Chapter 51: Vengeance Without Waiting Till Dawn

Even though Hua Twelve knew that the other party's actions were all targeted at Shen Chongyang, being poked in the head with a finger and scolded for being brainless still made his blood boil. He clenched his fists, intending to let this fellow Hou Sheng know why the flowers are so red.

However, a second thought made him temporarily suppress this urge, because he found information regarding the relationship between the two in Shen Chongyang's memories.

This Hou Sheng held quite a bit of evidence regarding Shen Chongyang selling out police force secrets.

Therefore, such a person had to be struck down with a single, fatal blow. Otherwise, it would inevitably result in beating the snake without killing it, only to suffer its bite in return. Moreover, this was right inside Shen Chongyang's home. If he were to make a move now, wouldn't he truly be proving himself brainless?

Swallowing his anger for the moment, he asked again, "What on earth did you come looking for me for?"

Hou Sheng crushed a cockroach to death with his foot and smiled. "I have something to look after you with. I heard that your Central District Police Station received a batch of Western quick-fire pistols; help me get a few!"

Hearing Hou Sheng's words, Hua Twelve was almost amused. "Are you joking? You should know the status of Chinese police officers in the force. Those Western quick-fire guns are things only foreign devils and Indian constables can get their hands on. How could I possibly touch such items?"

Hearing his refusal, Hou Sheng's smile instantly vanished, his expression turning ferocious. He patted Hua Twelve on the shoulder and said, "That's your problem. Western guns are in extremely high demand right now. You get me one, and I'll give you ten dollars. If you can't get it, you'd better watch your own skin!"

When Hou Sheng patted him for the second time, Hua Twelve sidestepped to avoid it, then nodded. "Fine, I'll do my best!"

Hearing him say this, Hou Sheng's expression improved slightly.

At that moment, Hua Twelve held out his hand and said, "Lend me five dollars first. Even an emperor doesn't starve his soldiers, and I don't even have money for tomorrow's meals!"

Hou Sheng's eyes widened in impending anger, but Hua Twelve looked right at him and said, "If I don't eat my fill, I won't have the strength to go get you those guns!"

Upon hearing this, Hou Sheng reluctantly pulled a roll of banknotes from his pocket. Hua Twelve glanced over and his eyes lit up involuntarily, noticing that the other party's hands were full of large-denomination five-dollar bills.

In an era when Chinese police officers only earned a monthly salary of five dollars, the money in the other man's hands could be considered a fortune.

Hou Sheng didn't notice Hua Twelve's gaze. He unrolled the stack of banknotes, pulled out three one-dollar small notes, rolled the large bills back up, and put them away before saying, "Just three dollars, not a penny more!"

Hua Twelve reached out to take them with a smile. "Fair enough, at least I have money for daily living now."

Unexpectedly, Hou Sheng loosened his fingers, and the three one-dollar bills fluttered down to the ground, scattering about. "Oops, didn't hold on tight enough, terribly sorry!"

Hou Sheng's eyes revealed a playful glint, making no effort to conceal his intent to humiliate.

Hua Twelve didn't say a word, walking over to bend down and pick up the money.

Seeing that he showed not a shred of temper, Hou Sheng seemed to feel he had lost the fun of bullying someone. With a cold snort, he declared, "I'm leaving first. Get that matter done quickly!" With that, he picked up the kerosene lamp from the table and walked toward the exit.

Just as he was about to step out, Hua Twelve, who had already finished picking up the money, suddenly said, "Next time you have business, don't come to my house. It looks bad if people see you. If the police force finds out I'm selling information to you, I'll be dead for sure!"

With an impatient expression, Hou Sheng retorted, "Do you take me for someone as brainless as you? Rest assured, I looked around before coming over. No one noticed me visiting you!"

With that, he pushed the door open and stepped outside. Deprived of the illumination from his kerosene lamp, the entire room plunged back into dimness. However, Hua Twelve's eyes were exceptionally bright at that moment, and a trace of killing intent leaked from that luminous gaze.

Indeed, the remark he made just moments earlier was solely to confirm whether anyone had seen Hou Sheng visit him.

Now that he had obtained the desired answer, tonight would be Hou Sheng's doomsday.

Make no mistake, Hua Twelve wasn't motivated by greed upon seeing the money in Hou Sheng's hands, nor was he driven to murder purely out of rage because the fellow had poked him in the head and patted his shoulder.

If that were the case, how could Hua Twelve, who had never even committed a petty crime, possibly develop the urge to take a human life over such trivial matters?

What truly made him decide to strike was the matter of Hou Sheng asking him to gather intelligence for the Manchus in the original plot.

You've got to be kidding. He was an upright young man born under the red flag and raised in the New China; failing to overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming was one thing, but asking him to help the Manchus harm the revolutionaries? How could he possibly do such a thing?

Hua Twelve had no desire to get involved. If he waited until the other party brought Yan Xiaoguo right to his doorstep and then refused, the Qing court would undoubtedly silence him to eliminate loose ends.

Rather than dealing with the trouble later, it was better to kill this Hou Sheng today and end all future worries once and for all.

