Hidden Assassin - Chapter 72 – The Night Road

Chapter 72 – The Night Road
TL: Milaryn
Edit: IlkonEbi

Ratatata…

Loud gun fire was heard as Bai Nana and Tank fired frenziedly into the second car. Then, just as the car in the front skidded to a stop, Naga, who was drenched in blood, dragged himself out from the car and ran towards them.

The car behind continued to accelerate, and shortly after, the car door on the driver’s side opened and a woman flung herself out of the car, while the unmanned vehicle continued charging towards the three of them.

“Run—”

The three of them ran frantically in the opposite direction, trying to avoid the car. In the end, the small car hit another pillar, exploding into a small ball of fire with a loud boom.The shockwave caused by the explosion lifted the three and pushed them out of the factory.

As he struggled to regain his balance, Tank continued firing agitatedly behind them while turning briefly to check the status of the two. He saw that Naga had not been shot, but had been stabbed, while Bai Nana’s left hand had been injured. It seemed that the mysterious person that was hiding had taken a shot while they had been running.

“Run! To the coast!” Tank said curtly. The three of them kept their guard up and cautiously made their way out. Once outside, Tank asked, “What of the other two?”

“They’re probably dead.” Naga took the gun Tank handed to him, “That bomb brat tried to escape in the crowd, but ended up dying to a stab. Hawkeye got trapped; he probably got surrounded and killed by  Ancestral Awakening and the police…”

“Cui Guohua…”

“Cui Guohua was not the one that made the move!” Naga vehemently denied, “It was one of our targets — the little lady from the Tsukichi clan. That girl really doesn’t want to live. Once she got shot twice by me, she started driving recklessly like a mad woman. When we got to the highway that was right by the cliff, she didn’t reduce her speed at all, instead she stepped even harder on the pedal. If Japanese clan members are all that undisciplined, then why do we even need to train assassins! Bomb and Hawkeye both fell into her traps; it was as if she had long since known all our plans.”

“Tsukichi Kaoru?” Tank seemed slightly taken aback, “That’s not possible. Our intelligence said she was not this skillful. If she could act to such an extent in China, then… the Tsukichi clan might have formed an alliance with Ancestral Awakening…”

Under the overcast sky, amidst the raging waves beating against the coast, a speedboat zoomed across the sea towards the beach. The three of them had not been attacked while retreating as they had spent their full effort on getting to the coast. They were gloomily thinking about how an alliance between the Tsukichi clan, Takamagahara and Ancestral Awakening would affect Peroka in the future. As the speedboat got closer, the three of them felt slightly stunned, but quite relieved when they saw who was on it. The impending doom they had been feeling seemed to be diluted with the arrival of that person.

The four people looked at each other on the beach.

“Sir! Y-you’re here…”

“Time is of the essence, get on the boat. You all are quite heavily injured.”

An indifferent, but steady tone was heard as the man approached, his voice slightly hoarse.

On the other side, as the three people retreated to the beach, Tsukichi Kaoru was currently being roughly stripped by the young man in a dark corner of the factory.

The youth’s face was a stranger’s, but his behavior and mannerisms were familiar. Ointment and bandages appeared out of nowhere like magic in his hands, and then the gauze was tightly wrapped around her gunshot wounds to stop the bleeding. Her left leg had been injured as well, so he pulled the trousers she had been wearing down to wrap gauze tightly around it. He was quick and efficient with his first-aid, but a small frown lingered on his face— it seemed that he was a little angry.

“Ugh… I’m sorry… I wasn’t able to kill three of them…”

“We can talk about it later. To be honest, I’m actually relatively satisfied with the results this time.” Deep inside, he was pondering over his method of teaching. Peroka’s assassin training was to throw a group of people into extremely dangerous situations. If they survived, they were allowed to continue training. Originally, Jiaming had wanted to use this method, but it seemed that using it to train one person was not a good way to do it.

The main problem lay with the fact that Peroka had a large number of reserve members. In the current situation, he only had one disciple, and he would have to think of a better way of training her… Being a teacher was indeed troublesome.

This time the butterfly effect caused by him acquiring the seventy billion USD had caused quite huge ripples. It started from Peroka ousting the undercover Chen Guxia and seemed to have accelerated the first time Peroka and Ancestral Awakening would get into conflict. Jiaming’s original plan was to completely cripple Tank and Bai Nana, so that even if Kaoru got captured by them, he would still have two hostages. But when he heard about ‘Cui Guohua’, he switched plans and decided to let them escape. If Naga had not shown up when he did, he would have killed the two of them already.

If it had been like before, he would have been too lazy to bother about the matters of the criminal underworld. But now that he had taken in a troublesome disciple, if his identity was discovered by Peroka, he would definitely be eradicated. Thus, now that he could fan the flames, it was too good of an opportunity to give up on that and it barely even required any effort. The remaining problem was whether he should kill one or two of the remaining Peroka members…

After administering first aid to Kaoru, he had her lean against the wall and then he pulled out the duffel bag that Tank had hidden earlier. He took out a pile of parts and then, like magic, quickly assembled them into a sniper rifle. At that point Kaoru, who was watching him, saw a piercing smile appear on his face as he ran towards the side of the factory closest to the coastline. On the small coastal facing platform, the three Peroka members were just getting onto the speedboat and were preparing to leave.

Sensing the wind direction, Jiaming took a deep breath, raised the gun while taking off the cover on the scope, and then took aim and tensed… This series of movements smoothly flowed one after the other, and Kaoru memorized everything Jiaming did as she watched from afar. However, in the next moment, there was no sound of gunfire.

In the next split second, just when he was about to shoot, Jiaming suddenly jerked back and dodged before throwing himself to the ground to hide completely. The sniper rifle fell down with a thump next to him, the muzzle pointing in the air.

As the ocean breeze blew in, the young man sat against the cement block unmoving, as if paralyzed. The young woman looked at him in confusion as she saw his hand lightly trembling. After a moment, distressed, the young man lightly rubbed his forehead before smiling ironically.

“Haha… Kaoru, it seems that if we travel the night road too much, we will really end up seeing ghosts…” When he peered over to the ocean again, the speedboat had disappeared without a trace. Calmly looking at Kaoru, he went towards her and scooped up the bloodied and half-naked young woman.

“We should leave before the police get here…”

What did he see just now… she thought, but did not ask. Not long after, feeling safe in his arms, she passed out into a deep sleep.

Her mission had not been completed, so she would take her punishment once she healed. But for now, she was really tired…