Rebirth of The Heavenly Demon (Taegyu) - Chapter 4

A Duel of Cards

Mrs. Nam headed for the bed, and Zhang Hu took her seat in her stead.

Zhang Hu put his hands on the table.

“Let’s begin.”

Liyuan smiled mockingly. She shuffled the cards as she observed the boy’s face.

This card game, known as the Blade Duel, had 28 cards in the deck. Each player would get a hand of five, and would duel using the combination of these. She served two cards between each other, to begin.

Zhang Hu picked up his cards. Just looking at this made Liyuan snort. The boy looked so amateurish! She’s never seen a novice like this one before. But then again, he’s probably just played around with his friends every once in a while, and nothing more. What more would she expect from him? Liyuan gave the boy two more cards, before getting herself two more.

She peeked at the four cards in her hand.

‘Not bad.’

She snuck a look at Zhang Hu.

She couldn’t read the boy’s face, but his hand was trembling. He clearly didn’t have a great hand.

Liyuan grinned.

“Don’t you complain even if I hit a bit hard.”

Zhang Hu didn’t say anything in response. He just put a card on the middle of the table.

Liyuan did the same. These were cards to be thrown away.

Liyuan served two cards to each other. Now, there were five cards in each person’s hand. The duel was to begin.

‘Can this even be called a duel?’

She smiled. It was almost embarrassing, focusing this much to play a game with a farm boy. She could see Zhang Hu’s eyes tremble in nervousness.

‘His hand sucks, huh? Heh.’

She didn’t even have to look at the cards to know.

“Should we go with five slaps on the wrist?” Zhang Hu initiated.

“What?”

“It’s no fun to go with one slap per game, isn’t it? Especially if we’re deciding this over skill, not luck.”

Liyuan’s smile instantly turned cold. This kid…

“You… You think you can take it?”

Zhang Hu just smiled.

“You think you can’t?”

Liyuan let out an exaggerated sigh before shaking her head. The heck was this kid doing? He was practically punching a sleeping tiger!

It’d be smart for the boy to kneel and beg for forgiveness right at that moment, but… Of course he wasn’t going to do that. He’s a kid! He’ll have to learn about what he’s done the hard way, then.

Liyuan glared at Zhang Hu from across the table.

“Is five enough for you? How about we go with ten?”

Zhang Hu nodded.

“If you’re going to do ten, why not do twenty? If you’re scared we can just go with one.”

Liyuan smiled. Trying to pressure her now, was he? She nodded.

“Fine. Twenty slaps. Show me your cards.”

Zhang Hu’s eyes shook a little right then.

“Are you sure? It’s going to be twenty slaps, or five punches. You can give up now if you want.” Zhang Hu said.

Liyuan just grinned.

“Show me your cards.”

“You first.”

Liyuan flipped her cards one by one. It was a Sword of The General.

The girl pulled up her sleeves.

“Ready for a beating?”

Right then, Zhang Hu let out a snort. He dumped his cards on the table.

It was the Changing Sword. The one combo higher up on the ladder than the General.

Liyuan stiffened.

“Do you want 20 slaps or 5 punches?” Zhang Hu asked.

Liyuan swallowed.

“S-slaps.”

“Come on, then.”

Liyuan extended his left hand. Zhang Hu gripped this firmly with his right.

“This will hurt a bit.”

Liyuan laughed. A slap from a farm boy? Hurting? Kid, I’m a martial artist, you know?

“It’s fine, kiddo. Do your worse.”

Zhang Hu nodded, and lightly slapped the girl’s wrist with his fingers.

Slap.

It sounded so innocent.

But the pain?

Unreal.

Liyuan felt her head turn completely white. She couldn’t think. It hurt so much that she couldn’t even scream. It almost felt like her wrist got severed just then!

Zhang Hu grinned. Since he was just hitting the nerves, it shouldn’t look like anything on the outside, but the pain should be incredible.

“Now, the second slap.”

Liyuan struggled to escape. But her arm wouldn’t move no matter what she did.

Slap.

Liyuan almost fainted from the pain.

“Third, now.”

Slap.

“Fourth.”

Slap, slap, slap, slap…

“Twenty.”

Liyuan only managed to gain freedom after almost collapsing. There was nothing wrong with her wrist when she looked at it, though. It was just a little red, if anything.

She could hear Zhang Hu’s voice in the background.

“Should we stop, big sister?”

He’s taunting her, isn’t he?

She wanted to stop, she really did. But her pride wouldn’t allow it.

“No! One more game!”

* * *

It’s always a bit difficult to tell the passage of time when you’re gambling.

Liyuan was no different. She didn’t even realize it’s been four hours since Zhang Hu’s started playing with her.

That is, she had to endure intense pain for almost four hours straight.

“Big sis, why don’t we make this our last game? Winning all the time is getting kind of boring now.”

Zhang Hu pretended to yawn as he said this. Liyuan’s beautiful face scrunched up into a devilish scowl.

‘To think I’d lose all 35 rounds!’

She couldn’t believe it.

When you ask anyone on the street who was the best at this card came, no one would hesitate to come up with an answer. The thirsty ghost of Jiangbei, Han Sabu, and Han Liyuan of the casino. This Liyuan… lost 35 rounds.

‘This doesn’t even make sense!’

Make this round the last one?

‘I’m going to win!’

