Hidden Assassin

Chapter 22 – Reason

TL: Milaryn

Edit: Fireclaws

TL Note: Bold is spoken in English.

That night, Jiaming slept on the sofa and woke up around 4 am in the morning. After he made sure he was presentable, he went downstairs and left the building.

There was a small food market close to this residential area. Even though it was only four in the morning, some farmers had already set up displays of vegetables or meats, and on the side, one of the western bakeries had already turned on their lights. As Jiaming walked in through the door, he made casual conversation that some cousins were visiting him from overseas, and they had not gotten used to the jet lag yet, so they were clamoring for food in the middle of the night. He bought some bread, ham, condensed milk, butter and similar items before returning back to the apartment.

As he entered the apartment and closed the door behind him, there were some faint sounds coming from the master bedroom. Jiaming knew the blonde, Marilyn, had woken up. He placed the two bags of food down and had just poured a cup of hot water, when the master bedroom door opened; he handed it to her as she stepped out.

“Thank-thank you… cough… cough, cough…”

“You’re coughing fiercely and your fever doesn’t seem to have gone down. You should sleep a bit more.”

“I… cough… I can’t sleep. Heidi, she…” Marilyn caught sight of the slumbering girl in the other room just as she asked, so after watching her for a bit, she shuffled over and took a seat.

“Thank you.”

“This is something a member of the Young Pioneers[1] would do.” Jiaming smiled briefly before scrutinizing the blonde in front of him. The apartment did not have a lot of his father’s clothing, so currently she was wearing one of his mother’s blouses and pants. However because his mother had been rather petite, when Marilyn wore this shirt, she could not button it up completely, and her bosom looked ready to burst out of it, while the pants she wore became the popular, low-waist type. She looked quite seductive. He was thought this as he asked, “So… Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital?”

“They would find us… At the hospital…”

“They?” Jiaming wrinkled his brow, “I thought whether it is the Salière Family or Gambino Family or whomever, their power shouldn’t be able to reach here?”

Jiaming used to belong to Pei Luo Jia; even though their headquarters were in Japan, they were a worldwide assassination organization. Their roots were quite deep, and thus they were able to acquire the rare Newtypes and other ability users. In his previous life, even though Jiaming was an assassin with the Asia section, he would still have some sort of contact with the mafia or triad. There had been around twenty or so well-known mafia families from New York at that time and the Salière Family, as well as the Gambino Family, were a part of that.

If he recalled correctly, the Salière Family and the Gambino Family were rivals and fought each other quite fiercely. Even though they were losing territory to the Gambino Family, until the time that Jiaming had met the phoenix, they had not yet been completely defeated. Another way of looking at it was that even if the survivors of the Salière Family had fled overseas, the Gambino Family should not have been able to extend their reaches to China to clean up the stragglers. This was because at that time, the Hong Kong triad ‘Big 6′ had been very strict with controlling their territory. Even if some of the mafia arrived and caused some trouble, they would not be able to gain a foothold in the hospitals, communications or embassy sectors.

“Yes but…” Marilyn hesitated for a bit before she gritted her teeth and said, “It’s Heidi’s father, he’s… his name is Tang Jingyao…”

That did give Jiaming a shock because Tang Jingyao was Jianghai City’s deputy secretary. Around a year ago, he had become a well-known figure in Jianghai City’s political ring because he had studied overseas and was considered quite able and willing to get things done. Earlier in the year, he had visited the Huang family to pay his respects to the Provincial Party’s secretary, Huang Bingxiang, and Jiaming remembered him bringing his wife along…

Jiaming finally understood the whole sequence of events as Marilyn explained. Around ten years ago, Tang Jingyao was sponsored by the government to study in America. At that time, he met a young Miss Marilyn and the two of them had fallen in love at first sight. Heidi was the result of that relationship.

The way Americans viewed romances was different from Chinese people. Tang Jingyao had wanted to return to China to start a career after his overseas study. However, as Marilyn’s father was the boss of the Salière Family, he naturally did not like Tang Jingyao and he also did not wish for his daughter to go to some “barbarous and uncivilized” country like China to suffer with him. Thus, for various reasons, Tang Jingyao abandoned his wife and daughter and returned back to China. It was only early this year when he seemed to have remembered that he had left them behind in America, that he had sent people to bring them to China. It had been open warfare between the Salière Family and the Gambino Family during that time period and Marilyn’s father had grudgingly let them leave for their safety.

However, when they arrived in China, Marilyn realized that something was not right. Even though her marksmanship and fighting skills were not good, she still had the background of being the daughter of a mafia don. Tang Jingyao had arranged for the two to stay at a villa in a remote location; even though he visited them often, he always wanted to know details about the Salière Family. What he did not realize was that when he left America ten years ago, Marilyn had withdrawn from being involved with her family due to her love for him and was not a valuable resource for information. Marilyn had arranged her own investigation on him and discovered that Tang Jingyao had become an influential figure at Jianghai City. He also had connections with the Gambino Family and had married another woman. However, before she could confront him about this, Tang Jingyao had hired an assassin from Pei Luo Jia to remove this useless chess piece and thus, it resulted in what had happened that night.

