Castle of Black Iron

Only after more than 2 months, before Runo and his subordinates left the territory of Northeast Military Region, they had met Barley and the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood in Huizhou City, the capital city of Huizhou Province.

Huizhou City was the largest air hub in Northeast Military Region of Taixia Country. It took Runo and his subordinates over 1 month to arrive at Huizhou City by airship. When they were about to move to Guizhou Province, they met the group of Barley in the departure lounge of the airship base coincidentally.

According to Runo, the group of Barley was talking loudly about Huaiyuan Palace of Youzhou Province in the departure lounge. One of them even spoke of Jinwu Business Group and Zhang Yang. Out of curiosity, Runo inquired about their background and found that they were the very people whom he was looking for.

According to Zhang Tie’s estimation, it would take Runo’s team at least 3 months to come back with the group of Barley from Guizhou Province as it was a journey of 250,000 miles in total. He could not imagine that they would come back only in 2 months.

According to Barley, when they were in Guizhou Province, they heard about all-purpose medicament; through inquiry, they learned that Jinwu Business Group had been well-known across Youzhou Province; additionally, Huaiyuan Palace had already rooted in Yanghe Prefecture of Youzhou Province. Through negotiation, Barley, Doug, Sharwin, Hista, Leit and Bagad then determined to find Zhang Tie in Youzhou Province; at least they wanted to know Zhang Tie’s whereabouts.

Since Zhang Tie sent them away from Blackhot City and disappeared from then on, he had always been the topic of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood. When they came to Taixia Country at the beginning, they had contacted Zhang Yang; however, after a period, they failed to contact Zhang Yang anymore due to various reasons. Of course, they lost the information about Zhang Tie.

Actually, before they met Runo, they were not even sure whether Zhang Tie was still alive. After hearing that Zhang Yang and Jinwu Business Group had rooted in Youzhou Province, they hurriedly came to Youzhou Province to ask about Zhang Tie’s whereabouts from Zhang Tie’s family members.

No matter how long had passed, what happened during the period when they called each other brothers had long become the deepest brand in their lives and would never fade away.

Without Zhang Tie, they even couldn’t imagine the current lives facing them and their family members. They might have long been stranded in other continents or become one of those corpses in Waii Sub-continent.

In a sense, Zhang Tie was not only their brother but also their savior. Even their parents usually asked Zhang Tie’s whereabouts, not to mention them.

At the sight of Zhang Tie, Sharwin, who used to be sentimental, turned his eyes red at first, closely followed by all the others of Hit-Plane Brotherhood including Zhang Tie. They called each other’s name and tightly embraced each other and patted the other’s shoulder forcefully without saying anything else.

...

Besides Zhang Tie, the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood had changed a lot physically. They were not that innocent juniors anymore; instead, they all grew tall and strong. After a couple of years, they would be 30 years old.

Bagad looked stronger than before; besides, he had dense whiskers...

Barley the Fatty’s stomach was like that of a pregnant woman with twins...

Sharwin had grown taller. Previously, Sharwin was average in height in the Hit-Plane Brotherhood; however, now he was even 2 cm taller than Bagdad.

Doug was bald with a grim knife-cut scar on his left face. He really looked like an experienced hatchet man when he closed his mouth.

Leit had turned more adultly. In a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a scholar.

Hista looked still like a major d*ck. His face turned a bit pale. He was wearing a play-boy shirt and a pair of eye-catching white western style pants. What was more attractive was that 2 cm wide gold necklace.

In the study, Zhang Tie and the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood glanced at each other for quite a while. Finally, Barley let out a sigh as he rubbed his fat face, "Doesn’t Hua people get old? How could you be so excessive? Why can I not see any trace of time elapse on your face? You look no different than that time when you left Blackhot City."

Sharwin and the other guys nodded forcefully at the same time.

Those who were always on Zhang Tie’s side couldn’t find that Zhang Tie was a weirdo. Only those who were very familiar with him and had not seen him for many years could sense Zhang Tie’s terror——Zhang Tie’s look almost remained unchanged since the last time they saw him.