Her swelling wrist hurt quite a bit. She was scared of the immense pain that followed after each slap as well. But… her pride was at stake here. Her pride as a gambler! Liyuan spoke with a solemn voice.

“Why don’t we raise the stakes even higher, then?”

Zhang Hu nodded lazily.

“Doesn’t really matter for me. Sure.”

“A hundred hits! How about it?”

Zhang Hu smirked.

Ah… Again with that face. It’s so annoying!

But then again… He’s handsome.

“I’m fine with it, but how about you? Your wrist hurts, doesn it?”

Liyuan snorted.

“Just don’t complain after losing. Now! Let’s get it on!”

Whoosh!

The cards spun in the air as Liyuan shuffled. It almost looked mesmerizing watching her work so fluently.

But Liyuan’s heart was full of nothing but nervousness. That look Zhang Hu had on his face was giving her the chills.

‘Cold.’

His eyes seemed incredibly cold and calculating.

It was fine, though.

Her hands were faster than the eye could see. There was no turning back now.

‘I’ll have to use that technique.’

Zhang Hu gets the card from the bottom of the deck.

She gets a card from the top.

He gets one from the bottom again…

But then.

Zhang Hu grabbed hold of Liyuan’s wrist.

“Bottom dealing now, eh?”

“What are you talking about? You got proof?”

“Of course I do. You gave me the Changing Sword for my hand. And you’d have the Five Heavenly Kings on yours.”

Zhang Hu flipped his cards. It was indeed the Changing Sword, the second best hand that a player could get in the game.

“Fine! I bet a thousand slaps that I don’t actually have the Five Heavenly Kings as my hand! You can back off now if you’re scared, kiddo.”

Zhang Hu smiled.

“Fine. Mother, if you could act as a witne…”

He found Mrs. Nam sleeping when he turned. After looking at her silently for a second, he opened his mouth softly.

“Let’s stop.”

He stood up and picked the woman up in his arms. Mrs. Nam flinched a little, but didn’t end up waking up. Zhang Hu carefully lowered her onto a bed. He tried to put a blanket over her, but was interrupted by Liyuan promptly putting herself on the same bed.

“What are you doing?” Zhang Hu scowled.

“What do you think? I’m going to be sleeping with mom. Is it alright if I sleep with you, mom?”

“Who are you calling mo…”

“Mm… Yuan? Mm. Sure. Let’s sleep.”

Mrs. Nam hugged Liyuan as she returned to sleep. Liyuan poked her tongue at Zhang Hu before going to sleep herself.

Zhang Hu let out a very small sigh as he put a blanket over the both of them. As he turned to leave, he stopped over the table. He lifted Liyuan’s hand and waved it at her to see.

Liyuan peeked with her left eye.

It was the Five Heavenly Kings. Liyuan’s face reddened in embarrassment. Zhang Hu smiled, and turned off the lights.

Zhang Hu found himself letting out a tiny laughter as he headed for his rooms. He stroked his cheek in surprise.

‘I laughed?’

He probably laughed. He couldn’t remember how long it’s been since the last time he’s done that.

‘Was that… fun?’

It was kind of fun, now that he thought about it.

He looked back at the dark room behind him.

“Fine. I’ll let you be till morning.”

He headed back towards his room.

* * *

Zhang Hu’s door opened moments before dawn. He walked out into the front yard with an expressionless face. There was not a sound coming from the yard, not even those from bugs.

He looked back at Mrs. Nam’s room. After confirming that he couldn’t sense anyone in it, he turned back to the gate in front of him.

Whoosh.

A blue light formed around Zhang Hu’s head, forming a third eye. The eye shot out a beam of light at the gate.

The gate turned translucent, and revealed six experts on the other side.

It was Yanhui and her group of experts. They looked quite tired after being lost in the formation for the entire night.

Zhang Hu crossed his arms.

“Bandits these days are quite something, huh.”

Yanhui tilted her head in confusion.

“This is very strange. The track just stops here. But the tracker we placed on her is still here, which means that she should be here. But we can’t find her…”

She sighed.

“Did she fly up into the heavens?”, one of the experts asked.

“She might’ve dropped down into the ground.” Another answered.

It was a ridiculous joke, but Yanhui seemed to have gotten an idea from it.

“Right! She might’ve holed up in the ground somewhere.”

Several experts in the Martial World, especially assassins and spies, liked to hole up in the ground waiting for their target for days. As the story went, the best assassin of the Martial World, Wan Wuju, holed up for a full month in order to assassinate the Emperor of the Fist, Tie Liba. The man ended up failing, but he did end up making the martial arts community reevaluate the true worth of the technique.

And out of all the organizations in the Martial World, the one organization that was likely to have obscure and nigh-useless techniques like holing up in the ground was… The Xiawu Clan, of which Liyuan was the associate leader of.

“Holing up… That makes sense.”

The five experts nodded in agreement. Yanhui looked over them with a sharp gaze.

“It’s been a day since she’s disappeared, yes? If she’s holed up here somewhere, she would’ve lasted four days at most. Let’s split up into two groups. I’ll stay here with Mr. Huang and Mr. Jin. The rest of you can keep searching.”

The five quickly bowed.

“Yes ma’am!”

Yanhui whispered under her breath.

“My senses are telling me…”

Yanhui looked over the area before continuing.

“That bitch is here somewhere.”