Chapter 59—You’re not my dad
Chapter 59: Chapter 59—You’re not my dad
Chapter 59—You’re not my dad
The boy wrapped his arms around the middle-aged man’s leg. The man casually scooped the boy into his arms and walked out of the street without a single person stopping or questioning him.
The fat constable noticed the shift in Lei Cheng’s expression and felt a chill run through him.
"Is he a Bizarre Creature too?"
Lei Cheng raised his brows at the man carrying the boy away. "We’ll see."
Jumping to conclusions before gathering evidence was how investigators made mistakes.
He followed them from a distance. Zhu Lin tagged along. The man moved through several streets, eventually turning into the slums.
’Is he from here?’ Lei Cheng thought, frowning with distaste.
The outer city’s streets, while nowhere near as luxurious as the inner city, had blue rock flooring with a few trees on the side and were kept clean. The slums were another matter entirely—mud swallowed his boots with every step, and refuse of every kind littered the ground, including human waste. He pinched his nose, unable to tolerate the smell any longer.
Zhu Lin raised his voice, noticing Lei Cheng’s disgust. "Young Master Lei, should we really enter this street? Let me call him out instead."
"Go. Bring him out," Lei Cheng nodded, his expression softening.
Zhu roared, raising his hand. "You there! carrying the kid over the shoulder! Come out!"
The street froze. Every eye turned toward them. Lei Cheng instinctively stepped back, no longer able to tolerate the stench.
The man’s eyes narrowed. He hesitated, then approached, still holding the child raised protectively.
"What’s wrong, officer?" he asked, swallowing hard.
Lei Cheng didn’t wait for an answer. His palm ignited with white-gold flame, and he struck the man’s shoulder.
The man’s body jolted. He dropped the child. As the boy fell, Lei Cheng caught him with his free hand and tossed him neatly to the fat constable, who caught him swiftly.
"Let go of me! Let go!" the boy screamed, thrashing.
Flames wrapped around the man’s body as Lei Cheng pulled back. The man screamed, "Ahhh," gray smoke rising from his skin, and collapsed to his knees as the flames died out.
"What are you doing to my dad?" the kid yelled. Zhu Lin held him tightly, not letting him break free.
People in the street froze. They turned silent and returned to their work as if nothing had happened. A few even glanced at Lei Cheng with gleaming eyes. They muttered, "Hope. This young master helps us a little."
"You’re human," Lei Cheng clicked his tongue, glancing at the man as the smoke cleared. His voice dropped cold. "So tell me—as a human, how do you have Bizarre Qi, and what’s with this child?"
Everything the man had done was harder to forgive, as he was human and joined hands with the bizarre.
The disguise fell away entirely, revealing a young, heavily muscular bald man covered in old battle scars, wearing a sleeveless martial robe that showed scars along both arms. His arms were thicker than an average man’s thighs.
The man’s pupils contracted as he instinctively took half a step back. "Let me go." He slowly tried to stand up. "I don’t know anything."
Lei Cheng stomped a foot onto his head, pressing his face into the mud.
"I’ll let you go," Lei Cheng said coldly. "Now tell me—why are you kidnapping this child?"
He lifted his foot back. The man raised his mud-covered face, with a large crimson boot mark on his bald head.
"You’re not a Bizarre Creature," Lei Cheng tilted his head slightly. "Why are you doing this?"
"Bamboo Snake member!" Zhu Lin barked, realizing the man in front of them was nothing more than a gang thug. A white snake insignia was stitched onto his martial hanfu.
Once the fat constable understood the man was fully human, all his restraint vanished. He hauled the thug up by the collar and slapped him hard across the face—twice, knocking out two teeth.
The gang member spat blood.
"Speak. Answer Young Master Lei’s question," Zhu Lin hissed directly into the thug’s face.
The gang member almost went deaf. He raised his trembling hands and stammered, "I’ll answer... I’ll answer."
"You’re not my dad!" The kid in Zhu Lin’s arms finally noticed the thug.
Lei Cheng glanced at the kid properly. ’He’s cute...’ The kid, despite being in the slums, had a chubby face, soft white skin, bright red lips, and short black hair. He was in coarse, tattered clothes. ’If he had proper clothes, he could be a young master of some noble clan.’ Lei Cheng mused. ’Indeed, he matches the conditions for being cute enough to be kidnapped.’
The thug’s eyes flicked toward the boy, who was crying behind them, refusing to look at him. "Where’s my dad? Where’s my dad?"
"Isn’t that Peng Lu?"
"That thug who takes money every fifteen days."
"I even gave him my old mother’s medicine money."
"..."
The street’s residents—thin, malnourished, clearly abused by this gang for years—began picking up whatever they could find: rods, bows, blades. Years of fear finally found a target that couldn’t order them to lower their heads. The thug flinched, realizing he had crossed a line he wouldn’t recover from.
An old man staggered forward on shaking legs, an axe in hand.
