Chapter 72: The Beast in Human Clothing
The coach’s hand was brutally impaled by the dagger. Blood sprayed everywhere, and the handgun he had been holding skidded across the floor, landing a considerable distance away.
The excruciating pain caused him to black out instantly.
In the chaos of the preceding moments, the two men had ended up pinned against each other.
Jiang Chuzhou stared up at the man hovering over him. Cold and stern, Qin Lou’s face still betrayed a lingering trace of fear for the close call they had just survived.
Jiang Chuzhou, usually the thick-skinned and shameless type, found himself dazed by the sight. Suddenly, his ears flushed a deep crimson. He whispered, his voice uncharacteristically small:
“Qin… Qin Lou… You’re crushing me…”
Qin Lou’s heart skipped a beat. He had never been in such close proximity to anyone before. Startled, he scrambled to his feet and cleared his throat, attempting to regain his composure. “My… my apologies.”
“If you’re really sorry, then help me up already!”
Jiang Chuzhou was clearly dissatisfied with his reaction.
He was actually feeling shy for once, yet this man remained as immovable as a block of wood? Was he not handsome enough or something?
“Oh, right!”
Fustered, Qin Lou maintained his façade of indifference. He leaned down to pull him up. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. That damn fat pig! To think he was hiding a gun! He actually tried to shoot me! I’m going to explode!”
Jiang Chuzhou ripped the hemp ropes from his body, cursing a blue streak as he stomped over to the unconscious man. He delivered a series of vicious kicks. “I’ll kick you to death! I’m a grown man and no one has ever dared to threaten me like that!”
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, his feet raining blows down on the Hei Bao coach.
“Enough, don’t kill him.”
Qin Lou finally spoke up to stop him.
“A man like this deserves to die.”
Jiang Chuzhou hissed through gritted teeth. The realization that he had nearly lost his life made his blood boil even more. He raised his foot again, slamming it into the coach’s face. The fleshy impact immediately drew blood.
“That’s enough.”
Qin Lou grabbed him and pulled him back with ease.
Jiang Chuzhou was about to snap at him for stopping him when he suddenly noticed Qin Lou’s shoulder. It was a bloody mess—the bullet must have grazed him when he rushed in to save him.
“Your shoulder?”
His hateful glare instantly softened into worry.
Only then did Qin Lou realize a chunk of flesh was missing from his left shoulder. He didn’t even flinch; he didn’t seem to feel the pain at all.
“It’s a minor injury.”
“How is it minor when you’re bleeding like that?!”
Jiang Chuzhou’s eyes widened. Just looking at the raw wound made him wince in sympathy. If it had been him, he would have been crying his eyes out.
“I’m used to it.”
With practiced movements, Qin Lou tore a strip of cloth from his own shirt and wrapped it haphazardly around the wound.
“No, you can’t just tie it like that. It’ll get infected.”
Jiang Chuzhou grew anxious. The sight made his own skin crawl with phantom pain. Having been pampered since childhood, he couldn’t fathom how Qin Lou could remain so stoic after such a severe injury.
“When you’re in a fight, there isn’t much time to tend to wounds.”
Qin Lou acted as though it were nothing. To him, as long as the bleeding stopped and it didn’t hinder his ability to take down an enemy, it was enough.
“Fine. Since you saved me, I’ll help you.”
Jiang Chuzhou’s sudden offer caught Qin Lou off guard.
“You know how to dress a wound?”
“Hey! Who are you looking down on? I might be a bit of a playboy, but I’m not useless!”
Jiang Chuzhou huffed, giving him a playful, annoyed shove.
“You certainly look the part,” the man remarked, eyeing him up and down with mock seriousness.
“If you can’t say anything nice, shut up.”
Jiang Chuzhou rolled his eyes. He instinctively reached for his backpack, but his crossbody bag was gone. He scanned the floor, his eyes lighting up when he spotted it near the spot where he had been tied up.
He hurried over to retrieve it, pulling out iodine, gauze, and some painkillers.
