7 This Dead Man? (III)

"Did that man j-just?"

"I witnessed it myself! There was a not-very-impressive looking skinny boy with messy hair who just walked up and slapped the man, and the next second, there we go. That's what happened."

"Heavens, how is it possible for someone to be so strong? What did that boy eat?"

A crowd had gathered around the broken table and the man collapsed on it, some shaking their heads while others covering their eyes in disgust. Away from the crowd, leaning over the staircase railing, a hooded man looked down at the sight below him with all the people gathering around this seemingly dead man.

His fingers tapped against the staircase railing, and from the figure of the man below, numerous thin strings tied around his limbs and body glimmered softly as they unraveled themselves, spinning back to the staircase and into the grasp of the cloaked man, vanishing at his touch. To the crowd intently watching, even though they were focused on the body, they wouldn't be able to tell a thing— with strings as narrow and fine as strands of sunlight itself, not even the person who had the strings tied around them would feel or notice a thing until it was too late. These strings were excellent tools for 'puppeteering', and gave exceptional control to the cloaked man of the person the strings were tied to.

All along, from the slap of the young man, everything happened because of the strings the hooded man tied around the other's body. It just took a light flick of his finger for the drunk man to sail across the room and crash into the table, and the boy who slapped the man was simply his excuse. Besides, it only took a glance to tell that the boy never had any sort of training or internal energy, so how could a single slap from him cause the other man to be flung across as if he was a rag doll?

Smiling faintly, the hooded man waited by the staircase, watching as the man who was flung across the room stirred. It started with a twitch of his finger, then a shift of his arms and a twist of his body until he sat up in the center of the mess.

Within a few moments, the fallen man managed to push himself up from the broken dishes and table, blood still dripping from his head.

"Is he alive?"

"He's alive!"

"This is a miracle!"

"More like some sort of monster!"

The crowd shouted in fear once they saw the man moving. They all thought that the man who had fallen was dead upon impact— no one bothered to check his pulse— so now that the man was stumbling forward, everyone was watching him like he was some sort of reincarnated monster.

How could someone be so frightening? He fell so hard that the table split in half, yet now, he was walking forward like nothing much had just happened.

Blood continued to drip from his head, blurring over his vision, and the man reached up to touch his head, finding his fingers coated with blood. Letting out a loud roar, the man furiously searched through the crowd, looking for the boy who had just slapped him so hard that he flew across the room.

For someone who had trained in martial arts for his entire life, the man could take an injury like this. A few days of recovery, and he would be good. What worried him was his reputation— which would certainly worsen once word got out that he was nearly rendered unconscious by a single slap from an insignificant, fragile-appearing little boy. How could he, Liu Dayuan, the boss of an influential gang in the city, be rendered to this state? How could he face his brothers?

He just wanted to have some fun at a brothel this morning and have a drink or two… none of what happened was supposed to happen!

Seeing that the boy was nowhere in the brothel, Liu Dayuan charged towards the exit, fiercely running and ignoring the blood that continued to drip from his head. He needed to find the boy and fight to regain his reputation! He would not be satisfied until the boy was beaten up to a pulp.

On top of the balcony, the man with the cloak watched all of this unfold. He bothered with this drunk, bleeding man in the first place only because he heard that this man, called 'Liu Dayuan', was one of the bigger non-nobility figures in Danyan. He thought that the man would be at least worth a fight, but only under a flick of his finger, Liu Dayuan was now resembling a mess of blood and food stains coating his entire body. His martial arts were nowhere near a decent level to be considered as strong.

Turns out that Danyan didn't have many experts then, hm?

Disappointedly, the cloaked man headed down the staircase. It could be considered as his fault that now, there was a crazy, bleeding man chasing after some boy that the cloaked man used to cover up his strings and techniques. Perhaps he should go after Liu Dayuan and prevent him from harming the other boy. Or, perhaps, he should leave both of them alone and the boy to fend for himself.

Humming, the hooded man slowly exited the brothel, heading in the opposite direction of Liu Dayuan. Leave it to fate, then, whether or not Liu Dayuan would find the boy and whether or not the boy would live. Unless the cloaked man came upon both of them himself, he would not lift a finger to help.