123: Chapter 123 A barrel explosion that science can't calculate, metaphysics understands.

The second the trigger was pulled all the way back.

Jiang Feng shouted, "Dodge!"

Predicting the barrel would burst was one thing, but the two of them were less than three meters away from that Suit Man.

The metal fragments flying from a bursting firearm caused indiscriminate area damage, and Jiang Feng knew very well that his body couldn't handle any such ordeal.

He didn't need any extra words; a single syllable was enough for Old Chen to make the correct tactical judgment.

Old Chen abandoned his plan to lung forward at the Suit Man.

He grabbed Jiang Feng's shoulder with a backhand grip and rolled with him behind the thick wooden load-bearing pillar to the right.

Just as the two of them hid behind the pillar.

Inside the pistol of the Suit Man outside, a physical disaster occurred that was invisible to the naked eye.

Everything was exactly as Jiang Feng's hexagram had predicted.

Excess lubricant that had become damp and degraded, mixed with gunpowder residue from long-term firing, had formed a particularly thick obstruction within the high-pressure, sealed environment of the gun barrel.

The primer was ignited by the firing pin, and the high-temperature, high-pressure gases produced by the propellant expanded rapidly.

These gases should have pushed the bullet through the rifling and out of the muzzle.

But halfway through, this force slammed into that lethal obstruction.

The chamber pressure couldn't be released normally from the front, so it sought the weakest point in all directions.

"Bang—Crack!"

A dull thud echoed through the rainy night.

The pistol slide and barrel snapped cleanly in the middle.

Expanding gunpowder gases, mixed with shattered metal fragments, splashed indiscriminately in all directions.

The Suit Man's right hand bore the brunt of it, becoming the load-bearing wall for this disaster.

Sharp steel shards easily sliced through the fabric of his black suit.

Fragments pierced his thenar space and severed the veins in his forearm.

The largest fragment flew upward and embedded itself directly into the right cheekbone of his expressionless face.

Blood flowed rapidly down his fingers.

Just as Jiang Feng had calculated.

The delay in neural conduction caused by the metal clip in his left brain, affected by air pressure, caused the Suit Man to lose 0.3 seconds of reaction time when facing the sudden situation.

He didn't even manage to drop the gun or tilt his head to evade, taking the full brunt of the explosion's damage.

The other fourteen Suit Men standing stiffly behind him had their once-tight encirclement formation broken.

They paused for a second.

These monsters had undergone the world's top-tier extreme environment shooting training.

But in their database, the probability of a pistol barrel bursting was less than one in a hundred thousand.

Statistics had failed at the entrance of this dilapidated teahouse.

Their mechanical brains couldn't process such a low-probability event, causing a fatal disconnect in their tactical coordination.

From behind the load-bearing pillar.

Jiang Feng stood up straight and reached out to brush the dust off his clothes.

He strode with his long legs back to the wooden table where the Tarot cards lay.

Lu Cheng stood not far away.

She clutched her hair with both hands, her eyes widened to their limit.

"The variables completely exceed the model's tolerance limit; this is impossible," Lu Cheng muttered a string of formulas rapidly.

"The water content in the lubricant isn't enough to change the absolute threshold of chamber pressure."

"The firing mechanism is intact, and the material fatigue is within safety limits."

"There was no external interference..."

She tried to use the physical laws she had learned throughout her life to reconstruct the causal relationship of this event in her mind.

But she couldn't calculate it.

Every formula calculated to the end led to the same illogical conclusion:

That gun should not have burst under any of the current physical conditions.

Jiang Feng didn't bother with this scientist who had driven herself into a dead end.

He poked at the wood fragments by the threshold with the tip of his toe.

He picked up the [The Tower] card from the table and blew the dust off it.

"I forgot to tell you."

Jiang Feng looked up at the rigid machines outside the door.

"Tarot cards can not only tell fortunes but also determine Feng Shui. This card is called The Tower. Its meaning is to rot from within and then collapse. This is a rule set by the Heavens; your code and formulas can't possibly calculate it."

Jiang Feng extended his slender fingers and casually toyed with the fan-shaped spread of cards.

"Next," Jiang Feng's voice echoed in the rainy night, "who wants a reading?"

A second Big Guy stepped forward; this man was even taller and sturdier than the previous Suit Man. He glanced at the shattered gun on the ground.

His processor concluded: due to air humidity and unknown reasons, there was a high risk in firing firearms; at such close range, firing could easily lead to a secondary accident or accidental injury to comrades.

He made the most direct choice: close-quarters combat.

Clenching both fists, he charged toward Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng didn't make any move to retreat.

His finger pressed against the back of a card, and he flipped over the second one.

On the face was a vagabond in colorful clothes walking defenselessly toward the edge of a cliff; the card was reversed.

[The Fool (Reversed)].

"You," Jiang Feng raised his hand, his index finger pointing straight at the charging Big Guy, "your the area between the eyebrows in physiognomy is dark, and your Qi and blood are congested in your lower body."

The Big Guy ran at high speed.

With great strides, he bounded up the damaged steps outside the teahouse in two steps.

Jiang Feng spoke even faster than him.

"You have control chips installed in your brains, and your pain nerves have been forcibly severed. This allows you to fight tirelessly, not even flinching if you're stabbed."

Jiang Feng's words hammered out like a machine gun.

"But your body is just carbohydrates; it can't withstand such reckless abuse. Your knee menisci are subjected to overloaded friction every day; they've long been worn flat, riddled with hidden injuries!"

The Big Guy raised his right foot, preparing to clear the high threshold.

"Take two more steps with that kind of force, and your left knee will suffer a comminuted fracture," Jiang Feng issued his final prophecy.

First step: his right foot stomped heavily onto the blue bricks inside the threshold.

The blue bricks made a dull sound of being overburdened, several cracks splitting through them.

The Big Guy used the momentum to leap into the air, his left leg striding forward for the second step.

He intended to strike Jiang Feng's sternum directly with his hard kneecap.

At the exact second his left foot landed and his sole made contact with the ground, bearing his entire body weight plus the forward momentum.

"Crack!"

The crisp sound of bone fracturing completely drowned out the storm outside.

The Big Guy's left knee folded backward at an angle that completely defied ergonomic structure.

The knee joint bones, lacking the cushioning of the meniscus, shattered into countless fragments on the spot under the intense pressure.

Bone shards even pierced through the fabric of his suit pants, exposed to the air.

The Big Guy lost his balance entirely, his upper body tumbling forward uncontrollably.

His expressionless face slammed heavily near Jiang Feng's feet, knocking out a front tooth.

He didn't let out a single scream, but the part below his thigh was completely ruined, becoming a piece of dead meat with no support.

He could only futilely claw at the blue bricks with his hands, twitching meaninglessly.

Jiang Feng sat steadily in the center of the mess, holding the reversed Fool card in his hand.

How was this a life-or-death gang fight?

This was a tycoon with a max-level account slaughtering a starter village.

These expensive machines, revered as gods by the Fiend, couldn't even touch a single hair of Jiang Feng's head in the face of the Causal Weapons created by metaphysics.

[Ding! Effective fortune-telling count: 2/3]

Outside the door, the remaining thirteen Suit Men collectively halted their advance.

They were lined up in an orderly formation, their gazes fixed firmly on Jiang Feng.

First a firearm accident, then a broken leg and paralysis.

Their logic processors fell into an unsolvable loop.

They didn't understand what the carbohydrate-based lifeform before them was doing.

This exceeded the category of "human."

These emotionless machines were pinned to the ground by metaphysics, stuck in a deadlock.