And so the whole business with the robbers came down its final curtain. The helicopter belonged to the search team the Zhang family had sent out; what startled Jiaming was that two men aboard were carrying sniper rifles — the professional-grade special forces or mercenary kind — and he could not help marveling inwardly at just how formidable the Zhang family was.
The search team arrived in the nick of time. The two bandits were still alive, though they looked to have nothing left in them but a last breath. After hearing Yahan's rough account of what had happened and examining Scarface's wounds, the two special forces soldiers gave Jiaming a few extra long looks, but in the end they took no suspicious action.
Jiaming wasn't worried about these people. True, this business looked like too much luck, but too much luck wasn't something no one else had ever had. From the look of those wounds, he was confident no one would spot anything off — and in fact, even if there were something off, his identity as a child was enough to make other people dismiss their own doubts.
The one hole in the story was Scarface.
One cut to deflect the incoming attack, then a slash to the arm, a gash to the thigh, and finally the dagger driven into the man's backside — all of it clean and neat, in one unbroken flow.
Too clean!
It had been in the middle of a downpour, darkness all around, the storm fouling every sense. It was Jiaming's first time striking out since taking possession of this body, and he hadn't dared hold anything back of his own accord — and precisely because of that, he had left that one flaw.
Once Scarface came back to his senses and thought the whole thing over, there was a very good chance he would start to suspect something. And when the helicopter set down and Liu Huaisha came running from the distance to throw herself, sobbing, into Lingjing's and Jiaming's arms, Jiaming clearly saw that on the stretcher being carried out of the helicopter, the dying Scarface was still staring over at him with a look of utter venom.
I should have made it look like a blunder and just killed him.
This brand-new life had come to him so precious, and because of that Jiaming wanted to greet the years ahead in the purest state possible. Not that killing disgusted him — he simply didn't want to leave any unusual loose ends behind. Having once been an assassin, he naturally understood that every last scrap of caution had its own necessity.
But the man had committed armed robbery and kidnapping — and, if it came down to it, attempted rape; add to that offending a great clan like the Zhangs, and he wouldn't be getting out without eight or ten years in prison. It wouldn't have been very hard to go to the hospital and finish him off before he ever stood trial, but that meant taking a bigger risk, so after thinking it over Jiaming decided to let it drop.
Just a nobody of a small-time hoodlum anyway. The day he got out of prison, he could simply get a sniper rifle, put one through him, and that would be the end of it.
As for Zhang Yahan, there was probably something about him that struck her as odd, though it didn't amount to suspicion. Since she wasn't going to marry Huang Haoyun, there wouldn't be many chances for them to cross paths after this, so the whole thing didn't matter.
They showered at a hotel near the airport, changed into clean clothes, and after a bowl of three-delicacy noodles were driven home in a Zhang family car. Zhang Yahan sat in the front passenger seat in a white-and-green tracksuit, her hair tied back in a ponytail, looking crisp and athletic; Lingjing and Huaisha chattered away in the back seat recounting the thrills of the previous night, and then Huaisha kept marveling at Jiaming's amazing luck.
When they reached the Ye Family Martial Arts School, Lingjing, Huaisha and Jiaming got ready to get out, and Zhang Yahan turned around and said with a smile, "Well then, goodbye!"
"Goodbye, Sister Yahan." Lingjing was always polite; Jiaming only nodded, thinking, Farewell forever.
They had no sooner stepped out than Yahan popped her head out of the car window again and, gazing at the signboard of the Ye Family Martial Arts School, said in delight, "Wow, Lingjing, does your family run a martial arts school?"
"That's right."
"That's wonderful." Yahan pushed the door open and climbed out. "After what happened yesterday, I was just thinking I ought to find somewhere to learn some self-defense."
That's just terrible, Jiaming thought, then said aloud, "This is a school for little kids!"
"What does that matter?" Yahan smiled sweetly. "I'm a little kid too, just a bit older than you, that's all. This sister is only nineteen, you know."
"Don't listen to Jiaming's nonsense, Sister. Dad never said we only teach little kids — it's just that everyone learning right now happens to be a kid. Come with me, Sister." Having drummed up a piece of business for the family, Lingjing promptly sold out her childhood friend and pulled Yahan toward the school building. Jiaming sighed inwardly and wondered what fraction of her motive for learning martial arts was aimed at him.
Be that as it may, the Ye Family Martial Arts School turned no one away, and from then on this beautiful top student by the name of Zhang Yahan joined the ranks of martial arts learners, without a single break the whole summer. Every time Jiaming saw her heh-heh-hah-hah-ing her way through Wing Chun drills with Lingjing, he really had to fight back a laugh.
Still, taking on a female disciple like her did drum up quite a bit of extra business for the school. Yahan's profession was teaching; though she had yet to formally start classes, she was mad about teaching children, and every time she taught Lingjing some junior high material ahead of schedule, plenty of other kids would come over with their homework to ask questions, and she answered them one and all without a trace of impatience.
Once word spread that the Ye Family Martial Arts School had gained a teacher back from studying at Cambridge, families who had been hesitating hurried to send their children over, and in the last month of summer the school's business was genuinely booming. Lingjing was overjoyed about it and grew closer than ever to Yahan. Only Jiaming — every time Lingjing sat in on one of those lessons, she had to drag him along to "improve together," tormenting him to the point where he nearly lost his mind.
But I have to put up with it!
Zhang Yahan's interest in him was clearly not finished yet. In Jiaming's estimation, she probably had him pegged as some kind of genius child with an IQ of 180 who, being precocious and unvalued within his family, therefore concealed his intelligence and kept it bottled up; every time she turned that half-smile his way, he could feel it. Well, fine, fine. Let her think whatever she likes.
Not long after, the two bandits' case was adjudicated: Triangular Eyes got eight years, and the ringleader Scarface ten — heavy sentences for that kind of case, most likely thanks to the Zhang family's string-pulling. In fact, if they had simply been released, the outcome might have been even uglier, because not only would Jiaming have finished them off himself, the boss of the Sand Bamboo Gang had already put out word that he would have those two chopped to death the moment he saw them.
He somehow got through that long, boring summer — made worse by a self-important woman constantly probing at him. When school started in September, Yahan began going to the elite academy to prepare for her teaching and had far fewer chances to come to the school. Jiaming, meanwhile, entered Xinghui Middle School together with Lingjing and Huaisha, and the three of them headed into their junior high years.