng Fanhai leisurely picked up the glass on the floor and drank the entire cup of strong liquor in one gulp.

Gu Yunzhang could no longer drink this cup of liquor.

All that was left of him was a shocking pool of blood on the floor.

The West District Chief sat behind his solid wood desk and handed a pre-drafted document to Meng Fanhai.

“Then, Wutong Street, Guanghua Street, and Changqing Street, as well as the checkpoint of the West District, will now all be handed over to your Anhua Society, Meng Fanhai, President Meng.”

The West District Chief was a very mature middle-aged man who didn’t care at all about Meng Fanhai’s rude behavior.

This was a very capable man, and also a manager with a broad enough mind.

His name was Shui Tianze.

As a power of the Yue family, his surname was not Yue, which was the only reason he couldn’t enter the core upper echelons of the Yue family.

However, this reason might soon change.

Old Man Yue was suffering from a stubborn illness.

He had tried many healing-type abilities, but none could restore his health.

He was too old, his body too frail, and it was impossible to describe his condition with a single disease.

Diabetes, gout, lumbar inflammation, and the smoking and drinking of his youth had damaged his liver, stomach, and lungs.

He thought that the changes of this era would improve his condition, but the result was often cruel.

Most healing-type abilities could only quickly recover from external injuries.

Against such diseases, everyone was helpless.

Old Man Yue might die soon.

There was only one successor, his granddaughter, Yue Xiaolu.

This was a young woman in her twenties, whose thinking was much more open than the old man’s, and she was an excellent Awakened.

She was better able to adapt to this turbulent era.

With Shui Tianze’s ability, under Yue Xiaolu’s governance, it would no longer be impossible for someone with a different surname to enter the upper echelons of the Yue family.

Opportunities always come to those who are prepared, and Shui Tianze’s preparations were simple: to increase the value of the area he managed.

Meng Fanhai was undoubtedly a shining piece of gold.

His military strength, his ruling power, and his resilience were all rare to see.

No matter how impolite he was, he was a talent that should be courted.

Talents were always a bit arrogant, and this would not anger Shui Tianze, because he believed that Meng Fanhai indeed had the capital to be arrogant.

“You are now a person of the West District. Do a good job, manage your power, and make it grow.”

‘And then, along with you, it will all become mine…’

Of course, Shui Tianze did not say this last sentence out loud.

“Su City will not treat you unfairly.”

Meng Fanhai said nothing, grabbed the document, and left straight away.

Work for Su City?

Nonsense!

Although this bloody battle had given him three streets, there was only one place he valued: the West District checkpoint.

The reason he chose the West District was simple: more than eighty percent of the people coming from Pingding County would enter Su City through the West District checkpoint.

He had to control this checkpoint, inspect every outsider entering the city, and then find his sulking, runaway Brother Anhua.