Boat Rental Shop - Guanlan Lake - 12:47 PM
Tòumíng walked toward the collection area with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes—the kind of smile that suggested he'd mentally accepted whatever was about to happen and had stopped caring about the consequences.
But when he arrived at Razor's usual table, Razor wasn't there.
Instead, two men stood in his place. Young. Muscular. Both holding AK-47s with the casual confidence of people who used them regularly. They wore the kind of cheap suits that tried to look professional but just ended up looking like thugs playing dress-up.
The bodies from earlier had been cleared away—the seventeen people executed for failing to pay their increased debts—but blood still stained the pavement in dark patches that nobody had bothered cleaning yet.
One of the guards noticed Tòumíng approaching and straightened up. "You here to pay?"
Tòumíng's grin widened. "Yeah, absolutely. But I only have Alipay. What's your email? I'll transfer it right now."
The guard's expression darkened. "Cash only. You know the rules."
"Hmm. That's unfortunate. Because I legitimately only have digital currency right now. Is there like a QR code I can scan or—"
The second guard stepped forward and slammed the butt of his AK into Tòumíng's stomach.
The air rushed out of his lungs. He doubled over, wheezing, his body protesting the sudden impact.
Before he could recover, the first guard kicked his legs out from under him. Tòumíng hit the pavement hard, his shoulder taking the brunt of the fall.
They proceeded to beat the shit out of him with methodical efficiency. Kicks to the ribs. Stomps on his back. The rifle butt connecting with his face, splitting his lip, making blood pour from his nose.
Through it all, Tòumíng kept grinning—a bloody, slightly unhinged expression that made the guards uncomfortable even as they continued the beating.
"Ooooooh," Tòumíng said through broken teeth, his voice carrying a sing-song quality. "Now I seem to be missing my money! My wallet must have fallen out during all this! However shall I pay now?"
He looked up at the guards with wide, manic eyes. "Welp! Sowwwy! Guess you HAVE to kill me now! Those are the rules, right?"
The guards hesitated, exchanging uncertain glances.
Tòumíng reached up, grabbed the barrel of one guard's AK-47, and pressed it directly against his forehead.
"DO IT!" His voice rose to a shout, genuine desperation bleeding through. "FUCKING DO IT! PULL THE TRIGGER! COME ON!"
The guards backed up slightly, their expressions shifting from aggressive to genuinely disturbed.
"Do it!" Tòumíng insisted, crawling forward on his knees, keeping the gun pressed against his forehead. "I'm on my fifth strike! You're SUPPOSED to kill me! That's the RULE! So DO IT!"
"Dude, what the fuck—"
"SHOOT ME!" Tòumíng's eyes were wild now, completely unhinged. "I've been paying this debt for THREE YEARS! Three fucking years of scraping together money! Three years of almost dying in the mines! Three years of getting closer and closer to death anyway through accidents and cave-ins and equipment failures!"
His voice became quieter, more introspective, but no less intense. "And you know what I realized? After all that time? After all those near-death experiences? It's either it happens, or it doesn't. There ain't nothing to it. Either I die here, or I don't. Either way, I'm walking out of this situation without any debt owed."
He pressed the gun harder against his forehead, his grin stretching wider. "If I die, the debt dies with me. If I live, you broke the rules by not killing me, which means the contract is void. Either way, I WIN! So PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER!"
"You're fucking INSANE!" the first guard yelled, trying to pull his weapon away.
But Tòumíng held on with desperate strength, his fingers white-knuckled around the barrel. "MAYBE I AM! MAYBE THREE YEARS OF THIS SHIT BROKE MY BRAIN! MAYBE I DON'T CARE ANYMORE! MAYBE DYING SOUNDS BETTER THAN ANOTHER MONTH OF PAYMENTS!"
His voice cracked, not with tears—his eyes were completely dry—but with raw, honest desperation. "I'm nineteen years old and I inherited 178 million yuan in debt from parents I barely remember! I've been paying since I was SIXTEEN! Do you know what that does to a person?! Do you know what it's like to know that no matter how hard you work, no matter what you do, you'll NEVER pay it off?!"
The second guard backed up further, genuinely frightened now. "Bro, we're not—this isn't—"
"HOW LONG WILL IT FUCKING TAKE ME TO PAY OFF THE DEBT AT MY CURRENT RATE?! I'D NEED TO LIVE FOR FIVE AND A HALF CENTURIES! SO WHAT'S THE POINT?! WHY NOT JUST DIE NOW AND GET IT OVER WITH?!"
The first guard finally managed to wrench his weapon away. "You're fucking crazy! We're not shooting you!"
"Then I'M not paying!" Tòumíng stood up, swaying slightly from the beating, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. "And according to your rules, that means you HAVE to kill me! So either shoot me, or let me leave!"
The guards looked at each other, completely out of their depth. This wasn't how collections were supposed to go. People were supposed to BEG for mercy, not BEG to be executed.
The second guard raised his AK and fired.
BANG.
The bullet struck Tòumíng directly in the chest, right over his heart.
He stumbled backward from the impact, his body registering the hit, and collapsed onto the blood-stained pavement.
For a moment, he just lay there, staring up at the sky, feeling the familiar sensation of Schrödinger's Heart activating, the quantum superposition keeping him simultaneously alive and dead until observed.
Tòumíng's grin widened impossibly further. Blood bubbled from his lips as he spoke. "Oh boy! That sure did a whole lotta NOTHING!"
He sat up, his hand pressing against the bullet wound in his chest, blood pouring between his fingers but the wound already beginning to close as Metabolic Healing kicked in.
The guards' faces went white with terror.
"What the FUCK?!"
"He should be DEAD!"
Tòumíng stood up slowly, dramatically, his movements exaggerated like a zombie rising from a grave. He tapped his chest where the bullet had entered, his grin stretching even wider.
"It's REAL!" His voice carried manic glee. "IT'S FOR REAL! FOR REAL REAL!"
"You're fucking INSANE!" the first guard screamed, backing away.
Tòumíng started giggling—a high-pitched, slightly unhinged sound that echoed across the lakefront. "YOU'RE RIGHT! YOU'RE SOOOOO RIGHT!"
NAKED GUN ACTIVATED
Quote detected: "You're right, you're so right!" (Jujutsu Kaisen - Gojo Satoru)
Quality: Excellent (Perfect delivery, appropriate context, genuine emotion)
Strength boost: 2x
Speed boost: 1.5x
Duration: 90 seconds
Power flooded through Tòumíng's body. His muscles tensed. His senses sharpened. The pain from his injuries faded into background noise as adrenaline and supernatural enhancement took over.
He grinned even harder—if that was possible—his blood-stained teeth making the expression look absolutely demonic.
"Let's dance."