Chapter Ninety-Seven: Stanley's Purpose

“Hmph. I remember.”

The Six-Winged Queen drew a crystalline dagger from behind her waist, its blade flashing with a cold, thin gleam.

She stared down icily at Chen Cao, who stood frozen in place, and advanced toward him with the dagger in hand. To her, he was no more than prey.

Chen Cao could not move. He knew his wound had been cut down to the bone and that he could no longer fight. He had never expected that these two sinister, foppish-looking figures would actually be so formidable in battle.

Time seemed to have come to a stop. He could hear the Queen’s cold sneer through her nose, hear her soft footsteps, hear the faint scrape of the dagger hilt against her fingers.

There was no doubt what those sounds foretold: his life was already approaching its end.

The Phoenix-Eyed Evil Lord ignored the pain in his own wound. A thin smile had already risen to his lips as he watched blood continue to stream from Chen Cao’s body. In his mind, he was already imagining the pleasure of watching the Six-Winged Queen torture him next.

She had come close by then. Raising the dagger, she deliberately laid its edge against Chen Cao’s throat.

“All right, you’re finished. Now I’m going to cut your carotid artery, drain your blood slowly, and while you’re enjoying every second of it, I’ll slit open your stomach, take out your organs, and let you admire the beauty of your own innards. Heh-heh…”

That laughter would have sent any normal person into a shiver. But Chen Cao did not.

“Oh? I’d love to see that, too.”

The Six-Winged Queen froze at once, the excitement on her face vanishing without a trace. She clearly felt the muzzle of a gun pressing against the right side of her chest. By the time Chen Cao spoke, he had already turned around.

“You should have moved faster,” he said. “And you’ve overestimated me. I’m not some gentleman. Aside from a straightforward duel, I’m far better at all kinds of underhanded assassination.”

A crack sounded before the Queen could answer. The gun went off.

“Queen!” The Phoenix-Eyed Evil Lord could clearly feel her body convulse violently at the shot. Then a bloody hole appeared in her back.

“We shall meet again.”

Chen Cao clutched the wound in his shoulder, tossed away the pistol, and did not even spare the Phoenix-Eyed Evil Lord a glance. He turned and walked out through the door.

Now he regretted not having found Husum’s arms dealer earlier and bought one more bullet. This pistol had only held a single round. If there had been one more, he could have taken the Phoenix-Eyed Evil Lord down with it.

With a crash, he watched Chen Cao pull open the shop door and vanish from sight. Turning back to look at his comrade, the Six-Winged Queen, who had already lost consciousness under the impact of the bullet, the Phoenix-Eyed Evil Lord finally exploded in rage.

“Chen Cao! Even if I have to chase you to the ends of the earth, as long as you remain on this planet, I will make sure you die!”

The shout tore at his wound. Clutching it, he sank to the floor. Having lost too much blood, he no longer had the strength to roar; he could only pant heavily.

Then, from behind him, came another crash as a door slammed.

He turned his head and caught sight of a graceful figure disappearing from view. At that moment, he was so furious he could have bitten through his own guts. A failed theft had cost him dear indeed. Grinding his teeth, he pulled a communicator from his jacket and pressed the button.

“Monster of Child Torture, get here immediately and provide support. We’re under attack…”

Chen Cao clutched his wound and ran at full speed down the narrow path. The police of Rai would surely discover what had happened there very soon. To avoid trouble, he had to leave this cursed place as quickly as possible.

At that thought, he took out his phone and dialed a number.

“Stanley… where are you? Good… have you got everything ready? Go to the hospital right now and get me some antibiotics and trauma medicine… good. We’ll meet at the designated spot in thirty minutes.”

By then, dusk had already deepened over the city. The streets of Rai were eerily quiet, all because of the city’s blackout order. It was hard to believe that such an edict, absent from the Great Chen for a thousand years, had been enforced for decades in the capital of Husum.

In the district housing the foreign consulates, however, the government of Husum had no authority to impose such control. Thus Rai’s wealthy residents preferred to spend their money in the foreigners’ zone, where the city remained bustling, a stark contrast to the desolation of the native quarters.

Inside a small inn, Mei Mei lay on the bed, her condition showing no sign of improvement. On the contrary, her face had grown even paler.

Chen Cao sat on a small wooden stool in the room. A pistol lay on the table before him, and a wooden stick protruded from the corner of his mouth. His eyes remained fixed on the doorway. At the first sign of trouble, he would not hesitate to fire.

Stanley was wiping sweat from his face while threading a fine needle, sewing Chen Cao’s wound as though mending a shirt.

