Chapter 40

Ning Chang'an stared at the woman, who had already dressed, and suddenly asked, "What exactly is your purpose? How could a maid with no martial arts slip quietly into the heavily guarded Yang Manor?"

The woman gave a miserable smile. "A woman always has certain advantages of being a woman, doesn't she? I only blame myself for not being ugly. My looks have been the greatest sin of my life, the bane that ruined it. That beast Yang Wudou brutally defiled me, kept me at his side, and when he grew tired of playing with me, kicked me away and drove me out of Yang Manor. Do you know? By then, I already knew I was pregnant, but I couldn't let him find out. No one in Yang Manor would ever allow such a thing to happen. I am a woman too. Some women are called Princess, called young lady, while I can only be called a slut, a whore. I struggled to give birth to my child. He is almost two now, but with no one to rely on, how could I possibly raise him? Weak women are always the ones trampled underfoot. I only wanted to raise my child safely, so that one day he could kill that heartless, faithless beast for me..."

Ning Chang'an hit the nail on the head. "You need money?"

The woman nodded.

Ning Chang'an sighed. "You are no more than a lamb, yet you want to bargain with a tiger. Don't you know how dangerous that is?! You probably intended to use the child as leverage, make Yang Wudou give you a sum of money, then flee far away with your child, didn't you?"

The woman silently nodded, admitting to this extortion plan.

Ning Chang'an sneered without the slightest restraint. "You are stupid. A stupid woman! This will not only harm you, but your child as well."

The woman said, "No one knows where my child is!"

Ning Chang'an said coldly, "Unless you never reunite with your child, there is no way you can escape the Yang family's eyes."

The woman suddenly laughed, laughing miserably. "I truly am a cheap woman! Hahaha... Actually, I have already entrusted my child to someone else. I only want to gamble everything on one throw. If I do not die, I will take my child and the money and flee far away. If I die, my child will still grow up. He will know where his mother died, and one day he will avenge me all the same. In my heart, I hate that beast, but I love that beast just as much. Without love, how could my hatred be so intense..."

Ning Chang'an was slightly stunned. He could not understand the love born amid such humiliation, nor the tangled, contradictory knot of love and hate. He had never imagined that a woman's heart could be so complicated, so chaotic. But he knew one thing: this woman's appearance here meant that she had already cast life and death aside. Perhaps she truly did not come merely for money. Perhaps she wanted to die before Yang Wudou's eyes—because of love, and even more because of hate.

Behind even the most ordinary person lay a story beyond imagination.

Ning Chang'an slowly straightened and put away his dagger. "Go. Perhaps once he is dead, both your love and your hate will fade away. I will not kill you because a pitiful child carries an inexplicable hatred on his back, and I want him to grow up well. Remember, my name is Soulbreaker..."

The woman climbed up from the ground and said in a slightly trembling voice, "You will not kill me? What are you going to do?"

Ning Chang'an said, "I will not kill you because I pity you and your child. As for me, naturally, I am going to do what I ought to do!"

The woman suddenly shrieked, "I do not need anyone's pity! Why should I need your pity... Do you think you can change anything? What do you think you are, pitying this one and pitying that one? Who is not pitiful? And who is truly pitiful... We are all nothing but pitiful worms, struggling without cease yet destined to die in the end... Hahaha, pitiful worms pity pitiful worms..."

The woman howled hysterically, her nearly crazed pessimism and despair echoing through the air.

Her words stabbed fiercely into Ning Chang'an's heart.

No one needed anyone else's pity. The only person one could fully control was oneself. To simply be oneself well, leave no regrets, and return to dust was already a miracle worthy of praise. Pity was merely a pastime for the soul.

"Could pity be hypocrisy?"

Ning Chang'an murmured it once. He had no time to dwell on the question, because the woman's shrieks had lit up all of Yang Manor. He had to leave before the manor's servants and guards arrived.

The instant he pushed open the door, Ning Chang'an used the faint light outside to glance at the woman's face in the darkness. It was a delicate, lovely, fair face of exceptional beauty, yet at this moment it was deathly pale, her pupils filled with the stillness of despair. She had been driven mad, screaming wildly and crying out at random, but those eyes showed not the slightest ripple, like a stagnant pool—murky and deep.

Ning Chang'an's heart pounded wildly. He shut the door and headed toward the rear courtyard along the side rooms.

The entire Yang Manor had been alarmed by the woman's shrieks, yet the rear courtyard alone remained quiet, without the slightest movement.

Ning Chang'an leaped over the wall by its corner into the rear courtyard, only to be greeted by three gleaming blades. Three burly men pounced on him without hesitation, pinning him tightly against the wall.

Ning Chang'an twisted and rammed sideways, dodging two blades as the third cleaved straight for his face. His eyes flickered, and a cold flash of dagger-light appeared in his hand. The dagger suddenly shot out, then hooked upward against the blade, knocking it aside. Borrowing the momentum, he thrust forward and gouged into the burly man's chest. The man screamed and fell backward. Ning Chang'an moved like a ghost, suddenly stepping forward and spinning, his dagger slicing toward the waist of the second man as smoothly as drifting clouds and flowing water. Seeing that things were going badly, the man raised his saber to block. Ning Chang'an's dagger did not change course, while his left hand abruptly shot out in a punch. The heavy fist tore through the air with a crack, striking the man squarely in the face. With a crunch, the man's entire face twisted to one side. Broken teeth and saliva flew from his mouth, his body spun and contorted, and after swaying twice, he collapsed unconscious. The remaining man was already panic-stricken. He turned to flee, intending to raise the alarm. Ning Chang'an merely watched as he slashed a feinting, unpredictable blade at him, then turned and retreated with a cold smile on his face.

