When James focused on the words on the watch, he raised his gaze towards Xiao Ping and said in a serious voice: "Where did you find this watch?!"
'What?! Does he suspect me now!? No, no, control your actions, Xiao, it's impossible for him to suspect me. Maybe it was just a question!' Xiao Ping froze for a second before answering. "I inherited this watch from my late grandfather a year ago." As he said this, Xiao Ping showed a sad expression on his face, while looking down at his worn-out shoes.
James Beyond looked at Xiao Ping's sad expression for a few moments before saying in a cheerful tone. "Sorry for reminding you of this! I just wanted to know, but perhaps I mentioned something you'd rather not remember!" James Beyond fell silent for a bit, looked at his own beautiful hand-wound watch, and said: "The time now is about 9:40, but there's still time to explain the job details to you!" Saying this, he returned the watch to Xiao Ping, who then quickly put it into his pocket next to the notes.
.....
"Did you see that?! It's so beautiful." One of the four men spoke when he saw the watch Xiao Ping took out.
"Yes, I saw it! Who would have thought that boy in shabby clothes would have such a watch on him!" the second man replied enthusiastically to the first.
"It seems we've gained two targets, not just one!" the third man spoke, looking eagerly towards the liquor bottle and towards the pocket of the boy standing in front of James Beyond.
The four men were thinking to themselves, saying: if the man in front of the boy really wasn't James Beyond, then they would attack them both. All this just to satisfy their leader so he would raise their rank in the hierarchy. Even though in this city it was only a branch of the mercenaries, it wasn't a problem as the branch leader loved women and high-quality wine; perhaps he would accept this bottle.
They kept thinking while watching the boy who walked in front of the liquor shelf and took the bottle the bartender gave him, before heading to the table located in a dark corner of the bar, with James in front of him.
Fearful of missing the opportunity, one of them, eager for the reward he would get from the branch leader, said. "That's enough! It's confirmed that man isn't James Beyond, so let's get to work now."
Saying this, the four half-drunk men stood up, pushed their chairs away from their backsides, and started walking past the medium-length table, passing by the people playing dice.
.....
Xiao Ping was trying to navigate past the round tables in the room, catching up to James Beyond's pace and heading towards the table in the dark corner.
Every time he passed a table, the foul smell of alcohol entered his nose, causing him some dizziness and nausea.
Just as he was about to reach the table in the dark corner, a vision overlapped in his mind, of a person holding a chair trying to hit the back of his head.
At that moment, Xiao Ping quickly turned around, and indeed saw a person running towards him holding a chair. So, in the moment the person tried to hit him, Xiao Ping barely dodged the blow.
"Whooosh!" A gust of wind passed by Xiao Ping's cheek due to the chair swinging towards him.
In the next moment, as an instinctive reaction, Xiao Ping pulled his right hand back, before thrusting it forward forcefully towards the attacker's unprotected stomach.
"Baaam!"
Xiao Ping's fist slammed into the middle of that chair-carrying man's stomach, but contrary to expectations, there was no reaction of pain.
A devilish smile appeared on the man's face as he said: "Is that all you can do?! It really just tickles!" The man's words carried a tone of mockery.
"Hah!" Xiao Ping was surprised that his punch had no effect against this assailant.
The man was tall with brown hair,and had several faint scars on his face, showing he had been in many fights, and this wasn't his first time, as expected of a mercenary.
The man swung the chair again forcefully, trying to hit Xiao Ping with it, but he didn't hit Xiao Ping even once. Meanwhile, Xiao Ping kept stepping backward cautiously, wary of falling and breaking the expensive liquor bottle.
'Dammit! What is this person thinking, attacking me for no reason!?' As Xiao Ping continued dodging, he looked into the eyes of the man attacking him and saw he was intensely focused on the liquor bottle. "Really! Human greed knows no bounds!" Xiao Ping shouted while dodging, but his backside hit the edge of a table, causing him to lose focus for a moment.
"Take this hit." the man shouted as he swung and hit Xiao Ping hard on the side of the head, sending him crashing onto a table on the left side.
"Baaam." The sound of Xiao Ping's body hitting the round table echoed, causing it to break and sending glasses of alcohol flying off it, scaring away some people who had been drinking at it.
When the people in the hall heard the sound of the table breaking, they all turned towards the source of the commotion and saw the boy lying on the broken table, a liquor bottle in his left hand.
"A fight! A fight!" they all shouted in unison, seeing the boy still lying there. When they looked to the other side, they also saw three people gathered around a man wearing a black suit with a black coat.
Shouts rose from that side too; this was what they had been craving for a long time, and now it was happening right in front of them, so they felt immense joy from the depths of their hearts. They would do anything to see someone get brutally beaten for no reason.
