Translator's Note:
When the Qin's pickup trucks entered the small mountain road and saw the Kamidai Family's convoy, they couldn't retreat even though they wanted to.
They were just about to reach their checkpoint, who would've thought they would meet this kind of bad luck?
Qing Chen didn't understand why his teacher had to smear their faces with dirt.
Right now, the two sides had already seen one another. Even if the people from the Kamidai Family failed to recognize his teacher, who had been living in seclusion for many years, Kamidai Sorane would definitely still be able to recognize him.
There was no use in rubbing a little dirt on their faces.
As if he could see through Qing Chen's thoughts, Li Shutong laughed in a low voice, "Don't worry, the one who can recognize you has already returned to the north."
Qing Chen relaxed his breath.
In the Outer World, China had 19 cities corresponding to the ones in the Inner World, but in fact, the federation consisted of 25 cities. The other six were under the rule of the Kashima and Kamidai Families and corresponded to cities in Korea and Japan.
However, the two Families only joined the federation due to the crustal movements of the earth, so the Li, Qing, and Chen Families did not truly acknowledge them.
There had always been a pro-war party in the three Families, steadfast in their intent to launch a war against the Kashima and Kamidai Families.
In recent decades, the prestige of the pro-war party had been getting higher and higher, which was why the Kamidai Family began resorting to political marriages.
They might look like political marriages at the surface, but in truth, they were sending off their daughters as a show of concession.
Li Shutong told Qingchen, "In the beginning, the Kamidai Family was like the royal family of their country. Although they didn't continue their feudal tradition after migrating here, a matter of fact is there have always been several big-name families clustering around them. Takahashi, Yamaguchi, and Inoue — for hundreds of years, these three families have played the part of retainers for the Kamidai Family."
Qing Chen asked, "How big is the Kamidai Family?"
"They own businesses across all walks of life," said Li Shutong, "But there's something strange going on within these last few years. Some time ago, they still had more than a thousand people in the family, but now the number is getting smaller and smaller, and only a few hundred people are left."
While they spoke, Qing Chen caught sight of the giant tent and swaying bonfire in front of the Kamidai Family's convoy. It looked like they had already set up their camps.
Several men clad in black suits started approaching the Qin's pickups. They were wearing headsets on their ears, and as they walked, Qingchen could hear the rubbing sound of metal coming from the mechanical limbs under their clothes.
Qin Cheng warned his family through the walkie-talkie, "Everyone stay in the car, don't move."
When ordinary people came across members of the Corporations, all they could do was stay still and try their best not to irk the other side.
More than ten men came to surround the two pickups. Upon seeing the hunter's symbol and serial number on the truck, one of them whispered something to the headset.
With a wide smile on his face, someone soon asked, "Who is the leader of this hunting team?"
Qin Cheng raised his hand, "Hello, it's me."
"Would everyone please alight for a while? My boss has something to discuss with you." The man in the black suit smiled, his tone was very kind and polite.
Li Shutong muttered as he got out of the truck, "Always with the fake politeness."
Qing Chen silently followed behind him, thinking that the Kamidai Family must have committed some kind of offense against his teacher.
When all of them had left the pickups, the men in black suits immediately carried out a thorough search of the trucks. Someone even used a knife to cut open the leather of the seats, checking if they were hiding anything dangerous inside.
After inspecting these details, those bodyguards took out a device from their black off-road vehicle to scan the fuel tanks and tires of the two pickup trucks.
Immediately afterward, someone used a handheld body scanner to check them one by one.
When it came to Qin Yiyi's turn, they even especially assigned a female bodyguard to do the search.
It wasn't until they had found all of the weapons that the person put his friendly smile back on and said, "Sorry for that, it's our usual routine, I hope everyone won't take offense. We'll temporarily keep all of the weapons and firearms and will return them untouched to you later. Also, we'll compensate all of your damaged items according to the price."
Truth be told, Qing Chen felt this inspection was very redundant. After all, there was someone on their side who could hit a person until all their bones were smashed to pieces with his bare hands…
He also understood what Li Shutong meant by ‘fake politeness'.
To say they were polite, these people carried out inspections and searched their bodies without waiting for any permission, even cutting up their seats in the process.
To say they weren't polite, they reasonably assigned a female bodyguard to do the women's body search and even promised compensation for the damage.
Qing Chen had never dealt with this type of people, he felt as though something was out of sorts with their ways.
They went to the bonfire and saw a middle-aged man in kimono sitting on a padded folding chair. Beside him was a young girl staring blankly at the fire.
Looking at it closely, there were actually tear stains across her face.
When he saw Qin Cheng's group coming, the middle-aged man quickly stood up to greet them with a smile, but the girl sat still without even blinking.
The middle-aged man's expression turned cold. He then said to the girl, “いつまで泣くんだ。お客さんが来ているんだぞ。せめて陳氏のエリートと結婚して欲しかった、神代空音の旦那は慶氏のゴミだ、こんな結果でも喜べ。”
Once again, it was in Japanese.
He had no intention of letting Qin Cheng and his team know what they were talking about.
However, as the middle-aged man spoke, Qing Chen noticed his teacher suddenly raising his eyebrows.
He whispered a question, "Teacher, do you understand what they're saying?"
Li Shutong glanced at him and aloofly said, "You don't have the slightest inkling of your teacher's vast knowledge."
This time, Qing Chen was really surprised. "Then what are they saying?"
Li Shutong told him, "This old boy urged the girl to stop crying. He said she will be married off to a prominent figure from the Chen Family's younger generation, whereas Kamidai Sorane will be married off to you, a trash, so the girl has nothing to cry about. At the very least, her life is better than Kamidai Sorane."
Qing Chen was stunned. It turned out the girl cried because of the political marriage.
With a face devoid of expression, Li Shutong continued speaking, "He actually called my student trash. How about I just kill all of them?"
Qing Chen was rendered speechless, mentally questioning whether his teacher really understood what they were talking about or if he was playing a trick on him.
But Li Shutong said it very certainly, so he thought his teacher couldn't have lied.
Just now, the girl finally wiped off her tears and stood up.
The middle-aged man looked back at them and introduced himself, "Good evening everyone, I'm Kamidai Josuke, nice to meet you, I shall be in your care."
Qin Cheng has never faced this kind of situation. He hurriedly responded, "You're too polite, we just happened to pass by."
Kamidai Josuke asked, "May I know where you are heading to?"
"We took on a job to catch Sparrowhawk and Golden-haired Monkey, but we couldn't find them in the north, so we could only go to the south to try our luck," replied Qin Cheng.
At this moment, a member of the Kamidai Family walked by. They had probably finished checking the trucks and confirmed that Qin Cheng's group was just a normal hunting team without any special status. It won't cause any problem to kill them.
Kamidai Josuke pondered his words and said, "We have temporarily changed our itinerary, so in order not to let anyone else know about our whereabouts, we can only ask for everyone to stay here forever."
Li Shutong whispered to Qing Chen, "I'll translate it for you, what he means to say is that he wants to die here."
Qing Chen was dumbfounded. "Teacher, he just spoke in Chinese, I don't need you to translate it."
And that person obviously didn't say that!
Now, Qing Chen suspected his teacher had also fooled him with the previous translation!
Before Li Shutong could say anything else, they heard the roar of engines and deafening music coming towards the mountain road.
Translator: Zee
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