37: Chapter 37 Hardcore Buyer Show

"Dead fatty, get lost. This isn't a cafeteria."

Li Tiger stood in the center of the arena, a thick gold chain hanging around his neck, his fleshy face quivering with every word he spoke.

He looked contemptuously at Zhang Hao, who was trembling like a sieve in front of him, as if he were looking at a pile of pork belly waiting to be slaughtered.

There was a roar of laughter from the audience.

"Is this guy here to perform sumo wrestling with that build?"

"Li Tiger from the vocational high school is famous for his dirty fighting. I'm afraid this fatty is going to get beaten to a pulp."

Zhang Hao's face flushed to the color of liver.

His flabby flesh was trembling uncontrollably with nervousness.

Fear.

Instinctive fear coiled around his heart like a snake.

But he did not retreat.

The words Lin Fan had said in the preparation area echoed in his mind: "Your talent was bought with all your savings. If you take a step back, you're just a dead fatty. If you take a step forward, you're a tank."

A tank.

Zhang Hao gritted his teeth.

His chest heaved violently, and a fierce look he had never possessed before gradually emerged in his once dull eyes.

"Are we fighting or not? You sure talk a lot."

Zhang Hao replied in a muffled voice.

The whole arena went silent for a moment.

Li Tiger was stunned, then a fierce glint appeared in his eyes.

"You're courting death!"

Without any whistle from a referee to buffer the situation, the special rubber floor beneath Li Tiger's feet suddenly shattered.

His D-Rank Strength Talent erupted.

He shot forward like a cannonball, accompanied by a shrill whistling of wind, instantly crossing the five-meter distance.

His right fist was clenched tight, knuckles protruding, aimed straight at Zhang Hao's face.

If this punch landed solidly, shattering his nasal bone would be the least of his worries; he might even end up with a concussion.

"Dodge!"

Someone in the audience exclaimed.

Zhang Hao didn't dodge.

Or rather, given his speed, he couldn't have dodged it anyway.

He just subconsciously raised his arms to protect his head, his feet nailed to the ground as if they had grown roots.

The warm current inside his body surged crazily.

C-Rank Talent [Hardened Skin].

His originally fair and tender skin instantly became rough, taking on a grayish-black rocky luster, as if he had donned a layer of heavy granite armor.

"Bang!"

The dull sound of the impact echoed through the loudspeakers across the entire arena.

There was no scream.

No figure went flying backward.

Zhang Hao was still standing in the same spot, not even moving an inch. His flabby flesh had just vibrated slightly, absorbing all the impact.

Li Tiger maintained his punching posture, his expression shifting from ferocious to bewildered.

It was as if he had punched a solid steel plate.

The recoil force traveled up his arm, and his wrist bone emitted a teeth-grinding crack.

"This..."

Li Tiger's pupils contracted, and he hadn't even had time to retract his fist.

Zhang Hao lowered his arms.

In his small eyes, squeezed into slits by his fat, shone a light that was both simple-minded and cruel.

"That didn't hurt."

Zhang Hao grinned, revealing a mouthful of big white teeth, "Then you've lost your chance."

A few days ago, he had served as a meat shield for Lin Fan in the Wasteland Zone and hadn't been hurt even when bitten by Rot Wolves; a punch of this level was practically just scratching an itch.

His self-confidence was overflowing.

Zhang Hao didn't use any fancy moves; he couldn't even be said to have any technique for exerting force.

He just swung his arm around.

It was like swatting an annoying fly.

A simple, unadorned slap.

"Whoosh."

The wind pressure from the slap ruffled Li Tiger's bangs.

Li Tiger wanted to dodge, but the recoil from his previous punch had left his body stiff for half a second.

When experts clash, half a second is the difference between life and death.

"Smack!!!"

This crisp sound was ten times louder than the previous impact.

Li Tiger's entire body was sent flying as if hit from the side by a speeding truck; his 180-jin body drew a graceful parabola in the air, spinning as he flew out of the arena.

"Boom!"

He slammed heavily into a billboard outside the arena and passed out on the spot.

Half of his face was swollen like a steamed bun, and a few bloody teeth rolled onto the ground.

Silence.

Deathly silence.

In the stadium of fifty thousand people, you could hear a pin drop at this moment.

