Chapter 144: Joint Trial by Three Boards

The masked burly man simply could not fathom it: if Zhang Pu truly possessed unfathomable hidden strength, why had he previously allowed himself to be pushed around completely at will?

Suddenly, he felt a strong urge to test this theory, to see whether Zhang Pu would once again behave docilely in his hands. If Zhang Pu still did, then what had just happened truly defied explanation. If the short, thin masked man had indeed not been dealt with by Zhang Pu, then...

Lost in thought, the masked burly man stepped closer to Zhang Pu. Just as he had done when bringing Zhang Pu here earlier, he suddenly clamped his iron-vise-like hand onto Zhang Pu's arm.

"Could you lighten up a bit? It's not like I'm running away," Zhang Pu said, putting on a slight struggle as if in mild pain.

"Strange..." The masked burly man was left speechless.

He simply couldn't understand it, because Zhang Pu still felt just as weak as he had when he was first captured!

The masked burly man quickly exchanged glances with the leader of the masked men, and the leader, who usually trusted his judgment implicitly, was equally at speechlessness.

"Let me try!" The leader's eyes rolled as he suddenly lunged toward Zhang Pu.

On the surface, he looked like a benevolent bodhisattva, but beneath that facade lay a ruthless and vicious heart.

Before the burly man could even say, "Alright, Boss,"

The leader's hand had already closed into five claws, aiming straight for Zhang Pu's collarbone.

The masked leader was actually a martial arts expert. This grab of his was entirely capable of shattering a child's collarbone, but he no longer cared. He only wanted to test whether Zhang Pu had been faking it. If Zhang Pu had indeed been faking, the truth would instantly be exposed; and if Zhang Pu had not been faking, crippling a random child meant nothing to him anyway.

However, this very action finally provoked Zhang Pu's anger!

"Snap—"

Accompanied by the sound of something breaking came a muffled grunt.

The masked burly man had been watching all of this intently from the side, yet once again, he failed to catch whether Zhang Pu had even made a move.

What he could clearly see now, however, was that the masked leader was clutching his own hand—the very hand he had intended to use to cripple Zhang Pu. That hand was now obviously fractured, and the leader was gritting his teeth to suppress another cry of agony.

"Boss—" the masked burly man called out.

"H-He's a demon!" the masked leader suddenly blurted out to Zhang Pu and the burly man.

With that, he cradled his injured hand and began retreating rapidly.

Before the masked burly man could react, the leader whistled sharply through his teeth.

In an instant, numerous masked figures swarmed into the cavern.

Without a second thought, all of these masked men lunged at Zhang Pu.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—"

Yet, the moment these masked men attacked Zhang Pu, an unusual sound resembling firecrackers erupted throughout the cave.

In the blink of an eye, every single masked man except for the leader and the burly man had collapsed to the ground.

The two remaining men who were still standing were now completely, utterly dumbfounded.

Even now, Zhang Pu continued to play dumb with them, despite the fact that they now understood with absolute certainty: Zhang Pu was the sole mastermind behind all of this.

And Zhang Pu still wanted to toy with them further. He found this game immensely entertaining, and his enthusiasm for it never waned.

"Y-You..." The leader of the masked men was utterly speechless.

"What about me?" Zhang Pu countered.

Once again, the leader was left without words.

Meanwhile, the masked burly man stood silently to the side, staring unblinkingly at Zhang Pu as if gazing at some unfathomable creature.

Zhang Pu walked over and gently patted him on the shoulder, yet the man seemed to have forgotten how to react altogether.

To be frank, neither the leader nor the burly man had ever witnessed anything as bizarre as this night in all their lives—Zhang Pu had given them the shock of a lifetime. Never before had anyone left them so utterly stunned.

At first, they thought it was all a dream, but that notion was quickly dismissed.

Right now, both the masked leader and the burly man stood completely frozen, resembling chastised grandchildren waiting meekly for their grandfather's verdict.

"Don't you two think it's about time you took off your masks? Aren't they uncomfortable?" Zhang Pu glanced at them and asked.

It was as if Zhang Pu's voice carried some kind of irresistible hypnotic magic; the leader and the burly man found it impossible to resist and felt compelled to obey.

With their own hands, they peeled the masks from their faces.

Zhang Pu could now clearly see that the leader was a scrawny, somewhat ugly little old man nearing fifty. In contrast, the masked burly man possessed quite a striking and upright appearance with regular features. Though approaching forty, he must have been quite the handsome youth in his younger days, a thought that made Zhang Pu marvel inwardly.

"Who on earth are you?" After what felt like an eternity, the masked leader finally managed to blurt out such a nonsensical question.

Zhang Pu turned the question back on him: "You don't know who I am?"

Taken aback by this counter-question, the leader froze.

Then, Zhang Pu cast a glance at the masked burly man, as if conveying the message: You had no idea who I was, yet you hauled me here for no reason—what utterly lawless thugs you are!

Naturally, Zhang Pu had no intention of revealing his identity to the leader.

Instead, he turned around and asked the leader and the burly man who *they* actually were.

Zhang Pu specifically stepped closer to the burly man and said, "Why don't you tell me? You've been awfully quiet ever since we got here."

Zhang Pu suddenly felt a strong impulse to tease this burly man—truly, considering how brutally he had shoved old Uncle Fu and hauled him away earlier, only to be reduced to trembling silence in the face of absolute power, it was all rather comical.

The burly man was still staring at Zhang Pu, likely trapped in a lingering daze of shock.

Zhang Pu smiled and took another step toward him, causing the burly man to instinctively retreat.

At this point, even if you gave him ten times his courage, he wouldn't dare reach out to grab Zhang Pu's arm again.

Yet, finally, he forced himself to straighten his back abruptly.

"We've lost, there's nothing left to say," the burly man admitted honestly. "We are actually members of the Three Halls Society."

The Three Halls Society?

Zhang Pu's mind spun instantly. "The Three Halls Society"—wasn't this a name he had overheard on the bus ride home?

When it had slipped from the criminal's mouth back then, he had dismissed it with complete disdain.

He had assumed that once the incident passed, the name would fade from his memory, yet he never expected to be so intertwined with the Three Halls Society, with this masked burly man now claiming membership.

The Three Halls Society certainly had a lot of members! Zhang Pu sighed inwardly at that moment.

And why wouldn't they? From highwaymen robbing buses to bandits hiding in the mountains... Zhang Pu mused to himself that the next time he ran into the supreme leader of the Three Halls Society, he would just have to slap him twice first before talking!