Leaving

"Who?"

Seeing the atmosphere turn rigid,

Lai Qing, the leader of the Mad Dog Gang, forced down his fear and called out through gritted teeth.

More arrows answered him.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

The sound of arrows slicing through the air came thick and fast, like a sudden downpour.

The Mad Dog Gang's lackeys didn't even have time to scream. One after another, they clutched their hearts or throats and fell, their blood instantly staining the dirt beneath them red.

The archer was naturally Li Yun.

Li Yun had watched the fight between Wang Xiaofei and the brawny man from beginning to end.

The man looked intimidating, but his moves were all show. He had no martial arts skill.

Otherwise, Wang Xiaofei wouldn't have gotten off with merely a few steps backward.

With their safety assured, Li Yun made his move.

Grip the bow, nock an arrow, raise the bow, draw the string, take aim, release.

After firing the first arrow, thanks to his storage space,

all he had to do was keep nocking arrows, drawing the string, taking aim, and firing.

Li Yun had turned a single-shot bow into a repeating crossbow.

Watching his underlings fall one after another, Lai Qing felt his scalp prickle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Not one of the fallen men had struggled. Each arrow had either pierced a heart or sealed a throat—not a single person had been hit twice.

That accuracy, that ruthlessness—whoever was hidden in the dark had to be a top-notch archer!

Under the threat of death, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck Lai Qing. He threw back his head and shouted frantically:

"Quick!

Put out the torches!

Put out every last torch!"

Before the words had even left his mouth, he ducked and lunged toward the Wang siblings, grabbing them both tightly.

He pulled them in front of himself as shields.

At Lai Qing's command, the last two lackeys hurriedly obeyed.

Sure enough.

Once the torches were out,

the surroundings fell abruptly silent.

The enemy was hidden while they stood exposed. Every second felt like walking on the edge of a blade, with the fear that an arrow might kill him the very next instant. Lai Qing didn't dare linger:

"You two, get over here and take Wang Xiaohua with you. We're leaving!"

The sound of scuffling came from the darkness.

Wang Xiaofei had tried to resist, but Lai Qing had raised a hand and slammed two heavy punches into his shoulder.

The little strength he'd managed to gather vanished at once.

He let out a muffled groan, powerless to fight back, and was driven along.

The group left Fish Bay in the dark and headed farther inland.

But before they'd gone very far, a faint glimmer of starlight revealed a blurry figure walking toward them along the main road.

Lai Qing's heart jolted. Was it that archer from earlier?

"Friend, my sworn elder brother is the Wild Wolf Gang's Internal Affairs Hall master. I'm the brother-in-law of his trusted subordinate, the steward's son.

I hope you'll do me the favor of sparing us."

The shadow was Li Yun, who had put away his bow and walked over.

He had originally planned to shoot his way out of the predicament, then quietly leave.

He hadn't expected the burly man leading them to have some quick wits.

He'd put out the light source.

There was a little moonlight, but the group was huddled together. If an arrow pierced through someone, it might accidentally hit Wang Xiaofei or his sister.

So Li Yun had covered his face with a mask and walked over.

Li Yun had been a little worried that the man in front of him might have powerful backing.

That if he beat the young, an older one would come after him.

But after hearing that whole string of connections,

his mind settled halfway.

When Lai Qing saw that Li Yun didn't respond at all and kept walking straight toward him,

his heart sank. He cursed inwardly.

Through gritted teeth, he turned and barked at his two lackeys:

"You two, hold him off!"

The two lackeys were already terrified out of their wits. They had no courage left to fight.

If Lai Qing hadn't still had some authority over them, they'd have run off without a trace long ago.

But as Li Yun drew closer, step by step, their breathing grew more and more ragged.

Perhaps fear overwhelmed reason. They attacked from both sides.

One man straightened his right leg like an iron whip and swept it toward Li Yun's waist with a howling gust.

The other raised his left leg above his shoulder and chopped it toward Li Yun's face.

Li Yun didn't move. He raised an arm to block the high sweeping kick, then slapped the other man's arm aside to intercept the high whip kick.

In an instant, he dismantled their attack.

In the blink of an eye, a vicious left hook came at him from the left.

Li Yun sank his waist like a bow, dodged the punch, then swept his right leg back like a steel whip. It was a clean Fierce Tiger Tail Whip.

His kick struck the lackey on the right in the chest, instantly throwing him off balance.

Li Yun caught the wrist of the other man's incoming straight punch with his opposite hand and easily stripped away its force.

His left hand shot out like lightning, and a crafty uppercut slammed into the man's ribs.

Blood seeped from both lackeys' mouths and noses. Their limbs twitched twice, then they went still.

Two simple moves, and both lackeys were down in an instant.

Seeing how powerful Li Yun was, Lai Qing was terrified to his core. How had he managed to provoke a martial artist?

He didn't even know where he'd pulled a small metal shard from.

He hooked his left arm around Wang Xiaofei and pressed the shard to his throat with his right hand.

His voice trembled:

"Y-you, don't come any closer, or I'll kill him."

"Fine. Go ahead and kill him."

In the darkness, Li Yun's voice was as calm as a deep pool, without the slightest ripple.

"?"

Lai Qing froze completely, his pupils contracting as his mind filled with question marks.

Hadn't this guy come to save Wang Xiaofei?

Then why had he shot those arrows and blocked their path?

The instant Lai Qing's attention wavered, Li Yun moved forward like a ghost.

Before the other man could react,

his right hand shot out like an iron-forged tiger claw and clamped precisely around Lai Qing's knife-holding wrist.

His five fingers clenched hard. A faint crack of breaking bone rang out in the darkness.

"Ah!"

Lai Qing screamed in agony. Cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes, and the pain in his wrist nearly made him pass out.

He tried to wrench free, but Li Yun's hand felt welded to his bones. The slightest exertion made him feel as if every bone in his hand was about to shatter.

Li Yun twisted counterclockwise, and Lai Qing turned helplessly with the force.

The tables had turned.

Now Li Yun was holding Lai Qing hostage.

He reversed the metal shard and drew it across the other man's throat.

Gurgle—

The pain on Lai Qing's face gradually gave way to fear.

His lips trembled, but he couldn't form a single coherent sound.

Only a broken, wheezing noise came from his throat.

"Hh... hh..."

His uninjured left hand instinctively went to cover his throat.

No matter how tightly he pressed down, the warm liquid kept pouring through the gaps between his fingers like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

In the end,

he fell to the ground, unwilling to accept his fate.

Li Yun checked, as usual, to make sure there was no chance the man would spring back to life.

Then he began searching the bodies.

Altogether, there were about two taels of silver.

Not bad.

After thinking it over, he threw them all into the river.

Out of sight of the Wang siblings,

he also tossed in the three Qian Brothers.

Keeping them in his storage space wasn't a good long-term solution.

As he cleaned up the scene, Wang Xiaofei spoke:

"Thank you, senior brother."

Hearing Wang Xiaofei say that, Li Yun ignored him.

As long as he didn't pull off his mask, he could deny it to the end.

A short while later,

after checking again to make sure he'd left no loose ends—not even a single arrow—Li Yun headed toward the Outer City under cover of night.

Watching the figure that hadn't uttered a word from beginning to end,

Wang Xiaofei felt deeply grateful.

Even if his senior brother wouldn't admit it, he wouldn't forget.

That figure had been training without pause ever since the day he entered the Martial Hall.

"Sis, go get your things ready. We'll leave this place soon and head north."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to check the Mad Dog Gang's hideout and see if I can find anything valuable."