Hidden Assassin-Chapter 21

Chapter 21 – Mafia

TL: Milaryn

Edit: Fireclaws

TL Note: Bold text is in English.

“Mommy, Mommy…” Having heard the sounds of a struggle, the little girl rushed out into the darkness after slipping out of Jiaming’s grip. The little girl’s footsteps echoed along the corridor as she stumbled over something in her haste. She ignored it and continued running towards the only source of light in the dark area and disappeared into it.

“Let go of my Mommy, what are you doing… Let go! Ah… Let go, let go…” The little girl’s cries came out from the room as Jiaming silently stalked after the girl in the darkness. He took a quick inventory of what he was around him: door frames, broken windows, walls, stone slabs, wooden planks…

He peeked into the room and then barged in with a wooden plank in his hands. Apart from the blonde mother and the little girl, there was a relatively tall and muscular man wearing construction worker gear. The little girl’s clothing was torn as she was being held down onto the ground by the man – his pants were half pulled down. She was struggling to get out of his hold with no success. Since it was only one man, it was much easier for him to act…

Inside this room was a flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It swung back and forth, blinking at random intervals. The man had been trying to keep it quiet, so he was also alert as the little girl was trying to escape from his grasp. However, a small silhouette suddenly leaping at him out of nowhere took him by surprise. The small figure had taken a flying jump off a small box on the side with a wooden plank aimed right at him.

Peng—— Hastily, the man could only raise one arm in defense as the wooden plank hit his wrist and broke into two. The front part of the plank whacking him in the back of his head as it flew by, stars bursting in front of his eyes.

Immediately right after, there was a violent crack in his leg, because as Jiaming was landing, he had used the other piece of the plank to shatter the man’s kneecap. The man was about to shout out in pain, but ended up eating a mouthful of a rough material filled with cement ash when Jiaming smashed it into his face. Then, commandeering the dagger from the man, he slashed quickly in between his legs.

It had only been a blink of an eye from when Jiaming had first leapt through the air to landing on the ground. The originally dominating-looking man had already fallen to the ground and passed out from pain with a mouthful of plaster ash; he had been unable to make a sound during this whole process. Seeing that blood was gushing in between the man’s legs, Jiaming sneered coldly, before ripping the man’s shirt and did some basic first aid to stop him from dying of blood loss.

“…If you can no longer get it up, remember that you should’ve called for a hooker instead.”

After making sure that the man would not die, Jiaming turned his attention towards Heidi and saw that she was sobbing by the blonde’s side, crying out, “Mommy, mommy…”. He saw that the mother’s clothing was even more torn than Heidi’s. He assumed that the two of them were originally rather well-off young ladies, so no one knew how much suffering they had gone through in this past month. The mother’s face was a pale sickly white, her body was shivering while drenched in sweat, the skin around her lips and corners of her eyes were dry and cracked. The thin undergarments she was wearing had been torn and thrown aside by the a**hole who Jiaming had made into an eunuch earlier.

Jiaming reached over and touched her forehead before sighing, “This fever is very serious, do you know how long you’ve had it? We have to go to the hospital now, are you able to get up?”

“I… I…” The fever combined with the shock from just now had sapped a lot of her strength and her situation had become even worse. She curled over and it was difficult for her to complete a sentence, “…No… I-I don’t want… to go to the hospital… Heidi, Heidi, she…”

Jiaming frowned, as he had been an assassin, he understood that everyone had their own circumstances so he did not push. He only said, “Don’t worry, I will take care of Heidi. Since we’re not going to a hospital, I have somewhere close by where there’s medicine. We should go there first. Heidi, can you help support your mother so I can carry her on my back?”

Jiaming was only fourteen and not very tall; when he was carrying the blond-haired lady, it was kind of awkward due to the height difference. However, it did not matter at this point in time, because Jiaming had already been training his body for the past four years and his legs were very strong. Soon, the three of them quickly left the dangerous building site.

If he had some explosives, he would have blown this place to smithereens to get rid of all traces of evidence… Jiaming smirked internally to himself at that thought.

He could feel two soft lumps pressed against his back, even though she was currently sickly and her breathing was labored, there was no doubt that she had been a bombshell and tempted a lot of men with her devilish figure. Passing through several streets, Jiaming could not help letting his imagination roam.

Having this soft feeling on his back, he thought back to Zhang Yahan as well. Even though her chest was smaller, she had the well proportioned Chinese-style body type that he rather liked… However, this semi-naked woman hanging onto his back tightly was also causing quite a strain on his self-restraint. This was similar to that situation when he had walked in on Lingjing and Shasha, but they were still underaged girls and it was a test of his self-control. He mentally slapped himself and chided himself that he was supposed to be the good guy here…

It could be said that not all assassins were serious and cold. Jiaming liked to think of silly things to lower the tension before a job and it had become a habit. Not long after, the three of them arrived at a small residential area. On the second floor of an older building, Jiaming stopped in front of a door, took out a key, unlocked it and then entered.

This place belonged to Jiaming’s short-lived parents. After the two of them died, the apartment had become the Huang family’s property. However, the family did not want to be associated with it so when Jiaming was twelve, he had the key liberated from them. It was a simple outdated place – it had three rooms and a living room. He placed the blonde on the bed in one of the rooms and then went to the kitchen. He turned on the gas stove and boiled some water, then took out a medicine box. After looking through it, he took out some medication, painkillers and a syringe.

