Dual wielding volcanoes, killing through the west

To say he was grateful wouldn't quite be an option, since the knife was still inside him. But he could have easily carried out the stabbing without a second thought, turned around and embraced his father, brother, and his blood relatives, achieving a historic reconciliation—that's also a fact.

"So... what's next?"

He murmured, "To avoid being exposed, I must rush back immediately. From now on, it's up to your own will."

"Do you know where that knight in paper armor is? He can definitely protect you. You must use your willpower to hold on and find him before your wound worsens. Don't touch this dagger. If you pull it out, the bleeding will get much worse if you don't treat the wound properly."

"After tonight, this city will no longer be safe. If possible, take your brother and leave here as soon as possible."

"Leave?" At this point, Jenny could no longer pretend. She gave Henry a cold smile, turned her head to the side, and said leisurely, "This world belongs to you... If I leave, where can I go?"

"Do you know about New Orleans next door? It's Red Central's territory. I've heard from others that it's different there than here. Even the powerful and wealthy have to keep a low profile, while ordinary people can live happily."

“Whether you’re farming in the fields or making snake oil, everyone’s the same. The rich and powerful don’t dare to act recklessly, and everyone lives in peace and contentment…” Henry’s tone was full of longing, “It’s like a utopia. Perhaps that will be your final destination.”

"Ha...that sounds so beautiful, like a fairy tale." Jenny, long past the age of believing in fairy tales, shook her head and said with a wry smile, "Isn't Red Center dead?"

“I don’t believe he’s dead!” Henry insisted. “He must still be alive, he must!”

----

"What a pity, brother, he's probably really dead. He was burned to ashes in Blue Magpie Harbor, not even a bone fragment was left." A cold, mocking laugh came from the side, making Henry's hand tremble slightly.

Imond leaned against the wall, waiting patiently, like a persistent ghost, and gave him a cold smile. He suddenly straightened up. These two brothers from the Heysen family, in the light of the gas lamp, both appeared with two contrasting, yin-yang faces.

“I knew you wouldn’t give up. My father may not know much about swordsmanship, but I do. I’m the one who has truly practiced it.”

"You didn't even aim for her vital organs with that knife, did you? Instead, you carefully avoided her internal organs... Ha, brother, do you love this thing that much? You actually disobeyed your father and betrayed your family for her. Are you out of your mind?"

"The way you talk to her, as if she were a cat or a dog, I don't like it!" Henry didn't want to pretend anymore. He stared directly at Imond, flames of anger bursting from his pupils. "She's a human being just like us. I don't understand why it's so hard for you to understand such a simple truth."

"Look at you, buddy, how fair, how great, what a righteous knight! Ha! Have you been brainwashed by this stuff?"

"The utopia you imagine simply doesn't exist. Humanity can't possibly build such an ideal country! Tonight, you only have two choices."

Imond slowly drew his sword, a cold smile on his face. "Either you choose the family, or you betray them and join them. There is no third option. This is not only my will, but also Father's. If you are unwilling to be the eldest son, then so be it; he can remove you from the Hysen family!"

Henry's eyebrows twitched slightly.

“You are no longer the heir. The family fortune, the wealth, the factory… zero, nothing. You will get nothing, not even a penny! You are just a useless person standing between us.”

"Don't think you have much leverage to negotiate with your father, brother. You do have a good image, but for our business, that's just icing on the cake. Your father has his own connections and doesn't necessarily have to rely on you. I suggest you think carefully about your answer."

A cold glint flashed in his eyes. "'Us'? Or this lowly, insignificant bastard? This is your last chance."

……

……

Finally? After a long silence, Henry did not answer him. He gently put the girl down, making sure she wouldn't aggravate the wound in his abdomen.

Then, like a knight drawing his sword, he picked up a steel pipe lying on the ground and pointed it at his blood brother!

Jenny stared at his silhouette in the gas lamplight, her pupils dilating to their maximum size in disbelief.

It was only at this moment that she truly fell in love with him.

Chapter 637: I Will Rewrite Everything Here

This is not a fair fight.

He was wielding a proper knight's broadsword, while Henry was holding nothing more than a discarded iron pipe. Technically speaking, even if Imond's swordsmanship was terrible, it was still better than Henry's, an ordinary person with no basic skills.

But he had no other choice.

In the instant he gripped the iron pipe and pointed it at the other man, he seemed to understand why he admired righteous knights so much. In this world, upholding even the most basic principles of justice was dangerous enough.

“Very well, I suppose Father wouldn’t want to see you again either. I’ll use the sword you forged for me to send you off this world.” Imond twirled his sword, speaking in a cold, cruel voice, “Since you like this wretched woman so much… don’t worry, after you die, I’ll immediately bring her down to join you!”

"when!!"

In one round, the two weapons clashed and cut the iron pipe in half.

Just as Imond was about to strike, a gunshot rang out.

"boom!"

A bullet pierced through and knocked off his hat.

Imond froze, completely stunned. "Who? Who dares to fire!"

His voice trembled slightly, but no one answered him in the dark alley.

