Hidden Assassin 266

“A secret technique? What secret technique?”

The window revealed an endless expanse of azure blue ocean. Inside the warm and inviting cabin, the stepmother turned her head and asked with a bewildered expression.

“Grab my hand.”

“Uh, why?”

“You’ll know once you grab it.”

“Okay.” She reluctantly grabbed the arm that was extended towards her. Then, her forehead was tapped, and she stood there, dumbfounded, for a while before narrowing her eyes and looking at her adopted daughter who was laughing uncontrollably in front of her. “Is this the secret technique?”

“Yeah.” The woman in front of her nodded with a matter-of-fact smile.

“Your man is so boring…” the stepmother commented impassively. “Dump him.”

“I find it amusing, and besides, everyone was laughing happily at the time. Even the woman who got tapped was happy. I almost laughed myself to death, my stomach hurt… Hmm, it was hard to get, so I’m definitely not letting go.”

“He makes other women laugh too, which means he’s definitely a womanizer. Anyway… you won’t bring him over for me to take a look, so I just think something is wrong, Ya Han. You need to think carefully…”

“Alright, alright, stop sulking.” Ya Han laughed as she jumped over and put her arms around her stepmother’s shoulders. “You were pretty happy when you saw the perfume he asked me to give you… I can’t bring him over to meet you, of course there are reasons for that. We’re good sisters, don’t be angry, okay…”

“Good sisters? I’m your mother!” She lightly tapped Ya Han’s head with her hand, and the stepmother also sighed helplessly. Over the years, although she had grown close to Ya Han like a real sister, she also understood the stubborn side of her personality. Once she had decided on something, she wouldn’t change her mind. She knew she couldn’t persuade her, but she couldn’t help but vent.

“What kind of guy can’t be brought out to meet people… You wouldn’t have fallen for a married man, and want to be his mistress, would you?”

Hitting the nail on the head, Ya Han blinked her eyes. “Mom, what do you think about homosexuality?”

“Homosexuality? That guy is a woman?”

“Yeah, a very beautiful woman too.”

“Very beautiful…” The stepmother was stunned for a moment. “You wouldn’t be talking about the one who boarded the ship with you, the one who said she’s your college friend, Jian Suyan!?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ya Han nodded quickly, and the stepmother suddenly stood up: “How could you…”

“But… we’ve already gone too far…” Ya Han smiled with her eyes closed.

“What went too far… Stop joking. If your dad knew, he’d beat you to death!” She was half-believing what Ya Han said. She usually didn’t scold Ya Han, so for now she could only use Zhang Jingan’s name to scare her. However, this clearly didn’t have much of a deterrent effect. Ya Han was smiling unrepentantly in front of her, and the two of them exchanged a mix of truth and lies in the cabin, but they couldn’t confirm anything about this matter. The stepmother slammed the door open and walked out. Ya Han quickly followed.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“I don’t want to deal with you. You won’t tell me the truth, so I’ll go find her!”

“Wait, wait, wait. Don’t, Mom, she said she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“I will disturb her. Can she eat me?”

The two of them walked quickly along the corridor by the ship’s railing, passing a few crew members. Soon, they saw Qiao Guorui and Fang Guolin up ahead. While Jia Ming and Ya Han were out on their own, the stepmother had gotten to know these people. She greeted them casually, and then pulled Qiao Guorui aside. “Hey, have you seen Jian Suyan?”

“Jian Suyan?” Qiao Guorui adjusted his glasses and exchanged a look with Fang Guolin. “We’re on our way there now, they’re in Cabin Two. Are you looking for her too? Mantou and Xiaowu are also in the wrong. They got into a fight with Ms. Jian.”

“Got into a fight? Why?” Ya Han and the stepmother both widened their eyes.

Qiao Guorui coughed awkwardly. “Uh, it’s like this, it’s Mantou’s fault for being so carefree. He was curious about Ms. Jian, and then Xiaowu’s group was curious too. Ms. Jian stayed in her cabin after boarding, and they went over… cough, cough, I guess they wanted to get to know Ms. Jian, and then… it seems they decided to spar. Cough, cough… that martial art…”

What he said was not entirely true. Ya Han had also heard Jia Ming say that the Yan Huang Jue Xing members were extremely curious about the virtual character, Jian Suyan. Although they had always been respectful, they had boarded the ship this time to escort Ya Han back to China, and they probably had some curious intentions. With Jia Ming’s personality, he would probably give those guys a little warning. After all, the foundation of their mutual affection was still built on mutual strength. She understood that and didn’t say anything, but the stepmother had already started complaining. “Spar? That Xiaowu… is he the one who practiced brick-breaking outside the villa this morning? I saw him kick down a tree with one foot, and you let him… spar with a woman?”

