The Softest Place

What was going on? For an instant, the thin young man's mind went blank, and he could no longer tell who the assassin was.

But when he felt the tremendous force pressing down on his throat, he came back to his senses and stared in terror at the little boy before him.

What kind of monster was this? Not even seven years old, yet he possessed such terrifying brute strength. Even someone at the tenth-level perfection of the Power Through Realm, coupled with that marquis's divine blood awakening, should not be this absurd, right? "Who sent you to assassinate me?" Li Hao asked, staring fixedly at him. At the same time, all sorts of information surfaced in his mind. Playing chess had been the means to get close to him, which meant the other party's purpose in coming to the Divine General Residence was very simple—to assassinate him.

The thin young man fell somewhat silent. Everything this child had displayed, whether his strength or the mind he had revealed, was nothing like an ordinary six-year-old child.

He had thought he had come to deal with a tiny piece of trash. He had never expected to uncover such terrifying information.

"You aren't martial trash. Hiding your strength—was that your idea, or your old man's arrangement?" the thin young man asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

Now that the assassination had failed, and he could feel the tremendous force on his throat ready to burst forth at any moment, he knew he had no path to survival. Instead, he calmed down.

Assassinating a direct-bloodline descendant in the Divine General Residence was already a nine-deaths-one-life affair. Unfortunately, the mission could not be completed.

"You know my old man?" Li Hao's eyes flickered slightly.

"You must be joking."

The thin young man said coldly, "Who under heaven doesn't know Xingwu Marquis? He's currently holding down the border, and several months ago he even summoned martial artists of the jianghu in Northern Yan to assist in suppressing demons. A hundred answered at one call; his prestige is extremely high."

Assist in suppressing demons? Li Hao frowned. Could it be that the situation in Northern Yan was already so difficult that they actually had to borrow the strength of jianghu martial artists?

"Were you sent by my Second Madam?" Li Hao asked.

The thin young man was slightly stunned, then immediately understood. A trace of mockery swept through his eyes as he said, "You've been assassinated before? I never expected that the iron-blooded Divine General Residence would have such rot inside it too. No wonder you disguised yourself as trash. But speaking of which, I really never saw you cultivate. How many hours do you train every day?"

I've been training with you all along... Li Hao stared calmly into his eyes and said, "Answer mine first, then I'll answer yours. That's called an exchange."

The thin young man raised his brows slightly and could not help laughing. This child was indeed very interesting.

"We're both dead anyway. You made my mission fail and brought ruin on my family. Why should I tell you?" the thin young man said with a soft sneer.

Li Hao said, "Because I can tell you don't want to die. You're afraid of death too. And there are many kinds of death. I can give you a quick one."

The thin young man's smile vanished. He was silent for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth. "The one who sent me was..."

All of a sudden, his arm jolted, and he smashed a fist toward Li Hao's head.

Li Hao tilted his head slightly, dodging it with ease. He did not strike back, only watched him coldly.

Under that gaze, the thin young man's heart sank into an icy abyss. The gap was actually this huge? He was a dignified Circulation Realm expert, yet it was as though he and this child had switched places. Before him, he was like a child, completely seen through.

The latter's contempt made him draw back his hand in dejection. "You really are a monster."

"Talk," Li Hao said indifferently. "You should know that our Li family is a Military Family household. We've captured countless prisoners and interrogated countless criminals. Our methods of torture are beyond what you can imagine. You'll beg for death and be denied it. If possible, I can give you a quick end."

The corner of the thin young man's eye twitched slightly. He naturally understood that the child before him was not lying, and fear began to rise in the depths of his heart.

"If I tell you, can you let me go?" the thin young man asked with a trace of hope, pinning it on the possibility that the child before him still had an innocent nature.

"I can," Li Hao answered.

Pfft... The thin young man nearly coughed blood. Did you have to be so straightforward? That was so fake it could not be any faker. Were you treating me like a child?

He smiled bitterly and said, "Actually, there's no harm in telling you. In any case, the assassination failed, and my family won't survive either. I came from Northern Yan. The one who wanted me to kill you was 'White God Lord.'"

"White God Lord?"

"That's right. One of the three demon gods of Northern Yan. His strength is terrifying, and he's also your father's old enemy."

The thin young man's gaze was complicated. "Your father deploys troops like a god, and the Li Family Army is fierce and unafraid of death. Northern Yan should have fallen long ago, but now the frontal battlefield has reached a stalemate. White God Lord sent me to assassinate you precisely so news of your death would spread out of the Divine General Residence and reach the Northern Yan border, throwing your father's army's morale into chaos. If he leaves the battlefield and returns, Northern Yan can be breached."

At this point, he stared at Li Hao before him.

No one knew that this child was actually an important weight affecting the life and death of the common people in dozens of cities in Northern Yan.

Li Hao froze. So it was because of Northern Yan.

The war situation over there had actually already reached the Divine General Residence tens of thousands of li away.

"Your father holds Northern Yan. They've weathered a hundred battles and have no openings on them at all, flawless and impregnable. And you are their only weakness, the softest place."

The thin young man said, "Only by starting with you can your parents be defeated, the Northern Yan border pass be broken, and the demon Great Army drive straight in."

Li Hao was silent, digesting the other party's words. Only after a moment did he slowly say, "You're human. Why work for demons?"

The thin young man was slightly stunned. He paused, then gazed at Li Hao faintly, his eyes carrying jealousy and hatred. "Not everyone has as good a fate as you. Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand."

