Chapter 89

Stunned.

Seizing this second's opportunity, Pei Huai dodged, his right wrist swiftly slashing out with his sword, leaving a bloody mark on his shoulder. He then leaped back a few steps, his claw knife swirling in two beautiful strokes as he grasped it in his palm.

Indeed, he was formidable. Isaac stared at him, not daring to relax, stepping back half a step for safety. From the day he decided to teach him, he knew this was a child with extraordinary talent. In a few years, this child would be rarely matched.

He stared into Pei Huai's thin, dark eyes, trying to find even the slightest hint of emotion. But there was nothing. The child in his memory was as taciturn as ever, looking at him and shaking the rain off his knife.

His Ah Huai had been his son since he was eleven or twelve. Back then, he hadn't had time to grow taller, so his appearance was the most impressive. Honestly, this kid was outstanding from a young age. Regardless of gender, boys and girls alike chased him.

Having such a beautiful child by your side, with a long face, is like picking up a bunch of unshaved sandalwood, so pleasing to the eyes.

He thought it was a little ridiculous: "The future? So Ah Huai, these things I taught you. You finally established a firm foothold in Kensos, and you don't plan to keep them?"

No answer means default.

"It was a wise decision to kill that guy you met at the dock as soon as possible." Isaac's half-smile turned cold. "At least, he will never be able to destroy my child."

There was nothing more to say between them. The blades clashed, sending a shower of sparks flying. Pei Huai's grip was steady. The claw knife swung outward during the collision, pivoting on his index finger, nearly slicing his throat. The ground beneath his feet sank slightly from the heavy rain. He had misjudged the solidity of his foothold.

His ankle twisted, and even as he lost his strength, he still left a scar on Isaac's face that stretched all the way to his ear. Without even wiping the blood off, Isaac slammed his knee into his calf, completely losing his balance. He reached out, wrapped his arm around Pei Huai's waist, and threw him toward the riverbank, knocking the weapon in his dominant hand away.

Isaac held his shoulder and without saying a word, stabbed him in the ear with a knife.

"You're so disobedient. You used to be a bit of a jerk, so it wasn't a problem for people to pamper you. Now you're a bit of a jerk. How can your boyfriend pamper you more than I did?" As he leaned in, Pei Huai held the claw knife in his left hand, pressing it against the back of his neck. The two men were in a stalemate, and the excessive physical exertion prevented Isaac from gaining any advantage.

Indeed, he was strong. He looked at the equally exhausted Pei Huai. The young man's soaked coat clung to his waistline, outlining his lean and slender figure. Despite his disheveled appearance, his handsome and cold face was particularly attractive.

His silver hair fell over one shoulder, wet and sticky. He panted slightly, tugging at his collar to prevent his clothes from sliding off his shoulders, his eyes gleaming with wolfish ferocity.

Pei Huai was about to kneel and fight back when his headset finally chimed. He heard Han Shaochen eagerly asking what was going on over there. After a few seconds of no response, he realized the situation might be dire. Listening to Pei Huai's rapid but steady breathing, he gave his approximate direction.

After making a plan, Pei Huai tensed his arms and pushed the man away with all his might. He confirmed that Xiang Mingqi's communication was clear, and that he should have received Han Shaochen's call.

We can't delay any longer.

The pain in his ankle was excruciating, and he was sure it was a soft tissue injury. He had barely regained his balance when Isaac stood up, twisted his wrists, and, gritting his teeth, pushed him back to the ground.

"He's only slightly better than the previous one," he said. "Ah Huai, I know you. There are a lot of people rushing to be around you. It's up to you to decide who to date or break up with."

Her lips were close to his ear from behind, and she pinched his waist lovingly: "But if you want to live, you can't find someone like Dad."

Pei Huai picked up an edged stone and threw it at him.

Isaac, with no time to evade, twisted his neck, blood gushing out, and wiped the blood from his forehead with the back of his hand. Blood trickled down his eyelids, and he smiled nonchalantly, "I want you to be careful of people like me because..."

"Isaac!"

He grabbed Pei Huai's waist with all his might and pressed the gun to his heart in an execution position.

"Even if you die here." He lowered his voice and pinched Pei Huai's thigh with an irrepressible joy, "I will take you away and wipe your body every day."

