Fangs (Part 1)

Night had fallen, and the forest was so dark it was nearly deathly silent. Feeling her way along tree trunk after tree trunk, she ran forward with the last of her strength.

Voices drifted faintly over from far away. They should have gone after that boy, but she knew that demon would definitely be clinging close behind her, unwilling to let her go so easily.

Every step she took sent searing pain through her entire body. Yet she still had to be careful. Gritting her teeth, she lifted her feet lightly and set them down lightly. She had to maintain her speed, but she had to move gently too. Her hands were tucked lightly inside her wide sleeves, because all her fingernails had been broken. She could not let blood drip onto the ground.

For a ninja, even the slightest clue could be fatal.

The harsh training she had once endured could only do so much now. The torment of the past few days, the exhaustion, and the hunger all surged up during these intense few dozen minutes. Her head swam, and she could see nothing before her, which meant her eyesight had also been affected. In the past, she should still have been able to see clearly in a forest like this.

Whenever her hand found nothing to support her, she staggered and nearly fell to the ground. At such times, she could only tap the ground lightly with her sleeve, and then a pain that sank into her bones shot through her fingers.

And in truth, she was still only a child...

She wanted to sleep. She wanted to rest. If she closed her eyes, all the pain would ease a little. But no matter how desperately she longed to fall asleep, she still could not close her eyes, even though all she could see was darkness...

At last, at some point, a faint glimmer came from ahead. She emerged from the edge of the forest, only to freeze abruptly. Before her lay a vast, surging river. The great river stretched across this place, passed through Jianghai City, then rushed into the sea. With a river this wide, even if she were uninjured, she could never have crossed it.

The forest remained behind her. Standing there, she suddenly felt lost. Where... could she go?

If she went directly into the water, her current condition would make it hurt terribly. But after that, everything would be over. Her training had taught her that she could not give up her life while even the slightest hope remained. But if she turned back... she knew she could not escape much farther...

She swayed as she turned in place twice, still unable to decide, when a figure suddenly flashed out from the woods some distance away. Holding that katana, it was the very person she had been fleeing from.

Suddenly, she ran toward the riverbank with all her strength.

Using the last of her life's strength—

With a smack, the old man caught up to her. The back of his katana struck hard against her left calf, and she staggered, about to fall onto the pebble-covered riverbank. The old man steadied himself inwardly, but then saw that Yuechi Xun still had strength left. She braced fiercely with her right leg and stumbled forward several more steps. Then her right leg was struck again. At last, she fell onto the riverbank.

"There's no possibility left, Kaoru." Looking at the girl struggling forward across the riverbank, the old man spoke softly. "Tell me the secret of Chiying Qianhuan. I'll help treat your injuries and let you go."

The girl did not answer, stubbornly continuing to crawl forward.

"Have you still not realized it? The Yuechi Family is already in a grave crisis!" the old man said in a deep voice. "The Yuechi clan has provoked Peiluojia. I know you have already sought Takama-ga-hara's help, but what is Takama-ga-hara now? They call themselves Japan's oldest alliance of Evolved Ones, but how many formidable Evolved Ones do they have now? They cannot even compare to China's Yanhuang Awakening! Peiluojia is not an ordinary organization. If necessary, they can mobilize half the assassins in the world. Their Evolved Ones alone greatly outnumber Takama-ga-hara's. With those ill-mannered juniors under Ten'u Masanori, do you think you can stand against Mishou Tsuka's ambitions? At a time like this, only Europe's You'an Tianqin can help."

By this point, he seemed to have become somewhat hysterical. "I'm right. Only I can save the Yuechi Family, but first you must help me reclaim the position of family head... It was mine to begin with!"

Had Jiaming heard this speech now, he might have said the old man's judgment was correct. In his original life, the reason he met Yuechi Xun was because he had happened to infiltrate the Yuechi Family as an undercover agent then. A few days after Yuechi Xun committed suicide, Peiluojia began hunting down the Yuechi clan. Afterward, most of Takama-ga-hara's members were wiped out by Peiluojia's Ability User teams. If the Yuechi Family at the time had sought help from Europe's largest dark organization, You'an Tianqin, in addition to joining forces with Takama-ga-hara, they truly might have held out for a while.

