The World's Number One Assassin, Mercenary Tao

"The World's Number One Assassin?"

"That's right, the undisputed World's Number One Assassin!" Carlos said gravely.

Pei Hu asked, "Is he really that strong?"

"So strong it's hard to imagine!" Carlos said. "Three years ago, I paid Mr. Mercenary Tao a fortune to assassinate a rival whose strength was on par with mine. To my surprise, he walked straight into the man's base and found him. According to witnesses, that fellow, who was about as strong as me, didn't even last five seconds before Mr. Mercenary Tao twisted his head off."

"But," Pei Hu said hesitantly, "this Jiang Nan is a disciple of Master Roshi, the god of martial arts. I'm afraid it won't be that easy."

"So what if he is?" Carlos said dismissively. "Mr. Mercenary Tao told me himself that he knows Master Roshi, and even Master Roshi is no match for him!"

Hearing this, Pei Zheng's face lit up. "Really? That's wonderful! Uncle, please hire this assassin right away!"

Carlos looked troubled. "His whereabouts are unpredictable, and I only have one way to contact him. The phone I can reach him on is in the safe in my office. It'll have to wait until I get back to South City."

"That's not good," Pei Zheng said urgently. "That brat Jiang Nan is planning to leave White Cloud City in the next few days. If we don't hurry, it'll be hard to find him once he's gone."

"He's leaving White Cloud City? Do you know when?" Carlos asked.

Pei Hu explained, "From what we know, the lease on Jiang Nan's current place expires in three days. That means he'll most likely leave then, so we really don't have much time."

Carlos thought it over and made his decision. "In that case, I'll head back to South City tonight to contact the assassin. Still, hiring him won't come cheap. I recently bought an estate, so I'm afraid I'm a little short on funds."

"That's no problem! Uncle, how much does it cost to hire him?" Pei Zheng asked. He could hardly wait to see Jiang Nan's gruesome death and didn't care about the money at all.

"To kill one person-two hundred million Federation dollars!"

Pei Zheng sucked in a sharp breath. Even with Black Tiger Hall's considerable wealth, he couldn't help being shocked. But then he thought that such a high price surely had its reasons, and immediately had someone prepare a bank card and hand it to Carlos.

Without wasting time on pleasantries, Carlos and his party flew back to South City in a private plane.

A day later, in his office at the Silver Wolf Society's headquarters in South City, Carlos once again met the terrifying World's Number One Assassin-Mercenary Tao.

Dressed in a long gown, his hair braided, Mercenary Tao stood opposite Carlos with his hands behind his back. His face was hawklike, his gaze piercing. With a smile that never reached his eyes, he let out a chilling voice from deep in his throat. "What perfect timing. It's my tenth anniversary in the business, so killing one person now costs only seventy percent of my usual rate. That's seventy million Federation dollars."

Mercenary Tao was already 281 years old. Over two hundred years ago, Master Roshi had stumbled upon the legendary spring water-the Immortal Spring. Selflessly, Master Roshi had shared the water with his older sister and his junior fellow disciple. Mercenary Tao had benefited as well, gaining an exceptionally long life.

For the first 270 years of his life, he had lived in the shadow of his older brother, Master Shen. Their parents had died young, and Master Shen had raised Mercenary Tao as both a brother and a father. To repay him for bringing him up, Mercenary Tao had spent over two hundred years doing odd jobs at Master Shen's dojo.

It wasn't until thirty years ago that he could no longer suppress his longing for freedom. After a furious argument with Master Shen, Mercenary Tao left the dojo and began wandering the Earth.

The world was so vast, and Mercenary Tao wanted to see it.

But seeing the world took money. Although Master Shen had paid him wages, he was so mean and stingy that Mercenary Tao had saved very little over those two hundred-odd years.

After spending all his savings, Mercenary Tao stopped wandering and found a job in South City.

Thanks to his extraordinary physical abilities, Mercenary Tao found work as a porter, and stayed at it for over a decade.

Originally, Mercenary Tao had planned to save up twenty years' worth of wages before setting off to wander again. Then, one day ten years ago, he took advantage of a moment when no one was watching to kill a foreman he had long disliked with a single palm strike. From that moment on, Mercenary Tao fell in love with the feeling, and began his career as an assassin.

Only then did Mercenary Tao realize just how powerful the martial arts his unassuming older brother had taught him really were. All those years of his life had been wasted!

As the old saying went, murderers and arsonists wore belts of gold, while those who built bridges and paved roads died without even a body left to bury.

Over a decade of backbreaking work had earned Mercenary Tao less than the fee for a single killing.

Before long, Mercenary Tao became a legend among assassins, and his fee rose to one hundred million per kill.

After hearing Mercenary Tao's words, Carlos secretly rejoiced. He hadn't expected to catch Mercenary Tao's tenth-anniversary promotion. Even murder came at a discount-how absurd.

His trip to White Cloud City certainly hadn't been wasted. He could pocket over a hundred million from the difference with barely any effort.

Carlos knew Mercenary Tao's rules by heart: full payment up front. After all, Mercenary Tao never failed, so there was no need for a deposit followed by the balance once the job was done.

After receiving the bank card containing his fee and the information on Jiang Nan, Mercenary Tao smiled confidently. "Tomorrow, this fellow called Jiang Nan will have his head sitting on your desk."

"Sorry for the trouble, Mr. Mercenary Tao!"

Carlos was equally confident and simply waited for Mercenary Tao to return with good news.

At this point, Mercenary Tao had yet to think up the supremely flashy method of flying on a pillar, but Carlos thoughtfully sent his trusted subordinate Piri Rete to fly Mercenary Tao to White Cloud City.

That morning, Jiang Nan packed his few belongings, which were really just a few changes of clothes and some cash. After a year, he had less than twenty thousand left. He hadn't had time to sell the jewels, so those would have to wait until an opportunity arose. As for his weighted training gear, he had sold it as scrap metal the day before.

Looking back once more at the room where he had lived for a year, Jiang Nan felt a little reluctant to leave. He was a sentimental person. Although there was nothing left in this city worth staying for, leaving still made him feel somewhat sad.

He had already settled the handover with his landlord yesterday. Before leaving today, all he had to do was put the key beneath the doormat. The landlord would come by later to take the place back.

Just then, Jiang Nan suddenly sensed a faint fluctuation of energy outside the door. Through the door, the system detected a battle power reading.

150!

Green digits!