Hidden Assassin - Chapter 52

Chapter 52 – Great Waves
TL: Milaryn
Edit: IlkonEbi

Tokyo, Japan – August, 1997.

As midnight approached, the sound of motorbikes and gunshots echoed, and lights flashed and flickered. People living on the second floor of the surrounding households looked gingerly downwards, towards the street. During June of 1997, George Soros[1] had secretly sniped the economy of Thailand, and by July, the Quantum Group of Funds had swept up the Thai baht causing a banking crisis and unrest in the Southeast Asia region. It was similar to the financial crisis nightmare that occured in Japan during the 1990s and had left a shadow in the minds of many japanese people. There was a lot of social unrest and the organized crime syndicates had been especially active during the recent months. However, as long as the fire did not reach them, everyone would protect themselves by keeping one eye open and one eye closed to the situation.

As the sound of motorcycles faded away, the people in the house sighed in relief. Not long after, a group of young people wearing black designer suits entered the building at the end of the street, which was a hospital. Due to its location, there were not a lot of people there during the day and there were even less people this late at night. The young men in this group were all missing the pinky finger on their left hand, and the hospital’s security guards, doctors, and nurses actively avoided them. It was well known that all members of the Yamaguchi team were required to cut off their pinky finger upon joining.

“Has a Chinese man with a gunshot wound in his shoulder shown up here?”

“N-no, I haven’t seen anyone…”

The right hands of the members in the Yamaguchi team were intentionally or unintentionally held by their waists, and it seemed that they all carried firearms. However, when they asked around, hoping to find any trace of this Chinese person, both doctors and nurses shook their heads. In fact, at that hour, not a lot of people were at work, and the corridors were normally empty.

After a while, a young man wearing an extremely bright Hawaiian shirt, like the ones people wear when on vacation, came by and said, “I’ve searched the area and this is the right place. Take a few people to block the exits and entrances and then leave the rest to search this location.”

“Understood.” After confirming the orders, the group dispersed.

The young man continued casually strolling along the same floor. His nose twitched occasionally, as if he had a cold. After a while, he stopped in front of a staircase leading downstairs and tried to descend. A nurse ascending from the basement exclaimed, “Ah, sir, it’s the morgue downstairs, you’re not allowed to enter.”

The young man rubbed his slightly red nose and a demonically charming smile appeared on his face as he approached the nurse and she instantly stiffened. Her face warped into a horrified expression as a submachine gun had appeared out of nowhere in the young man’s hands.

The muzzle of the gun lifted her short skirt and rested lightly in-between her legs.

“…I-I-I’m sorry…” The nurse’s eyes filled with tears while the young man sniffed her neck a few times and said, “Hmm, you smell nice. Ms. Nurse, I really want to go take a look… it’s just a look, please let me through.”

“It’s… it’s fine…” The nurse was so scared that she started crying. The young man smiled and withdrew his submachine gun.

“Wow, I’m so glad. I’ll treat you to a meal, so don’t cry, ok? You’re not pretty when you cry,” he said as he continued walking downwards. The nurse staggered away in fear as he disappeared from her line of sight.

When the young man reached the bottom of the staircase the cold air of the morgue assaulted his senses. It was relatively dark and the entrance of the hospital’s morgue was blocked by a plastic curtain as a ray of light peeked through. Snatches of a relaxed and amiable tune was coming from inside as a soft female voice sang quietly.

♪♫♬ “Wild buffalo are gone from the prairie,
and the land knows humans are coming.
So it waits for men to awaken,
New life and blossom at their hands.
The prairie will be covered with golden ears of wheat,
As the mighty city will be built soon.
We welcome folks of all faiths and all races,
To visit this beautiful new world.”♪♫♬ [2]

When the young man realized that the song was sung in Chinese, he subconsciously frowned. He pushed aside the plastic curtain, he saw a surgical table in the middle of the morgue and the back of a tall woman, who was singing and dissecting a dead body. She had just pulled out some internal organs to place on the side, when she let out a sudden “Ah” and asked in stilting Japanese, “Mister, who are you? You can’t come in here without permission.”

Even though she was very pretty, she was still Chinese… The young man rubbed his nose, too lazy to respond, and casually started opening the metal storage cabinets that held dead bodies. He would take a brief glance in it, then would go open another one. After he opened around three doors, the Chinese woman, holding a scalpel and her hands still covered in blood, rushed over to stop him. “What are you doing?! If you want to view the dead bodies, you have to go through the proper procedures, eh…”

Before she finished talking, the muzzle of the submachine gun was already pressed against her forehead, “Get lost.”

“N-no… you’re not allowed to act like this…” The woman seemed quite afraid, but ultimately did not budge. The young man impatiently pushed her away, and the woman staggered a few steps backwards, hit the operating table, and fell to the ground. She frowned slightly at her left shoulder — it seemed that it had been injured.

