Three Kills

Barely a hundred paces from the Rain-Listening Pavilion, Chen Mo sensed a tail following him.

It was the trio led by the short, stocky man.

They hung back at a distance, using the shadows and the sparse flow of pedestrians as cover, their gazes locked firmly onto Chen Mo's back.

"Big Brother, following this closely... won't it be too obvious?"

The thin, tall man to the stocky man's left lowered his voice, a hint of trepidation in his tone. "That guy just came out of the Rain-Listening Pavilion, and even Hu San was polite to him. We..."

"Afraid of what?" The scarred man spat, glaring fiercely at the thin man. His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried a ruthless edge.

"So what if it's the Rain-Listening Pavilion? So what if it's Hu San? No matter how big they are, the rules say no fighting within the Ghost Market. Once we're outside, who cares who they are?"

"What does that kid have on him? Ten thousand in silver notes from selling jade slip fragments! At least five or six Red Sun Blood Crystals! Think about it, how much money is that?"

The companion on the right, clutching a blade, licked his cracked lips, his eyes flickering between greed and anxiety. "Big Brother makes sense, but even Green Wolf and Ghost Eye gave up. This fat sheep might be a prickly one."

"Prickly my ass!"

The stocky man cut him off, his tone filled with the frustration of someone dealing with cowards. "The bold starve the timid, but the brave eat their fill! Old Five, have you forgotten why we came to the Ghost Market? How much is still left for my mother's medicine? How much for your sweetheart's redemption fee? And what about Old Three?"

He looked at the thin man. "Your brother's gambling debt—if you don't pay it off, they're going to hack off his arm! If we just keep flipping fakes and doing petty thievery, when will we ever scrape enough together?"

His words hit them like a bucket of cold water, igniting a desperate resolve to gamble with their lives.

The thin man and the short companion fell silent, the hesitation in their eyes replaced by a deeper, darker greed.

"See that?"

The scarred man gestured toward Chen Mo's slightly slender back ahead. "He's clearly young and physically weak. Once we're out of the Ghost Market's jurisdiction and reach the deserted Mass Grave Mound, we'll surround him and end this quickly!"

"Once we grab the loot, we split up and run. Hide for a while—who the hell will know it was us?"

He paused, a murderous glint in his eyes. "Even if the Rain-Listening Pavilion finds out later, would they really go to such lengths to hunt down nobodies like us for the sake of a dead man?"

"As long as we're clean, we cash the notes, split the treasures, and we're free as birds! By then, the medicine money, the redemption money, the gambling debts—all solved! And we'll still have a fortune left to live it up!"

"Big Brother is right!" The short companion's breathing grew heavy.

The thin man nodded vigorously, gripping the short dagger hidden in his sleeve. The last shred of his hesitation was utterly crushed by the hunger for wealth.

Ahead, Chen Mo didn't stop, walking straight toward the desolate exit at the southeast corner of the Ghost Market.

Stepping through a dilapidated stone archway, the light and shadows of the Ghost Market receded like a receding tide.

Before him lay the rolling, desolate hills of the Mass Grave Mound, bathed in dark red moonlight that cast eerie, distorted shadows of crooked tombstones and withered trees.

The night wind wailed, whipping up ashes of spirit money and dried grass from the ground.

Chen Mo didn't hesitate for a second, striding deep into the mound, his figure flickering in and out of sight between the tombstones and dead trees.

"He's entered the Mass Grave Mound! Quick, keep up, don't let him get away!"

From behind, the stocky man's urgent voice rang out, and the three men quickened their pace in pursuit.

The terrain within the mound was complex; the moonlight was shattered by the undulating graves and twisted trees, casting vast patches of shadow.

Chen Mo wove through the maze, arriving at a relatively open, low-lying area scattered with a few half-collapsed ancient graves, where the wild grass grew waist-high.

The three men charged in right behind him, only to find Chen Mo's silhouette gone. There was nothing but wild grass swaying in the dark red moonlight, emitting a soft, rustling sound.

"Where is he?" The stocky man's heart tightened. He stopped abruptly, scanning his surroundings with vigilance.

Almost simultaneously, the situation shifted violently!

