Author: 哔哔 (Bi Bi) / Jin Gang Quan
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 65
Huo Fenghua was too curious to resist. Seeing that there was no one else in the room besides the few men locked in the cages, he pushed open the unlocked door and slipped inside. None of the men in the cages woke up. They stayed sprawled on the ground asleep. Only Wen Heyi sat on the floor with his head resting against the bars with his eyes closed. It was hard to tell if he was asleep.
Each iron cage had a large padlock hanging on it, fastening the people inside securely.
“Martial Uncle Wen?” Huo Fenghua crouched in front of the cage holding Wen Heyi and called softly, keeping his voice low.
Wen Heyi’s eyes stayed shut. No reaction.
Huo Fenghua reached through the gap between the bars and poked Wen Heyi on the forehead, calling again. “Martial Uncle Wen?”
This time Wen Heyi slowly opened his eyes. He looked at Huo Fenghua, and in his gaze there was a kind of innocence Huo Fenghua had never seen before. After staring for a long moment, he asked, “Who are you?”
Wen Heyi’s voice was very soft, and his tone was strange, like a child’s.
Huo Fenghua froze. Instinct told him Wen Heyi wasn’t right. Testing him, he said, “You don’t recognize me anymore? I’m your dad.”
Wen Heyi looked confused. He thought for a bit, then said, “You’re my dad? Then what did you call me just now? What ‘Martial Uncle’?”
Huo Fenghua didn’t understand what was going on either, so he blurted, “I called you Shushu*. That’s your childhood nickname. You don’t remember?”
*Clarity: Martial Uncle is [Shishu] (师叔).
Wen Heyi raised his head, frowning hard. “My name isn’t Shushu. You’re lying.”
Huo Fenghua said, “Right, you’re not Shushu. Your name’s Wen Heyi. I should be calling you Yi’er.”
Wen Heyi grabbed the bars with both hands. He squeezed so hard his fingertips turned pale. He studied Huo Fenghua. “Are you really my dad?”
Huo Fenghua lifted a hand and scratched his face, then called, “Yi’er?”
Wen Heyi’s eyes immediately reddened. Without meaning to, he raised his voice. “Dad?”
Maybe his voice carried. Huo Fenghua heard footsteps coming this way. He turned his head just in time to see a man dressed like a guard step out from an inner room. A ring of keys hung at the guard’s waist, clinking loudly with every step.
The man spotted Huo Fenghua at once. His expression changed as he barked, “Who are you?”
Huo Fenghua reacted fast. He slapped his palm against the front cage, using the recoil to launch himself at the man. Before the guard could respond, Huo Fenghua clamped a hand over his mouth and chopped the back of his neck with the other, knocking him out.
Huo Fenghua took the key ring from the guard’s waist, returned to Wen Heyi’s cage, and asked, “Is there a key here that opens this lock?”
Wen Heyi seemed not to understand. He liked the crisp sound of the keys clinking together and reached out to grab them.
Huo Fenghua quickly pulled the keys away. “Stop messing around. I’m getting you out.” He began trying keys in the padlock on the cage door.
He tried several in a row, but none opened it. Wen Heyi crouched inside the cage, propping his face in his hands as he watched Huo Fenghua work, intent and serious. After a while, he suddenly looked past Huo Fenghua, toward Huo Fenghua’s back.
Huo Fenghua stopped.
He knew someone was standing behind him. He just didn’t know when that person had come out from the inner room, or when they’d taken up position at his back.
There weren’t many people who could slip past his awareness like that. One name surfaced in Huo Fenghua’s mind: the Bald Scholar.
He blinked at Wen Heyi. Wen Heyi blinked back, baffled.
Huo Fenghua tossed the whole ring of keys through the gaps in the bars into Wen Heyi’s cage. Then he threw himself onto his back and kicked hard against the cage, sliding backward in a sudden burst. He shot his hands up over his head, intending to grab the person’s ankles, but the man moved with startling agility. He sidestepped, bent down, seized Huo Fenghua off the ground, lifted him over his head, and hurled him aside.
In that instant, Huo Fenghua saw a bright, smooth, round head. It really was the Bald Scholar.
Huo Fenghua slammed into another iron cage and fell to the floor. His inner energy surged, coursing through his meridians and shielding his body, so he wasn’t injured, though it still hurt. After landing, he lay face-down and played dead. He planned to wait until the Bald Scholar came to grab him, and then, well, he’d show him.
