Hidden Assassin

Edit: IlkonEbi

“Huang Haobing! What do you want?!”

Ye Lingjing moved in front of Jiaming when she saw the group of children rush towards them. The fatty leading the group was Huang Haobing, son of Huang Bingxiang who was the Provincial Party’s Secretary. He could be considered one of the important officials in the Huang family, so this fatty was one of the kids that generally bullied Jiaming.

“Hmph, Ye Lingjing, I’m looking for him, not for you. Get lost!” He blustered. In actuality, this little fatty was afraid of Ye Lingjing. Huang Haobing also attended Grade Three of Red Star Elementary, but was not in the same class as Jiaming and Lingjing. At school, Lingjing not only had good grades and was a captain, she was also good at fighting and was a snitch. The impressive thing was that after she beat someone up and then snitched, in the end, the teacher still believed her. However, at this point in time, with so many people watching, his pride would not allow him to lose face.

“Hmph, you just want to bully him, I won’t allow it!”

“Hmph, it’s vacation right now and there are no teachers around. Ye Lingjing, don’t think I’m afraid of you!”

“Hmph, I’m also not afraid of you!”

Lingjing went into a fighting pose as she said this and the little fatties backed up a couple of steps. Both sides could bluff each other with words, but as soon as it came to fighting, none of them had the confidence to win against this girl. “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” television show was quite popular at that time period and they were quite in awe of the legendary martial arts. They knew that Lingjing’s family had a martial arts school and on top of that, she was in a fighting pose right now, so the fatties were worried and scared that she could wipe them all out at once.

After they retreated a few steps, they realized they had been humiliated and Huang Haobing looked at his crowd of friends, braced himself and said, “Don’t be ridiculous, we have a lot more people!” Even though he said this, he was afraid of getting into her attack range as he could easily get punched by her.

“So what if you have more people!” Lingjing said without any hesitation, then added, “If you have the guts, then one-on-one me! A group of guys bullying a girl, shame on you!”

“Hmph, I’m not scared of you.” Even though it is said that kids do not understand the matter of ‘face’, the truth is, it is all about face for kids. Although the little fatty said this, he was lacking confidence and turned his eyes and said, “I don’t need to fight you. Chenming, you help me fight her. I’m fighting Gu Jiaming, Jiaming, don’t you dare run away!”

If Huang Bingxiang saw his son being this quick-witted, then he would definitely be proud of him. He had lamented about his successor, however substituting one thing for another was such a typical bureaucratic move, he felt that there was still some hope for his son. Chenming was the biggest out of the group of children. The only reason why he was here was because he had been following his father to give gifts and his father told him to accompany the Provincial Party Secretary’s son to improve their relationship. Even though he did not know how this would improve relations, he did not dare ignore Huang Haobing’s words and could only timidly stand forward.

Seeing that the fatty was being crafty, Lingjing naturally did not fall for it and loudly said, “Shame on you! Huang Haobing, you should come and fight me yourself.”

“Why would I fight with you, I want to fight with Jiaming!”

“If you’re fighting with Jiaming, then you’re fighting with me!”

“I refuse, why can I not have someone fight you if you’re fighting for Jiaming?” The little fatty was determined not to fight her.

“I’ve always fought for Jiaming, you guys always bully him!”

“So what if we bully him, it has nothing to do with you!” The fatty put both hands on his hips and then blurted out, “Are you actually his wife? Oh! Ye Lingjing is Gu Jiaming’s wife! Look at you, you’re so shameless…”

It should be known that at that age for a ten year old girl, this was the highest form of slander. When Huang Haobing yelled this out, the group around him also started chanting it, so the little girl’s eyes fogged up and tears started leaking out. Jiaming was standing behind her and naturally did not see this as he was only observing this joke with great interest.

A child’s world is really fascinating…

Just as he was thinking this, he heard Lingjing sob and say, “You guys are bullying me!” Saying that one vulnerable sentence, she proceeded to send a kick flying towards Chenming and he was knocked to the ground.

Seeing the martial arts expert suddenly soar into action, the children subconsciously wanted to flee. However, after only running two steps, when they turned back to look, they saw that the little girl had already managed to kick Chenming to the ground. She was crying and doing her best to fight at the same time.

The person fighting was crying and the one being beaten was also crying. The group of kids that were with the little fatty could not decide if they wanted to go to the adults to ask for help or to save Chenming first. Jiaming was also watching on the side and just as they made up their mind to attack Lingjing, he pulled her away and ran off with her. As they were always doing morning training, he was confident that those fatties would not be able to catch up to them.

