bookbashuk Page 65
Page 65
"Kagaran? I've investigated you!" Chen Xiao said her name casually, "The daughter of the first leader of the Wakana Group, and Yamamoto Akatsuki's girlfriend."
"Shut up!" Kagaran's voice was icy cold. "You are not worthy to mention Edoji's name!"
With a flick of her wrist, the katana struck again, its blade flashing like snow, incredibly sharp. Chen Xiao calmly took two steps back, dodging each strike perfectly.
"Your swordsmanship is good," Chen Xiao commented, "but it's a pity you're too hasty."
"Enough with the nonsense!" Kaga Ran roared, his sword flashing faster. "A life for the wicked!"
Her swordsmanship was indeed superb; every strike aimed straight for vital points, with a relentless determination to fight to the death. However, Chen Xiao seemed to be toying with an angry kitten, dodging with effortless ease.
"Did you know?" Chen Xiao suddenly spoke, deliberately lying as he said, "Yamamoto Asaji was calling your name before he died."
Kagaran's blade paused slightly.
“He said…” Chen Xiao’s voice was low and seductive, “'Kaga, run…'”
"You're talking nonsense!" A flicker of hesitation crossed Kagaran's eyes, but it was quickly overwhelmed by rage. "I'm going to kill you!"
She leaped into the air, her katana raised high above her head, unleashing her ultimate attack—
"Moon Shadow - Amaterasu Slash!"
The blade flashed like moonlight, blocking all of Chen Xiao's escape routes. However, just as the blade was about to touch his body, Chen Xiao's figure suddenly vanished.
"What?!" Kagaran's pupils shrank sharply.
"it's here."
Chen Xiao's voice came from behind her. Before Jia Helan could turn around, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck—Chen Xiao's hand chops had precisely struck her nerve nodes.
"Uh..."
Kagaran's vision went black, and her body went limp as she fell forward. Chen Xiao reached out and caught her; the girl's light body landed in his arms.
"Stubborn little kitten." He chuckled and brushed a stray hair from her forehead. "Just what I need is a personal bodyguard."
[Ding! High-quality female "Kagaran" detected, recommended to recruit her]
Chen Xiao picked up the unconscious Jia Helan and his figure disappeared into the night.
-
Chen Xiao's Group Headquarters - The Secret Room.
Kagaran slowly awoke to find herself chained to a chair by special energy shackles, her inner power completely suppressed. She struggled a few times, but the shackles remained unmoved.
"woke up?"
Chen Xiao sat on the sofa opposite, toying with her samurai sword in her hand.
"Give it back!" Kagaran gritted her teeth. "That was a gift from Evil Si..."
"Yamamoto Asaji is dead," Chen Xiao stated calmly. "And you, you are now my prisoner."
Chapter 79 Manipulating Kaga Ran and Feminist Leader Ichihashi Ran
Inside the secluded room, the dim light cast flickering shadows on Kagaran's pale face.
She stared at the familiar katana in Chen Xiao's hand, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
"Ask yourself honestly," Chen Xiao suddenly placed the knife across the coffee table between them, "is a man who forces his woman into prostitution worth risking your life for?"
Kagaran's pupils contracted sharply.
"You're talking nonsense! That evil strategist..."
"He made all the female members of the Serving Youth Corps prostitute themselves." Chen Xiao's fingertips traced the engravings on the scabbard as he stroked the katana in his hand. "He even tried to harm his own master, Shinbara Yuko? - This kind of person is beyond saving!"
Chen Xiao suddenly leaned closer, his handsome face like a god under the light: "Look at me again." His breath brushed against her trembling eyelashes, "Appearance, strength, personality... in what way am I inferior to that scum?"
Kagaran swallowed unconsciously. Chen Xiao's amber eyes seemed to suck away one's soul.
"If we're talking about morality?" Chen Xiao suddenly took a step back, laughing self-deprecatingly. "I only killed those who deserved to die. It was Hattori Heiji who first used me to stir up trouble in Osaka, it was Yamamoto Asaji who first touched my woman..." His voice was tinged with rare anger. "You stupid islanders just love to turn victims into perpetrators, and then stand on your moral high ground and point fingers!"