“As expected, Japanese people… are barbarians…”

She said it quietly, in Chinese, but the man seemed to understand it. He rubbed his nose and continued to check the dead bodies in the storage spaces. After a thorough inspection of the morgue, he turned back, knelt by the woman’s side, and roughly responded to her in Chinese.

“Hmm, actually… Chinese people see Japanese people as barbarians, while Japanese people see Chinese people as cowards. I feel that this is quite accurate. The thing I hate most are those Chinese-loving Japanese people, or Japanese-loving Chinese people. We’re clearly enemies, so what is there to like about each other? So, Miss China, let us continue this friendly and accurate hostility against each other. My name is Morogami Munen, if I’m free, I’ll come play with you again.”

He then left the morgue. After a while, the Chinese woman got up from the ground and continued dissecting the dead body. Around thirty minutes later, she suddenly went to one of the storage cabinets and knocked on the door once. Then she opened it and asked the middle-aged man who was lying inside it, “Mr. Chen, are you still alive?”

“Yeah, still ok,” the man with a bleeding shoulder wound weakly responded. “But the bullet in my shoulder…”

“I’ll handle it immediately.” The woman took off the pair of plastic gloves she had been using when dissecting the dead body, and then pressed lightly against the man’s shoulder with her left hand. Shortly after, a soft white light glowed and the bullet flew out from his shoulder wound. Once the bullet had been extracted, the wound did not bleed at all. It seemed as if the bleeding stopped due to the ability she had used.

“The bullet has been taken out. For the time being, you won’t die of blood loss, but Mr. Chen, you have some severe internal injuries. It might be difficult to heal in this short time.”

“Yeah.” The middle-aged man studied her, before nodding approvingly, “Your ability is quite good. I’ve trained for so many years and thought that I would be fine in Peroka’s general headquarters, but who knew that that young man could easily wound me, cough… That Japanese person, Morogami Munen, is very strong. Since he said he was going to come find you, to avoid any unforeseen incidents, you should be relocated. Oh, right, my name is Chen Guxia.”

“Mr. Chen, you are quite famous in Ancestral Awakening, and as a junior, I have long heard of your name.” —the woman retrieved a towel— “My name is Li Yunxiu, even though I’ve been taken care of by the organization, I still have not been admitted as a member. When I came to Japan, I was assigned to act as external personnel and was only allowed to respond to situations that were considered as emergencies. Since Mr. Chen is here, has the situation deteriorated to such a level? The news I’ve been receiving these days are quite turbulent. People are saying that the financial crisis is reaching here. Has Peroka been affected?”

She asked confusedly before quickly smiling apologetically, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking this.”

“Heh, it’s fine.” Chen Guxia shook his head, “Peroka is not related to the financial crisis. It’s just that around the end of June, seven billion USD disappeared without a trace from Peroka’s Swiss bank account. Without any leads and no clues to investigate, it shook up the entire underworld. If it wasn’t for that situation, I wouldn’t have been discovered so soon…”

After a moment of reflection, the man shook his head again, “It has really opened my eyes. I thought I was already very powerful, but I was only a frog at the bottom of a well. Even though I could not find out any useful information to report, I at least saw the strength of Peroka’s high-level members. When I return, our organization should be able to prepare better defenses against Peroka. Oh right, since you’re external personnel, and you’ve encountered danger once, there’s no reason for you to take the risk a second time. You should prepare to return home.”

“Understood.” The woman called Li Yunxiu nodded in acquiescence.

———-

Early morning, August 30, 1997.

When the alarm clock rang, two pairs of lips lightly met each other. Then a small moist tongue inserts itself in the other’s mouth.

“Good morning… Jiaming… oh…” Lingjing woke up blearily and was struggling to open her eyes, when she saw Shasha’s charming face and felt her tongue nudging hers. Pushing Shasha’s face away, Lingjing glanced out outside to see the color of the sky, then turned back to the alarm clock which was showing ‘06:00’.

“Why is it so early…”

After lying on the bed for a little longer, she remembered that it was the first day of registration for high school. As the three of them had played too wildly last night, she was still quite muddled.

The blanket covering the bodies of the two naked girls was thin, but because it was summer, they did not feel cold exposing their bare and beautiful bodies to the air. Shasha had latched onto Lingjing like an octopus, so the latter had to spend quite a lot of effort to push her away before she could finally sit up properly. Then Lingjing tried to shake Shasha awake, “Wake up already! We have to go to school today.”

“Ugh, no please.” Shasha had the bad habit of lazing around in bed so if Lingjing had not tried to wake her, there was no way she would have woken up in time. Shortly after, Shasha still continued muttering, trying to hug Lingjing’s slender waist, and rubbing her forehead against Lingjing’s skin. Lingjing hurriedly pushed her away again, “Get up, you’re tickling me! If Jiaming saw us, he’d say we’re lilies again.”