The Bald Scholar might be called a scholar, but he’d been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His upper body was bare, his muscles solid. There wasn’t a trace of scholarly refinement about him.
He walked toward Huo Fenghua, but after only two steps he heard a clinking. Wen Heyi was shaking the keys inside the cage, playing with them.
So the Bald Scholar changed direction and went to Wen Heyi’s cage. He reached toward the bars. “Give them to me.”
Wen Heyi clutched the keys and retreated into a corner, shaking his head.
The cage was roomy. With Wen Heyi tucked in the corner, even with his arm thrust through the bars, the Bald Scholar couldn’t reach him. And if he shifted position, Wen Heyi shifted too, jingling the key ring as if teasing a dog.
The Bald Scholar stopped, hands clasped behind his back, watching him.
Huo Fenghua secretly lifted his head.
The Bald Scholar seemed not to notice. He pulled out a key from his belt, inserted it into the padlock on Wen Heyi’s cage, and was about to turn it.
Huo Fenghua suddenly spoke. “Wait.”
He didn’t know why Wen Heyi had been locked up. With Wen Heyi’s martial arts, no one should’ve been able to subdue him easily. Thinking it through, the most likely explanation was that Wen Heyi had suffered some mishap in Xichou and been captured. Huo Fenghua was afraid Wen Heyi might’ve lost his martial arts, so he couldn’t stop himself from intervening.
The Bald Scholar turned to look at him. He left the key in the lock, as if he didn’t fear Wen Heyi at all.
Huo Fenghua acted as though he’d been badly injured. He clutched his chest, struggled to his feet, and panted as he asked, “How did you catch him?”
The Bald Scholar’s voice was deep. “Who are you?”
Huo Fenghua glanced at Wen Heyi, who was still shaking the key ring with full concentration. “He’s family.”
“Family?” The Bald Scholar’s expression was unreadable.
Wen Heyi suddenly grabbed the bars and shouted, “He’s my dad!”
The Bald Scholar narrowed his eyes. “You’re his dad?”
Huo Fenghua suspected Wen Heyi might be pretending to act dumb just to mess with him, but he didn’t show it. He only lifted his chin. “What, I don’t look old enough? That not allowed?”
The Bald Scholar gave a cold laugh. “Allowed. Of course it’s allowed.” His five fingers curled into a claw. He lunged, fast as lightning, and clamped a hand around Huo Fenghua’s throat, lifting him clean off the ground.
This was exactly what Huo Fenghua had been waiting for.
Ever since Gu Guangji had fed him the Qi-Gathering Golden Pill and he’d absorbed Zixi’s decades of inner energy, he hadn’t used his Star Absorbing Technique again. He didn’t know how to trigger it. Even in bed, when Feng Tianzong and Su Zeyang had worked him into a bloody heat, it hadn’t activated. The only method he could think of was to recreate that day, when Zixi had choked him and he’d seized Zixi’s pulse.
The Bald Scholar squeezed hard. Huo Fenghua grabbed his wrist and locked his fingers onto his pulse, trying to drive his inner energy from his fingertips into his dantian. But only his own inner energy moved. It didn’t draw the Bald Scholar’s power in at all.
He tried again and again, while his face reddened and swelled from the choking. When he tried to pry the Bald Scholar’s arm off, his strength was already failing. Panic slammed into him. He saw a faint smile tug at the Bald Scholar’s lips. Huo Fenghua was just about to throw everything he had into shoving him away when he heard the crisp clink of keys.
At some point, Wen Heyi had opened the cage lock and walked out. He stood outside the cage, shaking the keys.
Huo Fenghua made a muffled “mmph mmph” to catch his attention. Wen Heyi looked up, frowned, and said, “Let go of my dad!” He swung a palm strike at the Bald Scholar’s back.
When the blow landed, both the Bald Scholar and Huo Fenghua looked shocked. The Bald Scholar released his grip. He hadn’t expected the strike to carry such deep, cold inner force, and he hadn’t braced against it. He staggered back two steps, face flushing, as if injured.
Huo Fenghua stumbled back too, gulping air, quickly circulating his inner energy. He shouted at Wen Heyi, “Son, beat him up!”
Wen Heyi obediently assumed a stance and struck at the Bald Scholar’s chest again. This time the Bald Scholar blocked it and counterattacked in a storm of blows. Wen Heyi could still catch the techniques, but he was forced back step by step.
