After he and his father escaped once again, he completely gave up any thought of revenge. All they could do was wander from place to place across the country, dodging the Yamaguchi-gumi’s pursuit.
They didn’t even dare stay in hotels, because the Yamaguchi-gumi’s influence was too vast. They even had cooperative ties with some shameless scum among the Chinese syndicates who had forgotten their roots, making it easy for them to track his movements.
……
Killing for treasure—to Jiang Tian, this sounded like a very clichéd story, practically commonplace in the world of cultivation.
But now, hearing it from his own brother’s mouth, Jiang Tian felt it was a story filled with pain and despair.
Cheng Yi, a burly one-hundred-and-eighty-centimeter-tall man, was now crying like a child, murmuring deliriously:
“Brother, do you know? When I saw my mother being raped and murdered, I truly felt like a complete worthless piece of trash. I couldn’t even protect my own family. I might as well have bashed my head against a wall and died!”
“My parents never contended with anyone. But why? Why was heaven so cruel as to kill them? My happy, beautiful life was torn to shreds! Why? Why? Why is this world so unfair!”
Cheng Yi suddenly roared, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.
“This is what they mean by ‘the gentleman is innocent, but his jade is his crime’…” Jiang Tian looked at the frenzied Cheng Yi, waves of coldness radiating from his body, causing the surrounding temperature to plummet several degrees.
“Cheng Yi, rest assured. This favor—I’m definitely helping you with it! I will make them pay blood for blood!” Jiang Tian suddenly said in a low voice.
“Blood for blood?”
Cheng Yi looked at Jiang Tian in astonishment, then smiled bitterly and said, “That’s what I thought at first too. But after several bloody storms, after years of hiding like a rat crossing the street, I’ve come to understand—there are people in this world we simply cannot afford to provoke! Even though it’s suffocating, even though it’s unwilling, sometimes you really just have to endure it, because if you don’t, it means the annihilation of your entire family, complete erasure from this world…”
He suddenly looked at Jiang Tian nervously and said, “Jiang Tian, do you know? Behind the Nie family is the Sakura Society! They even cooperate with the Yamaguchi-gumi. If you destroy the Nie family, the Yamaguchi-gumi won’t let you go!”
Seeing Jiang Tian remain unmoved, he grew anxious, grabbing Jiang Tian’s shoulders with both hands and saying, “Jiang Tian, don’t think that just because you’re the crown prince of the Medicine King Group, you can afford to provoke them. You’re wrong. In the face of a transcendent power like the Sakura Society, we’re nothing but insignificant ants! I suggest your Jiang family quickly sell off your shares and assets, flee to America, flee abroad, the farther the better. Get some fake identities and live out your lives in peace…”
Jiang Tian said calmly, “The Sakura Society, the Yamaguchi-gumi—just a few little Japanese devils. What’s there to be afraid of? I can crush them with a wave of my hand!”
Cheng Yi stared at Jiang Tian, dumbfounded, not knowing what to say anymore.
“Boss, you don’t believe me? Fine! Let me show you my strength!” Before Jiang Tian finished speaking—shhk—he pointed two fingers and swung. A blade of qi about three meters long sliced the marble coffee table clean in two.
“Gah—!”
Cheng Yi was completely stunned, staring blankly at Jiang Tian and saying, “Condensing qi into a blade—you’re a Transformation Realm master! Damn, how did you do that?”
He simply couldn’t believe it, thinking he was hallucinating.
He and Jiang Tian had grown up together. He knew Jiang Tian all too well.
Back when his mom ran a company, his dad was a minor official, and his grandfather was a pretty skilled traditional Chinese medicine doctor—but none of that had anything to do with the martial arts world. They were just an ordinary, mundane little family.
And Jiang Tian’s combat ability had always been pathetic. Since childhood, he’d been soaking in internet cafes, bars, chasing girls, and eating instant noodles. Back in the day when they fought, when it was four against one, Jiang Tian was fiercer than anyone. When it was four against four, he ran faster than anyone.
Actually, Jiang Tian’s role was the armchair strategist—the sneaky one, the big bad guy responsible for coming up with dirty tricks.
But everything before his eyes was undeniably real. The cut surface of the marble coffee table was incredibly smooth—it could serve as a mirror reflecting figures. This showed just how sharp the qi blade Jiang Tian had condensed was.
“You don’t need to worry about that. Now do you have confidence in me?” Jiang Tian said with a faint smile.
“I do! Absolutely!”
Cheng Yi said excitedly, “Brother, thank you!”
Although Cheng Yi didn’t know Jiang Tian’s true identity as Jiang Taichu, just his cultivation as a Transformation Realm grandmaster, combined with his status as the crown prince of the Medicine King Group and a direct descendant of the Jiang family, was enough to make the Yamaguchi-gumi think twice.
“Then let’s go find Uncle Cheng…” Jiang Tian said with a faint smile.
“Okay! My dad’s waiting on Wu Mountain. He probably hasn’t eaten yet!” Cheng Yi said hurriedly.
Jiang Tian and Cheng Yi walked out of the private room and had Zhen Shuai prepare some cooked food and two bottles of Moutai to pack up.
It was already late at night, and most of the guests had left.
Jiang Tian left Emperor International. Qing’er drove, and the three of them headed toward Wu Mountain.
……
Halfway there, goose-feather snow began falling from the sky, and a thick layer quickly accumulated on the ground.
“It’s snowing. 2009 is almost here!”
Jiang Tian put his hand out the car window, glanced at the lead-gray sky, and said softly.
The car sped along the entire way. When they reached the point where the Wu Mountain road ended, the three got out and walked into a small cave. Cheng Yi was immediately startled and shouted, “Dad, where did you go?”
