Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
As the time went by, more and more people arrived at the dance hall. More than a thousand passengers were here..
The host announced the start of the dance party. The three ladies looked at each other. After a while, the tallest one smiled and asked Li Yingjie, “Young Master Ma, am I able to have a dance with you?”
Li Yingjie was an impulsive person but he was not stupid. He knew that three ladies had their eyes set on him. However, because of his background, he was used to seeing beautiful ladies. He was not interested in these unpresentable ladies. He replied without hesitation, “I am not interested.”
The tall lady’s expression changed. She didn’t expect Li Yingjie to blatantly reject her. She thought that, to maintain their reputation, wealthy people would accept a request even if they didn’t like it.
Li Lanfeng smiled secretly. He pushed Li Yingjie out because of his personality. He was an arrogant and haughty person. He didn’t care about his reputation. Even his friends found him irritating at times.
“Little brother Ma Rao, don’t be like this. Give us some face and dance with us.” One of the ladies tried to grab Li Yingjie’s arm.
Li Yingjie tilted his body and dodged the lady’s hand. He rolled his eyes and replied, “Why should I be nice to you all? Also, don’t call me little brother. You have no right to call me that.” The three ladies’ expression changed immediately when they heard the imperious statement by Li Yingjie. They didn’t expect this rich young master to be so direct. They didn’t know how to continue their act.
Li Lanfeng gave a forced smile and tried to salvage the situation. “Young Master Ma’s temper is not good. Why don’t I dance with you all?”
Him? The three ladies pouted. They had checked the background of these six people and knew that besides Ma Rao, the rest were commoners. They were just lucky enough to meet Ma Rao in the academy and became Ma Rao’s sidekicks. If not, they might not even be able to get on the Feiyang Ship and enjoy this cruise. These people were not worth their time.
“Since Young Master Ma doesn’t want to dance, let’s forget about it then.” The three ladies decided to be shameless and stayed near them even though they were rejected mercilessly.
At that moment, Ling Lan suddenly saw a familiar person bringing a bunch of people over to their area. She kicked Qi Long who was enjoying his food and pointed a finger in that direction.
Qi Long stood up instantly. In the process, he almost flipped over the plate of food in front of him. The three girls looked at him with contempt. As expected of a commoner. He had no table manners at all.
Qi Long gave a humble smile and waved at the person. He shouted, “Tour Guide Zhou!”
His loud voice irritated the people around him. It echoed in the room and even those people further away could hear him.
Zhou Guangli saw him and immediately said something to the people beside him. Then, the group of them walked over. The expression of the three ladies changed. They felt that things were going out of their control.
“Young Master Ma Rao, An Jieming, Lu Liyi, Qin Feng, He Lin, He Anya. I went to your rooms to look for you all. I didn’t expect you all to be so early… Ah, Miss Gu, Miss Qin, Miss Yu. You all are here too.” Zhou Guangli saw the three ladies after he greeted Ling Lan and her friends. He was slightly surprised to see them.
The three ladies smiled. “Yes. We met Young Master Ma Rao and his friends so we had a chat with them.” They winked at Li Yingjie after they finished speaking.
Li Yingjie frowned. He didn’t hide his look of disgust. The three ladies were furious when they saw the reaction from Li Yingjie. They cursed at him in their mind and felt that he was not romantic at all.
“Oh, who is this? He is so handsome.” A woman around 50 years old saw Li Yingjie’s look of contempt and had a good impression of this young man. She walked over and grabbed Li Yingjie’s hand.
This woman looked like around his mother’s age. Li Yingjie didn’t like people touching his hand but since the other party was much older, he controlled his unhappiness and replied, “Auntie, my name is Ma Yao.”
The middle-aged woman noticed the unhappiness in Li Yingjie’s eyes but he didn’t pull his hand back and still answered her question. She knew that he was a good child and liked him even more. If her son was beside her, he would be around his age.
“Good child. My name is Lu Chaoying. You can call me Aunt Lu,” Lu Chaoying replied with a smile.
Li Yingjie twitched his mouth. This woman was too friendly. However, he couldn’t get angry at a woman her age so he called, “Aunt Lu.”
“Yes.” Lu Chaoying acknowledged him happily. She pulled Li Yingjie and sat down on the sofa with him. She used her butt to push the lady that was sitting beside Li Yingjie. The lady was pushed to the side and almost knocked into her two friends.
