The Bubble Tea Heatwave
These past few days, Dave had still been wandering the streets around the Kung Fu school—The Neighborhood—wearing nothing but his pink, triangle-shaped women’s underwear.
Today was brutally hot. The sun scorched down like a punishment, and the ground steamed like a giant oven. Dave walked slowly down the sidewalk, barely reacting as he passed by two dead bodies lying on the street—most likely heatstroke victims. Death was an everyday sight in this world. Whether people were beaten to death, or just dropped dead from heat or chaos—it was all too normal by now.
But even Dave was starting to feel dizzy from the heat.
That’s when he saw it: a pearl milk tea shop—bigger than most, with air conditioning and plenty of seats. Without a second thought, Dave stepped inside. He ordered an extra large protein bubble tea, then found a quiet corner and sat down.
He slowly sipped the drink, chewing the boba one by one, letting the sugary flavor cool his throat. After walking around all day, he knew his body needed protein. His muscles needed it. Otherwise, they’d shrink—and he’d lose his strength.
Still, part of his mind was elsewhere.
Lately, Dave had been thinking about that goofy-looking kid from before. That scrawny teenager in the Zhongshan suit—with all the buttons unfastened, his abs and chest fully exposed. That weird thick fringe covering his eyes. He fought like a maniac and looked like a clown, but still somehow handsome.
Their battle last time had been cut short. The boy had suddenly dashed off, yelling about catching some TV show—Digimon, or something like that. Dave couldn’t even remember.
Now, as he relaxed with his bubble tea, he noticed two girls sitting just a few feet away. One of them—the one facing him—was wearing a Zhongshan suit too. She was beautiful, with a high ponytail and a long katana strapped across her back. Clearly a student from that same Kung Fu school.
Dave was mildly surprised. He didn’t know they had female students there. And ones this pretty.
But it didn’t matter.
Dave wasn’t the type to chase after beauty. His one true love had died—crushed beneath that beast Marvel’s waist. That wound still hadn’t healed. His heart still ached. He had no interest in women anymore.
He just sipped his drink in silence.
That’s when he overheard their conversation.
The girl in the white shirt and black skirt leaned in and said:
“Hey, Jessica. That Zhongshan uniform at your school is so ugly. Ever thought about transferring to ours? We’re more modern—we can wear anything we want. Look at me, I’m learning martial arts in a skirt. And our teacher’s pretty good too. Strong, and kind of hot, actually.”
Jessica shook her head gently.
“No, I’m fine. Our teachers are amazing. You’ve never heard of our school’s founder? Our Master? He used to be one of the legendary Four Kings. His name is Mario. His speed, his blade, his power—nobody in this world can match him.”
Her friend frowned.
“Didn’t he, like… lose his right leg or something? I heard he has to wear a metal brace now. Can he still fight?”
Jessica rested her chin in her hand and thought for a moment.
“Honestly… I’ve never seen him fight. Not since I enrolled. But I’ve heard stories. Back in the day, he was unstoppable. There was this one time—on a moving train—he saved a woman from a man who lost control after a personal tragedy. The whole city talked about it for months.”
Her friend’s eyes widened.
“No way. What happened on the train? Tell me everything.”
Jessica leaned in closer, ready to share.
Dave leaned in too—quietly sipping his tea, pretending not to listen, but hanging on every word.
He wanted to hear this story.
He wanted to know what kind of man Mario really was.
The Shadow on the Track
Five years ago, on a quiet winter night, a passenger train pulled out of a small-town station, its lights stretching away into the darkness.
Back on the platform, a man sat alone in the waiting lounge, quietly smoking. He had just seen his wife off on that very train and stopped to rest before heading home. The cigarette crackled faintly in the silence.
That’s when he noticed someone else stepping off the train—a man in a Zhongshan suit, hair neatly parted down the center, a katana hanging at his waist. He pulled a suitcase behind him as he calmly walked across the platform.
A few minutes later, the smoker’s phone rang. He casually answered and put it on speaker.
A woman’s voice came through—soft, breathless, a little panicked.
