Hidden Assassin

Chapter 45 – Meeting at the Pavilion

TL: Milaryn

Edit: IlkonEbi

If one were to live with great integrity, one should vote when reading books. Once someone had already placed their eggs in someone else’s basket, they are not allowed to not help out. Conversely, the current situation could not be ignored, but it also could not be considered to be an extreme one either.

The five big-name families in Jianghai City were led by the Fang family, then followed by the Huang, Lu, Zhang and Liu families. They were all considered well-known, as most of these families were involved in politics; for example, one of the Huang family members was a Provincial Party Secretary. Since the political reform and opening up of Deng Xiaoping’s policies that were set in the 1980s, there was a rapid rise in development. The Zhang and Liu families had a strategic alliance in the market: the Liu family produced the raw materials, while the Zhang family would handle the sales of those materials. Over the years, the both of them had jointly expanded their trade overseas. Smooth sailing aside, some people, who had a keen instinct, could feel a crisis incoming. This was how the year 1996 looked like.

As to Jiaming, even though he was an assassin in his previous life, he knew that at the beginning of June in 1997, a huge financial crisis would sweep across the whole of Asia. China’s foundations were not affected; however, they still felt the effects of the waves. Even though the Zhang family was unable to predict the future, it felt that its business had developed too quickly and it did not have stable foundations. Thus, that year, the Zhang family decided to consolidate the center of their operations by returning to their roots in China. However, the Liu family refused to do the same and a rift appeared between them.

The truth was, even though the relationship between the first generation was excellent, when it came to Zhang Yahan’s generation, they did not get along at all, causing the elders to feel somewhat anxious. This was because the Liu family had an extremely spoiled second generation heir, Liu Wenli. As the age of the two was close the adults had often teased them, despite the fact that they did not really have any interaction with each other. However, when Yahan returned from studying overseas, this Liu Wenli stuck to her like a flea. This was because Yahan now had three special characteristics that caused men to flock to her – she was a beauty, she had the title of a genius overseas student, and she had an alluring aura that attracted men.

Thus, Yahan was stuck.

The fracture had been caused by the expansion plan disagreement and the younger generation not getting along. Thus, when Liu Wenli begged his grandmother for a whole night to reconcile the two families, the Liu family set out a condition: Zhang Yahan had to marry Liu Wenli before the Liu family would completely support the Zhang family on their company development plan. Besides, since the younger generation were already not on harmonious terms, they might as well drop the pretense now.

Of course, the relationship between the two families could not be completely broken off. Even though Liu Wenli was a second generation with no good qualities, he was still the Liu family’s future successor. Regardless of Yahan’s title as a genius overseas student, she was still just a chess piece that could be married off to the Liu family. If the arranged marriage was successful, not only would it be economically prosperous for their businesses, it would bring the younger generation together too. Thus, Yahan had no choice but to ask for help from Jiaming.

Jiaming guessed that young little Yahan probably wanted to wreck havoc during the engagement party, then escape on a getaway car with a small bag of money and hide out at some other city for around 8-10 years before coming back. He thought that she either read too many novels or watched too many movies to come up with an inane idea like that. Not only would it cause too many waves, there also was a high possibility of failure. If it was not successful, he could get implicated as a conspirator. With these thoughts on his mind, that same night, he started doing some research on Liu Wenli and the previous generations of the Liu family.

It was not a difficult matter for him, because he had already gathered some valuable intel on the second night. When the third night arrived, Jiaming brought a VCD to the Zhang family’s large mansion. The Zhang family had a security system that was considered top of the line at that time, but Jiaming easily took control of the computer system before scaling the wall. He crept his way to Yahan’s room, which was on the second floor of the mansion.

Jiaming did not carefully research the details of the Zhang family’s land. It was only through casual conversation that he knew that her room had a gorgeous windowsill and was on the second floor. If he wanted to know the exact room, he would have to find the half-bankrupt construction company and look through all their construction plans. Since that was too much effort, and he figured that the Zhang family’s security guards would not pose a threat to him, he acted like Batman and easily glided into the mansion grounds.