"An assass—"

The burly man had only dashed three steps and was just about to call for help when he could no longer make a sound. A hand suddenly reached out from behind him and clamped around his throat. Then he heard something break, crisp and brief. His consciousness began to spin and blur, and then he knew nothing more as he crumpled to the ground.

Ning Chang'an did not dare linger. He glanced at the row of tall buildings ahead, two stories in all. A faint light had appeared on the second floor. His figure flashed toward the rockery before the building, intending to pause there briefly, borrow its force, and infiltrate the building in one stroke.

He could already smell the wine.

If that woman had spoken the truth, then Yang Wudou should already be drunk.

Whoosh!

Unexpectedly, the sound of something cutting through the air rang out. Hidden weapons shot at him from every direction. Ning Chang'an moved even faster, sweeping onto the rockery and climbing straight to its peak. With a push of his toes, his entire body flew into the air.

In midair, he suddenly heard a scream. His heartstrings trembled involuntarily, and those despairing eyes surfaced in his mind.

That scream was the woman's, from the woodshed. It was shrill and drawn out, enough to make one's scalp go numb.

Ning Chang'an was shaken. He sighed inwardly that the woman would ultimately die, and there was an eight or nine chance out of ten that she would not die as she wished—not before Yang Wudou's eyes.

In the end, Ning Chang'an still found the woman rather pitiful. She was a woman driven alive into madness, and then into despair.

People were fragile, yet tenacious. The woman's heart-rending screams had not yet ceased.

Ning Chang'an's body, tightly wrapped in black night clothes, traced a rising curved arc through the air. As his figure reached its highest point, he suddenly struck. He had dared to catch hidden weapons even before; much less now, when his ears and eyes were sharp and his movements more than twice as nimble as before. A gleam swept through his eyes, and the dozen or so cold flashes before him all entered Ning Chang'an's sight. To his ears, the sound of the hidden weapons cutting through the air was like a furious howl. Ning Chang'an reached out with both hands in rapid succession. The points of cold light, like iron needles meeting a magnet, fell one after another into his hands. With catches and strikes in one motion, dozens of flying-star hidden weapons reversed course and shot back along their original paths.

Everything happened in the space of a spark from flint.

As Ning Chang'an descended, seven or eight muffled groans already sounded from the rooftop and among the branches. Bang! Bang! Bang! A series of dull impacts announced that the hidden sentries had been eliminated one by one.

Ning Chang'an reached forward with both hands and hooked the railing. With a hard pull, he lifted himself like a swallow and landed on the second-floor balcony. The moment he came upstairs, those using hidden weapons stopped their attacks and concealed themselves in ambush, watching Ning Chang'an warily.

Ning Chang'an strode toward the brightly lit room. Just as he was about to push open the door, a burst of applause suddenly sounded from within.

The room was filled with laughter, and a rich fragrance of wine wafted out without end.

"Which friend visits so late at night? Come, come, come, have a drink!"

A rough, hearty voice rang out from within, open and cheerful. There were also soft whispers and delicate laughter from warbling women. It seemed the people inside were drunk, and the one drunk should have been Yang Wudou. At this moment, Yang Wudou was indeed as the woman had said: after getting drunk, he no longer had enemies in his eyes.

Because of that woman, Ning Chang'an's plan to sneak into Yang Manor tonight and assassinate Yang Wudou had already failed. It had failed from the instant he encountered those three saber-wielding guards upon entering the rear courtyard. He was no longer thinking about how to kill Yang Wudou. He simply wanted to see what sort of man he was. His curiosity was why he had not yet retreated.

Just as Ning Chang'an was about to push open the door, he suddenly heard a hollow, icy laugh. The laughter went on without end, like layer upon layer of pine waves—so long as the wind did not stop, neither would it.

That laughter spread despair and temptation, resounding throughout Yang Manor like the wailing of night ghosts, like the sorrowful plea of resentful souls.

Ning Chang'an was startled and froze where he stood. He turned to look into the night sky behind him. A white, ghostly figure was actually drifting back and forth high in the darkness, wrapped in a layer of mist like frost. Its features could not be seen. Strange and unfathomable, no one knew whether it was human or ghost. It seemed like a specter, a demon of the night, yet it possessed the power to fly.

One by one, lamps lit up throughout Yang Manor. Everyone heard the eerie laughter. Those asleep could no longer sleep, while those awake trembled with unease. The entire Yang Manor fell into chaos and terror.

"Come, child, come to my side. I will take you dancing upon the mountain of blades of despair; I will take you to sleep peacefully within the sea of fire's dead silence; I will help you fulfill every unfulfilled wish, I will take you to cut away every cursed bond in the mortal world; I will give you a blade, to sever the chains of your wretched fate; I will give you a pair of hands, to crush the terrible cage of worldly convention... So long as you come with me... accompany me as we drift from the sea of suffering and wade across to the other shore..."