Hidden Assassin

Edit: IlkonEbi

TL Note: Bold text is spoken in English.

Just like that, the three of us walked down the path of no return…

——Lingjing’s Diary

******************************************************************

Proverb: ‘A wife is not as good as a concubine, a concubine is not as good as stealing, stealing is not as good as not needing to steal.’

The basic concept of the situation was the same; it was more exciting to skip class than to have an official holiday. The sense of excitement was especially doubled by the fact that the three of them were being rebellious. Thus, when they climbed over the school wall and landed on the pavement outside, the three of them – including the normally quiet Jiaming – silently cheered in excitement.

It was only nine in the morning when the three of them left school and decided to go to the mall for shopping. Out of the three children, Huaisha’s home was where they usually hung out because Huaisha’s father was rarely at home; he had been expanding the Sha Zhu Gang’s territory for the past few months. Jiaming did not have any status in the Huang family and Lingjing had to maintain the good girl standard, so naturally, Huaisha’s home was the best choice.

The two girls ran ahead laughing happily as they browsed through the stores one-by-one. By afternoon, the three of them were all carrying shopping bags (paid for by Huaisha). She bought two sets of clothes and a pair of shoes for herself and a floral dress for Lingjing. She also bought a large amount of video tapes, game cards, comics and even suddenly decided on a few beautiful down-feather pillows. Then, they bought a pile of vegetables, fruit, pork, beef and some bags of rice. It could be seen that these two girls changed their current situation into playing house.

Huaisha’s home was a villa located in the east side of Jianghai City, on a hillside overlooking the sea, in what was considered as Jianghai City’s rich area. The neighbors were mostly wealthy and respectable people, and it was quite far from the territory belonging to the Sha Zhu Gang. Thus, Huaisha’s father spent little time living there, but because it was also far from school, Huaisha lived with her father at the Sha Zhu Gang’s headquarters.

The three of them took the bus across the bridge over the river. Just when they were preparing to transfer buses, they passed the bridge pier, and Jiaming suddenly recognized two familiar silhouettes. It was the mother-daughter pair from earlier that morning. He thought that the two of them would return to where they came from after he got rid of the assassin, so he did not expect them to be huddled in a corner under the bridge with other homeless people, while wearing only thin sleepwear.

The blonde-haired mother was cradling the precious, delicate featured, mixed-blood little girl. They looked like death while they were quietly sitting on the side. Jianghai City was a coastal city, so it was not strange to see foreigners. However, it was eye-catching to see the two of them wearing sleepwear and sitting on the floor. Lingjing and Huaisha also could not help but glance at them a few times, likely wondering who they were and where they came from. Jiaming passed by, trying hard to ignore them, but the little girl suddenly seemed to recognize him. She struggled out of her mother’s embrace, clasped two hands in front of her chest and hesitated briefly before heading towards them.

This teary-eyed, black haired little girl was wearing pale yellow velvet pajamas and walking around without shoes – her feet were pinkish with cold. The barefooted little girl stumbled around in her pajamas and looked adorable yet pitiful at the same time. Jiaming could feel a headache coming on. The blonde haired mother did not recognize him, but the little girl had instinctively discovered him. While it was likely that she was not completely sure, she still wobbled towards him, plaintively calling out to him in English, “Mister… mister…”

At that point, Jiaming knew – the situation had escalated.

As the three of them were in middle school, Lingjing and Huaisha also understood simple English phrases. They were a bit disgruntled that the little girl only called ‘mister’ instead of ‘miss’, but they still felt concerned for the ten year old girl. After a quick discussion, they placed two sets of clothing, a pair of shoes and some loaves of bread that they had bought earlier into the little girl’s hand. Lingjing slowly said in English, “For… you… (it’s for you)”.

“Sir… help…” The little girl clutched the items given to her and tears dripped down her face while she continued to pitifully call out to Jiaming. The two girls were puzzled when they saw that she was only looking at Jiaming. Finally, Huaisha took out any remaining money she had and gave it to the little girl before their bus arrived and they had to board it. Even though they had bought quite a few things earlier, there was still quite a bit left over and would be enough for the mother-daughter pair to eat a few meals.

Despite feeling sorry for them, the two girls never thought of bringing the little girl and her mother back to their place. After all, even though they had good intentions, there was also a limit to what one could do. As for the little girl, since Jiaming looked puzzled from the beginning to the end, she believed she had recognized the wrong person and only watched tearfully as the three of them left.

