Chapter 17 - Strip (1/2)

“Who are you? How’d you get in?” The boss’ right-hand man sitting beside him shouted.

Adrian pulled back the hood he was wearing for camouflage. The man’s question did not bother him at all, neither did all the guns that were pointing towards him; he stared only at Zhong Yan and said, “Come here.”

Without even a moment of hesitation, Zhong Yan obeyed his order and ran towards Adrian. Someone shouted for him to stop and turned his gun to him, but he did not stop. He knew that Adrian would take care of him. The only thing he heard was two bangs when two of the guns pointed readily towards Zhong Yan flew out from the pirates’ hands.

The deterring power of his technique was clear to see. Even if the two pirates were unharmed, it was a perfect show of the man’s precision and skill. For a moment, nobody dared to make any moves, but Zhong Yan had already reached Adrian in a few quick seconds.

“You’re really f*cking good at starting trouble,” Adrian shot fiercely at him, “I’ll deal with you later.”

Zhong Yan’s arm was caught by Adrian’s rough grasp, and he was pulled over to him with a tug. It was obvious that Adrian did not loosen his grip. He could feel the pain of his fingers digging into his arm, but he did not ask him to let go. In a soft voice, he contended, “How is this my fault? I was even starting to wonder whether it was you who sent the pirates.”

Adrian was so pissed that he could practically drop dead. “Would I need to hire a bunch of pirates to stop you? With your pitiful ship and your useless security team…”

“That ship isn’t pitiful. It’s the latest design and it cost a lot. Have you received my men?”

“Like hell I would!”

“Hey, listen.” The head of the space pirates sitting at the top spoke with a face red with anger when he saw the two of them arguing. “How long are you planning to flirt around for?”

One of the lackeys from outside the hall quickly stumbled into the room. He kneeled down with his head plastered to the floor and shouted, “Boss! What he said was true! We—we’re surrounded by the Navi Military Command’s warships! Their men are boarding the ship, and our security doors have already been broken—ah!”

The man who came after him gave the back of the lackey a hefty kick. It was a young Navi military officer. He looked towards Adrian and said, “Boss, we’ve taken over the security doors, should we search…oh, you’ve already found the special commissioner?”

Adrian responded, “Did you lot get lost on the way or something? You’re so slow.”

“The single-seater you left in was the fastest, and the speed is almost twice that of a large warship. We’ve already rushed over in the fastest speed we can.” The officer was helpless.

“Go.” With his gun in one hand and Zhong Yan the other, Adrian was just about to leave when he heard the head of the pirates shout, “Hold it right there!”

Adrian was getting impatient. “Speak quickly, I’m in a hurry.”

The leader stood up and walked slowly down the steps towards the center of the hall. He was a tall man whose body exuded an aura of bloodthirst that put tingles on ones’ scalp when they faced him. Adrian took a half step forward and covered Zhong Yan behind him.

“What will I do with my reputation if I let you waltz off just like that? What’s this pretty boy to you?”

“None of your business,” Adrian spat out.

The space pirate laughed. “I can tell even if you don’t say it. I was just thinking the two of you were pretty familiar a while ago, but sure enough, looking at you now, you’ve got those hateful silver eyes. You’re Adrian Yate.”

He came closer and closer. Previously, his face that could not be clearly seen from their distance was fully revealed under the lights. Actually, he had the face of a man full of charm, but it was only destroyed by the long scar on it as well as his fierce temper. As Zhong Yan looked at him, a look of disbelief started to emerge on his face.

Adrian responded, “That’s right, it’s me, your daddy. My boys have you surrounded, so do you really think you can stop me?—What’re you doing?”

He was only able to finish half of what he wanted to say before Zhong Yan began tugging at his clothes from behind. Impatiently, he turned around towards the person at his side. “Save it for later, can’t you see the situation right now?”

“You can use your heavy weapons to turn us all into dust later,” the head of the space pirates started to laugh like a maniac, “but if you’re gonna just swagger out of here like this, you’re gonna have to wait till I strip your skin!”

Space pirates were loyal to their code and had no fear of death. Adrian had personally dealt with more than a few space pirate crews, so he was very clear on how these gangs operated. Hearing what he said, he also started to laugh. “Great, then let’s go by your rules—I’ll fight you one-on-one, and if I win, I’ll be taking him…What’re you doing?!”

Zhong Yan was desperately tugging at his clothes from behind, and in a fit of anger, Adrian pulled his clothes free from his hands. Zhong Yan had an awkward expression on his face, but he didn’t feel like talking about it in public, so he whispered to him, “Wait, don’t fight with him first, I need to tell you something…”

“Whatever it is, you can tell me when the fight’s over!”

“No! I have to tell you right now!” Zhong Yan looked a little anxious, and clearly only both the opposing head and him realized this; but since the other party had no intention of saying it, he would have to speak up.

Adrian wasn’t listening to him at all, but Zhong Yan could not be bothered about that right now. He got up on the balls of his feet and tried to climb his way up Adrian’s arm to reach his ear. Zhong Yan’s voice was very light, but to Adrian, it felt like a crack of thunder.

Zhong Yan said, “I think that person is…your father.”

……

Half an hour later, Warship Infirmary.

The space pirates’ ship had already been completely taken over by Navi’s troops. Since their leader had been defeated by the general commander of the Navi Military Command, the group of pirates were not too upset about it, and there was no serious conflict. Adrian had come out in a hurry this time around and didn’t bring any medical staff with him. At this moment, everyone was busy, so Zhong Yan could only harden his wits and head over himself.