“Ziyan, what nonsense are you talking…”
Xu Ming stared blankly.
“I said I like her! Don’t you dare touch her, did you hear me!”
“Wait, is it because the way Mom spoke just now upset you? Are you trying to piss Mom off on purpose? Tell Mom, okay? This kind of thing can’t be joked about…”
“I’m serious!”
Lin Ziyan’s face was filled with resolve.
“No… no, Ziyan. He’ll drag you down. He doesn’t even have a proper home. His father is a rapist, still in prison; his mother works outside and isn’t in good health. He’s not good enough for you…”
“I don’t care. I can support her!”
Xu Ming heard this, closed her eyes, and nearly passed out, almost falling straight to the ground.
Lin Cheng caught her.
Xu Ming took a breath and opened her eyes, now filled with resentment.
Her gaze passed over Lin Ziyan and landed on the girl behind her.
Ye Xingmian seemed to have been spacing out all this time. Her long hair hung down her back, and a blanket was wrapped around her body, faintly revealing a black one-piece dress underneath.
She didn’t seem to care about the commotion in front of her, but her eyes, looking at Lin Ziyan’s back, held a hint of surprise.
Maybe she hadn’t expected Lin Ziyan to actually say something like that for her…
Of course, Xu Ming didn’t care what she was thinking.
She raised a trembling finger and pointed at Ye Xingmian, eyes wide with fury.
“It’s you! It’s all because of you! You half-man, half-woman little vixen! We should never have taken you in. We should have drowned you when you were small!”
Xu Ming shouted.
At this point, Lin Cheng, who had been silent beside Xu Ming, finally spoke.
He stepped forward, holding a baseball bat in one hand, his cold gaze fixed on the girl behind Lin Ziyan.
A faint smell of alcohol clung to him—maybe he’d had a drink right after getting home.
“Stop talking nonsense. Even if we hit her now, we can hit. Kill her, even. Worst case, I do a few years in jail. That little bastard dares to lay a hand on my daughter? Today I’m going to beat him to death.”
He walked toward the two on the bed, carrying the bat.
Xu Ming did nothing to stop his rash act.
No obstruction meant tacit consent…
Lin Zi suddenly panicked, feeling like all the blood in her body was rushing to her head, her mind dizzy.
Mom and Dad were going to hit her “elder sister,” completely disregarding her feelings, right in front of her eyes…
That felt absurd.
At this moment, her parents seemed to have turned into completely different people—far from the gentle, kind images she’d always known. Now they were full of bigotry and violence.
So this was what her “elder sister” had been facing all along with these “foster parents”?
It was truly heartbreaking.
No one would protect her “elder sister.” Even the so-called foster parents could become the worst abusers.
Now the only one who could protect her was herself…
She absolutely couldn’t back down.
Lin Zi raised her head and looked straight at her father.
“You can’t hit her!”
“Daughter, your dad is doing this for your own good. Why can’t you understand?”
Xu Ming was still trying to reason from the side.
Lin Cheng, who had walked up to her, stopped.
The pungent smell of alcohol radiated from him—he’d clearly had quite a bit. Even so, a hint of reluctance showed on his face.
But that reluctance quickly vanished.
“You two, get out of here! If you want to hit, then… then hit me first!”
“Ziyan, step aside. Don’t make Dad say it a second time.”
His voice became much gentler when speaking to Lin Zi.
“No! If you’re going to hit her, then hit me too!”
Lin Zi didn’t budge an inch, confronting him head-on.
Lin Cheng glanced back at Xu Ming.
Xu Ming understood and walked over.
“Zi, step aside. Don’t make your dad get annoyed. If he gets annoyed, he might really hit you too. Mom can’t stop him.”
Lin Zi remained completely unmoved.
Xu Ming frowned and shot Lin Cheng a look.
Lin Cheng immediately stepped forward.
He quickly moved in front of Lin Ziyan, reaching out as if to grab Ye Xingmian straight past her.
Lin Zi noticed his movement.
But her father’s strength was too great—she definitely couldn’t block him.
She quickly thought of a way.
She turned around and hugged Ye Xingmian.
Maybe the force of the hug was a bit strong.
Ye Xingmian, who had been lost in thought, snapped back.
“Mm…?”
She lowered her eyes and saw Lin Ziyan’s head buried in her chest.
The blanket wrapped around her had slipped off from the movement, revealing the body wearing the one-piece dress beneath.
The thin, exposed clothing looked very inappropriate in this situation.
“Don’t… don’t be scared, sis. I’ll protect you.”