After this incident, they were feeling a bit down because the two girls felt sorry for them. However, they fulfilled their duty by doing the best they could, and shortly after, they started getting excited again as they finally arrived at the Banshan bus stop.

The three of them disembarked from the bus. To the left of them, there was a mountain covered with beautiful green trees; various gorgeous, western-style villas with red walls could be seen, as well as a clean and tidy road following the curves of the mountain. To their right, there was a crescent-shaped coastline following the mountain as it extended outwards; a refreshing sea breeze could be felt. This was the first time Jiaming and Lingjing visited Huaisha’s home at this location.

Huaisha’s identity was verified, and the three children entered through the heavily guarded main gate. The house was a luxurious two-storey villa on the hillside with a beautiful swimming pool in the backyard. Huaisha flung the front door open and excitedly declared, “This is our territory now!”

Having arrived, Lingjing called her parents to let them know that she would not be returning home tonight. The previously quiet villa became lively again as the three of them made themselves at home. They prepped the food, washed the rice and started cooking. In the afternoon, Lingjing and Huaisha made themselves comfortable on the sofa in the living room, watching tapes and playing games. Jiaming wandered into the study and played on the computer.

Even though Huaisha’s father did not know how to use it, the computer in the study had relatively good specs. In the twenty-first century, an outstanding assassin should have some basic skills in hacking. Currently, he had to be backwards compatible by being able to adapt to the DOS operating system, so he tried it on a few small websites to regain the feel of it. When it was close to evening time, the two girls came in several times to watch him, but were unable to understand what he was doing.

After dinner, Jiaming pulled up Monopoly that was installed on the computer, and the three of them started playing. This was the first time the two girls had played computer games, and they were quickly enthralled. Sadly, they were not very talented in games; Lingjing only knew how to buy property by the book and did not want to use the community cards she had, while Huaisha would happily use all the chance cards and make a mess of everything. Eventually Jiaming made the both of them go bankrupt and the two girls retaliated by whacking him with pillows, feathers flying everywhere.

In the next few rounds, the two girls ganged up on Jiaming, but were unable to defeat him. They could only fight for the pillows and chase each other with them. Their excited shouts could be heard once in awhile.

Even though they had fun with the game, Jiaming and Lingjing were early sleepers. At around ten, the computer was turned off and the three of them prepared to go to bed. It was on this night, a certain situation happened which affected the future of the three people’s relationship.

The start of the situation was due to a small cause.

That night, Jiaming was to sleep in Huaisha’s room while the two girls decided to sleep in Huaisha’s father’s room, which had a larger bed. Wearing thin pajamas, the two freshly showered girls lay on the bed and were gossiping, when Lingjing suddenly discovered a small square box under the bedsheets. Inside the box were sealed foil packages with circular things inside it.

Curious, Lingjing innocently asked Huaisha to explain what these packages were.

“Ah? Oh those. Uh, they’re condoms. They’re very common you know.” It was rare that Lingjing asked her questions, so the blushing Huaisha was eager to explain even though she did not really know what it was used for.

Readers please understand, it is the year 1995 and China is still very pure; so pure that sterilized vacuum packaged condoms were still a new concept. Shasha did not really know what they were used for, other than what they were called, and confused herself and Lingjing when she tried to explain it further. However, because of the rare chance of getting to explain something to Lingjing, Shasha rummaged around in a drawer and took out some secret tapes. She hoped to use those to explain to Lingjing what condoms could be used for.

“Hehe, Papa thinks I don’t know about these, but I knew where to find them. Lingjing, these are some interesting tapes… hahahaha…”

There was a television and tape player in the room they were currently in, so they did not have to go to the living room. Making sure that the room door was closed, they turned off the lights and, after a moment, a naked, moaning, large-breasted, foreign young woman appeared on the television screen.

It was a cold spring night, the two girls huddled together under the blankets, staring unblinkingly at the TV screen, neither of them daring to make any noise. Shortly after, the two of them started breathing faster and their bodies started to feel warm…

Not really a cliffhanger, because the next chapter will be released tomorrow (Feb 2).

On a side note, survey time!

If you haven’t done the survey yet, or don’t know what it is, Gravity Tales is doing a quick survey about why readers pick or drop certain novels on here. This would help us pick up more series that readers would enjoy for the future.

If you have some time, please do fill it out :3 This survey is complete-able for each novel, so even if you’ve filled it in for another novel, you can still fill it in for Hidden Assassin!

Link here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2ZL329D

If you’re interested in this novel, please consider voting for it :3