This was not the first time Hu Yuanyuan had faced a life-or-death crisis. Once at the Imperial Hotel, and once when Blood Sand tried to kidnap her. Both times she had teetered on the edge of death. Yet compared to this moment, those earlier dangers now seemed child’s play.
This time was different. This time Hu Yuanyuan had witnessed bloody slaughter with her own eyes. She had watched three of her five bodyguards hacked to death, seen Wang Jian gravely wounded, and Grey Eagle fighting for his life.
Any ordinary woman would long since have fainted from terror, but Hu Yuanyuan came from a military family and had cultivated the Snow Jade Art. Though fear gripped her, it was not enough to make her lose consciousness.
When she saw the black-clothed man about to cleave Wang Jian in two, she reacted without thinking. She drew the pistol Li Feng had given her at the Imperial Hotel last time and shot the attacker dead with a single bullet.
After killing him, Hu Yuanyuan froze.
Murder. Something she had never even dared imagine before. No matter how strong she was, she could not immediately accept the fact that she had taken a human life.
So, in that instant, as two black-clothed men charged at her with murderous intent, Hu Yuanyuan did not even react. Only when Wang Jian shouted his warning did she snap out of her daze. But by then all she saw were two flashes of cold light slicing through the air toward her.
She tried to dodge, but the shadow of death enveloped her completely. There was nowhere to escape.
It’s over.
Hu Yuanyuan’s face drained of colour. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.
In that moment, countless memories flooded her mind: her parents, Li Feng, her relatives and friends.
All kinds of emotions surged up, then dissolved into blank nothingness.
“Ah!”
Two agonised screams suddenly rang in her ears, followed at once by a spray of hot blood across her face.
“Die.”
Zhong Shuhui’s icy voice sounded right in front of her. Hu Yuanyuan opened her eyes and saw that Zhong Shuhui had somehow appeared before her. One black-clothed attacker lay dead at her feet, the other had lost an arm. Zhong Shuhui herself was drenched in blood, locked in fierce combat with the one-armed man.
“Young Miss.” Wang Jian struggled painfully to her side.
“Wang Jian, are you all right?” Hu Yuanyuan asked quickly.
“I won’t die yet,” Wang Jian shook his head. Among everyone present today, he felt the most humiliated. As an elite soldier, he had been utterly helpless against ancient martial artists. The blow to his pride was enormous.
At this point Hu Yuanyuan no longer cared about concealing her spatial pouch. She produced a jade bottle of Yunnan Baiyao ointment and a roll of gauze, then said to Wang Jian, “Zhong Shuhui is here now; the danger has passed for the moment. Treat your wounds first.”
“Young Miss, this…” Wang Jian’s eyes widened in disbelief as the medicine and gauze appeared from nowhere.
Something that looked like magic had completely overturned his understanding of the world.
First there were terrifyingly powerful ancient martial artists, and now the Young Miss was pulling things out of thin air. Was this still the modern world?
Hu Yuanyuan paid no attention to his shock. Wang Jian was covered in wounds and losing blood fast; if this continued he would die. She was no doctor, but as a child she had learned basic field dressing while accompanying her father in the army.
“There.” Hu Yuanyuan let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness she had picked up that much back then, or she would have been at a complete loss today.
“Thank you, Young Miss.” Wang Jian turned to look at the battlefield.
By now Zhong Shuhui had finished off the one-armed attacker and was fighting the remaining black-clothed men alongside Grey Eagle.
“Young Miss, may I have your pistol?” Wang Jian asked. Despite his severe injuries, he could still fire a gun. In the modern army, a firearm was a soldier’s second life.
“Of course.” Hu Yuanyuan handed it over without hesitation. Her marksmanship could not compare to Wang Jian’s. Her earlier kill had been mostly luck.
“Die!”
Zhong Shuhui roared. Her hand brushed across her spatial pouch and another soft sword appeared. With a flick of her wrist, the flexible blade turned into countless rays of sword light.
Fortunately Li Feng had given her a spatial pouch. After being tricked by Liu Shichao last time, she had stocked it with several weapons. Otherwise, after killing that assassin she would have had no time to pick up a blade before rushing to save Hu Yuanyuan and the others.
Having trained in swordsmanship for over ten years, her strength dropped sharply without a sword in hand.
Of everyone present, Zhong Shuhui was the angriest. As commander of Eagle Eye, she had failed to detect an assassination plot against Hu Yuanyuan. That was her greatest dereliction of duty. She had also fallen for a diversion, lured away by the assassin on the truck. Although she had killed that man immediately when the black-clothed attackers appeared, she had still arrived too late to prevent the initial carnage. Had Wang Jian and the others not fought to the death, Hu Yuanyuan might already be lost.
