Chapter 18: Chapter 17 - Four Handsome Gentlemen

CHAPTER 17

Four Handsome Gentlemen

Jihoon rolled his eyes at the girl.

“Thanks, Jihoon.” Yuriel sincerely said.

“And sorry for the trouble.” Tianjue added.

Shaking his head, Jihoon smiled and said, “I’m helping you partly because of my own personal motives—I’m hoping to befriend you both, the freaking Twin Stars of Cosmos.”

“And you’re befriending us because you need help.” Yuriel glanced at him, smiling faintly.

Jihoon stiffened ever so slightly. “How long have you known it?”

“Ever since my awakening.” Yuriel shrugged.

Jihoon was silent for a moment. “I... indeed need your help.”

Tianjue looked at Yuriel. In the depths of her eyes, flashed a hint of sympathy.

“You must’ve heard of the Notorious Cases of Asura Demon,” the guy began. “Years ago, my grandpa... he was one of the victims of the Asura Demon Poison.”

Jihoon paused. The others respectfully stayed silent—even Elanor.

Taking a deep breath, he continued, “Once known by his sect, he was driven out without further discussion. Then, the mysterious force behind all of those poisoning cases abducted him, and forced him to become their killing machine, a puppet of murderous intent.”

“Fortunately, one day when he was sent out to eradicate a clan, my dad found him. He rescued Grandpa, hiding him away from that mysterious force. However, the Asura Demon Poison had no cure, so Dad could only freeze Grandpa and seal him.”

“After that, he investigated all of the poisoning cases, trying to find out all about that mysterious force—to no avail. And one day, he disappeared.”

A soft, bitter laugh escaped Jihoon’s mouth.

Tianjue and Yuriel exchanged a glance. Looking into each other’s eyes, they knew that they were thinking of the same thing: the person behind it all... must be the Sect Master of the Ice God Sect, the Northern Ruler, Wen Han.

Tianjue’s teacher.

“We will help your grandfather,” Tianjue said. “We know how to cure the Asura Demon Poison.”

“Yeah.” Yuriel agreed. “But to do it, we need someone else’s help—the successor of the Asura God.”

“Successor of the Asura God?” Jihoon frowned—as the so-called Master of Technology, it was strange that he didn’t know such a person even existed!

Even Tianjue didn’t know about this. He looked at Yuriel inquiringly, like: ‘Asura, a god?’. But Yuriel just smiled.

“His name is Vikram Mahavir Gaur.” the girl said.

Without even bothering to reply, Jihoon’s fingers were already dancing on his invisible keyboards, trying to look up for any information of the Asura God’s successor. But the only thing he found about the guy was that he was...

“A playboy mafia?” Jihoon frowned.

Yuriel stiffled a laugh. “Well, technically, yes. But he’s indeed the successor of the Lord of Asuras.”

Hearing the words ‘Lord of Asuras’, the silent question in the others’ minds was immediately answered—so, ‘Asura God’ meant the ‘God of the Asuras’, or the ‘Sovereign of the Asuras’—the Lord of Asuras.

“Then what’re we waiting for? Let’s go to India.” Jihoon shot to his feet.

“Calm down, Lee Jihoon.” Tianjue said. “Yu’er has just broken through—she still needs to stabilize her cultivation.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Yuriel smiled at him reassuringly. “General Zhuque’s helped me stabilize my natural power.”

“Then when are we setting off?” Jihoon asked impatiently.

“Aren’t you going to settle things with Miss Dubois here?” Yuriel raised her eyebrows, lips lifting up into a smile that wasn’t quite a smile.

Jihoon glanced at Elanor. The girl also raised her eyebrows, pouting. Jihoon rolled his eyes.

“I’ll send you out.” he said.

Elanor suddenly smiled widely. “Can I tag along?”

“What are you talking about?” Jihoon snapped, glaring at her. “I definitely won’t travel with a troublemaker like you!”

“Let her come with us.” Yuriel said. “She’ll be useful.”

“Useful?” Jihoon snorted coldly. “She’ll do anything but help us. And it’s not like she can do anything, either, with us three incredible teens around.”

