Michael stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his golden-flamed glasses as he prepared for the day. His usual composed nature was infused with a hint of anxiety. That day, he and his five underlings had been assigned a peculiar mission by Colin, the low-key but mysterious boss of the Humble Association. The task? To buy him a bottle of Pepsi.
“Let’s move out, team,” Michael instructed, leading his underlings into the busy streets. They quickly entered a deli, only to discover that it carried only Coca-Cola. Michael directed the team to check for another store, and one underling with sausage-like lips asked in confusion, “Can’t we just grab a Coca-Cola? They’re practically identical in taste!” Michael frowned as he explained the significance of their mission: “Our boss is a perfectionist, even regarding the smallest details; additionally, he is an unforgiving person. Deliver anything other than a bottle of Pepsi to him, and we will undoubtedly face his wrath.”
“But he didn’t strike me as a formidable fighter,” Sausage-Lips pressed, his voice laced with skepticism. “Why do you look so troubled, boss?” As a newly hired member of the team, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity.
Michael turned to him, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Silence! You naïve fool! Our boss is an S-class fighter, but not in terms of physical strength—he might not even win a battle against a Class-C. However, his intelligence is his deadliest weapon, and you absolutely do not want to witness his wrath—especially over something as trivial as soda!”
Sausage-Lips immediately covered his mouth with both hands, startled. “Sorry, boss, I misjudged the gravity of the situation,” he whispered, his voice hardly loud enough to hear. Michael, still tense, replied, “It’s okay; we’ll find one.” As the team moved toward the next store, a flashback hit Michael, taking him three years back to the afternoon when he and Colin were in the office. He turned to his team, his voice filled with intensity. “Let me tell you what happened back then…”
Three years ago, it was a sunny afternoon when Michael returned to the office, famished after a long mission. His eyes landed on a half-eaten sandwich sitting on a desk, and with no one else around, he figured it might be a leftover from someone. Consumed by hunger and unwilling to waste food, he chowed down the sandwich in a single bite. The taste was heavenly. Just then, he spotted Colin returning from the restroom, searching for his missing sandwich.
“Have you seen my sandwich anywhere, Captain Lam?” Colin asked.
Michael felt a bit guilty but shrugged it off as no big deal. He smiled and replied, “I’m afraid I ate it!” Little did he know, Colin’s expression darkened with growing upset.
“Rumor has it that your feet stink,” Colin declared, his expression serious as he sought to avenge the sandwich incident.
“Nah, no way… maybe it’s yours that smells,” Michael joked back, a playful smile on his lips, unaware of the tension hanging in the air.
Colin couldn’t contain his anger any longer. He unleashed the Golden Speech, a technique that deceives the listener into fully believing and obeying any command. ‘Go on, smell your sock and you’ll find out,’ he spoke, his voice steady. As the words left his mouth, visible English letters traveled through a glowing golden beam and shot into Michael’s body.
As the visible letters sank into his body, Michael felt an overwhelming urge to discover whether his sock smelled or not. He removed his leather shoe, peeled off his sock—which had a large hole in it—and eagerly brought it to his nose. He sniffed deeply. “It truly smells like—holy crap!” Michael muttered, his face twisted in disgust as nausea surged within him, nearly forcing him to gag.
“Now taste it,” Colin commanded. This time, Michael hesitated, uncertainty showing on his face as he frowned. “Do it!” Colin urged, his tone rising. The golden beam intensified, glowing brighter than before. With the Golden Speech’s influence surging through him, Michael felt fully convinced. In an impulsive act, he swallowed the entire sock, the nasty fabric filling his mouth.
Initially, it tasted salty and bitter. As Michael chewed and licked it in his mouth, a wave of grossness overwhelmed his senses. He stumbled, dropping to one knee, his arm planted on the ground for support. Determined to uncover the true flavor of his sock, he endured the overwhelming disgust and continued to suck the fabric harder, pushing through the nausea. Goosebumps erupted all over his skin as a wave of numbness surged through him. He could unmistakably detect a foul mix of tainted feces, sewage waste, sick person’s vomit, dead animal carcass, moldy cheese, expired milk, burnt rubber, and more.|
Despite his strong will, he finally reached his limit. His eyes rolled back, and he blacked out, yet his body remained defiantly kneeling on one leg, as if a fallen hero still standing tall in the thunderstorm. The endless torment felt like an eternity, yet in reality, he hadn’t even lasted three seconds.
As Michael finished telling the tale, Sausage-Lips wiped away his tears, his voice heavy with sorrow. “Poor fellow… May he finally find peace in heaven…” He sniffed back the runny liquid from his nose.
Michael’s eyes widened in disbelief as he glared at Sausage-Lips. He yelled, “What the hell, man? I’m right here, alive and kicking! How can you be so dense, you clueless idiot?” He shouted, shaking his head in frustration. “Sorry, boss,” Sausage-Lips replied, his face flushing with embarrassment as he scratched his head.
