Zhao Rong stared at the second master, swallowed hard, and his eyes widened. "Are you cosplaying?" 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The assistant scratched the back of his head, reminded of a character named Hu Tiefeng from the *Chu Liuxiang* series he’d watched as a child. He asked the man in the ancient costume, "Buddy, with that getup, are you trying to look like Hu Tiefeng?"

Hearing them, the second master stepped forward, theatrically brandishing his sword. "I’m not cosplaying, and I’m not just acting tough. I *am* the legendary hero, Hu Tiefeng!"

When the three women saw the ugly, morbidly obese man in an ancient costume claiming to be Hu Tiefeng, they scoffed.

Ms. Lili stepped forward and mocked the poser. "If you’re Hu Tiefeng, then our assistant here can be Chu Liuxiang."

Yu Lanmei ridiculed the man. "Hu Tiefeng is a famous character from the great wuxia novelist Gu Long! A guy like you pretending to be him is just tarnishing a hero’s image."

Xuelian was even more direct, pointing at the man’s nose as she snapped, "Poser, if you have any sense, take off those clothes and scram! Don’t block our path, or you’ll regret it."

Despite the women’s warnings, the poser didn’t take Zhao Rong’s group seriously in the slightest. He stepped forward and brazenly threatened them. "I’m warning you, don’t even think about getting past me, and forget about leaving Badahu Alley alive. Our boss paid a fortune to build this defensive line. It’s indestructible and can stop any expert."

Zhao Rong studied the poser, figuring he was probably just some poor guy hired from the labor market. He decided to hold back and tried to reason with him. "Look, I can tell you were hired from the labor market. I don’t want to hurt you, so just get out of our way. The person we’re after isn’t you, it’s the vile scum pulling your strings."

Although Zhao Rong intended to spare him, the poser started spewing profanities. "Fuck you! You dare underestimate me, Hu Tiefeng? If you’ve got the guts, come on! I’ll kill all five of you!"

Hearing the poser’s curses, Zhao Rong’s patience ran out. His final warning having failed, he snatched a stick off the ground and charged. With just two strikes, Zhao Rong had the poser on the ground, beaten into a sobbing, piss-stained mess.

Seeing the self-proclaimed Hu Tiefeng defeated so easily, the three women behind Zhao Rong burst out laughing.

Ms. Lili walked over and looked down at the poser, who was clutching his stomach and wailing on the ground. "Weren’t you so tough just a minute ago? Weren’t you the one telling us to scram? Now, look who’s rolling on the ground. It’s not us, it’s you."

Yu Lanmei stepped forward and gave the poser a kick. "You’re a young man. You’re strong, you have a good memory, you’re educated. Why not find a respectable job to support a family instead of taking money from that villain Hong Ju to act like a clown here? You totally deserved this."

Xue Lianmei also chimed in. "We’re here to catch criminals, to serve justice and punish evil. If you stand in our way, you’re no better than they are. So you should really just get out of the way."

The poser struggled to his feet, leaned against the wall, and started crying his eyes out. "It never used to be like this. Whenever someone came to cause trouble for the boss... even if they got past the first checkpoint... they’d always get to me at the second one and be intimidated by my Hu Tiefeng aura. Most of them would just turn around and leave quietly. But you five... not only were you not scared, you beat me to a pulp! I’m such a failure..."

Zhao Rong tossed 1,000 yuan to the man. "I know you’re just a hard-up guy from the labor market who took a wrong turn. I didn’t want to hit you, but you took your posturing to a whole other level. Think of this beating as a warning. Now take this money, get out of here, and find a real job."

The poser picked the money up from the ground and thanked Zhao Rong profusely. "Boss, if it wasn’t for you, I’d still be here acting the fool. You beat me up, but you also woke me up. I get it now. You can posture for a day, but you can’t posture for a lifetime. If I want to make a decent life for myself, have a family with a wife and kids, and be a good son to my parents, I need a proper job."

With that, the poser took the 1,000 yuan and left Badahu Alley.

Watching the poser’s retreating back, the assistant shook his head in amazement. "Boss Zhao Rong, I can’t believe it. That villain Hong Ju set up this fortified gauntlet in Badahu Alley and hired eight ’masters’... I thought they’d be a bunch of top-tier experts, but it turns out they’re just a bunch of pushovers. So, Boss Zhao Rong, don’t worry about the third checkpoint. Let me handle it. I’ll definitely take this next guy down!"

With that, the assistant swaggered to the front and charged toward the third checkpoint. But when he saw the man guarding it, he recoiled and sucked in a sharp breath. "Bro... are you a bodybuilder from Africa?"

The guard at the third checkpoint was a black man, two meters tall and weighing over four hundred pounds, built like a tank with rippling muscles. He had a ferocious expression and was clearly not someone to be trifled with.

The man spoke in heavily accented Mandarin. "Damn it! I’m a pure-blooded Chinese man! My skin’s a little dark, so what? That doesn’t mean you can mistake me for being African! I’m really Chinese..."

Even though the burly, dark-skinned man claimed to be Chinese, Zhao Rong and his companions couldn’t believe it. They had never seen a Chinese person with a physique, an appearance, or muscles like that.