“Uh… Xiaowu is indeed… well, he’s always been interested in martial arts. He used to practice national martial arts, then he went to Japan to learn Blood Judo and Karate, then he learned Muay Thai. If we talk about hand-to-hand combat skills, he is indeed the strongest in our group, but…” he looked at the stepmother’s surprised and indignant expression and couldn’t help but turn to look at Ya Han. Could it be that she hadn’t told them Jian Suyan’s true identity? They were used to being spies and agents, so he couldn’t directly say it. He simply said, “But even if Xiaowu is strong, they are five against one now, so they probably still don’t have a chance of winning. Don’t worry…”

Upon hearing five against one, the stepmother nodded, then furrowed her brows and said, “No matter what, it’s wrong for you to fight with such a girl. She looks weak and fragile, she would fall if the wind blew on her, she’s not even as strong as Ya Han, this patient. No, wait… five against one, she just boarded the ship, she doesn’t know anyone except Ya Han, where did she find four companions? Did she get them from the restaurant staff?”

As soon as these words came out, the expressions of the three people around her became incredibly interesting. Ya Han struggled to suppress her laughter, but hearing about five against one made her feel a little worried. Jia Ming could knock away a big iron box with one punch, and the feeling of breaking bricks and kicking down a tree seemed similar… Qiao Guorui and Fang Guolin looked around strangely. Five women fighting one man was already wrong, but now it was five men fighting one woman… After hesitating for a while, they finally said, “Uh, it’s actually… Xiaowu and Mantou, plus Guo Qing, Guo Zi, and Guo Chao, the five of them are fighting against Ms. Jian, just the one…”

The stepmother immediately cried out, “What!?”

“Well… has Ms. Zhang not told you about it?”

The stepmother turned her gaze towards Ya Han, who shrugged. “You know her temper, she’s always been very hot-headed and always straightforward about everything. You just casually went to spy on her, of course she would get angry…”

Qiao Guorui smiled, “I can guarantee this was not the command from above to test her. It was purely Mantou’s itchy skin. He’s been in America for a long time and has heard a lot about Yu Jinxiang. He was curious, so he incited Xiaowu and the others to do this. Captain Guohua even said whether to ask Ms. Zhang to mediate, but now it seems it’s too late, it’s their own fault for getting a beating, anyway this time the matter is over, they can get a few months of sick leave…”

“But there are five of them…” Ya Han couldn’t help but be nervous about one against five. When Guolin smiled and said, “It was Ms. Jian’s request,” she finally felt reassured. The stepmother looked at this group of people and said, “What bad temper? What spying? What curiosity? You, hey, Ya Han, tell me honestly, what haven’t you told me!”

At this point, they had already reached Cabin Two. This was a rather large cabin on the cargo ship, about the size of a basketball court. There wasn’t much inside, just a small warehouse filled with wooden boxes. The rest of the space was occupied by some fitness equipment, usually used as a training and fitness area for the crew members. However, looking at it now, the entire space was in a state of disarray. Fitness equipment lay scattered, pieces of wooden boxes were everywhere, but the figures of Jian Suyan and Mantou and the others could not be seen. It seemed that the competition was over, and the figures of several Yan Huang Jue Xing members were moving around in the cabin.

Seeing Qiao Guorui and Ya Han and the others enter, one of them came forward and spread his hands. “You’re late. The people in the infirmary just carried Mantou and the others away. Ms. Jian seems to have held back, they were beaten black and blue, but besides Xiaowu’s broken hands, they weren’t too badly injured, but they were all beaten up and vomiting blood. Their internal injuries will take at least a month or two to recover…”

Fang Guolin opened her mouth, “Xiaowu’s hands are broken?”

“Yeah.” The man took a few steps back, “The cabin is big, Ms. Jian was running and fighting all the time. But Xiaowu pressed her hardest, it was right here, Xiaowu grabbed her shoulder and pressed down, that’s a Muay Thai knee strike, you know. Xiaowu hadn’t been assigned to our team before, we all heard about him fighting against the Russian special forces that time. He grabbed and did a knee strike directly, and then that person was gone, his chest bone was completely crushed… We thought the situation was dangerous then, but Ms. Jian twisted her body, threw herself two meters away, then directly threw herself back, spun around, and kicked straight. It felt like a流星锤 (lit: meteor hammer, a heavy weapon used in Chinese martial arts)…”

His martial art skills seemed to be quite good. He mimicked the situation at the time with a spin kick that was fierce and strong. “Xiaowu probably hadn’t reacted yet, he blocked with his hands, and his entire body flew out. There, those two wooden boxes and the porcelain bottles inside were smashed by him. Tsk tsk, it’s a distance of nearly ten meters. It was like a cannonball. We went to help him later, his hands were already broken. It seems Ms. Jian couldn’t hold back…”

Looking at the chaos in the cabin, the man seemed very excited as he told Qiao Guorui about the course of the fight. The stepmother looked at a large piece of fitness equipment that had fallen to one side, and she couldn’t help but walk over. She saw that the two steel bars that served as the legs, which were as thick as a man’s arm, were now bent at a strange ninety-degree angle. Before she could ask, the man explaining next to her pointed to this area and said, “This was kicked like this by Ms. Jian…”

The stepmother swallowed nervously, her eyes wide.

