Chapter 246: A Winter of Turmoil

After an eventful autumn came an equally eventful winter.

Following days of light rain, Cliff City finally saw a rare clear day. Beneath the crystal-clear afternoon sky, sunlight bathed the streets, while puddles underfoot reflected the deep blue above and lent the air a faint trace of warmth.

Ji Jue sat in a folding chair, shifted into a comfortable position, and let out a long, contented breath.

He remembered that when he was a child in Shuzhou, he would bundle himself up in thick layers every winter, yet the cold wind would still sneak through every gap in his clothes and bite straight into his bones. Every morning, the short distance between crawling out from under the blankets and reaching for his clothes felt like a journey through hell. It had been awful.

By comparison, winter in Haizhou seemed to amount to little more than a token drop in temperature. You could still get away with wearing a T-shirt under a light jacket. The locals ceremoniously threw on a down vest over everything else, but no matter how cold it got, they absolutely refused to give up their flip-flops.

Even after all these years, now that Ji Jue could more or less count himself half a local, that kind of lifelong devotion to flip-flops through hell or high water was still beyond him.

There was even a certain old Mr. Zhang from North Mount District who wandered all over the city year-round in a tank top and baggy shorts, carrying a huge palm-leaf fan in one hand. You would think he was just built different, but he wasn’t. In reality, that was simply how people dressed around here. It was nothing fancy; just life as usual.

Beneath the afternoon sun, the distant sound of the tide drifted in on the breeze. The sky was clear and cloudless for miles.

“Perfect weather for murder and arson.” Ji Jue yawned, leaned back in his folding chair, and narrowed his eyes.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

On the far side of the warehouse complex, someone knocked on a door.

Outside the rust-streaked iron door stood a slender young man whose delicate features were pretty enough to be mistaken for a girl. He looked up, compared the location with the address on his phone, confirmed it once more, then raised his hand and knocked again.

Eventually, an impatient voice came from inside the warehouse. “Who the hell is it? We didn’t order any food!”

The peephole slid open, and a stubbled face appeared behind it, looking fierce and menacing. The moment the man saw that exquisitely pretty, almost adorable face outside, he froze. He turned to look behind him. “Fuck, which one of you ordered a chick?”

Then he felt a sudden chill at his neck, and his eyes widened in shock. A single finger had slipped lightly through the peephole and rested against his carotid artery. The touch was gentle, almost weightless, yet that faint trace of cold sent a terror through him worse than any nightmare.

“Li Yong[1]?” An Ran asked.

Li Yong swallowed hard. His entire body stiffened, and his face twitched as he forced a strained smile. He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, only to hear An Ran ask coldly, “How many people are inside?”

“Three—no, four... five... Five! There are really only five!” Li Yong blinked desperately. “S-Sir, isn’t there some kind of misunderstanding? We already paid up. The boss—”

“You paid the boss, so you don’t have to pay the Security Bureau?” An Ran didn’t quite understand the logic, but he still repeated the line in Ji Jue’s usual tone. “Who told you that? Xu Chaoxian?”

“I...” Li Yong’s face twitched again. One hand, hidden behind his back, frantically signaled to his companions.

He was just about to say something, but he never got the chance. That slender finger had already withdrawn from his neck, and with it went all the strength in his body.

“Hhk... hhk...”

Veins bulged across Li Yong’s face. His eyes flooded with red as he struggled desperately, trying to scream, but no sound came out. He slid down the door like a sack of wet clay and collapsed onto the floor.

The last thing he heard was the young man’s voice. “You weren’t being honest.”

Mr. Ji had said that people who smuggled goods and made their living at sea, yet still dared to lie to the Security Bureau, were definitely not good people. And if they weren’t good people, then there was no need to be polite.

But Mr. Ji had also said that killing people indiscriminately was bad. Even bad people had families who would grieve for them. Besides, whenever someone died, there would be reports to write, which was a huge hassle. So it was better to leave them alive but brain-dead.

Then they could be handed over to a friend who was passionate about medical research. Not only could that bring in some extra money, it would also let them make one last contribution to the happiness and future of humanity.

Mr. Ji really thought of everything.

An Ran found the logic perfectly sound. So from then on, whenever he could avoid killing someone, he did. Anyone who resisted only had to be beaten until they were brain-dead.

For some reason, though, Mrs. Wen and Tong Hua always wore very complicated expressions whenever this came up, as though there was something they desperately wanted to say.

Snap!

A flash of silver shot from An Ran’s sleeve, and the heavy lock and crossbar securing the warehouse door were instantly severed in two. Slowly the iron doors creaked open.

