Shrouded Seascape

Clang, clang, clang!

The sound of metal pipes colliding against the concrete walls of the dark, unfinished building echoed incessantly. Gao Zhiming's bruised and battered figure trembled upon hearing the noises.

The muffled cursing and heavy footsteps from downstairs made Gao Zhiming's heart pound erratically against his chest. He was panicking, as the loud footsteps told him that many people had come.

He would have to deal with many adults, not just one or two.

However, Gao Zhiming was not worried about himself. He was worried about his sister! He was worried that they would do something bad to her!

Gao Zhiming gnashed his teeth and held back his tears as he desperately dragged Anna toward the upper floors. At this point, he couldn't care less about whether his actions were futile. He just wanted to get his sister as far away from those people as possible.

However, the young Gao Zhiming was too weak, and the approaching figures were too fast. Just as he reached the sixth floor, someone kicked him to the ground.

"Brother Lightning, it's this little brat! The chick is in the sack next to him!" The familiar voice of the chubby young man from earlier echoed from the stairwell.

Gao Zhiming face-planted on the floor, and the sweat on his face mixed with the dust on the ground, making him appear very filthy.

He crawled up with great difficulty and turned around, but he was forced to close his eyes under the built-in flashlight of a phone. However, Gao Zhiming caught a glimpse of more than a dozen shadowy figures with threatening demeanors standing behind the beam of light.

"You're really embarrassing. Don't tell people that you roll with me, all right? You can't even handle a little beggar." A brawny middle-aged man stepped in front of the flashlight. Clearly, he was the so-called "Brother Lightning."

He tried to poke the checkered plastic sack next to Gao Zhiming with the iron pipe in his hand, but the latter pounced over and used his tiny frame to block the pipe.

"Oh, he's actually so desperate about protecting that woman?" A mocking voice immediately rang out from the crowd. "I think he already had a taste of her, but I wonder if he's even got hair down there."

Everyone, including Lightning Tiger, burst out into a peal of laughter.

Eventually, Lightning Tiger's smile faded, and he tapped Gao Zhiming's face with the iron pipe in his hand. "Hey, hurry up and scram. Let me see what your wife looks like. I want to see whether she's a world-class beauty like what Big Dragon told me."

Gao Zhiming acted as if he couldn't hear him. He spread his arms and embraced the checkered plastic sack with both hands.

"Come on, hurry up. We've come from really far away," Lightning Tiger said patiently.

He waited for a few seconds, but Gao Zhiming remained unmoving. The grin on his lips vanished. Then, he raised the iron pipe in his hand and swung it down, smashing it into Gao Zhiming's back.

There was almost no need to mention just how powerful an iron pipe was in the hands of a fully grown adult. Its might was not something Gao Zhiming's frail and young figure could withstand.

A crimson arrow spurted from Gao Zhiming's nose and mouth upon impact. The intense pain made Gao Zhiming open his mouth to scream, but his nose and mouth were full of blood, so he could only let out a pained groan.

Lightning Tiger raised his foot and lightly kicked the limp Gao Zhiming to the side.

He ripped open the sack and cast the flashlight inside of it. His face immediately lit up with glee upon seeing Anna. She really was incredibly beautiful! She was a hen that could lay golden eggs!

The others crowded around, and they clicked their tongues in amazement at the sight of the beautiful young woman in the sack.

"Wow, just look at her face. And those breasts… tsk, tsk, tsk."

"Big Dragon must be blind. With her looks alone, fifty is nowhere near enough. Even five hundred would be a bargain. Have you ever seen anyone prettier than her in the massage parlors you've visited so far?"

"Damn, just looking at her is getting me all fired up. Once we bring her back with us later, you guys better not fight me over the first round."

"Hehehe, she must be in a coma. Doesn't that mean that we can do whatever we want?"

Just as they were animatedly discussing what they were going to do later, a trembling voice sounded from the side. "Get… lost..."

They turned their flashlight and saw the little boy, Gao Zhiming. The devastating attack from earlier made the little boy look wobbly. He looked like he would collapse at any moment now, but he propped himself up and crawled forward.

Lightning Tiger rested the iron pipe on his shoulder and walked up to Gao Zhiming. He squatted down to look him in the eye. "You've got guts, little beggar."

"Stay away from my big sister!" Gao Zhiming squeezed these words out between his bloody gums.

Lightning Tiger raised his thick shoes and stepped on Gao Zhiming's left hand. He pressed down slowly, and the sound of cracking bones soon echoed from the little boy's hand.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but you'll never see your sister again in this lifetime. Soon, she'll become a cheap whore ridden by tens of thousands of men. You know what a whore is, right?

"Hm, I guess you're still too young to know the meaning of that word, but it's fine. My brothers and I will demonstrate what it means for you later."

The men behind Lightning Tiger sniggered, and then eight pairs of hands reached into the plastic sack containing Anna.

Gao Zhiming's eyes turned bloodshot, and he let out a hoarse scream, but his screams did nothing to stop them.

Smack, smack, smack!

Lightning Tiger slapped Gao Zhiming's face with his calloused palm. "You better not say that I'm bullying a child here. You started this by injuring one of my brothers."

Just then, Gao Zhiming's gaze slid off Lightning Tiger's brutish face and locked onto his bobbing Adam's apple. He was reminded of something his sister had done before. She once looked at Li Long's back and drew a line across her throat with her finger.

With no time to think, Gao Zhiming mustered the last bit of his strength to pull out a juggling knife. Then, he imitated Anna's sister's action at the time and slashed the Adam's apple before him with all his might.

The juggling knife that the clown had left behind for Gao Zhiming had no special abilities and could only be used for self-defense, but it was sharp—exceptionally sharp.

Lightning Tiger's face stiffened upon sensing a slight chill on his neck.

The hefty iron pipe fell from his shoulder and clattered on the concrete floor.

Everyone turned toward him.

"Brother Lightning, how's it going?" one of the men asked as they lifted Anna out of the sack.

Lightning Tiger raised his trembling arms as gurgling noises reverberated from his throat. He reached out for his neck in an effort to cover the line of blood that had appeared across it.

It would have been better if he hadn't touched it. When his hand gripped the line of blood, it expanded into a gash, and scalding hot blood gushed out from the severed artery as if it were a broken faucet.

The crimson blood splattered on Gao Zhiming, dyeing him a red hue from head to toe.

Having lost so much blood, Lightning Tiger couldn't possibly remain standing for long, and he collapsed in a pool of his own blood amidst the extreme terror that had overtaken his mind.

Silence instantly reigned over the corridor thick with the stench of blood.

The others stared at the unimaginable scene before them in disbelief.

Meanwhile, Gao Zhiming began moving once again. He gnashed his teeth and crawled toward his sister with a bloody juggling knife in his hand.