"Get out here right now!"

He roared in fury, but what he received was a second bullet, grazing his scalp. The cold, precise touch and the resulting physical shock were far more terrifying than the blow that had ripped off his hat. From the sound of the gunshot, he couldn't tell what kind of gun it was; it simply pulled him back from a medieval duel to 1879.

Having someone lurking in the shadows, pointing a gun at you, is probably the most terrifying thing in the world.

"Damn it..." he cursed, threw the sword in his hand to the ground, and turned to run.

The dark alleyway returned to silence, and the two who had temporarily escaped death were still somewhat incredulous.

Zhang Renfeng slowly walked out of the alley.

"My God, it's you." Henry breathed a sigh of relief for some reason, but then immediately tensed up again, "Jenny, she..."

“I know.” Zhang Renfeng bent down, looked at the wound on her abdomen and the short dagger still embedded in her body, and commented, “You are very talented.”

"Let's get out of here before their people arrive."

He lifted Jenny up as if she were a piece of paper, his arms sweeping over her completely. His steady arms gave her a strong sense of security.

----

To avoid being seen, Zhang Renfeng had to find another way. He found a secluded path outside the house, and with his superhuman jumping ability, he climbed over the wall to the inn's room.

Eva and Mei were naturally startled to see someone carrying a man with a stab wound to the abdomen through the door. Mei was especially shocked when she saw that the injured man was their former employer from a few days ago. But there was no time to explain the situation now.

The stab avoided a vital spot, preventing the worst possible outcome. After all, she had been bleeding for quite some time; Jenny's face was deathly pale, and she had already fainted. Zhang Renfeng and Xiaomei split up; one went to buy emergency medication, and the other went to notify Jenny's brother.

When her younger brother arrived from home, limping on crutches, Jenny was still unconscious.

Even if blood relatives are broken, their tendons still connect them.

Upon seeing her sister's tragic state, all her previous misunderstandings and anger vanished.

Or rather... it was moved to another place.

"...You, it's you!" Finney's breathing was already erratic. He remained silent for a long time, the tears in his eyes not falling, but evaporated by anger. He immediately turned to Henry, gritting his teeth, and said, "I knew it, damn it... what good could it do to follow you noble lords?!"

Henry was speechless, his expression filled with pity and guilt, his head drooping slightly.

"Calm down, kid, it's not like that." Zhang Renfeng couldn't bear to see an innocent person being wronged, so he spoke up to explain, "If it weren't for him, your sister might have already died in that alley. Yes, that's the alley, you should still remember it."

"He helped her to the best of his ability, that's the truth."

Is that true?

Looking at Jenny's pale face, Henry shook his head with a wry smile, unsure whether he should accept this fact.

“The truth is, I stabbed your sister, and she bled profusely and suffered terribly,” he murmured. “It’s all because of me.”

……

"How badly are you hurt?" Eva asked at the right moment, which eased the overly heavy atmosphere a little.

Xiaomei was wrapping her wound with bandages. "After all, it was an injury caused by a cold weapon, and she was forced to move around for so long after the injury... it's impossible that it didn't have an impact. However, as long as she is well cared for, it shouldn't kill her."

Upon hearing this, Henry closed his eyes slightly, breathed a sigh of relief, turned around, and silently left.

"Where are you planning to go?" Zhang Renfeng asked. "Under these circumstances, you're not going back to your home, are you?"

“Home…I definitely can’t go back, and I don’t know where to go.” Henry sighed, trying to make the best of a bad situation, and joked, “I left in such a hurry that I didn’t bring much money with me, only $50 on me. I guess I’ll have to live off this savings for the rest of my life.”

“Of course, I’m just kidding. I might use that $50 to buy a train ticket.” Henry’s tone was wistful. “To take the train to White Torch, New Orleans.”

"Perhaps, that city has what I want."

"What is it that you want?" Zhang Renfeng asked curiously.

"You might not believe it if I told you, haha... What I want is fairness, fairness, and more fairness!"

“But…” Eva’s tone was full of confusion, “An unfair environment is more beneficial to Mr. Hysen, isn’t it?”

"That's right, it sounds ridiculous, but that's exactly what I want to do, go against them." Henry laughed rebelliously. "I want to organize a clean and fair knightly tournament, without any underhanded tactics or shameless schemes. Doesn't that sound absurd?"

Henry himself laughed. His inner motives were too complex to be clearly expressed in words, so he only gave a vague answer.

No matter, Zhang Renfeng had already understood what he meant and nodded, "Okay."

“After things are settled here, we’ll go back together.” He made Henry a promise. “It’s about time we got some bread and circus entertainment in New Orleans.”

"What's going on here?" Henry realized something and asked in surprise, "You...didn't you come for the Festival of Lights?"

“It was true before, but that doesn’t matter now.” Zhang Renfeng didn’t put on airs, but at this moment, there was already a hint of terrifying authority in his tone. “I’m going to change everything in this city.”

"A complete...change, from the inside out, from top to bottom."

Chapter 638: People in Fairy Tales

"..."