Seeing this, Huo Fenghua leapt behind the Bald Scholar and attacked in tandem with Wen Heyi from front and back. Wen Heyi’s pressure eased instantly. The two of them besieged the Bald Scholar, holding a rough balance for a time.
This courtyard was either too secluded, or the Bald Scholar was relying on his own prowess, because there were no guards nearby. They fought for a long while and no one came running.
A large part of Huo Fenghua’s martial arts had been taught by Wen Heyi. The two moved in sync, boxing the Bald Scholar in and striking so densely it felt airtight.
The Bald Scholar had suffered internal injury when Wen Heyi had struck his back earlier, and his movements were sluggish for a moment. Huo Fenghua seized the opening and kicked him in the waist, sending him stumbling sideways into a large vase set on the ground. The vase toppled with a crisp crash.
The sound stole Wen Heyi’s attention. His steps halted and he turned to stare at the broken porcelain shards.
Huo Fenghua’s heart lurched. “Martial Uncle!”
The Bald Scholar seized the moment and surged at Huo Fenghua with full force. With Wen Heyi distracted, he meant to crush Huo Fenghua first. His hands moved in rapid techniques, every strike packed with deep inner power. Huo Fenghua had plenty of inner energy, but his foundation was shaky. He hadn’t learned refined, intricate techniques. What he feared most was exactly this: a strong opponent with superior forms that he couldn’t handle.
Under the Bald Scholar’s fierce onslaught, he quickly began to fail, scrambling in confusion. Then the Bald Scholar’s fists hammered into his chest, more than ten blows in a row. Huo Fenghua raised inner energy to resist, but he was still beaten until blood spilled from his mouth and he dropped to his knees.
The Bald Scholar snorted coldly, then turned and launched a punch toward Wen Heyi.
Huo Fenghua threw himself forward with everything he had, hitting the ground and grabbing the Bald Scholar’s ankle with one hand.
His fingers locked tight and yanked back. He’d meant only to stop the Bald Scholar from advancing, but in that instant, as his own inner energy returned to his dantian, a vast, surging force poured wildly from the Bald Scholar through Huo Fenghua’s palm.
Both of them froze.
The Bald Scholar tried to shake free, but his inner energy was no longer under his control. Huo Fenghua’s hand seemed glued to his ankle. It wouldn’t budge. And Huo Fenghua felt that massive power flooded into his limbs and bones and then returned to his dantian. It wasn’t as dramatic as last time, when his whole body had swollen and burned, but it still forced his meridians and dantian wide, swelling with unbearable heat.
Before his eyes, the Bald Scholar lost all strength and sagged downward. Huo Fenghua still didn’t dare let go. Only after he’d drained the last trace of inner energy did he finally release him. He remained sprawled on the ground, working hard to corral the chaotic inner force rushing through his body and draw it all back to his dantian.
Panting, he lifted his head toward Wen Heyi and saw him still staring blankly at the broken shards. So he called, “Martial Uncle Wen?”
Wen Heyi ignored him.
After a moment, Huo Fenghua changed tactics. “Yi’er?”
This time Wen Heyi turned back and whispered, “Dad?”
Huo Fenghua held out a hand. “Hurry, help your dad up.”
Wen Heyi came over, crouched, and helped Huo Fenghua roll over and sit up, letting him lean against his chest. He even thoughtfully smoothed Huo Fenghua’s messy bangs.
Huo Fenghua found the foolish Wen Heyi strangely cute. He didn’t mind that Wen Heyi was filthy and disheveled. Leaning in his arms, he asked, “How did you end up locked in a place like this?”
Wen Heyi blinked. “Yi’er woke up here.”
Huo Fenghua couldn’t stand his tone. He frowned. “Where, in the cage?”
Wen Heyi nodded. “Mm.”
Huo Fenghua asked again, “What about before you passed out?”
Wen Heyi stared up at the ceiling beams, scrunching his face as he tried to remember. After a while he said, “I can’t remember.”
Huo Fenghua waved it off. “Forget it.” His body had already started to recover. The huge influx of inner energy had even filled in the internal injuries he’d just taken. Now he only felt limitless vigor.
He looked at the Bald Scholar lying on the ground. Since he’d come this far, he thought, why not go all the way. Tonight he might as well take care of Third Master Luo too.
Just then, he heard the guard he’d knocked out earlier groan and wake up.
Huo Fenghua got up, squatted in front of him, and clamped a hand around his throat. “Which room does Third Master Luo live in? Tell me the truth and I’ll spare your life.”
<<< || Table of Contents || >>>
Kinky Translations 