Because they had done that, after a moment, Huang Haobing gritted his teeth and yelled, “Everyone, after them!” The crowd of children rushed towards them and Jiaming hurriedly tugged on Lingjing and said, “Hurry, let’s run.” Lingjing was not willing at all as she was still crying and dragging her feet, wanting to fight them.

Although his current body had already gone through two months of training supplemented with some simple qigong breathing exercises, he could not compare to Lingjing as she had gone through training since she was young. After he pulled at her a few times, Lingjing finally let herself be moved. However, they had only ran a few steps before a loud cry came from behind them. When they turned to look, a girl wearing a big red cotton-padded jacket, holding a tree branch had waded into the fray, smacking the group of boys left and right.

“Who told you to bully girls, huh! Who said you can bully them…”

Jiaming and Lingjing paused, that girl looked elegant and delicate, but she was letting out quite a strong killing intent. The branch was not too large, but it was also not too small. When it hit the children’s thick padded jackets it would not draw blood, however with just this stick and her beginning momentum, she was already able to whack a few of the kids to the ground – even Huang Haobing was lying on the snow-covered ground and was crying loudly.

“You’re not allowed to run, I will hit whoever runs first!”

The kids that had been hit first naturally wanted to run away, but they all stopped scrambling when she loudly shouted that. They sat down and worriedly looked at the girl as she dropped the tree branch on the ground and pointed at them: “Tell me, do you still dare bully a girl?!”

A few of them were only crying loudly. When the girl saw this, she picked up the branch again and pointed it at them, “Don’t cry! Tell me!”

“We won’t anymore…” The previously sobbing kids were so scared that they stopped crying and vigorously shook their heads. The girl then pointed the branch at the other few boys and there was an instant chorus of agreement. Jiaming was just standing there, smiling widely, when she suddenly turned and pointed the branch in their direction, “And you!”

“Ah, me?” Lingjing and Jiaming said at the same time, then realized that she was naturally pointing at Jiaming. Lingjing teared up with laughter and said, “Nope.” Jiaming also smiled and raised his hands in surrender, “I also don’t dare, haha… I have never dared to…”

“Hmph, that’s better!” The girl lowered the tree branch, then said to Jiaming, “You’re a boy, but you’re getting protected by a girl. So useless!” Those words were filled with disgust and Lingjing hurriedly spoke up for Jiaming, “It’s not like that. Jiaming doesn’t know how to fight at all.” while Jiaming showed an ashamed face.

The girl did not believe Lingjing’s statement but she did not pursue the matter. She only turned to the group of boys and said, “If I ever find out that you all bullied a girl again, I will beat you all to death!” She looked at them with a dignified look, “I am Liu Huaisha! You guys better be careful!”

As soon as the name ‘Liu Huaisha’ was mentioned, the group of children all paled in fear. A light bulb went off in Jiaming’s mind and thought, ‘So it was that kid.’ This Liu Huaisha attended the Red Star Second Elementary School nearby and she was in a higher grade than them. They had heard about her fighting ability and there were rumors that even middle school students were afraid of her. Naturally, Jiaming knew more details – at that time there were three main gangs in Jianghai City and Liu Huaisha was the daughter of Liu Zheng, boss of the Sha Zhu Gang. She was raised as a gang member since she was young, so it was not surprising that her last two kicks were similar to taekwondo moves.

Having successfully planted fear in the children’s hearts, Liu Huaisha turned and skipped towards them. Jiaming thought she was going to lecture him on how he was not acting like a man, but was surprised when she smiled at Lingjing and asked, “Hi, I’m Liu Huaisha, what’s your name?”

“Uh, I’m Ye Lingjing.”

As a good student representative, Lingjing naturally knew about the troublemaker students in the school nearby and was not sure how to feel after hearing her name. Liu Huaisha had enthusiastically extended her hand, but she hesitated before reaching out due to her reputation. However, little children do not bear grudges for long, after a few words, Lingjing warmed up to her and they were happily chatting.

“Lingjing, you really know how to do martial arts?”

“Yep, I know Wing Chun, Tai Chi, Chang Quan (Shaolin), Fu Hu Quan (Vanquish Dragons and Tigers Fist), Judo…”

“Oh, really! Please teach me, I only know taekwondo, I’ll call you Teacher!”

“No, no, my family owns a martial arts school, you can learn there. Could you teach me taekwondo instead, I’ve heard that it’s very strong…”

The two of them chit-chatted away happily while Jiaming looked on from the side and thought to himself, ‘The jianghu is going to get busy in the future…’

[1] Jianghu – a community of martial artists in wuxia stories and, more recently, outlaw societies like the Triad.