Lin Zi kept murmuring these words in her ear.
The sensation of their bodies pressed tightly together was unexpectedly comfortable, a bit different from before.
Like a stubborn child.
Lin Zi really seemed to be trying very hard to protect her.
For a moment, she thought about reaching out and hugging her back.
Of course, she didn’t follow through.
And Lin Zi seemed to have actually succeeded.
Because of her action, Lin Cheng stopped, his outstretched hand frozen in midair.
Eventually, he slowly pulled it back.
But her parents hadn’t given up; they just looked a bit helpless because of her behavior.
“Zi, let go of him. You’re a girl. You can’t hug him.”
“Mind your own business!”
“Mom and Dad have indulged you in many things. Whatever you wanted to do, we had no objections. But this one thing—absolutely not.”
“This is a matter concerning your entire life.”
Lin Cheng added from the side.
“Mom also hopes you can find someone you like, but that person absolutely cannot be him, understand? He’s not good enough for you. You deserve better.
“He can’t give you the life you want, and he might even hold you back. You’re a girl. You don’t need to take on that kind of burden.”
Since the hard approach didn’t work, they seemed to be trying the soft approach.
Unfortunately, Lin Zi still didn’t budge.
She held Ye Xingmian tightly, as if afraid she might run away, afraid she might be hurt by her parents’ words.
“It’s okay… sis… don’t listen to them. I like you. I don’t care. Don’t be scared… I’ll protect you. As long as I’m here…”
Her words were rambling.
Some seemed meant for Ye Xingmian, some seemed meant for herself.
Ye Xingmian was moved.
She truly hadn’t expected Lin Ziyan to go this far for her…
Considering that by saying this, she was staking her entire future.
The hand behind Lin An enemy came at her from both sides at once.
The one on the left swung a baton down from above her head, while the one on the right thrust a short staff in a horizontal sweep, their movements cutting off all her escape routes.
Hisaki suddenly lowered her waist, sinking nearly thirty centimeters in an instant, holding the steel pipe with both hands to protect her lower body.
The baton struck the steel pipe with a sharp metallic clang, sparks flying and dying instantly.
The short staff grazed the top of her head, passing through her hair and cutting the slack of her hair tie.
Then she twisted her wrist, the steel pipe switching from up to down in an instant, and she swept it out horizontally like lightning.
The end of the pipe slammed into the ribs of the two on either side with heavy force.
The resonance of the ribs under impact traveled through the pipe into her wrist, and through the slight vibration feedback in her carpal bones, she confirmed… both targets had lost their balance.
The struck men groaned and doubled over, falling to the ground clutching their ribs and struggling, unable to fight back.
Behind her, someone else took the chance to leap up, raising an iron tool high to smash down on her head.
That person must have circled around from beside several fallen companions, seizing the gap when Hisaki was busy dealing with the attacks from both sides.
The shadow of the iron pipe cutting through the air was blurry in the dim light, but the sharp whistling sound of the air being compressed revealed its trajectory.
Hisaki’s eyes didn’t move, and the furrow between her brows didn’t deepen by even a fraction.
She suddenly raised the steel pipe high above her head with both hands, her wrists flipping the instant it passed her head.
The pipe caught the force of the downward strike, and in the dull collision sound, she used skillful technique to deflect the force… tilting slightly to the left, she borrowed the opponent’s strike trajectory to turn half an arc.
In a split second, she used that borrowed force to press down, metal scraping against metal in a piercing screech.
The steel pipe came down with the momentum of breaking wind, precisely smashing into the opponent’s forehead.
The fierce wind swept past, making those nearby instinctively close their eyes, the sound of wind exploding.
Under the impact of the steel pipe, that person’s skull had no time to react or dodge. His entire body was knocked backward in the air, crashing into the row of comrades behind him, toppling a group of them.
A dense crowd surged forward layer after layer, fists, feet, and weapons attacking from all directions, leaving no room to breathe.
But Hisaki’s steps never stopped.
Small steps… the most basic but hardest to master footwork in Kendo… small shuffling steps kept her center of gravity compact and stable.
In this extremely small area of rapid movement, she dodged and weaved, her form flowing like a shadow through the gaps in the wall of people.
Her long hair fluttered slightly in the fierce battle, brushing past the afterimage of the steel pipe and dark red blood, yet it never became disheveled.
The steel pipe in her hands changed between offense and defense at will… sometimes slanting to block a crowbar falling from the left, the pipe face immediately turning slightly after impact to deflect residual momentum, giving the opponent no chance for a second attack.
