Martial Sovereign of the Turbulent World

Chapter 186: Chapter 184: Demon Dragon Guard, Deputy He

"How long... has it been since you came to see your dad?"

Luo Zhengxiong’s voice emanated from behind the black iron mask—muffled, hoarse, and laced with an inhuman, airy hiss.

Luo Chengying lifted his pale face and forced a smile. "Half... half a year. I may not have come, Dad, but I’ve been thinking about you this whole time."

"Half a year..."

Luo Zhengxiong slowly repeated the words, lifting a finger with a nail curved like a hook. He slipped it through a slit in the mask beneath his chin and into his mouth, as if picking fragments of bone and flecks of blood from between his teeth.

The faint scraping sound was skin-crawlingly clear in the dead-silent hall.

"You’re lying!"

Suddenly, he roared.

The terrifying wave of sound, thick with the stench of blood, rattled the vast, empty hall to its foundations.

Luo Chengying dropped to his knees with a thud, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.

"...In the last six months, you’ve been out there doing whatever you wanted, seeing whoever you wanted, thinking about whatever you wanted—the one thing you never thought of was coming to see your dad!"

A red light flared in one of Luo Zhengxiong’s eyes, while large, murky tears streamed from the other. "You don’t spare a thought for your dad, but while I was soaking in the Westerners’ transformation vats, being sawn by knives, scorched by fire, and having thousands of tiny tubes drilled between my bones, all I thought about, day and night, was you and your mother..."

Luo Chengying threw himself at Luo Zhengxiong’s filthy, coarse toes, frantically kissing the scales and keratinous growths, and wept. "Dad, I was wrong! I know I was wrong..."

Luo Zhengxiong stared down at Luo Chengying, who was squirming desperately at his feet like a maggot. He watched as a large, pale yellow stain, reeking of piss, rapidly spread from the man’s crotch.

His gaze suddenly softened.

"Dad doesn’t blame you."

Looking at Luo Chengying, Luo Zhengxiong reached out and slowly wiped the tears and snot from his son’s face.

"Dad knows you fear me, loathe me, hate me..."

"I hate what I’ve become, too."

"But wasn’t everything I’ve done for the both of us?"

Luo Zhengxiong’s voice was a low, hoarse rasp. "You don’t spend enough time in the Concession, so you don’t understand. This country today belongs neither to the Southern Country nor to the North. Sooner or later, it will all belong to the Westerners."

"But the Westerners won’t take charge themselves. They need someone to rule this country for them."

"And that person... is me."

Luo Zhengxiong continued, almost to himself, "In two or three years at the earliest, five or six at the latest, the Xin Republic’s Government is bound to collapse. The people in the North won’t just sit back and watch. When that time comes, the country will fall into chaos, and the Westerners will start making their real moves."

"The Westerners just want a puppet, but I... I can’t be content with being just their puppet."

"If my plan succeeds, they won’t be able to replace me so easily."

Luo Zhengxiong’s chilling gaze fell upon Luo Chengying. "In my current state," he said softly, "I can’t have another son."

"In the future, when I become the Emperor of the New Dynasty, you will be the one and only Crown Prince. If I become the president, then you will be the first son of the President’s Mansion..."

"Chengying, my son... are you happy?"

Luo Chengying forced his head up, his expression a twisted mask of tears and laughter, and nodded repeatedly. "I’m happy, I’m so incredibly happy."

"Good. I’m glad you understand the reasoning behind my suffering."

Luo Zhengxiong nodded, satisfied. His enormous hand, possessing an inhuman strength that was impossible to resist, pressed lightly on Luo Chengying’s thin shoulder. "Now, tell me. Why did you come looking for me today?"

Luo Chengying tensed. Scrambling to his feet, he wiped his face haphazardly with his sleeve and forced a laugh. "It’s nothing, I just wanted to see you, Dad."

"That makes me very happy. I know you’re a devoted son, but you must also tell me the truth."

Luo Zhengxiong said, his voice flat.

Luo Chengying’s shoulders trembled. After a moment of silence, he snapped his head up, his facade crumbling away to reveal nothing but a twisted mask of savagery and resentment. "I want to borrow your soldiers, Dad. I want to kill someone!"

One of Luo Zhengxiong’s eyes narrowed. "Who do you want to kill?"

Luo Chengying’s eyes burned with hatred as he spat out a name: "He Renli."

"No."

Luo Zhengxiong shook his head.

"Why not?"

Luo Chengying cried out, bewildered. "But Dad, you’re the commander of the Jianghai Defense Command! You have tens of thousands of elite soldiers under you. You have the men, you have the guns... Don’t tell me you can’t even touch a former director of the Public Security Bureau? Is it just because he’s one of Wen Zhiqiu’s people?"

"You’re right. It is precisely because he’s one of Wen Zhiqiu’s people."

From beneath the black iron mask, a strange, raspy laugh rumbled in Luo Zhengxiong’s throat, like the grinding of rusty gears.

"Therefore, He Renli’s life... must be left for Nan to collect."

Luo Chengying froze.