“You carry those around with you?”
Qin Lou was genuinely surprised. In his eyes, this young master of the Jiang family was a pampered prince who should have been shielded by a phalanx of bodyguards. Why would he always have medical supplies on hand?
“Of course. In case I get hurt, at least I won’t die from the pain.”
As he spoke, Jiang Chuzhou dipped a cotton swab in iodine to disinfect the man’s wound before sprinkling on the painkiller.
“This might sting. Bear with it.” He blew gently on the wound before carefully winding the gauze around it.
Qin Lou was no stranger to pain.
This level of discomfort was nothing to him.
However, as he watched the young man expertly bandage him, he found himself dazed. “Do you handle your own wounds often?”
“Yeah. Who else would do it?”
“I assumed you’d have bodyguards or someone protecting you. At the very least, your father wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”
As Qin Lou said this, he felt a contradiction. Since meeting this Young Master Jiang, he hadn’t seen a single bodyguard following him. Most of the time, he was alone—which was exactly how he’d ended up kidnapped in the first place.
Was the Hei Bao coach trying to kidnap the young master to extort Jiang Tianyang? He certainly had guts.
“No. My dad is always busy. He doesn’t really care about me. When I got hurt outside as a kid, I just had to endure it. I got smarter later and learned to keep painkillers on me at all times.”
Jiang Chuzhou spoke lightheartedly, but a flash of desolation and loneliness flickered in his eyes. Qin Lou caught it.
“Your mother…”
Hearing someone finally mention his mother after all these years made Jiang Chuzhou’s gaze dim for a moment before he regained his composure.
“I told you before. She’s dead.”
“How did she pass? People say it was an illness?”
Qin Lou couldn’t help but ask. He didn’t know why he was becoming so interested in this young master’s life.
“It wasn’t!”
Jiang Chuzhou’s emotions suddenly spiked.
“Hmm?”
Realizing he had lost his cool, Jiang Chuzhou waved it off quickly.
“Forget it. Family scandals shouldn’t be aired in public! Stop prying!”
“Fine.”
Qin Lou was sensible enough to drop the subject.
Seeing that he had lost interest, Jiang Chuzhou’s pride flared up again.
“If you really want to know, I suppose I could tell you.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to know,” Qin Lou replied with a dry half-smile.
Jiang Chuzhou ignored him, lowering his head and murmuring:
“Actually, I’ve never mentioned my mother to anyone before.”
“Why not?”
“I have plenty of fair-weather friends around me, but they’re all just sycophants. None of them are genuine. If I told them, they’d probably just mock her behind my back.”
Thinking of the past, Jiang Chuzhou’s fury boiled over. He roared: “It was all my father’s fault!”
Qin Lou saw him gnashing his teeth in hatred, confirming his suspicions. He found himself leaning in.
“I’m listening.”
“When I was thirteen, my father stepped on the toes of some major capitalists in the business world. One of them got desperate and hired kidnappers to take my mother. They demanded ten million for her ransom, or they’d kill her.”
Jiang Chuzhou’s eyes reddened. He took a deep breath, suppressing the agonizing emotions as he continued:
“I received a video from the kidnappers showing my mother had been taken. I was terrified and frantic. The driver took me to the commercial district to find my father for help. He was at a press conference competing for a massive project. I couldn’t get in, so I begged his secretary to tell him that my mother’s life was in danger.”
Qin Lou frowned, remaining silent.
Jiang Chuzhou paused, looking dissatisfied.
“You’re supposed to ask ‘and then what’ so I can keep going.”
“And then what?”
“The secretary told him. And do you know what he did? He just carried on with his stupid project as if nothing had happened!”
Jiang Chuzhou clenched his fists and delivered a massive kick to the Hei Bao coach’s shoulder. He poured all his rage and resentment into that one kick.
A sickening crack echoed through the room. It sounded as though the coach’s ribs had snapped.
But no one cared.
“Chairman Jiang… hated his wife? Is that why he was indifferent?” Qin Lou asked, his voice cold.