“Then… where’s Suyan?” Ya Han asked in confusion. “She’s gone? Mom just wanted to find her…”

“I, I, I, I, I…” The stepmother stammered and couldn’t speak.

“Heh, Ms. Jian went to the bathroom, she’ll be right out…”

As the man was speaking, a woman dressed in tight athletic wear with a cool demeanor emerged from the corner of the cabin on one side. She brushed the dust off her clothes and turned her head towards this side.

Her plain face was originally expressionless, but when she saw Ya Han and her stepmother next to her, she finally showed a touch of elegant smile. The stepmother had met this “Jian Suyan” briefly during the introduction by Ya Han when they boarded the ship. Just looking at her image now, it was hard to connect this plain and elegant woman with the scene of crazy destruction in the cabin.

“Hi, you’re here?” She greeted Ya Han with a smile and walked closer. “I think I heard someone looking for me.”

“My mom!” Ya Han raised her hand and said with a radiant smile.

“Oh, does Auntie need something?” Of course, Jia Ming maintained a respectful attitude towards Ya Han’s mother. He nodded and smiled as he walked closer, pulling Ya Han’s clothes. The stepmother, however, stood there stiffly and smiled awkwardly, taking a step back: “Hehe… hehe… well, actually, there’s nothing much… actually… uh, actually it’s like this, the thing is… the thing is… um, you gave me that, that, that… that bottle of perfume yesterday, it’s very delicious, I, I, I… I like it, I like it very much…”

“Perfume… very delicious?” The woman’s face probably showed such an awkward and puzzled expression for the first time.

“Yes, yes, yes… yeah, hehe, I’m going now, you two chat, chat… goodbye.”

She pushed Ya Han forward, smiling while quickly retreating out of the cabin door. With one hand she supported Ya Han, who was about to bump into her. Ya Han blinked her eyes in confusion. “What’s wrong? Ya Han… why are you laughing like that…”

“I think she’s scared by Suyan Jie (lit: Elder Sister Suyan).” Fang Guolin smiled, probably guessing the reason.

Ya Han couldn’t possibly tell the whole story here about her mother. After a few casual exchanges, when they walked out of the cabin door, Qiao Guorui seemed to have something he wanted to say. Before he could speak, Jian Suyan smiled lightly, “Mr. Qiao, I would like to talk to Captain Cui Guohua. May I?”

In an instant, Qiao Guorui breathed a sigh of relief. “…We’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time.”

*****************************

Volume Five should end here, Ya Han has fallen, and Yu Jinxiang has had her first contact with Yan Huang Jue Xing. Ultimately, the purpose of this volume is actually to make Ya Han fall, but the scene of her falling is not satisfactory to me.

The overly bland scene of falling is perhaps related to my personality. I’ve never been able to believe that passionate love can last, the flames always die out, only the flow of water can last year after year, forever. Jia Ming and Ya Han’s relationship was already certain before they came to America, but being together still requires many external factors. For example, they came to America, which reduced the influence of Ling Jing and Sha Sha. For example, the impact of life and death, allowing Ya Han to let go. I don’t think anyone in the world likes to be a mistress, at least Ya Han isn’t that kind of腐女 (lit: rotten girl, used to describe someone who is obsessed with something, in this case, it refers to a woman who is obsessed with another woman). The shackles of ethics and morality still have a big impact on Ya Han. In short, the shameless author designed a series of plots to smooth out Ya Han’s edges, forcing her to choose this result. Well, isn’t that great, Banana Great Demon King? ^_^

After the lengthy and boring battles, Volume Six focuses on urban life. Simple and plain family life stories are interspersed with some狗血 (lit: dog blood, slang for something that is melodramatic or sensational) four-way love stories. Ya Han’s characterization should be the focus, just like Ling Jing and Sha Sha after they fell. One minute she’s an elegant and noble teacher and daughter of a big family, and the next minute she’s a mistress after falling. I’ve been planning this image of a domineering woman with a big contrast and impact for a long time, and I hope I don’t write it too poorly. On the other hand, it’s time for Jia Ming to integrate into the lives of the Huang family, the Zhang family, and the Dongfang family, the upper echelon of Jiang Hai City. At that time, there should be some room for him to play the role of a扮猪吃老虎 (lit: pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger, meaning to hide one’s true strength and abilities). Of course, it will be clichéd and 狗血 (lit: dog blood, slang for something that is melodramatic or sensational), but for now it’s just an idea. Don’t have too high expectations for my character.

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