07 | IAAK

[ I AM A KILLER ]

CHAPTER 07 ♦ CURBING VIOLENCE WITH VIOLENCE

last updated: 11.04.21

After returning from the canteen, Qin Ke Xuan saw Yin Xu Dong inside her classroom at her seat smiling brightly and waving at her.

Qin Ke Xuan walked towards Yin Xu Dong, asking expressionlessly, “What are you doing here?”

Yin Xu Dong said gleefully, “Of course I’m here to…” He surveyed the countless pairs of eyes thirsty for gossip, “Let’s talk outside.”

Qin Ke Xuan walked out of the classroom with Yin Xu Dong following after eagerly.

Qin Ke Xuan brought him up to the roof. “There’s no one here. Speak.”

“Qin Ke Xuan, don’t walk around with such an unfriendly and unapproachable expression. No wonder nobody dares to tell you, excluding myself of course.” Yin Xu Dong was immeasurably self-satisfied.

Qin Ke Xuan thought for a moment, and realised that this was indeed the case. He had been the only one so far who had narrowly escaped death from her, twice. And he was the only one who continued tactlessly throwing himself in her face despite so. He can’t be an idiot, can he. “If there’s nothing, I’m going.” And she proceeded to turn to walk away, not paying Yin Xu Dong any attention.

At that, Yin Xu Dong panicked. He hadn’t gotten out what he wanted to achieve after all, and she was already leaving! He promptly grabbed her. “Qin Ke Xuan, no, shi fu! How can you bear treating your disciple so cruelly? You’re just going to walk away like that?” Yin Xu Dong was aggrieved, “…okay, I won’t nonsense so much. I’m here because… y’know, for that… that… to learn Xiao Li Flying Daggers!”

“That’s not called Xiao Li Flying Daggers.” Qin Ke Xuan corrected.

Yin Xu Dong asked excitedly: “Then what is it called?” It definitely must be something magnificently glorious!

“Concealed Weapon Hurl*.”

* 暗器投掷 = Concealed Weapon Hurl

“…”

Yin Xu Dong scratched his head, “Forget it, who cares what it’s called. Back to the topic, shi fu, when are you gonna teach me?” Yin Xu Dong had been so excited the previous night he didn’t sleep even a wink. If he could pick up Xiao Li Flying Daggers and Sunflower Dian Xue Hand, he would become the embodiment of superman — an unparalleled existence! Ha ha ha ha! Uh, of course excluding shi fu whom he would be no match against.

“Don’t you have class?” Qin Ke Xuan asked, her tone serious.

Yin Xu Dong froze, and scratched his head in embarrassment, “Don’t you think the stuff in textbooks are way too boring? Learning all the content is useless, so why waste time bothering with such meaningless things?”

“Are you saying, that I am an idiot, and is wasting time?” Her glare seemed to radiate a trace of danger.

Yin Xu Dong was so scared he almost bit his tongue. Never would he have imagined that Qin Ke Xuan would suddenly turn over a new leaf and become all studious! Didn’t she skip school just yesterday? He tried to cover up his slip of the tongue, flustered. “I, I definitely did not mean it that way! Shi fu, you’re exceptionally intelligent! Everything you do is correct! Actually, actually, it’s me, I’m the one that’s stupid enough to actually believe that studying is a waste of time! I’m the most foolish person on earth!” He was this close to going as far as slapping himself.

Qin Ke Xuan ordered: “Go to school. I’ll be asking you questions in the future.”

In the end, Yin Xu Dong didn’t manage to achieve what he had set out to accomplish. With that, he left Second High* and returned to his own school—the First High* in B city. After all, his almighty shi fu had said that she would ask him questions in the future!

* Second High and First High are referring to 2nd and 1st ranked High School in the country respectively; schools are sometimes labelled with numbers

After Qin Ke Xuan had, once again, stepped into her classroom, her classmates’ gazes fell on her in unison. Some of which were of anger, some of disdain, others were… pretty much all of them were unfriendly looks. Qin Ke Xin was indifferent, and proceeded to return to her seat calmly instead.

As expected, Zhou Jing immediately went over to ask softly: “Ke Xuan, what’s your relationship with that handsome guy just now?”

Qin Ke Xuan looked at Zhou Jing, not speaking. At her calm and collected composure, Zhou Jing became uncomfortable. “I, I just saw that his uniform was different from ours so I was wondering why he’d come over to our school to look for you.” What’s with the sudden chills running down her back when she looked into Qin Ke Xuan’s pitilessly black eyes.