"Is that so?"

Li Hao looked at him calmly. "From birth, my parents left my side. I was even harmed by relatives beside me. Now, because of my parents, I'm suffering an assassination. Would you say my fate is good?"

The thin young man opened his mouth slightly and froze. He wanted to speak, then stopped, but no words came out again.

Li Hao did not say anything more either, only said, "I promised you I would let you die quickly."

"Heh, you're strangely kind, aren't you?" The thin young man came back to himself and forced a smile with a trace of ridicule.

No matter how many thousands or tens of thousands of words were said, death was unavoidable in the end. Fear showed in the depths of his eyes. He did not want to die, and he was afraid to die. Otherwise, how could he have sunk to the point of selling his life to demons? Li Hao seemed not to understand the mockery and said, "Actually, I don't want to kill you."

"Oh?" A cold smile appeared in the thin young man's eyes, clearly not believing him.

"Because your chess skills are quite good," Li Hao said seriously.

The thin young man was stunned.

After a long while, he finally came back to himself, and a bitter smile appeared on his face. "But unfortunately, I never beat you."

"In your next life, then."

Li Hao's palm began to exert force. "In your next life, don't practice martial arts. Just play chess honestly. At least you'll live a little longer and a little easier."

The thin young man wanted to struggle, but when he saw Li Hao's cold yet composed gaze, only despair remained in his heart. He said bitterly, "You really are a strange child."

In the end, Li Hao still crushed him to death.

When he was about to suffocate, the thin young man resisted violently again, but it had no effect.

After dealing with this assassin, Li Hao only then remembered that he still did not know the other party's real name.

As for the servant name the other party had used to sneak in, that too had been bestowed by the Li family.

However.

So be it.

Once the assassin was dead, Li Hao summoned a servant, frightening the servant half to death.

That night, the entire Divine General Residence was shaken.

The lamps in every courtyard all lit up. The madams of each courtyard, who had already gone to sleep, hurried over with clothes draped over them. When they saw the assassin's corpse slumped before the chess table, they were all incomparably shocked.

What kind of place was the Divine General Residence? An assassin had actually infiltrated it? The dignified and composed air He Jianlan always carried was gone as well. She hugged Li Hao nervously, feeling him up and down and examining him. "Are you all right?"

"First Madam, I'm fine," Li Hao comforted her.

Only after He Jianlan checked and confirmed that Li Hao truly had no injuries did she relax. After that, she questioned him carefully, and Li Hao also gave the explanation he had long since thought up.

The assassin launched a sneak attack, and in the moment of danger, an old grandfather made a move and killed him.

After that, the old grandfather disappeared.

Li Hao thought that since an assassin could sneak into the Divine General Residence, there should be no problem with him making up an old grandfather too, right?

In any case, if you did not even know about the assassin, then not knowing about some other expert was very normal too, right?

After hearing Li Hao's words, He Jianlan's heart shook, and some guesses immediately surfaced. Could it be a military expert that Xingwu Marquis had secretly sent?

Or perhaps... that clan elder? She suppressed the guesses in her heart and never suspected Li Hao's words.

After all, no matter how precocious Li Hao was, he was still only a child not yet seven.

And he had not stepped into the martial path either. If no expert had protected him in secret, he would absolutely have died beyond doubt.

Afterward, He Jianlan had Xue Jian take Li Hao and the little girl Bian Ruxue to Evergreen Courtyard first to rest and calm the children's fright.

As for her, she sat in the main hall of Mountains and Rivers Courtyard and summoned the servant who had previously accompanied Li Hao in chess, as well as the first servant alarmed by Li Hao's shout, and interrogated them carefully in this courtyard.

At the same time, she also transferred experts from within the residence to inspect the assassin's corpse.

Before long, she learned the whole sequence of events from the servants' mouths.

When that assassin had entered the residence, how he had revealed his talent for chess, performed before the servants of Mountains and Rivers Courtyard, and how he had wormed his way closer, and so on.

Clearly, the other party had investigated Li Hao's information and deliberately approached him through chess. Everything had traces that could be followed.

In the latter half of the night, the results of the corpse inspection also came out. This assassin was shockingly in the Circulation Realm, roughly around the third to fourth level.

If this realm were placed outside, he would count as a wandering hero with decent cultivation and could also uphold justice in the jianghu and make a bit of a small name for himself. But thrown into the Divine General Residence, where experts were as numerous as clouds, he was absolutely an extremely ordinary existence.

However, to kill a six-year-old child, this cultivation was more than enough. It was even like using a butcher's cleaver meant for oxen to slaughter a mosquito—extremely absurd.

Moreover, the other party had taken some kind of special pill that sealed off his own qi sense, which was why no one had detected him.

Hearing this result, the madams of the various courtyards all felt waves of lingering fear. If the one assassinated today had not been Li Hao, but their children, then death would have been absolutely certain!

For a Circulation Realm killer to suddenly erupt beside a child was simply too terrifying.

When Liu Yuerong heard the autopsy result, the trace of wild suspicion in her heart slowly settled.

Even if Li Hao's divine blood had not been crippled, it would still have been impossible for him to kill this assassin by himself.

It seemed that although that married couple was at the border, they had made ample preparations for their child.

Thinking of this, she secretly felt lingering fear. No one should have noticed what she had done with the medicine. After all, at the time, she had received him in Water Flower Courtyard before making her move, and there were experts in her courtyard as well.