Chapter 2: The Wanderer Returns (Part 2)

  "Heh heh, the National Government is so vigilant against the Japanese, I'm delighted." Li Ruofeng didn't make Ma Jun feel too embarrassed and smiled: "Who is Ito Masao? I believe you should know better than me. Tell me, what do you want to know?"

  Ma Jun waved his hand to signal his companions and the train staff to leave, and he closed the door. He stayed alone to deal with Li Ruofeng.

  "If it's convenient for you, I'd like to know everything related to you." Ma Jun saw that Li Ruofeng had already made his intentions clear, and he didn't plan on beating around the bush either.

  "You're not modest at all! Hehe." Li Ruofeng gestured with his right hand, inviting Ma Jun to sit down. "Please take a seat. If I'm not mistaken, you should be the ones who followed Itō Masao from Shanghai all the way here, right?"

  "That's right, Ito Masao is a big shot in the Japanese spy agency in China. It must not be a simple task to get him to come out personally." Ma Jun sat down calmly and steadily, his eyes gleaming with intensity as he stared at Li Ruofeng, saying: "Although you didn't meet Ito Masao for long at the dock, but I can tell that Ito Masao has great respect for you, or perhaps it's fear."

  Li Ruofeng nodded and smiled: "Your observation skills are strong, no mistake, Ito Masao indeed does not dare to offend me easily. My name is Li Ruofeng, 24 years old, ancestral home in Fengtian, studied in Japan in the 12th year of the Republic of China, stayed in Japan for seven years, and just set foot on the vast land of our great China today. In Japan, whether it was the Black Dragon Society or the Tokko, they gathered a lot of information related to me that they could investigate. I believe not all the intelligence personnel of the National Government are idle, you only need to know everything about me through your people planted in Japan."

  "Thank you, Mr. Li, for your teachings! Farewell!" Ma Jun stood up and made a fist as a gesture of respect.

  "Go back and tell your superior that I am a Chinese, not an enemy of yours, so there is no need to waste manpower and resources on me. You'd better focus more on the Japanese, for they have made full preparations for war within their country, and flames of war will soon be burning along the Songhua River."

  Ma Jun's expression was solemn as he nodded and bowed his head again to Li Ruofeng, saying "We will meet again!" After finishing speaking, he pushed the door open and went out.

  In the cabin, peace was restored.

  Staring at the mirror embedded on the tightly closed compartment door, Li Ruofeng subconsciously touched the scar on his left cheek with his fingers.

  Time's wheel may have worn away the rough edges of this scar, but it could not make it blend in completely with the skin on his face.

  It destroyed the original facial features of Li Ruofeng's handsome face, but it added a cold and ruthless killing aura to his entire person.

  Every time he sees this scar, Li Ruofeng's mind involuntarily recalls his childhood and adolescent memories.

  Normally, the children of a wealthy family are all pampered and spoiled by their elders, but Li Ruofeng was not so lucky. This is not to say that the Li family is not a wealthy family, but rather that the Li family is too large, so large that they cannot be compared to ordinary wealthy families.

  The heroes who have been through Guandong will mention Ping Dragon Ridge Li Family Fortress without anyone saying they don't know.

  It is said that the Kwantung territory is not peaceful, but within a radius of thirty miles around Panlong Ridge, every household lives in peace and everyone enjoys their work. Neither bandits nor warlords dare to rob or murder near Lijiabao. Even the Japanese Kwantung Army and the Soviet Red Army strictly prohibit their troops from committing atrocities against civilians in Panlong Ridge.

  The Li family had sparse descendants in recent generations. By the time of Li Ruofeng's father, among seven siblings, only Li Ruofeng was left to carry on the family line.

  Logically, as the only emperor of Li's family, Li Ruofeng should have received all the favor and love. However, the thinking of Li's family is different from that of ordinary families. As Li Chengyi, Li Ruofeng's father, said, "Li's family was founded on martial arts, and only by training Li Ruofeng into a true master can we ensure his survival and keep the family's legacy from being extinguished."

  Thus, Li Ruofeng began to learn martial arts at the age of three and at five years old, he was one of 300 children of the same age carefully selected by the Li family to undergo the "Ten Year Tree People Training Plan" that every generation of the Li family had stipulated.

  Li Ruofeng only understood after growing up that the plan to train the Lin family children through generations was cruel and ruthless for a child who didn't understand. Among the three hundred or so people who started training with him, fewer than two hundred survived in the end, only one hundred and ninety-eight.

  The scar on his face was left by the tiger's claws when he single-handedly fought a fully grown ferocious tiger at the age of eleven. Although he killed the fierce beast, his weak and bloody appearance nearly scared his father and two uncles to death. His mother almost had a falling out with his father over this injury.

  Actually, scars like this one are all over Li Ruofeng's body, totaling thirty-nine in all. These thirty-nine scars can be said to be the true witnesses of how terrifying his trials were back then.

  From his father, uncle and elder brother, Li Ruofeng learned that this family rule was passed down from the ancestors of the Li family. It is said that the ancestor of the Li family was one of the founders of the "Blood Drop" organization of Emperor Yongzheng. After Emperor Yongzheng ascended to the throne, the ancestor of the Li family wisely chose to retreat and hide in seclusion, escaping the great disaster of being purged and silenced.

  After nearly two hundred years of continuous development and improvement, the "Ten Years Tree People Training Camp" originating from the most terrifying spy killer organization "Blood Drop Child" in the Qing Dynasty has become a secret quasi-military training subject that belongs to Li's Village.

  It was this "Li's Training Camp" that combined cold weapon martial arts training and hot weapon military training, which effectively guaranteed and developed the family business wealth accumulated by Lijia Village for nearly two hundred years.

  In modern terms, "Li's Training Camp" is actually a super terrorist organization that specializes in cultivating and training "multi-functional terrorists".