“No.”
Jiang Chuzhou shook his head, fighting back tears.
“My mother couldn’t wait for him to bring the money. She died at the kidnappers’ hands. I cried and demanded to know why. Why didn’t he save her? He actually told me that the Jiang Corporation was facing a massive financial crisis. Without the capital from that project, they would have gone bankrupt. He didn’t want the business his ancestors had built over three generations to crumble in his hands. If he had left the press conference to save his wife, he would have been forfeiting that project.”
To the day he died, he would never forget the day his mother was killed. The kidnappers had dumped her body outside the Jiang residence.
He had seen her covered in wounds. Her fingers had been broken, her eyes gouged out… there wasn’t a single part of her that was left intact.
That day, he had cried until he lost consciousness multiple times. It had become the darkest shadow of his childhood.
“Even if he didn’t go himself, he could have sent others to rescue her. Why didn’t he?”
Qin Lou was confused. Given Jiang Tianyang’s ability to compete for major projects, it was unlikely he lacked bodyguards or trusted confidants.
“He said he didn’t have ten million at the time. The capitalists were determined to punish him. He claimed there was nothing he could do, so to protect the company’s reputation and his own interests, he chose to let his wife die!”
Jiang Chuzhou let out a mocking snort.
“It’s hilarious. He traded his wife’s life for the longevity of his company. How can a beast like that even exist?”
In this lifetime, he would never forgive his father—that beast in human clothing!
Qin Lou had never seen him this resentful. It seemed this young master, who appeared so cynical on the surface, actually felt things very deeply.
“He is a beast,” Qin Lou agreed. “Is that why you hate him so much?”
“Yeah…”
Jiang Chuzhou lowered his head, his eyes moist.
Qin Lou felt a rare pang of sympathy.
“Don’t cry.”
His vulnerability lasted less than two seconds. Jiang Chuzhou quickly turned his head away and rubbed his eyes, stubbornly insisting: “Who’s crying? I… I just have sand in my eyes!”
Qin Lou’s lips twitched as he saw through the facade.
Jiang Chuzhou waved him off, vowing through his anger:
“Forget it! It’s been years! My mother’s death showed me exactly how vile Jiang Tianyang is. I’ll never give him the time of day. If I can’t beat him, I’ll just squander his entire fortune! I’ll spite him until he drops dead!”
“Good luck with that.”
“All finished.”
Jiang Chuzhou snipped off the excess gauze on the man’s shoulder.
Qin Lou looked at the wound, which had stopped bleeding. His distaste for this young master seemed to have lessened considerably.
“Tha… Thanks.”
He spoke with some awkwardness.
It was the first time Jiang Chuzhou had heard him say thank you. He looked up into the man’s cold eyes, which now held a hint of a smile. They were incredibly sincere… and actually quite handsome.
He turned away stiffly, clutching his pounding chest. He closed his eyes and took a sharp breath.
Why was his heart suddenly racing like this?!
Qin Lou didn’t know what was wrong with him. He tilted his head slightly.
“What are you doing?”
“Thanks for what? Just buy me a drink later, hahaha!”
Jiang Chuzhou turned back awkwardly, scratching his head.
He was the type who could switch emotions in an instant; one moment he was grieving for his mother, the next he was laughing like a carefree idiot.
Qin Lou crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, staring at him as if trying to figure him out.
Jiang Chuzhou quickly redirected the conversation to the Hei Bao coach.
“What are we going to do with this guy?”
Translator’s Note:
- Hei Bao (黑豹): Pinyin for “Black Panther.” In many web novels, team names are kept in pinyin or literal translation.
- Beast in Human Clothing (衣冠禽獸): A Chinese idiom used to describe someone who looks respectable on the outside but acts like a monster. It literally means “a beast in a hat and robes.”
- Young Master (少爺 – Shàoyé): A term for the son of a wealthy family.
- Sycophants (狐朋狗友): Literally “fox friends and dog associates,” meaning bad company or fair-weather friends.
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