Chapter Thirty-Four: The Winds Rise, Clouds Surge (Part 5)

Wang Bingcai was someone who had seen his share of the world. Though many of the people involved in this operation were present as favors to others, the deference these thugs showed him clearly indicated his weight among them. It was obvious that handling matters such as contacting hired killers from the Northeast was something only he could do personally. After all, recruiting such desperados required not just money, but also respect—they wouldn’t have traveled all the way to HJ City and allowed him to owe them, otherwise.

It was important to remember that Wang Bingcai was, at this point, merely a former civil servant, and his family had suffered greatly during the last purge in HJ City. A man in his situation might have supporters behind him, but unless he had the courage and nerve, he could never have borne the burden of leadership.

Yet, this very man, who showed no fear even when facing a dozen knife-wielding Northeastern strongmen, now found his heart quivering uncontrollably as he watched Chen Hongxu’s figure materialize from the darkness.

Swallowing nervously, Wang Bingcai was at a loss—he couldn’t understand how the boy, who seemed so utterly unremarkable in the files, could remain so calm and composed now. Instinctively, he retreated a few steps, hiding himself among the burly men meant to protect him, and only then did he regain a measure of composure.

The reason for Wang Bingcai’s strange reaction was, of course, that Chen Hongxu had focused all the killing intent in his body squarely upon him. Chen Hongxu’s murderous aura was that of a seasoned warrior, honed and incubated over countless years; it was not something an ordinary man like Wang Bingcai could hope to withstand.

At this moment, Chen Hongxu expected Wang Bingcai to immediately order his men to attack, but to his surprise, once the initial shock had passed, Wang Bingcai seemed to regain his swagger.

Telling himself that Chen Hongxu’s composure must be the result of fear addling his mind, Wang Bingcai grew more certain of this explanation the more he thought about it. He broke into a pleased smile and said, “You must be confused. You, just an ordinary, unremarkable student—why would you find yourself facing such an overwhelming situation tonight?”

Chen Hongxu sneered, stopping in his tracks, intending to see what else Wang Bingcai had to say.

Seeing Chen Hongxu halt, Wang Bingcai assumed his words had stunned the boy, rendering him too frightened to move. He smiled again, though this time there was a complicated edge to it. “It’s precisely because you are so ordinary, so unexceptional. How could you ever hope to climb into the Xue family’s ranks? How could you expect Xue Xi to fall for you? The road for a man from humble beginnings is always paved with hardship. Too bad you won’t live to reach the end. If only Xue Xi had chosen me instead back then…”

As he spoke, Wang Bingcai’s voice gradually trailed off. Yet, in his eyes, Chen Hongxu caught a flicker of uncertainty. If, at first, he had assumed that Wang Bingcai was the mastermind behind all this, then considering the people Wang could command and the information that could be uncovered, the man’s influence should have been so great that he would act with complete impunity—how could the previous incident have implicated him?

“Could there be someone else behind this?” Chen Hongxu narrowed his eyes, uncertain. He didn’t have many enemies, but neither were they few. Most were people of high rank, though, and those sorts would know that such crude tactics could never harm him; they wouldn’t waste their time deploying expendable pawns like these. Moreover, Wang Bingcai’s words just now hinted that all this stemmed from Xue Xi—could someone else be targeting the Xue family?

“Why am I telling all this to a mere student?” Wang Bingcai suddenly gave Chen Hongxu a cruel smile, then raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Goodbye.”

With that, Wang Bingcai ignored the scene behind him, turned, and began striding toward the factory gate. The surrounding thugs seemed to take his departure as the signal to act.

Each thug brandished a gleaming machete; in the faint light, the blades glinted with a chilling sheen.

“Kill!” someone shouted. Two or three thugs raised their blades high and charged at Chen Hongxu with impressive momentum.

Faced with such a display, Chen Hongxu could only respond with a wry smile. After all, he was just dressed as an ordinary student—if even three people rushed him, it was already a sign they took him seriously. It was as if a group of adults were picking a fight in a kindergarten: most would stand back and watch, and only a few would actually do the fighting—it simply wasn’t worth their effort.