“Boss, it’s been said that the effectiveness of the Golden technique hinges on the IQ gap between the speaker and the listener,” another underling remarked. Then he added, “And you, being among the brightest fighters on the planet, shouldn’t it have been far less effective on you?”
“That’s why I hesitated when I was instructed to taste my sock,” Michael said, his voice filled with intensity. “Regular humans like you all would have blindly complied without a moment’s doubt!” The underlings stared, stunned, their faces showing a mix of disbelief and horror.
Michael continued, “Now, brace yourselves for a staggering revelation: guess who is the mastermind behind all the Golden techniques? Yes, it’s him—our boss, Colin! Even the legendary Golden Eyes, Brian, is one of his top students. In fact, every single practitioner of the Golden techniques is either a disciple or a direct acquaintance of his. He possesses wisdom beyond comprehension.”
Before the underlings could respond, Michael pressed on. “I devoted years to studying the Golden techniques, yet here I stand, unable to master even a single one! Maybe… they’re only meant for natural talents.” His words carried a hint of frustration. In that moment, the underlings fell silent, standing in disbelief as they realized that even their boss, the formidable Captain Lam, had faced such a struggle.
“Perhaps, with my intelligence and determination, I could master the Golden Lips soon—if only I had some real training, boss!” Sausage-Lips stepped forward, his voice bold and filled with confidence.
Michael swung a powerful slap at Sausage-Lips’s face, his expression a mix of disdain and frustration. “Fool, stop your nonsense! You have zero potential!” The impact knocked Sausage-Lips to the ground, blood oozing from his oversized lips as his mouth hit the pavement.
“However,” Michael continued, “I developed my special move, the Sock Attack, from that incident. It became an effective, humane way to finish off my opponents.” He paused for emphasis. “This technique eventually earned me a promotion from Class-B to Class-A.”
Sausage-Lips stood up, now completely focused, hanging on every word of his boss’s story. “I’ve learned so much from you, boss!” he exclaimed with excitement, as if he’d just picked up a new technique himself.
“Plus, the boss gifted me these extraordinary golden-framed glasses on my birthday,” Michael said with a smile as the memory flooded back. “He told me that with the geeky look of these glasses, I could easily deceive my opponents and conceal my true power. This remarkable tool ensures I can always land a surprise attack, giving me the upper hand before any battle and boosting my fighting effectiveness to exceptional heights!”
They continued their search, but every store yielded the same result: Coca-Cola. Frustration built as they reached to the bakery, a familiar spot that triggered a vague memory in Michael’s mind—a brief, chaotic flash of shattering glass from a few days ago. The store owner delivered slightly different but still disappointing news: the last bottle of Pepsi had just been sold moments ago.
Just as they stood on the brink of despair, while their comrades hyper-focused on the seemingly impossible mission, Sausage-Lips, the lone perv, light-heartedly scanned the store for any attractive girls. Suddenly, his eyes widened in disbelief, excitement surging through him as he spotted something utterly unexpected. There, sitting around a table, was a group of six thugs—five Coca-Colas and one unopened Pepsi, the very treasure of their quest! With breathless anticipation, he excitedly yelled, “OMG, boss! I’ve spotted the treasure! The long-lost Pepsi we’ve been desperately hunting down for hours!” Hope reignited as they spotted the bottle, its cap still firmly sealed and held tightly by their leader, Canelo, the obnoxious Peeing Man.
“Pardon me, Mr. Canelo!” Michael said politely as he approached, extending a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill toward the gang leader. “Might you consider my humble offer of twenty bucks in exchange for your bottled Pepsi, sir?”
Canelo snatched the bill with a swift, casual swipe of his hand. “No chance!” he laughed loudly, mockingly arrogant, as he shamelessly tucked the crumpled bill into his pocket. “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours? Well, that’s mine too! Hahaha…”
Sausage-Lips stepped forward, trying to negotiate further, but a thug advanced, jabbing the burning tip of his cigarette menacingly toward Michael’s face. Before the thug could react, Michael delivered a slap with such force that it sent him skidding across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
The peaceful bakery momentarily erupted into chaos in a matter of seconds. Both groups clashed violently, and one thug was kicked with such force that he crashed through the newly replaced glass window once again. Customers fled in a frenzy, as if this chaotic scene had become routine for the store.
Sausage-Lips managed to pin a thug to the ground with a rusted metal pipe, then yanked off his sneaker and peeled away his Hello Kitty sock. Unleashing his newly learned technique, the Sock Attack, taught by his boss earlier that day, he shoved the sock into the thug’s mouth, gripping tightly with all his strength, as if his life depended on it, despite his skinny frame.
The thug effortlessly pushed him away and swung his pipe in a swift, brutal arc, carving a dazzling trail of light through the air. With a sickening crack, the pipe struck Sausage-Lips’ forehead, and a violent spray of blood erupted, splattering everything in the surrounding area. His skull was obliterated, leaving only the lower jaw and his oversized lips eerily intact. His headless body crumpled to the floor, limp and lifeless, like a rag doll abandoned in the ruins.
