Translator: Myuu Editor: Kelaude
“Young Master, that man just now was Wu Tao. He’s a broker from the Rising Moon Tower in Hu Provincial City who’s an unreasonable hoodlum. Now that you’ve hit him, you should hurry and run before you get into trouble. That person will definitely send someone after you. Wu Tao is a vicious, merciless, and sinister man. You can’t fall into his hands. Countless young men who had just arrived at Hu Provincial City have already become his victims…” Before Yan Liqiang had managed to go too far, a kind old man approached him from behind on the street. He whispered a warning to Yan Liqiang to look out for that man who might come back for revenge.
“Thank you for the information, Old Man. May I ask what sort of place is the Rising Moon Tower?” Yan Liqiang blinked in curiosity.
“Some men don’t fancy women, but men instead. The Rising Moon Tower is a place where these kinds of men may seek pleasure. There are many beautiful male escorts in the tower. In Hu Provincial City, the people from the Rising Moon Tower mustn’t be offended…”
Beautiful male escorts?
Yan Liqiang almost choked when he heard that word. These so-called ‘male escorts’ were selling their bodies and actually cross-dressed to please their male patrons.
That person named Wu Tao from earlier had probably laid down a trap and tried to deceive him into becoming one of those male escorts who would sell a piece of their ass to others at Rising Moon Tower!
What the f*ck!
This was actually the first time something like this had happened to Yan Liqiang over his two lifetimes. He couldn’t believe he would get into this kind of trouble just for being too handsome.
After giving Yan Liqiang a soft warning, the kind-hearted old man parted ways with Yan Liqiang when he saw an intersection in the marketplace ahead of them, probably afraid that someone from the Rising Moon Tower would have arrived to take their revenge.
Just a few minutes ago, Yan Liqiang was still thinking about how to earn a living from painting. In just the blink of an eye, a hoodlum had managed to get him into a mess like this.
At this very moment, Yan Liqiang recalled the Blue Faced Beast, Yang Zhi, from ‘Water Margin’ who sold his precious saber [1]. Oftentimes, even if you didn’t seek for trouble, trouble would come looking for you.
However, the plot had been altered so he could only act according to the situation. Besides, Yan Liqiang wasn’t Yang Zhi.
Yan Liqiang walked while contemplating. He slowly squinted his eyes, giving off a sharp and heated gaze.
The marketplace was very lively with all the food and drinks. There were quite a number of vendor stands lined up by the roadside. Yan Liqiang couldn’t even shop for more than a few minutes before he felt a few piercing gazes on him. When he tried to linger in front of a candy seller’s vendor stand, Yan Liqiang stole a glance at the crowd behind him. He discovered two men in their thirties already trailing behind him in the distance. Though the marketplace was crowded, the two men tried to blend in with the crowd and pretended to shop around. The distance between them and Yan Liqiang was only seventy or eighty meters, but Yan Liqiang still managed to detect their strange behaviors.
Both of them were fully dressed in trendy black training garbs. Their faces were pale and their gazes were sinister. Anyone could tell from just a glance that they were not kind people.
Yan Liqiang deliberately went for a few rounds on the streets of the marketplace. Both of them continued following him too. No matter where Yan Liqiang went, they followed. With this, Yan Liqiang was very certain about one thing.
He guessed that it was probably because the marketplace was too crowded and busy, so these people didn’t dare to openly lay a finger on him in fear of arousing public anger. Therefore, they were sent to stalk him first.
Yan Liqiang spotted an exceptionally prosperous roasted meat stall with quite a number of people crowded in front of it picking their food. The boss seemed to be awfully busy so Yan Liqiang joined the crowd and watched for quite a while before he left.
There were a few exits in the marketplace. After touring the marketplace once, Yan Liqiang came back to the entrance he entered from earlier. The moment he exited the marketplace, he immediately broke into a sprint towards the road he had taken on a horse carriage outside the city.
Half a minute later, Wu Tao, with his swollen face, quickly appeared at this entrance of the marketplace along with those two men at the same time.
“Where is that little bastard?” Wu Tao seethed through his teeth while fiercely scanning the surroundings. “Once I get that little bastard in my hands, I’ll show him my true colors!”
“Master Wu, look…!” The person in black training garbs beside him pointed into the distance. “That guy escaped…!”
Wu Tao lifted his gaze and saw a figure sprinting in the distance roughly more than 200 meters away under the moonlight. Who else would it be if it wasn’t Yan Liqiang?
“GO AFTER HIM!” Wu Tao wasted no time in leading the other two to chase after Yan Liqiang.
When he caught up to Yan Liqiang, he simply did not want to only take revenge and make Yan Liqiang regret it, the most important thing was still money. How could Wu Tao let such a treasure like Yan Liqiang slip away from him? Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time Wu Tao and the other two had to do something like this. The three of them ran after Yan Liqiang as hard as they could.
Under the starry skies, Yan Liqiang sprinted in the opposite direction, leading the three people behind him towards the road he had come from during the day.
…
At this moment, the crowd in front of the roasted meat stall back at the marketplace had thinned out a little. The boss of the stall only realized now that one of the meat hooks he used to hang his roasted meat on was missing.
…
The further away they were from Hu Provincial City, the less travelers there were on the road. After running five or six thousand meters away, the travelers basically disappeared as the brightly lit village disappeared past the roadside. The scenery on either side of the road grew more bleak and the fields became scarce while weeds and wood became a common sight.
“STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU LITTLE BASTARDDD!” Wu Tao yelled while chasing along with the other two. At this point, the distance between the three of them and Yan Liqiang had been reduced by more than half. Initially, they were more than 200 meters apart, but now they were only a little more than 100 meters away from him. This motivated the three of them and they refused to give up so easily.
Needless to say, Yan Liqiang wasn’t going to stand still. He continued running towards the place in his memory.
The sprint lasted about thirty to forty minutes. They kept running until they were at the foot of a hill which was more than ten kilometers away from Hu Provincial City. Under the gaze of the three men behind him, Yan Liqiang quickly ran into the forest next to the roadside.
By now, the three people behind him were already panting hard like tired dogs. Fortunately, they still had the stamina to go on. When they saw Yan Liqiang entering the forest at the side, the three of them followed suit without any second thoughts.
At this point, there weren’t many people on the road anymore, much less in the forest.
“Be careful…” Wu Tao was already all pale from all the running. He couldn’t speak without panting. “Be careful in case that little bastard is trying to pull something…”
“Master Wu, he’s outnumbered since there’s three of us. What is there to be afraid of? What can a fourteen-year-old child possibly do? I can easily strangle him single-handedly. It will be fine as long as the three of us stick together. That child is most likely tired and found somewhere to hide…” The person beside Wu Tao said this while panting. He pushed away the branches in front of him and walked in front. The person behind him thought for a moment and decided to unsheath the dagger hanging at his waist.
All the three of them entered the forest.
The inside of the forest was poorly lit, especially during nighttime. The shadows of the trees were dense, causing the illumination of the moon and the stars in the sky to appear as if it had been cut into pieces. This greatly affected one’s visibility. Only the buzzing noises of bugs and the sound of running water from the river nearby could be heard.
…
Wu Tao and the rest ventured a few hundred meters into the forest in just a flash. The three of them opened their eyes and searched for Yan Liqiang’s figure in the forest with their jaws clenched.
All of a sudden, a noise erupted near the bushes below a tree that was nearby. The three of them instantly rushed over without thinking and split open the bushes.
However, there was nothing hiding in the bushes…
Just when the three of them were baffled, a dark shadow emerged behind them silently, hanging upside down from one of trees beside them — Yan Liqiang was hanging from the tree by his legs, and his head and torso dangled from the tree. His eyes gleamed coldly and he was holding an iron hook that was of more than a foot long.
“Strange, could it have been a rat or rabbit just now?” The moment the man in black that was holding a dagger turned his head around, his eyes met Yan Liqiang who was hanging upside down. The distance between them was less than a meter.
Before that person could even scream, Yan Liqiang had already struck out with the iron hook in his hand. The sharp end of the hook almost instantly penetrated his eye and pierced into his brain. That man collapsed before he could even utter a word in time.
Yan Liqiang then jumped off the tree with a roll. The moment the other man in black heard movement behind him and abruptly turned around, the hook in Yan Liqiang’s hand had already pierced his throat. The man let out a blood-curdling scream and he placed his hand over his throat before he collapsed on the ground.
Yan Liqiang’s unexpected appearance and the blood-curdling scream of the man in black had frightened Wu Tao who was at the side. He let out a terrified scream and wasted no time in dashing towards the exit of the forest, abandoning his other two companions.
Yan Liqiang flipped to get up, but since he wouldn’t be able to chase after Wu Tao in time, he conveniently picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground and powerfully hurled it at Wu Tao.
The distance between them wasn’t that huge, so the rock hit Wu Tao’s leg, knocking him down with his miserable shriek.
Fresh blood flowed out like water from the neck of the man dressed in black who wasn’t dead yet on the floor. He covered the wound on his neck with his hand as he watched Yan Liqiang who stood before him in panic. Yan Liqiang raised the ice-cold and sinister-looking hook high up in the air under the moonlight, looking like a butcher who was walking in the dark.
“No…”
For uttering that word, the hook Yan Liqiang was holding ruthlessly came down again, right into his chest…
Yan Liqiang flung the weapon in his hands firmly and coldly. Every downward stab was merciless and the sharp tip of the hook was aimed at the man’s vital parts — his neck, his head, and his chest…
Once… Twice… Thrice… Four times… Ten times…
Blood splattered everywhere from the man’s neck and head, covering Yan Liqiang’s entire face.
After getting stabbed more than ten times, the person on the ground had stopped breathing and his body been terribly mutilated.
Yan Liqiang wiped the blood which had splattered on his face and turned around, making his way towards Wu Tao who was just nearby.
Wu Tao had crawled a few meters away. The rock Yan Liqiang hurled at him earlier had instantly broken his shin and he couldn’t even stand up right now.
Hearing the movement coming from behind him, Wu Tao, who was crawling on the ground, instantly turned his head around. The sight of Yan Liqiang and his blood-smeared face had instantly frightened him stiff. It was only at this moment that Wu Tao realized how terrifyingly cold Yan Liqiang’s perfectly handsome face was. It was almost demonic.
“I am from the Rising Moon Court. If you dare to lay a finger on me…” Wu Tao screamed.
Yan Liqiang remained silent. He went over to Wu Tao and wordlessly raised his hand before bringing it down mercilessly. The hook landed squarely on the crown of Wu Tao’s head, stuffing the rest of Wu Tao’s sentence right back into his stomach.
Wu Tao’s body twitched and twisted in pain. Yan Liqiang stepped on Wu Tao’s back with one foot and then once again lifted his hand. The icy hook was repeatedly brought downwards in a merciless manner. Every time it did, another deep, bloody hole opened up on Wu Tao’s body.
After about ten times, Wu Tao stayed motionless…
The gloomy forest reeked of blood…
