Chapter 1: The Demon’s Martial Art

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Chapter 1: The Demon Takezo

“Takezo! Takezo!”
“Boss! Boss, you’ll be alright!”
“Dear gods, please protect our boss!”

Why is it so noisy?

Liu Qing had always been a frustrated, unrecognized director. Although he graduated from a prestigious university, he never got the resources he needed and spent his days floating around the Hengdian film lots.

To put it nicely: he was a set director or an assistant director.
To put it bluntly: an errand boy.

Last night, while browsing online, he ran into a chatty kitten and, in a fit of curiosity, started watching the second season of “XX Supervisor.” True to his manly resolve, he didn’t skip ahead, and by the time he finished, it was already the dead of night. Who knows how long he slept, but now strange voices buzzed in his ears.

Takezo?
Boss?
Wait—why is everyone speaking Japanese?

A sense of wrongness crept in. Liu Qing jolted upright, eyes snapping open—only to be stunned.

He didn’t know any of these people.

There were five before him, none of them good-looking by any stretch, but each had a distinctive presence.

Closest to him was a guy with bleached blond hair, squinty eyes, and rabbit-like teeth.
To his right, a bare-chested man with a tiger tattooed across his chest.
On his left, another shirtless man, but his arm was wrapped in white gauze, bloodstained—clearly wounded—and tattooed with a carp.

Behind these three stood two elderly men, white-haired and dressed in traditional Japanese garb. They didn’t seem like people of any rank, more like laborers.

Wait—both were missing fingers.

Hold on, he himself was injured, bandages wrapped around his head and waist, blood still seeping through.

“Damn it! Who the hell are you all?” …Wait, was that me? Is this how you ask someone’s name in Japanese?

The moment he blurted those words, Liu Qing regretted it. These men looked like trouble, and though he was no celebrity director, he still fancied himself an intellectual and rarely cursed, let alone used foul language as a habit.

Now, with these rough words spilling out, he feared a third sentence might well earn him a beating. So he stopped.

The five men stared at him, momentarily stunned. Luckily, the guy with the blond hair suddenly brightened.

“Amnesia? Boss, you’ve lost your memory, haven’t you?”

With that, the others nodded in agreement.

“Damn that bastard Kitajo!”
“Yeah! He ambushed the boss!”
“Takezo, hang in there! Do you remember who you are?”

Being a child of the internet age, Liu Qing quickly realized he must have transmigrated. The blond’s explanation of amnesia—what a genius! The more he looked at him, the more he found his features rather handsome.

“Damn it! My head hurts, dammit…” he muttered, massaging his bandaged scalp, teeth clenched in pain and frustration.

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At that moment, Liu Qing drew upon his long-forgotten acting lessons from film school.

Many might not know this, but film directing students also attend acting classes. The key to acting is the “seven faculties and four senses”—and first among them is observation. In this short span, Liu Qing had already pieced together a rough idea of his situation.

These men were clearly tough customers, and the body he’d woken up in seemed to have a habit of swearing—he was obviously their boss.

Grasping these essentials, and with amnesia as his excuse, it shouldn’t be too hard to play the boss of a yakuza gang.

Sure enough, the five men’s doubts melted away.

“Boss! We’re the Iwata Group!”
“Takezo, you’re our leader, Takezo Iwata!”
“Boss, we may be yakuza, but we have honor! Seeing you humiliated tears me apart—just say the word and I’ll bring you Kitajo’s head!”
“You? Alone?”
“This isn’t the time. The boss needs to recover first!”
“Takezo, how much do you remember? You remember we’re yakuza, right?”

As the saying goes: three women make a drama, so five men are practically a chorus.

Their racket was enough to split Liu Qing’s head—no, he was Takezo Iwata now.

Luckily, he’d seen his share of Japanese gangster films, and this scene was straight out of a movie. From their chaotic exchanges, he managed to sift out some useful information:

He was now Takezo Iwata, leader of the Iwata Group, and apparently, he’d been ambushed by someone named Kitajo. Beyond that…

“Damn it!” Takezo unleashed the full force of a boss’s aura, barking a curse that immediately silenced his men.

Takezo—he’d better stick to that name now, or it could cost him his life.
“No one talks unless I say so! Speak one at a time!”

Surprisingly, those three sentences brought order to the room.

The two older men exchanged glances, rummaged through a chest, and produced a booklet, the two largest characters on its cover reading:

Chivalry.

…

In Japan, there’s a card game somewhat like poker called “Satsu.” The worst, ugliest cards are nicknamed “yakuza,” meaning “deadbeats.”

During the late shogunate era, many low-level samurai, reduced to poverty, banded together for survival, forming the yakuza. They called themselves by that name, fully aware of its meaning: they were outcasts, the lowest of the low.

The Iwata Group was just one small faction among them. The original boss was Takezo’s father, Fubun Iwata.

Takezo inherited the leadership after his father was killed in a gang skirmish, prompting him to seek revenge. But when the second-generation boss led his men to settle the score, their enemies had already been eliminated by another yakuza group.

It was a mess, but messiness was the yakuza’s daily bread.

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Now, the time frame.

It was 1988—Japan’s economic bubble era, a time when the yakuza flourished.

Having pieced together the situation, Takezo Iwata told his men he wanted some peace and quiet.

None dared ask who “Peace and Quiet” was.

But one of the elderly men who’d just briefed Takezo lingered to share a few special details.

Though Takezo was born into the yakuza, his father Fubun never wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. As a child, Takezo did well in school—a studious type.

Fubun concealed his true occupation from his son. But in middle school, Takezo was bullied, so he joined the boxing club, quickly sending his tormentors to the hospital.

A promising yakuza, indeed.

Fubun had no choice. Fearing his son might fall in with another gang, he brought him into his own fold.

However, until his father’s death, Takezo remained in school and even got into the prestigious Tokyo University of the Arts.

Why would a yakuza heir attend such a university?

Not so strange, actually. The Iwata Group’s main business was now in the entertainment industry—not just film production, but idol management and the like.

Takezo immediately understood. At this point in time, Japan’s entertainment world was dominated by the yakuza. It was much the same in the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan entertainment circles.

The famous director Yee Tung-shing once made a film, “Viva Erotica,” that satirized this very situation.

But why had the old man so pointedly mentioned Takezo’s education and past?

“The old boss’s dying wish: Tell Takezo, don’t avenge me!”

…

At last, Takezo Iwata could savor a moment’s peace.

He fully grasped the meaning behind those words: don’t take revenge was the surface message, but beneath it, his father hoped he’d leave the yakuza life.

But Takezo knew: that was not possible now.

At this moment, he held a handled mirror in his hand.

Yakuza all bore tattoos.

He saw no ink on his chest, arms, or thighs. So where was it?

He glanced briefly at his face, then slowly angled the mirror to his back, searching carefully.

He found it.

A horned demon, clutching a dagger in its jaws.

Fierce enough. Vicious enough. Frightening enough.

This was the mark of the Iwata Group’s leader:

The Demon Takezo!

A new novel begins. Please recommend, vote, add to your favorites, and support me! Thank you very much.

(End of chapter)