At this moment, they all noticed gunshots coming from the direction of the woods, approaching at a rapid speed.

Pei Huai took advantage of his moment of inattention and decisively pulled his hand over the barrel of his gun, spun around, and disarmed him. He swung his gun and fired, the bullet piercing Isaac's side—not enough to cause a fatal injury.

Then, gunfire erupted, the distance to the riverbank so close it was negligible. A bloodied figure emerged from between the trees, likely shot in the leg. Xiang Mingqi scrabbled to wipe the blood from his face. His feet were weak, and he stumbled, his index finger in so much pain that he couldn't even hold the trigger guard.

He saw Pei Huai standing unsteadily, with veins bulging on the back of his hands. He immediately pointed his gun at Isaac, his throat hoarse as if it had been worn out: "What did you do to him?"

"Not bad." Isaac raised his eyes, looked at the group of people chasing Xiang Mingqi, and blew a whistle. "I thought this loach would die there."

"Brother, does your foot hurt?"

"Well enough."

"Do you have the strength to step back? I'm pointing at him, don't worry."

Xiang Mingqi gritted his teeth, suppressing the spasm in his forearm to ensure the gun's muzzle was pointed steadily. He glanced at his senior and saw him step back a few steps, tear off his sleeve, squat down, and fix his leg injury before taking a step forward. As Pei Huai stood up, he noticed that the boy's left abdomen and left leg were covered in blood, and the severity of the injury was difficult to determine.

"come over."

When he came closer, Pei Huai immediately cut open the cloth around his waist to check the wound and bandaged it to stop the bleeding: "No arteries were injured, but there are many cuts. Stay awake."

"Brother Pei Huai, if I die, how long will you stay a widow for me?"

"Your injury isn't fatal." He slapped Xiang Mingqi on the mouth in a rather unromantic way, "Don't let your imagination run wild."

"Oh, I'm just giving you an example..."

After a rough check of his condition, Pei Huai whispered to him about his plan to rendezvous with Han Shaochen. However, Isaac in his hand posed a significant problem. A single misalignment would likely lead to a counterattack, ultimately ruining his plan.

In addition, since Shan Li had not yet appeared, Pei Huai guessed that he was probably setting up a siege nearby. The situation could not be delayed.

Isaac, who had been watching them since the beginning of the plan, simply smiled. "He seems to like you, which is good. But what good is just 'liking'?"

Xiang Mingqi was not happy with him: "Why, he is so popular and you, a foreign uncle, are jealous?"

"You seem to think so." Isaac didn't look at him, his voice suddenly lowered, "I take a reptile like you seriously." As soon as he finished speaking, he leaned forward like a lynx, with astonishing speed. Xiang Mingqi fired his gun, but the bullet only grazed his shoulder. His nerve reaction to pull the trigger was obviously not as fast as Isaac's. The pistol was swung away by a palm, and the butt of the gun hit Xiang Mingqi's face hard. Pei Huai arrived first and flicked Isaac's loaded pistol away with a wave of his hand.

Both men drew their swords almost simultaneously. Pei Huai turned his shoulder, blocking a blow aimed directly at Xiang Mingqi's carotid artery. He then slashed vertically, splattering blood from the man's thigh. He grabbed Isaac by the collar of his coat and slammed him onto the riverbank. He twisted his right wrist and sliced ​​between his index and middle fingers.

“…Don’t get in my way.”

"I'm sorry, but making sure you're in my control is part of my commission."

As Isaac raised his knee to throw him back, a row of red dots pointed at them: necks, limbs, even temples. That was the signal that Shan Li's men were deployed, ready to pull the trigger at any moment. The fate of everyone, including Xiang Mingqi, was determined by a single index finger.

As if he didn't care about life or death, Pei Huai lowered his head to look at the man under him: "Isaac."

"how?"

"Why kill him?"

"Which one of yours?"

"The old one."

He thought he would get a reason that was difficult to explain, absurd, full of prejudice and contempt, or at least a decent one.

But the man smiled.

He said.

"I just want to keep you around."

"I just want to have a child who is willing to be loved by me and will stay with me until I die."

"Then you shouldn't do this." He bit his lip, and when he released it, a spot of blood stained his pale lower lip. "Dad."

