Chapter 94: Gone with the Haze
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Since he decided to admit his mistake, he had to level with Yan Zheke about this incident. Otherwise, she would be confused by his sudden apology.
Also, Lou Cheng honestly did not know what kind of reaction Yan Zheke would have after she learned of the situation. For a moment, Lou Cheng was quite hesitant, but after repeated consideration, he finally decided to come clean.
If Yan Zheke’s family was well-connected in the local police department, there was a big chance that she would hear about what happened from other sources. By that time, the consequence of keeping such a big secret from her was more serious than him getting into this mess recklessly.
According to Cai Zongming, no one wanted to either be deceived by others or have the truth hidden from them. Men were this way, but women even more so!
Lou Cheng weighed the words and eased his worries over what he had done before the confession, then he sent a message without using any emojis.
“Coach Yan, I, I did something wrong today…”
Confessing required certain skills and speaking out was obviously not a good idea. On the contrary, revealing the truth to Yan Zheke little by little was rather appropriate. By doing so, he could carefully choose his words to make his behaviors more reasonable and minimize the impact on Yan Zheke, who should be given enough time to accept what he had done.
A while later, Yan Zheke sent a “bewildered” emoji and asked, “What have you done?”
Lou Cheng did not directly answer, and started from the beginning, “Today, when I was exercising, I suddenly received a phone call from Wang Xu. He said that their boss discovered traces of that Professional Ninth Pin and asked Wang Xu and other hatchet men take guns to intercept him. He felt very terrified and anxious about this operation.”
“… therefore, you foolishly rushed over?” Yan Zheke replied without any emotions, as if she didn’t know which one she should send.
“No, no.” Lou Cheng hurriedly denied, “That Professional Ninth Pin was an underworld gangster with a secret mind discipline, let alone he had guns. I am not a Superman. I am just a normal guy who hasn’t been certified as a Professional Ninth Pin. So, I did not have this confidence and courage to take him down alone. My first reaction was to call the police, but considering both parties had their connections in the police department, I decided to ask someone to find trustworthy police officers who could scare off both sides straight away. In this way, Wang Xu might keep his secret, as if nothing ever happened.”
“I first considered calling you, but I thought you would need to ask a favor of your grandpa or your mom. During this process, anything unexpected might happen. Therefore, I went well-connected Coach Shi for help. He must know someone who can give me a hand.”
“Sure enough, Coach Shi soon contacted Deputy Director Xing of Xiushan police…”
Lou Cheng meant to tell her little by little instead of typing a lengthy paragraph. However, he wasn’t so strong psychologically, after what he had experienced, he could not completely calm down and was in a little bit of a hurry. Once he started talking, he wanted to immediately make things clear, telling her how he came up his plan at that moment.
Yan Zheke carried on with bewilderment, “You’re dealing with it well, if we really encounter such a thing, I feel I can’t handle it better than you. How can this be called doing something wrong?”
“After I made a phone call, I rushed over here…” Lou Cheng weakly said.
“…” After sending several ellipses, Yan Zheke appeared to blurt out her true feelings and replied without emoji, “Are you a fool? What is the use of you rushing over here? It is dangerous to be involved in this kind of thing!”
Lou Cheng hurried to clear himself, “I thought if Director Xing did not contact two sides in time and warn both sides to stop their operations, he might not catch up with them before the battle. Anyway, I planned to hide myself in their surrounding area. If possible, I could give him a hand, if not, I would not insist. My safety mattered the most.”
After a minute of silence, Yan Zheke replied with a signing emoji, “I thought about it. If I were you, and Wang Xu were my best friend, I would also find it disturbing and do something stupid… All right, you just made a small mistake since you played it by ear and did not take shots in the dark, but be careful next time.”
But I still got involved recklessly… Lou Cheng only thought to himself and dared not speak out. So he first described what he had seen, then according to intuition, he emphasized the coldness and brutality of that Professional Ninth Pin and the misery and helplessness of Wang Xu and the other hatchet men drenched in boiling water who threw away their pistols and rolled on the ground painfully. Last but not the least, he pointed out that Professional Ninth Pin intended to kill them all.