"You beast! When you extorted protection money from us and worked us to death, we stayed silent! Now you’re stealing our children too?!" With the last of his strength, he hurled the axe.
Lei Cheng caught it mid-air and pushed the thug aside before anyone could finish him off.
"You can kill him," Lei Cheng said, "but I need him to tell me where the children were taken first."
The crowd stopped, weapons still raised, eyes burning.
The thug swallowed and finally opened his mouth. "Two days ago, our gang leader announced that the Bamboo Snake Gang had surrendered to a Shadow Bizarre Creature." His voice was rough and uneven from the beating on his cheeks.
’So that’s where he gained that transforming power.’ Lei Cheng’s expression didn’t change. ’I suspected as much.’
The old man roared, his voice far stronger than his frail body suggested it should be. "When you forced my son to work to death because he couldn’t pay one month’s protection money, I didn’t raise my axe then!" He closed his eyes, tears falling down. He raised another axe high. "I should have killed you that day."
A gaunt woman stepped forward next, holding a small dagger. "You took my husband over one silver coin he couldn’t pay and worked him to death. I stopped him from killing you because of my kids back then. I shouldn’t have."
The fat constable placed the kid on the ground, noticing the situation getting out of control. The kid stared hard at the thug’s face. "I’ve seen you before," he said slowly, wiping his eyes. Then he pondered for a moment and yelled loudly, "You’re the one who broke my dad’s arm! You monster!"
The child’s voice carried farther than any adult’s accusation.
He rushed forward but was caught by Zhu Lin by the neck and lifted up. "Stay put, kid."
Lei Cheng shook his head. ’The gang has surrendered. There’s no point questioning him further—a foot soldier wouldn’t know more than the leader.’
"I’ll find the gang leader myself," he turned toward Zhu Lin. "Handle things here."
"Understood, Young Master Lei," the fat constable nodded.
Lei Cheng was about to turn and enter another street when a child’s voice reached him.
"Where is my dad?"
The boy ran to a half-collapsed hut from the constable’s back and glanced in. He noticed everyone standing up, but his dad didn’t. He was quiet and intelligent. People nearby were staring inside, hands over their mouths. The boy had noticed them and entered his house.
He fell beside a middle-aged man’s body, gripping his father’s hand. "Dad, why are you sleeping? Get up."
Lei Cheng walked back, no longer caring about the mud, and entered the hut.
The man’s neck had been broken by brute force. His right arm was already broken and bandaged. "You broke his arm and killed him?" Lei Cheng turned toward the thug who had been pulled in by the constable.
The thug nodded and whispered, his legs trembling, "He didn’t pay ten copper coins." He fell, "I killed him because he refused to pay even five copper coins in the morning."
"Copper coins?" Lei Cheng hissed. He had never glanced at them in his life nor used them. They were the lowest-value currency. ’A single meal in the inner city costs more than the life they had taken.’ He fell silent.
"Dad, wake up. Wake up," the boy kept repeating, patting the body gently.
An old woman nearby sighed quietly. "His mother died giving birth to him..."
A young man added, turning his head away, "Now his father too..."
A young woman raised her voice, "Who’s going to take care of him?"
No one in the crowd stepped forward. No one dared. They were struggling with their own burdens—how could they take care of another?
Lei Cheng turned back toward the bald gang thug, raised his palm, and unleashed white-gold flame directly onto the man’s body. The thug screamed as fire burned him. "Ahh!"
Within moments, he turned to ash.
"He deserved that!" The slum people cheered; they lowered their weapons instantly.
"I’m going to Bamboo Snake Gang," Lei Cheng said coldly to Zhu Lin and walked off.
After a few steps, he added, "Take every child and young person in these slums and send them to the Lei Clan. From now on, the Lei Clan will provide for them."
Zhu Lin grinned softly but raised his voice, "There are thousands of them, Young Master Lei—"
Lei Cheng smiled faintly without turning around. "The Lei Clan is rich."
Silence fell over the crowd. Then, one by one, the poor residents dropped to their knees.
"Thank you, Young Master."
"Thank you..."
Several pressed their foreheads into the mud without hesitation. For the first time in years, gratitude outweighed fear within the slums.
Thud! Bang!
Some elderly residents wept silently. Others simply stared at Lei Cheng, as though afraid the kindness they had just witnessed would disappear the moment they looked away.
"My son can finally live well."
"My daughter can finally achieve her dream of reading."
"..."
They muttered, nodding to themselves crazily.
A few minutes later, Lei Cheng stood before a courtyard rivaling few in the inner city—over two hundred meters wide, filled with halls and side rooms, with twin white lion statues flanking massive wooden gates. A plaque above read, in bold characters:
’The Bamboo Snake Gang.’
The gates were open. The thugs leveled spears at him.
"Who are you?"
"You can’t just walk into the gang’s courtyard like that!" another shouted.
"Get back. If you don’t, we’ll kill you." They echoed together.