  However, the "Li family terrorists" have always refused to participate in the expansion of local forces or party struggles, they are simply based on a simple self-protection consciousness.

  Panlong Ridge is located in a remote geographical location, not a strategic location that must be contended for by military forces. Therefore, over the past two hundred years, Lijia Fortress has not attracted the attention of those in power, whether it was the Qing Dynasty at the time or the later Beiyang government, and now the National Government, no one has any special impression of this family force located deep in the mountains and forests.

  However, what the Li family did not expect was that from some time, Lijia Village had actually caught the attention of the Japanese.

  From the Russo-Japanese War period, the Li brothers analyzed and judged that the Japanese would eventually extend their aggressive claws to the entire Northeast China. Based on the principle of "no intact eggs under a destroyed nest", the Li brothers no longer adhered to the family rule of guarding one's own territory and avoiding the world, and instead directed the secret intelligence network belonging to the Li family to cover the Japanese people scattered throughout the three provinces in Northeast China.

  As the conflict between Japanese immigrants from Yokohama and the Black Dragon Society's assassins escalated, Lijiabao gradually entered the sight of the Imperial Japanese Army Kwantung Army Headquarters.

  Li Ruofeng, under this premise, inherited his father's teachings, with the ancient wisdom of knowing oneself and others, brought six subordinates from the training camp to Japan, to conduct a comprehensive exploration and learning of Japanese culture, economy and military.

  Of course, there is another secret that belongs to Li Ruofeng himself, which makes him follow the family's arrangements. That is, he doesn't belong to this era, to be precise, his soul doesn't belong to this era.

  He himself was unclear what reason made him reborn in Panshan Ridge Li's village with nearly thirty years of memories from his previous life, becoming the youngest young master of the Li family. Also because he had an adult mind and will, he passed through all the most rigorous training of the family and stood out as the best of this generation. And also because his previous life was a 21st-century university student and a pseudo-military enthusiast, since coming to this era that made the Chinese nation suffer, he needed to have a deeper understanding of the abnormal nation of Japan.

  He then stayed in Japan for seven whole years.

  In the seven years, his footprints almost covered every corner of Japan's four islands. The more he understood Japan's economy and military, the more he realized the gap between China and Japan, and the more determined he was to pursue knowledge.

  Three years at the Imperial Army Academy and four years at Waseda University in Tokyo not only made Li Ruofeng a thorough Japanese expert, but also gave him a systematic understanding of the economic culture of Britain, America, France and Germany through the books in the libraries of these two schools. In addition to being fluent in Japanese, he can also speak fluent English and German.

  There are many Chinese people studying in Japan, but there are not many kind-hearted people like Li Ruofeng. The status of Chinese international students in Japan can be said to be very low, but this does not include strong individuals like Li Ruofeng who have received hellish martial arts training since childhood.

  On the contrary, the three characters "Li Ruofeng" are very famous in Japan's warrior circles!

  He had successively challenged the three major dojo of Edo, Japan, and the successors of Kyoshin Meichi Ryu and Shindou Munen Ryu were defeated under Li's Wuji Sword. Only Chiba Seizan, the current head of Hokushin Ittō-ryū, shook hands with him to make peace.

  These three battles, due to the Japanese considering political influence, strictly blocked the news, so Chinese students in Japan were unaware of it, but for the high-level military and government authorities in Japan, they had an extremely huge shock.

  Fortunately, Li Ruofeng played a role that was not a "hot-blooded youth" with deep resentment towards Japan at the time. His words and deeds were not extreme, but rather, he relied on his profound knowledge of Japanese culture to be polite and courteous. Not only did he not make enemies with the three major dojos in Edo, but he also gained the friendship of true warriors from the Hokushin Ittō-ryū, Kyōshin Meichi-ryū, and Shindō Munen-ryū schools, making many friends along the way.

  Otherwise, if he provoked the public anger of the three major sword schools and they attacked him together, he would ask himself that even with his high skills, it would be difficult to escape Japan safely.

  When the Japanese military high-level authorities found out that Li Ruofeng had studied at the Imperial Military Academy and was currently studying at Waseda University in Tokyo, they immediately issued an order to the Tokko section to buy off and win over Li Ruofeng at all costs, making him serve the Empire. Before a clear kill order was given by the military department, no one was allowed to take extreme actions against him.

  In Japan for seven years, Li Ruofeng didn't have any thoughts or leave anything behind. There were his friends and the unforgettable lover. However, with the extreme expansion of militarism in Japan, the war machine was running at high speed, and he knew that the war between China and Japan had become an unstoppable trend. At that time, two nations would inevitably be like fire and water for their own dignity and interests. So, he could only hide those beautiful memories deep in his heart for nearly two years, otherwise, the first person who wouldn't forgive him would be his own father.

  After the outbreak of the Northern Expedition war at home, Li Ruofeng arranged for four of his subordinates to return to China. After the Huanggutun incident in 1928, he also sent back the other brothers who had been staying with him. Now, he is back!

  "Wooo——"

  The long whistle of the train broke Li Ruofeng's reverie.

  He raised his hand and rubbed his cheeks hard, then shook his head vigorously, as if to shake off some things in his mind.

  He took out a gold-cased pocket watch from his breast pocket and opened it to take a look before closing it again.

  The train's speed has obviously slowed down, it should be arriving at the station.

  Lin Ruofeng leaned in close to the window and looked out, as the train slowly moved forward, he saw a row of fully armed soldiers standing neatly on the platform, passing by one by one from his field of vision.

  When the train stopped, the carriage he was in was just two carriages away from the exit.

  There were two black Ford sedans parked on the walkway at the exit. On both sides of the passageway, there were two rows of fully armed soldiers standing guard with guns.