Blood Debt

"This is a two-hundred-tael silver deposit."

Guo Qingping smiled as he handed Cheng Yang two one-hundred-tael silver notes.

Cheng Yang accepted them.

"Once it is done, I will pay you the remaining five hundred and fifty taels."

"Alright, I understand. I'll have Master settle this for you soon."

Cheng Yang replied casually.

"Tell me exactly where the Bamboo Gang is outside the city."

"It's located at..."

"Mm, I understand. Anything else? If not, you can leave."

With the business concluded, Cheng Yang had no intention of reminiscing with them.

"Nothing... nothing..."

Guo Qingping waved his hand.

Li Ru forced a radiant smile onto her face.

"Then, nephew, Sister Lin, we'll be leaving first."

"I'll see you out."

Lin Xia said politely.

"Then you see them off, Mother. I need to train."

When it came to martial training, Cheng Yang fought for every second and refused to waste any time.

Lin Xia nodded.

Two days passed quickly.

Cheng Yang brought the Wild Bull Stance to the realm of Perfection.

With three perfected stance arts under his belt, he also reached the Silver Bone stage.

After undergoing the tempering that elevated Copper Bone to Silver Bone, Cheng Yang revealed a trace of exhaustion.

"So this is the price of advancing a realm? It really packs a punch."

He clenched his fists. The collision of his finger bones rang out like crisp silver bells, clear and lingering.

"Now, aside from those few Force Tempering Martial Masters, who could possibly be my opponent?"

This was not arrogance. It was simply the truth.

If he entered the Ascending Dragon Conference ten-odd days from now, he would be the one to seize the crown.

After all, according to the information available, no one in this Ascending Dragon Conference had yet cultivated Silver Bone.

"There are some matters that need not be delayed any longer."

After lying low for some time, a sharp edge appeared in Cheng Yang's eyes.

It was time to repay Junior Brother Ge's debt.

That night, a full moon hung high in the sky, its pure light draping Qinglin County in a veil of silver.

Yang Zheng removed his black clothes and took off his mask, though the killing intent around him had yet to disperse.

That was right. He was not merely a member of the Four-Ping Gang; he was also a Bronze Badge Assassin of the Star Tower.

Just moments ago, he had completed an assassination mission.

His target had been a constable from the yamen.

He had expended no small effort on it, but fortunately, the mission had been completed smoothly.

Just as he was preparing to rest, a thunderous crash came from above the eaves.

A figure actually smashed through the roof of his home and leaped down.

Yang Zheng focused his gaze, only to discover that this intruder was dressed exactly like he himself had been before changing out of his attire.

Black clothes. A mask.

Someone was here to assassinate me?

Someone was assassinating an assassin of the Star Tower?

Yang Zheng felt as though heaven and earth had been turned upside down, yet he immediately assumed a guarded stance.

"Are you from the Star Tower?"

"Who paid for my life?"

Cheng Yang held the long saber he had seized from the Golden Tiger Gang last time. He gripped its hilt, the tip slanting downward.

No explanation. No nonsense.

The next second, he moved, swift as the wind.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Yang Zheng reacted with lightning speed, flinging several poisoned hidden weapons.

Watching the hidden weapons fly toward his face, Cheng Yang delivered a diagonal slash, knocking aside some of them. Then he shifted his body slightly, easily evading two more hidden weapons that came from tricky angles.

Yang Zheng's reactions were incredibly quick. The instant his hidden weapons left his hands, he had already retreated three steps. With a flick of both hands, six more cold flashes shot from between his fingers.

The poisoned darts gleamed with a ghostly blue luster beneath the moonlight, sealing off Cheng Yang's path forward from high, middle, and low angles. Their trajectories were exceptionally tricky, clearly instinctive responses tempered through countless real battles.

As six flashes of cold light rushed toward him, Cheng Yang's expression did not change in the slightest.

He turned his blade and held it horizontally before him.

Clang! Clang! Clang—!

Three darts struck the blade, scattering tiny sparks before being casually knocked away. The other three shot toward his throat, heart, and waist. Their angles were as tricky as could be, and the dart aimed at his waist had even concealed itself in the shadows cast by the first two.

Cheng Yang merely shifted slightly.

The dart carrying the hidden trick grazed the cloth at his ribs, slicing open his garment and exposing the gleaming skin beneath.

Yang Zheng's pupils abruptly contracted.

To evade his killing move so easily, there was no need to think further—this man's strength was absolutely above his own.

A thought flickered through Cheng Yang's mind.

Yang Zheng claimed to be from the Star Tower, but compared to him, Yang Zheng's fighting style was far more like that of a Star Tower assassin.

And Junior Brother Ge's entire family had died at the hands of killers suspected to be from the Star Tower.

Yang Zheng had also been present at the scene.

Thus, the murderer who had harmed Junior Brother Ge was already obvious.

