Castle of Black Iron

Sharwin’s family members didn’t live very well. His family didn’t share any warmth with him. Given this, people could judge it from those broken armor and sword how his family members had prepared for him to attend the survival training.

Sharwin was also very frugal at school. Zhang Tie had also heard that Sharwin was doing part-time jobs outside to subsidy his family members. However, he had never heard that Sharwin’s parents had given him a copper coin for pocket money.

In the survival training, when the members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood discussed beating Sharwin’s father up for his mistreatment, they were stopped by Sharwin himself.

Later on, Zhang Tie learned that Sharwin’s home situation was somewhat complex. Sharwin had lost his biological father when he was young. His mom then married his current stepfather and gave birth to two younger brothers. As his family’s economic condition was not good, his stepfather was a hard*ss, so it could be imagined how hard Sharwin had to live.

Zhang Tie didn’t consider that only after several days since their return, Sharwin’s home would encountered a great accident.

Last night, as Sharwin’s hard*ss stepfather started beating his mom at home due to a trivial thing, although having suffered for so long, Sharwin finally couldn’t stand it. He started to quarrel with that man. That man then lifted a bench and started to attack Sharwin. Zhang Tie’s friend had no other way but to escape by running around the room. In an emergency, he had grabbed a fruit knife from the table and thrust into that man’s thigh.

Seeing that man getting thrust and falling to the ground, Sharwin, whose head was still bleeding, rushed out and didn’t return home last night. However, that bastard was shouting everywhere that he would go to the Military Administration to appeal for an attempted murder.

Once this crime was testified, Sharwin would be punished by a death sentence according to the law of the Norman Empire.

Doug lived not far from Sharwin, but not until last night when he went visit Sharwin’s home to find him did he learn of what had happened through Sharwin’s mom. She was sitting at home, very anxious about what would happen next.

That hard*ss stepfather was still determined to kill Sharwin this time as he kept screaming in the neighborhood that he would appeal for the murder attempt to the Military Administration...

After finding this out, Doug hurriedly went to Barley last night. They then thought of the other members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood for the first time, but knowing that Zhang Tie was still in recuperation, they didn’t come for him last night.

However, after searching the whole night, they didn’t find Sharwin. Yet his bastard stepfather was still screaming everywhere about his plans to appeal to the Military Administration. And since they didn’t know how to deal with it, Barley and Doug finally came here to Zhang Tie.

"Where is Leit and the other brothers?"

After entering the lobby of the apartment, Zhang Tie hurriedly put on his clothes as he asked Barley.

"Leit and the other bros are still looking for Sharwin. Doug and I are here to inform you. We wanted to know whether you have any method to deal with this!"

"What about Sharwin’s stepfather, where’s he?"

"After being bandaged in the hospital, he has already returned home!"

"I know what to do!"

Saying this, Zhang Tie rapidly and carefully put on his second lieutenant’s military uniform.

At the beginning, Barley and Doug didn’t notice that Zhang Tie’s wounds had fully recovered. However, seeing Zhang Tie move so quickly and not like one who’s been wounded, they gradually became startled.

"Have your wounds recovered?"

Barley popped out his eyes.

"Yes, they’ve recovered yesterday, but keep it a secret for me!" Seeing Barley and Doug’s surprised eyes which contained other speculations, Zhang Tie hurriedly added, "Grandma Teresa cured it with esoteric medicine. No matter how perverted my physique is, I could never recover so fast myself!"

Hearing Zhang Tie’s words, Barley and Doug exchanged glances with each other before letting out a breath. If lightning strike could really lead to such a marvelous self-curing effect, allowing people to recover from such heavy wounds in only two days, Barley and Doug would probably want to have a try as well.

Zhang Tie was simply another pride of the Seventh National Male Middle School of Blackhot City after Li Shizhen. Almost everybody was talking about his story, especially those animals from all the other male schools that had graduated the same year as him. The event where he could insta-kill a LV 6 black spider man during an assassination that day was even described as a legend.

At the fastest speed, Zhang Tie finished cleaning himself and putting on his clothes. The moment he wanted to leave with the car’s key in hand, he stopped. His car was parked under the tree outside the apartment, which although could be easily driven, would take at least half an hour to start since he would need to heat up the boiler.

"How did you come here?"

"Of course by running! Since it’s still early, the public buses aren’t driving around yet! We’ve run for over an hour!"

"Can you continue to run?"

Doug and Barley patted their chests!

"Well then, we will go to Sharwin’s home and solve Sharwin’s hard*ss stepfather!"

"Do you mean you want to kill that bastard?"

Doug was really startled, while Barley showed the whites of his eyes. With such a stupid guy as his brother, even Barley felt shamed by it.

