” Midday in Manhattan.
A red food truck was parked on the street corner.
“Yo yo, check it out, grab a crispy jianbing now…” Drawn in by the catchy tune, office workers flocked in a steady stream to buy jianbing.
Liam Price hadn’t set up shop in Hell’s Kitchen.
Instead, he was parked not far from Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull.
When he strung up those vampires on streetlights last time, he had spotted this prime location.
It was right near the New York Stock Exchange.
Capital never sleeps, and the surrounding office buildings were staffed 24 hours a day.
Even though Wall Street’s corporate drones possessed the superhuman ability to sit in front of computers all day with a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes, so long as they were carbon-based lifeforms, an empty stomach meant they still had to eat.
Compared to surrounding restaurants charging triple digits per meal, or pizza joints guaranteed to deliver late, a grab-and-go food truck was undeniably far more appealing.
An eight-dollar jianbing, with bacon and grilled sausage costing extra, net him five to six hundred dollars in a single lunch rush.
Conservative estimates placed his daily sales at over a thousand dollars.
Safe to say, even among corporate drones, Wall Street’s drones possessed vastly superior spending power.
Little Broly and little Curze had joined him, setting up a tiny stand beside the truck to sell “Smashed Lemonade.” Sales didn’t matter much.
Liam Price simply wanted them to practice controlling their physical strength in daily life through the act of “smashing lemons.” Their setup consisted of a custom “smasher” Liam Price had welded from a barbell bar and solid stainless steel blocks.
The brothers held these heavy hammers, aiming at ice buckets filled with lemons and ice on the pavement.
Striking turn by turn, they strove to exert just enough force to crush the lemons for juice without smashing through the asphalt.
*Thud, thud, thud…* Lemon juice splattered as the ground vibrated gently, leaving many passing Wall Street elites stunned, standing frozen with their coffee cups in hand.
“Excellent!
Great energy!” Finishing the lunchtime rush, Liam Price turned off the electric stove and stepped out of the truck.
Praising little Broly and little Curze, he filled a paper cup to the brim with iced lemonade made by his two fine sons.
Mmm, really sweet.
Just as he was getting ready to pack up, a “hobo” who had been standing at a distance watching the kids smash lemons for quite a while stepped forward.
The man was unkempt with a scruffy beard and carried a battered backpack, though his features revealed he wasn’t very old.
“Hmm?” Sensing someone approaching, Liam Price glanced at him with curiosity, detecting something odd about the man’s qi.
Little Broly felt it too.
“Dad, that uncle has two kinds of qi inside him.” The child was even more sensitive to qi than Liam Price, instantly pinpointing what was strange.
While little Curze lacked his brother’s sensitivity, he could “see” fragments of the future.
“Dad, that uncle’s fist glows!” little Curze chirped in his baby voice, biting his finger.
Two kinds of qi inside, glowing fists…
Liam Price recalled a Marvel TV series he’d watched a few episodes of in his past life, featuring a protagonist whose fist glowed.
When the man reached them, he first cupped his hands in a traditional Chinese greeting before asking Liam Price, “Excuse me, are you training your children?” Liam Price sensed no malice in the man’s qi, and he recalled that this guy was a superhero, not a supervillain.
So without beating around the bush, he replied, “Yeah, my boys are working out.
Though they’re just practicing for fun on their own; I’m not really instructing them.” “I see.
No wonder.” The man nodded as if struck by enlightenment.
“I noticed these two kids are extremely talented.
If they were in Kun…
well, they’ll definitely become exceptional warriors in the future.
However, their training method is still a bit crude.
Perhaps I could offer some advice.” Liam Price had no reason to refuse such a suggestion.
After all, he was self-taught, figuring out most of his cultivation methods on his own.
If someone was willing to teach, letting the boys learn a thing or two was hardly a bad thing.
After getting Liam Price’s consent, the man wasted no time, dropping his backpack onto the pavement.
Then, right on the sidewalk, he launched into a martial arts routine with unmistakable Chinese flair.
His strikes were sharp and powerful, accompanied by whistling sounds from time to time, drawing a crowd of onlookers.
Some passersby assumed he was a street performer, clapping and throwing loose change and coins his way.
“Wait, no, I’m…” Seeing people dropping money, the man was visibly bewildered.
But before he could speak, his stomach let out an ill-timed rumble.
“Back in China, a writer named Lu Xun once said: ‘Food is fuel—skip a meal and you’ll squeal.'” Liam Price said with a chuckle in Chinese.
Surprise flashed across the man’s face, for he never expected to hear a language even more familiar to him than his native English on the streets of Manhattan.
“You’re Chinese?” Liam Price nodded.
“Lunch rush is over, and us three are just about to eat.
Would you like a bowl of authentic zhajiangmian?” Upon hearing “zhajiangmian,” the man’s eyes lit up.
“Could I get a few cloves of raw garlic with that?” Eating noodles without garlic loses half the flavor.
Why not?
And so, the man dug into a huge bowl of pork and egg zhajiangmian prepared by Liam Price, topped with shredded cucumber, pickled soybeans, and several peeled cloves of raw garlic.
Naturally, Broly and Curze each held a large bowl as well, happily munching away while perched on small stools.
“I really didn’t expect that after returning to America, I’d get to eat such authentic Chinese food right here in Manhattan…” After finishing the bowl, Liam Price poured him a cup of rich jasmine tea.
The man couldn’t help sighing in satisfaction.
With that, his chatterbox opened completely.
He told Liam Price that his name was Daniel, and that he had gone to China when he was very young, growing up there.
He proudly claimed that even in China, the birthplace of martial arts, his kung fu was second to none.
Getting caught up in the excitement, Daniel half-jokingly said to little Broly and little Curze, “I’ve seen a dragon—do you kids believe me?
Oh, wait, do you even know what a dragon is?
Not the big lizards with wings, but…” Expecting the two young boys to be unfamiliar with Chinese dragons, he was surprised when little Broly piped up, “I know!
The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea is named Ao Guang!
All four Dragon Kings together couldn’t beat Sun Wukong, and they even gave the little monkey a bunch of presents!”