“Hey… babe… something’s wrong. There’s a man in our car. He snapped. He thinks this lady is his wife. Said she betrayed him. He’s holding a pair of scissors to her neck. He says he’s going to die with her.”
The smoker’s face changed. He sat up straight and leaned toward the phone.
“Stay calm,” he said quickly. “Don’t make any noise. Just stay seated. Don’t draw attention. Help is coming, okay?”
But before he even finished his sentence—Mario was already gone.
His suitcase lay abandoned on the ground.
He had bolted straight off the platform and onto the tracks.
He activated his ultimate technique:
TOTAL CONCENTRATION BREATHING
First Form: Shadowline Surge.
His feet struck the ground in a steady rhythm—tick… tick… tick, tick, tick—
Then faster.
Softer.
As if he were gliding just above the rails.
Each step built momentum. His legs blurred.
His speed exploded—sixty, then a hundred, then two hundred kilometers per hour—until his entire body began to distort in the dim nightlight. He didn’t just run—he surged. Almost teleport-like, he tore through the cold air like a streak of righteous force—a human missile chasing destiny.
In less than ten minutes, he caught up to the moving train.
With perfect control, he jumped—landing on the narrow connector platform between two cars.
Inside the carriage, it was tense.
A deranged man held a woman in a chokehold, his knife trembling just beneath her chin. His eyes were wild—lost in grief and delusion.
A young woman sitting a few rows back had her phone to her ear, speaking quietly into it, voice barely above a whisper.
“There’s a guy in here now,” she said. “Wearing a Zhongshan suit… sword on his hip. He looks like a samurai.”
On the other end, her husband froze.
“Wait… that guy? I just saw him get off the train. There’s no way… how the hell did he catch up?”
She didn’t reply directly.
“I think this is gonna blow up,” she said. “I’m gonna film it and post it on YouTube.”
Before her husband could answer—she ended the call, switched to video mode, and began to record.
The Worst Negotiator
Mario stepped into the train car.
The first thing he saw was a man holding a woman hostage. Clean-cut. Dressed in business attire—a collared shirt, tie, slacks. He looked like any regular office worker. But his eyes were unstable, his hands twitching. He gripped a long pair of scissors in one hand, the sharp tips pressed against the woman’s throat. His other arm held her in a tight choke.
The man didn’t look like a killer. Not yet. His rage was real, but his eyes still held hesitation. This wasn’t someone with a death wish—more like a man spiraling in panic, trying to make the world feel his pain.
Mario, still catching his breath from sprinting down the railway, stood quietly by the car entrance. His chest heaved. He knew he needed at least one minute to recover before he could do anything. Right now, he couldn’t even lift his sword.
His hand rested casually on the hilt anyway.
That was enough to set the man off.
“Is your sword faster? Or are my scissors faster, huh?!”
The blades were barely a millimeter from cutting skin.
Mario looked at him, still wheezing softly.
“My sword is faster,” he said calmly. “You don’t even need to test it. That’s not a maybe—it’s a fact.”
The man’s pupils twitched.
His hand began to shake harder.
His breath became uneven.
Mario kept talking.
“Maybe you should think about improving yourself. Maybe your wife left you because he’s better than you. Maybe he’s better-looking. Richer. Smarter. Or maybe… he just knows how to treat a woman right.”
That line landed like a slap.
The man’s entire body stiffened.
His grip weakened.
His mouth quivered.
And then the woman—still trapped in the hostage grip—cried out, her voice breaking with desperation:
“Stop! Please… please just stop talking… AA-huhh—hhuhhh! You’re not helping… You’re making it worse!”
Her voice cracked into sobs.
Everyone in the car felt it. Silent passengers clenched their teeth. Sweat rolled down their necks. Some began praying—softly, nervously—hoping the man in the Zhongshan suit would just shut up.
But Mario didn’t stop.
After a short pause, he continued, his voice strangely gentle:
“Try to think about something nice. The good times. Every little treasured moment you shared with her. Just don’t picture her moaning under someone else. Don’t imagine her arms wrapped around him, his tongue all over her chest, her hips grinding into his. Don’t see them tangled up—sweaty, breathless, kissing, fucking like there’s no tomorrow…”
That was it.
