His Adam's apple bobbed. He blinked his round, birdlike eyes, and his fingers tightened around his spiked club before loosening again.
Beneath Tingyun's fierce exterior, her fingertips were trembling too.
"..."
A thin film of sweat coated her palm where it gripped the axe handle. It seeped into the rust-pitted iron, making it feel clammy.
She swallowed nervously.
She had done everything she could to pass herself off as Xianzhou's First Assassin.
Holding her back straight had left it aching, and sweat had dampened a small patch of cloth between her shoulder blades.
When the chicken-headed man still did not retreat, she spoke again, keeping her voice low and steady.
"Mr. Imagenae, do you know why they call me the First Assassin?"
"Uh... because you never miss?" the chicken-headed man asked.
"No." Tingyun smiled with a hint of tender cruelty.
She shifted the axe from her right hand back to her left.
Her right hand brushed lightly over the blade, her fingertips scraping across the rust with a faint rasp.
"Because I kill more than anyone else."
"Give the customer a little extra, and the business keeps coming. If a client names one target, I throw in two more."
"If you ask me..."
She paused. Her gaze left the chicken-headed man's face, swept over his trembling underlings, then returned to him.
"With that hair-trigger temper of yours, you must cause your boss no end of trouble, don't you?"
"I doubt he'd object if I threw you in for free."
At that, the underlings around them erupted in anger.
Some raised steel pipes. Others drew short knives from their waists. Still others bared mouths full of pointed teeth and let out low growls.
"You... how dare you disrespect our second-in-command!"
"?" Tingyun's chest rose and fell.
Second... second-in-command?
She had not