Hell's Handbook

Chapter 280: Reasoning Things Out

Su Jin looked a complete mess. His entire body was covered in soot and his clothing was in tatters. He wasn’t afraid of the blasts, but his clothing was a different story. They were already tattered from the first wave of blasts, and he was pretty much naked right now. But there was enough soot and ash on his body to cover him adequately.

When he got to Abbas, he was surprised that this man was still stubbornly hanging on. But he wasn’t doing well at all. Every injury he suffered was enough to kill him. Unless he went into a Challenge right now and used the power of the Handbook to restore his body, he was definitely going to die.

But one could not just start a Challenge as and when one wanted to. If this man had just gone through a Challenge recently, then he could forget about this option. And even if he was able to go through a Challenge, Su Jin could just wait here and then smite him the moment he emerged.

Abbas stared at Su Jin in despair. He simply couldn’t imagine how Su Jin could have survived that explosion. Exactly how tough was this man’s body? Even the chairman of the Dark Council, that person with the body of a demon, would definitely die if they were trapped in this cage of exploding bones. Yet, Su Jin seemed completely unscathed.

“You… you…” Abbas’ throat was badly damaged and he couldn’t articulate himself well anymore. But Su Jin didn’t need to listen to him to guess what he wanted to say.

“Yep, that’s right! My body is so tough that all those explosions can’t do anything to hurt it. I think I might not die even if you hurl a nuclear missile at me, unless you’ve got some other special methods up your sleeve.” Su Jin casually combed a hand through his hair to shake out the bits of bones stuck in it.

Abbas let out a bitter laugh. He didn’t stand a chance right from the start. This was a man who could even withstand a nuclear missile, so he was probably immune to his attacks all this time. He was never going to win this.

Abbas looked puzzledly at Su Jin and Su Jin looked like he understood what Abbas wanted to ask him. “Ah! About that! I used my psychokinesis to make those wings not because I was afraid of your explosions and wanted to protect my body, but because… Mai bought these clothes for me, so if I ruin them then… I’m going to get a dressing down when I get back.”

Su Jin was quite upset about this. Kano Mai had bought him these clothes and he promised to take good care of them. But in the end… they were reduced to pieces that were even smaller than ashes. Kano Mai probably wasn’t going to actually say anything to him, but she was definitely going to give him the cold shoulder for a while.

Abbas fell into utter despair now. The defense that Su Jin had put up was merely because he wanted to protect the clothes he was wearing. Abbas had laughed at Su Jin for underestimating him, but he was the one who had looked down on Su Jin the whole way.

Su Jin plonked himself down on the ground and said, “You’re not bad yourself, really. I’ve consumed all the psychokinesis I’ve got. If my body weren’t this strong, you’d have won this battle.”

Abbas looked a little more comforted by these words, but that feeling only lasted for a moment. His expression fell again after thinking about it more carefully. There was no reason for Su Jin to say something like that at all. If Su Jin knew that his body wouldn’t be able to withstand such attacks, he would have chosen to fight a different way and Abbas wouldn’t end up draining him of all his psychokinesis.

“Actually, I find it very strange. Your daughter was the one who came to make trouble for me in the first place. I did teach her a lesson, but I let her go in the end. And don’t you dare tell me that it was the members of the Dark Council who rescued her. If I didn’t intend to let her go, there’s nobody in this world who can take her away!” Su Jin’s words sounded arrogant, but the truth was that if Su Jin wanted Tracy dead, then there would have been no way anyone could get her out of the house alive. He had ways to make even powerful owners like Xu Ran have no choice but to watch Tracy die before their very eyes.

“And despite that, you, her father, came to make trouble for me as well. Is there something wrong with your brains? You have to either bully someone or be bullied? And even if you trace this matter all the way back to the start: it’s true that I killed that guy from the Dark Council, but was it wrong of me to kill an idiot who was going to get me killed?” said Su Jin as he shook his head.

Abbas didn’t have the energy to argue back and he knew that even if he had the energy to, he didn’t have any response to give. At the end of the day, actions were worth more than words and he only valued who turned out stronger. He only admitted defeat when his opponent was more formidable than he was.

If he were the type who was willing to reason things out, he wouldn’t have started a fight right away. He had no choice but to admit defeat now.

“Look at how much better us Chinese are! Everything can be negotiated at the table first, so why did you decide to get violent immediately? If you apologized right at the start, I could have pretended that nothing happened at all. We could have been friends even. What a silly thing to do!” Su Jin rambled on.

Abbas was a little stunned and there was a strange look in his eyes as he struggled to squeeze a few words out of his throat, “I’m… sorry!”

