Chapter Thirty-Three: Fairness

Fairness, fairness, damn it, still fairness!

This was the word that appeared most frequently on the flyers distributed and banners hung throughout the city streets after the alliance of the Warrior Group and the Party. The young people selected from all walks of life to become warriors, after being bombarded with modern enlightenment education, often did the same thing first: rallying more warriors to strike a heavy blow against the old order of their industries!

Nepotism? Bribery and gifts? Clan rules and rituals? All nonsense.

A mesh of invisible nets suffocating and unyielding, impossible to resist. The meager scraps one might obtain were leftovers, thrown down like rewards to stray dogs. Not only that, but one was expected to be grateful for such charity.

And before you could even gnaw a few bites off the bone with barely any meat, they’d conjure new excuses to snatch it back—demanding you return it, and then some, as tribute.

But now, as a warrior, your fists are harder than steel, harder than iron.

Now…

As long as you have talent, or catch the immortal master’s eye, you can become a warrior.

What you could never attain in the past—take it for yourself now!

With the immortal master’s arrival, there is fairness! With warriors here, the sky is blue again!

In this era, too many teeter on the brink of hunger and death. The young lord in his sedan car chews on Western fast food, while outside, peasants wear faces of worry, selling their sons and daughters just to survive. Who wouldn’t want to gorge on Western fare? Who would wish to sell their children just to keep more family alive? In the past, rebellion in the face of a gun was a desperate cry, the last gasp when there was truly no other way out.

But such cries were always drowned out by the rattle of gunfire.

Now, things were different.

To silence the shout of warriors, guns alone would not suffice—one needed dynamite, cannons, the thunder of ironclads! And as it happened, warriors had guns too, and cannons, and ironclads of their own. Perfectly fair!

“Rebels, rebels, you mob! Scoundrels! Ruin three generations of my family’s fortune, and you’ll die wretched deaths—my empire’s celestial troops will exterminate your clans!”

“Spare us, spare us! Warrior masters, we’ve never sold laborers abroad! We just ran brothels for a bit of flesh money!”

“Release me, release me! I am a high official of the court—how dare you rebel scum judge me? Mere riff-raff dare bring charges against me? If I feed you to the dogs, so what?”

“Wicked sorcerers must face heavenly retribution! Plundering the people, amassing fortunes—where is your legitimacy, your longevity?!”

The president of the Sindh Transportation Company, Dean, was personally driving and growing ever more agitated with the wretched traffic conditions. The city roads, especially around the lampposts, were scenes of utter chaos.

Gunshots rang out from time to time, voices of warriors reading proclamations, the noise of citizens eager to report news—all told Dean that this city was bleeding. The mob, incited by that evil sorcerer, was committing unspeakable acts against respectable gentlemen, and even those not subject to Xinghan law, like himself, were affected.

From the back seat, his wife, Felia, added her appreciative commentary now and then, pushing Dean’s frustration to murderous levels.

All of this, he thought, was because of Blue Yi, that wicked sorcerer!

If only he would disappear. Then this peaceful, prosperous, docile land would return to its former state, and the women bewitched by his magic would come to their senses again.

That damned magician was arrogant and careless. He hadn’t even bothered to conceal his whereabouts. Still needing to eat and breathe, Blue Yi would never imagine that there were women in his midst who hadn’t been enchanted—one of whom had already been dosed with slow-acting poison today. Nor would he suspect that while he reveled with the wives and daughters of others, assassins were already in place, bombs laid and strapped to their bodies, and that Albert and others had been persuaded to send him to hell.

Besides all this, Dean had successfully reached the fleet commander of the punitive expedition moving south to suppress the warriors. The moment the commander heard he had Blue Yi’s location and time, he immediately thumped his chest and promised to deliver naval artillery at the appointed time—enough to send that debauched sorcerer to hell.

In addition, Dean had obtained from the most devout priest a cross personally blessed by a Vatican bishop. He had sharpened it to a deadly point and placed it in the hands of his wife, Felia—her mind restored by the cross, agreeing to his plan.

All that was left was to wait…

Whenever Dean thought of personally sending his cold, aloof, and chaste wife into Blue Yi’s bed, his vision reddened, and his grip on the horn tightened with vengeful force.

Endure!

“Felia, I’m sorry to make you suffer the humiliation of that evil sorcerer again. Your beauty will surely entrance him and make him careless.”

“Oh.” The president’s wife’s voice grew noticeably colder.

“Don’t worry. I swear, as soon as our plan succeeds, we’ll return home at once. Not only will the prime minister favor me, even Her Majesty the Queen herself will grant me a title.”

Dean went on and on, painting a grand picture of their future.

He failed to notice how his wife’s icy beauty grew colder still.

Sometimes, for a woman, her looks are not the proudest or most dazzling feature—they can become the deepest insult and wound.

When rational, Felia could sense—

The man who made her sink, who brought back the sweetness and longing of first love at eighteen, valued her for her abilities—not just her beauty.

And that… utterly fascinated her.

The International Press Club.

This Western-style villa had become Blue Yi’s residence and daily office. Along with him, a host of warriors and Party members had moved in. The logic was simple: the closer one was to power, the more power one could possess.

Naturally, the place teemed with visitors—warriors, merchants, technicians, officials, citizens coming to pay their respects, curious foreign journalists, spies from the north, martial artists seeking a new master, and talented men hoping to showcase their abilities.

To meet Immortal Blue Yi was akin to ascending to heaven in a single bound!

And if he favored you, entrusted you with responsibility, granted you martial powers or command of troops, you would be one of the chosen, and your ancestors’ graves would be smoking with pride!

Under normal circumstances, Dean would never have had a chance to see Blue Yi, not even as a prominent foreigner.

What were foreigners worth? In the eyes of the Party and the warriors, they were merely people—people with plenty of flaws.

Yet if Dean brought his wife Felia for an interview, the warriors responsible for inspection and security had no grounds to stop him. Not only did they not stop him, they even wore strange smiles as they let this foreigner, so willing to endure humiliation for his cause, pass through—waiving the usual checks because of Felia.

Dean felt as if his face was aflame. His gums nearly bled from how hard he clenched his teeth, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that among the bustling crowd, several Sindhi who looked almost indistinguishable from the local Xinghan people had already mingled in as well.