Xiao Shu brandished the fruit knife, keeping entirely on the defensive, making no move to attack. The two sides stood locked for a few seconds before the leader, realizing his intent, chuckled silently to himself, 'Still wet behind the ears.' He was the first to make a move against Xiao Shu with the wooden stick.

The stick whistled as it swept in a fierce arc toward Xiao Shu’s midsection. Xiao Shu sprang upward forcefully, treating the stick like a high-jump bar, arching his waist to elegantly clear it on a diagonal leap. As he landed, he used one hand to absorb the shock, flipped, and sprang back to his feet. The move was so dazzling that the opposing group burst into applause. When another tried to step forward, the leader yanked his sleeve back, saying, "From now on, we keep to our own lanes. Better if we never see each other again." With that, he ushered his group away, scattering in all directions like startled birds.

Xiao Shu dusted off his clothes, folded the knife, and tucked it back into his pocket. His heart swelled with glee; a clean victory in his first bout was quite intoxicating. However, just as he was about to step forward and continue on his way, something hard pressed firmly against his lower back. The person behind him barked fiercely, "Armed Police patrol! Surrender your weapon, hands above your head!"

It turned out the ruffians hadn't actually yielded to Xiao Shu. Because of their positioning relative to him, they had seen the police approaching first and had used the confrontation as an excuse to vanish. Xiao Shu was just a high school student, born into an era of peace; how could he possibly possess the experience to handle every contingency in an emergency situation? He could only curse his bad luck, hand over the fruit knife, and allow the armed police to roughly put his hands behind his back in preparation for being taken away. He insisted repeatedly that he was not a thug, but the victim of an assault, and that the group who just fled were the real troublemakers. The police finally escorted him back to the shelter where Old He was staying. Of course, this was also at Xiao Shu’s own insistence; apart from that place, he couldn't think of anywhere else he could go.

Old He saw that Xiao Shu had been sent back by the armed police in less than half an hour and immediately guessed that the boy had ignored his warnings and ventured into the most dangerous part of the district. He quickly lied to his colleague, claiming Xiao Shu was his nephew, begging everyone to be lenient and not lock the boy in the Black House. This was because, besides the temporary shelters, the authorities had also set up temporary prisons, colloquially known as Black Houses. Those who engaged in fights, trespassed into restricted areas, or disobeyed orders were locked in windowless, pitch-black rooms for dozens of hours. Any normal person, after being confined there long enough, would be bored to madness until their fighting spirit was broken and their temperament smoothed out, only then would they be released to reintegrate into shelter life. It was a workaround born of dire necessity.

Seeing that someone with influence had vouched for Xiao Shu, the colleague acted as if nothing had happened and returned to duty, paying no mind to the young man who had just been escorted back by the armed police. Xiao Shu pulled Old He aside, extended a hand, and whispered conspiratorially, "Got any more blades? They confiscated the last one."

Seeing him dragged back and still clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation, Old He slapped Xiao Shu soundly on the crown of his head. "Kid, why are you strutting around like a rooster? Do you have any idea that if it weren't for my face just now, you’d be cooling your heels in the little black room? A solid three days and nights in there, and we'll see how arrogant you still are!"

As the two were speaking, a police cruiser pulled up outside the entrance to the complex. Several officers helped a man, whose head was completely covered by a towel, out of the back seat. The man was stout, broad, and dark-skinned. Xiao Shu felt his build bore a slight resemblance to the dark-skinned man he had just clashed with, but with the towel obscuring his face, he couldn't be sure.