Chapter 24
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Subservience - 1
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Pale, delicate hands withdrew the needle. Ouch, the old man's wrinkled face twisted in mild pain. But it was only for a moment.
The old man leaped to his feet and dashed off. Laughing with pure delight, he left the hut behind.
"My legs don't hurt anymore!"
A miracle.
A cripple rising to walk. Ceasing to cough up blood. Swollen cheeks deflating, sprained backs healing. Inside the tiny hut, miracles were unfolding one after another.
People in tattered, threadbare clothes lined up in a long queue. Despite their meager possessions that barely held together, each had brought a small gift. Eggs, a bundle of thread, a mysterious book. Some even thrust forward unidentified beads, claiming they were spirit elixirs passed down through their family for generations.
They all said they couldn't repay the fairy's efforts empty-handed. There, seated in the hut with a man in a bamboo hat by her side, the enigmatic girl tended to the wounds of all who came. Her skin was as smooth as silk, her voice as clear as a mountain stream.
Yesterday, she had killed five men. Ripped arms from sockets. Pierced chests clean through.
The next person entered. Still just a child.
"How did you end up here?"
The girl asked. The child extended his right hand. The back was split open to the bone. A laceration, deep from a blade. The wound reeked of rust.
The girl prepared her needle.
The poison was severe. She'd known it since leaving her hometown.
As she inserted the needle, the child who had been flinching opened his mouth.
"I got caught."
"By whom?"
"The Black Guard brothers. Got lucky and dodged it."
The Black Guard was a lower outfit of the Dragon Star Clan. The girl could guess the rest. An uneducated child could only beg or pickpocket. Paradoxically, though, neither was truly free.
In this city, back alleys required permission even for pickpocketing—beggars paid protection fees and stall rents to operate.
Once the unauthorized were found out, this was the result. And even that was considered lucky.
If fortune had been poorer, the hand would have been severed.
Not long after fleeing her hometown, the girl was growing accustomed to the brutal ecosystem of famine. Murder was no different.
Squelch. The sensation of piercing a heart bare-handed was unique. Fingers brushing a pulsing organ. Blood surging in thick spurts. The final convulsions of the dying. Killing people no longer felt alien to her.
Perhaps as natural as saving them.
She could now kill with the same indifference as the man who had slashed Gangil's back. Whether that was good or bad, she didn't know. Only that the resolve forged in that dark cave was unyielding.
In her eyes, good people were those from that day. The inferno that had devoured the autumn fields. An unstoppable calamity—to her, the martial world was just that, and to this child, no different.
Sunset draped the hut in orange.
"Whew. Sun's setting."
The girl sent the child away and murmured softly. Bai Hui nodded quietly.
At his relayed words, someone bellowed out.
"That's it for today! Come back tomorrow!"
With sighs of regret, the crowd dispersed, their figures vanishing into the alleys.
Night fell.
"Fuck, it's goddamn freezing tonight."
"Brother, I think my cheeks are numb."
"Yeah, nice and red like persimmons. Ptoo."
The Black Guard squad leader spat. His phlegmy glob pierced the snow and vanished. The biting cold air made night patrols miserable.
On a night fit for fondling dice in a tavern, here he was on the streets.
A savage night.
A madman with profound martial arts was targeting the Dragon Star Clan. Foot soldiers like them couldn't even compete. He'd seen the scene himself: five dead from the Shadow Serpent Division.
Not human work—demonic.
Limbs torn asunder. Bodies run through. Only the clan's execution squad butchered like that. The thought still turned his stomach. Hunting such a monster? No thanks.
But cowards who fled weren't Dragon Star brothers. To save face, they had to catch and crush the fiend. For that, someone needed to tip off the execution squad that they were here...
"Fuck it, come at me if you dare."
He smothered creeping fear with bravado. Buried tension under bluff. His life had always lacked backup anyway.
"One circuit, then to Hongming Tower. Drown this chill in booze."
"..."
"Hey, you ignoring me?"
Whoosh.
"I'll beat you half to—"
Turning with a scowl, he found only a headless corpse. Then his subordinate's body slumped. Gasp, reflexive swallow, and a swung kitchen knife.
Seven years in the underworld, gutting men with a cleaver was like breathing. The arc of thousands of swings sliced the air.
"Good instincts."
Clang. Metal rang out, and from the wall's shadow emerged a man in a bamboo hat. The squad leader gnashed his teeth, glaring. Eyes never blinked. Do that, and you'd miss the dodge.