“I have the basics to treat a physical wound here, but you have a cold and the fever has gone on for so long. Let’s hope that it did not become pneumonia; otherwise, we really will have to go to the hospital.”

He lifted her head to feed her some medicine, before letting her lay back down on the bed. He then pushed aside the dirty skirt she had been wearing and then prepared to give her two injections. Even though his imagination was going wild with the semi-naked lady in front of him, his hands were steady and he administered the injections adeptly like a surgeon – keeping clear-minded was a skill that a qualified assassin possessed.

After the shots, he pulled the blanket over her and her trembling slowed to a stop. Even though she looked tired, she managed to ask, “You… Who are you? That day… was it you that saved us?”

“Me? I’m an outstanding student of the People’s Republic of China – demonstrating the perfect example of Lei Fung’s[1] ideals. Even though I am not able to act out all three ideals all the time, I will still help an old lady across the street at least once a week. I also have two wives, but they’re lesbian. In the future, I plan to become a doctor; so you should relax and let me examine you.” Jiaming said all this in English fluently with a British accent and then smiled harmlessly at her, “Speaking of which, Heidi’s mommy, what is your name?”

She examined him weakly for a while before she smiled softly, “My… My name is Marilyn Salière.”

“Salière…” Jiaming frowned, “As in New York’s Salière Family… that Salière?”

“That Salière…” Marilyn nodded weakly then as she looked like she was about to fall asleep, quietly whispered, “Didn’t expect a child like you to know it…”

“Well, Salière is Salière.” Jiaming only nodded, “You should rest first, if you haven’t died by tomorrow, then we can talk more. However Marilyn Monroe is a good name, are you sure your last name is Salière? That name isn’t fun at all…”

Nagging at Heidi to give him a hand, he filled a small plastic tub with hot water and then gave her a clean towel. He told her to take off the dirty clothing her mother was wearing and to wipe her down with the towel, before he retreated to the sofa in the living room to organize his thoughts.

Salière Family huh… Ugh, first it was the assassins, now it’s the mafia…

The Salière Family was one of the major mafia families in New York.

After twenty minutes or so, the little girl limped out with the towel and a basin full of dirty water. It seemed that she had hurt her knee back in the abandoned building and it finally acted up after all this time.

Jiaming made her sit down on the sofa as he went to the kitchen to get a new basin of hot water. He cleaned the towel as well and then had her wipe off the dirt and stains before applying the medicine. However, it seemed that the injury was worse than expected. When the little girl carefully wiped at it, her eyes brimmed with tears and she pushed the towel at Jiaming instead before pitifully saying, “Mister.”

“Um, you want me to help you clean it?”

“Yes…”

“…You should do it yourself. My pain tolerance is higher than normal people. If I clean it, you’ll definitely cry. If you clean it yourself, you’ll know where it hurts and where it doesn’t. Be good and take care of it yourself, ok?”

“I… I won’t cry.”

The little girl stubbornly said, so Jiaming did not protest again. He only pulled up the little girl’s dirty leg onto his lap and slowly wiped at the dirt with the towel. Even though he was being careful, it seemed that it was still quite painful for her. He looked up at her occasionally –she had pressed her lips together and puffed up her cheeks with a look of abject suffering– and he held back a smile at her stubbornness.

After getting her leg clean, the little girl’s skin returned to its delicate white smoothness and Jiaming mischievously tickled her toes. As she burst out into giggles, he swiftly dabbed on the medicine and wrapped it up with gauze and bandages. He led her to the bathroom and then placed a small stool in front of Heidi.

“Sit here when you’re cleaning yourself. Be careful not to get the bandages wet, ok? I’m going to find a new set of clothing for you.”

Jiaming tapped lightly on Heidi’s dirty nose and then closed the bathroom door behind him as he went to look for clothing. Faint sounds of Marilyn’s coughing could be heard when he was looking through the closets, but the only thing he could find was a larger shirt that could pass as a gown for the little girl. He took it with him and then knocked on the bathroom door.

“Heidi…”

After a moment, he tensed at her lack of a response.

“Heidi! I’m coming in!”

He picked the lock of the bathroom door with a wire and rushed in before he stopped in his tracks. The naked little girl was sitting on the small stool by the bathtub and she had fallen asleep halfway through cleaning herself, the towel still clutched in her hands.

He sighed in relief, then gently patted the little girl’s cheeks, but the only reaction he got was a sleepy ‘hmm’. With no other choice, he took the towel out of her hands and quickly and efficiently cleaned and dried the little girl before pulling the large shirt over her.

When he carried her to the other bedroom, the little girl curled up in his embrace like a little lamb and continued sleeping soundly.

It seems that I picked up a daughter… Jiaming thought to himself.

[1] Lei Feng was a legendary communist soldier in China and a propaganda poster boy for selflessness, modesty, and devotion to Mao – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Feng for reference. ↩

Today is a bonus release! 5 / 5 chapters of the week (next release is Monday, Feb 12).

Assassins and now, the mafia! Whatever will Jiaming do?