Kaga Ran's Bushido spirit suddenly wavered.
"Then..." her voice was hoarse, "why kill non-virgins and male members?"
Chen Xiao's expression suddenly turned compassionate: "Those poor wretches who have been brainwashed into willingly selling themselves are just walking corpses. Even if you advise them not to do it, they will still fall into the vortex of desire. I'm just helping them break free."
Chen Xiao reached out and unlocked the shackles, her movements as gentle as if she were handling a fragile item: "You can go now."
With the crisp sound of chains hitting the ground, Kagaran saw the loneliness in his eyes as he turned away. Her charm reached its peak at that moment, and she impulsively lunged forward and hugged him from behind.
"Wait..." Her face pressed against his back, tears soaking her suit. "Let me...save you, Chen Xiao. I can prove that none of us islanders are bad people. At least I, a woman from this island nation, am willing to follow you for your sake!"
Chen Xiao slowly turned around and cupped her tear-stained face in his hands. When his lips touched hers, it was the first kiss she had ever given him.
[Ding! Kagaran's affection level has exceeded the threshold, automatically binding a pure love contract]
Moonlight streamed through the iron bars of the window, illuminating the overlapping shadows.
As dawn broke, Jiahelan awoke to find herself curled up in Chen Xiao's arms. The events of the previous night felt unreal, like a dream—she had willingly offered herself to the man who killed her husband.
"Awake?" Chen Xiao's voice came from above her head, his fingers gently combing through her long, silvery hair.
Kagaran looked up and met those amber eyes. The tyrannical conqueror from last night was gone; Chen Xiao was now so gentle it was heart-wrenching.
[Ding! The host has formed a deep bond with "Kagaran" and has received the system reward - Sword Heart Clarity]
[Effect: Can predict the trajectory of all melee weapon attacks; increases sword damage by 300%]
“Master…” Kagaran unconsciously used honorifics, her cheeks flushing, “I…”
Chen Xiao chuckled and tapped her nose with his fingertip: "Go wash up, we have important business to attend to today."
At noon, fifty elite members stood in neat rows in front of Chen Xiao's headquarters.
Shinbara Yuko, dressed in purple armor, stood at the head of the team, while Bai Minhua, wearing a black cheongsam, stood beside Chen Xiao.
Kagaran changed into a dark blue samurai uniform specially made by Chen Xiao's group, with the samurai sword that Chen Xiao had once played with at her waist. She stood quietly half a step behind Chen Xiao, in the posture of a close bodyguard.
“The Waka-jo Group has been entrenched in Shinmachi for ten years,” Yuko Kanbara reported. “According to intelligence, they have deployed a large force at their headquarters and have also hired foreign mercenaries…”
Chen Xiao waved his hand to interrupt her: "Let's go straight ahead."
The convoy drove in a grand procession toward Shinmachi, with pedestrians along the way making way for it.
Through the car window, Kaga Ran saw that the cherry blossom trees by the roadside had already sprouted tender buds—this was the season when she and Yamamoto Akashi had agreed to admire the cherry blossoms.
"Regret it?" Chen Xiao suddenly asked.
Kagaran shook her head and placed her hand on the back of his hand: "It's just... a bit sentimental."
The convoy stopped in front of the Wakana-gumi headquarters. It was a building that combined tradition and modernity, with high concrete walls on the outside and a typical Japanese garden inside.
"Lord Chen Xiao has arrived in person, why isn't Ichihashi Ran coming out to greet him?" Shinbara Yuko called out as she stepped forward.
The gate slowly opened, but instead of Ichihashi Ran, twenty fully armed foreign mercenaries stepped out. The burly man at the head shouted in broken Japanese, "Men aren't welcome here!"
Chen Xiao sighed: "It seems the negotiations have broken down."
He snapped his fingers, and Kagaran's katana was instantly drawn!