Of course, he didn’t mention one hatchet man’s eyeballs got beaten out. It was too bloody and Lou Cheng feared Yan Zheke might have a nightmare owing to this scene.
“…I was ignorant at that time, blood rushed directly to my head.” Lou Cheng said cautiously.
“…” Yan Zheke replied after sending out another ellipse, “Therefore, you jumped out to help them? Are you okay? Have you been injured? ”
Seeing Yan Zheke’s priority was his safety made Lou Cheng’s heart warm. He quickly typed, “I’m fine, just a little shocked. My mood is very complicated now and I can’t calm down.”
“That’s good…” Yan Zheke sent out an emoji sitting motionlessly and panting, “I just pictured you in a plaster cast, covered in bandages, and you lay on the hospital bed like a mummy sending me messages…”
She did not wait for Lou Cheng’s reply and instantly sent another message with a “a fierce face” emoji, “Do you know how serious this is? Afterwards, you still dare to act this impulsively? You relied on mercurial balance during the battle till the police arrived and scared away that Professional Ninth Pin?”
This was the only safe way she could imagine. After all, surviving from a Professional Ninth Pin by meeting strength with strength was impossible for Lou Cheng, especially that Professional Ninth Pin had been through life and death so many times. Unless Cheng made another breakthrough as he had done during the battle with Ye Youting, but it was unlikely to happen because breakthroughs could not happen twice in such a short period.
“No, I won…” Lou Cheng trembled when he recalled what happened out there, as if suffering from the post-traumatic stress disorder, so he jumped the part where he killed that Professional Ninth Pin.
“You won?” Yan Zheke replied along with a “dodge” emoji, and took a while to send back another message, “How did you win?”
Lou Cheng thought for a while and then quickly typed on the keyboard screen, “It is not easy to say. Let’s do a video chat so that I can show you.”
“Show me?” Yan Zheke sent an emoji with question marks coming from one’s head, and immediately sent a request for video chat.
Lou Cheng immediately accepted and soon saw Yan Zheke on the screen. She was dressed in fluffy white home clothes, lying on a bear shaped doll, hair rolled up with a hairpin revealing her slender white neck. Her cheeks were slightly rosy as if she just came out from the shower. Her eyes were clear and clean, looking smart and cute.
She frowned and pursed her lips. It looked as if she was adjusting her image in the video. She seriously said, “Tell me, how did you win? Tell me everything, otherwise, I will give you some punishments!”
Looking at her delicate figure, listening to her soft and familiar voice, Lou Cheng’s trembling body became still, his heart became calm, and he put his hand before the screen and said, “See for yourself.”
At the same time as he said that, he used his thumb to rub his middle finger, making a burning flame.
Yan Zheke’s expression instantly became vivid, a pair of black and white eyes open wide. Her delicateness and elegance disappeared without a trace, but she was still beautiful and cute.
“Fire…Did you awaken the The Power of Blaze? After that battle with You Youting?” She soon figured everything out.
Lou Cheng nodded and said, “Although the temperature is high, it is rather weak since the wind extinguishes this fire easily. I can only use this skill when it’s combined with a hand-to-hand fight in abrupt explosive force. When I awakened, I meant to tell you immediately, but I also intended to surprise you and perform a magic show for you when school starts.”
In fear of getting Yan Zheke mad at him keeping a secret, he hurriedly explained his original idea. However, girls didn’t mind or even liked this sort of secret. After all, they knew boys just wanted to surprise them.
“Aha, you learn how to play magic now.” Yan Zheke joked, eyebrows raised to reveal her happiness. “Your enemy did not know you had this special skill and its temperature was high. If he got burnt in a hurry, he may respond naturally, giving you the best chance of winning. No wonder you can win. And what happened next?”
Lou Cheng took a deep breath. What filled in his mind was that Professional Ninth Pin’s eyes before he died. There were shock and unwillingness in it. He decided to give an honest reply.