From inside the warehouse came the sharp sound of metal scraping against metal. The desperate men inside, already warned by their companion, grabbed their weapons without hesitation and opened fire. Their hearts pounded as footsteps and gunshots echoed through the warehouse.

There were more than sixteen people inside, not five as the man had said. The Security Bureau had come knocking, and instead of surrendering, they actually dared to open fire on An Ran.

Huh? Wait. Did I ever say that I’m from the Security Bureau? I think I did... probably? Whatever.

Since they had opened fire, he might as well kill them all!

For a brief moment, the boy hesitated. Then years of ingrained instinct took over, and the uncertainty vanished. A cold gleam slipped from his sleeve, and a scarlet dagger tore through the air with a piercing whistle.

Within the vast, dim warehouse, a streak of crimson suddenly appeared. It shot from An Ran’s hand, flying against the flashes of gunfire. It punched through walls and cargo crates, tore through layer after layer of cover, then pierced someone before bursting out again in a spray of blood.

Only then did a thunderous boom erupt from the young man’s fingertips. For a moment, even the furious barrage of gunfire seemed to falter.

Everyone turned around in shock and looked toward the very back. The Entropy-type Chosen One, who had been hiding behind layers of cover and quietly building up his strength, stood frozen in place.

He slowly lowered his head. All he saw was the horrifying hole that had been punched clean through his body. Fragments of his organs had sprayed outward, splattering across the wall behind him and staining it crimson.

“Help... help...” He raised his head in terror, his face twitching. Before everyone’s eyes, his body split in two at the waist.

The energy that had built up inside him went completely out of control and erupted with a deafening blast. Flames spread and thick smoke billowed through the warehouse. Nothing remained of him.

And still, the thunderous booms did not cease. The shriek of metal tearing through the air continued without pause. In a brief moment, daggers that punched straight through walls and struck with deadly precision killed all men hiding behind cover. Even the Ruins-type Chosen One at the front, who had tried to charge outside, was torn into pieces in an instant, as though Death itself had descended upon the warehouse.

Holding the ‘little toy’ Ji Jue had given him, An Ran’s eyes shone brighter and brighter.

As expected of Mr. Ji. This is amazing!

It looked completely ordinary, but once Sword Cry was activated, both its handling and destructive power were leagues beyond the weapon he had spent so much money on before. Something this good would just be wasted on his sister anyway, right?!

The thought filled him with smug satisfaction. In high spirits, he flicked his hand again. But halfway through the motion, he suddenly paused, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

He had actually missed?

BOOM!

Amid the thunderous crash, Yue Ting’s eyes widened as he collapsed to the floor. He stared at the scarlet metal shard embedded deep in the steel and stone above his head. Feeling the sudden hot wetness spreading through his crotch, he began trembling uncontrollably.

What the fuck was this thing?

If Cicada’s Insight had not warned him in time and made him instinctively duck his head, it would have probably been severed from his body by now.

In less than half a minute, not only had the rabble they had hired from the Thousand Islands been slaughtered, but more than half of the brothers who had fought alongside him at sea for years were already dead or incapacitated!

The sheer shock of it made Yue Ting’s vision go black in waves. His gaze fell on a subordinate in the distance, who was still cowering with his head lowered as though waiting to die, and fury exploded within him.

“What the hell are you standing there for?!” he roared. “Let that thing out of the cage! Stop standing around and move! Otherwise, we’re all going to die!”

“But...” The subordinate froze, then made an ugly crying face as he raised the broken half of a chain in his hand. “Th-the cage... it’s already been cut open, Mr. Ting.”

A shrill roar resounded from the enormous cage beneath the felt covering. The juvenile beast of doom, freed from its restraints, let out a savage howl and burst forth. It looked like some grotesque fusion of a viper, a giant python, and an insect. Dragging a long tail behind it, it lunged forward and opened its maw, swallowing half the subordinate’s body in a single bite. As it chewed savagely, blood sprayed everywhere.

The man’s exposed lower body was still kicking frantically in terror. A moment later, the rest of him was swallowed whole.

A vicious gleam filled each of the creature’s compound eyes. As the sedatives that had been injected into its body were gradually expelled along with the blood it swallowed, its aura grew increasingly wild and violent.

Driven by pure animal instinct, it immediately turned toward the individual in the warehouse who posed the greatest threat to it, the young man standing before it, who was merely tilting his head and studying it with curiosity.

