Chapter 218: Meeting an Old Friend Far from Home

Tang Qian was a forty-one-year-old Swarm Chosen One.

He was a mercenary from the Central Lands, a gold-medal service provider for Didi Beatdown, a rentable bodyguard with only a forty-one percent positive rating on the Wasteland Assembly, a runner-up in the fourteenth Northern Thousand Islands Competitive Eating Championship, a silver card member of the Red Phoenix Nightclub, and, on top of all that, a sovereign Chosen One of the Swarm Path.

The names he commonly used included Tom, Jerry, Smith, Nakanojo, John Wang, Honest Chen, Yu Qiang, and many others. He used a different name for every job. For him, that was simply standard practice.

His combat strength was unknown. Against the weak, he slacked off. Against the strong, he played dead. With an entire lineage of ancestors packed into his body, he was the rare kind of man who could feed the whole family simply by feeding himself.

Unlike the terrifying three-headed, six-armed form of Asura at its peak, Tom had only one head and two arms at the moment. He stood there utterly bewildered, looking like a complete idiot as he struggled to understand the situation.

What had happened? Where was the enemy? Who the hell was he? How had the person he had been hired to protect ended up sprawled in a pool of blood while he took a dump?

Even more unexpectedly, he had run into an old acquaintance in a godforsaken place like Spring City.

What the hell are they doing here?!

Still reeling from the shock, he looked at the corpse on the floor, then at Ji Jue, then back at the corpse. Vigilant, Ji Xue bent forward slightly, both her hands pressing against the two short swords on her back as her expression turned cold.

Ji Jue placed a hand on her shoulder. He patted her lightly, signaling for her to rest. He would handle this.

He rose from the chair. Tom finally seemed to understand what was going on and let out a breath of relief.

“Well, I’ll be damned—Ji Jue?!” His lips split into a delighted grin, stretching from ear to ear. “It really is you? Long time no—”

Boom!

A crimson torrent surged forth, coiling around a spear that appeared out of thin air. A red gale howled as he charged forth, sweeping his surroundings in a windstorm! Nothing was more joyful than meeting an old friend far from home, just like rain after a long drought. What a joyous occasion! So why not start with a spear to the back, as a show of respect?

The spearhead tore through the air and slammed straight into the mercury iron wall that rose from the ground, something Ji Jue had prepared in secret. The spear sank almost all the way to the shaft, piercing through three mercury iron walls as easily as breaking dry bamboo. Each contained dozens of interlocking layers of reinforced structure, yet all three were torn apart as though they were nothing.

Behind the cracked and splintering iron wall, Ji Jue tilted his head. The spearpoint scraped past his ear by a hair’s breadth.

Just a little more...

This bastard really was a genuine Swarm-type. The moment he attacked, he went at it like a rabid dog, no hesitation whatsoever.

Ji Jue sighed. “How heartbreaking. I thought our friendship would last at least until we finished saying hello.”

“Didn’t we already say hello?”

Without even thinking, Tang Qian tilted his head and dodged Ji Xue’s slash despite her ability to speed herself up. With his right hand, he drew a hatchet and shattered the bullet Lou Feng fired from outside the bank. And with his left, he pulled free the longsword at his waist and swept it sideways, cutting the iron wall in half at the middle with a single strike.

The force of Tom’s swing carried on without pause. He swept the sword behind him and forced Ji Xue back as she charged in again.

Even with time accelerated for her, Ji Xue barely reacted. She leapt backward like a pole vaulter, arching over the blade just before it could cut her in half. Cold sweat soaked her back. This guy was too fast and strong, so much so that it was almost as if he had eyes on the back of his head.

With a single move, he parried and countered all at once. If Ji Liu had been here, the siblings could have been able to work together and take him two-on-one. Together, they probably stood a chance.

She saw the muscles on Tang Qian’s back bulge. Two arms stretched out of thin air, gripping a flail and a spear. He charged forward, smashing through the remaining iron walls that only slowed him down, slicing apart countless flexible threads spreading toward him as he pressed the attack.

Asura! There’s no way we can win this fight.

Tong Shan couldn’t break away at the moment. Ji Liu and Jiang Xuan were too far away, and even Horsey was nowhere nearby. So how was Ji Jue, an Ember-type, supposed to fight him?

The answer was simple. Fight, my ass. I might as well surrender!

Tang Qian had only been using basic attacks and techniques so far. He hadn’t even activated a single blessing!

Boom!

Tang Qian smashed the spikes that suddenly rose beneath his feet as he continued his charge. The spear left his hand, pierced through the defenses, and shot past Ji Jue’s head before nailing itself into the wall. It punched through four layers and vanished from sight, but Tang Qian kept going.

