Chapter 92: Scars
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
While swigging liquor and talking loudly, the rowdy man occasionally waved a long, sheathed machete with his left hand to frighten the people around him.
Some of the gang members walked away from him. Some approached him and greeted him smilingly.
Like Elderly Dragon, this rowdy man was one of the founders of the Ten-Dragon Gang and nicknamed himself Dragon Tooth.
According to Gu Shenwei's observations, most of the gang members could not even hold their weapons steadily, whereas both Elderly Dragon and Dragon Tooth were endowed with superb kung fu skills.
Actually, Golden Roc Fort had not ordered Slave Huan to investigate the gang members' kung fu, but he did so anyway in order to discover Mister Guo's true intentions.
A moment later, Dragon Tooth staggered out of the crowd.
Gu Shenwei stared at him in an effort to cause irritation; this was how gang members provoked fights.
As he had expected, Dragon Tooth quickly flared up and shouted at him, "Brat, why do you keep staring at me? Do you want to f*ck or something? Look, here's my machete. Is it big enough for you?"
The surrounding gang members burst into laughter. Gu Shenwei shook his head and retorted immediately, "No, your machete is stained with your own sh*t. Use it yourself."
After quarreling with his mentor many times, Gu Shenwei was not ashamed of uttering such filthy language anymore.
The gang members laughed even louder as Dragon Tooth's face suddenly changed. Gu Shenwei could easily tell that Dragon Tooth was the kind of person who always claimed that he was just joking when hurling insults at others, but would never tolerate being verbally abused himself. Only a real master of dirty language like Tie Hanfeng could remain calm throughout a quarrel while also quickly retorting.
Dragon Tooth unsheathed his long machete and threw the scabbard away. He held the machete shaft with both hands, ready to attack. Drinking and shouting, the gang members swiftly stepped aside to make room for the fight. They were delighted to see such an exciting scene with liquor in their hands.
Xu Xiaoyi joined the crowd, urging the gang members to bet with him. "I bet the guy with the sword will win."
Before anyone agreed to bet with him, the fight had already begun. Thanks to this, Xu Xiaoyi was able to keep his last few taels of silver.
When Dragon Tooth lifted up his long machete, the people beside him became scared and instinctively moved back as far as possible in order to distance themselves from the weapon. Meanwhile, Gu Shenwei quickly unsheathed his short sword, stabbed forward, and then drew it back. The next moment, everyone saw a shallow wound appear on the teenager's shoulder, blood quickly staining his cotton-padded jacket.
The gang members simultaneously cheered for Dragon Tooth while Xu Xiaoyi stood agape, unable to believe his eyes.
"Wait for me, if you dare. I'll bring my people here momentarily."
With these words, Gu Shenwei turned around to leave. This was the gang members' typical way of admitting defeat.
Xu Xiaoyi quickly caught up with him and repeatedly questioned what happened.
Gu Shenwei just kept walking without saying a word; he knew that Xu Xiaoyi would never understand what he was thinking.
Firstly, he discovered that Dragon Tooth's machete skills were subpar; his moves were far too slow. The time he used to lift up his machete was enough for a professional killer to land three fatal blows on him. Given that, Gu Shenwei concluded that Elderly Dragon and the other founders of the gang might not be very good at kung fu either. Thus, he was confused as to why Mister Guo implied in the document that the apprentices might fail in this mission to crush such a weak gang.
Secondly, Gu Shenwei realized that the sword skill in the nameless sword book was exclusively a killing move and could never be used to deceive the opponent. In the fight, he had already touched Dragon Tooth's throat with his sword before he withdrew it, but neither the gang members nor even Dragon Tooth himself had noticed this swift move. That was why Dragon Tooth had not retracted his machete to block the sword and managed to wound Gu Shenwei's shoulder.
Xu Xiaoyi forgot that it was still early in the night and took the killer apprentice back to his home again. When they opened the door, they heard Xu Yanwei groaning upstairs as she endured a whipping.
Xu Xiaoyi turned pale and stood dumbfounded. He wanted to walk out of the house, but it was freezing cold outside. After a while, he entered the house and sat by the fire quietly. A moment later, he covered his ears with his hands and buried his face in his knees.
Gu Shenwei stood opposite Xu Xiaoyi, telling himself that this was none of his business and that he should remain a cold-hearted killer. Despite only being 15, the number of people he killed had already outnumbered the number of dead people an old man would have seen in his whole life. He was familiar with how cruel and unfair this world was and had decided not to play the hero anymore.
However, he just could not stand idle at this moment.
He unsheathed his sword, threw the scabbard away, and ran upstairs. When Xu Xiaoyi raised his head, he saw the killer apprentice standing at the door of the bedroom. The boy was confused and opened his mouth, wanting to say something. In the end, he failed to utter anything and closed his mouth.
The door was unlatched so Gu Shenwei pushed it open. His eyes were greeted with the back of a naked man. Due to the many candles in the room, the man's body was shimmering in the light, making it seem as though the black tattoos on his body were alive.
With a cup of liquor in his left hand and a whip in his right hand, the man whispered excitedly, "Scream b*tch. Scream louder..." Just as he was about to flog Xu Yanwei once again, Gu Shenwei caught his wrist.
He threw the naked man out of the room and immediately turned around, averting his eyesight from Xu Yanwei, who was tied to the bed.
"What're you doing?"
Before the naked man realized what had happened, Xu Yanwei was overcome with anger and shame.
Gu Shenwei pretended not to hear what she said and fixed his eyes on the man outside the room.
The naked man staggered to his feet and looked around. After a while, he finally saw the teenager who had ruined his night and shouted at him, "Who the hell are you?"
"Piss off."
Gu Shenwei took a step forward with the sword in his hand.