Everyone had their mouths wide open, their eyeballs nearly popping out.

A one-hit kill?

An unknown little fatty, with one slap, one-hit killed the top dog of the vocational high school, Li Tiger?

"The hell is this a D-Rank Talent?"

"That was rock transformation, right? I'd say it's at least a C-Rank Defense Talent!"

"Who is this fatty? So fierce!"

After a brief deathly silence, an earth-shattering roar of exclamations erupted.

On the arena.

Zhang Hao looked at his own palm, then looked at the unconscious Li Tiger in the distance, trembling all over with excitement.

He won!

He really won!

Is this the power of paying to win?

He turned around abruptly and rushed toward the live broadcast camera at the edge of the arena.

That big face instantly occupied the entire large screen.

"Family, did you see that!"

Zhang Hao was so excited that his face turned red, and he sprayed spit all over the camera lens, "This is the symbol of strength! Do you want to become stronger? Do you want to make a comeback?"

He pulled a crumpled business card from his pocket and shoved it in front of the camera.

"West City Night Market, blind box stall! Brother Fan's blind box, honest and fair. My skills were opened from it. Take a gamble, turn your bicycle into a motorcycle! Don't hesitate, the next genius is you!"

In the preparation area.

Lin Fan covered his face with one hand.

It was too stiff.

This product placement was simply unbearable, with no sense of artistry at all.

But...

Lin Fan looked through the gaps in his fingers at the greed and curiosity instantly igniting in the eyes of the other contestants around him.

The effect was outstanding.

The win or loss of a single match wasn't important; what was important was that this seed had already been planted.

As long as someone believes, as long as someone buys.

His leek garden would only grow larger and larger.

...

The VIP box in the main seating area.

"Crack."

An exquisite bone china teacup was crushed to pieces.

Scalding tea flowed down between the fingers, but the owner of that hand felt nothing.

Wang Tianba.

The current head of the Wang family, a Martial Master level expert—Martial Master is above Martial Artist.

At this moment, this family head, who usually kept his emotions hidden, had a face so gloomy it could drip water.

He stared fixedly at the fatty on the big screen who was still shouting his lungs out.

"C-Rank Defense Talent..."

Wang Tianba's voice was hoarse, carrying a bone-chilling coldness, "Have you checked? What was that fatty's background before?"

Behind him, a butler in a black suit bowed and reported: "Checked. Zhang Hao, D-Rank Earth Element affinity, extremely poor talent. Just a week ago, he was still a piece of trash who didn't even dare to enter the gravity room."

"One week."

Wang Tianba took the handkerchief handed over by the butler and wiped the tea stains off his hand, "One week, from a D-Rank piece of trash to a tough guy capable of one-hit killing Li Tiger."

"Is this the effect of that 'blind box'?"

The butler remained silent, but the cold sweat on his forehead already explained everything.

This was too terrifying.

If it were just Lin Fan who had become stronger, the Wang family could still interpret it as him having dumb luck and obtaining some kind of fortuitous encounter.

But if this kind of strengthening could be replicated, if it could be mass-produced...

Then this wasn't a fortuitous encounter.

This was subversion.

It was a fundamental threat to influential families like the Wang family, who monopolized resources.

Once those bottom-tier nobodies could become stronger through such a cheap method, who would still spend high prices to buy the Wang family's pills? Who would still act as dogs for the Wang family?

"This brat must not be allowed to live."

Wang Tianba threw the blood-stained handkerchief into the trash can, a murderous intent surging in his eyes.

This was no longer a petty grudge between children playing house.

This was class struggle.

It was a struggle of interests concerning life and death.

"Tell Teng-er."

Wang Tianba looked at the figure wearing alloy armor in the preparation area below, "No need to hold back anymore. I want that Lin Fan to die on the arena. If something happens, I'll take responsibility."

"Yes."

The butler acknowledged the order and left.

...

The competition continued.

Because of Zhang Hao's "buyer review," the atmosphere at the scene became somewhat strange.

Originally, everyone's focus was on the seeded players, but now, more than half of the gazes drifted from time to time toward the corner where Lin Fan was.

That youth who had been closing his eyes to rest, at this moment, had become mysterious and unfathomable in the eyes of the crowd.

Could it be that he really held some secret for mass-producing experts?