After several minutes, the injury was roughly stitched shut. Under the dim light, the wound twisted like an ugly centipede. Stanley took out a packet of white medicinal powder and carefully applied it, then let out a long breath.

“Boss, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? The wound could get infected.”

Chen Cao’s expression darkened. “No need. Those two are badly injured by me too, and they won’t be in much better shape. But there’s no telling whether they’ll come after us. By the way, when does the boat leave?”

Stanley nodded while wrapping gauze around Chen Cao’s arm.

“Don’t worry. I’ve arranged everything. There’s a boat at three o’clock tonight. We’ll head to a military base in Sanfu. The commander there already took five thousand dollars from me. At four, when we get there, they’ll fly us out on a military aircraft to a commercial airport. They’ve already arranged the tickets for us.”

He laid out the whole plan.

Mm. Chen Cao was still confident in Stanley’s ability to get things done. He still had several thousand dollars left on him, enough for travel expenses. Right now, the most important thing was to get to Sidra. He had heard that the medical standard there was quite good, and refugees received free care. Then he and Stanley could come back. If all went smoothly, once things here were dealt with, he would also secure some money for Mei Mei.

“Stanley, you’ve worked hard. You won’t lose a single cent of what I owe you.”

“Thanks, boss.” Stanley grinned. “With you there, our chances of getting that diamond are much higher.”

Chen Cao glanced at the time. It was still early, well before three. He said to Stanley, “There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

Stanley finished knotting the bandage around Chen Cao’s arm and sat down across from him.

“What question?”

Chen Cao smiled faintly. “Why are you so fixated on this gem? You should know, if your deal with that old man had gone smoothly, you would have gotten only fifty thousand dollars. But now you know about the gem, and it may already be lost. Or perhaps it was never a treasure map at all, just a military secret. So why are you so determined?”

As he spoke, he deliberately toyed with the pistol on the table, which made Stanley break out in a cold sweat. He knew Chen Cao was not someone to be taken lightly.

After a brief pause, Stanley unexpectedly calmed down. He took out a cigarette, lit it, handed the glowing end to Chen Cao, then lit one for himself and said, “To be honest, boss, it’s because I’m afraid.”

Chen Cao took a drag. “Afraid?”

“Yes.” Stanley nodded. “Afraid of being poor. I’m mixed-race, and I was born without a father or mother. You know, Odru is a country where religious belief is taken to the extreme. For faith, people there can abandon family, abandon wives, even abandon their lives. But I’m just an orphan. I never believed in any religion. I joined the guerrillas only because I wanted a full stomach. Back then, being able to eat a good piece of meat and drink a mouthful of cool water was the happiest thing in the world to me. Nothing else, not even life itself, seemed important. At times I even had the illusion that religion meant equality for everyone.”

Stanley drew on his cigarette and went on.

“But people grow up. Slowly I realized that religion, so-called religion, is not equal at all. As I got older and spent more time in the army, I discovered that religion was really just a tool of the rulers. Take a recent example: our former company commander was the youngest son of a tribal elder. When he fought, he was cowardly and feared death. In the small town, he had a two-story wooden house and three wives. As for the spoils of war, we always got the least while he took the most. Of course, none of that would have mattered enough to be a reason. What mattered most was that his fourth wife was my fiancée.”

Chen Cao’s eyelid twitched.

Stanley’s face darkened. “She was my fiancée, a very innocent girl. I’d known her since we were children. I had also lived in her home since I was small. That was the only home I ever really had. So every time I survived a battle, I would go home full of excitement, carrying the spoils. I loved watching her happily take the food I brought back from the battlefield and bustle about in the kitchen. I truly thought I was happy. I never doubted that she would be my wife one day. But then, one day, she fell ill. I spent all my savings, searched every doctor in Odru, and still nothing helped. They couldn’t even figure out what was wrong. Boss, can you believe how scarce the resources in Odru are? Until a doctor from an international Red Cross organization treated her and told me she had stomach cancer. She needed treatment abroad, where medical care was better. I was stunned. Going abroad meant betraying religion, and that was something Odru would never accept. Of course, compared with my fiancée’s life, none of that mattered. I was willing to take that risk for her. But leaving Odru for treatment required a huge sum of money. The doctors from the International Red Cross were very kind. They arranged for my fiancée to be hospitalized temporarily to keep her alive, but even so, she had only three months left.”

As Stanley spoke, the cigarette in his hand burned out. Chen Cao lit it for him and asked, “But why would she become the fiancée of the elder’s son?”