Night gradually deepened, and everyone in the living room returned to their rooms to wash up and rest.
After an unknown stretch of time, Lin Fei abruptly opened his eyes in the dark bedroom, his gaze sharp as lightning.
Beneath the sweep of his divine sense, every corner of the garden villa lay exposed.
"Six people." A cold glint flashed through Lin Fei's eyes, and he was like a blade drawn from its sheath.
Lin Fei put a cigarette between his lips and slowly walked into the courtyard beneath the night sky, meeting the six people who had silently climbed over the wall.
He moved as fast as lightning. Before the six could react, he had already kicked one of them into the wall with a crash.
The wall caved in deeply, enormous spiderweb cracks spreading outward from the assassin.
The man spat out a mouthful of blood, two bones in his chest broken. Their jagged ends pierced his internal organs, sending blood streaming from his seven orifices and killing him on the spot.
"Who sent you?" Lin Fei asked calmly.
The remaining five answered with a coordinated attack. Holding daggers with blood grooves, they appeared to have undergone rigorous training. They surrounded Lin Fei from every direction, leaving no blind spots, silver light weaving a curtain in their hands as they struck straight for his vital points.
Yet they could not even make out Lin Fei's movements before he snatched one man's dagger and drove it cleanly into his heart with a soft thud.
Another one-hit kill. The remaining four stood like wooden chickens, too terrified to move, afraid that the slightest movement would cost them their lives.
Lin Fei took a deep drag on his cigarette. Its ember suddenly brightened, illuminating his face.
His eyes were like dark abysses, sending a chill up the spine.
Holding the bloodstained dagger, Lin Fei spun silver flowers between his fingertips.
He became a blur, weaving past them before stopping behind the four and calmly flicking ash from his cigarette.
Then three men behind Lin Fei fell to the ground one after another with heavy thuds, their eyes filled with terror and shock.
Their throats had been slit, the cuts as smooth as mirrors. Had someone measured them with tools, they would have found every wound identical in depth, without a single millimeter of deviation.
Blood gushed like spring water. The three could only feel life slowly draining from their bodies, unable to do anything.
They could only wait for death. It was the most despairing experience.
Lin Fei dropped his cigarette, ground it out beneath his foot, and exhaled a long plume of smoke.
Of the six assassins, only one remained alive.
With a thud, the assassin collapsed onto his backside. His entire body trembled as he struggled to drag himself farther from Lin Fei, screaming in a breakdown, "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"
When the members of the Ji Family arrived, this was the shocking scene that greeted them.
"I'll ask one more time."
Lin Fei looked down at him from above, his icy eyes devoid of any emotion. "Who sent you?"
The assassin cried, "I don't know!"
"We're from the Dark Night Assassin Organization! We only take money to do jobs. We never ask who our employers are!"
Wu Moling's pupils contracted slightly, and her voice trembled. "It's actually Dark Night..."
Lin Fei was not surprised by the assassin's answer. He merely said indifferently, "Then you can die."
The assassin's eyes widened as he howled, fierce on the outside but trembling within, "I belong to Dark Night! You can't-"
Before he could finish, a piercing scream cut off his words.
Smack!
Lin Fei stamped on his chest. Agony covered the assassin's face as his chest caved in, his eyes bulged, and blood poured from his seven orifices. He died on the spot.
Just then, a phone rang on one of the corpses.
Without any hesitation, Lin Fei answered it.
A woman's low, icy voice came from the other end. "Is it done?"
Lin Fei said calmly, "I've already dealt with the trash you sent."
There was a moment of silence before the woman said coldly, "Who are you?"
"Do you know the price of opposing our Dark Night Organization?"
Lin Fei smiled carelessly, ignoring her threat entirely. "You don't deserve to know who I am. Unless you want me to raze your organization, you'd better stay the hell away."
He hung up immediately and tossed the phone onto the ground.
Expressionless, Lin Fei merely waved his hand, and the six corpses burst into flame. Amid the roaring fire, they quickly turned to ash.
He turned to Wu Moling and asked, "You know the Dark Night Organization?"
Wu Moling nodded and said gravely, "The largest assassin organization in Huaxia. They're said to have quite a few ancient martial arts experts."
"They have three leaders, codenamed Black Rose, Datura, and Red Spider Lily."
