The Nine Cauldrons

Chapter 2: His Name is “Wolf”

A while after Teng Qingshan had left the county, two shabby Santana cars drove to a stop near the courtyard.

There were a total of three people in the first car, and a sturdy man dressed in black was sitting in the back seat with a heat detector in one hand. After carefully observing for a while, he whispered, “Hey, guys, there shouldn’t be anyone in the yard. Let’s go!”

Immediately, six people hopped out of the two cars. Five Asian men and a Caucasian man.

“I really hope that fellow isn’t here…” The sturdy leader dressed in black muttered.

“If he really is here, we will all die – no matter how many people we have with us,” the Caucasian man whispered. Although they felt very anxious, they didn’t dare to disobey the commands of their organization, so they forced themselves forward. They separated towards the corners of the courtyard walls, and vaulted over the walls into the yard. Within seconds, they finished checking the entire courtyard.

The sturdy man was relieved. ”The target has fled, and all that remains here is the dead body of Xiao Si. We’ve now confirmed that the target is in the region near An Yi County. We have completed our mission, so we might as well return and get some rest. By the way, bring Xiao Si’s body with us – and thoroughly clean up the surrounding area.”

They were very skilled at doing these sorts of things.

***

Located in northern Italy was an Adriatic coastal city called “Watertown”, in Venice, which had a long and rich history. In the past, Venice held supreme power throughout Europe. Nowadays, this ancient city still had many historic buildings that had existed since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

In Venice, there was a red-brick ancient castle that had existed for a few hundred years. This castle was also known as the ‘Red Fort’, or ‘Blood Fort’, and it was the oldest ancestral home of the Redmayne Family. Even though the forces of the Redmayne Family were stretched throughout the entire western areas, the ‘Red Fort’ was still the base of the Redmayne Family’s highest authorities.

***

Within a dark hall in the ‘Red Fort.’

A giant LCD screen hung on the wall, showing a detailed map. In the hall stood a young man with short, auburn hair, and a silver-haired elderly man.

“Young master, the Hand of Darkness organization has sent us a message. ‘Wolf’ has appeared in An Yi County, which is located in the Jiang Su Province of the ancient oriental country. I have informed the Death Scythe organization of this.” The silver-haired elderly man spoke with respect.

The young man’s face turned slightly pale, and his eyes became cold as he commanded, “The presence of the ‘Wolf’ is a shame to the Redmayne family! I want the ‘Wolf’ to be killed as quickly as possible and at any cost! You must finish everything before my father learns of it!”

“Yes sir.” the silver-haired elderly man nodded in response.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps resonated throughout the hall. The expression of the young man immediately changed as he saw an auburn, short-haired, bearded, middle-aged man walk in.

“Father!” The youth immediately bowed.

“Patriarch.” The silver-haired elderly man also bowed immediately.

All the lineal descendants of the Redmayne Family had auburn hair. The bearded, middle-aged man was the person who held the highest authority in the Redmayne family – Alexander Redmayne.

Alexander cast a cold look at his son. “Ambrose, my child, you’ve really let me down.”

“Father, I… I was just trying to solve this problem as soon as possible.” The auburn-haired youth lowered his head.

“Solve this as soon as possible? I‘ve really started to doubt your ability then! If it weren’t for my friend who informed me, I wouldn’t even have learned that such a big issue had arisen.” Alexander humphed, and said, “Even now, I still cannot believe the news. Ambrose, tell me very clearly, all the details – from beginning to end – right now. ”

The lineal descendant of the family, ‘Ambrose’, raised his head and moved in front of a computer. “Father, this happened mainly because of a hitman with the code name ‘Wolf’.” As he was talking, he typed in a series of keys on the keyboard, and numerous images, text and news articles appeared on the giant LCD screens on the wall of the hall.

“Twenty-two years ago, the ‘Red’ organization – one of the two great hitman organizations controlled by our family – collected three-hundred and sixty well-built children from all over the world. ‘Wolf’ was amongst them. According to our historical records, ‘Wolf’ was Chinese and was seven years old at that time. After our first round of screening, he was one of the only one-hundred and thirteen surviving children out of the original three-hundred and sixty.”

Alexander looked at the description on the screen. The hitman organization selected new members every year, and the screening was extremely brutal. The participants came out either dead or alive; there was no third option.

“The one-hundred and thirteen children who survived were sent to a Siberian camp for training. After three years, there were only thirty-eight survivors left and ‘Wolf’ was still one of them. There, he was then officially awarded his code name, ‘Wolf’.”

“The thirty-eight candidates were then sent to Mr. Teng, who only accepted four disciples. ‘Wolf’ was among them. Six years later, when ‘Wolf’ was sixteen, he returned to the ‘Red’ organization. ‘Wolf’ and ‘Cat’ were the strongest ones amongst those four hitmen, and they completed various missions.”

“Last Christmas, I was asked to implement an SS-level, three hundred million dollar mission.” The auburn-haired youth, ‘Ambrose’, lowered his voice. “The ‘Red’ organization had not completed any SS-level tasks in the past twenty years. Therefore, for the three hundred million dollars reward, and the revival of the ‘Red’ organization’s reputation, I accepted the mission.”

