"Crack!" The bamboo sword came down hard on Jiaming. Across from him, Shasha let out a muffled "Mmph!" and began thrashing wildly in her chair.
"Haha, our classmate Jiaming really can take it—he can hold back even a sound." Cao Dongfeng slung the bamboo sword smugly over his shoulder. "But what are you yelling for, Sister Huaisha? Jiaming isn't crying out, so obviously it doesn't hurt."
He kept the smile on his face, and the very next moment the bamboo sword swung down harder, crack, crack, crack, one blow after another on Jiaming's body. "It doesn't hurt! It doesn't hurt! It doesn't hurt! See, I knew I was going easy! Going easy!"
While he flailed away with a murderer's ferocity, beside him the old Japanese man was swinging his bamboo sword too, and the crisp crack of it came off the Japanese girl named Tsukiike Kaoru. Yet apart from the smacking of bamboo, everything else was very quiet. Tsukiike Kaoru sat there as though she had lost her soul—hit once, she tilted over; then she straightened up again. And Jiaming, bound to the pillar, made no sound at all either, teeth clenched, enduring it in bitter silence.
After a while, Jiaming noticed Tsukiike Kaoru's cold gaze drift over to him for a moment—probably she found it strange that he could endure this too—and he laughed to himself.
If I really had to endure it, of course I could manage to show no reaction at all, the way she does. But right now I'm playing a little kid; pushing just a bit past the limit is enough. I still have to put on the gritted-teeth face.
Both of the ones being beaten made no sound at all, but Shasha, tied to her chair, watched Jiaming take blow after blow as if every one were landing on her own body.
She struggled harder and harder, shouting "mmph, mmph, mmph" through her gag, and the chair's four legs jumped and rattled on the ground with her thrashing, bang, bang, bang.
At last the chair toppled over and she went down with it, still in that kneeling posture as she raised her head, the girl's eyes wide, tears already running down her face. Whether it was from cracking her forehead on the ground just now or from grief over Jiaming, there was no telling.
Hearing Shasha hit the floor, Cao Dongfeng finally stopped, panting, and looked at Jiaming with wonder all over his face. "I never thought you really could take it... Did you build up an immunity because ninjas are always beating on you?"
Having cracked that joke, he turned back to look at Shasha on the ground. "But your girlfriend here has actually gone down on her knees. What's Cousin Huaisha trying to do—beg for mercy? Come on, come on, loosen her gag and let's hear what she has to say."
One of his men pulled the cloth wad out of Shasha's mouth, and she said, "Cao Dongfeng, if you've got business with anyone, take it up with me! If you've got the guts, fight me one-on-one!"
"One-on-one?" Cao Dongfeng raised his eyebrows. "How could I do that? I can't beat you. I don't like the sound of that one bit."
As he spoke he turned and hit Jiaming again.
When you've put every ounce of your strength into beating someone and the one being beaten is like a block of wood with no reaction whatsoever, it's a thoroughly depressing business. Like a pop star singing with nobody clapping, or a crosstalk comic doing his routine with nobody laughing. Still, though Jiaming made no sound, the cursing from Shasha behind him went on without a break, so Cao Dongfeng only swung harder and harder.
"Cao Dongfeng, you bastard..."
"You're not even a man, you're a spineless coward..."
"You don't even dare fight a woman one-on-one—if you're going to hit someone, hit me..."
The cursing gradually turned into sobbing, into pleading...
"Stop hitting him..."
"I'm begging you, don't hit him anymore, you'll beat him to death..."
"Ah—"
Looking at the tears covering Shasha's stubborn, tough little face as she screamed herself hoarse, Jiaming sighed inwardly. An ordinary kid would have broken down long ago under torture like this. But Cao Dongfeng doesn't seem to want to beat me to death outright—he isn't hitting anything vital. If I make my move now, as long as I pick the moment right, it shouldn't be much trouble. But should I really do it in front of her? And how am I supposed to explain it afterward? He groaned to himself, faintly irritated.
By now the beating had gone on for more than an hour. Shasha's throat was raw from crying; kneeling on the ground with the chair still strapped to her back, her bound knees could only shuffle forward in tiny steps, dragging a trail more than a meter long across the ground. The onlookers treated it as nothing but a spectacle and paid it no mind. Cao Dongfeng was raising the bamboo sword when—crack—the old Japanese man beside him caught the blow on his own bamboo sword, frowning and saying something.
A man nearby who understood Japanese translated: "Brother Feng, Mr. Tsukiike says he can't stand watching this anymore. Torture is supposed to inflict the greatest possible pain. If you cripple or maim the limbs too early, you only shorten the time the victim suffers. He says to watch how he does it."
Cao Dongfeng's eyes lit up, and he said respectfully, "Please instruct me, Master. Please instruct me." He knew this Japanese was very formidable, and he hurried to strike while the iron was hot. The old man Tsukiike flicked his bamboo sword once, and instantly a pain pierced Jiaming's arm down to the marrow.
The old man unhurriedly explained the method of exerting force for that blow in Japanese—how to strike only to the point and then stop, how steady the wrist had to be, how to lift something heavy as though it were light—and Cao Dongfeng listened, nodding and bowing. After a long while the old man suddenly glanced at the sky and said in Japanese, "Time's up."
He walked back to Tsukiike Kaoru's side and asked, "Three days are up. If you still won't talk, don't blame me for doing something that will humiliate you!"
