Chapter 11: Anywhere Could Be Home
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The night fell. Colorful and vibrant neon lights were sparkling in the city. The ambience was slowing down and there were few passersby on the street; some were window shopping, some were taking a stroll, some were walking their dogs. After a busy day ended, the fast-paced metropolitan was finally winding down.
Mo Wen randomly looked for a restaurant to finish his meal. Afterwards, he started to roam the streets.
The capital was one of few metropolitans in the country of Hua Xia; the average population exceeded ten million. Being in this huge city alone was like being a grain of sand on a beach — inconspicuous.
Mo Wen had been in the capital for about three to four years as he had studied in the capital’s leading high school. However, he still felt as foreign as ever. No matter how long he lived there, he was just a tortoise curled up in a corner, or an ant on an iceberg in this place.
He recalled that he rarely had time to window shop along the main streets. When he was in school, most of his time was spent on his studies. He hardly ever left the school yard. Besides coming out to work small jobs in the suburbs every day, he was sleeping. His social circles were pathetically small.
Although he still retained a natural curiosity towards the outside world, it was as though the world was covered by a layer of yarn, isolating his eyes from it.
Mo Wen stared at the flashing neon lights above his head and his heart surged with a multitude of emotions. Suddenly, he felt like going home to tell his mother the good news of him finally being able to enter Hua Xia University. Being alone in a lonely city; what else was there for him to love except home?
The night was dark and quiet. He strode into the capital’s North Forest Park alone. For the homeless, the park was undoubtedly their home; at least nobody would chase them away.
Yes, he had been reborn. And he prepared to spend his first night after his rebirth in the park. When his lifetime memory from another world had awakened, he knew he would never be the same Mo Wen as before. However, he could no longer tell which one was the real him. Perhaps both were him. This life and the previous life… who could differentiate them clearly?
Just as Mo Wen was getting ready to find a nice bench in the park, the sky as his blanket, the Earth as his bed and get a good night’s sleep, two chilling voices sounded from the trees in front of him.
“Stop.”
Following that, two shadows, one tall, one short, emerged from in front of and behind him, surrounding him. In their hands, there was the cold shine of blades.
“Give up all of your valuables.”
The tall guy glared at Mo Wen. The foot long blade in his hand slightly lifted. If Mo Wen showed any signs of resistance, the blade would slip in clean and come out stained.
Robbery!
“Actually, I may be even poorer than you guys!”
Mo Wen shrugged his shoulders, stating helplessly. What was happening to robbers nowadays? They don’t seem to have good eyes. Any normal person could see that Mo Wen was a poor soul, but they still wanted to rob him. What justice was this?
“Just shut up, give up all your valuables. Otherwise you’re dead.”
The guy who was slightly shorter glared at Mo Wen; he took a step forward and was ready to put the blade to Mo Wen’s throat.
Mo Wen scowled and slightly took a step back, by chance avoiding the short one’s blade.
“How dare you dodge? Get him.”
Seeing that Mo Wen refused to cooperate, the short one’s face turned cold. Malice flashed in his eyes; immediately he called upon the tall guy to be ruthless with Mo Wen.
A cold glint flashed past Mo Wen’s eyes. The shortie’s gaze was bleak. It showed that he was definitely not joking, he might even have done this often.
He was a habitual offender!
Mo Wen smiled wryly. These two were most likely not some petty brigands. Who knew how much blood had stained their hands? He couldn’t help but sigh at his own luck; even his casual stroll in the park could lead to an encounter with two atrocious criminals.
The shortie seemed to be more aggressive than the tall guy. He made a lunge and his blade attacked Mo Wen ferociously. The tall guy behind didn’t stay idle though. He enclosed from the back, cutting off Mo Wen’s way of escape.
Mo Wen gasped, but didn’t duck. His calm gaze flickered with a cold glint that rarely showed. The next second, they could only see his hand casually wave; his speed wasn’t very fast, but the angle was extremely peculiar.
Kacha!
A sharp snap sounded, followed by the short one shrieking in pain. The blade clattered onto the floor. His arm went limp; it seemed to have been forcefully dislocated.