“Between life and death, I couldn’t withhold my strength ,so I killed him…”
“Killed him…” Yan Zheke whispered. She originally wanted to say something, but after seeing Lou Cheng’s sad and nervous look, she became tense and concerned.
“Do not feel too guilty that such a person is gone. He had been living in darkness for years and probably killed many people. Even he had not done a hundred bad things, there must be several dozens. Killing him actually eradicated the harm for all people. You did the right things. Do not let this get to you.”
“When Wang Xu fell to the ground and dropped his gun, the Professional Ninth Pin still insisted killing him. You did the right thing to stop him.”
She seemed to be more concerned with if I had suffered any trauma… Lou Cheng was stunned.
To be honest, killing that Professional Ninth Pin had a smaller impact than I would expect, casting a smaller gloom over my heart as well. And there were many reasons for this.
One is that I have no contact with the men in black exercise clothes, thus having no impression on him. I do not view him as a living person; The second is that I have not met his friends and family, thus not knowing how they grieve over his death; The third is that I witness him kill enemies who have already given up resisting. He just deliberately kills them, So cold and cruel is he that I think killing him is the right thing to do. I should not feel guilty; The fourth is this is a battle between life and death, so I can’t withhold my strength. Killing him is an accident and I should not suffer from this.
In other words, I do have trauma, but not as serious as Yan Zheke imagine. However, I can take this opportunity and pretend to be seriously affected to get her sympathy and concern. In doing so, Yan Zheke will shift her focus from him killing people in self-defense and behaving recklessly to comforting him.
After having this eureka moment, Lou Cheng immediately faked a depressed look, “I was also comforting myself back then, but after all, this was a living life. Every time I I recalled the image… Later, Director Xing arrived at the scene and told the police that he had asked me to stop their operations, so policemen just took note of the events and let me leave.”
In a world where martial arts prevailed, it was common to trust an expert with a clean background to stop crime, just like hiring foreign private detectives to solve the case.
Yan Zheke was a little bit anxious and said, “You should go to the hospital and seek to counsel in psychiatry or psychology. You cannot leave a shadow hanging over you, or you might have psychological problems in the future!”
Go to see a psychiatrist or psychologist? Lou Cheng was scared into a cold sweat. If he really went there, then not having any problems might become a problem!
He quickly said, “No need, I feel so much better after talking with you for a while. You are my life mentor, and also my psychological counselor!”
Yan Zheke was amused by seeing him get anxious and worried, with dimpled cheeks forming a charming and marvelous smile.
“Really?” She quickly controlled her expression and replied.
“Yes, really!” Lou Cheng answered seriously, trying to wipe off his depression and leaving traces of sadness on his face.
Yan Zheke sent an emoji of a chick nodding as if picking grains. “Let me give you some instructions.”
She picked up the silver white notebook next to her, placed it on her lap, and simultaneously searched for the relevant psychological information as well as video chatting with Lou Cheng, trying to treat his psychological trauma.
“In martial arts battles, the difference between victory and defeat is the difference between life and death. If you withhold your strength, you would be dead now, and you wouldn’t be sitting here receiving my psychological counseling. So you just protected your own safety. Do not feel sorry for that…”
As they spoke, the gloom in Lou Cheng’s heart became less and less. At this moment, his phone rang. It was Qin Rui calling.
Lou Cheng answered, asking, “Qin Rui, what is it?”
Qin Rui moodily said, “Le ran away and the police grabbed Third Jian. What happened out there would be a secret, at least no locals would want the truth from you. I am telling you this so that you can rest easy.”
“Okay.” Lou Cheng was stunned, and only answered with a single word.
When the call was over, he started the video again. Looking at this beautiful girl on the screen, listening to her soft and delicate voice, Lou Cheng could feel her concern and love. This the moment when the hidden depression in his heart started to burst open, completely venting his feelings.
This is the life I want!
Who cares that damned underworld organization! Who cares about fighting between life and death! Go to hell! F**k you!
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