The old man walked back over, and Cao Dongfeng, face bright with excitement, set about putting the lesson into practice. By now Shasha had shuffled a little farther forward, and she sobbed softly, "Don't—don't hit him anymore..." That cry only added to Cao Dongfeng's excitement. He breathed on both hands, threw a smug glance back at Shasha, then shouted "Hah!" and brought the bamboo sword down.
"Crack—"
That one rang out louder than any swing before it. Jiaming's small body jerked, he spat out a mouthful of blood, and then his head drooped. Cao Dongfeng bent to check, thrilled. "Haha, knocked him out cold, out cold..."
In an instant Shasha went rigid where she knelt, a vast blankness in her eyes, and then she cried out in a low voice, "Jiaming, Jiaming..." Her knees shuffled toward him faster than ever.
Cao Dongfeng turned to order someone to fetch water and wake Jiaming up, but the old Japanese man suddenly called him back: "Mr. Tsukiike says, strip that Japanese girl naked right here, and then get on top of her..." The translator smiled lewdly.
"Here? With everyone watching?" Cao Dongfeng was a little taken aback—then he heard Cao Jinghao, who had been enjoying the show off to one side all along, shout, "Whatever Mr. Tsukiike tells you to do, you do! What are you yapping for?!"
"Oh." Cao Dongfeng rubbed his hands together. It struck him as rather absurd, but what the hell—this girl was far too pretty, no worse than Lingjing. It was only because she was a woman Mr. Tsukiike had brought along that he had forced himself to kill every thought he had about her. To have her once now, even with spectators, was no loss—they were all people he knew, after all.
Thinking so, he walked over to the girl, glanced at old man Tsukiike, and only after getting a confirming nod did he dare reach out. But just as his fingers were about to touch the kimono collar, a white flash blazed up before his eyes!
With a crack, Tsukiike Kaoru's left hand snapped back, and Cao Dongfeng was so frightened by the turn of events that he staggered back several steps and nearly fell. Seeing the few drops of fresh blood dripping from the wide sleeve on Tsukiike Kaoru's left arm, he finally understood: it was this little girl who looked like a porcelain doll who had struck just now, and if Mr. Tsukiike hadn't hit her, his own throat would probably already be slit.
What could it be... Mr. Tsukiike was beating her, so he certainly wouldn't allow her to carry any weapon on her. Then... fingernails.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, old man Tsukiike patted him on the back with the bamboo sword, urging him to go right up, and the translator said, "Mr. Tsukiike says not to worry—he'll be watching your back from right here."
"Heh, then I'm not worried."
This time Cao Dongfeng walked straight over and was about to act when Tsukiike Kaoru suddenly sprang to her feet and made to flee to one side. The old man beside her moved, and crack—the girl dropped to the ground like a butterfly with a broken wing, the wide kimono spreading out, her black hair spilling down like a waterfall.
Yet the stretch of calf bared beneath the kimono was covered in shocking scars. The old man had dressed her all in bright red and beat her every day; from the outside she looked beautiful and alluring, but underneath that kimono the girl's body was probably one mass of wounds.
Cao Dongfeng hesitated a moment, then still reached for the girl on the ground. In that instant her body moved again, her right hand stabbing out. Cao Dongfeng jerked back, then the bamboo sword came to meet her—another vicious blow. This time he could see: lying on her side, inside the sleeve, those slender fingers were a smear of red, trembling faintly.
He glanced instinctively at the old man beside him, drew a breath, and bent down again.
By this time Shasha had slowly shuffled to within a meter of Jiaming. As she crawled she kept her eyes on the boy who had been beaten unconscious. It hurts so much... I've never hurt like this before... Why...
Suddenly she saw Jiaming lift his head, and then open his eyes.
Before the cry in her mouth could come out, she froze—because at that moment Jiaming's eyes were filled with a blankness like a dead man's, and then it turned to a blood-red crimson.
"Jiaming..."
The sound stayed lodged in her throat, turning into an unknown terror and blankness.
On the other side, Cao Dongfeng had seized the collar of Tsukiike Kaoru's kimono and was slowly pulling it open, the shocking wounds tearing wide from the inside. That startling sight had only just entered his eyes when cries of alarm suddenly rose all around. At his side, the old Japanese man's hand flicked up; the bamboo sword's outer shell shattered outright, and then a point of cold light stabbed out—but this time he wasn't fast enough.
Cao Dongfeng was lifted off the ground.
Someone had hauled him up by the collar; behind him he could feel only a sharp blade pressed hard against his back, and in front of him the old man's thrust katana had stopped against his body, its point almost touching his throat.
"Don't move—"
"Let go of him!"
"Jiaming..."
Amid all those voices, the Japanese girl lying on her side on the ground quietly raised her head and looked at the boy standing right beside her, his dagger pressed hard against the small of Cao Dongfeng's back, the blood at the corner of his mouth slowly dripping down. Beneath his clothes, was he too covered in wounds from head to foot, like her...?
Then she saw the boy smile.
"Old man... you're not fast enough..."
Signed the contract yesterday, and in the small hours today my graphics card died. Sure enough, heaven has started testing my luck again... But it's all an illusion—it can't scare me!
Recommending a friend's book, Shen Ba Tianji: a legendary tale that starts with a woman's sexy panties hitting someone in the head...
Link below.
Click to view the image link: Shen Ba Tianji