Qin Ke Xuan: “That’s not something for you to be curious about.”

Zhou Jing, once again, walked away, the rim of her eyes reddening.

The other classmates urged Zhou Jing, as though impatient with her lack of realisation. “Just leave her be! It’s not worth your while to befriend someone like her!”

“I think it’s definitely because she didn’t manage to get her hands on Cao Lin Wei. Also since she’s already infamous here, that’s why she’s turned to another school altogether to look for new hotties. And, what’s with hot guy from earlier, was he blind or something? How did he fall so easily for her tricks?”

“Sigh, what a pity that such a handsome guy would be ruined by her.”

“…”

Qin Ke Xuan read her book diligently. Despite not quite understanding the contents, she decided to take it down for future reference and use.

During her lesson in the afternoon, Qin Ke Xuan still did not understand. She’d looked through all the books in her bag. Excluding some strange-looking symbols which she did not understand, she had pretty much memorised all the content in prose. As a killer, memory work was an important skill.

After school, Qin Ke Xuan went to the bustling city area again to gather information, before breaking into a run back home. After last night and this morning, she had tried running twice. With her current speed, running back took a short while. If she were to recover her Inner Qi and use Qing Gong, she would definitely be faster.

* 轻功 = Qing Gong; a martial arts technique for making the body extremely light in weight by altering the distribution and flow of Qi

Qin Ke Xuan walked into the dusky alley, and slowed down after a few steps before stopping. She started slowly: “Don’t bother hiding.”

A number of people came out from the two ends of the alley.

A burly chap stood in front. His arms crossed, he looked at Qin Ke Xuan, arrogant. “Little girl, you sure seem to know your stuff! Hua’zi and that bunch of fools can’t even deal with such a little kid, and even had to trouble me to wipe their butts.”

The few who stood behind started mumbling: “Da Cheng ge*, don’t underestimate that kid, she’s very strong.”

* 哥 = Ge; older brother, need not be referring to a biologically related elder brother

Qin Ke Xuan recognised him. Among the bunch of people who had chased Yin Xu Dong but ended up provoking her, he was among the less injured ones. The rest of the injured yesterday were probably still bedridden.

The person known as Da Cheng ge waved his hands, fed up. “That’s because you guys were too rubbish! Shut up and stay behind.”

That person retreated worriedly, not daring to rebuke any further.

Qin Ke Xuan was definitely a make-up for her incomplete ‘exercise’ in the morning. Just look at these people, all tall and strong, and they definitely seemed to be somewhat involved in the underground world. That means the must be pretty tough and skilled in comabt no? Or at least they would be more resistant to her beatings that the three girls from this afternoon.

For once, the sides of Qin Ke Xuan’s lips lifted. “Come!”

Da Cheng ge froze for a second, then he suddenly burst out laughing: “This silly little girl. Since you’re a girl, all you need to do is kowtow and apologise, and we won’t make things difficult for you, how ‘bout that?”

Qin Ke Xuan’s raised lips twitched, these people sure had a lot of nonsense to say.

“Da Cheng ge, that girl is actually quite pretty, why don’t we go one round?” Standing behind Da Cheng Ge was a guy with a wretched looking expression colouring his face. His gaze trained on Qin Ke Xuan was full of lust.

Da Cheng ge swept him a glance in disdain, “You’re interested in these kind of underdeveloped girls?”

That guy chuckled, saying: “Da Cheng ge, sometimes these kind of under-ripe, young and inexperienced little girls are all the more fun and tasty, hehe.” The others standing behind, too, joined in, laughing vulgarly.

Qin Ke Xuan zipped forward, arriving behind the lustful guy who had brought up the dirty idea. Her hand shot out, capturing his lower jaw in her grip. Against the background of his shocked gasp, her hand clenched, and she dislocated his jaw. Her other hand was not idling either. Her elbow stabbed at his chest, and the sound of his rib fracturing sounded with a snap. She released her grip, and let the guy fall limply onto the ground squirming weakly, unable to call for help with his dislocated jaw.

The moment the guy fell, Qin Ke Xuan had returned promptly to her original position, as though she’d never left. This momentary flash of happenings unfolded before the others’ eyes, rendering them terrified and appalled. How had she done it? This was way too…

“You, you dare mount a sneak attack?!” The people standing around trembled, “Despicable!”

Sneak attack? Despicable? Killers, especially assassins, never do things in the open.

Da Cheng ge spat on the ground, a malevolent expression dyeing his facial features. He dashed toward Qin Ke Xuan, his fist swinging at her face.

