Chapter 1465 Panther Man versus Speedster
Yu Jiang brought a group of underlings with him, and soon arrived at Old Zhu’s teahouse.
The teahouse was three floors high. Its decorations and facilities were of course nothing in the eyes of people from the Inner Territories, but in the impoverished Outer Frontier, it was actually quite a luxurious place. The exquisite yet simple wooden furniture was well polished. If a more intimate and quiet s.p.a.ce was needed, there were also private rooms to rent on the third floor.
Zhu’s Teahouse was open 24/7, providing tea and other simple dishes to their customers. No one other than the rich could afford to drink a cup of tea and spend several hours in comfort, meeting and chatting with their friends.
Yu Jiang was the leader of Old Yu’s Eight Burly King Kongs. No one stopped him from entering Old Zhu’s teahouse, and the moment he stepped in, the service staff all began to greet him with a big smile on their faces, informing Yu Jiang that the big miss and her friends were all on the third floor.
!!
‘What friends. They are just a bunch of ne-er do wells,”‘ Yu Jiang thought to himself unhappily.
Because the big miss had befriended these fair-weather friends, Yu Jiang had to help deal with these trivial matters a dozen, or even several dozen times a month. Yu Jiang was already deeply annoyed by it all.
“Do we know those people?” Yu Jiang asked the staffer with the curly hair who accompanied him on his way up.
“No. They are a bunch of people from the Inner Territories, and they appear extremely loaded from how they are dressed. Brother Jiang, you better be careful,” warned the staffer anxiously.
Extremely loaded?
Yu Jiang nodded understanding. The staff worked in the service industry and were quite observant. Since he had mentioned that the other party was extremely loaded and advised caution, it was a clear indication that the staff had already noticed something was amiss.
But Yu Jiang was not worried about that. This was the Hidden Mountain Outpost after all, and it was not like people from the three Federations were monsters. They were humans, just like him, and in no time at all, he would have the ident.i.ty of being from part of the three federations as well. With that thought in mind, Yu Jiang puffed out his chest.
Arriving at the third floor, Yu Jiang looked around and saw twelve of the rooms were open, but not a single customer could be seen. It was most likely because of an altercation that had happened earlier, and those who were there for their morning tea had already left.
Among them was the Autumn Leaf room. There was a vague sound of crying coming from inside, as well as people talking. Yu Jiang knew that that must be the place. With a stern frown, he ordered the people beside him to remain by the entrance and entered the room by himself.
This was a big room with a round table at the end. Seven youngsters from the Inner Territories were seated around said table, while the big miss and her fair-weather friends were scattered on the floor by the entrance.
A fat teenage boy was lying down on the floor, his face pale. He had already lost consciousness and his arm had been broken by someone. Then there was another young girl whose fairly pretty face was now clearly marked with a five-fingered slap. She was rubbing her face and crying loudly.
Big Miss Yu Cuicui was among the group of teenagers. She was not the pretty sort, having inherited Old Yu’s wide chin. Her make-up was thick and because she had been going crazy last night, her dark circles were visible.
“Don’t be afraid, my cousin is here!” Yu Cuicui immediately perked up the moment she saw Yu Jiang. She got up from the floor and pointed at the people from the Federation who were drinking tea silently and barked, “Cousin, these guys were too much! Quick, help me teach them a lesson! They broke Xioa Tang’s arm!”
Yu Jiang sighed inwardly. It was only during such instances that Yu Cuicui would call him her cousin. Most of the time, she would treat Yu Jiang like a dog the family kept.
Yu Jiang was not someone who did things blindly, including following Yu Cuicui’s orders and just causing trouble to these Inners. Instead, he used his eyes to observe and brain to think.
These Inners did not appear to be simple. While they were dressed casually, he could tell from the gaps of their cuffs that they were wearing battlesuits underneath.
They had evidently just beaten someone up and caused trouble in someone else’s turf, yet these youngsters appeared to be completely unbothered. They were still drinking tea and eating snacks like nothing had happened, not once sparing a glance for Yu Jiang the entire time.
Such an att.i.tude that showed no fear made Yu Jiang realize that he might be in for a tough time!
‘Oh big miss, you truly are a g*dd*mn troublemaker!’, Yu Jiang cursed her deep down in his heart.
But Yu Cuicui was only fifteen. Spoiled since a young age, there was no way she understood the sinister truth about the world.
When she saw that Yu Jiang was staying silent, she no longer addressed him as cousin. Instead, she began yelling and scolding him, demanding to know if he was truly a man, and that she’d tell her father Old Yu to chase Yu Jiang back to Deserted River Star Region and let him starve to death.
Yu Jiang was helpless against Yu Cuicui. The status the big miss held in the household was simply too special. Though Old Yu had plenty of wives and women, only Yu Cuicui’s mother was Old Yu’s childhood sweetheart.
Old Yu was truly fond of Yu Cuicui’s mother, but it was too bad that she had a frail const.i.tution all her life, and had succ.u.mbed to illness not long after giving birth to her daughter.