“Your dad probably went into hiding…”
Jiang Tian’s divine sense had already detected Cheng Yi’s father in the nearby dense forest. He sighed inwardly—Cheng Ming had truly been frightened into a nervous wreck by the Yamaguchi-gumi.
“Dad, don’t be nervous. This is my childhood friend Jiang Tian and his wife Qing’er!” Cheng Yi called out.
“Oh, so it’s Jiang Tian…”
Cheng Ming leaped in with a few bounds, smiled at Jiang Tian, then subtly glared at Cheng Yi. He probably felt that bringing too many people up here would easily expose them.
“Dad, you must be hungry. Hurry and eat something!” Cheng Yi handed over the cooked food and Moutai.
Cheng Ming sat on the ground, holding the cooked beef and wolfing it down in big bites, but not drinking a single sip of alcohol.
“Don’t drink alcohol from now on. When you’re on the run, you need to stay clear-headed and vigilant at all times!” Cheng Ming glared at his son.
Jiang Tian looked at Cheng Yi and felt a pang of sorrow.
Before, when Cheng Yi was studying at university in Jinling, Cheng Ming had come to visit several times. Back then, although his family had fallen on hard times, Cheng Ming still carried the bearing of a martial artist—spirited, talking and laughing freely.
But now, he was skin and bones. A man barely fifty, his hair was completely white, his waist hunched. The key thing was that he was like a frightened rabbit, his eyes full of vigilance, his spirit completely gone.
Years of living on the run, with death lurking at every moment—no matter how formidable a person was, their mindset would collapse.
“Dad, Jiang Tian is a martial arts master with Transformation Realm cultivation. With him here, we don’t need to fear the Yamaguchi-gumi anymore!”
Cheng Yi suddenly said excitedly.
“What? You told Jiang Tian about our family’s affairs?”
Cheng Ming froze with a mouthful of beef, so shocked he forgot to swallow.
“Yeah, Jiang Tian knows everything now, but don’t worry…” Cheng Yi said.
Cheng Ming forcefully swallowed the beef, choking so hard his eyes bulged and his neck stretched. He said angrily, “What the hell are you doing? Jiang Tian is just an ordinary person. How can he help us? And I told you not to bring any strangers up here. What were you thinking? If we’re exposed, we’re dead!”
He had no patience for Jiang Tian at all. Back in the day, Jiang Tian was just a spoiled good-for-nothing, never doing anything proper, only knowing how to gamble, fight, and chase women. His son had followed him around all day, even neglecting his martial arts training.
If his son hadn’t known him, maybe he’d have achieved great mastery in his techniques and become an inner-energy master by now! How could he have had a leg cut off by the enemy?
Cheng Yi said anxiously, “Dad, Jiang Tian really is a martial arts grandmaster with Transformation Realm cultivation. I saw it with my own—”
“Shut up!”
Cheng Ming roared, cutting his son off mid-sentence. Then he looked at Jiang Tian with a smile and said, “Jiang Tian, you’ve seen it yourself. My son and I are like stray dogs now, completely penniless. Cheng Yi doesn’t deserve to be your friend. You should leave quickly. We don’t want to cause you trouble!”
“Uncle, please don’t say that. It’s no trouble at all.”
Qing’er smiled and said, “We know everything. Don’t worry. If that so-called Yamaguchi Pig comes, my husband won’t even need to lift a finger. I can handle them all by myself!”
“It’s not Yamaguchi Pig, it’s Yamaguchi-gumi!”
Cheng Ming was so angry his nose was crooked.
This girl looked pretty and delicate, but she turned out to be an idiot.
You, a fragile young girl with no strength to even truss a chicken—you think you can handle the Yamaguchi-gumi’s elites? What kind of joke is that?
He gnawed on the stewed bone in big bites, glancing at Jiang Tian and his wife with displeasure. He said loudly, “It seems I haven’t made myself clear enough. I’m afraid you’ll cause us trouble. You think just because your family has a bit of stinking money you can show off? Money is useless! If the Yamaguchi-gumi comes, won’t you just be a burden to us? Hurry up and leave, hurry up! Don’t stir up trouble and get us killed!”
“Dad, how can you talk like that!”
Cheng Yi was so angry tears were about to fly out.
Cheng Ming was unmoved.
Cheng Yi looked at Jiang Tian apologetically and said, “Jiang Tian, don’t take it to heart. My dad is really just terrified!”
“It’s fine. I understand!”
Jiang Tian said calmly, “Cheng Yi, how about this… I’ll head back first. If anything comes up, call me immediately!”
“Okay…” Cheng Yi didn’t know what else to say, so he just agreed for now.
“Are we really leaving?”
After leaving the cave, Qing’er’s heart softened. She said gently, “Someone was following us on the way here. The other side is probably about to arrive. Uncle Cheng may not be very polite, but he’s probably just really scared!”
“Cheng Yi took a knife for me when we were kids. How could I just leave him?”
Jiang Tian said with a gentle smile, “Let’s find a place to hide first. The Yamaguchi-gumi people will probably be here soon!”
The two figures flickered and disappeared into the dense forest, hiding in a large tree. They could still hear Cheng Ming cursing at Cheng Yi.
“You’re worthless, and Jiang Tian is an idiot. Transformation Realm cultivation, martial arts grandmaster—why doesn’t he just fly to heaven?”
“I saw it with my own eyes, Dad! Can you please be a little more polite to Jiang Tian? He’s my good brother!”
“Good brother my ass! Bad friends, fair-weather friends, get lost! Think about it—if you hadn’t been running around with him every day as a kid and had focused on your cultivation instead, would you only have Iron Body cultivation now? Would you only have one leg left? You’re all muddled, can’t think straight!”
“This isn’t Jiang Tian’s fault. He didn’t hold back my cultivation!”
Smack! Smack!
Two slaps rang out, and the cave fell silent.