“You are a dead man, brat.”
Seeing what happened, the tall guy behind him barked angrily and leapt forward, assaulting Mo Wen’s back with a blade. He didn’t seem to be holding back at all; he was attacking with his full strength and a gust of wind stirred up by his blade movement gushed forth.
Mo Wen calmly sidestepped to avoid the the tall guy’s blade. His left hand once again reached out and waved quietly. The whole process didn’t show a spark of violence, let alone fierceness, but the tall guy felt his body go numb until he couldn’t hold the blade in his hand any longer. The blade clattered onto the floor.
“Retreat!”
At this moment, the two men realized that they, of course, had run up against a metal slate. They wanted to get on their feet and run away, but shockingly they discovered that half of their bodies were numb. It was as if the bodies weren’t made of flesh but wood. They couldn’t stand up at all.
“What… what… what sorcery is this?”
The tall guy stared at Mo Wen horrified; his body was wiggling on the ground, trying to move away and escape. The incident tonight was really strange. It was acceptable if Mo Wen had defeated them fair and square; at most they could say their skills were not as good.
But at that moment, they had no clue how they were defeated. Their bodies just went numb and they couldn’t move a muscle; it was as though their bodies didn’t belong to them at all.
“Sorcery?”
Mo Wen’s lips curled. Ignorant people always liked to treat things that they didn’t understand as sorcery. Regardless whether it was of that world or Earth, regardless of how many years of development had passed, people still couldn’t get rid of this benighted thinking.
He stopped in front of the two ruffians, squatted down, and checked them out while grinning.
“What…what are you doing?”
The short one tried hard to sound calm.
“Just helping you all to loosen up a bit.”
Mo Wen grinned evilly and suddenly extended his arm out, swiping at the short one’s body. His movement was like a butterfly dancing amidst the flowers – agile and elegant. The short one’s body, on the other hand, was cracking non-stop like popcorn.
The short one, who was still struggling a moment ago, suddenly fell on the ground helplessly like a lump of mud. It seemed like he could neither move his finger nor open his mouth; only his pupils were left turning around, but they were also filled with horror.
Even though Mo Wen was a miracle physician, that didn’t mean that he had no offensive power. Medical skill could save people, but it could also kill people.
The Mo clan’s medical skill had been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. It was deep and profound, covering all aspects; commoners would never be able to master everything in a lifetime. One of the most famous medical techniques would be the renowned Heavenly Hand.
As physicians, naturally they had the knowledge about the human body at their fingertips. Whether it was skeletal, acupoints, meridians, organs, or systems… they had to completely understand everything. Building on this foundation, the outstanding ancestors of the Mo clan had researched and created the Heavenly Hand technique.
This Heavenly Hand technique allowed the user to dismantle any of the 206 bones in the human body. They could easily dislocate the human meridians, blood vessels, acupoints, nerves, and so on. For doctors, this meant boundless profundity. Once they had mastered the human body and suited the treatment to the illness, the illness would naturally be eradicated completely.
Even though this Heavenly Hand technique was used to save patients, it could be used to kill people too. Furthermore, the Heavenly Hand technique was more effective to be used in killing rather than in healing, because once one had mastered the human body’s skeleton, acupoints, meridians, nerves, and blood vessels, it was equal to mastering the countless weak points of the human body. Using it to kill people was as easy as taking candy from a baby.
So in another world, the Mo clan’s Heavenly Hand was more than just a marvelous technique used in medical field; it was a renowned martial art as well. There was a time where many warriors sieged the Mo clan, wanting to get the secret of their Heavenly Hand technique. There were many warriors who were formidable, but all of them were defeated, as expected.
The Mo clan’s Heavenly Hand technique was a secret technique that was never passed on to outsiders. Even within the clan, only the core members could learn it. It was exactly because of this that when the core members of the Mo clan were traveling in Jianghu, all the kung fu masters would be courteous to them.
It was not only because everyone in the Mo clan were marvelous physicians with incredible medical skills, and thus normally no one would want to offend them, but also because all the direct descendants of the Mo clan were basically equipped with the Heavenly Hand technique, so no commoners dared to mess with them.