Chapter 257.1: Lu Changsheng Catches Bullets Barehanded! A Body That Does Not Fear Guns! Everyone Is Shaken! (I)

Senior Sister Xiang came to Lu Changsheng's side and spoke in a low voice. "Master, your family is on the phone."

Lu Changsheng nodded and picked up the phone. It was his mother on the other end of the line.

"Lu Yuan, come home tonight. There's something we need to talk about."

"Alright, I'll come home tonight," said Lu Changsheng.

According to his memories, the household consisted only of his parents and a younger sister. Both parents were university professors, belonging to the class of the highly educated elites.

Ever since Lu Changsheng had taken over Lu Yuan's place, he had barely spoken with his parents. In any case, family was not something one could sever on a whim. Besides, there was no need for Lu Changsheng to sever that bond. He might as well find out what Lu Yuan's parents wanted him home for.

Lu Yuan's parents had once strictly forbidden him from practicing martial arts. However, now that he had founded the Extreme Martial Dao and his reputation had soared, there was no way they could stop him anymore.

Lu Changsheng showered at the Extreme Martial Dao Center, then got into the car Senior Sister Xiang had prepared in advance.

At this point, she was his right hand. She arranged every detail of his daily life flawlessly and stayed by his side at all times, serving as his assistant in both work and life.

"Master, several new Extreme Martial Dao Centers have opened this month. However, they're not in Pan City, but in the surrounding regions..."

Senior Sister Xiang reported to him one item at a time as they drove.

Lu Changsheng paid little attention; in fact, he was almost dozing off. He had never concerned himself with the business side of the martial art centers, leaving it entirely to Senior Sister Xiang, Fei Qianliu, and the others.

At one point, Lu Changsheng's eyes snapped open, and his expression changed. Somehow, for inexplicable reasons, he sensed a faint trace of danger. With his consciousness, such a premonition could never be wrong.

"Get down!" Lu Changsheng shoved Senior Sister Xiang's head down.

At that same instant, the car window shattered.

Crack!

Bullets shot through the glass, headed straight for Lu Changsheng. His consciousness had already sensed the bullets. However, he was currently not in his true body. Even though this physical body had only just entered Second Growth, its reaction speed still could not match a bullet. All he could do was watch as the rounds slammed into his head.

Ding.

Bullets, with their terrifying kinetic energy, were the bane of nearly every martial artist. All three bullets struck Lu Changsheng, two in the head and one in the neck. They hit their mark, but they failed to pierce his skin.

It seemed that following Second Growth, Lu Changsheng's skin had become tough enough to withstand even bullets. The bullets had simply bounced off his skin and clattered onto the car seat. Everything happened in an instant, but it felt like a lifetime.

Senior Sister Xiang and the driver were stunned. They had just witnessed Lu Yuan survive getting shot three times, and completely unscathed, no less. The idea that a human body could withstand live bullets like that was simply inconceivable. They knew Lu Yuan was strong, and that the Extreme Martial Dao was formidable. However, witnessing it with their own eyes was still staggering.

"S-Someone just shot at you... Master, someone's actually trying to kill you?!" Senior Sister Xiang snapped back to her senses.

However, Lu Changsheng was already about to act. "Stay here!"

With that, he shot forward.

Whoosh!

His senses told him there were two gunmen, one on each side. The first was on the third floor of the building to the left, and the second on the fourth floor to the right.

"Target's alive. Mission failed."

"Fall back!"

The two gunmen moved with great speed, withdrawing the moment they saw Lu Changsheng had survived.

This whole thing was organized and premeditated. The assassins had planned out their escape routes well in advance, so that even if Lu Yuan somehow survived and spotted them, there was no way he could catch up to them. However, they had underestimated him, or rather, they had underestimated what Lu Yuan was capable of after going through Second Growth.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Yuan broke into a furious sprint toward the third floor on his left. Then, he stomped the ground hard and hurled himself into the air.

Boom!

The ground quaked with a thunderous sound. Lu Yuan soared through the air, reaching the third floor in a single leap, and crashed through the window.

Crash!

The gunman inside was dumbfounded and opened fire without thinking.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

He almost emptied his entire magazine. The man was rigorously trained, and his aim was excellent. Nearly every shot hit the mark, yet Lu Yuan did not so much as furrow his brow. He was simply letting the bullets ricochet off him.

The gunman's eyes went wide with disbelief. He could not believe that his target was stopping the bullets with just his bare body. It felt like fantasy, but the reality unfolding right in front of him was undeniable.

With the creation of firearms, the entire world had changed. Core Force, Fortification Force, martial artists, and even martial masters, none of them could hold their own before a gun. A single bullet could settle the matter. And if one was not enough, then the gunman could fire a second bullet, then a third, and a fourth—however many necessary to neutralize the target. More than a few Fortification Force Grandmasters had been gunned down just like that.

But now, someone who could withstand bullets with just his body had emerged. Naturally, the gunman could never have anticipated something like this.

Bang!

A single palm strike knocked the gunman unconscious. The man could not be allowed to die yet as Lu Changsheng needed to know who had hired them. Besides, he was only one of them. The second gunman on the right had used the time to leave the fourth floor, escaping down his planned route to the street, where a car was waiting.