The man snapped.
His pupils dilated.
The light in his face vanished. Whatever sliver of humanity had remained—was gone. He entered a trance of silent fury. His arm jerked forward, trying to drive the scissors into the woman’s throat—
But nothing happened.
No one saw anything.
The next second, his head wasn’t on his shoulders anymore.
It was spinning in the air like a kicked melon.
A thick white spray of blood shot from his neck, arching high into the air and splashing over everyone in the car.
People screamed.
Some ducked. Some froze. All of them were stained—clothes, faces, bags—completely drenched in warm blood.
Mario didn’t move.
He stood exactly where he had been before—still panting, still empty-handed.
It was as if… nothing had happened at all.
The Blade in a Blink
Back in the present, inside a warm little bubble tea shop, Jessica unlocked her phone and pulled up an old YouTube video.
“This is the clip,” she said casually, turning the screen toward her friend. “From the train incident five years ago. Watch closely. At normal speed, you won’t see anything. But if you slow it down to one-sixty-fourth speed—look right here.”
The two girls leaned in. On the screen, the man’s scissors were just beginning to slice into the woman’s neck. And then—something happened. Something nearly imperceptible.
Frame by frame, they watched Mario move. In a single blur of motion, he drew the blade from his waist, sliced clean through the man’s neck, and returned the sword to its sheath—all in less than a tenth of a second. To the passengers on the train that day, it had looked like he never moved at all.
Jessica’s friend sat back in shock.
“…No way. So that’s what happened?”
She looked Jessica up and down.
“No wonder you all wear those weird Zhongshan suits. If I had a master like that, I’d probably wear one too.”
Jessica smiled and opened a Wikipedia page. Reading aloud, she said:
“Mario entered the National Swordsmanship Championship when he was just eight years old. In the round of sixteen, he suggested an all-versus-one match. Fifteen opponents attacked him at once—and he defeated all of them, effortlessly.”
Dave, sitting nearby, let out a soft, impressed whistle.
“Unreal…”
Jessica continued, “He’s a monster when it comes to speed. He could run over a hundred kilometers an hour by the time he was five. He didn’t even train much. He picked up a sword for the first time three days before that tournament.”
She paused for a second, then added with a thoughtful tone,
“There are some people in this world who are just born different. Colin mastered Golden Speech at age seven. Franklin was already unbeatable at the same age. They say when Franklin was born, his inner Qi was already flowing on its own—like an automatic transmission. No training, no effort. Just… natural.”
She sighed gently.
“They’re on a level the rest of us can’t even reach.”
Her friend smiled, a little wistfully.
“Yeah… but that’s okay. We don’t need to be monsters. As long as we’re strong enough to protect ourselves, that’s good enough.”
Jessica nodded.
“True.”
Then, almost as if flipping a switch, she opened the Amazon app on her phone.
“Let’s see if they’ve got any cute stuff on sale.”
The two girls leaned over the screen, their conversation drifting into easy laughter and everyday girl talk—leaving legends, warriors, and bloody train carriages behind like a distant dream.
Nice Guys Finish Slashed
A skinny, greasy-looking guy with a face full of acne walked into the pearl milk tea shop. His Zhongshan suit was oversized and wrinkled, clinging awkwardly to his lanky frame. He looked like the budget version of a martial arts student—hair parted neatly in the center like the others, but his presence was the complete opposite of impressive.
He walked up to the counter and asked in a nasal, polite voice,
“Um, excuse me… can I get an extra small cup of water?”
The worker blinked. “Sorry, the smallest we have is small. That’ll be one dollar.”
“One dollar?” he blurted out. “For water?”
The employee replied patiently, “Our cups have a cost too, sir.”
Reluctantly, the acne-covered man pulled a crumpled dollar from his pocket and handed it over.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Even water’s a luxury now.”
From a table near the window, Dave tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. He watched the man walk away from the counter holding that sad, tiny cup like it was a priceless treasure.