Zhang Tie felt both angry and amused. "I’m a regular officer of the Norman Empire instead of a bandit and robber like Red-scarf burglars. I mean we will deal with the event that Sharwin’s stepfather wants to appeal to the Military Administration. In the military uniform of the Norman Empire, although I cannot be a tyrant in the Blackhot City, I can at least frighten people!"

Scratching his head, Doug smirked. "Pity, actually, if we could actually kill that hard*ss, I would feel much easier!"

Barley could stand it no more and smacked Doug on his head with his hand.

After leaving Zhang Tie’s apartment, the three of them started to run past the avenues of Blackhot City, as if they were jogging.

Seeing a young military officer of the Norman Empire jogging with two people in the early morning, many people became curious. On the way, Zhang Tie, Barley and Doug were stopped by patrolling soldiers of No. 39 Division at least three times. Each time they were stopped, after glancing over Zhang Tie, those patrolling soldiers would ask him whether he needed help or not.

...

Although Zhang Tie tried to control his running speed to be slow, Barley and Doug were already sweating all over.

After jogging for twenty minutes, they finally got on a trolley bus and arrived at Sharwin’s home one hour later.

Compared to Zhang Tie’s home, Sharwin’s was in a worse economic condition. His house was in the residential area called ’brick building’ since the entire residential quarter looked like it was combined of four standing bricks.

Besides the middleground of the area, the rest of the places were dark and narrow. The aisles and passages were piled with all sorts of sundry and waste. The walls on all sides were scrawled with various doodles and words, pasted with illegal ads by old and ugly prostitutes and road marks for guiding pimps.

This was the true slums of Blackhot City where people doing the cheapest labor lived.

When Zhang Tie, Barley, and Doug arrived, most of people in this slum had just gotten up. Many were lazily queuing up outside the public toilet in the mezzanine.

Zhang Tie’s arrival aroused a slight turmoil. The moment they saw him, many people who were going to leave hurriedly returned home and closed the door. If any of their kids were outside, they would hug them and take them back home, then stare at this military officer through the cracks in their door and window frames with their eyes wide-open, wanting to know what this military officer of the Norman Empire was here for.

In the past month, some tramps and jobless people, as well as some low-level gangs in the slum, wanted to make some money when the Blackhot City was changing its ruler. In the end, all of their bodies were hung on the gibbets as specimen for a long time. Those soldiers of the Norman Empire in dark red military uniforms usually came here to catch and kill someone. Therefore, the residents here had formed an instinctive fear of the dark red military uniform.

When Barley and Doug came before a room No.816 on the side of floor 8 of this ’brick building’, Zhang Tie exchanged glances with Barley and Doug, and the latter two nodded.

Currently, the room was still filled with a man’s furious screams and a woman’s weeps.

Zhang Tie raised his hand and lightly knocked on the door.

A 11-12 kid with a fat face opened the door. At the sight of Zhang Tie standing outside, he was so scared that he even began to quiver all over.

Zhang Tie pushed open the door and saw another 8-9 kid beside that 11-12 one. They looked a bit like Sharwin, but not as comely. Thinking of Sharwin’s thin figure and the two rude, fat kids, Zhang Tie immediately understood their status—Sharwin’s two younger brothers who had the same mother but different father.

Zhang Tie looked at the two boys, but he neither liked nor disliked them. Since they opened the door, he walked in and went directly towards the room where the man’s growls and the woman’s weeps drifted from.

...

"Please don’t appeal to the ministry. He didn’t mean it yesterday. If you do this, he will surely die. Do you really want to see him die? He’s called you dad for more than ten years..."

The woman in the room wept as she begged the man.

"You dare to beg for my forgiveness! Do you know what he wanted to do yesterday? Do you understand what that bastard had really wanted to do? He wanted to kill me with a knife! He’s not my son, just your and your dead former husband’s bastard..." the man growled in the room.

"No, not like that. He just had no way out because you wanted to beat him bloody! He just took the knife to poke you! It was just a small wound..."

’Pah!’, a loud slapping sound stopped the woman’s argument.

"A small wound, do you know how painful this father’s thigh is? You still dare to ask for my forgiveness! Well, I know your former dead husband has left a deposit for you and that bastard before he died. You must have hidden that deposit receipt. If you take it out, I will not appeal then..."

"There’s nothing left! Really! All the money at home has been used up by you to sleep with the women outside. Where do you want me to find the deposit..."

That woman burst out laughing loudly.

"If you don’t take it out, just wait for your son to be caught and hung dead in the gibbets!" the man started to viciously threat.

"Please, I really have no money left..."

"With no money, you want to save that bastard? Heh... heh... just wait to collect his corpse. That bastard with tender skin and flesh will definitely look good when he’s hung dead..."

Hearing those words, Zhang Tie couldn’t stand it any longer. Infuriated, he kicked open the door of the room and quickly picked up that man by his neck, then ferociously slapped his face more than ten times in a breath.