“My child, you are even crazier than a she-wolf protecting her kid,” Alexander humphed coldly. “An SS-level mission is the highest ranked type of mission in the underworld, and the ‘Red’ organisation is simply incapable of completing one. Even if the organization was able to complete it, it would have to pay an extremely high price.”

“I had the top eight administrators of the ‘Red’ organization prepare a good plan. They spent a lot of effort and finally decided to use Wolf and Cat as bait for the successful completion of the task!” The red-haired young guy said. “In my opinion, Wolf and Cat were just A-level hitmen. They would only be able to bring one to two hundred million dollars in revenue to our organization in their entire lives. However, if we sacrificed them, we would not only receive three hundred million dollars, but we would also revive the ‘Red’ organization’s reputation. So why not?”

“Humph,” Alexander sneered, “But the result turned out to be very bad.”

“Yes, father,” the red-haired young guy sighed deeply. “I did not expect that… I didn’t even dare to think that… the professional hitman, ‘Wolf’, someone who had done so much work for us over the course of many years, somehow had hid his true strength!” The red-haired youth took a deep breath.

“His strength is far more than simply A-rank!”

“There was a mandate in which the organization wanted to have both of them die as bait. ‘Cat’ died, but ‘Wolf’ was still very much alive. When he learned that his partner, ‘Cat’, was killed, Wolf launched a frenzied revenge! He went alone to the ‘Red’ headquarters to kill everyone there!”

Alexander’s face changed color after hearing that. Fighting against all the hitmen in the headquarters completely alone? How crazy did this sound?! Even the most powerful person in the family was impressed by that hitman’s madness.

“Wolf had lived in the ‘Red’ Organization for twenty years. Through his familiarity with the Organization, he secretly sneaked in and almost half of the two A-rank and fifty-two B-rank hitmen were unknowingly killed by him. Because he was so familiar with the headquarters, he was able to quietly infiltrate it. He also killed seven out of the eight top senior administrators of the ‘Red’ organization. When the organization noticed that there was an intruder, it reacted to the threat and dispatched a force; Wolf then began to show off his unbelievable strength. Alone, he fought against two A-rank hitmen. His ability was far above the strength of an ordinary A-rank, and he soon killed both of them. Afterwards, he quickly finished off the last member of the top eight senior administrators. Later, he even single-handedly won a fight against more than twenty B-rank hitmen. He was hurt, but all of the A and B rank hitmen of the ‘Red’ organization were completely wiped out.”

Alexander’s face became pale. “More than twenty B-rank hitmen?” Alexander couldn’t believe it. In a battle against two A-rank hitmen, he might win. But defeating over twenty B-rank hitmen was far too shocking! Those twenty powerful hitmen were very unlikely to lose!

“He must be at least an S-rank hitman! Maybe even higher!” Alexander made such a judgment.

“Yes, the World of Darkness has adjusted ‘Wolf’s rank to S-rank hitman. In the entire world, there are only fifty S-rank hitmen, including ‘Wolf’.” Ambrose sighed. “If I had known this in advance, how could I have ever attempted to use him as bait?! One S-rank hitman is worth billions of dollars, and I would have never tried to exchange him for three-hundred million. For every single billion people worldwide, there is only one S-rank hitman! Tch… Of course, this doesn’t include some of the hidden hitmen. However, this fact stresses how precious ‘Wolf’ is.”

For decades, the ‘Red’ organization had had no S-rank hitman. The difference between a S-rank hitman and an A-rank hitman was really too large!

“After his successful revenge, he escaped. Naturally, I recruited people from the Underworld for a mission and began pursuing him.”

“However, this ‘Wolf’ really is powerful.

“He escaped from Russia and fled to the Hei Long Jiang province in the ancient oriental country through the Sino-Russian border. In the end, we couldn’t find any trace of him. Searching for a Chinese person in an ancient oriental country with Chinese people everywhere was very difficult. However, not long ago, the Hand of Darkness organization finally found ‘Wolf’. He appeared in the territory of a county in the Jiang Su Province.”

After talking for so long, Ambrose looked rather unpleasant.

“He is an excellent hitman, and could have been the strongest fangs of the Redmayne family…” Alexander sighed loudly. After hearing the experiences of the hitman, he held a bit of admiration for the person called ‘Wolf’. However, the ‘Red’ organization was operated by the Redmayne family and it had been obliterated because of an internal traitor! “This is the cruelest joke in the World of Darkness! For centuries, the World of Darkness has never witnessed a play such as this!”

Ambrose also lowered his head. It was really a shame! A powerful organization was destroyed due to a traitor’s thirst for revenge. This was simply inconceivable. He knew that the Redmayne family, an ancient family that had existed for several hundreds of years, couldn’t take this humiliation!

“Kill him! No one can live after challenging the Redmayne Family!” Alexander growled with a low voice. An endless, boiling anger could be felt throughout the hall.