Sometimes thrusting straight, precisely hitting the throat of the person closest to Rinna, the laryngeal cartilage cracking under the instantaneous impact of the pipe tip.
Sometimes chopping quickly, intercepting close-range enemies’ short sticks and fists, deflecting their weapons while they were still halfway through their swing.
Sometimes sweeping horizontally, the steel pipe drawing a fan-shaped arc wider than a baseball bat, striking the knees, ribs, and wrists of the blocking crowd, sending them tumbling to the ground.
Relying on her body’s coordination and extreme trust in muscle memory, she faced the interwoven web of attacks from fists, feet, and weapons.
No matter how the hundred-plus people charged in waves, they couldn’t even touch the edge of her clothes.
The hairs standing on the surface of her skin, the body temperature passing through fabric into the air, the fists swinging close to her face… all missed by an inch, half an inch, a finger’s distance.
It wasn’t an accumulation of luck.
It was the memory left in her muscles from every empty swing during basic sword swing practice, the self-calibration of step length to the millimeter from every sliding step, the steel barrier forged for her in those mornings alone with a blade at Bamboo Garden amidst the dawn insects.
Any opponent who came within three feet of her body was precisely defeated by the steel pipe.
Cries of pain rose and fell.
At first there were arrogant shouts and threats, then screams, pleas for mercy, and wails.
After that, only the uncontrollable sobs and sniffles from the physical impact of steel pipe on flesh remained.
The clamor gradually subsided.
The echoes lingered in this narrow alley in the northeast corner.
Drops of blood from the tip of the steel pipe fell on the concrete floor littered with people, making a faint dripping sound.
Fierce.
The dense dents and varying shades of bloodstains on the pipe silently narrated the ferocity of the battle just fought under the dim overhead light.
Hisaki stood alone among the fallen enemies, with no one left standing around her.
Some curled up, holding their broken arms and whimpering softly.
Some sat slumped against the wall, using the remains of their sleeves to haphazardly cover the bleeding wounds on their foreheads.
Some knelt on the ground, not daring to move, not even daring to look at her.
Her breathing was steady, almost cold.
Her long black hair hung straight down her back without a strand out of place, as if the battle against a hundred enemies just now was just another lonely basic sword swing for her.
The steel pipe in her hand didn’t waver in the slightest.
The wounds on her knuckles, which had been seeping blood earlier, split open again, slowly dripping along the rusted pipe.
By now, the place was a river of blood.
That man with elegant manners, wearing a light shirt jacket, was not among the people lying in the blood.
He must have seen that the situation was bad.
At the moment when all his companions were paralyzed by fear, he chose the only way to survive… to run.
Hisaki didn’t notice.
Her attention had been on Rinna, locked onto all the targets that were still moving within Rinna’s vicinity.
She dropped the steel pipe.
The sound of the pipe hitting the ground echoed for a moment among the collapsed crowd, then was swallowed by the blood on the floor.
She pulled out her phone from her pants pocket.
Her slender fingers, stained with blood, slid across the screen and dialed her family’s private line.
The phone rang for less than a second before it was answered.
She spoke quietly into the receiver.
Footsteps, groans, and the distant mall announcements merged together, drowning her voice in the noisy background.
There were no unnecessary questions on the other end of the line, only a crisp and brief response before the call ended.
The cleanup force of the Kurose Clan would arrive soon, take away these fallen enemies, erase the abnormal signals from the cameras, and find the escaped leader… these things, the professionals would handle.
The only thing she needed right now was one thing.
She walked quickly toward Rinna.
Her soles stepped over the blood and slippery concrete mortar, leaving a trail of blood footprints that gradually faded on the path she walked.
She stopped in front of Rinna.
Rinna could feel the heat getting closer… the rise in Hisaki’s body temperature from the strenuous exercise, mixed with the scent of gardenia flower shampoo in her hair, the smell of rust from the steel pipe, and a faint trace of blood.
Rinna’s tightly closed eyes trembled slightly in the dim light, the tassels on the red shawl hanging from her shoulders swaying gently.
“I… can I open my eyes now?” Her voice carried a hint of barely noticeable nervousness.
iyan’s back quietly lifted, then quietly lowered.
Her eyes dimmed, and she was silent for a long time.
Meanwhile, Xu Ming’s frown deepened.
“In a moment, go separate them.”
She said to Lin Cheng.
Lin Cheng nodded, standing by, ready.
“How about this, Ziyan. First, let go of him, okay? I think we’re all a bit worked up right now. Let him go, let’s calm down, and then we can all talk together.”
She seemed to be offering a compromise.