"Let me do it," she said softly, her long blue hair fluttering in the wind. "This is my first battle since joining."
Chen Xiao nodded in agreement. Kagaran's figure flashed out like a ghost, her katana tracing a poignant arc in the sunlight. The mercenaries didn't even have time to pull the trigger before blood bloomed from their throats.
"A beautiful one-stroke slash!" Chen Xiao clapped and exclaimed.
Suddenly, the sound of rapid taiko drums came from inside the courtyard.
Dozens of young female warriors emerged from various corners, led by Ran Ichihashi. Today, she was wearing crimson armor, wielding two pistols, and her long, brown-red hair was tied up high.
"Kagaran!" Ran Ichihashi looked at her former comrade in disbelief. "You actually betrayed us and joined forces with our enemy?"
Kagaran sheathed her sword and calmly met her gaze: "Sister Lan, put down your weapons. Lord Chen Xiao will spare your lives."
"Traitor!" Ran Ichihashi roared, raising her hand and firing two shots!
The bullet suddenly stopped one meter away from Kagaran—Chen Xiao's Wind King Barrier silently unfolded.
"I gave them a chance." Chen Xiao's voice suddenly turned cold. "Xi Zi, Min Hua, clear the area."
The battle erupted in an instant!
Yuuko Kanbara's sword flashed like purple lightning, while Bai Minhua's jade strings wove a web of death in the air. Kaga Ran went straight for Ichihashi Ran, and the duel between the two generations of the strongest young women unfolded in the center of the courtyard.
Ichihashi Rang blocked Kaga Ran's attack and questioned sharply, "We, the Waka-joku (young women's group), are here to make Osaka a symbol of women's rights! You have betrayed us!"
"Feminism?"
Chen Xiao's cold laugh was particularly jarring amidst the gunfire. He strolled leisurely through the hail of bullets, which fell to the ground half a meter away from him with a crisp clanging sound.
Ran Ichihashi's pupils contracted sharply, and although the two guns in her hands were still spitting fire, they could not harm Chen Xiao in the slightest.
“You keep talking about women’s rights,” Chen Xiao snapped her fingers, “but two-thirds of the hard work in the women’s group is done by men.”
As he finished speaking, the dozen or so male members who were carrying weapons suddenly froze in place, horrified to find that they could no longer control their bodies.
“Look,” Chen Xiao said sarcastically, pointing at the men, “warehouse moving, weapons maintenance, even serving you tea and water—aren’t these all done by these filthy men?”
Cold sweat beaded on Ran Ichihashi's forehead. Her finger gripped the trigger tightly, but she could only produce a click of an empty chamber.
“What’s even more ridiculous,” Chen Xiao continued, pressing closer with each step as if trampling on her dignity, “wasn’t your so-called feminist empire something you seized by betraying Yamamoto Asaji’s family when he joined the army?”
"You're talking nonsense!" Ran Ichihashi threw away the empty gun and drew the short sword from her waist. "That property originally belonged to my father!"
Chen Xiao suddenly teleported in front of her, catching the incoming blade between two fingers: "So? Building a business with the help of men, then taking it for yourself under the guise of feminism—" His voice suddenly turned cold, "Isn't this the most disgusting kind of rural feminism?"
"Aaaaah!" Ran Ichihashi completely broke down. She frantically swung her short sword, but couldn't even touch the hem of Chen Xiao's clothes.
The female group members stood frozen in place, their long-held beliefs shattered by Chen Xiao's few words. Some began to tremble, while others lowered their heads in shame.
"Enough." Chen Xiao waved his hand wearily. "Let me show you what real power is."
He slowly rose into the air, and dark sword energy surged out from his body like a tide.
·· ·Requesting 0 flowers ····
"Lunar Eclipse: The Sword Domain of the End" - Unfolds!
The space, which was one kilometer in diameter, was instantly filled with countless floating black blades, and the entire Wakana Group headquarters was shrouded in the shadow of death.
"This, this is..." Ran Ichihashi looked up at the sky-covering rain of swords, her legs beginning to tremble.