"Playing at gods and ghosts." Lin Fei narrowed his eyes slightly, seeming to recall something interesting. "Huaxia's largest assassin organization... Could its predecessor have been the Shadow Sect?"
Zhuanxu was one of the Five Emperors. His youngest son, Wangliang, became a spirit of the mountains and rivers, skilled in the art of shadow escape. He founded the world's foremost assassin organization and named it the Shadow Sect.
Wu Moling looked at him in surprise, then said hesitantly, "I've heard that claim, but I don't know whether it's true."
Lin Fei smiled without speaking, already having reached a conclusion.
In a villa in Rongcheng's remote outskirts, the assassin codenamed Black Rose put down the phone, her delicate, beautiful face filled with icy killing intent.
When had she, or the Dark Night Organization, ever been threatened like this?
The Dark Night Organization had always held the power of life and death. That its assassins would fail twice in succession on the same mission was something she had never dreamed of.
"Just who are you?" Black Rose exerted a little force with her slender, snow-white fingers. With a crack, dense fractures covered the teacup, and it shattered in an instant.
She took a deep breath and composed herself.
Then Black Rose dialed a number. "Nightmare, there's a mission that requires you to act personally."
Piercing screams came from the other end, along with the halting sounds of a blade cutting into flesh, but Black Rose did not so much as frown.
"Mentor, won't you even let me rest?"
"You know, I'm in London right now." A man's soft, flippant laugh came from the other end.
"Five hundred thousand." Black Rose did not even blink.
"It's not a question of money. I'm enjoying London's night scenery," Nightmare replied without hesitation.
"One million." A cold smile touched Black Rose's lips, as though she understood Nightmare's character extremely well.
"Flying back and forth is pretty tiring." Nightmare pretended to be troubled.
Black Rose gritted her teeth, the words almost squeezing through them. "Two million!"
"Oh, Mentor. We know each other so well. Talking money with me just hurts our feelings, doesn't it?"
"Deal. I'll fly back tomorrow." Nightmare agreed at once and hung up.
The Han Family villa.
A sharp crash rang out!
Han Enci viciously hurled the Jingdezhen famille rose porcelain cup in his hand onto the floor, shattering it instantly.
The black-clad bodyguard and the beautiful secretary watched with twitching eyelids, pained by the sight, but neither dared utter a word.
An expensive porcelain cup praised as white as jade, thin as paper, and resonant as a chime stone, smashed just like that?
"Are you certain this Lin Fei has no background at all and is just an orphan?" Han Enci's expression was so dark it looked as though water could be wrung from it.
The secretary, whose beauty carried an intellectual air, adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses and nodded. "Yes, Mr. Han. I've checked through every relevant channel. There's absolutely no mistake."
Han Enci leaned against the sofa with a hand on his forehead, feeling the world spin around him.
He could not accept that someone with no background whatsoever had scared him into pissing and shitting himself, while he had taken the man for some incredible big shot!
At the thought, Han Enci felt his face burning, and he even wanted to kill Lin Fei.
"What's wrong with that lunatic Ji Chongwei? Why give an orphan a purple-gold business card for no reason?" The more Han Enci thought about it, the angrier he became, feeling deeply humiliated.
But recalling Lin Fei's terrifying fighting skills, Han Enci could not help feeling a lingering fear.
He privately guessed that Lin Fei's exceptional fighting skills had prompted Ji Chongwei to try to win him over, which was why he had given him that purple-gold business card.
Then he recalled that Ji Yaoguang had recently been attacked and was at a point where her protection needed strengthening, making him feel increasingly certain that his guess held water.
"A mere bodyguard wants to fight me?"
"I'll play you to death." Han Enci sneered, considering his options.
Although he looked down on Lin Fei, there was no denying that Lin Fei's fighting skills made him deeply wary. With Ji Chongwei also placing considerable value on him, dealing with him would probably not be easy. It would take some thought.
Suddenly, Han Enci's eyes lit up.
"What good are fighting skills? This isn't an age of fighting and killing anymore." Han Enci smiled smugly, believing he had thought of a brilliant plan.
Given Lin Fei's arrogant personality, anyone who provoked him would surely pay a heavy price.
If he then filed a false accusation, wouldn't Lin Fei have to sit in prison until the floor wore through?