Killer

The night was deep and the silence profound; the moon was obscured, and the wind was high.

Lin Qing remained awake, keeping his spirit focused on his surroundings.

Just past midnight, all was deathly still.

Suddenly, an extremely faint sound of someone landing came from outside the backyard wall.

Had Lin Qing not been in a state of high mental alertness, he would never have noticed it.

Has the time finally come?

Immediately following this, a stifled grunt, suppressed to the utmost, came from atop the wall.

"Damn it, what is this sharp thing..."

A voice filled with shock and anger rang out.

"Second, what is it?"

Another, slightly more composed voice asked.

"It's nothing, seems I was scratched by a broken blade. The mark is wicked; they even buried things on the wall."

The first voice spat, seemingly unconcerned.

Two black shadows vaulted over the wall, landing lightly in the courtyard.

As one of them landed, his figure staggered slightly, and he shook his right hand.

"Big Brother, this courtyard isn't large; the target should be in the inner bedroom."

The injured shadow whispered.

The other nodded, and the two moved toward the main house in tacit coordination.

However, having walked less than five steps, the shadow with the injured right hand suddenly stiffened, his voice trembling:

"Big Brother, something's wrong... I'm going numb..."

Before he could finish, he fell straight forward, his body convulsing violently as white foam spilled from his mouth and nose, appearing particularly ghastly under the moonlight.

The shadow called Big Brother turned pale, hurriedly crouching down to investigate while taking a packet of antidote powder from his person to feed his companion.

"Damn this bastard, what a vicious method."

The shadow cursed under his breath, his eyes filled with shock and fury.

"I, Farmer Twin Fists, have operated for over a decade and never failed; yet today, I've miscalculated."

He suppressed the urge to immediately check on his brother's condition.

He knew that resolving the target and obtaining the antidote was the only logical path.

Though anxious about his brother's life, his years of living on the edge of a blade allowed his mindset to stabilize rapidly.

He crept quickly to the window of Lin Qing's bedroom and listened intently.

Even and long breathing drifted from within, as if the master of the house were already asleep.

"Hmph, death is at your doorstep, and you don't even know it."

The shadow sneered inwardly, taking a thin bamboo tube from his robes and carefully piercing the window paper.

He placed one end in his mouth, aimed the other into the room, and blew gently.

A colorless, odorless anesthetic smoke quietly permeated the room.

After waiting for about ten breaths, estimating that the drug had taken effect, he used the tip of his blade to silently slide the latch and slowly pushed the door open.

Just as the door creaked open a crack and he was about to slip inside, a sudden change occurred.

A cloud of colorless, odorless powder, as if anticipated long ago, showered down from above the door frame!

It was none other than Seven-Step Smiling Madness.

The shadow was caught off guard; although he reacted quickly by holding his breath and retreating, a significant amount of powder still clung to his face, and he even inhaled a small amount.

In the darkness, a figure that had been coiled and ready suddenly erupted!

Lin Qing's fingers curled into a fist, his veins bulging.

With the full, unreserved explosive power of his Iron Wire Fist, his blood and qi surged as he raised his hand, unleashing a fierce and peerless Overlord Breaks the River, striking out with the force of a collapsing mountain toward the blurred, screaming figure!

The wind of his fist churned, filled with chilling killing intent.

"Bang!"

A dull thud, like leather being pierced, echoed through the silent night sky.

Lin Qing poured his full strength into the blow, landing it squarely on the dark figure's chest, the Kirin Spike piercing straight through.

The moment his fist made contact, the dark figure felt a torrential force surge into his body; his sternum emitted a teeth-grinding crunch, and his internal organs felt as though they had been displaced and ruptured by the sheer impact!

The dark figure couldn't even let out a proper scream; his body flew backward like a kite with a broken string, slamming heavily into the courtyard wall before sliding limply to the ground. After a few twitches of his limbs, he fell silent.

The courtyard instantly returned to quiet.

Only the sound of Lin Qing's slightly heavy breathing remained.

A single strike, and it was an instant kill.

"Ah Qing, what's wrong? I thought I heard something?"

His sister Lin Wan's worried voice drifted from the inner room, laced with panic.

Clearly, the dull thud and the brief struggle had startled her.

Lin Qing quickly steadied his breathing, keeping his voice as calm as possible: "It's nothing, Sis. I was practicing my techniques and accidentally knocked something over while testing my force."

"I'm at a critical juncture, so don't come out and disturb me."

He knew his sister's temperament well; if she knew there were dead bodies outside—two of them, no less—she would likely be frightened out of her wits.

Some darkness was better borne by him alone.

"Oh, don't practice too late, or you'll hurt your health..."

Hearing her brother say this, Lin Wan remained somewhat doubtful.

However, she didn't press the matter further, simply offering a word of caution before returning to sleep.

Lin Qing let out a sigh of relief and walked over to the dark figure's corpse, crouching down to rip away the black mask.

Revealed beneath was the very face he had seen several times from outside the tavern window—that of a seemingly plain, unassuming old farmer!

At this moment, a trace of disbelief still lingered in the old farmer's eyes.

"It really was you."

The last stone in Lin Qing's heart finally settled.

With this stalker dead, the sensation of being watched that had haunted him for days finally vanished completely.

He stood up and walked over to the other corpse in the courtyard.

The dark figure who had died from the poison.

He searched him as well, confirming he was thoroughly dead.

These two had been professional in their tracking and assassination methods.

They knew how to scout the location in advance and use knockout incense.

They must have had some reputation within Qingping County.

Yet now, they had perished silently in the backyard of Benevolent World Hall.

Lin Qing began to calmly loot the bodies.

From the two of them, he gathered several dozen taels of loose silver and a few taels of gold, totaling about seventy or eighty taels.

Furthermore, the most important discovery was two black iron tokens of the Ge Pao Society, with "Number Sixty" and "Number Sixty-One" engraved on the backs respectively.

"The Ge Pao Society again."

Lin Qing gripped the two cold tokens, his brows locked in a deep frown.

The doubts in his heart were not resolved; instead, they had deepened.

Logically speaking, these two men and the thin, tall man from before should not have been part of the same group.

I have no prior grievances with the Ge Pao Society, so why have they sent assassins one after another? If Liu Xiaodao's brothers were acting out of personal vendetta, then what is the motive for these two?

Who exactly is willing to spend a fortune to hire the Ge Pao Society just to take my life?

Could it be Security Hall?

They were the first to come to mind.

After all, with the influence of the Pan Family, hiring professional assassins would not be difficult.

But it still needed to be confirmed.

The most urgent task now was to dispose of the bodies.

Killing someone within the city would be a massive disaster if discovered.

Without a moment's hesitation, he returned to the tool shed, grabbed a sturdy iron shovel, and began digging vigorously in an inconspicuous, soft-soiled corner of the backyard wall.

His physical strength now far exceeded that of an ordinary person; in less than half an hour, he had dug a pit four meters deep.

Dragging the two corpses into the pit, Lin Qing took out a porcelain bottle containing corpse-dissolving liquid he had concocted while experimenting with poisons.

He carefully poured the pungent, acrid liquid over the bodies.

"Hiss, hiss..."

A hair-raising corrosive sound rang out, accompanied by a plume of white smoke and a foul stench.

The two corpses dissolved at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into a pool of yellow liquid that seeped into the soil, leaving not even much of their bones behind.

Lin Qing watched this scene with an expressionless face until the corrosion ceased, only then using the soil to fill in the pit and tamp it down.

He then scattered some of the original loose dirt and fallen leaves over it, carefully covering up all traces.

After finishing all of this, the sky was nearing dawn.