Hell's Handbook

Chapter 253: The Exchange

When the other passengers woke up from their deep sleep, none of them remembered having even fallen asleep. They thought they had merely spent the time daydreaming.

The air stewardess came round with everyone’s orders from earlier on, while that Caucasian man was covered with a blanket and looked like he was asleep. There was no visible wound on his chest, since Su Jin had used the Qi Thrust technique to implode the man’s heart. And so, to everyone else, he was merely sleeping. Even if someone thought something was amiss, Su Jin could use that bit of psychokinesis he had left inside the man’s body to control his actions, so nobody would suspect anything.

Killing an owner right from the start of the trip was something that Su Jin hadn’t expected. He hoped that the rest of the trip would go smoothly, since all he really wanted was a fun holiday in Africa.

The plane landed safely and Su Jin got up to get off the plane. At the same time, he made sure to make the dead man get up and get off the plane as well, since it would be troublesome if someone found that someone had died on the plane. Su Jin made the man’s body walk all the way out of the airport and to a secluded corner before taking the bit of psychokinesis back from the body.

Meanwhile, a team of formally dressed black men had come to pick up Su Jin and his team. They smiled brightly and came forward when they saw Thomas, and Thomas smiled as brightly in return. They seemed to have known each other for a long time.

“Mr. Su, this gentleman here is a local mercenary, Mr. Kassimo of Firebird. We’ve known each other for many years now,” said Thomas to Su Jin. His actions made the martial arts experts with them rather unhappy. They felt that Thomas was really this foreigner who didn’t understand how things worked at all. Su Jin was the person in charge on paper, but the ones who would actually do the fighting were them. They felt that they were way more important than Su Jin.

“Kassimo, this gentleman here is Mr. Su Jin, from China. You’ve got to make sure you get on good terms with him, because you will learn what real strength is from him.” Thomas was surprisingly fluent in Mandarin and wasn’t stingy with his praise at all. He praised Su Jin to the skies as he spoke to the leader of Firebird, which also drew snickers from the martial artists in his own team.

Kassimo held a hand out to Su Jin and said in a friendly voice, “Anybody who can impress Thomas like that must be someone very capable indeed. Mr. Su, I hope you’ll give me an eye opening experience this time. We are really looking forward to getting to know Chinese martial arts better.”

Su Jin smiled and replied, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you, Mr. Kassimo. I’m only in charge of leading the team. My fellow countrymen here will be the ones at the actual exchange.”

“Oh! What a pity! But I’m sure your countrymen must be extraordinary people as well. I’m really looking forward to the show!” said Kassimo with a big smile on his face.

But Su Jin and his team were a little taken aback. Kassimo said that he was looking forward to the show like it was a performance. Su Jin couldn’t help but smile sadly to himself. It was true that Chinese martial arts had not done very well on the international stage in recent years, and many people thought it was just something performed for the movies or a dance of sorts, instead of being treated as actual martial arts.

Su Jin wasn’t a martial artist, so even though he didn’t particularly like the way Kassimo had put it, he wasn’t very bothered by it. But the five martial artists behind him didn’t feel the same way. They were all properly trained disciples from some of the most reputable schools of martial arts in the country. Tang Ning and Stellar Skies had spent a lot of effort, money, and used every connection they had to hire them for this event.

Meanwhile, Kassimo passed a stack of silver cards to Thomas and said with a smile, “Thomas, you’re no stranger to this place. I have to receive other groups as well, so I’ll have to trouble you to bring your team to their place of accommodation. Really sorry about that.”

Kassimo spoke politely, but his actions weren’t polite at all. Even Thomas’ expression fell. Just then, the oldest martial artist in the team took a step forward.

“Hoho, you seem to despise Chinese martial arts. As a disciple of such martial arts, I hope to learn a few moves from you,” said the man in an equally polite voice. But his words showed his anger.

Kassimo didn’t seem very surprised by what the man said and just smiled back. “How may I address you?”

“I’m Yun Tianye, trained in Flying Cloud Hands!” The man’s palms shook slightly and a faint wisp of white mist flew out from it.

Kassimo’s eyes narrowed slightly before scanning Su Jin and his team. Then, he said to Thomas, “West City, Central Building. We’ll go there.”

Thomas sighed and shook his head as he muttered, “I just knew something bad was going to happen. This isn’t a very peaceful place, for crying out loud.” He said to everyone, “Okay, let’s go!”

A few small pickups came to a stop in front of them, and Su Jin’s team got into one of them. Yun Tianye glanced at Su Jin and Kano Mai, then said quietly, “Mr. Su, I would advise you and your lady friend to stand further back later on. If you get injured in any way, it would be hard for me to explain things to Miss Tang.”

Su Jin nodded with a smile. “Don’t worry about us. Just focus on showing these people what Chinese martial arts is all about. We will not be of any distraction to you.”

After Su Jin said that, Yun Tianye didn’t bother speaking anymore. He shut his eyes and began to meditate and regulate his body. He was able to do that, but the other four weren’t. The other four were around the same age as Su Jin and Kano Mai, and comprised two men and two women. The women were doing pretty okay, but the two men had been staring at Kano Mai ever since she and Su Jin arrived.

