CHILD AT HEART (4)

As Lirzod stood and stared at the wall like a lunatic, the three women showed their biting might on Yizzy, and half-a-dozen hickeys surfaced at different parts of his body.

The next moment, all the visuals were skipped, startling him. "Hey, geezer! Where were you hiding till now?"

A couple of hours had passed in the past. The three girls just dressed up and left the minister's room.

The doors of the room closed, and the minister also dressed up and began to read some documents.

Lirzod still had a frown on his face. (That old fart… why's he not responding? He must've never been kissed by a girl.)

Everything was silent in the estate, like an ordinary night, until a tiny noise broke out, and the next second, a needle pierced the neck of the minister. Like a mosquito sting, the pain grabbed his attention, but when he raised his hand to place it on the bitten spot, it began to shake, which brought him incredible pain. By instinct, he stopped moving. He wanted to speak out, but even moving his jaw muscles made him cry.

At that moment, as the minister was struggling, a person popped out from under the bed, holding a bamboo-esque object. The minister's eyes enlarged upon seeing Rick.

"Are you surprised that I'm alive, Sir Yizzy?" Rick walked a couple of steps and stopped in front of the bed and looked straight into the minister's eyes. "In all the months I worked here, there's only a single dog in this estate that I didn't tame. You. It took me this long to heal, so I came to see how you were doing. And look here, you are doing your best, aren't you?

"I'm not a specialist in understanding people, but there's one thing I'm good at. Reading people's eyes. Regardless of what the mouth may say, the eyes never lie. You... You just tell people what they want to hear. You said you were gonna recommend my nieces into—what's that? Holy Brothel, was it? As if a brothel can ever be holy." He spat on the floor. "To how many women did you say those exact same words in the past?"

Yizzy stayed silent, but sweat covered his face.

"My nieces…" Rick's jaw made a hard line. "They are good people at heart. Unlike the other women, they gave their best in the life they were pushed into. I waited all this while, hoping they would change their minds, but at this rate, they're just gonna lose their limbs one day. And I can't let that happen!"

He used the bamboo-esque object and pierced a couple of needles on his chest and shoulders before he removed the one on Yizzy's neck. "If you speak out loud, the breath you take will stretch your chest muscles, and you will die from a stroke. So, let's have a proper conversation, shall we?"

The minister, who was about to shout, shut his mouth and fumed at Rick.

"Zhana is a talented girl, not only at learning but also at teaching. Thanks to her, teaching me about how the human body worked, I managed to learn this art in a short time. The world doesn't give you something just because you asked for it. You have to earn what you want. It took me months of practice on my breathing to get this thing to work as I imagined it would. It's marvelous, isn't it?" Rick looked at the wooden thing in his hand, which was a bamboo-esque object. "Like the blood that flows in our veins and carries all the necessary energy to all over our bodies, my breath carries the dart through this bamboo into the air until it lodges itself into the target. This is serious stuff. It kills people from a distance."

The minister was shocked by Rick's words. Though he was unimaginably angry, his gaze was fixed onto the bamboo-esque object. "You, you can't make ordinary bamboo work like that. It was as effective as a bow. How did you achieve that?"

Rick smiled. "You want to help your king with this weapon? But this isn't suited for large-scale battles, Sir Yizzy."

"Hmph, as expected... A mud squeezer's[1] brain doesn't know the capacity of it." His eyes suddenly showed a lot of hope and conviction. "Just imagine, if you've coated the needle's tip with poison, you can assassinate all the kings of this world, one by one. And no one would know the exact cause, because they haven't seen this weapon yet. A needle leaves far less of a trace than poison ingestion through food. We will be able to conquer the world, thanks to such a little yet fierce weapon."

Rick froze in his steps. He had never thought that his creation would be capable of doing such a thing.

"What do you say?" Yizzy smiled. "Join hands with me, and I'll change your fate. We no longer have to limit ourselves to this farce of a kingdom."

Rick didn't reply.

"What's taking you so long?" Yizzy said and paused a moment, observing the other person. "Oh, is it because I hurt you and your family? C'mon, that was just business."

A trace of venom flashed in Rick's eyes. "Then what about the one that you're proposing to me, now?"

Yizzy was surprised.

"Is it business as well?" Rick's voice hardened.

"Well, that's…" Yizzy made an effort to put up a fake smile. "More like a goal."

"Ha-wu-how?" Rick asked.

"What?" Yizzy was utterly baffled.

"How did playing with women till now become a business, but your plan of playing with the world became a goal?"

"Women and the world are nowhere near the same," He frowned as anger welled up inside his heart. "World will be peaceful without women, but since men can't be born without them, they shall be kept at our feet."

"Why do you have such hatred toward women?" Rick couldn't help but ask. "Do you not love your mother?"

"Mother…" Yizzy suddenly found his blood boiling. "I don't even know how that b**ch looks. If I did, I would have stabbed her a dozen times."

Rick looked flummoxed. "What did she do? Abandon you?"

"Abandoned?" Yizzy roughly blew air through his nose. "I would have been happy if she had at least done that, but I was offered as a sacrifice to some f**king guild she wanted to join. Soon after she joined, she stole the guild's treasure and escaped. Because I was her son, I was kept alive, and someone else was slaughtered in my stead. And the guild itself raised me, to be what I am now, a woman-hater..." He stared into Rick's eyes as if demanding acceptance. "I know, you feel like laughing at my childhood. Everyone does because it stinks... Like every woman."

"I won't laugh at you for what happened to you, but don't expect any pity from me," Rick's gaze sharpened again. "There are countless people in this world whose entire lives stink from the cradle to the grave, but the belief that every woman is bad..." Rick paused a moment and gripped the object in his hand tightly. "I don't know whether to pity you or… You see, women are lucid-hearted. They often let their hearts rule over their intellect. They give their lives for those they love and take the lives of those they hate. It all hinges on how their parents raised them like it is to us men."

