Hidden Assassin

Chapter 32 – That Must Be Love

TL: Milaryn

Edit: IlkonEbi

TL Note: Bold text is spoken in Japanese.

That night, Jiaming and Shasha were locked in a room on the first floor of the small building. Since the windows were welded shut and there was a metal door with a lock, their ropes had been thoughtfully loosened and a meal was delivered to them. Jiaming originally expected to receive a violent beating from Cao Dongfeng, but it had not happened yet. When he thought about it again, he realized that Cao Dongfeng liked Lingjing, so if Shasha and him were locked in the room, he had probably ordered people to kidnap Lingjing as well. Jiaming figured that once Lingjing was caught, then he would be tortured in front of her, to cause her pain.

Since it was like that, he would wait for one more day… He would only act once Lingjing was in front of him. If he were to make a move now, when the other side had a hostage, things would become quite troublesome. Also, he could now take a look at what was happening with Tsukichi Kaoru.

The food was not laced with anything so Jiaming sat down and ate a couple of mouthfuls. An energetic Shasha constantly kicked the door while cursing loudly. When she finally got tired from all the yelling, it was completely dark outside. Because there was no light in the room, she had to blindly grope along the table to take a seat and eat something. She was a picky eater, not liking garlic or ginger; so when she started eating, she occasionally stopped and spat things out. When she was halfway through her meal, she suddenly asked, “Ah! What if the food was poisoned…”

Jiaming sniggered, “Then I would be dead already.”

Shasha paused, then asked him if he felt fine. However, even though she got a positive response, she no longer felt like eating.

It would take a lot of effort on Jiaming’s part to escape from this concrete-walled room with bars across the window and a locked metal door. Apart from a table, a bed and a small toilet in the corner, there was basically nothing else in the room. Shasha sat at the end of the bed and cursed quietly, fantasizing about an escape strategy, while occasionally comforting Jiaming with a “don’t be afraid”. Jiaming did respond once in awhile, but he was focused on listening to the situation happening next door.

“Don’t blame me for this; you being in this situation is all because your father owes me…”

“He was the one who originally used underhanded means to snatch away your mother when she was my fiancée. He actually dared to contest with his senior brother for his wife…”

“Over the years, I had to hold myself back until I got support from Lyra Tenebris. The Tsukichi clan is finished, Kaoru, I caught you to save you, and also to not let the Ikesakura Senmaboroshi skill disappear. I originally was the main successor of the Tsukichi clan because I was the most qualified to succeed the Ikesakura Senmaboroshi…”

“Since I’m forced into this situation, I will do anything to get it!”

The old Japanese man’s tone of voice was surprisingly effeminate, sounding just like a eunuch’s, his words sounding higher pitched every so often. After a few sentences, there would be a “pa” sound. It seemed that he was using the shinai to heavily beat the little girl, but he was skillfully controlling his strength so as to maximize the amount of pain she felt while not harming her bones or muscles. Jiaming wondered if that fellow was actually an expert at BDSM play.

Deeply engrossed in their own thoughts, he and Shasha sat still until around midnight. Shasha was no longer in the mood to shout, and after she yawned a few times, Jiaming said, “Shasha, go to sleep.”

“What about you?”

“There’s only one bed. I’ll go sleep on the table in a bit.”

“How can you do that!” Shasha jumped up and hesitated for a moment before saying, “It’s nearly winter and it’s so cold, you’ll get sick. How about… how about we share the bed; we’re just sleeping.”

Jiaming smiled briefly, he did not care about these things, but since Shasha did, he made the cursory objections before giving in. The two of them took off their shoes and climbed into the bed. Jiaming laid on the outside while Shasha slept on the inside, against the wall. Because the quilt was as thin as paper, they tried not to touch each other. The two of them were already quite familiar with each other; when they were at the Liu family villa and the three of them were tired after playing, they had occasionally fallen asleep together on the carpet. However, this was the first time that it could be considered as ‘sharing a bed together’. For the first ten minutes or so, Shasha was as stiff as a corpse and did not move. However not long after, she suddenly muttered, “There’s no pillow…” then she started shifting around on the bed, showing how uncomfortable she was feeling.