"I have no idea. Maybe it’s the sequela of thunder strike!" Zhang Tie could only fabricate it as he didn’t know how to explain it to them at all.

"You know what, the moment I imagined that you could sleep with young girls at your 50s, I preferred to be stricken by the thunder on behalf of you!" Hista let out a sigh.

"What happened in Blackhot City? Why didn’t you come back after leaving the airship?" Doug asked anxiously after Hista’s words.

They had been puzzled by this question for so many years. On the way here, besides telling them that Zhang Tie was still alive and had just come to Taixia Country, Zhang Yang exposed almost nothing else about Zhang Tie to them. Therefore, they didn’t know anything about Zhang Tie’s current situation until now.

"I left the airship to kill Abyan the b*stard! Later on, due to some accidents, I was almost killed by Abyan. It’s hard to describe the process. It took me a few years to get rid of that event completely and gain freedom. After the holy war broke out, I returned to Huaiyuan Prefecture and was told that you’ve already arrived at Taixia Country; therefore, I became reassured. I then stayed in Waii Sub-continent to resist demons for Huaiyuan Palace for a few years!" Zhang Tie explained it to them as he came to the gradevin of the study and got a bottle of liquor. After that, he came back and made a glass of liquor for each of them.

"Have you...promoted LV 10? So fast?" Bagdad had been gazing at Zhang Tie since he caught sight of the latter. As Bagdad failed to figure out Zhang Tie’s qi, he just made a "brave" guess.

In Bagdad’s opinion, based on Zhang Tie’s cultivation speed, he should have a probability to promote to LV 10 during the past few years.

No wonder Bagdad would mistake it because even very few people in Huaiyuan Palace could break through LV 9 at the 20s. Additionally, Bagdad could never imagine what Zhang Tie had experienced in the past years.

Compared to Zhang Tie the weirdo, although Bagdad had been very diligent over these years, he had just promoted to LV 6 and lit 10 surging points on his spine. He was still 3 surging points away from LV 7 fighter.

After throwing a glance at Bagdad, Zhang Tie had kept all the information about Bagdad in his mind. Given the fine grains between the thumb and the index finger of Bagdad, Zhang Tie knew that Bagdad was practicing an extremely common saber skill "10-step constant saber". Bagdad had just become familiar with this saber skill. Additionally, as Bagdad practiced "Iron-blood Fist" at the beginning, even though he failed to make it, he had indeed spent some time in the basic movements of Iron-blood Fist, especially the Lying-tiger Movement, which could increase his strength and anti-strike ability. With Lying-tiger Movement as his foundation, given the features on Bagdad’s back and neck and the faint, special smell of medicine over his body, Zhang Tie knew that Bagdad was practicing another anti-strike kungfu of Hua people——"Iron-back Skill".

With the strong knight’s consciousness, Bagdad’s information was almost transparent to Zhang Tie.

Bagdad was persistent and diligent, who was the typical representative of most of "excellent youths" at his age. Through his persistent efforts, he would soon promote to LV 7 as the strongest one among the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood but Zhang Tie.

"I indeed have broken through LV 9!" Zhang Tie replied with a smile. As he didn’t want to scare them too much, he just shifted the topic, "How do you live in Guizhou Province?"

After hearing that Zhang Tie admitted that he had broken through LV 9, the others threw a glance at Zhang Tie as they thought that Zhang Tie had promoted to LV 10.

Speaking of Guizhou Province, all the other members of Hit-Plane Brotherhood looked bright at once, including Barley.

"We live pretty well in Guizhou Province. It took us a few years to adapt to the environment in Guizhou Province. God’s Will Brotherhood opened 3 chain deluxe hotels and 5 dining halls. We have a good business here! We’ve already made over 600,000 gold coins using the 200,000 gold coins that you gave us at the beginning. You have 50% of the total shares of the 3 grand hotels and 5 dining halls!" Doug explained out of excitement as he patted onto Zhang Tie’s shoulder forcefully and invited Zhang Tie passionately, "Bighead, if you’re no longer able to carry on in Youzhou Province, work with us in Guizhou Province! As long as we stay with each other, we will have a bright future in Guizhou Province for sure."

...