“Well, her mental power is stronger than yours.” Tianjue commented, matter-of-fact-ly.

“I—” Jihoon grunted, swallowing his words back down and rolling his eyes. “There are the two of you, what can I fear?”

“Just let her tag along—she can liven up the atmosphere.” Yuriel smiled.

Jihoon muttered something to himself for a while, then finally gave in. He sighed, shrugging helplessly.

Elanor cheered in joy. Jihoon rolled his eyes. Yet again.

“Alright, then let’s go,” Yuriel said. “to Mumbai.”

And so, the four of them went into another secret room at the back of the room and hopped onto the Flash Array there.

White light flashed, and they disappeared from Paris.

***

Mumbai, India.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The first thing that came to mind when the four stepped foot on the streets of Mumbai was:

Bright!

Every part of the city boomed with bright colors, countless flowers, and neon boards, covering numerous buildings with insanely intricate architecture.

Yuriel led Tianjue, Jihoon, and Elanor through the river of humans. They had altered their facial features, and had also changed their clothes into thin ones, as it was humid and quite hot there.

Fireworks boomed in the night sky above them—dense festive atmosphere still lingered in the air, despite the New Year’s there having passed more than three hours ago.

Loud laughter and music blasted, filling the thick atmosphere and blending with the thousands of scents colliding in the air—burnt incense, spice, hot oil, spilled alcohol, sweat, and humans.

Street vendors were hawking kebabs, hot vada pav, and chai as if it were still noon. Kids yelled and ran about everywhere, beating steel drums with their wooden sticks. Everyone in Mumbai was still celebrating New Year’s.

“It’s incredible here!” Elanor yelled amidst the overwhelming hubbub.

Jihoon rolled his eyes and shouted, “Don’t get distracted—we’re not here for the fun!”

Elanor humphed and stuck her tongue, definitely not planning to heed his words at all. She kept glancing around at the countless vendors along the street, hoping she could see in every direction all at once.

At this moment, with the corner of her eye, she caught the sight of women in glittering saris stumbling out of nightclubs in the arms of men in similarly brightly-colored garments. They all reeked of perfume, sweat, alcohol, and tobacco, laughing and grinning like crazy.

Elanor’s lips curled up into a sly smile. She began looking around and spotted more nightclubs, noticing a particular ‘silky’ aura wafting into the air.

A woman’s soft, scented sari brushed against Jihoon’s shoulder. The guy shivered. Seeing this, Elanor giggled.

She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Never felt a woman’s touch?”

Jihoon, annoyed, pushed her away rudely. Elanor didn’t seem to mind. She just giggled more, touching a random man’s chin as she walked past him.

The man turned at her at once, whistling. Elanor smirked and winked, swirling on her heel once as if twirling with the music of the street. People moved, hiding her figure from the man’s view.

“I warn you—don’t cause trouble.” Jihoon glared at her.

Elanor just shrugged, blowing a kiss at him. The corner of Jihoon’s eye twitched. Elanor giggled teasingly.

“Guys!” Yuriel shouted over the din.

This got Jihoon and Elanor’s attention. The two quickened their pace, pushing through the crowd to where the Twin Stars of Cosmos were—standing next to the entrance of a club which looked no different than the ones they had passed along the way.

Suddenly, a man approached Yuriel, grinning lewdly. Tianjue quickly stepped forward, shielding Yuriel behind him, eyes flashing with a sharp light.

The man was stunned. Primal fear rose from the depths of his soul, gnawing at his spirit. Fortunately, some people staggered between them, hiding those eyes from his view. When he regained his senses, Tianjue and Yuriel were already gone.

Inside the club, Tianjue stared at Yuriel with a serious look.

“You should disguise yourself as a man,” he said. “You’re too pretty.”

Yuriel blushed, smiling. “Alright.”

“Me too!” Elanor excitedly yelled from the side.

“I thought you love seducting men.” Jihoon sneered.

“I also love seducting women.” Elanor smirked.

“Alright then, let’s get changed. Yuriel laughed, then said to Tianjue and Jihoon, “You two should also change your clothes—the people inside will stare at you if you wear those.”