Though Old Yu married many wives afterwards and had plenty of women, he could never forget Yu Cuicui’s mother. Other women would act like kittens in front of Old Yu, not even daring to raise their voice in front of him. But Yu Cuicui dared to scold Old Yu right to his face, angering Old Yu so much that he wanted to vomit blood, but still he could not bring himself to lay a finger on her.
And so Yu Cuicui had become even more overbearing after being spoiled by her father, and ended up mixing around with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells in Hidden Mountain Outpost. By twelve she already had her first man. She started staying out and not coming back home at night when she was thirteen, and had her first abortion by the time she was fourteen. Her life was nothing short of a mess.
Yu Jiang stepped forward and said evenly, “Friends, may I ask how our family’s big miss had offended everyone? They are still children at the end of the day, and yet all of you acted so heavy-handedly that I’m afraid it’s hard to make logical sense of things.”
The moment Yu Jiang finished saying his piece, several of these youngsters that were drinking tea chuckled in unison.
“Friend? You don’t have the qualifications to call yourself a friend of ours.
“Just now that chick even said that she would set the dog of their family to bite us. So it seems like you’re nothing more than a dog.
The expression on Yu Jiang’s face changed. “You’ve already beaten them up, even breaking an arm in the process. What else do you want?
A young man with a cat-like demeanor raised his eyebrow. “Nothing really. We specifically chose the room because we wanted peace and quiet, but these children who were lacking in manners were causing a ruckus, and that disturbed our peace.
“We told them to shut up, but they still acted very arrogantly. So we had no choice but to teach them a lesson.”
“How about this,” The patherish figure fo the man suddenly picked up a cup from the table and spilled its contents on the ground before saying, “Tell them to come over and lick the tea clean, and I’ll let you leave with them.”
“That’s too much! I’LL HAVE IT OUT WITH YOU!”
Without even waiting for Yu Jiang to respond, a friend of Yu Cuicui, a young man with a flat-top haircut, leaped to his feet and came charging over with a brandished fist.
Yu Jiang recognized the teenager to be someone by the name of Feng Yang. His family jad opened a departmental store in Hidden Mountain Outpost. Among Yu Cuicui’s fair-weathered friends, he was someone with a measure of backbone.
*bang!*
Right as Feng Yang got near the young Federation man with the cat-like figure, the latter flashed out a kick that landed right on Feng Yang’s chest. The boy was promptly sent flying away, cras.h.i.+ng into the walls of the room after flying well over a dozen meters in the air from the forceful blow.
The room was built with composite fiberboards for part.i.tions and was not st.u.r.dy at all. The walls shook upon impact, and Feng Man collapsed heavily to the ground. Fresh blood flowed from his head the moment his head struck the ceiling.
Yu Jiang knew that Feng Yang’s rib cage was already shattered.
When he kicked, the pantherish-man had his hands in his trouser pockets, looking very casual, yet so much force was contained in that one move. Yu Jiang could tell that this catlike man might very well be a strength-type special ability user!
Feng Yang raised one hand, seemingly unwilling to give up, but his chest was in immense pain, making it impossible for him to make any sound as blood continued to flow from the corner of his mouth.
The moment Yu Cuicui and her friends saw the state he was in, they immediately exploded, yelling loudly for the staff from the teahouse to go call men from their various families.
“Call them all you like!” The patherish man sat down on his chair, arrogantly hollering, “Send as many as you can! It’d be best if you call all the combat-capable men of Hidden Mountain Outpost and send them my way! That would save me the trouble of finding them!”
*crash*
The catlike man swept the ceramic tea set from the table and everything smashed into pieces when it struck the ground.
He pointed to the broken pieces all over the floor and said, “But I’ll be plain: Previously all I wanted was you all to lick the tea on the floor, but now, you must also swallow the pieces as well, or none of you can even think of leaving!”
Yu Jiang was stunned. Swallowing broken ceramic pieces would clearly kill a person. These strange men from the Inner Territories were clearly not letting any of them off easy!
Yu Cuicui was already yelling loudly, clearly shocked by the other party’s temperament.
Yu Jiang swallowed hard. It looked like he must act in order to survive. Otherwise, if anything were to happen to the big miss, Old Yu would not be letting him off. Perhaps he might find himself buried by Old Yu in an unmarked grave eighty miles away from the city before he could even obtain his immigration pa.s.s from the Starcloud Union!
With that thought in mind, Yu JIang held up his chest and took two steps forward. He brought his two hands into a close-fisted salute and said, “Might I ask for the group to let our big miss off this once.”
“Let her off? On what grounds? She yelled the loudest among these rascals! If you ask me, she’s the one most deserving to die!” a young woman from the group answered.
This woman had her hair tied up into a bun, and had a strange little knife with a golden snake’s head at the end of its hilt inserted into the center of her bun, looking absolutely peculiar.
*whoosh*
Yu Jiang steeled his heart and tore off the coat he was wearing, revealing his muscular torso and declared firmly, “If that’s the case, then I’ll have to offend you all today!”
These seven youngsters could not help but wrinkle their eyebrows when they saw Yu Jiang and his muscles.
His body was imperfect, riddled with scars of every size, with the long ones looking like blade wounds, while the circular scars were from the poisonous bug bites that he had endured when he was younger, formed from pustules.