Jiaming was a light sleeper to start with, so in this situation, even though he had closed his eyes, he was still aware of anything that was happening around him. Hearing Shasha change positions every few minutes, he thought that she was quite laughable. After around an hour, she finally fell asleep. However, because she felt cold, she curled up and pulled more and more of the thin quilt towards her until it ended up completely wrapped around her.

After around three hours, in the middle of the night, Shasha started to unnaturally move around again. She lifted herself off the bed and waved her hand in front of Jiaming’s face a few times. Then it seemed that she climbed over him to get off the bed. But when she leaned over him about halfway, she stopped and returned back to her original position, carefully covering Jiaming with the quilt, while nudging his shoulder. She was acting just like a clumsy newlywed who was still not familiar with taking care of her husband. After pulling the blanket over him, she waved her hand in front of JIaming’s face again, then finally climbed off the bed.

What is she planning to do…

Jiaming thought it was strange. Usually Shasha was quite easy to read; her acting this late at night time was different from her usual attitude, so he opened his eyes a sliver. He saw her shadow heading towards the corner of the room and pulling down her pants, before he finally understood what was going on. As he closed his eyes again, there was the quiet sound of water from that corner of the room and then afterwards, Shasha climbed back onto the bed, crawled under the quilt and then laid down like a corpse again.

Because there was no pillow and it was quite cold, Shasha started to uncomfortably shuffle around again, and after a few times, she finally grabbed Jiaming’s hand and then gingerly moved his arm into a horizontal position.

“Lingjing, forgive me, it’s just this one time…”

Jiaming heard her softly whisper and then she promptly used his arm as a pillow. Not long after she fell asleep, she rolled over a few times and ended up cuddling with Jiaming without waking. Jiaming smiled wryly and clasped her shoulder. This girl… lilies really are loyal and true… Even though she was only hugging him to sleep properly, she still sincerely apologized to her partner. At that moment, Jiaming was quite moved and thought, That must be love.

The night passed uneventfully, and when morning came, Shasha’s face was as red as a tomato. To avoid the embarrassing situation, she started loudly cursing again, and not long after, someone came by and passed two steamed buns through the bars of their window for breakfast. Through the crack of the door, Jiaming could see the plaza where the little Japanese girl in the same red kimono was sitting quietly as she was getting thrashed.

In the morning, the factory was relatively quiet – Cao Jinghao and Cao Dongfeng had both left the area and only the effeminate voice of the old man could be heard from the plaza, accompanied by Shasha’s energetic cursing. Jiaming found it quite amusing when the two voices – one in Chinese, the other in Japanese – mixed together.

In the afternoon, the Cao father and son returned in an angry mood. As soon as they arrived, Cao Dongfeng demanded them to open the metal door and have the two children tied up, before pushing them out.

They probably did not have anything prepared for Shasha as they only tied her to a chair, while Jiaming was brought to a two-meter tall pillar. He was forced to stand against it with his hands tied behind it. Right next to him, Tsukichi Kaoru was still being tortured. His current position made Jiaming think of being one of those heroical martyrs that sacrificed their own life for the sake of revolution.

“Sh*t, I don’t feel like waiting for Lingjing to come anymore.” Just like the old Japanese man, Cao Dongfeng was also holding a shinai. Cursing viciously, he walked towards Jiaming while Shasha was loudly shouting, “Cao Dongfeng, what are you doing! I won’t forget this if you do anything to him!”

“Hmph, you’re just a little b*tch with no power to say anything. Shut her up!” Cao Dongfeng ordered the two subordinates nearby. They brought out a gag and stuffed it into her mouth to stop her from talking, “F*ck, student Jiaming, to be honest, I’m super f*cking pissed today, so now I’m just going to take it out on you!”

As he said that, he aimed the shinai at the pit of Jiaming’s stomach and swung at him!

4 / 4 chapters of the week (next release is Sunday, March 4).

THIS MAIN CHARACTER IS SO DENSE ABOUT SHASHA AND LINGJING, I CAN’T EVEN RIGHT NOW.

Also a special announcement that I was hinting at… Ilkon and I were working hard on the first ebook release for Hidden Assassin 😀

Book 1 consists of prologue to chapter 40, but do know that I’ll be keeping the consistent release rate. We will get to chapter 40 eventually and you can still read this for free XD

If you would like to show your support to our team, you can get it here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B461V7H!

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