Tianjue and Jihoon glanced at each other’s casual set of clothes, then at the nearby people’s glittery and brightly-colored clothes.

“Good point.” Jihoon said.

The four pushed their way into the club, entering a world of disorienting disco lights and ear-splitting remixes. After looking around for a while, they finally found the toilet, then the boys and girls went their separate ways.

A few minutes later, Tianjue and Jihoon sauntered out, clad respectively in black-silver and white-gold—looking like two opposing poles.

Tianjue had altered his facial features, and his hair and eyes were now of a dark-blue color. Meanwhile, Jihoon didn’t alter his facial features, but his smartglasses had morphed into an intricate pale-gold masquarade mask.

The two eyed each other.

“You look good.” Jihoon mouthed.

Tianjue nodded—you, too.

Jihoon secretly snorted, thinking, ‘Acting indifferent and cold, huh?’

It took the girls quite some time. But when they came out, Tianjue and Jihoon almost couldn’t recognize them. In fact, Jihoon only managed to recognize the two girls disguised as men with the help of his smartglasses, while Tianjue could only recognize Yuriel by her aura...

“Hey, you two—what’re you looking at?” a deep, melodious voice sounded out of the smiling lips of a dark-purple-haired young man.

“They’ve probably turned gay, Brother. You’re too ethereally handsome.” the strawberry-blonde-haired young man next to him smirked.

Tianjue and Jihoon didn’t know how to react.

In front of them, two gorgeous young men stood. Both were nearly as tall as them, with athletic yet lean build. One had messy dark-purple hair and sparkling amethyst eyes, wearing a set of regal purple-gold clothes. The other had slick-backed strawberry-blonde hair and honey-brown eyes, wearing crème-pink clothes.

Walking by, women of all age giggled and batted their long eyelashes bashfully. There were even some men who were starting to approach.

“Let’s go—before we attract trouble.” Jihoon grinned.

And so, the four handsome gentlemen jumped into the human current rushing deeper into the building.

Walking next to Yuriel, Tianjue didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Countless men and women stared at Yuriel, blushing hard. Some braver ones directly called out, trying to get her attention.

Tianjue really didn’t know whether suggesting Yuriel to disguise herself as a man was a right choice...

Yuriel suddenly nudged him, using her eyes to point out a group of men not far away from them.

Tianjue glanced at the men in question. Realizing that he was looking at them, the men grinned and immediately pushed through the crowd, trying to get closer to Tianjue.

“I think we should’ve been low-key.” Jihoon shouted over the blasting music, starting to realize the problem they had attracted.

“What?!” Elanor shouted back—their voices were completely drowned out by all the music.

Jihoon tapped his earpiece and gestured at the others to turn theirs on.

“I think we should’ve been low-key.” he repeated, his voice directly transmitted into the others’ auditory nerves.

“No,” Yuriel shook her head. “We should on the contrary stand out as much as possible.”

The others stared at her. Was she crazy? Did she want them to get devoured alive by these crazy men and women?

But then they realized what she was trying to do—she was trying to attract the attention of the Asura God’s successor!

“Don’t you know where he is?” Tianjue asked.

“I just remember that his den is around here.” Yuriel shrugged. “That’s why we have to do this, in order to save time.”

“Why didn’t you ask me to find his den? I might be able to detect his network.” Jihoon said.

Yuriel smiled. “Well, you might be able to, but not in a short time.”

Jihoon looked unconvinced, but didn’t retort.

At some time, Elanor had separated herself from the group. She could be seen ‘harassing’ some girls, looking suspiciously adept in it. In no time, she had gathered quite a large group of women around her, all shrieking and squealing for her attention as if under a spell.

Well. They might very possibly be.

“Temptress.” Jihoon muttered under his breath, showing a rather disgusted expression as he watched Elanor in action.

“Jihoon, she alone isn’t enough to get our target’s attention.” Yuriel smiled, eyes twinkling with a strange light.

“What do you want me to do?” Jihoon rolled his eyes.“Help A-Jue handle those hot-blooded men.” she said.

Hearing this, Tianjue’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered that a group of men were previously approaching him.

Yuriel smiled encouragingly at him, quietly slipping away...