Yu Jiang did not look like he was any older than thirty, yet his scarred body was such a frightening sight. Ferocious, even!
“I’ve heard that men from Deserted River are all true men, and sure enough!” The panthers man beckoned at Yu Jiang with one finger. “Come at me!”
“TO DEATH!” Yu Jiang suddenly yelled angrily.
In that instant, it was like he became a completely different person, as the wildness unique to men from Deserted River exploded.
With Yu Jiang at the forefront, the other men from Deserted River followed right behind him. They moved like a pack of wolves, wild wolves who thirsted for blood. Their eyes quickly filled with blood, as the roar they unleashed did not seem like it was coming from their throats but from their chests.
The corner of the catlike man’s mouth arched, forming a mirthless smile.
Just as Yu Jiang and his men were in front of him, he suddenly pulled out both his hands that had been in his trousers.
In a split second, the pantherish man’s right hand reached out and lightly flicked at Yu Jiang’s fist.
*Crack*
His finger bones immediately fractured!
Without missing a beat, the catlike man raised a leg and kicked Yu Jiang in his s.h.i.+n bone, causing him to lose his balance as he fell down headlong toward the floor.
‘So this is the disparity between mortals and special ability users? What a scary gulf…’, quickly flitted through Yu Jiang’s mind.
In a blink of an eye, the six men from Deserted River were down on the ground, each and every one of them suffering from fractures in one or more places, whether it be their arms or shoulders or legs.
The Deserted River men did not cry or scream even though they had been instantly wiped out. Like a group of beasts that were facing their deaths, their gazes were still as ferocious as ever, and a low growl could be heard coming from their throats.
The catlike man frowned and sat back down in his seat.
The woman with the strange accoutrement in her hair swept her gaze over the fallen men of Deserted River and lifted her teacup to her lips, “These men from Deserted River sure are manly. Look, their bones had been broken by Xiao Wu, yet not a single one of them has cried out in pain. The general would surely be pleased if we could bring these warriors back with us.”
“That might be true, but it’s such a pity that as vicious as men from Deserted River are, it isn’t somewhere outstanding ability users are born from. Their foundation is far too poor.”
“Right? Foundation is important to a warrior. No matter how much talent one possesses, or how wide their seventh brain region is, if they do not spend the time to solidify their foundation when younger, then there’s no future for them. At most they will turn out like these men here, brave and ruthless, but a goner the moment they b.u.mp into a warrior that received proper training.”
The group of youngsters from the Inner Territories chatted about the topic of Desert River men, not once caring about the mess that had happened right before their eyes.
All of a sudden, that strange woman furrowed her brow and nudged her chin forward, “Xiao Wu, look.”
The catlike man was taking a bite out of a duck leg when he turned his head to look.
He saw Yu Jiang stand up. While the other men from Deserted River were all lying on the ground, he was the only one who got up again. His left hand was bleeding freely, because an old wound from his hand had opened up.
“Are you trying to be a hero?”
The pantherish man tossed away the half-eaten duck leg and walked over to Yu Jiang. He formed his right hand into a blade and viciously chopped right down on his shoulder.
*crunch!*
The sound of his collarbone shattering was heard. Yu Jiang was one knee on the floor, and his vision was already blurred.
He felt an intense pain. He had felt plenty of pain countless times due to the many injuries he had acc.u.mulated in his life, but this was the first time that he felt this deep sense of despair on top of the pain.
It was the same as when the people of his entire village died out, leaving him the only one alive. It was the same despair that had seeped deep into his bones.
Yu Jiang hated this feeling. His whole life he felt like he was fighting against this despair.
His body had clearly already given out, yet there was a voice in his heart that was telling him, Stand up! You must not lose! You must survive!
Several seconds later, Yu Jiang stood up with much difficulty again. His entire body was covered in blood and trembling.
It was obvious all he needed to do was lie down and he would get to live a bit longer, but a burst of strength denied Yu Jiang the moment to do that.
In his mind, he was recalling the village when he was young, where everyone had died and their bodies turned into dust for the sandy desert. He was the only one left, sitting down all alone on the rooftop, staring blankly into the stars above. He was telling himself not to cry, but his tears flowed down regardless.
Feeling this kind of pain once was enough!
That catlike man suddenly burst into a fit of rage, “You only have one pitiful life, so why act the hero? If you wish to die, then I shall grant you that!”
With that said, he opened his arms wide and moved to slam them toward both sides of Yu Jiang’s temple at the same time, intending to shatter his skull.
Just at that critical moment, a powerful force cut in!
The panthers man did not succeed in dealing the killing blow to Yu Jiang. He did not even know what happened, as all he felt was an immense pain that sprouted from his chest as he found himself hurtling away.
“Careful! There’s a speedster!” the young woman with the weird knife stabbed into her hair yelled out with bewildered eyes. She leapt to her feet and caught the catlike man right before he flew out the window, or he would have ended up cras.h.i.+ng into the street below.
Meanwhile, the expression of the others changed drastically the moment they heard the word ‘speedster’, realizing that a tough opponent had appeared!