The Zhang family’s mansion design was quite artistic – each large windowsill was aesthetically designed to protrude on the outside. To Jiaming, these windowsills were like a staircase for voyeurs, because one could easily leap from one window ledge to the other, then leap again to lightly land in front of another window. Jiaming easily demonstrated by peeking through three different rooms (each with different exciting things happening in them) before climbing to the side of the mansion onto a window ledge with the shutters half-closed. He guessed that this was Yahan’s room.

It turned out to be a bathroom window. When he peeked through the shutters, he saw a completely naked Yahan, who had just finished bathing and was wiping her body with a fluffy towel. He barely managed to ogle her before someone entered the edge of his peripheral vision. He quickly flipped himself onto the balcony in front of Yahan’s room and hurriedly slipped into her room through the glass door.

This room was shrouded in darkness and the only source of light was a sliver leaking from the bathroom door. As soon as Jiaming entered, the bathroom door suddenly opened and he did not have time to hide as he closed the glass door behind him. Thus he pressed the light switch and with a ‘click’, the room was flooded with light.

“Shhhh!”

Scared that Yahan would scream at the sudden intruder, Jiaming moved towards her and placed a silencing finger on her lips to prevent her from saying anything, while the two of them stared at each other blankly.

Jiaming was cowering when he placed a finger on Yahan’s lips after she had left the bathroom naked. It was not yet summer and the nights were quite chilly, so when she finished bathing, she rushed directly to her room, as her clothing was laid out on her bed. She tiptoed out on her dainty bare feet, but suddenly stopped as she saw Jiaming; her arms were clasped around her bosom with nothing hiding her well-developed figure.

Perfect, exquisite curves and a beautiful flawless body… After a brief pause, Yahan clasped a hand to her mouth and quickly turned around. She slipped and fell on the ground, but ignoring the pain, she crawled her way into the bathroom and hurriedly shut the door behind her.

A moment later, a completely flushed Yahan came out of the bathroom while wrapped in a large towel. She opened the glass door that led to her balcony and peeked out to see what the situation was, before turning back to the black-clothed boy. He was currently making a mess of her desk by sitting on it and she was ready to yell at him.

“Speak… how did you get in here and even… even managed to…” Yahan’s tone was dangerously low as she viciously questioned him, indicating that there were people around outside her room.

“Um, don’t lose your temper, I can explain!” Jiaming smiled uneasily, “I didn’t know you would run out of the bathroom naked. I expected you to be wearing a towel…”

“It’s my room, you don’t decide whether I wrap myself in a towel or not!” Yahan instantly snapped at him before controlling the volume of her voice. She climbed on her bed and wrapped herself in the blanket before patting the side of her bed. “Be honest with me, how did you get here… Hmph, I knew you weren’t as simple as you looked…”

“I only know a few things, ok? The one that’s amazing is my master; he helped me find the layout of your mansion and determined which one was your room, as well as dig up dirt on Liu Wenli… I only really know how to climb a few walls.”

“Your master… Like I would believe that.” Jiaming sat on her bed, looking innocent, as she eyed him suspiciously before processing what he said. She asked him excitedly, “Hurry up and tell me what kind of dirt you found on Liu Wenli?”

“Of course it’s something good.” Jiaming took out the VCD and waved it, then pointed at the TV and VCD player, “Can I use that?”

“Of course.” Yahan quietly said, “But you’ll have to lower the volume, there are two bodyguards stationed outside day and night.”

Jiaming turned the TV on and then went to turn off the room light. The naked Yahan, who was still only wrapped in a blanket, stared at the boy intensely under the glare of the TV screen. “Hey, that time at the summer camp, did you do it on purpose? You handled those two robbers, right?”

“It was an accident, only an accident, that time.” Jiaming glanced at her quickly, before taking off his shoes and climbing onto the bed. He made a gesture seeming like he would pull the blanket off her. In the darkness, Yahan stretched a leg out from under the blanket to give him a kick as she pouted cutely, “Get lost, in your dreams.”

“How can you say we’re friends? It’s such a cold night and there’s only one blanket. I’m willing to sacrifice myself for you, so you should make some sacrifices for me too.”

