Chapter 417

Chapter 417 Turning You Into a Work of Art

The scene fell silent, and no one could answer Yamamoto Taichiro’s question.

　　The place was now a complete ruin, both aircraft had exploded into countless fragments — there was nothing left that could even be called wreckage. Where would anyone find a person called Yamamoto Kyokusen?

　　And most critically, the vast majority of people present had never even heard the name Yamamoto Kyokusen!

　　Yamamoto Taichiro had many children, and he had long since brought them into the Yamamoto-gumi to take charge of day-to-day affairs. These individuals had all made names for themselves.

　　To outsiders, Yamamoto Taichiro had poured enormous effort into raising his children and would never let them remain unknown. But aside from a very small circle of trusted confidants, almost no one knew that Yamamoto Taichiro had a mysterious son who never showed his face in public — a son with extraordinary martial talent who had already become one of the top jonin in the Eastern Nation.

　　In the eyes of an old man like Yamamoto Taichiro, no matter how brilliant your intellect or how formidable your management skills, it was overwhelming force that ultimately decided everything. So although outsiders believed he valued his other, more visible children, only Yamamoto Taichiro himself knew how much of his heart and soul he had poured into Yamamoto Kyokusen.

　　In the heart of this Eastern underworld kingpin, he had always intended for Yamamoto Kyokusen to be his successor. Among all his children, only Yamamoto Kyokusen was truly fit to take that position.

　　Yamamoto Taichiro had harbored ambitions toward China for a long time. After years of painstaking effort, the Yamamoto-gumi had grown to dominate the Eastern Nation and had extended its reach across countries throughout Asia. Yet despite this remarkable growth, the Yamamoto-gumi was uniquely constrained by a treaty signed fifty years ago, forbidden from setting foot in China by so much as a single step.

　　But a treaty was just a treaty. Over all these years, Yamamoto Taichiro had never stopped quietly infiltrating China. He had silently used money to open doors with countless figures and key connections, and he had long since developed a far-reaching and ambitious plan for absorbing China’s underworld.

　　His reason for secretly dispatching Yamamoto Kyokusen to carry out this mission was, first, that he had absolute confidence in his son’s combat ability. He believed China had no skilled fighters capable of stopping him — several hundred elite warriors plus a top-tier jonin would be more than enough to dominate China’s underworld.

　　As for the second reason, Yamamoto Taichiro had in mind the idea of letting Yamamoto Kyokusen make a name for himself through battle. As long as the mission was completed successfully, Yamamoto Kyokusen would have a weighty record of achievement to his name, and could use that record to smoothly ascend to power.

　　But however good the plan, there are always far too many realities in this world that fail to go as hoped — and sometimes the gap between the two is an unbridgeable chasm.

　　Just look at the Yamamoto-gumi right now.

　　Yamamoto Taichiro had originally intended for Yamamoto Kyokusen to make his name across Asia through battles in China. Instead, his most beloved son had been gravely wounded and captured, his fate unknown, and the Chinese had flown a plane and brought down the headquarters building he had spent his entire life building.

　　The financial loss was a minor matter — this would make the Yamamoto-gumi unable to hold its head up anywhere in the world. If they could not carry out a powerful act of retaliation, then from this point on, the largest gang in the Eastern Nation would be reduced to nothing more than fodder for gossip and ridicule.

　　This wasn’t just a case of trying to steal a chicken and losing the bait — this was getting slapped squarely in the face.

　　You dare to kill people on Chinese soil, and the Chinese will fly all the way to the Eastern Nation and destroy your headquarters building. That’s how brazen they are, that’s how audacious. When it’s time to slap back, they slap back — they don’t wait half a year.

　　Staring at the endless expanse of rubble before him, Yamamoto Taichiro’s gaze was dark and deadly. He said coldly, “Spare no expense — find Yamamoto Kyokusen. Alive, I want to see the person. Dead, I want to see the body.”

　　With that, Yamamoto Taichiro turned and stepped into the Bentley.

　　The people present exchanged glances. The plane had exploded with such force that many people on around the fiftieth floor had been blown into scattered scraps of flesh — where would anyone find an intact body?

　　Besides, clearing the rubble of this building would be an enormously difficult undertaking. It was estimated that without at least a month’s work, there was no possibility of restoring the site. In this sweltering heat, even if a body were found, it would already have decomposed beyond recognition.

　　But since Yamamoto Taichiro had given the order, these people had no choice but to carry it out. Even if they had to dig three feet into the ground, they would find Yamamoto Kyokusen.

　　An hour later, Su Rui, Zhang Ziwei, and the others had boarded a passenger ship sailing from the Eastern Nation to China.

　　Since the Eastern Nation had not yet imposed a nationwide lockdown, and with China’s state security having made arrangements in advance, slipping through the border under a false identity was not particularly difficult.

　　Sitting in the cabin, Zhang Ziwei still felt as though she were in a dream.

　　Flying openly into the skies above the Eastern Nation’s capital and ramming a landmark building in half — that was practically the behavior of a terrorist, wasn’t it?

　　Zhang Ziwei’s horizons had always been fixed on domestic affairs, and she had always thought about how to revitalize the Azure Dragon Gang. But the first time Su Rui had taken her into battle against a major international crime syndicate, he had pulled off something this breathtaking — and she still hadn’t quite come to terms with it.

　　”You should rest for a bit.” Su Rui and Zhang Ziwei were sharing the same narrow cabin. Noticing the exhaustion in her eyes, he reached out and gently pressed his fingers against her temples.

　　Zhang Ziwei, who had never had any intimate physical contact with another man, did not pull away from Su Rui’s touch. His massage felt wonderful, and she let her whole body relax, closing her eyes — she seemed on the verge of falling asleep.

　　”Come on, sleep.”