"Hmph." Lu Changsheng let out a cold snort. He was hardly going to let someone who had tried to kill him escape that easily.

Carrying the unconscious gunman in his left hand, he leapt from the third floor straight down to the ground. His senses locked onto the fleeing driver.

Boom!

A single stride carried him more than ten meters, and he tore off in pursuit.

When the assassin caught sight of him in the rearview mirror, her face changed drastically, and she floored the gas pedal.

Lu Changsheng had no interest in staging a car chase. He seized the wheel of a car parked nearby and yanked it.

Skrrr!

He tore out the entire tire and hurled it at the fleeing vehicle.

Whoosh!

The tire ripped through the air and came crashing down on the speeding car. Terror flashed across the assassin's face as she watched the tire close in on her in the rearview mirror.

"Nooo!"

She could do nothing to stop the tire from smashing into her car. The vehicle instantly lost control and flipped over several times before finally coming to rest against a streetlight.

Crash!

From the moment Lu Yuan ripped the tire loose and threw it, to the moment the assassin's car crashed into the streetlight, only a few seconds had passed. However, many people on the side of the street had watched the whole spectacle, their mouths hanging open and eyes staring wide.

"Are they filming a movie?"

"No, this isn't a movie. It's real... the person inside is hurt."

"Isn't that Lu Yuan, the founder of the Extreme Martial Dao? He just tore a tire off with his bare hands and flipped a car with it?"

"Ah, a gun! There's a gun!"

Cries of alarm sounded out. Inside the overturned car, the woman had drawn a pistol. Lu Changsheng was bent over, leaning his head in to look at her.

Bang, bang, bang!

She desperately emptied her magazine into his face.

The onlookers went white with fright. Wasn't Lu Yuan done for? After all, getting shot meant certain death.

But then came the sight that truly shocked them. None of the bullets actually pierced Lu Yuan's head. They simply bounced off his skin and dropped to the ground, not leaving so much as a mark.

The woman's mouth fell open stammering, "Bullets don't... work?"

Her brain stopped, and her finger froze on the trigger. Regardless, she was out of ammunition.

Lu Changsheng seized the woman and hauled her out of the car. She was lucky. Despite the flips, she had only scraped her leg and was otherwise unhurt. However, she was also unlucky because Lu Yuan had caught her.

Thud.

He tossed the gunman in his other hand onto the ground. Two shooters, one man and one woman, striking at Lu Yuan from both sides.

"Talk. Who are you? Who sent you to kill me?" Lu Changsheng demanded.

Neither of them said a word.

"I hear assassins kill themselves once a mission fails. If you have poison or some other method, go ahead. I won't stop you. Though if you choose not to, do you think you can endure what comes next? Shall we find out?"

He lifted the woman up, took hold of one of her fingers, and wrenched.

"Ghaaaa!"

Her finger broke cleanly.

"I'll talk! We'll both talk!" The other assassin spoke up, grinding his teeth. "We're bounty hunters. We took the contract on you off the underground dark web. The bounty on your head there is enormous! It's already in the tens of millions, and it's climbing fast."

Lu Changsheng's eyes narrowed slightly. He had the two of them log into the underground dark web, looking over to confirm it. They were indeed bounty killers, and the sum posted for his death was still going up.

The bounties there were not posted by any single person. Once a target was listed, anyone else could add to the reward anonymously. The tens of millions accumulated on Lu Changsheng's head had not come from one person, but from countless people quietly stacking money onto it. Under such a system, the figures on the underground dark web always looked staggering.

Senior Sister Xiang came over, glanced at the screen, and said gravely, "Master, the underground dark web has been around for a very long time. No one knows who created it, and it cannot be shut down. None of the contracts posted on it can be withdrawn, and there's no way to trace individuals who posted them.

Lu Changsheng nodded in understanding. He could guess that whoever had put the bounty on him was tied to the martial arts world. The very fact that it had reached tens of millions suggested most of the money had come from that circle.

"Heh, interesting. It seems I've offended quite a few people, enough that they'd rather put a price on my head on the dark web. Go and use every channel you can to contact them. If they keep the bounty up, I will tear the dark web out by its roots."

His tone left no room for arguing.

"Yes, Master."

Senior Sister Xiang left at once to make the arrangements.

She had seen it clearly: Lu Yuan no longer had to fear bullets. Taking bullets with one's body was no longer a figure of speech, it had become real. His presence grew heavier by the day, and even she felt awe in the face of it.

"We've told you what you wanted. Make it quick..." The assassin closed his eyes. He knew that for people like them, capture after a failed mission left only one road. The sole reason he had not fought to the bitter end was to spare himself the worst of the torture.

"As you wish." Lu Changsheng scooped up the bullets he had caught earlier. With two sharp whistles, the two rounds shot into their skulls. Their heads rolled back and they collapsed into pools of blood, devoid of life.

"Call the police to collect the bodies," Lu Changsheng ordered coldly. He had merely defended himself against two professional assassins. His actions had been justified, while their deaths had been in vain.