Kill or be killed—for Chen Hongxu, these three were already corpses. He had faced far greater dangers, even in the Spring Shrine with its barriers and skeletal warriors, and never flinched; why should he be afraid of this petty scuffle?

A red glow began to emanate from Chen Hongxu’s body as he strode calmly and steadily toward the charging thugs.

“Trying to scare us with tricks!” cursed one of the three thugs as they closed in, undeterred by the glow that made Chen Hongxu look like a firefly. They swung their blades directly at his head with deadly intent.

There was no mistaking their intentions. The fact that they all carried machetes made it clear—they had come to kill tonight. Normally, thugs only used machetes to intimidate; they were cumbersome and useless for anything else. If you went too far and accidentally killed someone, a simple brawl would instantly become a murder, which was never worth the risk. Iron bars were far more practical: you could smash, stab, sweep, or block with them.

There was a trio of sharp, crisp sounds. The onlookers watched as Chen Hongxu brushed past the three attackers—his hands seemingly untouched—and the men collapsed to the ground as if their legs had turned to jelly from exhaustion, utterly motionless.

Though the thugs weren’t blind, they could sense there was something different about Chen Hongxu. Still, surprise did not give way to fear—after all, there was power in numbers, a truth ingrained in every heart.

Chen Hongxu did not pause, always keeping a measured distance from Wang Bingcai, who seemed supremely confident in the men behind him and strode forward without a backward glance.

“He’s tougher than we thought—everyone, attack together!” someone shouted, and in an instant, a tide of bodies surged forward, engulfing Chen Hongxu just as they had swallowed up the man with the dagger moments earlier.

Though numbers could overwhelm in a fight, there was only so much space around one person. Even if you drew a circle around Chen Hongxu, using the length of an outstretched arm and a machete as the radius, only so many could fit. These thugs were not soldiers drilled in formation—they didn’t know to crouch in front to slash at legs, to bend in the middle to cut at waists, or to stand in the back to aim for the head.

They were a disorderly mob. In the crush, with everyone eager to strike the first blow as if he were a mortal enemy, only about a dozen managed to surround Chen Hongxu at any one time.

Yet those surrounding him kept falling, and others kept surging forward to take their place. The situation held steady in this grim equilibrium.

Suddenly, as they neared the factory gate, someone shouted, “Careful—he’s using poison!”

The effect was immediate and absolute—like someone crying out that they had a deadly disease on a crowded street, everyone fled as far as they could. No sooner had the shout sounded than the thugs around Chen Hongxu recoiled as if they’d seen a ghost, and a clatter of machetes echoed as they hit the ground.

In the faint moonlight, the thugs could see the scene within the factory. They were seized with terror, not daring to advance another step.

All along the path Chen Hongxu had taken, the ground was littered with bodies—the very men who had just tried to block his way. No wonder someone had cried out about poison; the image was as fantastical as a tale from legend.

Had there been more light, perhaps they could have spotted some trace of Chen Hongxu’s movements—after all, he hadn’t used his full strength, nor had he killed outright. But in the gloom of the factory, with faces barely discernible, no one could see a thing.

Thugs may love money, but only if they live to spend it. Now, with everyone keeping their distance, a few men among them drew guns.

The burly men who had first stood guard around Wang Bingcai pulled pistols from their belts and opened fire at Chen Hongxu’s retreating form.

But—

“Where is he?” The thugs were once again struck dumb. If they could explain the earlier collapse as due to poison, how could they account for Chen Hongxu’s sudden disappearance just as he reached the gate? They searched desperately for an explanation.

Then, screams rang out one after another. The gunmen fell, one after another, each clutching his neck, curling up on the ground like boiled shrimp, unmoving.

As the last of the gunmen collapsed, the vanished figure reappeared at the gate, stepping forward with steady, deliberate strides toward Wang Bingcai, who had already spun around in terror at the commotion behind him.