If possible, he really didn’t want to fight an old friend. Had Ji Jue turned and fled, Tang Qian could have even played along, pretended to give chase, and eventually let him escape.

But that son of a bitch Ji Jue was stubborn to an outrageous degree. Retreat did not even seem to cross his mind!

Then he had no other choice. To catch bandits, one first had to catch the leader. In a team fight, the one with crowd control had to die first!

Besides, other people didn’t know just how dangerous Ji Jue was, but Tang Qian had once been his teammate. He knew it all too damn well. As long as Ji Jue was still breathing, he was a serious threat!

“Sorry. We may go way back, but this is just how we Swarm-types are. Money comes before friendship.”

The flail smashed through the barriers of Iron Essence, while the sword severed the bindings of Ultimate Resilience. Tang Qian drove the spear straight down the middle toward Ji Jue’s face, holding nothing back.

Ji Jue sighed regretfully, sounding deeply disappointed. “Oh, is that so? In that case, this is... perfect.”

The hurtling spear stopped dead, braking at the very last instant and hanging motionless in midair. More precisely, it had stopped just short of Ji Jue’s raised right hand. Between his index and middle fingers, as if by magic, an ancient-looking gold coin had appeared.

This treasure left behind by the Eternal Empire had been weathered by time, and an air of age had settled over it. Even so, it shone brightly. The exquisitely engraved profile of an emperor remained imposing, dignified, and astonishingly lifelike.

The wind from the spear came roaring in and blew across the coin, which let out a melodious chime.

Tang Qian’s eyes went wide. This was a rare piece in near mint condition! “Well, since you’ve been so blunt about it, I suppose there’s no point pretending I’m a gentleman either.”

The warm smile vanished from Ji Jue’s face. He lifted his chin arrogantly, as though looking down on Tang Qian. Friendship? Who cares about friendship?

“Name your price.” He casually tossed the gold coin into the air and caught it again as Tang Qian’s eyes followed it up and down. “How much do you charge per job?”

“Bullshit!” Tang Qian replied angrily. “Who do you take me for? I am a proud Chosen One of the Swarm Path! Wealth cannot tempt me, and force cannot break me! You think you can buy me off with some random old coin? What a joke!”

“That’s fine. I can always negotiate with Fourth Great-Uncle instead.” Ji Jue’s tone was calm. He did not care in the slightest about Tang Qian’s evasive act. “My partner in moving illicit goods mentioned recently that some fool has been buying up gold coins from the Eternal Empire. Apparently, he’s still snapping them up at several times the market price. So naturally, I went back and reviewed the footage from our previous encounters...”

Who did he think he was fooling? Ji Jue knew exactly what Tang Qian wanted.

Tang Qian’s face twitched. He was about to keep up the act when Ji Jue delivered the hundred-thousand-ton straw that finally broke the camel’s back. “I’ve got at least two crates of these coins at home.”

Ji Jue drew his pistol, racked the slide, ejected a round, and tossed it over. Tang Qian caught it, baffled. Then he noticed how unnaturally heavy it was. That weight almost felt like...

Holy shit. Gold?

Ji Jue added, “I use the extras for armor-piercing rounds. If you’re not interested, I’ll melt this one down too. How about I make you a couple of bullets as a gift?”

Tang Qian froze where he stood. For a long moment, he could only swallow dryly as his reason and conscience fought each other.

His conscience said, Why the hell are you still talking? If you kill him, won’t all of it be yours?

His reason, on the other hand, asked, Who gives a damn about the Heretic Cult? The pay is lousy, the work never ends, and you’d have to be insane to go down with this unlucky bastard. Jump ship now, or stay and die.

As for any hesitation or guilt over betraying his employer? Sorry. There was none whatsoever.

He had no choice. He had claimed that wealth could never tempt him, but Ji Jue was simply far too wealthy to resist.

Well, sometimes a man just had to let wealth tempt him. It was as if the company boss personally showed up at your door, hand roaming so eagerly over the black stockings that it was practically rubbing lint balls into them. Tang Qian might as well give in and enjoy it for the Fourth Great-Uncle’s sake!

“What kind of man do you take me for?” he thundered. “The Heretic Cult are my closest and dearest friends!”

“Twenty coins. That’s my final offer,” Ji Jue replied coldly, unmoved. “Otherwise, we fight, and you can see how well you fare against six of us.”

Tang Qian shook his head firmly. “At least thirty-five!”

“Deal.” Ji Jue nodded promptly, which made Tang Qian’s heart ache. Damn it. He should have asked for more!