Kano Mai was definitely one of the prettiest women around, and she carried herself with an elegance that few women were able to, which made her irresistible to these two young ones. In fact, even older ones who had seen a lot more in life were always unable to stop their hearts from palpitating or their imagination from going wild when they saw her.

And now that they were all squeezed into a narrow pickup, these young men’s hearts were beating even more quickly than usual. Su Jin was amused but he didn’t say anything. These men were young and trained in martial arts no less. It would be strange if they didn’t feel anything after seeing Kano Mai. They could take this as a test of their mental resilience!

Luckily for them, the journey wasn’t too long. When they got to Central Building of West City, Su Jin felt like he had been lied to. He thought they would be going to a proper building, but they had topped in front of a very large warehouse instead.

After Kassimo led them inside, they realized that this was actually a place that had been divided into several smaller fighting arenas. There weren’t a lot of people present, just a few small groups practicing.

“Welcome to Central Building. This is where the International Mercenary Exchange will be held, so you can have a feel of the place before the actual event.” Kassimo then waved his arm at a young black man next to him, and the young man leaped onto the nearest arena.

“This is my disciple, Black Leopard. When he was born, he was chosen by the witch of his village. She used some sort of sorcery to merge the soul of a leopard with his body. I brought him out of his village later on and taught him all sorts of fighting techniques. Unfortunately he hasn’t mastered everything yet, so I can only offer him as a sparring partner.” Kassimo had a big smile on his face as he introduced this disciple of his. Black Leopard remained in the arena and just nodded at Su Jin’s team. He couldn’t understand Mandarin, but that wasn’t important. He just had to focus on what he needed to do.

“I’ll do this.” A young man next to Yun Tianye suddenly spoke up, then somersaulted onto the arena very easily.

“This is my disciple, Zhou Zhenghe. He is also trained in Flying Cloud Hands like myself and he’s also not fully mastered it yet. It will be good for him and Black Leopard to learn from one another,” said Yun Tianye calmly.

As agreed, Kano Mai and Su Jin moved a fair distance away from them. They managed to find two stools and sat down comfortably, as though they were here to watch a movie.

“Zhou Zhenghe, practitioner of Flying Cloud Hands. I look forward to learning from you.” Zhou Zhenghe was a muscular young man and looked rather strong, yet not so strong that it affected his speed and agility. He got into a stance and slowly pushed his internal energies downward.

“Oh? Not bad. He really knows how to do this,” commented Su Jin. Zhou Zhenghe had already learned how to control and use his internal energy, which made him stronger than when Chu Yi first became an owner.

Of course, Zhou Zhenghe’s internal energy was nowhere near Chu Yi’s level. It was like if they were both vehicles, Zhou Zhenghe was a simple bicycle while Chu Yi had a fully modified Batmobile. You couldn’t compare the two.

Black Leopard gave a nod, then suddenly became a blur. He had moved so quickly that all anybody could see was the after image of his body.

Zhou Zhenghe did not expect Black Leopard to move so quickly, so he was stunned for a short moment. But his reaction was excellent. Instead of taking a step backward, he leaned forward.

This was a sign that Zhou Zhenghe had quite a lot of experience in fighting others. When faced with a speedy opponent like Black Leopard, he did not just move away. Moving away would not only be useless in escaping from the opponent’s attack, but you would also lose the chance to attack. The best way to handle this situation was to move forward instead and shorten the distance. That way, the opponent would not be able to reach their maximum speed and the force of the attack would be lessened as a result.

After Black Leopard realized what Zhou Zhenghe was trying to do, he had no choice but to fight him head on. He suddenly froze in his footsteps, then slammed one palm on the floor before kicking one leg out fiercely as though it was a leopard tail.

Pak! Black Leopard’s attack was filled with both speed and power, so it crackled loudly like a whip. If an ordinary person were hit by his leg, they would definitely break a few bones.

Zhou Zhenghe’s reaction was a rather exciting one as well. He turned his body to the side, then moved toward his opponent’s outstretched leg. His palm was raised like it was a knife coming to slice Black Leopard’s thigh.

Black Leopard’s legs could move very quickly, and he could have moved aside to dodge Zhou Zhenghe’s attack if he weren’t this close to Zhou Zhenghe, but it was a little too late now. At the same time, if he just went ahead and insisted on attacking Zhou Zhenghe with this kick, then Zhou Zhenghe’s palm was definitely going to strike his thigh.

Could just one attack of his leg defeat Zhou Zhenghe? Black Leopard had no idea. But he knew that as someone who relied on his quick leg movements, if he were to get injured in the thigh and Zhou Zhenghe was still able to fight even after getting kicked, then he was going to lose this fight.

And so, the leg that Black Leopard had stretched out suddenly whipped backwards, defying physics as he pulled his entire body to one side and managed to dodge Zhou Zhenghe’s palm.

“Very interesting.” Su Jin watched the duel with some interest. The two men had not really exchanged blows since neither of their attacks succeeded, but it was enough to prove that they were extremely capable fighters.