Chapter 298 - A Scheme

Around a minute passed by.

Linfeng immediately closed the distance between him and the man. He quickly held the man's arm, rammed his free elbow towards the other's back, and slammed him down to the ground.

He held the man's arm behind the other's back firmly and fished out a smartphone. Seeing that there was a password. He turned the man over, grabbed the man's head, and punched him hard on the face.

"Password."

"Aghh..." The man seemed to have gotten dizzy because of the punch.

"Password, or I will punch you again."

"Hehe," the man just laughed.

Linfeng's eyes dangerously darkened. He held the phone tightly with his free hand and crushed it with sheer force. With his internal energy, the phone was completely wrecked.

"Who sent you?"

"..."

The man just stared at his crushed phone and did not answer him.

Linfeng became more annoyed. This man would not talk.

'Since you are so insistent, then I will not be polite.'

He threw the useless phone away and grabbed the man's arm. He twisted it hard and broke it.

Crack.

"Agghhh!!" The man shouted in pain, his agonized voice echoing within the alley.

"Tell me, or I will break your other arm."

"..." The man gritted his teeth and looked up angrily at Linfeng. He still did not speak.

"You don't want to? Fine." 

Crack. Linfeng broke the other arm.

"Arghh!!!"

"Who. Sent. You?"

He continued pummeling heavy strikes and kicks on the man curled up on the ground.

"Urgh! Stop it, bastard!"

"Speak."

"You f%$#@!"

Punch. Thud. Crack.

"Who sent you?"

Huff. Huff. The man was battered black and blue. He spat out blood but still refused.

"I won't tell you!"

Linfeng's eyes narrowed. He kicked the limp body of the battered man and flipped him over. Looking at his back, he struck the man's back with his fist.

"Aaaarggh!!!" The man once again cried loudly in agony. The pain he felt reached unprecedented heights.

"Do you know which one I punched? I just hit your lower back a bit. If I strike at it with a bit more strength, do you know what would happen?" Linfeng squatted beside the man and continued to speak in a cold, low voice. "Your spinal cord will break. You will no longer be able to move your limbs. You will no longer be able to walk. You will be at other people's mercy, for the rest of your life."

The prone man shivered.

"Tell me, a name."

"..." The man hesitated.

Linfeng reached out and pushed at his broken ribs. 

Crack. A few more ribs were broken. The man wordlessly screamed.

"....!!!!" 

Then his body fell limp on the bloody ground as he gasped for breath, m.o.a.ning.

"Oh, I forgot. I have my ways to know if you are lying. If you ever made one up, I will make sure you would rather wish you are dead."

"I...I w-won't, huff... make, huff... up."

The man really regretted taking this lightly. He thought there were no bodyguards around. How could he know that the two seemingly weak students, who was no different from a couple who were out for a date, were monsters with good hearing, especially this boy?

The intelligence was f%$#king unreliable! 

"Good. You are smart, although careless. Now tell me, who sent you?"

The man hesitated again.

Linfeng pressed his fist on the other's spinal cord hard.

The man screamed in pain. F$#ck, he was just a small fry with not much loyalty! What was the use of benefits if he could not make it out alive, ah?! Being crippled in their circle was no different from death!

"I'll say, I'll say! Argh, stop, stop! I'll tell you, alright?!"

The tall young man above him lifted his hand and looked coldly at him.

"It's... a call to the underworld," the battered man gasped. "With the surname Xiong."

Xiong?

Linfeng furrowed his brow. He thought it was Guan Gao Huan. After all, that man had been tailing them since earlier. 

It turned out, it was from the Xiong family.

From his Young Miss's own family. 

He lightly kicked the man. "Who in the Xiong family?"

"I-I dont know." The man kept his mouth shut afterwards. As long as he was not crippled, he could tell him many things. What could money do if he was crippled for the rest of his life? He would be instantly taken down by the other small fries in the underworld. He might not even come out with an intact body, because selling organs and body parts of useless people were common in there.

"Why did he send you?" Linfeng continued to ask.

Either one of the Xiong family members in the other branches wanted him expelled, or they wanted to ruin his Young Miss's reputation. 

The Xiong family and the Zhou family, compared to other master and butler families, held an extremely strange relationship. The Zhou family would forever be bound under the Xiong's, it was their fate. This gave much pressure to Linfeng, that he must never taint or compromise his master's glory, his Young Miss Xiong Zhi.

The heir of the dignified Xiong family must never have a servant for his or her spouse. This would taint the Xiong bloodline. The ideal condition was that the spouse would be able to bring more glory and power for the Xiong's.

In the end, the fate that was originally designed for Linfeng and Xiong Zhi walked in entirely different paths. Just like how Romeo and Juliet would never be able to overcome their families' opposition, and just like how the Cow Herd and the Weaver Girl would forever be separated by the Milky Way.

If the news of his Young Miss Xiong Zhi having an illicit relationship with her Zhou butler come out, this would cause a stir in the whole world. His Young Miss would be criticized and her title as the heir would likely be questioned. The eternally stable Xiong Empire might possibly be impacted by the news that go against the 'morality' of the society. 

Mere rumors could be suppressed. But what if they were backed up by an evidence, such as pictures of their intimacy? That would be hard to cover. The losses would still affect his Young Miss.

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the rest of the plan. I'm just a small fry! They don't tell everything to our kind!" the man cried. 

He was clearly lying.

But the man gritted his teeth and refused to speak further even with harsher beatings. If he say more, he would not simply face the fear of getting crippled, his terrible boss and their client would make sure he was tortured to death.

Linfeng, on the other hand, was stunned. 

'The rest of the plan.'

It meant...

Just catching pictures of him and his Young Miss acting intimate was not the whole plan. There was something more.

"Xiong Zhi..." Linfeng paled.