“I really do want to sacrifice you right now… Does that CD belong to Liu Wenli? What kind of devastating secret is on it?”

“Just watch, you’ll see. It should be absolutely brilliant.”

As the VCD started, the tied-up naked body of a girl could be seen on the TV screen.

“Go die! You came late at night to watch porn from Liu Wenli’s collection?”

Yahan had aimed a kick at Jiaming, but he grabbed her foot before it landed. “Just continue watching, ok?”

“Let go of my foot.” Yahan’s ears turned pink as she pulled her foot back. The two of them leaned on the edge of the bed as the video continued playing. The girl was letting out obscene sounds and it seemed like a couple was doing some SM play. The camera angle only showed the naked back of the male figure and Yahan thought it seemed somewhat familiar. When the angle suddenly changed, she quietly exclaimed, “That’s Liu Wenli!”

“Hmm, I don’t know who he is, this was something my master had passed to me. He set up quite a few secret video cameras and it should have filmed from all different angles. Oh, I haven’t watched it, so this is quite interesting…”

After another two minutes, as Liu Wenli pulled on tight leather shoes, Yahan unexpectedly snatched the remote control from Jiaming’s hands and turned off the TV. “It-it’s fine, we can stop. You don’t need to continue watching something like that…”

“Tsk.” Seeing that the blanket did nothing to hide the signs of arousal on Yahan’s body, Jiaming pretended he did not see anything and quietly said, “Besides, since you have such a large family, you should at least have some sort of projection system right? If you show this CD to your family privately, they would probably ignore it for the sake of the future of their business. But you should arrange to show this video to everyone at the engagement party that’s happening on the evening two days later. Also, here are two notebooks – it’s a record on the shady dealings Liu Wenli did at his family’s business. If you do all that…”

He did not get to finish speaking, when the sound of a key turning in a lock to open a door could be heard. Yahan had caused a huge scene at home yesterday, so currently her movements had been restricted. An older female voice spoke, “Yahan, have you fallen asleep yet?”

In a state of emergency, Jiaming instantly thought to rush out to the windowsill, but before he could move, Yahan had thrown herself and the blanket over him, pressing him down onto the bed with her body.

“Argh, what are you doing? You’re squishing me to death…”

“Hurry up and hide…”

“I’m in your bed, wouldn’t running outside be better…”

“Ah… it’s too late…”

“Mmph, you’re crushing me…”

Originally, there was a better alternative than this dubious situation that was caused purely by Yahan feeling guilty. Firm and naked thighs clamped around Jiaming’s neck and her body was curled awkwardly around him. As the blanket covered the two of them, after a frantic adjustment, Jiaming tried to curl up closer towards her. He shamelessly ended up hugging one of her thighs as he positioned himself in between her legs – the top of his head close to her warm ****. It was a good thing that the blanket was quite large and it was dark enough, so things could not be seen clearly.

Feeling Jiaming’s light breathing on the inner of her thigh, Yahan’s heartbeat fluttered; at that moment, the door opened and a woman entered. “Oh, you’re sleeping so early?”

“Ah, Little Mom, I already fell asleep. Don’t turn on the light…”

“Ok, I won’t. I just had a discussion with your father, and there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“Hoho, you know Little Mom can’t keep a secret. Little Mom will only sleep tonight after telling you, so be sure to listen properly.”

With a smile, she entered the room and closed the door behind her. Then she sat down at the edge of the bed…

TL Note:

As to the title of this chapter, it’s based on one of China’s Four Great Folktales, The Butterfly Lovers. It’s a tragic love story about a pair of lovers that were unable to be with each other as the lady’s family arranged for her to be married to a man from a rich family. In the end, she dies to be with the man she loves and they become butterflies together (:

Links below for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Lovers

This is the scene where the soon-to-be-ex-lovers meet at the pavilion and laments that they cannot be together due to the arranged marriage:

The translated version of a performance script (starts around page 45):

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Next chapter release is March 30th. Sorry announcement post was a bit late today, it’s been quite busy recently…

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