Standing by the second-floor window, watching Hou Sheng go downstairs and board a rickshaw that drifted away along the alley, Hua Twelve found a tattered piece of cloth at home to wrap around his face, leaving only his eyes exposed. Refusing to take the stairs, he vaulted directly out of the window.

Shen Chongyang had practiced martial arts since childhood; with a light body and formidable foundational lower-body skills, he dropped from a height of four or five meters onto the street below, letting his body sink smoothly downward without making the slightest sound.

Then his feet moved fiercely, his body darting like a frightened rabbit as he gave chase in the direction Hou Sheng had taken.

Hua Twelve moved with extreme speed, catching up to the silhouette of the rickshaw within a dozen breaths and trailing far behind.

When the rickshaw turned into a narrow alley, Hua Twelve surveyed his surroundings. Under the pitch-black night, no one else was visible on the street, save for the distant barking of a dog. Only then did he exert force through his soles and dash into the narrow alley.

Upon entering the alley, he leaped up fiercely, tapping his feet against the left and right walls in rapid succession. His body executed a mid-air somersault and landed squarely in front of the rickshaw.

The puller was startled, hurriedly slamming on the brakes and jolting the seated Hou Sheng.

Hua Twelve said to the puller in a deep voice, "If you don't want to die, get out of here right now!"

Peering out from the carriage compartment, Hou Sheng cursed at the sight of Hua Twelve, "Shen Chongyang, you piece of trash, what do you think you're doing?"

"Damn it, you can recognize me even with a mask on?"

Hua Twelve hadn't expected that even without so much as a streetlamp in the deep of night, the other party could instantly recognize him from his attire and posture purely by the dim light of the kerosene lamp. This forced him to start considering how to deal with the rickshaw puller.

He couldn't possibly silence this innocent fellow, could he?

Unexpectedly, Hou Sheng resolved this dilemma for him. The man's eyes constricted as if a realization had just struck him. "You want to kill me?"

The next moment, through clenched teeth, he ordered, "Kill him!"

While Hua Twelve was still wondering who Hou Sheng was talking to, he saw the puller extract a dagger from his waist, grip it in his left hand, and lunge forward with a burst of speed. The blade flashed like lightning, slashing upward toward his lower body.

Having acquired Shen Chongyang's memories, Hua Twelve possessed an understanding of a hundred schools of martial arts.

He could tell at a glance that the rickshaw puller's opening move was the Phoenix-Shaped Flash Groin-Striking Palm from the Yin-style Baguazhang.

Baguazhang was inherently derived from saber techniques, and with a lethal blade in hand, executing this move made it all the more perilous. Every strike aimed for the vitals, the tip of the dagger feinting left and right to slash the femoral artery while simultaneously executing groin-striking maneuvers.

Hua Twelve didn't hesitate either. Shen Chongyang's fists and legs were both exceptional; his fist technique was the Great Sage Cleaving Staff, and his leg technique was the Shaolin Twelve-Road Spring Legs. With a snap of his foot, bringing the full capability of a three-time police martial arts champion into play, he kicked squarely into the opponent's wrist.

Although the puller practiced Baguazhang, compared to Shen Chongyang, he was merely mediocre.

However, had this kick been delivered by the original Shen Chongyang, it would have at best kicked the dagger flying out of the man's hand. But Hua Twelve was different—he possessed the physical strength of peak Shaquille O'Neal.

Now channeled through Shen Chongyang, a three-time police martial arts champion, this immense strength was unleashed using traditional martial arts internal power generation methods. Combining the two, a single kick carried the force of a thousand catties.

With a crisp crack, the kick actually shattered the puller's wrist.

Hua Twelve's footwork never stopped; the moment his striking leg touched the ground, shifting instantly from left to right, his other leg lashed out, landing squarely on the opponent's chest.

One could only imagine what would happen if an ordinary person's chest took a full-force kick from prime Shaq.

What if that kick were delivered by Shaq, but with twenty years of bitter training in authentic traditional kung fu?

And that wasn't even all—it also had to factor in Shen Chongyang's own physical power combined with the explosive force of the Spring Leg technique.

With a loud crack, the ribs on the puller's chest caved inward, one of them even protruding out through his back. His body flew backward like a tattered rag, slamming with a heavy thud directly into Hou Sheng, who was still seated in the rickshaw.

The rickshaw slid backward quite a distance from the impact, narrowly avoiding capsizing. Hou Sheng, sitting in the cart, was struck by the puller's corpse and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Staring wide-eyed at Hua Twelve, he seemed to want to say something, but every time he opened his mouth, more blood gushed out, leaving him utterly incapable of uttering a word.

If it were Hua Twelve acting entirely on his own accord, killing someone would inevitably cause psychological discomfort, and his strikes wouldn't have been so crisp and decisive. Yet, armed with Shen Chongyang's memories, for a man who had practiced martial arts his entire life, doing something like this was hardly a first or second occurrence.

Hua Twelve walked over, searched Hou Sheng's person for the Hong Kong currency, and then picked up the dagger from the ground to deliver a finishing blow to the half-dead Hou Sheng, sending him on his final journey. Only then did he turn around, stride forward, and vanish into the darkness.