He held onto Isaac, his pupils widening, and dragged him into the river. Both men lost their weapons in the struggle, and the only thing that determined the outcome was the surroundings. Isaac grabbed his wrist and tried to rise, but Pei Huai used all his strength to push him into the turbulent water. Someone fired a gun close to them, disturbing the water surface. He vaguely heard someone calling out to him.

However, the next second, Isaac raised his knees and pushed him into the cold water, pinching his shoulders and sinking him down.

While struggling, he twisted the opponent's arm and tripped him by the ankle.

Both of them fell down, wasting their already limited strength in the water.

Pei Huai choked two or three times, unable to breathe once, and began to feel dizzy, his eyes blurry, and a burning sensation in his nose. The river water was close to freezing, flowing at an alarming rate, so cold that it made his hands and feet stiff as if the blood had congealed.

During the life-or-death struggle, he stabbed Isaac's shoulder blade with a fierce blow of the knife, and just looked at him, his expression that had never been redundant finally relaxed.

It was a look Isaac was extremely familiar with.

It was the look on Pei Huai's face, as if he had just cried, when he killed an Indian boy in front of him ten years ago. He suddenly felt that he seemed to have found the answer he wanted.

"I don't want to kill you," his child, his only child, said. "From the beginning to the end, I didn't want you to die."

"Goodbye, Dad."

Before they could see clearly, they were swept from the waist-deep shallows into a deeper, more treacherous area, their feet failing to reach the bottom several times. Pei Huai raised his head to breathe, but it was too short, his lungs aching as if they were being crushed, and his vision went black. He didn't know where Isaac had gone, but he felt the resistance that had been holding him back had vanished. His shoulder slammed hard against a jagged rock. He tried to grab, but all he felt was a slippery, mossy hand, causing him to lose his strength and sink.

Just as he was about to choke on his next mouthful, he suddenly felt as if someone were holding him. The person clutched his arm tightly, trying to reach shore, but the current was too strong, and Pei Huai couldn't cooperate despite repeated attempts to float and sink. Without a second thought, the person held their breath and swam down to just below his waist, using their shoulders to prop him up so he could surface and breathe more air. He realized who the person was and gritted his teeth, wrapping his arms around the rocks as he used his last bit of strength to grab Xiang Mingqi's clothes to prevent him from drowning.

Xiang Mingqi didn't know where he got the strength from, but he held onto his senior with one arm and used the other, injured arm, to support himself on the rocks, desperately trying to move towards the shore until both of them, exhausted, climbed onto the riverbank. He didn't even want to take a breath, and turned around, watching Pei Huai coughing and vomiting on the ground with heartache.

"Brother, are you choking badly? Brother!"

Seeing that he had no time to answer, Xiang Mingqi immediately picked up his senior horizontally, covered his cold ears with his hands, and raised his arms so that the other person could rest on his chest.

He lowered his head, looking at the limp neck and pale face of the person in his arms. He felt a pang of heartache, ignoring his injured leg and staggering towards the rendezvous point. But before he had gone far, he looked forward, looked at the muzzle of the gun pointed at his head, and clenched his teeth.

"Come on. He needs a doctor right now."

"Put him down. I'll take him to see my personal doctor. They're very professional."

Xiang Mingqi knew he was now covered in wounds, with no chance of seizing the gun or resisting. He instinctively clung to his senior with his right hand, supporting his injured left leg. Enduring the pain, he slowly and tremblingly knelt. He looked at Shan Li, who had taken a step back, and slammed his forehead against the ground.

"Don't take him."

"Don't take him where I can't see him. He's injured... He's cold, brother. There's no warmth in his body. He can't, can't hold on until your doctor comes."

"Please."

“Please…”

Shan Li looked at them from afar, then at Pei Huai, and suddenly he lost the strength to hold his gun. His arm dropped.

He said nothing.

Bumpy.

Bumpy.

No one knew how far they had gone.

All he knew was that the forest finally disappeared over the steep slope, where the sky met the mountain range. The first rays of morning light snaked across the mountains near the Coal Valley. Pei Huai pried open his eyes and gazed at the sun rising through the drizzle.

——At the end of the sea, with the mountains watching, during his hurried journey of more than ten years.

He returned, back to the beginning of his memory, back to the edge of the long river with the gravity of fate, to witness a dawn that had come fourteen years earlier.

This time, the sun rises but never sets.