Jeff was good.
That's the only thing Zhao Wei could think about as he woke up to blurry vision and a stiff neck. Too bad though, as much as he watched and observed all beasts in the wild, he always put extra special attention to the particularly dangerous ones whether they were friend or foe.
Even now he always watched Panda's and Myra's fights with acute precision, not missing a single twitch or pivot despite the fact that they were his oldest companions. It made his hunts with them extremely effective as he would always work to their strength and his traps would be right where they led their prey. At the same time though, it made for the best contingency in the case they ever turned on him.
Jeff started cursing as soon as he found his whole tail and his right arm wrapped around in wrap-traps. In the first place, he felt like Zhao Wei kept picking on him even back on the carriages. Living with Zhao Wei, there was always a possibility of them getting caught in one of the traps he left around, and he'd have to live with that.
What he found out after some time though was that getting caught in one of Zhao Wei's traps 4-5 times a day was not a regular occurrence for the rest of the occupants. Turns out that, the little sh@# had been observing his patterns and specifically set up traps in place he'd frequently step into. Of course the kid would never admit to it when Jeff interrogated him.
But now, the kid was in enemy territory, rife with danger and yet Zhao Wei still had time to prepare something just for him, it was impossible that he put his traps right he was going to pass by coincidence. This was just prejudice against him, this was bullying, it was racism or sexism, something with an -ism in the back, the point was that he wasn't going to stand for this kind of inequality.
He didn't even need to turn to know that Zhao Wei was already looking at him. "Tough neck ya got there." he spoke.
"Well... not really, I actually did knock out for a few seconds just then." Zhao Wei talked to the empty space that was wrapped by the traps.
"Turn around, get into the room and close the door," He couldn't see Jeff's face but his tone was dead serious. "I've already spared you once, but if you don't let me walk away there won't be a next time, this is the limit I can give you."
Zhao Wei furrowed his eyebrows, "Jeff what's going on?"
"Seriously, just do what I say." Jeff spoke out begrudgingly. "No one has to get hurt."
"Hmm... No, not until you tell me what's going on."
"Then you'll have to forgive me for this." The wrap traps suddenly slackened and started swinging it's tendrils around having lost it's prey. In the next moment Grendolyn's body appeared out of thin air, still unconscious as she was laid against the wall.
Zhao Wei still wasn't sure what was going on but his solar plexus suddenly received a very heavy hit by an invisible object as he bowed downwards after having all the air knocked out of him. But his hands weren't idle, it reached above his exposed neck and pinched.
"Polite decapitation, you've taught that to Thirteen way too many times, there's no way it's going to work on me." Zhao Wei was pinching the knife that Jeff would've used to separate his head from his body.
"Oh, then I guess I need to get some new material then," Zhao Wei wasn't sure what he meant until he felt his ribs get beaten. Jeff had coiled the end of his tail and used it somewhat like a mace, striking him much harder than Zhao Wei thought it would be possible from such a flexible limb.
But that wasn't the end game. After having the air knocked out of him again, Zhao Wei's face bent forward in an attempt to cough only to feel the old man's wrinkled forehead smash into his nose. He had already pulled back his knife and swung. Zhao Wei didn't even know where he was attacking, choosing to just hold his arms up in defense which resulted in a nice horizontal gash going through both.
This was much harder than he thought it was going to be. Jeff hadn't used any attack that stayed on Zhao Wei's body long enough for him to grab a hold of or counter, focusing instead on breaking him slowly, and Zhao Wei could feel it, he was waiting for an opening for the kill strike but was content with wearing him down.
Zhao Wei understood, that while he had been watching Jeff, Jeff had been watching him as well.