Chapter 153: Cheng Yu

This Chapter is a sponsored chapter and is not part of the regular chapter. This is sponsored by Mr Melvin Smith. Please join me to give him a big round of applause for his donation to help to offset the web hosting charges. Thank you, Mr Smith. God bless you!

[Note: To celebrate our first donation, I bought some chicken meat. Fruits and Veggies thought his novel finally can sell, and he actually cried as he ate the meat – for many months now, our diet comprised mainly of bread or some rice and veggies. Meat is luxury we can afford only during Chinese New Year. After brunch he shoved a small stack of messy handwritten papers at my face, and forced me to translate more. I took a glance at the papers and groaned… As usual his thoughts are unorganised, and it will take several hours for me to sort through the mess and return to LBD&A]

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“What an excellent marksmanship!” thought Yue Zhong.

After Yue Zhong activated the shadow steps skill, his speed and movement became much faster [1]. Even though he was still occasionally forced to find cover under the masked assassin’s exquisite marksmanship, his massive increase in speed still allowed him to close in on the assassin. As he closed in, he immediately lurched an attack with his knife, and the speed of his knife slash is fast as a meteorite.

If Yue Zhong just focused on marksmanship, Yue Zhong admitted that he is inferior to the masked assassin. Although he had trained diligently in his marksmanship skills whenever he had the opportunity to do so, the time he had spent training is too short.

The mysterious assassin is not weak, and at the moment Yue Zhong closed in on him, the assassin immediately abandoned his gun and pulled out a Chinese Jian (sword). His Jian drew a beautiful arc as it landed on Yue Zhong’s weapon, and Yue Zhong’s knife was harmlessly deflected to the side.

But Yue Zhong did not gave up. Using his superior speed, he launched a series of quick jabs with his knifes towards the assassin. Under his enhanced speed, the rapid knifes attacking the assassin seemed like a hurricane of blades.

Although the assassin’s speed cannot be compared to Yue Zhong, his swordsmanship skills is superb. He executed a series of defensive sword movements that protected himself from almost any angle, and with great difficulty, he managed to block or parry the series of knife attacks that Yue Zhong had lurched at him.

Just when the two of them are engaged in fierce combat, from the darkness behind the assassin, a shard of sharpened bone spike suddenly exploded and headed towards the man in black like a missile.

The assassin’s eyes flashed with a light, and his sword parried the bone shard and slightly altered the trajectory of the bone spike. At the same time, he twisted his body and managed to avoid the projectile that will pierce through him if it hits.

Taking advantage of the momentarily lapse in concentration as the assassin put all his efforts into avoiding the bone shard, Yue Zhong managed to land a heavy kick on the man’s waist. The force of the kick sent the men flying for a few meters.

From the darkness of the night, a hail of sharpen bone shards were fired out, heading towards the mask assassin.

The man in black splat out a mouthful of blood from the impact of the kick. As he landed on the ground and became aware of the hail of bone shards heading towards him, his speed suddenly exponentially increased by a factor of 3. Like an arrow fired from a bow, he quickly escaped the area before the hail of bone shards can hit him, and in a few heartbeats, disappeared into the darkness of the night.

There was a shimmer of light in Yue Zhong’s eyes, and Yue Zhong also disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Under the cover the night, the man in black endured his injuries and struggled to make his way through a maze of streets and alley-ways. Finally he enter an inconspicuous room within an very quiet alley.

“Cheng Yu Ge [2], what happened to you?”

“Cheng Yu Ge [2], are you injured?”

The room has only one lighted candle. Under the dim light of that candle, it is possible to see that the place of less than 30 square meters was crammed with 9 children. Each of these children have not even reached the age of 13.

Immediately after the man in black entered the room, the rest of the children surrounded him, and their face was full of worried expressions.

“I am all right!” Cheng Yu took off his mask, and revealed a handsome but pale face. He had a coughing fit, and coughed out another big mouthful of blood. The blood filled his hands.

Looking at the injured Cheng Yu, the nine children panicked, and rumbled through the room, overturning all the drawers in each cabinets in the house to find some medicine for Cheng Yu. After the apocalypse, medicine and food has become sarce supplies. After combing through the home, the children only found a few band aids and some painkillers.

At this time, a massive white bones axe landed on the door of the house, and cleaved it apart. Yue Zhong walked in confidentially.

“Kids?” Yue Zhong was momentarily surprised by the sight of the 9 kids in the room. His bloodlust for Cheng Yu, who was trying to assassinate him a moment ago, has somewhat dissipated.

After the apocalypse, with the passage of time, men slowly turned increasingly evil as morals completely broke down. For a piece of bread, a woman can sell her body. For a steamed bun, a man can kill another. Rape and murder in this post apocalypse world is common occurrence. In other to feed themselves and their families, some people will even turn into cannibals and eat other men.

