"Fack! What did you say?!"
Darius trembled with rage and struggled even more violently, but his two teammates, professionals themselves, held him down tight.
"I’m saying you’re weak," Li Wei shrugged. "Not enough Trenbolone in your system? Or are you too broke to buy the real stuff and have to settle for the fake kind cut with flour?"
A collective gasp went through the room.
Openly mocking soone for using performance enhancers in the locker room, especially in the NFL with its more "stringent" drug testing, wasn’t just rubbing salt in a wound. It was like rubbing it with chili powder from the depths of Hell in xico.
"Or maybe you’re this weak because you skipped breakfast and have low blood sugar," Li Wei said, pulling a few USD bills from the pocket of his tracksuit. "How about I buy you a KFC family bucket? I’ll throw in a waterlon too, so you don’t get thirsty."
The white, Black, and Latin Arican players were all stunned.
In this day and age, with diversity being all the rage, soone had actually dared to say sothing so anti-Black.
But on second glance, the one saying it was also a minority. While his group didn’t carry the sa weight as the ’Black Lives Matter’ cause, the Black man had called him a "yellow-skin" first, so it was difficult to say anything.
Darius finally snapped. His adrenaline surged, and with a furious roar, he lunged at Li Wei.
Everyone could see a disaster was about to unfold. The more timid players were already backing away, afraid of getting splattered with blood.
The power Darius unleashed was astonishing. A primal will to survive and the madness born of humiliation coalesced into a tidal wave of force. He violently broke free from his two teammates’ hold. Like an out-of-control heavy-duty pickup truck, he roared and charged, bringing with him a whistling wind and an oppressive presence, straight at the Asian man who didn’t look particularly muscular—who, in his eyes, even seed scrawny.
For a professional linebacker, a distance of two ters could be covered in less than half a second.
"Die!"
Darius’s fist was already inches from Li Wei’s nose. A cruel light glinted in his eyes, as if he could already picture the grueso sight of that handso face blossoming into a bloody ss.
But in the next instant, everyone’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
Li Wei didn’t dodge, nor did he back away in a panic.
He just let out a soft sigh, as if he were looking at a pesky fly.
The instant the force of the punch was about to connect, Li Wei slid one step to his left. Darius’s heavy, powerful fist struck nothing but air, and the imnse inertia sent his 200-plus-pound fra staggering forward.
At so point, his right hand had co free. He took aim at Darius’s off-balance neck, and with no fancy moves, simply followed the montum, pressed his palm against it, and then—
Gently pushed down.
THUMP!!!
With a muffled thud, the once-ferocious Darius was slamd onto the hard floor like a frog swatted to the ground by an invisible giant hand, Li Wei’s palm pressed firmly on the nape of his neck.
It was a good thing Li Wei was rciful. If he had pushed on the back of Darius’s head, his face probably would have been flattened against the floor.
For a mont, it felt as if the entire locker room floor had trembled.
Darius desperately tried to lift his head, his limbs scrabbling madly on the floor. His muscles were tensed to their absolute limit, and the veins on his neck looked fit to burst.
As an elite linebacker from Louisiana, his bench press stats were terrifying: 27 reps at 225 pounds (102 kg). At his peak, he had enough strength to lift the side of a small car.
Right now, this monstrous power—enough to give a training partner a concussion—was erupting furiously from the thick muscles along his spine.
His triceps, as thick as tree roots, instantly swelled with blood. Every muscle fiber in his arms was screaming.
This wasn’t just a product of his talent and grueling training; it was also the supre, monstrous power of the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin.
For a mont, Li Wei did feel an imnse counterforce under his palm. It was nearly the peak explosive power a mortal body could achieve, like an active volcano trying to dislodge the massive boulder sealing its crater.
Li Wei made a quick assessnt. ’Darius’s strength is probably around 2.2 to 2.3. Terrifying power, indeed... for a normal person.’
’But that’s all it is.’
’Berserk, activate!’
[Strength 3.0] → [Strength 6.0]
If Darius’s strength was a surging tidal wave, then Li Wei’s palm was the immovable pillar that cald the seas, the majestic Mount Olympus, an absolute law of physics itself.
Darius, who had been able to prop himself up just a little, suddenly felt his world collapse.
No matter how he kicked his legs like a drowning dog, no matter how purple his face beca, no matter how many tears he ripped into the rubber floor mat with his fingers, that hand remained absolutely motionless.
He felt as though he’d been welded to the concrete floor, his neck clamped in a ten-thousand-ton hydraulic press. Every breath was a desperate luxury.
’How insignificant I am,’ he suddenly thought.
’What the fuck is this monster?!’
"Shhh," Li Wei said, putting a finger to his lips. "Save your strength, Darius."
"With strength like yours, you couldn’t even tear apart a KFC drumstick," Li Wei said, loosening his grip slightly to let Darius take a life-saving breath. "Anyone else want KFC?" he asked without turning his head. "It’s on ."
No one said a word.
The troublemakers who had been waiting for a good show, or were even planning to put Li Wei in his place, now all lowered their heads and silently returned to their lockers to get changed.