An Ran’s face appeared completely innocent and harmless, yet for some reason, the sight of him sent chills through the beast of doom’s entire body. It trembled violently and instinctively tried to turn and flee.

But in the very next moment, a streak of red light flashed past, and a metal shard buried itself in the wall directly in front of it.

“Shh, shh. Back you go, back you go!” An Ran raised a hand and gestured at the juvenile beast of doom, which was many times larger than he was, then pointed toward its cage.

Unfortunately, the creature could not understand a word he was saying. The instant it realized there was no escape, it whipped around and launched one final desperate attack!

BOOM!!!

Thunderous crashes continued to erupt behind Yue Ting. He was practically crawling on all fours, scrambling across the ground in a panic. Somehow, he was moving even faster than he could have on two feet.

He had lost this time, and he was completely screwed. But staying alive came first. Money could be made again, and the goods could be replaced. But once he lost his life, that was the end of everything.

Like any gang boss who would ditch his ‘bros’ the moment things went south, Yue Ting had not spared even a thought for standing and fighting alongside the rest. As soon as he realized something was wrong, he turned and ran. He even locked the hidden passage behind him, hoping it would delay whoever was pursuing him for at least a little while.

His movements grew faster and smoother with every step. At this point, running away had practically become second nature.

A grin spread across his face. Then, filthy and covered in dust, he shoved open a manhole cover.

His smile froze. Around the manhole stood four red-and-white traffic cones, connected by black-and-yellow caution tape. It looked exactly like a trap that had been prepared in advance, waiting for a cornered rabbit to deliver itself straight into their hands.

Behind him, someone yawned and reminded him, “Sorry, but you’ll have to go back. Road maintenance. Please take a detour.”

Yue Ting stiffened and slowly turned around.

There was a folding chair that had clearly been set up in advance. A young man lounged lazily in it, propping up his chin and looking half asleep. His face was strikingly handsome, save for a winding scar that ran across it and marred the otherwise refined features. His hair was only long enough to reach his ears, yet faint traces of gray and white showed through it, as though the color had begun to fade. An odd-looking cane rested across his knees, making it seem as though he had trouble walking.

But the most striking thing about him was his lowered eyes. They were pitch-black, with a faint trace of scarlet deep within. When those eyes glanced over, they sent an inexplicable chill down one’s spine, like embers that refused to die inside a furnace.

Yue Ting’s face twitched. He barely managed to suppress the urge to fight to the death.

“Bro, help me out here. Let me through, and I’ll owe you one.”

“How are you planning to repay me? Card or cash?” Ji Jue smiled. “I don’t do installment plans.”

After a brief, heavy silence, Yue Ting’s expression twisted with rage. “If you want to rob the robber, you’d better make sure you live long enough to enjoy it. Don’t go courting death!”

Ji Jue laughed. “See that?”

He raised a hand and pointed beside Yue Ting. A pair of handcuffs was already hanging from one of the traffic cones, gleaming silver in the sunlight. “Give me three seconds, and I’ll have you wearing those. Believe me?”

Yue Ting’s face turned livid. From beneath the sewer opening, his hand drew half of a pitch-black blade. Killing intent erupted from him.

“You fucking asked for—”

Snap!

The man in the folding chair snapped his fingers. A pitch-black shadow fell across Yue Ting’s stiff face.

Behind Ji Jue, a savage, bizarre-looking, huge armored off-road vehicle shuddered. With a series of sharp mechanical sounds, countless components shifted and unfolded as smoothly as a giant stretching its limbs. Mechanical arms extended one after another, and a ferocious beast-like face emerged as the outer armor peeled away.

In the blink of an eye, the vehicle had transformed into a mechanical monster more than five meters tall. Its enormous claws, sharp as blades, rose into the air.

An autocannon that had just been ripped from the vehicle’s interior was shoved directly into Yue Ting’s face. A chill seemed to blow straight out of hell from the dark muzzle of the autocannon.

“Three,” Ji Jue said.

Clang!

The knife hit the bottom of the sewer at almost the exact same moment the handcuffs snapped shut.

In the blink of an eye, Yue Ting dropped the knife, slapped on the handcuffs, and fell to his knees before immediately began kowtowing frantically. “Sir, forgive me!!! Please, be the bigger man and spare my miserable life!”

1. 李 is one of the most common Chinese surnames, while 勇 means “brave,” “courageous,” or “valiant.” Essentially, it means “Li, the brave one.” To me, it reads like the kind of name you’d expect from someone dependable, straightforward, and willing to step up when things get tough, which is ironic given the situation lol. ☜