Ji Jue flicked his wrist and tossed the gold coin over. It landed heavily in Tang Qian’s hand. The familiar weight, the well-known texture, and the astonishingly pristine condition nearly brought tears to his eyes. But just as his face flushed and his heart started racing, and just as he was about to ask for the rest, Ji Jue stood there, unmoving.

Tom was left hanging, his anticipation turning rapidly into frustration. His impatience grew quickly.

“Where’s the rest?!”

“This one’s the deposit.” Ji Jue wore the unmistakable expression of a man making promises he had no intention of fulfilling anytime soon. “Have Tong Shan write you an IOU for the rest. His sister has the coins. Who the hell carries that much worthless Eternal Empire junk around for no reason?”

Tang Qian frowned. “Then make it forty.”

“Thirty,” Ji Jue said without mercy. “You either trust me or you trust the Heretic Cult. Choose one. Trust me, and we stop fighting. We can work everything out. Don’t trust me, and we keep going. You can consider that coin a gift from an old friend. But whether the Heretic Cult wins or loses, you can forget about ever showing your face in the Federation again. The Tong family and the Security Bureau will both come after you. Oh, and there’s a member of the Lou family outside. The woman behind you is from the Ji family.”

Tang Qian grew anxious. “We already agreed on a price! How can you still haggle? And why is it five coins less now?”

Ji Jue rolled his eyes. “Do you think laundering your identity is free? I haven’t even charged you for the wear and tear on my equipment!”

He raised his hand and split the mercury wall in front of him down the middle. “See this? It was a perfectly good piece of equipment until you cut it into two half-finished scraps. Did you hear me complain?”

After all the bargaining and mutual probing, a hint of seriousness appeared behind Tom’s smile. “Now you’re just being unreasonable. You toss me one coin and expect me to betray my employer? What happens to my reputation when word gets out? And what if the Heretic Cult offers me more? Am I supposed to turn around and stab you in the back too?”

Ji Jue didn’t answer. Instead, he tilted his head and spoke into the communications channel that had remained open the entire time.

“No-Fun, did you hear that?”

No one answered. Only the hum and shriek of vibrating telekinetic force came through. From the direction of the underground vault, a black speck shot through the air like a meteor.

They were still testing him at a time like this?

Tang Qian smiled disdainfully. He only tilted his head slightly and dodged the black speck, but as it brushed by, his gaze flicked toward it and instantly locked on as though glued in place. He could not look away.

The object landed in Ji Jue’s hand. Held between his fingers was a jet-black card bearing nothing but a dark logo and a string of identification numbers in the bottom-right corner.

Tom’s gaze immediately turned tender, its restrained gleam carrying an almost flirtatious charm. If he had changed into a dress, he could have swooned straight into Ji Jue’s arms the moment his burly frame trembled.

An Eternal Bank VIP card!

This was a status symbol that could only be held by clients whose total assets exceeded ten billion, or who had invested more than five hundred million in the bank’s wealth management products. Tang Qian knew this far too well. Ask him who was the strongest or the most impressive mercenary after all his years in the business, and he might shake his head and say he had no idea. But ask him who had money? Now that was his area of expertise.

Tang Qian clutched Ji Jue’s hand tightly, tears brimming in his fierce eyes. “I can absolutely be won over. More than absolutely! Ever since I came to this godforsaken place, all I’ve done is bodyguard work. I swear I haven’t touched any of their shady business! Give me a chance, Mr. Ji. I want to abandon the darkness and join the light!”

With that, his burly frame shuddered once, then again, shaking off the dust covering him, and even the Abomination contamination clinging to him. Beneath it emerged an aura of Supreme Benevolence so pure and flawless that it could only belong to one personally chosen by the Swarm.

“Smith has wandered alone for half his life, regretting only that he never found a worthy lord. If you will have me, sir, I shall gladly take you as my adoptive father!”

Ji Jue stared at him helplessly. “Isn’t your surname Tang, you bastard?”

“If the money’s enough, I’ll even take the Tong family name!”

Ji Jue was speechless. What filial devotion. A truly spectacular display of filial piety, everyone.

The others seemed long accustomed to this behavior and couldn’t even be bothered to react. If anyone had asked them, they probably would have agreed without a second thought.

What was the big deal in changing one’s surname? It wasn’t as if it had never been done before. Besides, he was getting paid for it. Nothing shameful about that.

Since the conversation had reached this point, it would be rude to keep dragging things out. Without hesitation, Ji Jue turned around and raised a finger, pointing toward the underground vault and the priest there.

“Ten million. Kill him.”

“Yes, Father!”

A bloodstorm erupted around him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Tom shot off toward the vault.

Ji Jue remained frozen in place, still trying to process what had just happened. That fast?