"Boy! If you had taken the first swing, you wouldn't have been hit so hard now!" the man laughed before advancing towards the broken table. He walked intending to snatch the bottle from Xiao Ping's left hand.
"Ughh." A groan escaped Xiao Ping's lips as he tried to get up, but he felt pain in his left cheek and also in his back from falling on the table. 'Dammit! I've let my guard down for the second time on the same day I got supernatural powers!' Xiao Ping lifted his head forward and saw the man who hit him approaching.
'Disgusting!' Xiao Ping clenched his jaw and struggled to his feet. "You'll regret this!" Xiao Ping shouted, his head dripping blood onto the bar floor. His previously foul-smelling clothes were now soaked with various liquors dripping from them.
"Drip, drip!" The sound of blood and alcohol droplets falling from Xiao Ping's head and clothes echoed. He could hear all the cheers from the people in the bar and realized they would never intervene. This was exactly what had happened earlier on that street, but here, there was no one with the ability to turn back time like the members of the mysterious organization.
'Crap! I was only healed this morning by the Entity, and now I'm injured before I've even started my job!' Xiao Ping's thoughts drifted, but he was snapped out of them quickly by a gruff voice.
"I didn't expect this from you! That you could stand after taking that hit!" the man spoke, his voice now audible, and continued: "But it won't help you! Today I'll take that bottle from you, and that watch in your pocket too!" The man declared all his intentions in front of everyone present, including Xiao Ping.
'What!? He wants my watch too!?' Xiao Ping was slightly suspicious of the man's intentions, before activating the abilities of his essential eyes.
At that moment, many silver threads floating in the air overlapped in his vision. He could see them, but the others couldn't.
At that moment, he focused on the body of the man walking towards him, carrying the chair, a broad smile of amusement on his face. There was a small, thin silver thread moving inside him in a zigzag, irregular pattern, unlike the ones inside the cat and James Beyond. And also, there was a green energy in the middle of his stomach!.
'Is that energy what protected him from my punch?! It seems to be losing power gradually because the energy is shrinking rapidly!' Xiao Ping rushed towards the man, dodged his attack, placed the bottle on the floor, then put his hands on the floor, pushed off, and delivered a vertical double kick towards the man's lower jaw.
"Baaam!"
The man blocked the double kick with his bare hand, but Xiao Ping brought his right foot down, pivoted, and kicked towards the man's sensitive area.
"Aghoo." The man let out a strange groan from the kick to his family jewels. He dropped the chair, causing a noise as it hit the floor, and the man fell to his knees, placing his hands down on his sensitive area, his face having a strange expression.
But Xiao Ping didn't let him rest; he delivered a side kick, sending him rolling and crashing into a nearby table, causing liquors to spill on him in the same way they had spilled on Xiao Ping, but without breaking the table.
Seeing what the country boy did to that mercenary in front of them, everyone fell silent.
Xiao Ping stood in the middle of the room, looking coldly and mercilessly at the man who had fainted. At that moment, a few words spun in Xiao Ping's mind before he said them internally. 'Wasn't it said: "If you are cruel to your enemies and let mercy control you inside the battle, then your enemies will do worse to you than you did to them, so it's better to finish what I started!"
"Baaaam!" The sound of some tables breaking echoed!
Xiao Ping wanted to advance and teach that man a harsh lesson, but he heard a sound from the other side and remembered that James was in front of him, surrounded by three people. Even though he knew James had a strong, thick silver thread, he still didn't know what level he was at. So he turned and said: "James, are you alri---, Hah!" He could only be surprised by what he saw.
Xiao Ping saw that James Beyond was walking towards him, but he didn't have a single injury or scratch. On top of that, he was walking while yawning from utter boredom! But to his right, one person had his head pierced through a table, his feet up in the air. Another was lying under a pile of broken table debris, with some broken bottles near him; even small pieces of glass had stuck in his head, and blood was flowing from it.
As for the third, he was lying on the floor, his face bearing numerous bruises from the beating. His bald head reflected the lights of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling, but that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was the congealed blood from their bodies that covered the floor behind James Beyond's footsteps, and the walls were also covered in blood like spatter!
Seeing the shocked faces, including Xiao Ping's, James took off his medical glasses, revealing those crimson red eyes, smiled at Xiao Ping and said: "Ping! Come on now, I'll tell you the details without any disturbance from these disgusting people!" He looked at the man who had hit Xiao Ping and said: "You did well, Ping!"
What followed was silence from everyone present, even Xiao Ping was silent with them.
...
End of Chapter ~ To Be Continued