As for the later battle between Peiluojia and You'an Tianqin, and the fact that Peiluojia was fighting fiercely with China's Yanhuang Awakening when Jiaming encountered Fire Phoenix—those things did not even count as later developments yet, so there was no need to say more.

The old man's furious shout seemed to startle Yuechi Xun. Then she suddenly turned around and hurled a pebble at him. The old man dodged with a flash, and the back of his blade struck the artery in the girl's neck. Her body immediately went limp, and she lost consciousness.

"I'm right. I'm right..." Facing the vast river, the old man muttered those words. Only after a long while did he grab the girl's body, sling her over his shoulder, and slowly head back.

As winter had essentially arrived, night came quickly once the sun set. Lights came on in the small square. On the second floor of that two-story building, Cao Jinghao was making a phone call in one of the rooms.

"...I'm telling you, get him to sign it already! Fine, fine, if he won't agree to that little bit, forget it. Damn it, Monkey and the others still aren't back. That little boy must have been caught, but Liu Huaisha will be tough. She's trained in martial arts since childhood, she's physically strong, and she had another ten-minute head start. She might have already gotten away."

"But there aren't many cars passing through here at night, and there's no phone. It'll probably take her one or two hours to get into the city and report us. Hurry up and settle it. Tell him his daughter ate something bad over here and has a terrible stomachache, but there's nothing we can do. I'm in the mob—how would I dare take her to a hospital? Once he signs, it's ours. Any further wrangling or fighting can wait until tomorrow! Damn!"

After hanging up, he paced around the room several times. Monkey was doing an awful job. Even if he had not caught the girl, he should at least have captured the boy and rescued Dongfeng. No matter what, he should have called back. It was not as though Cao Jinghao had not given him a mobile phone. He was always too stingy to use it...

Irritated, he walked out of the room and looked down from the second-floor balcony. Most of the men had gone out to search for people, but there should still have been someone downstairs. Turning to look toward a room to the side, he saw several underlings playing cards inside.

"Erzi, where are A-Ming and the others?"

"Oh, Boss." One thug set down his cards. "A-Ming and A-Cheng are guarding the gate. Aren't A-Jian and A-Chuan downstairs?"

"Downstairs?" Cao Jinghao looked out over the square, a vague sense of unease rising in his heart. "Where is anyone downstairs? Something's wrong. Go find A-Jian and A-Chuan. I'll call Monkey and ask what's happening."

He returned to the room and quickly dialed the number. Just as he pressed the final button, several deafening explosions boomed out. His heart lurched. He took a pistol from the drawer and tucked it on himself, then hurried outside with the phone. "What happened? What happened?"

The underlings had not yet gone downstairs. They all stood stunned on the balcony, staring over at a small shed by the square that had been completely blown apart. Flames blazed fiercely in the late autumn night wind.

"Damn, it's the garage. All our cars have been blown up."

"Who knows how many people Liu Zheng sent over. A-Ming and A-Cheng didn't even send a warning."

"Grab your weapons..."

"Boss, hurry and call Monkey and get them back."

For a moment, chaos broke out. Four or five people rushed back into their rooms to grab knives. At that moment, the call connected. Cao Jinghao spoke into the phone, "Monkey, what the hell is going on with you? Forget it if you couldn't catch that little bitch, just get back here now. Liu Zheng has come to our door..." At that point, his entire body froze.

A bloody human head rolled out from one corner of the small square. Within the shadows cast by the lights stood a blurry figure, holding a mobile phone toward them.

"Mhm, was this brick's original owner named Monkey? I'm sorry, but he probably can't talk to you anymore. Though when he died, he did seem like he wanted to make a phone call to you."

"You... who are you...?"

After asking that question, a chill surged through Cao Jinghao's heart, because he had recognized the voice on the phone. It belonged to that child named Gu Jiaming.

"Who am I... Heh heh. More precisely, it should be the meaning represented by what I'm doing now. This is the style of a very famous killer in the dark world—cutting off his enemies' heads, giving them the greatest possible fear. Of course, you probably won't know who he is... Actually, that's no longer important..."