As soon as he finished off his opponent, he spit the clean sock from his mouth. “What kind of deluded moron is this?” he muttered, completely unscathed by the intrusive fabric that, surprisingly, smelled nice and lacked any foul odor. Disdain laced his voice as he ejected a glob of phlegm that arced perfectly into the gaping, oversized lips of the lifeless body—a final act of mockery amid the chaos. Sausage-Lips, the first casualty of the battle, fell silent; yet, amidst the turmoil, his absence stirred no sorrow among the living.
As the battle rumbled on, Michael and his team quickly overpowered the thugs. Canelo’s minions lay unconscious on the ground, and Michael gripped Canelo by the neck, pinning him against the wall in midair.
“Resistance is futile,” Michael commanded, tightening his grip to threaten Canelo. “Hand over the Pepsi, now!”
“Over my dead body!” Canelo smirked, acting as if he still had a trick up his sleeve despite clearly defeat. Michael frowned, feeling puzzled and uneasy as Canelo struggled to break free from his grip, his clenched teeth hiding the deep pain coursing through him.
Out of nowhere, Canelo discreetly spat a glob of saliva directly at Michael’s face. But Michael, on high alert, quickly jerked his head aside, narrowly dodging the slimy projectile. The spit sailed through the air, glistening as it arced toward its unintended target. With a loud, wet splat, it landed squarely in the store owner’s eye.
“AHH! My eye!” the store owner screamed in agony, clutching his face as he staggered backward. “God damn it!” he yelled, his voice a mix of pain and disbelief, the saliva dripping down his cheek.
“Petty tricks won’t work against my vigilance!” Michael declared, quickly yanking off his shoe and peeling away his stinky sock, which dangled ominously from his hand. “Sadly, your arrogance has led us to this dark crossroads. It’s a shame we can’t settle this in a more civilized manner.”
As the stinky sock drew near to Canelo’s mouth, he shook his head violently, sealing his lips tight. Michael tensed his arm muscles, veins bulging, and with unwavering strength, he thrust the foul fabric deep into Canelo’s mouth. As the vile object settled inside, a wave of nauseating odor crashed over him, sending Canelo spiraling into the depths of a septic tank filled with decomposed waste.
One… two… less than three seconds passed, and Canelo’s eyes bulged and rolled back, his arms falling limply to his sides as his limbs stiffened. Michael released his victim and swiftly snatched the fallen bottle of Pepsi from the floor, an overjoyed smile spreading across his face.
But joy quickly faded when he discovered the bottle’s cap was already unsealed, revealing a horrifying sight—inside, a thick glob of phlegm floated in the murky soda. “This can’t be!” he gasped, screaming out like a sissy with a high-pitched voice. “He… son of a…” The realization struck him like a cold blade: he was to blame for underestimating Canelo’s cunning. What had once seemed like a promising mission now lay in shambles—a complete failure.
The sun hung low on the horizon, casting a deep crimson hue over the road as the last light of day faded into darkness. Time, relentless as always, slipped through their fingers like the last grains of sand in an hourglass. Michael, accompanied by his four underlings, stumbled out of the shattered bakery, leaving behind the gruesome remains of their comrade, Sausage-Lips, without a second glance. His headless body lay abandoned amid broken glass and blood-soaked tiles, and nobody seemed to remember him at all as they casually walked away.
Hopelessness, frustration, and an emotional void enveloped them like a dense fog. One underling dropped to his knees on the pavement, pounding the ground with loosely clenched fists, his cries echoing in despair. They knew they had to steel themselves for the inevitable return to the dimly lit office, where the ultimate consequences awaited.
A shimmering object caught their eyes in a nearby gutter. “Boss! It’s a bottle of Pepsi, and it looks new—fully sealed!” one of the underlings shouted. Michael rushed ahead, retrieving it from the murky water, its surface covered with filth. Feces clung to the bottle, but with determination, he quickly rinsed it under the faucet in a nearby public restroom, restoring its clean appearance. “Look! We did it!” Michael exclaimed, excitement igniting across the team like wildfire.
Rushing back to the office, they found Colin leaning back in his chair, legs casually crossed on the desk, eagerly awaiting the sugary thrill he craved. With an impatient twist, he uncapped the bottle and licked from the midsection of the bottle to the rim before taking a slow, deliberate sip. A surge of sweetness zapped through him, waves of satisfaction coursing through his body. “Aaah…” he exhaled, a sound of pure contentment escaping his lips as he savored the flavor.
“Excellent work, Captain Lam,” Colin said, his voice filled with acknowledgment and approval. “Of course!” Michael replied, attempting to act cool. However, a drop of sweat rolled down his forehead, subtly revealing the anxiety deep hidden inside him.
very dramatic