"Bullshit," Yizzy said and smirked. "Why did your relationship with your sisters, which was so healthy, only worsened after their marriage?"

"Well, that's…" a good amount of shock appeared on Rick's face.

"Huh, tell me. Do you mean to say your sisters never liked you? That's just a load of lady-shit," Yizzy barked and then breathed heavily. "Women are emotional beings, just like dogs. Show them what they want, and they'll listen to as dogs would."

"Stop." Rick looked away.

"A bit of wealth was all it took to turn their love toward you into hate. If my childhood was a joke, your entire life is the biggest joke ever," Yizzy continued speaking in an increased tone. "Everything you've ever worked for your entire life was for your sisters, who deserved none of it. What a joke." Yizzy tried to control his anger and from speaking out loud.

"Stop." At this point, redness took over Rick's face.

"As if sisters aren't enough, they gave birth to three more disasters, who are the most mechanical lives I've ever seen." Yizzy shook his head. "If I tell them I'd help them if they eat horse shit, then they would gobble it down with an added grin on their face as if it were dumplings with cheese fillings. I guarantee that. You've come all the way here for three buffoons. Don't you think you've done enough for those swines? If I were in your place, I'd have—"

"I said, STOP!" Rick blew a dart at Yizzy, which pierced his forehead and temporarily hindered him from speaking.

Yizzy, however, faintly smiled.

"Who's there?" the door of the room opened, and two guards barged in.

"Bye-bye," Yizzy said cheerfully. "In your place, I will put your invention to good use."

"You! State your name!" the guards unsheathed their swords and stood in alerted positions, but in a couple of seconds, they realized that it was Rick, which made them let down their guard for only a moment. "Oh, you are that fool—"

Zup! Zup!

Two needles pierced the throats of the guy and made them choke on their own words. They let go of their swords and stumbled to the side, startling Yizzy.

Rick came to him and removed all the needles except for the ones on his chest. He stabbed three more needles in his chest and said, "The five needles on your chest must be removed in the right order, or else you may die."

Yizzy, who thought of fighting back could only grind his teeth in utter frustration, so much that his face turned darker by a few shades of gray. "The offer's still there."

Rick, who seemed to be in a hurry to leave, stopped and stared back at his face.

Three figures came running into the room. It was his nieces, whose skin crawled like never before when they saw the face of Rick.

"U-Uncle! What are you..." Zhana was stepping forward.

"Stand back." Rick's voice was hoarse, and it froze the girls in their steps. He turned his face away from them and glanced at them from the corners of his eyes. After seeing their three faces, he looked back at the minister.

"Look, even now, they don't look remotely happy that you're alive," Yizzy barked sadistically. "What ungrateful whores!"

The girls looked at each other's faces with puzzlement, and sweat dripped down their foreheads.

"Look, minister..." Rick turned to face Yizzy, and his gaze looked sharper than ever. "Like you said, I'm just a Mud Squeezer, an ordinary farmer, and my nieces are just ordinary women. We are just ordinary people who lived most of our lives in a small village, unlike you, whose life is mostly filled with grandeur. You have a king backing you, but... you are not the only one who possesses two different characters. I also have two characters inside of me. One is a brother who can sacrifice his life without a second thought for those whom he cares. And if those people are in danger, the other one is a man who goes to any lengths to save them and doesn't stop unless God stands in the way."

Hard silence filled the hall for a few seconds.

New guards came running into the room. Five of them looked around and saw that the other two guards were lying unconscious on the ground.

Rick grabbed the knife hanging at his waist and placed it at a touching distance to Yizzy's throat.

"Damn you, old fuck!" the guards were about to dash ahead.

"Back away, fools!" Zhane shouted out of her lungs, startling them. After they had a look at Yizzy, they got a better idea of his situation.

"Put down your weapons and lock yourself in a room," Rick told the guards, "unless you want to see your minister's throat get cut like that of a chicken's."

Though enraged and pissed from the situation at hand, the guards were forced to do what they were told because Zhane told them to. As a first-ranked maid, she had the authority next only to the minister, in the estate. She locked all the guards in a room and tossed the key to Rick.

He took Yizzy as a hostage and walked through the corridors and halls of the estate, shocking every maid who witnessed the unbelievable event.

Zhane was about to take out the needles hidden in her dress, but Rick's voice reached her ears. "You're practiced at soothing people's minds, not at killing them."

Zhane frowned, and her fingers shivered from hesitation.

"Rick, this is just madness," Yizzy's eyes still filled with hope, "Don't act a child and see the world around you. Together, we can win over this world!"

Rick just ignored his words. "All of you..." He stopped and looked at the girls who stared at him with disgust and fear filled in their eyes. Though most of them knew his identity, his face looked so ugly they felt like throwing up after seeing it. Their impression on him was too plain for him to see through. "At best, you have eight hours before a guard unit shows up. If you can disappear in that time, find a home where you no longer have to sell your body in order to survive."

The girls looked at each other's faces in hesitation, and they looked at the minister as well, who had a scary look on his face. He didn't seem like he was scared even though a knife was touching his throat.

"Your parents are still waiting for you three..." Rick's words startled the sisters. He wasn't even looking at them. "You betrayed my hopes. At least, don't betray theirs."

As every maid watched, Rick left the estate with Yizzy and disappeared into the streets of the village.

Lirzod wanted to leave with Rick to see what he would do to Yizzy, but he ended up staying inside the estate and watched Zhane and her sisters.

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[1] Mud Squeezer: A derogatory term used by the rich to refer to the farmers.