"You fool, haven't you recognized me yet?" Yang Zheng said in a deep voice, his right hand quietly reaching toward a black sphere at his waist. "I already showed you the Glimmering Light, Surpassing Shadow Hand once, yet you still draw your blade against me? Have you forgotten the Star Tower's rule that its members may not kill one another?"

Clearly, Yang Zheng was certain Cheng Yang was a Star Tower assassin.

Cheng Yang still did not answer.

He took a step forward. Just one step, yet his body slid sideways nearly a zhang like a ghost.

That was the astonishing explosive force brought by perfecting three stance arts. His spine was drawn taut like a bowstring, and the instant his foot ground against the earth, the blue bricks beneath him cracked like a spiderweb.

Yang Zheng's face changed drastically. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the black sphere fiercely at the ground.

Boom!

A mass of thick white smoke exploded, instantly filling the entire room until one could barely see one's own hand.

This was the standard life-saving item issued to the Star Tower's Bronze Badge Assassins. The white smoke was mixed with pungent medicinal powder that made eyes tear endlessly and throats tighten until breathing became difficult. Even Bone Tempering Realm martial artists found it hard to maintain their combat strength within it.

Using the smoke as cover, Yang Zheng slipped backward like a loach. He gripped two poisoned short blades in each hand, preparing to circle around to the enemy's flank and deliver a fatal strike while his vision was obstructed.

However.

From within the white smoke, a blade light tore through the mist.

The slash seemed casual, yet it carried an unreasonable, overbearing force. There were no flashy feints, no exquisite changes in direction—only pure speed, precision, and weight.

The instant the blade tore through the smoke, the airflow it created churned the white mist into a spinning vortex. Yang Zheng felt an icy presence press against his throat.

Instinctively, Yang Zheng raised his twin blades in a crossed block. The backs of the short blades collided head-on with Cheng Yang's saber, producing a piercing metallic shriek.

Amid the scattering sparks, Yang Zheng felt both arms sink as though a small mountain had come crashing down along the blade. His knees bent uncontrollably, and the blue bricks beneath his feet shattered all at once with a crack.

The web between his thumb and forefinger tore open, blood dripping down the hilts. From his fingertips to his shoulders, both arms went violently numb, nearly losing all sensation.

"Ah!"

Yang Zheng gritted his teeth and let out a fierce roar. Borrowing the momentum of his hatred, he sprang backward, flipped through the air, and looked down the instant he landed—only to see Cheng Yang's second slash already chasing after him.

There was no technique whatsoever to Cheng Yang's blade. The long saber looked clumsy and crude in his hands, like an outsider who had practiced saber work for only three days, relying on nothing but brute force with every chop and slash.

Yet the force and speed of that strike had rendered all of Yang Zheng's movement arts, footwork, and hidden-weapon techniques as laughable as children's play.

A complete suppression through pure strength.

Your movement might shift through a thousand transformations, but when my saber falls, if you cannot dodge it, you die.

Yang Zheng twisted aside in a desperate flash, barely avoiding a vital point, but the blade still swept across his right arm.

The sound was unbearably grating—the dull scrape of a blade passing over bone and flesh, like an iron saw cutting wet wood.

Splat.

The long saber passed through Yang Zheng's flesh, grinding against the gaps in his bones with a teeth-aching sound.

His entire right arm—the one skilled at throwing hidden weapons—was severed from the shoulder in a single slash. It fell to the ground with a slap, its fingers twitching twice with the last remnants of nervous impulse, opening and closing unconsciously like a fish out of water making its final struggle.

"Aah!"

Yang Zheng let out a hoarse roar, half from agony and half from terror, staggering backward. Blood gushed from his severed arm, instantly dyeing half his body red and soaking the dust on the floor into a sticky dark brown.

Before he could steady himself, Cheng Yang delivered a brutal, unreasonable front kick squarely into Yang Zheng's chest.

Crack.

A clear fracture rang from his breastbone. Yang Zheng flew backward like a kite with its string cut, his back slamming heavily into the wall and shaking loose a shower of dust. He then slid limply to the ground, limbs sprawled, unable to move again.

Cheng Yang stepped forward and looked down from above at this third senior brother from the martial school.

He bent slightly at the waist, turned the blade, and placed its cold iron edge directly against Yang Zheng's neck. The tip pierced his skin, and scarlet blood slowly ran down the blade.

Cheng Yang lowered his eyes, watching that streak of blood slowly slide into the blood groove beneath the moonlight.

The white smoke in the room gradually dispersed. Moonlight poured down through the shattered roof, stretching his shadow long and dark across Yang Zheng's pale, twisted face, warped by blood loss and fear.

"Third Senior Brother," Cheng Yang said in a voice as flat as a pool of dead water, "it is time to repay Junior Brother Ge's blood debt."