Having heard all this, Jiaming had a rough understanding of everything. Because there was no movement from the police, it showed that Tang Jingyao did not trust them. Even though he could have trumped up charges and requested for the police to help, he was probably worried that someone within the police would be able to dig up dirt on him and undercut his power and influence within the government. Thus the forces he was currently only able to rely on would be from the mafia, but the only problem was…

“Why didn’t you call home? Tang Jingyao is powerful, but he would not be able to narrow down and listen in on one overseas call. If you had called right at the beginning, you would probably have returned back to America already… Speaking of which, recently the Department of Immigration and Border Protection had suddenly rigorously enforced their searches, it must be due to his command…” Even though he was only a student, he still kept up with all the news and rumors he could on the workings of Jianghai City – unfortunately, it had become habitual due to his previous occupation as an assassin.

“I… cough… cough, cough…”

Marilyn looked like she wanted to say something but she kept hesitating about it. Jiaming had a sudden flash of insight. Back then, her father had not agreed to their relationship and still did not approve of it. However due to the circumstances, Marilyn was sent to China for refuge, and it seemed that the father and daughter had not reconciled over the relationship argument and Marilyn had likely decided to break things off with her family. Unfortunately, when Marilyn realized Tang Jingyao’s connections, she was unwilling to endanger her family, while her pride also kept her from asking for help at the same time. Her pride had nearly killed her and her daughter.

Jiaming scolded her mentally as he rolled his eyes, “Ok, you can stop coughing. I understand, let’s move on. Give me a number so that I can contact your family directly in case anything happens.”

“What…”

“What, what? If I hadn’t saved you, both of you would be dead or worse, such as getting raped or dying of hunger. And now you’re staying here… Do you think I’m a god? To go against an organization, I don’t care if you don’t care about yourself or your daughter, but my life is very precious. I want to live a long and peaceful life no matter what happens, so stop with your nonsense. Here, a pen and paper, write it down already.”

“I…” Marilyn appeared conflicted as she eyed the pen and paper in front of her, then looked towards the sleeping Heidi. After a bit, she finally made a decision and wrote down a number, “Cough… My father’s name is…”

“Tom Ford Salière, usually called Ol’ Tom, I believe.” Jiaming took the paper, quickly memorized the number and then set fire to it. As it burned and the ashes fluttered down, the blonde watched him with an incredulous smile as she coughed lightly.

“Young child from China, you’re really miraculous… Do Chinese children actually know kung fu like the stories say?”

Jiaming helplessly facepalmed as he sarcastically said, “They don’t just know kung fu, our streets are filled with horse-drawn carriages and you’re actually living in a thatched cottage right now. You’re also sick and seeing illusions…”

“Hehe, cough, I’m sorry.” The blonde could not hold back her laughter and then said, “May I know your name?”

“I won’t tell you. Your symptoms don’t seem to have improved, but your mood is better which is why you can talk to me so much. If it ends up being worse than just a cold, I’d have to bring you to the hospital. At that time, if you get caught and mention what I did, I don’t want my name to be brought up. Besides, Young Pioneers are not supposed to leave a name after they do a good deed…” He was joking but the other side did not understand him.

“It’s also getting late, I have to go. You and Heidi should stay here without wandering around outside. There’s bread, so please try to eat breakfast. In the afternoon, I’ll bring some more groceries back and check on your condition and whether you’d need another injection or not. I really gotta go, say good morning to Heidi for me.”

He waved at her, then as he was opening the door to leave, Marilyn spoke up, “Where are you… going?”

Jiaming sighed, “Us Young Pioneers have to go to school, does America not have Young Pioneers?”

He knew they did not but he asked anyway, and when Marilyn shook her head, Jiaming made a hurtful expression.

“You guys don’t even have the Young Pioneers, what a barbaric and uncivilized country…”

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As Jiaming left the apartment, the sky had already started to brighten. He ran all the way back to the Huang family villa and when he approached the back door, he saw Lingjing’s figure about to slip in. He hurried to catch up to her and then covered Lingjing’s eyes from behind, whispering roughly, “Guess who, if you guess wrong, I’ll tie you up with my beard.”

“Jiaming, you jerk. Stop imitating my dad’s voice, I’mma hit you.”

The little beauty broke away from Jiaming’s hands, flushing attractively as she scolded him, “Why did you show up from behind today?”

“Hehe, I was up earlier today and went for a quick run. I entered from the back door and hid to scare you.”

“Be careful that it doesn’t come back and bite you.” Lingjing punched him lightly on the chest then said, “Let’s go. Shasha should be waiting for us at the grassy slope already.”

The two children teased each other as they made their way to the secret meeting spot – it seemed more like they were going on a date instead of morning exercise. As the sun slowly rose over the mountain ranges in the east and the glow of sunlight filled the sky, a new day began.

[1] Young Pioneers is a youth organization for kids between 6 to 14 set up by the Communist Party. Sort of like Boy Scouts, but the purpose is to be loyal to the Communist Party. ↩

Only weekday chapters this week, 1 / 3 chapters of the week (next release is Wednesday, Feb 14).

He finally took them in :3