After work, Carson Flores had dinner at the food stall with a couple of security guards as usual, and then strolled around, preparing to hail a taxi.
He hadn’t walked far when a shrill argument nearby caught his attention.
At the entrance of an alley, a man and a woman were having a fierce argument.
The man yelled in anger, "Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, flirting with that pretty boy all day, as if I were dead!"
The woman was quite beautiful and screamed, "How am I flirting? I can’t even talk to someone normally now? Why don’t you just chain me up with Iron Chains!"
The man angrily said, "Still pretending? Where were you yesterday?"
The woman answered, "I went shopping with friends, didn’t I tell you? I’m a person, I have my freedom..."
The man cursed and slapped the woman, knocking her to the ground with the blow. Not yet content, he kicked her as she lay there.
"Kian Vasquez, you son of a bitch! Always so suspicious, if I really had someone on the side, it would’ve happened long ago, not just now! I want a divorce, ah!"
The woman screamed, followed by the sounds of her painful cries as she was hit.
Unable to stand by, Carson walked over and shouted, "Stop!"
The man ceased his beating and glared at Carson fiercely, "I’m disciplining my own wife, none of your fucking business, piss off! Else I’ll beat you too!"
Carson said coldly, "If you can get along, then do so; if not, get a divorce. What kind of man are you, beating a woman, relying on your own strength? What skill is that supposed to be?"
"A dog trying to catch mice has too much free time!"
The man cursed and walked over, reaching out to grab the collar of Carson’s shirt.
Carson reached out, grabbed the man’s arm, and gave it a light twist.
The man might have looked strong, but in front of Carson, he was like a helpless, weak chick, utterly unable to struggle.
Carson gave a casual push, and the man staggered back, falling on his butt to the ground.
Carson had no desire to actually harm the man. After all, it was a domestic issue between the husband and wife. If he seriously beat the man, the first person to blame and resent him might be this woman who had been beaten.
The man looked at Carson in fear and pointed at the woman, "This isn’t over!"
After saying this, the man stomped off, not sparing a second glance at the woman still sitting on the ground.
Carson asked, "Are you alright?"
The woman, grateful, said, "Thank you, sir. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know how bad I would’ve been beaten today..."
She tried to tidy her disheveled hair and attempted to stand up but suddenly cried out in pain and sat back down, her face showing a pained expression.
"My leg hurts so much, I can’t put any strength on it..."
Carson took out his phone, turned on the flashlight to illuminate and inspected the woman’s leg. A large bruise had formed. He checked to ensure that the bone wasn’t broken, but predicted she wouldn’t be able to use her leg for a while.
"Your bone is fine. Do you need me to call the police or an ambulance for you?"
After hesitating, the woman refused, "Thank you, but no need. As long as the bone is fine, I just need to rest for a while."
Looking around with some difficulty, the woman said, "Sir, could you help me out and walk me down the road a bit? My home is just inside here, about two to three hundred meters away. I’ll pay you, a hundred bucks, okay?"
Carson shook his head, "No need for money, let’s go."
He supported her by the arm, and with the assistance of Carson’s strength, the woman stood up, limping and grimacing with each step. It was evident that her leg was indeed in pain.
The dim streetlight didn’t cast much light, and the road ahead was somewhat dark. Carson maintained a distance from the woman, slowly moving forward together.
Carson surveyed their surroundings with an added measure of caution in his gaze.
Although there were residential buildings not far from the alley, this stretch of road was quite desolate and had little foot traffic, casting a somewhat ominous darkness.
Carson glanced at the woman next to him, who was biting her lip and hobbling along, her expression seeming genuinely pained.
He took out his phone and sent a message to Lydia Howell with one hand, also turning on location sharing.
He quickly received a message back from Lydia and put the phone back in his pocket, continuing to move forward.
As the woman had said, her home was about four hundred meters inside the alley. Carson helped her into the building and eventually into her apartment.
"Thank you, sir, you’re really a good person. Here, take this money."
Carson politely declined the money the woman tried to hand him, then walked down the stairs and stood at the entrance of the building. Instead of hurrying to leave, he took out his phone to check it, replied to a message, and then leisurely lit a cigarette.
He wasn’t going anywhere!
Halfway through the cigarette, an old man with white hair and beard emerged from the building. He appeared to be at least in his eighties or nineties, yet his skin was taut and rosy, giving off the air of an ascetic sage.
Simultaneously, from the darkness on both sides of the entrance, two other elderly men around seventy years old appeared, advancing towards Carson from three different directions.
Taking a drag of his cigarette, Carson grinned and said, "Three Grandmasters, the Miller Family sure thinks highly of me, this is quite the mobilization..."