Night was as dark as ink, shrouding the vast Canglan Prefecture City.
The bustling streets gradually fell silent, with only the watchman's clapper occasionally echoing along the long avenues.
In the east of the city stood the Li Family estate.
As one of Canglan Prefecture's top families, Li Manor covered an immense area, its pavilions and towers stretching far and wide, its tall walls and spacious courtyards guarded with utmost vigilance. Even in the dead of night, the manor remained brightly lit. Squads of guards in close-fitting outfits carried torches and led fierce hounds as they patrolled back and forth.
Ever since Li Changfeng had been killed and the family head, Li Yuanba, had ordered a citywide manhunt, the defenses at Li Manor had been raised to the highest level.
Yet beneath this seemingly impregnable defense, a dark shadow was slipping inside as silently as a ghost.
The alley behind Li Manor.
Clad in black night clothes, Lu Chen was almost indistinguishable from the darkness.
He crouched in a tall Chinese scholar tree, his gaze passing through its dense branches to coldly watch the wall below.
After dealing with the four assassins in Tobacco Alley that afternoon, he hadn't left at once. Instead, he'd used the poison he'd found on the lanky man to wake him up and conduct a "friendly" interrogation.
Though the lanky man was a death warrior, he still broke under Lu Chen's tendon-twisting techniques and the poison that made it impossible to live or die in peace.
He not only revealed the Li Family's current troop deployment but also sketched a rough map of Li Manor.
Tight inside, loose outside.
Lu Chen silently reviewed the information he'd extracted.
Most of the Li Family's experts had been sent out to hunt him down, leaving the manor relatively