In this world where order has collapsed, and there is moral degeneration, Cheng Yu is (to Yue Zhong’s eyes) a man among man for protecting these children.

Looking at Yue Zhong, Cheng Yu seemed to plead, “Do not hurt the children! I will follow you!”

Before the apocalypse, Cheng Yu was a top ranked killer, and is proficient in a variety of killing skills. His swordsmanship skills is considered top notched in the city, and he had a wide variety of contracts to kill within Longhai City.

After the apocalypse, like the majority of the men, he retreated to Longhai survival base. Although Cheng Yu has extraordinary skills, his luck is not so good. At that time when the system [God] gifted him with a wooden bat, it happened that he is armed with gun and a sword. Of course, with these two weapons, he did not even glanced at the wooden bat, and threw it away without a thought. Compared to a wooden bat, he is more accustomed to fighting with a sword and gun. This action means that he did not get any experience for using his own weapons to kill zombies. (This world is set up so that only those who use the system gifts to kill zombies will get experience points and rewards.)

Once the secret of evolution is discovered, Cheng Yu has already retreated to the safety of the LongHai survival base camp, and all the items from the God and Devil worlds were strictly controlled. It is with great difficulty that he killed an evolver with a Tang Imitation Sword, and was able use his skills to kill some zombie and evolved to level 8. But at this time, it is very rare for the normal zombies drop skill books. Without any strong skills, he is unable to become a peak evolution expert.

During his peak condition when he was uninjured, he is not a match for Yue Zhong. Now that he is severely injured by Yue Zhong’s kick, he poses even less of a threat to Yue Zhong.

Yue Zhong glanced at Cheng Yu, and directed his sights towards one of the kids in the room. With a cold voice, he asked “Who sent you to assassinate me?”

Cheng Yu struggled internally for a moment, but seeing the cold look on Yue Zhong’s face and that he is looking at the children and not at him, he finally gave up and revealed “Ice King Zhang Yun!”

To Cheng Yu, the nine orphans in the room with him are far more important that the code of conduct for assassins. (Code of conduct of not revealing the one who hired them?)

“It’s him again!” Yue Zhong’s eyes flashed a hint of murderous intent. To date, Ice King had already attempted to kill him twice. In his heart, he had already made up his mind that he will definitely take revenge on Ice King Zhang Yun and kill him without showing a shred of mercy.

Yue Zhong then asked, “How much did he pay you for the job?”

Cheng Yu replied “One ton of food!” [translator notes: Kidding? So much? Did I make a mistake? In Chinese it reads 一吨粮食. If it is one kg or 5kg, I could believe it.]

Before the apocalypse, each time Cheng Yu kills, he charges about 100,000 USD. But after the apocalypse, one ton of food is enough for this former peak assassin to sell his life.

Yue Zhong looked at Cheng Yu, and said. “I am the leader of the Stone Horse Village. Cheng Yu, work for me! If you are willing to work for me, the children will have better lives. They can study in a bright and spacious classroom together with their classmates, and every day they will get to eat some food. If you are willing to work, even having bread and milk for them everyday is not a problem!”

Cheng Yu has top rated combat experience and skills. If not for the fact that Yue Zhong is a high level evolver, he will not be a match for this former top rated assassin. His biggest problem is that Cheng Yu has bad luck. If Yue Zhong is willing to develop him further, in future Yue Zhong will be able to get a very capable general.

Cheng Yu replied “Captain Yue, if you are willing to take good care of them, I will sell my life to you!”

At this time, Cheng Yu was feeling that he was cruelly oppressed and had no choice in the matter. If he wants to let the children continue to live, he had to work with Yue Zhong. Everyone had things that they hold dear to their heart. To Cheng Yu, these orphans are what matters to him. They allow him to hang on to the shred of his humanity in a perverse world.

After the apocalypse, many people have killed themselves as they do not have any more faith in this cruel world. As well, many people had lost their faith, and their spiritual pillar collapsed. While these people are still alive, they are dead inside and are no different from a living zombie. Only if a man have faith and held on to his beliefs, will he struggle to survive in this cruel world.

Original Translation

速度如同鬼魅 [1] Original Translations reads “fast like ghost”. But it does not make much sense, so I just put “increase in speed.”

哥Ge [2] Although it means brother, but Chinese men has a habit of calling close friends brothers, and ‘brothers’ usually have no blood relationships. This is especially prevalent in triad society in Hong Kong.

人为刀俎，我为鱼肉 [3] To be suppressed.

[4] Please note that what the author is trying to say in the last two lines is highly ambiguous. I translated in a way that made sense to me, without changing the meaning of the sentence where possible.