Though Zhong Shuhui had taken a bullet and her combat strength was reduced, her wealth of experience made short work of Postnatal second-level and early third-level assassins.
“Die.” Murderous intent blazed across her face as her sword ran the black-clothed man through.
Boom!
The sword energy pierced straight into the ground, leaving a deep scar. Zhong Shuhui looked at the fallen attacker and curled her lips into a cold smile.
“How is this possible?”
The two surviving black-clothed men paled in horror, staring at Zhong Shuhui in disbelief. They had never imagined her sword strike could be so terrifying. Seeing the icy smile on her face, a chill ran down their spines.
“Grey Eagle, fall back. Leave this to me,” Zhong Shuhui ordered. Only two attackers remained; she could handle them easily alone. But she was worried there might be others lurking, so she needed Grey Eagle to protect Hu Yuanyuan.
“Understood.” Grey Eagle did not argue. He too was covered in wounds. Although he could still fight, he knew his strength was far inferior to Zhong Shuhui’s.
Zhong Shuhui fixed the two men with a frosty glare and asked coldly, “Tell me who sent you, and I’ll grant one of you an intact corpse.”
The pair gave cold laughs. “Stinking woman, if you want to know who sent us, go ask the King of Hell. Die!”
Before the words finished, their machetes flashed into chilling arcs, slashing down at Zhong Shuhui from mid-air.
Whoosh!
Zhong Shuhui’s figure blurred, easily evading the strikes.
“Impossible!” Dread rose unbidden in the attackers’ hearts.
When she had cut down their companions earlier, they assumed she had simply caught them off guard and been lucky. Only now did they realise it was not luck. She truly possessed that level of power.
Seeing so many of their comrades dead, leaving only the two of them, all desire to fight evaporated.
Flee!
Exchanging a glance, they each swung another desperate slash at Zhong Shuhui, then channelled all their true qi and fled in opposite directions at top speed.
“Too late to run now.”
Zhong Shuhui sneered. She stamped hard on the ground and shot forward like an arrow. Her soft sword thrust out in a blur.
Seeing her give chase, one man’s scalp went numb. He shouted and tried to summon protective qi to block the strike. With his Postnatal third-level cultivation, even if his movement arts were inferior, blocking a single sword should be feasible.
Chi!
Sword light flashed. The air itself seemed split in two. Blood sprayed. Only when the pain hit did the man realise he was flying through the air. He looked down and saw his own body collapse to the ground.
“What a fast sword.”
That was his final thought.
Witnessing his companion decapitated with one strike, the last black-clothed man nearly lost his soul in terror. He ran for his life.
Cold killing intent flared in Zhong Shuhui’s eyes. She started after him, then abruptly stopped. Several Black Eagle squad members stationed at Tianya Pavilion were rushing toward them, and the fleeing man was heading straight into their path.
“Die.”
Although stronger than any individual Black Eagle member, the terrified assassin lasted less than thirty seconds against seven or eight of them and was swiftly cut down.
“Commander Zhong.”
The Black Eagle members saluted as they reached her.
“You’re finally here.” Zhong Shuhui exhaled in relief. With these fresh reinforcements, returning to Tianya Pavilion should now be safe.
“Young Madam, are you hurt?” Zhong Shuhui hurried to Hu Yuanyuan’s side. Anyone else could die, but not her.
“I’m fine. Zhong Shuhui, how about you?” Hu Yuanyuan asked anxiously. She had seen Zhong Shuhui take a bullet.
“Young Madam, we must leave immediately,” Zhong Shuhui said gravely, ignoring the question. An ominous feeling gnawed at her heart, as if something terrible was still about to happen.
“Very well.” Hu Yuanyuan nodded. Though the assassins were dead, Grey Eagle and Wang Jian were badly injured and three bodyguards lay slain. The shock was overwhelming; she had no wish to remain here.
Two Black Eagle members supported Grey Eagle and Wang Jian. The rest spread out protectively around Hu Yuanyuan, and the group set off toward Tianya Pavilion.
They had taken only a few steps, rounding the large truck ahead, when a heavy lorry came from the opposite direction and stopped in front of them.
Everyone tensed, then Xu Jie poked her head out of the cab. “Get in, quick!”
Relief flooded through them.
At that exact moment.
Da-da-da…
The heavy thud of countless footsteps echoed from every direction. Immediately afterwards, innumerable black-clothed figures wielding machetes emerged from the shadows, radiating killing intent as they closed in.
Zhong Shuhui and the others turned ashen.