Su Jin blinked at him in surprise and stared at Abbas for a while before saying, “What the hell? Do you take me as a fool? You’re the one who came to make life difficult for me and you’re also the one who’s apologizing now? The one who suffered from your attacks is my friend! What’s the point in apologizing? If apologies could resolve conflicts, we wouldn’t need the police anymore! Just die now!”

Su Jin proceeded to throw a punch at Abbas’ shocked face, making his head explode immediately.

“Tsk!” Su Jin snorted disdainfully. Of course, he didn’t mind accepting an apology. But that had to happen before this huge fight broke out. He wasn’t going to accept an apology only after he had launched an attack like that. Since Abbas had started this conflict with violence, Su Jin was going to end it with violence as well.

He looked down at the soot all over his body and thought of finding a source of water to wash himself. But he didn’t need to look for one. The explosions had created deep trenches in the ground and groundwater was trickling out from the soil.

After he washed the soot off, Su Jin was still stark naked and he didn’t have any extra clothes stored in his Handbook either, which made him very perplexed. One option was to use his psychokinesis to change the way anyone he met on his way back looked at him, so he could walk past them like he was invisible. But the idea of that still made him feel uncomfortable. He felt like he would still feel violated.

“No, but wait… I’ve used up all my psychokinesis already and it’ll take at least one night to replenish enough of it to get me back to the bungalow. Oh no… do I have to end up camping out here?” Su Jin’s heart sank. He didn’t think he’d end up in such a predicament at all.

Meanwhile, some members of the Dark Council had started moving toward the center of the explosions. They had settled the local authorities already, and now that the fight between Abbas and Su Jin had ended, they were here to help Abbas clean up the mess. But from afar, they could see Su Jin cleaning himself, while Abbas was a broken and severely injured corpse on the ground.

“Abbas… has failed!” The members of the Dark Council couldn’t believe their eyes. That man who enjoyed equal status with their chairman and was a heavyweight among the high level owners on their side of the world… ended up losing a battle like this. He didn’t even get the chance to escape and was now nothing but a dead body. So much for being the Corpse Controller.

None of them dared to make any noise. They quickly retreated and went as far away from the plains as they could. They were certain that if Su Jin discovered their presence, they’d only add to the body count on the plains.

Actually, Su Jin had already noticed them when they came closer. He did think of killing them, but the idea of running out stark naked to kill these people was too much for him to take. Besides, he needed these people to go back and tell the Dark Council that there were some people out there that they couldn’t afford to offend. Also, after creating such a commotion, he needed someone to clean the mess. The Dark Council was clearly the best candidate to do that.

As he stood in the empty battlefield, Su Jin continued trying to think of a way to get back to the bungalow. He couldn’t possibly camp here for the night, right? He wasn’t going to catch a chill, but if Chu Yi and the rest found out about this, they were going to laugh at him for the rest of their lives.

“Should I just run back? Based on my speed… no, no, I’m not The Flash, I can’t run that quickly. And once I reach a crowded area, I’d be seen.

“Or…make something out of tree leaves? But everything around here has been reduced to ashes. Where am I going to find leaves?

“Damn it! Why didn’t I keep an extra set of clothes in the Handbook?” wailed Su Jin sadly. He used to laugh at Kano Mai and Ning Meng for keeping large amounts of clothing in their Handbooks. Now, it looked like they had been the intelligent ones while he was the dumbass.

Just when Su Jin was still wondering what other options he had, he heard the sound of a jeep driving at full speed. He found this sound very familiar. It sounded like Thomas’ car. This came as a pleasant surprise to Su Jin. Thomas was a true bro! He didn’t expect Thomas to appear when he needed help the most.

“I’m here! I’m here!” Su Jin happily waved his arms when he spotted Thomas’ jeep. The jeep threw up a lot of dust as it approached him. There were too many crushed bones on the ground, so it was pretty difficult to drive on this terrain. If the jeep weren’t so hardy, it would have broken down at this rate.

The jeep drove a little unsteadily toward Su Jin but Su Jin felt that it was still driving too slowly, so he ran toward it at the same time. It didn’t take long for both parties to finally meet. But when the jeep door opened, Su Jin was too stunned for words. He suddenly felt like running away, and the urge to do this now was even greater than when he was facing a deity like the Mad Hatter.

When the jeep door opened, someone got out of the car. But the one who came out wasn’t Thomas. It was Kano Mai.

Kano Mai was in a white dress and a pretty sun hat decorated with flowers found only in this region. Her outfit made her look sweet and charming. Anybody in the world would have thought of her as one of the most beautiful women they had ever seen.

Su Jin, on the contrary… there’s no need to say too much about what he looked like. He stood there, sparkling clean and completely naked. At least his complexion wasn’t too bad!