Fangs (Part 2)

Gradually, she woke from her coma.

The gray-black outlines of the surroundings slowly came into view. Just as expected, that perverted old man was carrying her over his shoulder, making his way back to the lumber processing plant along the path at the edge of the forest.

The places pressed against his shoulder burned with pain, and every jolt sent waves of agony through her body. The perverted old man must have realized she was awake. He neither spoke nor acted because all the nails on both her hands had been broken...

But that was all right...

Her arms hung down like those of a cripple. As the muscles in his shoulders shifted slightly with each step, a sharp-edged pebble slowly slipped from her sleeve.

Her movements were slow, and her body lay still as though she were dead. Yet perhaps she had been too slow. Before long, the outline of the lumber processing plant appeared in her sight. The old man walked at an unhurried pace, gradually approaching the small rear gate. Suddenly, he stopped and sniffed.

"There's a smell of blood..."

But Yuechi Xun also smelled of blood. Before the old man could confirm his suspicion, a gunshot rang out from the small square over there. Startled, he pushed open the little gate. He had only taken one step inside when Yuechi Xun flew off his shoulder!

Her wide kimono spun through the wind like a butterfly, and the round stone clenched in her hand slashed toward the old man's neck like lightning. Yet the old man reacted with astonishing speed, abruptly reaching out to grab Yuechi Xun. He missed.

Her airborne body strangely slid through the air for some distance, somehow already behind the old man. The sharp edge of the stone cut toward the back of his unguarded head.

Chiying Qianhuan!

Red clouds unfurled in the darkness. The instant the two met, the girl's body traced an arc through the air as the old man flung her away. At some point, he had actually caught hold of her clothing.

She wore no underwear beneath her kimono. With only white socks on her otherwise naked body, she was flung nearly fifteen feet through the air before crashing onto a patch of illuminated ground in one corner of the square. Her barely developed naked body was covered in gashes, their shocking red making it look as though she had been dressed in a layer of underwear—or had a layer of skin peeled away. Lying on the ground, she struggled instinctively a couple of times and spat out a thread of blood. Yet her right hand still stubbornly clutched that stone.

It was her only weapon. Though now, it seemed to have lost all meaning.

The old man held the wide kimono in one hand and reached back to touch the back of his head, only to find blood on his fingers. Looking at it, he suddenly laughed. "Heh heh, good. Chiying Qianhuan... Chiying Qianhuan... Xun, since your sneak attack failed this time, you can try again..."

He wanted to figure out the secret of Chiying Qianhuan through battle. But looking at the naked girl lying on her back beneath the lights, she seemed nearly dead. How could she possibly fight? He took several steps forward, and only then, standing before the girl, did he clearly see the scene in the square. He froze.

The two buildings in the logging yard stood at a ninety-degree angle. When he had entered through the small gate earlier, the two-story building had blocked his view. Only now, when he reached the boundary between light and shadow at the diagonal corner of the two buildings, did he see everything in the small square. Four or five headless corpses lay scattered around the square, pools of blood glaring crimson. A small shack across the square was blazing with fire, which looked ready to spread to the surrounding buildings. Yet beside a water pipe on the other side of the square, there was still a child washing a machete.

After being thrown like that, Yuechi Xun was terribly dizzy as well. It took her a long time to make out the old man's expression. Then, struggling to turn onto her side, the two members of the Yuechi Family both fixed their gazes on the corpses and the child standing at the front of the square. The old man tightened his grip on his katana, but neither of them spoke.

After slowly washing the machete clean, he began rinsing a dagger. Then he picked up a bar of soap beside him and washed his hands. Only then did the boy turn around, smile at them, and bow.

"It's been a long time, you two. What a coincidence." In Yuechi Xun's confused vision, the child who had been trembling in terror just moments ago now spoke flawless Tokyo-accented Japanese.

"Welcome to China."

A chill rose involuntarily through the old man's body.

At some point, Cao Dongfeng had also regained consciousness in the woods.

It was pitch-black all around. He did not dare move carelessly. Only after feeling out his surroundings did he roughly realize that he was up in a large tree.

How the hell had that bastard Gu Jiaming carried him up here...

After calming himself down, he felt around and took a box of matches from his pocket. He struck one, estimated the height from the tree to the ground, and then climbed down the trunk.

When he landed, he recalled what Gu Jiaming had said before.

...It's despair.

Naturally, he neither understood nor believed those words. But since Gu Jiaming had left him in a tree, even if the others caught him, they probably would not kill him right away. Once he got back, he would make Gu Jiaming suffer properly—make him beg for death and be denied even that!

With that thought in mind, he had not gone far when something suddenly tripped him.

He struck a match. The first one went out. The second finally lit, and as he moved it toward whatever had tripped him, he saw that it was a human leg. The flame traveled upward along the leg. The clothes were familiar—leather pants, then a leather jacket, and then—

Aaaahhhhhh—

A scream of utter terror rang through the woods. Cao Dongfeng scrambled backward several steps, pressing himself against a thick tree trunk. His heart nearly leaped out of his chest. It was a headless corpse!

...It's despair.

In his daze, it seemed as though someone whispered in his ear.

His hands did not know where to go, fumbling and trembling across the ground. Suddenly, his fingers touched something soft and fleshy. He crawled away several more steps in terror. Only after a long while did another match flare up, wavering as it stretched toward the object he had touched.

—A human head!

This time, his teeth chattered madly, but he finally did not scream. After a long time, a low sob escaped him. "Help... Someone save me..."

He gathered a pile of leaves with both hands and tried many times before finally lighting them with a match. By the firelight, everything within several yards gradually became clear. The headless body, the human head—this man really was one of his father's subordinates. And not far away in the darkness, another corpse seemed to be leaning against a tree trunk. From here, it looked as though that one had lost its head as well.

Trying his best not to look at the horrifying corpses, Cao Dongfeng tremblingly placed several branches into the fire. Once they caught, he took the crude torch and charged madly in a direction where there were no bodies.

After rushing forward several steps, he abruptly stopped and threw up. Ahead of him lay another headless corpse, its belly split open, its internal organs spilling out. Looking at the head on the ground beside it, it was still one of the subordinates his father had brought to rescue him.

Running for his life while vomiting frantically was probably a rather rare sight. Of course, there was no one nearby to admire it. He changed direction and ran a few steps, only to find another body, another head, another body, another head. Most of them bore various other wounds, but without exception, they were all his father's subordinates, and all had been beheaded. He ran wildly without direction. Then, at one moment, he suddenly realized that every time he encountered a corpse, he changed direction—and now, he had run back to where he started!

The fire he had just lit had spread to the tree and was now blazing fiercely. The first headless body he had discovered still lay on the ground. He stared stiffly at the corpse as Gu Jiaming's final words echoed once more.

It's... despair!

No, Dad must still be all right. He had to command the overall situation, so he would not have come in. He must still be all right...

He was not familiar with this place even in normal times, and it was even harder to find his way in the darkness. But this time, he ignored the corpses and roughly judged the direction of the lumber processing plant as he felt his way toward it...

Ah, what the hell, what the hell? Why did the Sanjiang Pavilion refresh now? Wasn't it supposed to switch at midnight...

Never mind. There'll be another chapter tonight. I'll also give every chapter a lewd title... And votes, please (*^__^*)

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