Chapter 52: Shuhan

The only drawback was that every time he practiced the technique, the sensation of release followed by suppression, a surge of warmth traversing his body followed by a forced cooling down, was truly rather bizarre.

It felt akin to squatting in a public restroom with a door that wouldn't quite close, holding the door with one hand while watching adult videos.

Zhang Deshuai lived carefree, but Xiao Ting could not bear to watch his good brother act in such a manner. After Zhang Deshuai intentionally threw another fit, Xiao Ting finally lost his patience and dragged him into the restroom.

Xiao Ting's parents both worked in other cities, and he rented a basement near Zhang Deshuai's home. They had played together since they were children, and because of his own straitened circumstances, Zhang Deshuai had frequently provided for him.

Watching his friend, who had stopped nodding and was now smoking in silence, Xiao Ting felt a bellyful of words he wanted to say, yet parted his lips only to find himself at a loss for speech.

Zhang Deshuai took a deep drag of his cigarette, slowly exhaled the smoke, and spoke first.

"Rest assured, there is nothing wrong with my mind."

"What you just said makes that extremely hard to believe!"

Recalling Zhang Deshuai's various humiliating behaviors over the past few days, Xiao Ting felt his face burning with embarrassment. "Did you find some wealthy sugar mommy who assigned you a task?"

Zhang Deshuai did not answer the question; instead, he lowered his head and tapped his phone a few times.

"Alipay has received 10,000 yuan," Xiao Ting's phone prompt rang out immediately.

"......"

"You actually donated it?" After a brief silence, Xiao Ting asked stammering.

"Yeah."

"Give me the address and phone number."

"No."

"Going to the internet cafe?"

"Let's go."

That night, the two brothers sat in the most expensive private room, drank fifteen-yuan-a-bottle beverages, ordered two thirty-yuan luxury boxed meals, and lived out the life they had previously only imagined.

What the two of them did not know was that a lean figure had been observing them from the doorway of the private room.

"Heh, go ahead and play. Days like this won't last much longer."

Watching the two of them deep in their gaming session, the figure chuckled softly, turned, and went downstairs, then pulled out a phone and dialed a number.

"It seems he has already mastered the 'Alchemical Gold' technique. Does that sum still need to be repaid by him?" The voice was cold and melodious; it was none other than Wang Shuhan.

The person on the other end of the line said something in response. Hearing Wang Shuhan utter a simple, "Yeah, alright," she hung up the phone and walked out of the internet cafe.

As soon as she stepped outside, she impatiently stripped off her loose-fitting clothes, revealing the black form-fitting bodysuit underneath.

Immediately afterward, she grabbed her eye sockets with both hands, ten slender, fair fingers sliding upward along her scalp, and actually buried themselves straight into it.

Wang Shuhan removed the heavy headpiece, revealing a cascade of bright, long black hair.

"So annoying! They said a young maiden is easily exposed, but don't I look just like a little girl even with the headpiece on?"

Complaining all the while, Wang Shuhan walked off into the darkness.

She turned from the main road into a narrow alleyway, where a drunken man was staggering toward her from the opposite direction. The man's belt was hanging loose, his trousers slung slouchily across his beer belly, making it obvious he had just had way too much to drink and intended to relieve himself right on the spot.

"Ugh, disgusting."

Wang Shuhan instinctively sidestepped, yet she never expected the man to reach out with a filthy, oversized hand to grab her, while uttering foul words from his mouth.

"Hehehe... little beauty walking alone in a place like this at night, are you looking to buy something around here? Come on, let uncle give you a good time..."

Just as his hand was about to brush against the maiden's fragrant and soft body, the drunkard felt a sudden palpitation in his heart, feeling utterly pathetic all of a sudden.

Yet the maiden seemed to have evaporated, vanishing into the alleyway in an instant. The drunkard lost his balance and slammed his entire hand flat against the brick wall.

A bone-deep, excruciating pain surged from the drunkard's hand as blood instantly gushed forth.

He stared at his hand in disbelief, only to see that across a neat and smooth cut, all five of his fingers, skin, and flesh included, had been cleanly severed, dropping straight into the muddy ground where he had just urinated.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!"

The drunkard's shrieks echoed through the entire alleyway, while the perpetrator had long since vanished without a trace.

She left not a single trace behind, as if she had journeyed to another world.

After a night of unbridled gaming with Xiao Ting, Zhang Deshuai casually used his father's passing as an excuse the next morning to process his withdrawal from school.

He did not tell Xiao Ting. Perhaps knowing too much would only bring unnecessary distress to his good friend.

The one-month deadline arrived swiftly. Zhang Deshuai withdrew the money in advance and waited early downstairs at his residential building.

Before long, a familiar figure arrived quietly, though this time there was no massive entourage—only a single lean figure.

Although Zhang Deshuai had confirmed his golden bloodline, he still felt a bit intimidated seeing a figure half a head shorter than himself standing before him. He forced a calm composure and tossed the leather bag stuffed with cash straight onto the ground.

"The money, I've gathered it all."

"Oh? You actually managed to scrape it together." Wang Shuhan feigned surprise as she unzipped the leather bag, revealing it packed to the brim with cash.

"How did you pull this off? Selling blood? Donating sperm? Or gambling?" Wang Shuhan asked with genuine curiosity.

"In your eyes, am I only capable of doing things like that..." Xiao Yifei muttered speechlessly in his heart.

Wang Shuhan hoisted the backpack onto her shoulders, sighed, and said, "I didn't expect you to really pull it together. I actually came here today prepared to slice out your kidney."

She then drew a butterfly knife from behind her back and began spinning it with practiced ease.

Zhang Deshuai glanced at the cold-faced youth before him, then at the silver-white blade dancing and rotating in his hand, and could not help but swallow hard.

Compared to that group of men in black, the youth enclosed in their midst was undoubtedly the most dangerous person of all.

"Well, if there's nothing else, I'll be off then? See you next month." With that, Wang Shuhan hoisted the bag and turned to leave.

"Wait!"

Zhang Deshuai took a deep breath and called out to the departing Wang Shuhan.

Wang Shuhan paused, turned around, and flashed him a sweet smile. "What is it?"

"Do you... know where my father went?" Zhang Deshuai hesitated for a moment, then asked with a firm tone.

"For this mission, you must maintain your cold and callous persona; do not expose yourself prematurely," Wang Shuhan recalled the instructions her master had given her.

"Oh?" Wang Shuhan, carrying the pack on her back, twisted her body around and suddenly teleported right behind Zhang Deshuai, sneering in a voice meant only for the two of them to hear.

"Still searching for your loser of a dad? A father who ran off after dumping five million in gambling debts onto his son, and a son who keeps gambling to pay off those debts. You're still fretting over such a worthless old dog? In my eyes, you're nothing more than a cheap bone yourself. No wonder your mother ran away and abandoned the two of you."

To hurl insults at someone's father in their presence was the height of insolence!

Wang Shuhan had been pressed smilingly against Zhang Deshuai's back, but years of assassin training suddenly made her sense an intense, suffocating wave of danger.

She flashed rapidly away, dodging a headbutt from Zhang Deshuai. After steadying herself, she was astonished to find that the qi within the youth before her was surging like a tumultuous ocean, with runes seemingly flickering and flowing across his body.

"Such pure qi!"