“We are lilies though…” Shasha opened her eyes slightly and tried to latch onto Lingjing again. However, Lingjing had already leapt off the bed in all her naked glory and was going around the bed picking up her bra, underwear and other various pieces of clothing. After nudging Shasha and pushing her away, she said, “Get up already, you’re lying on my underwear…”

Not long after, the door of the master bedroom opened and a neatly dressed Jiaming entered. Seeing a naked, sleeping Shasha on the bed, he wandered over to the bathroom and pushed the door open. Lingjing was in the middle of washing up when she felt someone come in. She stepped backwards and splashed water towards him, “You’re not allowed to peek, you pervert!”

“I just wanted to let you know that breakfast is ready. Besides, if I wanted to peek, it’s not like I haven’t seen it last night.” Jiaming closed the door behind him and laughed, “I’ll see what I can do about Shasha.”

“Ok, you should tell her to get up. Every time I tried, she just hugged me.” Lingjing called out from the bathroom.

“Well, you two are lilies, it’s natural.”

“Just what is a lily, you always call us that. Can you please explain it to us…”

Jiaming smirked internally. Of course he was not just going to explain it to them! He paused before saying, “Well, lily just means a pure best friend, you silly girl.”

When he directly picked Shasha up from the bed, the young woman naturally embraced him, still half asleep. Jiaming then carried her into the bathroom, where Lingjing was just wiping off the bottom half of her body. She smirked and filled the tub with water, then Jiaming promptly dropped Shasha in, “I’m passing her over to you. This lazy piggy needs to be clean. If she still wants to sleep, we should just put her on the table and make her our breakfast.”

“Ack, you wanna die?” After lazing around for so long, Shasha was naturally no longer sleeping and she splashed water at Jiaming while laughing. He dodged and retreated out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Since the incident during the final middle school exams, the three’s relationship had evolved to a new stage. Even though it had been quite awkward and embarrassing during the first few days, as the days continued, the three of them found a new balance between them. After having experienced their first sexual encounters, they were currently in their honeymoon phase, which coincidentally was also during the worry-free time of summer vacation. The two girls had at first shyly taken turns to sleep with Jiaming, but that had now developed to this new 3P situation. That is to say, humans get corrupted really quickly, and that is only if you see this type of situation as depraved.

According to society, it would be considered unhealthy for the three not-yet-adults to form a bond like this. However, between the three of them, because they had grown up together and they felt like they might not be allowed to continue being together, they naturally found a reason to create a new relationship. After the awkward period had passed, they came to accept the new relationship. They naturally understood one another —despite Jiaming hiding his identity— and they felt comfortable and familiar with one another, like married couples would.

After a short while, the two girls finished bathing and Lingjing put on an elegant and refreshing white blouse and a long blue skirt, while Shasha wore a casual sweatshirt. As they gathered to eat breakfast, they joked around as usual, before settling down to discuss some more important matters.

“Oh, I passed our tuition fee to Yahan already, so I have our remaining funds on me. Today we should rent an apartment outside of school grounds, and we should also buy necessities such as towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes, cups, a plastic bucket, a gas stove, pans, a chopping board, knives…”

Lingjing took out her small wallet, confirmed the amount of money inside it, then continued writing a list of things they needed to buy. Renting an apartment was something the three of them had previously decided on. Lingjing had written an article for a newspaper, and had received some money for it around mid-August. This was the first windfall the three of them had gotten. Of course, this was without counting the funds from Jiaming’s hidden identity. The two girls were quite excited. Over the past two months, they had gotten used to living together and  hoped to continue with this lifestyle. They had even read some magazines that described an adult lifestyle and so the three of them had decided to try to live independently.

Apart from tuition fees, they did not want to borrow money from their families. Even though Jiaming still received some ‘living expenses’ money from the Huang family, it was currently stored as emergency funds and not used for everyday expenses. As the three of them matured, they tried to think of ways to earn money so that they could start living together and form a small family. They had to become financially independent as a family and had to know how to support themselves.

If adults knew what they wanted to do, they would have just thought that their children wanted to play house, but the two girls had been quite firm with their decision. As to Jiaming, he understood their situation and knew that three children trying to earn money in this society was not an easy thing to achieve. However, he did not feel they were being naive and he also wanted to grow up quicker, as the two girls were quite determined to keep their small family.

Even if it was considered a game, he really looked forward to this type of life. He anticipated it so much… that he was willing to do it for a lifetime…

The three of them chattered away noisily as they prepared for what they were going to do today. As they collected the dishes, the honking of a car resounded from outside of the villa. Shortly after, the doorbell rang, and a wavy-haired, glasses-wearing Yahan appeared by the gate, waiting for them.

[1] George Soros – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
For additional information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis about the SEA financial crisis during 1997. ↩

[2] The tune of the song – https://youtu.be/iCx-muKS0rI ↩

——

TL note: Start of a new arc and new characters to be introduced as well as familiar characters returning (:

1/2 chapters of the week (next release is Saturday, April 21).

I will do my usual procedure of saying when the next chap is going to be released so you’ll at least have some idea of when the next one is coming…

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