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Several faint sounds of sharp objects piercing the earth erupted from the wild grass by the graves!

Under the moonlight, four black, humanoid shadows shot out at devious angles, like vipers controlled by an invisible hand!

These were the Weaponized Paper Puppets Chen Mo had laid in ambush; to be safe, he had deployed four at once!

"Watch out..."

The stocky man only managed to choke out half a word before feeling a sharp pain in his calf. A paper shadow had already swept past, trailing a streak of blood.

He stumbled, swinging his blade toward his side, but struck only air.

Screams rang out almost simultaneously.

The thin man's neck was sliced by a paper puppet spinning low to the ground; he clutched his throat as blood surged wildly between his fingers.

The short man fared even worse. Two paper puppets crossed paths, slicing through his chest and abdomen from left and right. He stared wide-eyed, looking down at his own nearly bisected body before collapsing limply.

The attacks of the Weaponized Paper Puppets were fast, ruthless, and precise—no frills, just lethal strikes.

Using the cover of shadows and wild grass, their first wave of ambush had crippled all three.

"It's an ambush! Retreat!" The stocky man was terrified, fighting through the pain as he tried to turn and flee.

Two paper figures flashed forward, instantly cutting off his escape route.

The stocky man felt a bone-chilling cold surge from the soles of his feet to his crown. It wasn't the chill of the night wind, but the despair of death closing in, freezing him to the marrow.

Blood gushed from the wound on his leg as the four paper figures blocking his path stood silently in the shadows of the swaying grass.

The dark red moonlight painted their slender forms. They had no features, no breath—only the blades in their paper-formed hands, shimmering with the cold, real luster of metal, sealing off his path to survival.

"Argh, I'll fight you to the death!"

The short, stocky man gripped his blade with both hands, abandoning any attempt to flee and instead hacking madly at the Weaponized Paper Puppet to his right.

The wind whistled off his blade—the final, desperate frenzy of a cornered beast.

The Paper Puppet folded itself in a way that defied logic, its thin body drifting back half a foot along the arc of the blade, narrowly evading the edge.

At the same time, a chill arrived from the left!

Every hair on his body stood on end; relying on the instincts honed from years of licking blood off a blade, he twisted his body to parry.

"Clang!"

The blade collided with the paper edge, producing a sound like clashing metal that left the webbing between his thumb and forefinger numb.

Yet, the Paper Puppet absorbed none of the force, retreating the moment it struck, just like a ghost.

"Come out! You, come out!"

He shrieked, his voice distorted by fear and blood loss, waving his steel blade at the empty Mass Grave Mound. "Hiding your head and showing your tail—what kind of hero are you? Come out!"

From the shadows directly ahead, Chen Mo walked out slowly, his expression calm, as if he were merely taking a casual stroll under the moonlight.

He did not even carry a weapon, simply watching the man with quiet detachment.

This calmness was more shattering to the short, stocky man than any malicious grin.

"I... I'll fight you to the death!" Dragging his wounded leg, he howled and lunged toward Chen Mo, completely ignoring the icy killing intent closing in from behind.

He only wanted to bury his blade into that seemingly indifferent young man before he died.

However, he only managed to charge two steps.

A paper shadow, like a gust of wind skimming the ground, cut in from his blind spot, and a cold sensation swept across the side of his neck.

The short, stocky man's forward momentum came to an abrupt halt, his strength rapidly draining away along with the warm liquid erupting from his throat.

His steel blade clattered to the ground, landing on the loose stones before a grave.

He clutched his neck in vain, but the gaps between his fingers were quickly stained red.

His vision began to blur; the dark red moon, the swaying wild grass, the silently approaching Chen Mo, and his elderly mother waiting at home for medicine... everything dissolved into distorted, dark red patches.

Finally, he collapsed to his knees, his eyes still wide open, reflecting that ominous, dark red moon.

Chen Mo did not even spare the three corpses on the ground a second glance, simply raising his hand in a beckoning gesture.

The blood-stained Weaponized Paper Puppets flew back into his hands one after another.

Without the slightest hesitation, and with no interest in looting the bodies, his figure flickered as he darted deeper into the Mass Grave Mound, disappearing behind the layers of grave shadows and withered trees within a few bounds.