With great difficulty, Jenny managed to open her eyelids and saw the unfamiliar ceiling. She was still not fully awake. She was very confused about her situation, not knowing where she was or what time it was.

All she could hear was a cacophony of noise outside, a mix of shouts and crashes that only deepened her confusion. She tried desperately to recall her last memories, only to find that the last thing she remembered was that cold, filthy alley.

"Awake?" A somewhat familiar voice came from the bedside. "You slept quite soundly that night."

After identifying the source of the sound, Jenny felt inexplicably at ease, and only then did she have the strength to perceive the warmth of the fireplace. She paused for a while, using all her strength to prop herself up a little, her face still deathly pale.

“I…my brother…he…”

"He went to Baiju Town."

Her voice was so weak it was almost indistinguishable from a breath. Luckily, Zhang Renfeng had exceptional hearing, which allowed him to discern what she was saying from that frail voice. "And Henry, I had Xiaomei take them back to White Torch Town. This city is no longer safe; things have become chaotic outside, and it looks like there's no hope left."

"While there are still trains willing to come here, I told them to leave quickly. I need to take care of you; I'll be fine on my own."

"Take a break and eat something."

Zhang Renfeng made some bold changes to this ordinary inn room—he first moved several stones up and placed them on the ground to separate it from the wooden floor. On these stones, he could set up a fire and a pot to cook some hot food without worrying about setting the room on fire.

In principle, such renovations are not allowed in a hotel. But given the current situation, with the hotel owner gone, there are no rules to speak of. Zhang Renfeng cooked a pot of quick curry stew, adding some chickpeas; this was basically the limit of his culinary skills.

The aroma of the food finally brought the girl back to some life. She took the bowl and shoveled a few mouthfuls into her mouth. Perhaps due to being unconscious for too long and suffering from severe anemia, she was very weak.

The first bite was an explosion of flavors on her taste buds, overwhelming her instantly. Jenny paused for a moment, then the hunger of the past few days surged up at once. Like a madwoman, she frantically stuffed the curry stew from the pan into her mouth, oblivious to the scalding hot flesh burning her mouth and tongue.

As she ate, tears rolled down her face, and she finally had the strength to cry out loud.

Zhang Renfeng didn't stop her from crying, but just watched from the side, while serving himself a bowl of stewed meat. "The wound on your stomach is still a long way from healing, so it's better not to have too many emotional fluctuations."

"...I...I feel so stupid, so really stupid..."

The girl who had appeared shrewd, calculating, and beautiful at our first meeting was now covering her face, sobbing softly. The wound in her abdomen still ached, and she dared not cry loudly, deliberately suppressing the tremors in her shoulders, tears falling drop by drop onto her plate. She ignored all this, eating while crying, seemingly trying to use the satisfaction of her appetite to combat her mental anguish.

I ate my meal while grieving, finishing the whole bowl.

"Did you foresee that I would end up like this?"

“More or less… but these things can’t be persuaded with words alone. At that time, you were single-mindedly focused on climbing the ladder, so you wouldn’t listen to anything. If I told you that this path wouldn’t work, you would definitely think that I was ruining your plans.” Zhang Renfeng said very calmly, “Once you try it yourself, stumble and fall, and hit a wall, you’ll know what it’s like.”

The greater the risk, the greater the reward—this is the underlying logic of everything Jenny designs. From the moment she orchestrated her chance encounter with Henry, it was a series of all-in, high-speed moves that allowed her to achieve half of her life's transformation from a straw-millionaire to a wealthy man. From a servant living in a dilapidated shack with drafts all around, she suddenly possessed a large house and a ranch; this leap in status gave her a taste of success.

As the stakes were raised higher and higher, the relationship gradually warmed up. It seemed that every carefully designed action and word was met with a positive response from the other party, and Jenny couldn't help but feel a sense of elation.

It doesn't seem that difficult.

But Henry Hyson, this somewhat peculiar individual, gave her a strong illusion. She mistakenly believed that winning his love was the end of everything.

However, the reality was quite the opposite. Beyond Henry lay his family. Henry treated her like a human being, but in their eyes, she was forever a rat in the gutter, unfit for the light of day. A gutter rat had dared to emerge and even wanted to eat at the same table; naturally, anyone who dared to show their face would be trampled to death.

“You learn from your mistakes,” Zhang Renfeng said calmly, seemingly not taking it too seriously. He picked at the food in his bowl and comforted her, “I think you’re still very smart. To be honest, at your age, I couldn’t have thought about so many things. Nor could I have figured out what other people were thinking like you do.”

"If this talent were used in the right way, it would surely lead to even greater achievements."

“We’re short-staffed here. If you’d like, come back to White Torch Town with me after all this is over. I’ll find you a suitable job. The money might not be as much as you think, and it won’t buy you a big house or ranch right away. But every penny will be earned through your labor.”

"You won't have to worry about someone stabbing you in the back while you're eating anymore."

Zhang Renfeng slowly and deliberately sketched out a future for her that she could achieve with her feet firmly on the ground.

Jenny's expression changed, "White Torch Town..."