I Start with a Mysterious Island-Chapter 67: Your Money Is Dirty, You Scum

The bald man, who had been thoroughly pummeled by Lin Li, lay twitching on the ground. After gasping for a few breaths, the pain eased slightly. He managed to ask Lin Li, "You... You’re a Cultivator...?!"

"Take a guess," Lin Li said coolly, glancing at the bald man.

"You have to be a Cultivator!!!" the bald man said with conviction, recalling Lin Li’s inhuman speed and the crushing power of his fists and feet.

Lin Li ignored him, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and dialed the number for the police.

The moment the bald man saw Lin Li take out his phone and start dialing, he knew exactly who he was calling.

Ignoring the pain wracking his body, the bald man quickly shouted to Lin Li.

"Hey, man, don’t call the cops! It’s all a misunderstanding. We were wrong. We can give you a big pile of cash as compensation."

Lin Li, still on the phone, shot the shouting bald man a sidelong glance, his eyes filled with contempt.

"Shut up. I don’t want you scumbags’ dirty money. Just get ready to rot in jail!"

"Buddy, fifty thousand. We can give you fifty thousand as compensation."

Faced with Lin Li’s unconcealed disdain, the bald man didn’t give up his last sliver of hope and quickly named a price.

"Hello, police? I’d like to report a crime. I was attacked on the street by a group of thugs..." Lin Li said to the dispatcher once the call went through.

"Sixty thousand—no, seventy! Buddy, seventy thousand! Just let us go, and we’ll give you seventy thousand."

When Lin Li didn’t react to his offer of fifty thousand, the bald man immediately upped the price, hoping to sway him while he was on the phone with the police.

"The address is the East District Flower and Bird Market, number one-twenty Guangqi Road." Lin Li ignored the bald man’s frantic offers and gave his current location to the dispatcher.

’Damn it! This guy is dead set on sending us to prison.’

Seeing that Lin Li had given the address, the bald man knew it was impossible to buy his way out of this.

Cursing inwardly, he gritted his teeth against the pain, scrambled up from the ground, and turned to flee deeper into the alley.

"Tsk. You still dare to run? Looks like I went too easy on you."

The bald man had just gotten to his feet and taken a few steps down the alley when he suddenly heard a mocking voice. Alarmed, he was about to break into a full sprint when a heavy blow struck his back.

THUD. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Lin Li had quickly caught up to the fleeing bald man and kicked him square in the back, sending him sprawling to the ground.

This time, the bald man landed face-first. Blood immediately gushed from his nose, making for a miserable sight.

"Aaargh..."

The bald man clutched his nose, his body curled into a ball as he let out agonized howls. He was a pitiful sight.

Aside from Mutant Beasts, this was only the second time Lin Li had fought another person. The first had been against the exam proctor, Hao Zhuang, during his qualification test for the Exotic Beast Hunter Guild.

In that fight, he had only ended up with a bruised arm and hadn’t bled. This time, however, he had beaten these thugs so badly they couldn’t get up—especially their bald leader, whose face was now a bloody mess.

Seeing the man’s wretched state, Lin Li felt a pang of discomfort. ’Even though I’ve seen plenty of blood hunting Mutant Beasts in the wild, this is a human, not a beast.’

’These guys are scum. They don’t deserve any sympathy. I beat them up, so what?’

’If I were just a normal person cornered by them, what happened to them could have easily happened to me.’

After a moment of reflection, the uncomfortable feeling vanished. When he looked again at the bald man, whose nose was still bleeding freely, his heart was completely calm.

...

The police response was incredibly fast. Less than five minutes after he made the call, three patrol cars rounded the corner and sped toward his location.

SCREECH.

The three patrol cars pulled over, and six Security Officers emerged.

The man in the lead, a Security Officer in his forties, walked briskly over to Lin Li with his colleagues.

He scanned the scene, then motioned for his colleagues to handcuff the four thugs who were lying on the ground, unable to get up.

"Are you the one who called this in?" the lead Security Officer asked Lin Li as his colleagues escorted the four cuffed thugs to the patrol cars.

"I am," Lin Li nodded.

"You’ve got some impressive moves," the Security Officer said, surprised. "Taking on four guys by yourself without a scratch, and leaving them in this state..."

"I’m a Cultivator," Lin Li stated frankly. "Dealing with a few normal guys like them is no problem at all."

He had already registered his status as a Cultivator. If these Security Officers wanted to investigate him, they’d find out just by looking up his file, so there was no point in hiding it.

Granted, government regulations clearly stated that if a Cultivator assaulted an ordinary person, the crime would be treated more severely.

However, there was a proviso: if an ordinary person initiated an attack or provoked a Cultivator with malicious language, the Cultivator was permitted to act in self-defense.

And since these thugs had been the ones to pick a fight with Lin Li, his actions fell squarely within the bounds of self-defense.

"Oh, so you’re a Cultivator! That explains it," the lead Security Officer said, his expression one of sudden understanding.

Then he said to Lin Li, "We’ll need to ask you to come down to the station with us to give a statement..."

"No problem."

Lin Li had already figured he’d have to go to the station to give a statement after calling the police, so he nodded and cooperatively got into one of the patrol cars.

...

At 4:20 PM, after handing over the phone recording of the thugs to the Security Officers and giving his statement, Lin Li returned to the Ping’an Garden District.

’Even though those thugs wasted some of my time, I did a public service by getting rid of them. So it wasn’t a total waste.’

’The lead Security Officer told me those guys were repeat offenders. Since I got the whole group caught, they’ll probably be in prison for a few years. Serves them right.’

In a good mood, Lin Li returned to the Ping’an Garden District and walked over to his parking space.

Next, he needed to head to the market to deal with the over two thousand pounds of massive white radishes he had harvested last night.

...