Li Yingjie saw this and became friendlier towards Lu Chaoying. He was calling her Aunt Lu more willingly now just because she stopped the three ladies from pestering him.
Lu Chaoying sat down and called her friends to gather around too. The middle-aged women were all good at talking. After some sarcastic remarks, the three ladies couldn’t sit still anymore. They said that they would take a walk around and left the area.
Lu Chaoying saw that the three ladies finally left and smirked. “Why are you all with those three ladies?”
Li Yingjie glanced at Li Lanfeng angrily. Li Lanfeng shrugged innocently. “I don’t know how we got together. I hinted to them that they should leave but they just ignored me.”
My dear, when did you hint that they should leave? Aren’t you the one who was the most excited? How shameless are you?
Ling Lan and her other companions didn’t know where to look so they decided to just close their eyes. They felt ashamed for their friend.
One of the women smiled. “You all are still young so it is understandable that you all don’t know how to deal with these shameless ladies.” Then, the women started talking about the background and motive of the three ladies. Ling Lan and her friends looked shocked at what they said. The women saw their innocent expressions and wanted to caress them. They were around the same age as their children so their motherly instinct got activated.
Of course, the most important factor that made the women liked them so much were their looks. All of them looked innocent and humble. To them, even Li Yingjie was better-looking than their own children. The term for it was ‘other people’s children’.
To protect the six little boys, the women took turns guarding the boys. While some of them went to dance with their husbands, others would sit beside the little boys. Their presence deterred many people who wanted to get close to Ling Lan and her comrades. The five of them ate their food happily from the start till the end of the dance party. Only Li Yingjie looked at them with disdain as they ate. He wondered why he brought these five pigs out to bring shame to himself.
The women laughed at them secretly. These little boys were so cute. Why were their children not as cute as them? At that moment, their children felt a chill down their spine and thought that they were sick.
Li Yingjie brought the five pigs back to their room. He closed the door and listened carefully. After confirming that there was no one around them, he rushed towards Li Lanfeng angrily and grabbed his collar. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Li Yingjie raised his eyebrows. He smiled and flicked his finger at Li Yingjie’s wrist. Li Yingjie felt a huge force on his wrist and he released his grip.
Li Lanfeng tidied his clothes. He said calmly, “I am just using you to find out what the three ladies wanted.”
Li Yingjie was stunned. He looked at Lin Zhong-qing. As compared to the other people, he trusted Lin Zhong-qing more.
Lin Zhong-qing nodded. Li Yingjie was shocked. “Those ladies?”
Li Lanfeng flicked Li Yingjie’s forehead. Li Yingjie groaned in pain and held his forehead. He asked furiously, “Why did you hit me?”
“Because you are too stupid. If you want to stay alive and be safe, be more careful,” Li Lanfeng warned him. He touched his fingers and understood why Ling Lan liked to flick people’s forehead. It felt good.
Li Yingjie glared at Li Lanfeng angrily. Li Lanfeng smiled at him coldly. “Let me ask you, did you know who those three ladies were?”
“Aren’t they just commoners who wanted to hook a big fish?” Li Yingjie thought for a moment and came up with the answer.
Li Lanfeng reached out and grabbed Li Yingjie’s neck. “If you are still so stupid, I will kill you now so that you won’t get killed by other people. Don’t bring shame to the Li family.”
“How dare you!” Li Yingjie struggled and broke free from Li Lanfeng’s grip. He replied in anger, “I am the successor of the Li family. You are from the branch family. What right do you have to say that?”
“As long as it affects the reputation of the Li family, any members of the Li family could kill him or her. I believe that you didn’t forget this rule, right?” Li Lanfeng replied coldly.
“How did I ruin the reputation of the Li family?” Li Yingjie knew this rule. He viewed the Li family as his most important responsibility so he was indignant when he heard what Li Lanfeng said.
“If you don’t want to ruin the Li family’s reputation, you must be smarter. Don’t look at things on the surface level,” Li Lanfeng shouted. Li Yingjie got a shock.
The two people glared at each other. Ling Lan rubbed her eyebrows and said indifferently, “Why don’t you all sit down and talk.”
Li Yingjie heard what Boss Lan said and sat down angrily.
“Lanfeng, speak nicely to Li Yingjie.” Ling Lan persuaded Li Lanfeng.
