Chapter 169: An Old Friend

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The harsh scream resounded in the empty restaurant.

Plain he had looked, shocking whenever he acted - this was the principle of Ye Chong’s combats, though he would prefer not slaughtering anyone for real this time. It was the moment when he would be better off staying in the dark, who knows if the eyes of the Sanctuary happened to be wondering in the craft. If he were to further dramatize the entire incident, he would be very much exposed to their discovery.

Well, Ye Chong did not hesitate making them to pay a bit of price for misbehaving however. He even made up his mind, assuming they showed stubbornness and unreasonable resistance, he would not keep his slaughter knife. At most he would just go with Mu’s hijacking plan instead. Of course, that plan would not happen till the very crucial moment where he was forced to.

The men of the wounded leader finally understood the whole situation as they reacted with anger, yelling and jumping on Ye Chong. Some of them even withdrew their dagger to avenge their leader.

The cold gaze blinked within his eyes. A tip to his toes and he weaved through the crowd like a shadow. Series of audible sounds of fisting and slapping followed. Men fell all over the place like cheap sandbags.

Below average! Rated Ye Chong quickly in his mind. For someone who had witnessed the masterly barehanded combats between the Black Covers, certainly these men had terrible skills.

Everyone else than Ye Chong were curling while wailing on the ground. Ye Chong did not harm them technically like what he did to their leader. To shock the enemies, you only have to do it once. So these men were just given a touch by his fist or kick. The technique was from his stay in Black Coves back then. The signature characteristic of Black Covers’ technique was its ability to disable the mobility of enemies temporarily by deactivating certain spots of human bodies. No doubt, Ye Chong had defined the characteristic perfectly.

They were wailing on the ground, but none of them could move as part of their muscles had lost the dynamics for the moment.

Ow… Aw…

Man… Aww…

Save me…

Ye Chong sat back to his table and disregarded those annoying screams. He grabbed his chopsticks and went on taking his time finishing his meal. He had understood the fact of how each meal hardly came by back when he was on Trash Planet. No way he would prematurely end his meal because of these silly bullies, especially when wasting good food was an unforgivable sin to him.

He pushed the empty plate away from him and got up. Ignoring the wailing annoyance, he walked away.

A girl entered after that and…

Ellen covered her mouth, desperately forcing herself to not make any noises. Gosh, what the hell had happened in the restaurant just now? Why were there so many people lying on the ground? The shrill scream echoed inside her head and it was disturbing. Wait… She took a better look. Those men on the ground happened to be those malicious bullies she encountered the day before… what? Why are they lying here? And why are some of them wounded?

She observed the whining men on the ground. The first conclusion came across in her mind was shocking to her. They were hit… Yes they were hit by people, they were attacked. Such horrifying skill… The men were in total immobility… the attack even disabled their mobility… This is … eerie…

Ellen had been quite a stunning beauty since young. And her parents employed a few combat instructors for her safety, not to protect her, but to teach her the martial arts. Throughout the years, she practiced non-stop and had changed one teacher after another. Regarding the expertise of combating, she knew it much more than the usual folks. Seizing the opponent’s control by simply hitting a particular part of the body… that would be considered a rather advanced technique of combats.

And who did this? Who was the expert? Ellen’s shock uncontrollably overflowed.

Coincidentally, the body of the beefy men regained the senses while she was making her deduction. One of them lifting the head spotted Ellen. Shuddered, their eyes expressed strong fear towards Ellen after regaining mobility and standing up.

Well, it was a sense of fear out of misunderstanding. They assumed both Ellen and Ye Chong were acquainted to each other, seeing how they sat together at the restaurant the day before. So, like a connected circuit, a classical conditioning, they were reminded of Ye Chong who nearly murdered them all upon seeing Ellen, which explained the shudder.

Ellen who saw them recovering gradually shut the gate of the restaurant and walked away promptly. Those might be the good fighters, but they aren’t the good guys. Ellen would lose her appetite with those men inside. Though she was confused, wondering why the men expressed some kind of fear towards her.

Could the one teaching them a lesson be a friend of mine? Ellen the sensible one guessed the possibility right away. Wait… no… Nobody else had known of my whereabouts on this trip. And I had yet to bump into any acquaintances on this ship… Ellen cracked her head thinking, searching for the endless possibilities. But well, even if she dipped into the pool of probability, she would never think of how it could have been that rice-digging guy she met before.

"Mu, watch this ship properly," stated Ye Chong as soon as he got back to his room, "If you find anything, tell me right away." A plan in Ye Chong’s mind, as assuming the men would not behave themselves that easily, especially after the humiliation they had experienced today. Ye Chong did not want any more incidents to happen. Well, if things had gone rough, he would go and grab the steer of this ship instantly and fly all the way to Windstar.

Providing that, he would be left with only one way to keep everyone muted of his presence in the ship. Ye Chong’s eyes looked intense. Yes… that was why he refused to do the hijacking plan from the beginning, since whatever the premises were, these men were still his compatriots, his kind and Ye Chong were not the bloodthirsty kind to begin with. As long as they did not express hostility or maliciousness, he would not kill them for no reason. He did not fear murders but he disliked murders.