　　Su Rui gently laid Zhang Ziwei down on the bed, slipped off her shoes, pulled a blanket over her, and then quietly tiptoed out.

　　Once the cabin door closed, Zhang Ziwei opened her eyes again, her expression complicated.

　　In the cabin next door, Yamamoto Kyokusen — who just a few hours ago had been so formidable and imposing — was now pinned under Jin Taizhu’s foot. All the strength had been drained from his body. Activating the forbidden jutsu and the so-called miraculous healing medicine had nearly exhausted his life’s potential, and he could no longer summon that supreme lightness technique to escape.

　　Su Rui opened the door and walked in, crouching in front of Yamamoto Kyokusen, who was still in a state of unconscious collapse. He pried open the man’s mouth and examined it carefully — he found no poison fangs.

　　It seemed that Yamamoto Kyokusen was different from ordinary ninja warriors. From the very beginning, he had had no intention of taking his own life.

　　Thinking of the warrior who had sniped the Yan father and son of the Desert Wolf Gang from long range, Su Rui couldn’t help but furrow his brow tightly.

　　What exactly was the connection between the Desert Wolf Gang and the Yamamoto-gumi? Why had the latter rushed to kill the former — was it because they feared the other side would leak some secret?

　　Su Rui had many questions in his mind, but all of them could only be answered by the man lying before him.

　　”Wake him up.” Su Rui said flatly to Jin Taizhu.

　　Upon hearing this, Jin Taizhu curled his five fingers into a claw and drove them hard into Yamamoto Kyokusen’s lumbar vertebrae.

　　”Aah!”

　　A scream of agony — even though Yamamoto Kyokusen had been in a deep coma, he was jolted awake by this pain that reached into the very soul.

　　His face was scorched black and grotesquely swollen, a pitiful sight. His entire body was covered in dried blood. There was nothing left of the bearing one would expect from a proud jonin.

　　If Jin Taizhu hadn’t bought a crate on the spot and stuffed him inside, this man probably would never have been able to board the ship at all.

　　After coming to, Yamamoto Kyokusen stared at Su Rui with a face full of venomous hatred. He couldn’t help but recall how, back in the aircraft cabin, Su Rui’s impossibly erratic flying had tossed him around until he was half dead.

　　For a jonin of his high standing, this was the greatest humiliation of his life.

　　”Shall we talk?”

　　Su Rui sat on the edge of the bed, a mocking smile on his face, looking down at Yamamoto Kyokusen sprawled on the floor.

　　Barring any surprises, Yamamoto Kyokusen would remain in this uncomfortable prone position throughout the entire interrogation. Su Rui had no bad habit of treating prisoners with courtesy.

　　Yamamoto Kyokusen let out a cold snort and turned his head away, seemingly with no desire whatsoever to speak. The crushing defeat had left him unable to accept reality even now.

　　”You just feel like you can’t accept it, don’t you? You think my victory over you was purely a matter of luck?”

　　Yamamoto Kyokusen still said nothing. In his view, the Chinese were the sick men of East Asia, utterly unqualified to stand against the noble warriors of their great Eastern Empire. The only reason they had managed to win must be that they had used some underhanded method unknown to him.

　　Su Rui took in every nuance of the man’s expression and naturally knew exactly what he was thinking. He didn’t mind at all, and said in an unhurried tone, “Even if you don’t speak, I know what’s going through your head. I can tell you this — within three years, I will reduce the Yamamoto-gumi to a turtle hiding in its shell, too afraid to ever show its face openly in this world again.”

　　Yamamoto Kyokusen said nothing, and a look of contempt rose in his eyes. It was clear he had no intention of believing Su Rui’s words. In the eyes of these high-ranking ninja, no faction in China possessed the strength to shake the Yamamoto-gumi — even if he himself had already been taken prisoner.

　　”You may not know yet — the Yamamoto-gumi’s headquarters building has already been brought down by a plane.” A look of equal contempt appeared in Su Rui’s eyes. He pulled out his phone, opened a news portal at random, and held it in front of Yamamoto Kyokusen’s face.

　　The man stared at the images on the screen, and the expression on his face shifted from fury to shock — sheer disbelief.

　　To Yamamoto Kyokusen and the rest of the Yamamoto-gumi, the Yamamoto Building was the symbol of their organization, the emblem of the entire gang. To see it now cut in half was a psychological blow too great to bear.

　　”This… how is this possible…” Even with Yamamoto Kyokusen’s iron will, he could not bring himself to believe what was before his eyes.

　　”Why not? You can run rampant on Chinese soil — why can’t we give you a taste of what it feels like to get slapped in the face?”

　　Su Rui’s tone was unhurried, but it carried an indescribable certainty: “Yamamoto Kyokusen, I can tell you — this is only the beginning. In the three years ahead, you will live through a nightmare you cannot wake from.”

　　Yamamoto Kyokusen stared at Su Rui, his gaze still filled with venomous hatred.

　　”Honestly, I really dislike that look in your eyes. Don’t worry — I won’t kill you right away. I’ll wait until every last bit of value has been squeezed out of you, and then I’ll make you suffer a slow death, piece by piece, as an offering to the Chinese compatriots you killed.”

　　An indescribable chill rose from the very depths of Yamamoto Kyokusen’s heart.

　　When he finished speaking, Su Rui stood up, drew the dagger from his waist, and tossed it to Jin Taizhu.

　　”My lord…”

　　Jin Taizhu was momentarily stunned, because Su Rui’s dagger was something he never parted with — let alone handed to someone else to use.

　　”Jin Taizhu, start by crippling one of his hands.” Su Rui paused, then continued, “Use your finest technique. Work through every joint, every tendon, every piece of cartilage, every inch of skin. Remember — take your time. I want to see a work of art.”