Qin Ke Xuan raised her hand to block, and her leg swung, sideways, at his invitingly open stomach. The burly chap, as though a ball of crush paper, flew out. If it were not for the people behind catching him, he would have slammed on the ground.

Sadly, he was not any better off even if there were people catching him. He twitched, before spitting out a mouthful of blood.

“Da Cheng ge!” Everyone called him anxiously.

Shocked, and mad, the bunch of people looked at her, their eyes burning, and pounced at Qin Ke Xuan, unarmed. They were unarmed because they had severely underestimated her when they heard the enemy was only a little girl, so they did not carry any equipment. Now, they were all regretting not bringing a mace each.

Qin Ke Xuan did not retreat, rather, she quickly gripped the arm that was swinging towards her. She broke it with a snap, and sent a kick at his legs, which was once again coupled with a snap. As he fell howling in anguish, Qin Ke Xuan quickly swept her leg behind him, right at another person’s waist, sending him flying to one side. Following this, was a very one-sided beat-up. Everyone that had been pounded Qin Ke Xuan more or less spotted a broken limbs somewhere.

The entire alley was filled with people lying on the ground, to injured to get to their feet. Those that had a little strength left hugged their injuries, groaning. Those drained of their strength could only lay there moaning in pain. The scene was as though a living hell.

Qin Ke Xuan was a little disappointed. Despite being built more sturdily then others, they could not even measure up to the third-rate inferior practitioners in the martial arts scene.

Qin Ke Xuan walked over them and out of the alley. When she stepped on Da Cheng ge‘s body, his hand suddenly shot out and gripped her leg tightly. Her gaze lowered, meeting Da Cheng ge‘s eyes; the latter were filled with bitterness and non-resignation.

Qin Ke Xuan dug her foot down. Da Cheng ge groaned in anguish, but his hand gripping her leg did not loosen. Qin Ke Xuan’s eyebrow raised. Not bothering to hold back, she snapped another one of his ribs with a crack, “If I said I will snap every rib of yours, will you believe me?”

The bitter and undying spirit in Da Cheng ge‘s eyes were quickly replaced with that of terror. That woman would definitely do what she’d said!

His grip loosened, trembling.

Qin Ke Xuan stepped out of this living hell of an alley and continued with her mission—going home.

She dashed all the way home. Her speed was so fast an occasional brush against anyone, though she was quick enough to dodge immediately, would scare the hell out of them, thinking they had seen a ghost. However, it was just the dark shadow of her flying past.

TRANSLATOR & EDITOR: WYNNE. This translation is hosted at ZHAN LAN TRANSLATIONS

Translator’s Note:

(28th Jul 2019) Ello, I’m coming back to edit my earlier chaps once in a while, so there might be some slight format changes and writing style difference. If the ‘last edited’ line is dated after its publish date, it’s been re-edited again. If it’s dated around 2017-2018, please accept my apology in advance, some of the phrasing can be a little toxic to read oops XoX I’m trying to find time to edit it whenever I can

P.S. Just a little explanation for my beloved readers, there might be a bit of a watermark spam for the next few chaps oops, I’ve edited it such that it won’t affect your reading experience to as much an extent as possible. IAAK had been the beginning of my TL experience at Zhan Lann, and I had aggregator sites catching on to my sites really quickly and copying-and-pasting my TL wholesale, so I had been terribly pissed.

I’d just like to let everyone know that I don’t intend to remove them. If you’re unhappy, don’t feel obliged to continue, just like how I shouldn’t be obliged to continue translating when there were other sites freeloading my work and commercialising off of my TL — but I continued and finished IAAK anyway, because I knew I had loyal readers following the novel, and I shouldn’t disappoint because it was a commitment I had willingly picked up.

If you’re annoyed by my watermarks, blame the aggregator sites. If you want to drop this novel because of the watermarks, go right ahead, no one’s stopping you. I’ll just know that I’m paying a higher-premium-than-I-should-be to get the nicest dark theme with the prettiest UI I have access to on wordpress, and am sacrificing my time and effort for one less ungrateful reader. Should I say, good riddance?

Once again, I’d just liked to thank everyone for coming to Zhan Lann to pick up IAAK to read, continue it and maybe finish reading this novel. Thank you so so so much for supporting Zhan Lann, really <3

(11th Apr 2021) Also, we just launched our Instagram account (finally), do follow us at @zhanlann for updates, sneak peaks and behind-the-scenes with the various fictional characters XD

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