A Dish Best Served Cold (The Man In Rage)
Chapter 976 The Terrified Sato

The King of Fighters and the rest were not the only ones who felt regret and loss. Ye Qing-Tian felt the same despite having never met the young man, Chu Tian-Fan. Waves of stinging pain assailed Ye Qing-Tian when he heard about the young man's fall.

His death was a great loss to the world of Chinese martial arts.

"Eastward! The mighty river flows unendin'

Foamed waves, risen and fall'n, in moments fleetin'

Alas! So too is the hero felled...

Wrongs, rights, triumphs and defeats last but a blink

While mountains stand, and the sun rises and sinks

Such are the cards that life has dealt...

Sat the fisher in his boat, gray and wizened

Wise in the moons and winds in all its seasons

So raises his wine to friends in cheer...

All joys and all sorrows since time dawned on men

Are naught but tales shared 'round the table to quench

Men's thirst for fine wine and companions dear."

Fierce winds howled on Mount Yan.

Every man stood around the table with a cup of wine in his hand.

Ye Qing-Tian was the only one who sat on the ground, his face skyward as he sighed and drowned his sorrows in wine.

"Qing-Tian seems genuinely upset by Chu Tian-Fan's death." The rest eyed the man from a distance and sighed.

They had seen too much of the same over the years.

These tragedies would fade with time.

Soon, like melting snow that had landed in a stream, Chu Tian-Fan's name would be washed away by the tides of time.

A new prodigy would descend upon China then.

As some passed into death, so were some born into existence. The rest had to go on with their lives.

The wheels of history never stopped turning.

No matter how impressive Ye Fan had been, he was but one out of billions of men in China-a grain of sand in a vast desert.

Another grain of sand with a similar shine would pop up after he had gone.

They merely felt a mild regret for Ye Fan's death, and even that was fleeting.

But to some, Ye Fan had been everything to them.

The day after the Japanese military had admitted that they had shot Chu Tian-Fan, a furious Chu Zheng-Hong led a charge of thirteen grandmasters and fought their way into Japan. Within one night, thousands of Japanese men at a particular military base were slaughtered.

Chu Zheng-Hong also declared that he would level the entire country of Japan.

They would all die for Chu Tian-Fan's death!

His declaration shook the entire country.

Sato fell out of his bed in terror when he heard the news.

"What...what did you just say? A group of powerful martial artists has invaded Japan in the name of seeking vengeance for Chu Tian-Fan?"

Sato had been awoken abruptly by his men in the middle of the night.

His face was drained of blood and his eyes filled with horror as he questioned the man before him.

"That's right, Commander. More than a thousand men at one of our military bases were killed last night. It probably...won't take them very long to make their way here." The man's voice shook as he spoke. He was clearly in the midst of panic as well.

Sato had been the commander who had led the ambush on Chu Tian-Fan. He was utterly terrified.

"They killed more than a thousand men and levelled an entire military base..."

Sato was on the verge of wetting his pants. Sheer terror had turned his mind into a complete blank.

He wasn't a martial artist, but he knew them very well.

It didn't matter if he had an army of hundreds of thousands of men under his command. A grandmaster would slaughter him like a dog in close combat. Quaking with terror, Sato grabbed his phone and called Chu Zheng-Liang.

"Chu Zheng-Liang, you bastard! You lied to me! Remember what you told me before the operation? You said that Chu Tian-Fan had no allies. No one would seek revenge for him after he's dead. Look at what's happening now! A dozen grandmasters have invaded Japan. They're going to massacre everyone to avenge Chu Tian-Fan. So this is what you meant by saying he had no allies, and that no one would avenge him?! You lied to me, you bastard! You set me up! Chu Zheng-Liang, if I get killed, my spirit will haunt you in your sleep! I will never let you rest in peace!"

Sato's bloodshot eyes looked murderous as he cursed at Chu Zheng-Liang loudly.

Sato had believed Chu Zheng-Liang and thought that Ye Fan was a lone man with no powerful allies or forces watching his back.

He had been convinced that he wouldn't suffer any repercussions for killing the man.

He couldn't have foreseen the number of grandmasters who had charged into his home country the day after they had announced that they had killed Ye Fan.

A flood of emotions-horror, fear and fury-assailed and overwhelmed Sato.

If he had known the trouble that killing Chu Tian-Fan was going to cause, he wouldn't have allied himself with Chu Zheng-Liang and attempted to kill Chu Tian-Fan. Killing himself would have been the more palatable alternative.

"What did you just say? A dozen grandmasters have charged into Japan to avenge his death?" Chu Zheng-Liang was momentarily startled when he heard that.

He had done a thorough investigation on Ye Fan before his trip to Japan and had been confident that Ye Fan had not been under the protection of any grandmaster. His only loyal followers had been lowly ruffians barely worthy of their attention.

He had expected the disintegration of Chu Tian-Fan's power in Jiangdong upon the man's death.

Why had a group of powerful martial artists appeared out of nowhere to avenge his death? Where had they come from?

"Could it be my brother?" The thought struck Chu Zheng-Liang after recalling what had happened in the Chu family over the past few days.

"Commander Sato, please calm down. I'll deal with this. Don't worry, I made a promise to guarantee your safety and I'll keep my word."

Chu Zheng-Liang gave Sato his assurances before ending the call. He returned to the Chu family to find out if his suspicions had been true. It was as Chu Zheng-Liang had expected.

The grandmasters who were terrorizing Japan right now were indeed the grandmasters of the Chu family.

Chu Zheng-Liang burst out into laughter.

"Dearest brother, you've always made the smart move. Who knew that this would be the one thing that you'll commit a folly for? I've fretted for years over the fact that I have nothing incriminating on you, nothing that could get you deposed as the patriarch of the family. Who would have thought that you'd be the one to hand me such a golden opportunity? I've been waiting for this moment for years. It has finally arrived."

Chu Zheng-Liang stood in the Chu family home and let loose a pleased laugh with abandon.

The Chu family was a powerful family with an old and longstanding history. Such families came with their own set of stringent and strictly enforced family rules.

These were rules that even the patriarch of the family was not allowed to break.

One of them stated that the head of the family could not abuse its authority and, without consulting the upper echelons of the family, deploy an extensive portion of the family's resources towards the subjugation of an enemy.

That was the rule that Chu Zheng-Liang had unquestionably just broken.

"A dozen grandmasters. Dearest brother, you've deployed nearly every competent martial artist that we have, haven't you? All to seek revenge for a useless pawn and without regard for the family's safety. We shall see how you try and explain your actions to the family," sneered Chu Zheng-Liang.