He took a chip from his bag and inserted it into the processor. The chip contained the entire combat sequence between the two experts he had witnessed before. Yes, the experts who got neutralized by the squad. Ye Chong and Mu had performed a series of analysis and reorganizing of movements in the visual, which eventually boiled down to this very chip, the most useful data to Ye Chong at the moment.

And Ye Chong began his training in the room. Combating was similar to piloting. One would not only be required the expertise behind the working, but also the formation of muscle memory to produce the flow of the sequences, thus an actual body training would be inseparable.

Ye Chong honed his stance when he pulled off his moves by following the analyzed data appeared in the processor. It did not take long before Ye Chong had gone fully enthralled by it, as he felt the every single change on his movement as according to the strands of data.

"Ye!" Right when Ye Chong was enjoying the process, Mu boomed in his head.

Ye Chong flinched as he ceased his movement, "Mu, what’s wrong? Did anything happen?" Mu had been monitoring the whole craft soundlessly over the course, none of the corners was missed under his mechanical eyes.

"Look. I had sent it to the processor," answered Mu.

Ye Chong shifted his sight back onto the processor, the illustrated data was replaced by a group of hologram features, playing a tape, which Mu also recorded every word uttered by the people in the feature.

"Eh? What?" Even Ye Chong the calmest guy in the galaxy could not help but to nearly shriek. He swallowed his shriek and smiled slightly, "I really did not expect him to be here. This is really unbelievable…" His thoughts wandered off with sentiments.

"Mathematically, yes. The probability is indeed extremely small," added Mu.

Settled his thoughts, Ye Chong spoke on, "Looks like they would come for us." Ye Chong was excited to be facing some sandbags soon.

"Chances are high," affirmed Mu, as he elaborated, "I did not block their access to your forged profile on the ship. They could arrive at this room effortlessly." Every passenger on the intergalactic cruise would be handed with profiles of every other passengers and Ye Chong was an "addition" to the database by Mu when he sneaked in.

Thup.

As expected, Ye Chong heard the knocks coming at the door not too long after.

Tick.

Ye Chong gave a gentle tap on the processor’s interface. The door was opened in a hush.

A group of fearsome-looking men in black suits fled into Ye Chong’s room and had occupied all the potential advantageous location. The suited men stood still and no sound was heard from them. Same goes with Ye Chong, solemnly he stood there in calmness, the men were disregarded like the chilly air surrounding them.

Cough.

A moment later, a light cough came from the outside. A man taking his time made his entry to the room.

"So you were…" The man in the middle of the crowd lifted his head, with his eyes shining… glaring?

Ye Chong’s expression remained unchanged, his eyes were conveying a certain degree of gleefulness.

Cough!

The head in the middle reacted quickly, as he cleared his throat again, turned to his men, "Well, head out you all. Guard for me. I have some business to discuss with this mister in front."

?

"Master." His men were in overwhelming bewilderment, aren’t we supposed to come and mess with this dude? Why out of the sudden master changed his mind? We get out? Then what about our master’s safety? The men were well-aware the fact that their master was utterly harmless. Upon the command, his men looked lost.

"Ahem!" The head acted displeasedly, "I said, get out! Just get out already! I don’t have time to do all the mumbo-jumbo to cast you all out."

"Yes sir!" The men hurriedly exited Ye Chong’s room upon the reinforced command from their leader. Tick! The door closed in a hush after their leaving. They were astonished and almost had the urge to bang the door open again. "Shhh!" The leader of the underlings had his ear stuck on the door… There was no noise or whatsoever… It seemed fine. The leader shrugged, along with the other men, as they continued waiting by the door in wonders.

"Master!" Right after the door was shut, the head of those men approached Ye Chong femininely, "It was you! It really is you! Gosh, I did not expect to see you here! Like really I did not…," in thrill, he spoke confusingly.

It was whom Ye Chong had met before. Yes, Bai Linan.

Ye Chong took a glance over Bai Linan. The suit was a perfect fit on him, though he was still willow as before, the suit made him looked like a skeleton with a head popped out of the collar. His face was rosier however, obviously he had a much better life than before.

Meeting an old friend was also a thrill to Ye Chong too. They lost each other after the visit at the Black Coves. Too many incidents had happened after that. It felt like a travel across the dimension to Ye Chong out of the blue.

Bai Linan was stimulated to see Ye Chong, as he was the first one who truly cared about him. He actually had the intention to follow Ye Chong for the rest of his life, but he lost him on the Black Coves. He thought Ye Chong was a gone-case considering how Ye Chong was a hot-headed man. It was very likely to see him getting into a fight with one of the residents there, which caused his remorse for the following time of wondering why in the world he suggested to separate in the first place. If it was not for his brilliant idea, Master Ye Chong would have been there.

But they met again.

"Master… My Lord…," Bai Linan was choked with tears.

Ye Chong’s expression remained calm, though it was causing a fissure in his mind.