Clearing Out Black Wolf Stronghold

The two reached the small square. Han Feng hurried toward the main building to rescue the captives, but Pan Long grabbed him.

"Rescuing them matters, but we need to get out afterward. First, we prepare an escape route," he conveyed with a look.

Han Feng nodded repeatedly and asked with his eyes: What should we do?

Pan Long replied with a look: Start with the rooms on either side. Kill as many bandits as we can. Once we kill Chief Han and rescue Miss Sun, we can leave without a sound, with neither gods nor ghosts the wiser.

Han Feng answered: I'll follow your lead!

They looked both ways. Fewer rooms were lit on the left, so they crept over.

At each room, Han Feng listened at the door and determined whether the occupants were asleep. They left the waking ones alone for now. Whenever the occupants slept, the two quietly opened the door, slipped inside on tiptoe, and struck their fatal pressure points.

By the time they had worked through forty-three rooms, they had killed around sixty bandits. Only those in five or six rooms were still awake and escaped calamity.

Once they finished that side, they crossed over and killed nearly fifty more.

After that slaughter, Black Wolf Stronghold existed in name only. Fewer than twenty bandits remained in the entire stronghold—fewer even than the women they had abducted.

Pan Long and Han Feng killed only bandits, never innocents. They merely struck the women's pressure points to render them unconscious; the women would wake in four or five hours.

By then, every bandit in Black Wolf Stronghold should be dead. The whole place would belong to the women, who could divide its wealth and go home to enjoy a few peaceful days.

Perhaps it would make up, just