It was four thirty in the morning.
Dawn was still an hour away, but Longdu's entire upper crust had erupted into an uproar.
News that the Yi Family had been uprooted swept through every corner of the Capital City's Eight Great Clans like a Category 12 typhoon.
At the Yan Family's old estate.
Yan Qingsi, the female CEO, sat behind a broad mahogany desk in the study, wearing a silk robe.
She held a cup of black coffee that had long since gone cold, her beautiful eyes fixed on the tablet before her.
On its screen was a high-level internal briefing that had just been decrypted.
"Old Master Yi is dead... All the Yi Family's direct descendants have been arrested."
Yan Qingsi read the words softly, her long, pale fingers trembling despite herself.
She looked up at her father, who sat on the sofa with a haggard face.
Yan Beigui, the Yan Family Head, took a deep drag on his cigar.
Amid the curling smoke, his voice was so low it sounded like a sigh. "Qingsi, put away those clever little schemes of yours. Yue Xiaofei... isn't someone you can manipulate."
Yan Qingsi bit her red lip, a tangle of emotions churning inside her.
Earlier, the family had hinted that she should approach Yue Xiaofei and use her beauty and the Yan Family's trillion-dollar business empire to recruit him, turning him into their political bargaining chip.
At the time, she had thought Yue Xiaofei was merely a brute. Even if he had been made a major general, without the backing of a powerful clan, he would not last long in Longdu's treacherous depths.
Now, though, she saw how laughably wrong she had been.
Yue Xiaofei had no need to fit into their circle.
He was a blade himself-an Executioner's Blade