“Zhongshan suit, center-parted hair…” Dave mumbled to himself. “But that’s where the resemblance ends.”
“Too skinny to be Marvel. Way too greasy.”
He scoffed under his breath. “Even I’m broke, but at least I can afford some protein and drink with dignity. This dude’s out here surviving off water like a damn alley mosquito.”
The guy scanned the room and, instead of picking an empty table, headed straight toward Jessica.
“Hey, Jessica,” he asked, overly polite. “Mind if I sit here?”
Before either girl could reply, he pulled out the chair next to Jessica’s friend and sat down.
Jessica’s friend turned to her. “Uh… do you know him?”
Jessica gave a polite but confused glance. “No idea.”
“We’re in the same class,” the guy insisted with a sheepish grin. “It’s me!”
Jessica shook her head gently. “Sorry… I really don’t remember.”
Then, out of nowhere, he dropped it:
“Jessica, I like you. Would you be my girlfriend?”
The shop fell into silence.
Jessica forced a smile. “Thanks, but you’re not really my type.”
There was a pause. His jaw clenched. His eyes flicked between the girls, then dropped to the table.
Finally, he muttered, “I’m not asking for much… just one night. I mean, you did it with Canelo, didn’t you? Everyone knows. You’re not as pure as you act, so what’s the big deal?”
Both girls froze. The audacity left them speechless.
Jessica’s friend looked genuinely disturbed. The guy’s face, full of acne and desperation, made the whole scene feel like a fever dream of cringe.
Dave leaned forward now, face darkening.
“Bro… you serious right now?”
That’s when a hand reached toward the hilt of a blade strapped across a shoulder.
It was Jessica’s hand.
Twisted Like a Beast
Just as Jessica reached for the hilt of her blade, a powerful figure stepped up behind the pimple-faced creep.
It was Dave.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt—just a pair of triangle-shaped pink women’s underwear. His lean, muscular frame looked completely out of place in the calm, air-conditioned bubble tea shop.
The moment he heard the greasy loser mutter, “Just one night…”, Dave froze mid-sip. His expression darkened, and he slowly lowered the cup.
He didn’t just see a scrawny guy in a wrinkled Zhongshan suit anymore.
He saw Marvel.
That same smug tone. That same gross, entitled posture. Even though the pimple-faced man was facing away, Dave swore he could see Marvel’s face emerging on the back of his head—like a demon staring back at him through another man’s body.
Dave said nothing.
He calmly walked forward, set his milk tea aside on the counter, and placed both hands on the guy’s head.
Then twisted.
The man’s neck turned a full 180 degrees with a horrible grinding sound—flesh straining, cartilage creaking. There was no satisfying crack—only raw, misaligned tissue trying to resist and failing.
The guy didn’t die.
He shrieked in pain, his bladder giving out on the spot.
“AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!! MY NECK!! IT HURTS! IT HURTS SO BAD!!”
Tears streamed down his cheeks, but with his head completely spun around, his hands went to the wrong place—desperately wiping the back of his skull while sobbing uncontrollably.
Jessica and her friend were still frozen.
Dave didn’t wait.
He picked up his protein milk tea, took a slow, dignified sip, and walked out the front door without looking back.
Jessica’s friend blinked. “Who the hell was that? Do you know him?”
Jessica frowned and shook her head.
“Beats me. Never seen that pervert in my life.”
They glanced down at the pathetic creature still trembling on the floor in his Zhongshan suit—pants soaked in urine, face facing the wrong direction, trying to wipe his tears from the back of his head.
Jessica’s friend muttered, “Look at that guy. Pink women’s triangle underwear? He’s probably a walking felony. Total creep—might even be a rapist on the run.”
Jessica nodded calmly. ““Yeah. Completely unhinged.”
Her friend leaned in. “Since you’re, like, the prettiest girl in school, does stuff like this happen all the time?”
Jessica gave a tired smile.
“Yeah, it happens every day. Lonely ones, crazy ones, creepy polite ones… I’ve just gotten used to it.”