A brief silence. The leader bellowed at full volume.
"Here! He's here!"
The underworld's strength was solidarity—a net of men blanketing the alleys. They'd been patrolling in close contact range.
His shout instantly blocked every passage with a wave of bodies. Tonight's patrol was all squad leaders; they'd buy time until the execution squad arrived.
Bai Hui didn't react.
Left hand on hilt, standing like a statue. Surely he hadn't expected this. A week of hitting Dragon Star men without anticipating retaliation?
Impossible.
"Seven."
A blade flashed. The shortest line from squad leader to sheath gleamed silver. Gasp, he rolled back nimbly. Discarding face was convenient sometimes.
At least while alive.
Squelch, slice. Bai Hui twisted the blade free from the chest.
"Pile on!"
"Six."
Three red arcs from behind: head, spine, shoulder. A chain assault while his weapon was bound.
But Thousand Kills Star fixated not on weapons. Senses honed to the limit offered answers in any bind.
Whoosh. A cleaver flew. The flung blade pierced one's skull without hesitation.
"Five."
Grab the hand aiming for his shoulder. Twist the joint. The cleaver's path veers. Throat punch to the charging foe.
Dead. Victim crumpled to his knees on the spot.
Unbelievable sight. The wrist-snapped man bulged his eyes and cursed, but his fate grew grimmer.
Bai Hui shifted with footwork, angle changing in a breath. Suddenly before him, the dart-thrower's body impaled itself on his comrade's flung dart. The back and neck strikes stole life simply.
Continuing. Four—a forward step and swung cleaver. So familiar as an underworld extension, the rushers momentarily let guard slip. But the gap shrank like a lie. What seemed a full pace was half an inch.
"How?!"
Slice. A split-second lapse carved a long gash across a wrist. Severed artery gushed blood.
Three, then two. Death's verdict didn't pause. Moonlit sword light deeply slashed thigh and lung.
Splurt. Blood erupted. A deflating groan of agony echoed painfully. The white street stained red as two hit the ground.
Suddenly, only Bai Hui and the dart-thrower remained. As the panicked man backpedaled.
"One."
A clear voice rang out. Tiny hands tore into the man's body like clay. Kraaaagh, agonized scream filled the empty street... then silence.
The Girl walked lightly down the vacant alley. Bai Hui retrieved his cleaver from the corpse's head.
"It's over."
"..."
Bai Hui stepped forward without reply. Trudging the alley, he nimbly vaulted behind the corner.
He pinned the hider with a golden snare grip against the wall.
"Just one left."
Shing. Blood-slick cleaver gleamed oily. Bai Hui pressed the blade to his throat in lieu of questions. No desire to chat.
The face was familiar. Third time now.
First on arrival at Blazing Mountain. Second, nights ago on the street. Even among the Nine Sects' elders, some seemed utterly without inner power.
Bai Hui felt deep impulse. Strike now? Zhang Ping wheezed in pain.
But the Girl's hand rested on Bai Hui's shoulder. Her will conveyed, and thud. Zhang Ping slid down limp.
"I... urk. Got hit. I got hit. Hic."
"Hit by what?"
He giggled. Trembling in ecstasy, like beholding the wondrous.
"Finally caught up today. Confirmed it over days, so now I'm sure."
"You've been tailing us?"
"Yeah."
"Do I look like a joke to you?"
"Not at all."
Know who we are? Bai Hui asked indirectly. Aware of what I've done?
Zhang Ping's reply flowed smooth. Words poured ceaselessly.
"A man with sword and woman bare-handed, slayer ghosts. The fiend who cut down over thirty young heroes in Jiangming—how could I mock you? But you know, fear never crosses my mind."
"Whew, I won't die. Your terrifying blade and horrific hands won't touch me. Right? I know. You two."
"Only killing martial artists?"
Now Bai Hui was speechless. He'd thought their identity hidden well.
Incidents only at night, no clues left. How could a lone man deduce unaffiliated bladework, the principle of the kills?
Yet the man before him differed. Spilling words, he grinned wide.
"Let me help."
"What?"
"I hate sword-wielders. I'll aid you with everything I've got. I'll be useful, I swear."
Madness. The emotion in the warrior's eyes was familiar to Bai Hui—like gazing into a mirror of admiration. Bai Hui stepped back.
Then, a whisper from behind.
"Hey, you."
Zhang Ping met the girl's spine-chillingly beautiful voice head-on.
"Want to get strong?"
"Of course."
He was ready. The Girl seized his pulse gate.