The man was tipsy and had no idea what kind of person he was currently confronting. He roared and rushed back into the bedroom with a whip in hand. Nevertheless, when he saw the teenager's face in the light, he stopped all of a sudden and winced in fear like a dog meeting a wild wolf.
He had some jianghu experience and immediately recognized the teenager's murderous countenance. The grim look frightened him. He put down the whip and turned his eyes to the clothes on the chair. Gu Shenwei knew that there was a machete on the chair since he could clearly discern a machete shaft stick out from under the clothes.
"You can take your clothes away," he said.
Terrified by the strong killing intent, the man did not dare to move.
"You b*stard, what the hell are you doing?" Xu Yanwei shouted at the killer apprentice. She had never experienced a killing intent and was thusly not afraid of the teenager who had once killed two people in front of her.
Gu Shenwei ignored her again. This house was wide enough for a killer to launch an attack on his opponent from behind. Gu Shenwei believed that when the man realized this point, he would immediately leave this place as quickly as possible with only his clothes.
As he had expected, when the man sobered up, he took small quick steps to the chair to get his clothes. During the process, he accidentally touched the machete shaft, but immediately withdrew his hand from it. He hurriedly left the room, sweating. When he got to the first floor, he finally stopped to put on his clothes.
"B*tch, you attempt to fool me? Wait here if you dare. I'll bring my people here shortly," the man shouted out the typical words gang members would use when admitting defeat, and then fled as fast as he could.
Now, Gu Shenwei found himself in an awkward situation. Xu Yanwei was still fastened on the bed, there was no woman servant here, and he could not ask Xu Xiaoyi to help.
"Untie the rope," said Xu Yanwei, grumpily.
Gu Shenwei threw his sword away and picked up a quilt, before swiftly turning around and putting it on Xu Yanwei. During that moment, he got a glimpse of the countless welts on her white skin. He quickly untied her and then ran downstairs.
When he left, he heard Xu Yanwei shout, "Get out of here."
Xu Xiaoyi turned pale. He sat by the fire and said to the killer apprentice, "Do you know who he is? He's Elderly Dragon's son."
"That's good."
Gu Shenwei did not want to explain since Xu Xiaoyi did not know much about the assassination mission.
After a while, Xu Yanwei stormed downstairs and stood before the boys.
She looked furious and aggressive, completely different from the shy, delicate girl Gu Shenwei remembered.
Thinking back to his first encounter with the siblings, he concluded that both of them were amazingly good at acting.
"Why? Why did you drive my client away?" Xu Yanwei growled like a tigress.
Gu Shenwei was not sure why he did this, so he just looked at Xu Yanwei quietly.
"He saved our lives," Xu Xiaoyi murmured.
"Aha," Xu Yanwei laughed as if she had just heard a joke. "You saved my life, so you think you have the right to judge me and to interfere in my private affairs? What do you want me to do now? To feel embarrassed and ashamed? And then I'll beg for your mercy and ask you to forgive me and help me? You believe that I'm deeply grateful for what you've done and can't thank you enough for that, don't you?"
"No, I never meant to point fingers at you."
"So you must want me to repay you by sleeping with you. Come on. Let's go upstairs right now. You can have whatever you want. I can play a bashful girl or a slut, and you can beat me with your blade and treat me as roughly and abusively as you want. No matter what you do, I'll treat you like a king."
Xu Yanwei glared at the killer apprentice, her breast heaving.
"I just want you to be a good sister," Gu Shenwei pointed at Xu Xiaoyi and said.
When he uttered the word "sister", he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Having buried his feelings deeply for a long time, he had never expected to have such an emotional outburst. After a while, he managed to calm himself down and buried his feelings once again.
After an awkward silence, Xu Xiaoyi lowered his head and whispered, "She's a good sister..."
Xu Yanwei stood agape for a while and then went upstairs.
"Wow, I've never seen her so angry," Xu Xiaoyi said smilingly, trying to resolve the uncomfortable, embarrassing situation
Gu Shenwei kept his mouth shut; he realized that he had made a mistake. The act of successively involving himself in the siblings' lives clearly violated a killer's principles. Fortunately, he would soon say goodbye to them, since his mission was about to come to an end.
Xu Yanwei walked downstairs again, with scissors and gauze in hand. She arrived before the killer apprentice and coldly said, "Take off your shirt."
Gu Shenwei looked down and saw the wound on his shoulder. The blood was congealed and he did not mind the pain; however, he still took off his shirt due to Xu Yanwei's assertion.
The siblings gasped at what they saw on the teenage killer's body.
There were countless scars of different lengths between his neck and waist. In the firelight, these overlapping and interlacing scars looked like ferocious tattoos. Compared to his scars, Xu Yanwei's welts looked like mere dabs of rouge.
Some of these scars were left by Tie Hanfeng and some, by his opponents. There were so many scars that even Gu Shenwei himself had already forgotten how he had received them.
As Xu Yanwei had no other client on that night, they all went to bed early. Xu Xiaoyi had worried for more than two hours that the Ten-Dragon Gang might come back to seek revenge, before finally slipping unawares into sleep.
The next morning, Gu Shenwei woke up early. He needed to go somewhere else to report to the killer leader, the commander of the mission. A killer leader was just a temporary title. The leader would automatically be dismissed from the position when the mission ended. Taking the machete left by the guest last night, Gu Shenwei set off.
He still could not understand why the plan makers thought the apprentices might have failed in this mission. Elderly Dragon and the gang were so weak, that he believed he could destroy them by himself.
Hoping that he could find someone to discuss his concerns with, he continued on to the scheduled site. When he arrived, however, he discovered that the killer leader of this mission was the last person he wanted to meet in the whole world.