Luo Zhengxiong looked away from him, extending a fingertip. As if carving tofu, he casually scored deep gashes into the hard marble floor.

"Did you think the Xin Republic Central sent someone down here to help us deal with Wen Zhiqiu?"

"You’re wrong. They just sent a more obedient replacement for Wen Zhiqiu’s position. And this new replacement will only be more difficult to deal with than Wen Zhiqiu was."

"Don’t be fooled by this Nan fellow acting all friendly. He’s only doing it because he needs something from me..."

Luo Zhengxiong glanced at the "body double" kneeling in the corner and said flatly, "Once we help him take down Wen Zhiqiu, he’ll turn around and come after us first."

"So, you mean we should let Nan Xiangcheng and Wen Zhiqiu fight each other, while we reap the benefits?"

Luo Chengying was finally starting to understand.

Luo Zhengxiong nodded slowly. A rumbling like a beaten drum echoed from his stomach again. He began to scrape up the scattered bits of flesh and blood from the floor, stuffing them casually into his mouth.

"I’ve already promised Nan that I’ll lend him three thousand men to form the ’Southern Country Special Guard Team.’ For now, that should be enough for him to try and challenge Wen Zhiqiu."

"The Westerners’ ’True Dragon Transformation’ on me is entering a critical phase... I need time."

"Right now, the more fiercely those two fight, the better it is for me."

Luo Zhengxiong raised an arm, examining his inhuman limb as if admiring a priceless work of art.

In the dim, hazy light of the hall, his arm, densely covered in blackish-green scales, seemed to share a bizarre Spiritual Resemblance with the claws of the black dragon carved in relief on the wall behind him.

"Right now, the most important thing for us is actually the shipment of Gold and treasure being escorted on the White Dragon..."

"Rumor has it that Emperor Qianming attained enlightenment and became an immortal on Jiwei Mountain. His Armory holds the secret to an Undying life."

"If the rumors are true, then I won’t just be a True Dragon for one lifetime, but a True Dragon for ten thousand generations!"

"When that day comes, what will a few mere Westerners matter...?"

Luo Chengying watched Luo Zhengxiong devour raw flesh while describing his grand ambitions of an eternal, Undying reign, and a frantic mix of terror and ambition churned within his heart.

Snapping back to his senses, he gritted his teeth and continued, "Then... we won’t touch He Renli. But Wen Zhiqiu’s subordinate, Ding Moshan, and that little bastard she’s taken under her wing—they must die!"

"Besides, with Ding Moshan gone, the Qinglian Gang won’t be in my way. It will be much easier for me to use the Woodcutter Gang to find the treasure of eternal life for you, Dad."

Luo Zhengxiong gave a slight nod, the scales on his neck making a soft, rustling sound as they scraped against each other.

"Ding Moshan can die."

"But there’s no need to dispatch troops to deal with her."

"You mean..."

As if struck by a thought, Luo Chengying’s breathing quickened. "You’re going to lend me the Demon Dragon Guard!"

After all this time working with the Westerners in the Concession, Luo Zhengxiong had cooked up more than just the "True Dragon Transformation" project.

Luo Chengying knew his father commanded another group of test subjects who had also undergone the Westerners’ "Demon Fiend biological" transformations. They were organized under the name "Demon Dragon Guard" and were currently hidden in the lowest levels of the Commander’s Mansion.

He subconsciously glanced toward the passageway behind Luo Zhengxiong, a hint of expectation on his face.

Luo Zhengxiong, however, just gave a low chuckle and clapped his hands lightly.

The next second, the light from the wall lamps in the hall suddenly flickered like candlelight.

Then, reflected in Luo Chengying’s suddenly constricting pupils, he saw it—a part of the inky black shadow cast by Luo Zhengxiong’s massive body on the floor seemed to come "alive."

The mass of shadow, like a living, viscous black oil, twisted and writhed, "peeling" itself away from the main shadow and "flowing" rapidly across the floor.

Finally, in a patch of light, it solidified from darkness into a young military officer in a crisp black uniform, with a pale face and eyes as cold as a viper’s.

Luo Chengying saw the face clearly and gasped in horror, "Deputy... Deputy He?!"

"The Deputy He of today is not the Deputy He of the past."

Luo Zhengxiong’s tone was laced with a cruel amusement. "A while back, I captured a rare ’Palace Guardian Demon Dragon’... As it happens, Deputy He made a perfect ’Spirit Shell’ for that Demon Dragon..."

"From now on, Deputy He will follow you. Whoever you want him to kill... he will kill!"

Overjoyed, Luo Chengying threw himself at Luo Zhengxiong’s knees, repeating, "Thank you, Dad! I... I will not fail to live up to your expectations!.."

Luo Zhengxiong’s eyes narrowed slightly. He patted Luo Chengying’s back intermittently with a monstrous claw, savoring this rare moment of twisted, father-son bliss.

Nearby, the pupils of the respectfully standing young officer suddenly contracted into two cold, vertical slits. His lips split into a grin, and a long, forked tongue darted out.

Then, his entire body blurred and distorted as if melting, silently merging into Luo Chengying’s shadow on the floor....