The only sounds left in the locker room were the rustle of Li Wei arranging his gear and the harsh, ragged breaths of Darius on the floor.
An atmosphere of "awe"—or perhaps "fear"—spread through the room for the first ti.
’Is he even human?’ The incredibly impactful image was seared into everyone’s mind.
anwhile, in a far corner of the locker room, a late-round draft pick, a wide receiver, was hunched over his phone, fingers flying across the screen.
"Oh my God, you guys will not believe what just happened. King, the guy who got the 5 million signing bonus, just single-handedly—and I an literally single-handedly—pinned that mad dog Darius from Louisiana State to the floor like he was slaughtering a chicken."
"But man, his mouth is even more vicious. He asked him if he wanted a KFC family bucket with waterlon... That is hands down the craziest racial joke I’ve ever heard, and he said it to a 200-pound Black man’s face. The dude’s a total badass, but I’m kinda scared of him now."
A few seconds later, a tweet was posted and imdiately began to go viral.
...
「Upper East Side of Manhattan, inside an unlisted private aesthetic clinic.」
The air was filled with the scent of lavender essential oils and expensive skincare products.
Anya was lounging on an ergonomic beauty chair, her face covered with a freshly applied essence-infused mask. It had been air-freighted from Switzerland and was supposedly formulated with spring water from the Alps and the extract of a rare snow lotus. A single treatnt cost 3,000 USD.
And that was just the cost price. By the ti it was on Anya’s face, the price had doubled.
Beauty doesn’t co cheap.
She was idly swiping through her phone, the fresh manicure she got yesterday making a soft TAP-TAP-TAP sound against the screen.
Suddenly, Twitter pushed a post to her feed. It was tagged #LiWei.
A recently published tweet, one that didn’t even have many views yet, caught her eye.
"Single-handedly... pinned to the floor..."
Anya suddenly seed to recall sothing. Her cheeks, cool from the face mask, instantly flushed crimson.
She pictured the scene in her mind: Li Wei’s handso, cold face, ideally flush with anger... the rock-hard muscles bulging on his forearms... his domineering aura and that tone of voice that permitted no argunt.
She was suddenly reminded of so of their role-playing gas. Sotis she was the superheroine captured by the supervillain, and sotis it was the other way around.
And the other little gas they played.
"Open your eyes. Look at ."
"Look in the mirror."
"Wrap your arms around my neck."
"Let’s leave the door open. No one’s ho anyway."
A jolt of electricity shot up from the base of her spine to the crown of her head, making her instinctively squeeze her legs together.
’Oh, damn,’ she thought suddenly. ’I think I’m wet.’
She glanced around frantically, and seeing that her aesthetician hadn’t returned, she guiltily rolled over, pulled out a baby wipe, and furtively cleaned herself up.
She let out a few sly giggles, then scanned the tweet again. Suddenly, a crucial detail jumped out at her.
"It’s hot, I admit, really hot," Anya said, frowning as she tapped her fingers on the armrest. "But that idiot... saying sothing like that in a place crawling with dia. Does he think his reputation is too clean or sothing?"
Racial discrimination, especially stereotypical jokes aid at Black people, was a nuclear-level taboo in the current public discourse of the United States. Even though Li Wei was also a minority, the dia wouldn’t care. They would swarm him like sharks that had slled blood in the water.
She thought for a mont, then exited the Twitter app. After scrolling through her contacts, she found the number she was looking for.
"Aunt Tatyana~" Anya’s voice beca sweet and wheedling. "I have a little favor to ask~"
"No... it’s not in the news... I didn’t hit anyone... I swear, breaking his ribs last ti was an accident... No... It’s not about !" Anya felt exhausted. "It’s about Li Wei!"
"Yes, well... he’s gotten pretty famous lately, and I’m worried about so haters online. I was hoping you could have your people do so comnt moderation, clean up so of the nasty stuff," she said, pressing down a corner of her face mask that had begun to peel up. "Right... There’s one post I think might cause a bit of a PR storm? I was wondering if you could handle it."
"No... don’t tell my father. My own allowance is more than enough," she said. "Just tell how much and I’ll wire it to you... Yes, just assigning a few people to handle it will be fine."
"Thank you, Aunt Tatyana." Whatever the other woman said, Anya’s face imdiately broke into a wide, happy smile. "I knew you were the best."
With that, she hung up, humming a little tune.
Five minutes later, when she refreshed Twitter, she found that the tweet, which had just surpassed 50 likes, now displayed the ssage: [This Tweet is unavailable].
And when she clicked on the user’s account...
[This account has been suspended for violating community rules.]
Anya casually tossed her phone aside, closed her eyes, and a smile returned to her lips.
She had no intention of telling Li Wei about this to take credit. She was going to play the part of the great heroine who supports the male lead from behind the scenes.
In her heart of hearts, Anya simply felt that while her man was out there fighting to make his way, she shouldn’t bother him with trivial matters like this.
’After all, this was her duty as a girlfriend. It was the least she could do.’
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