Li Lanfeng smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I was too impulsive. I will tell you all what I found and you all can add on if I miss out anything.”
Li Lanfeng calmed down and went through his thoughts. After a while, he said, “When the three ladies came to find us, they didn’t make any sound. Only people with physical skills level 6 foundations can do this. Hence, they learned how to soften their footsteps before…”
Qi Long, Zhao Jun, and Lin Zhong-qing nodded. They realized this too. Li Yingjie’s face turned red as he didn’t notice this.
He did realize that the three ladies had physical skill. However, their level was too low so he put down his guard as he felt that they were not a threat to him. Hence, he missed these little details.
“When I ask for their hands to palm-read, I noticed some calluses on their right palm. The skin between the forefinger and middle finger, on the middle finger tip, the area between the thumb and forefinger, were rough. It had been softened using special means but if you feel it carefully, you can still feel its roughness,” Li Lanfeng continued.
“Of course, according to what they said, doing housework can make one’s hand rough too. However, doing housework alone would not allow anyone to get calluses between the middle and forefinger.”
“Gun training.” Li Yingjie understood what Li Lanfeng meant.
“Yes. This is one possibility. Calluses would only form after years and years of practice. The only people that needed to undergo such massive gun training are either snipers or assassins.” Li Lanfeng said his analysis. “However, military snipers are rarely females. This is because females are naturally not as calm as a male. There is no way that three female snipers would appear at the same time. Hence, they can only be assassins!”
“Assassins.” Li Yingjie shouted the word at the same time as Li Lanfeng.
“When I was fooling around with them, I touched their waist. Their waist was much softer than a normal female’s waist. This meant that they learned skills such as jiu jitsu before. From the way they winked, I could tell that they had many experiences with men…” Li Lanfeng told them everything that he observed.
Li Yingjie got an inspiration. “Are you saying that they kill people on bed?”
Li Lanfeng nodded. “In order to make their targets lower their guards, the three ladies have weak physical skills. No one would feel that they are a threat. However, their weapon is not their physical skills nor their gun skills. It is a miniature knife on hidden on their body.”
Li Lanfeng reached out his right hand. There were four glass balls between his fingers. He closed his hand. When he opened them again, only one glass ball remained between his fore and middle finger. The ball moved smoothly around his hand as he moved his fingers. “They must have practised meticulously in order to use this miniature knife. That is why there are calluses between their fore and middle fingers.”
Li Yingjie suddenly remembered that Ling Lan used to play with a glass ball when they were still in the Scout Academy. Li Lanfeng had a glass ball too? And he knew how to play with it too?
Li Yingjie looked at Ling Lan with sad eyes. Why didn’t he teach him this skill? They were from the same Scout Academy. Why did Ling Lan teach Li Lanfeng, whom he met in the military academy, but not teach him? Li Yingjie felt hurt.
Li Lanfeng ignored Li Yingjie’s feelings and continued, “They must have targeted Li Yingjie because they want to get onto the third floor. The person that we are protecting is on the third floor. I feel that their real target is the person we are protecting. Li Yingjie is just a stepping stone.”
Li Yingjie snorted. He felt that he could finally vent some anger out. “Weird. Are you saying that they will get close to the princess and lured the princess to their bed and kill her? There is something wrong with your analysis.” How could they kill the princess with such weak physical skills? If he remembered correctly, the princess had reached the peak of refinement. It was rare for a female to reach the peak of refinement so the princess was quite powerful.
“I said that their target is the princess but I didn’t say that they would be the ones who kills her,” Li Lanfeng answered calmly.
“What do you mean?” Li Yingjie asked.
“They will probably find the bodyguards of the princess so that they could get some information from them. They will then pass these information to their leader and their leader will send other stronger assassins to assassinate the princess.”
Li Lanfeng added, “Of course, there is also another possibility that they want to use the people around the princess to get close to the princess. After all, they have more than one skill. They can kill the princess with a gun too.”
Li Yingjie had nothing to refute. He sat quietly at the side of the room.
“However, we were almost targeted. Even Li Yingjie’s merciless rejection couldn’t hinder them. If the aunties didn’t help, I will not know what to do with those three ladies too.”
Li Lanfeng smiled bitterly. He got what he wanted but the three ladies almost managed to get what they wanted too. At first, he hoped that Li Yingjie’s haughty personality would scare the three ladies away. However, he underestimated how shameless and unscrupulous the assassins were.
