Chen Ye's heart gave a sudden jolt.
Since becoming the Thousand-Faced Thief Saint, his five senses and six perceptions had far surpassed those of ordinary people. In the darkness of night, especially, he was like a fish in water. Yet before that voice rang out, he had noticed nothing amiss nearby.
That meant the newcomer's strength was certainly no small matter.
The thought flashed through his mind, but Chen Ye showed no sign of it. Instead, he turned around, trembling with fear.
In the shadow of a rockery not far away stood an elderly eunuch in a dark purple robe. His skin was deathly pale, his face beardless, and his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's. With a sinister look on his face, he stared coldly at Chen Ye.
"Which palace are you from? Lurking around here in the dead of night-are you looking to die?"
Chen Ye's mind raced. In the flash of lightning and a spark of flint, an idea struck him.
He dropped to his knees with a thud and pressed his head against the ground. In a trembling voice, fawning and terrified, he said, "This servant... this servant greets the old ancestor! This servant only recently entered the palace and got lost for a moment. I don't know how I ended up here. Please spare my life, old ancestor!"
Chen Ye knelt and bowed, lowering himself to the utmost. He played the part of a little eunuch who had blundered into a forbidden area and been scared out of his wits to perfection.
When the old eunuch heard himself addressed as "old ancestor," he could not help letting out several shrill laughs that made the scalp crawl.
"You've got an eye for people!"
"All right, this is no place for the likes of you. Get out of my sight! If there's a next time, watch your skin!"
"Yes! Yes! This servant will get out, right away!"
Chen Ye started to get up from the ground. Just then, he suddenly grabbed a handful of dirt and flung it with a flick of his hand.
The dirt flew straight at the old eunuch's face.
The old eunuch had never expected this seemingly docile little eunuch to launch a sudden attack on him.
But his reaction was extremely quick. The instant the dirt reached his face, he squeezed his eyes shut and darted to the side. At the same time, he crossed his palms and struck at Chen Ye, bringing with them a foul, putrid gust!
"Little brat, who are you?"
Chen Ye naturally did not answer. Having landed his first move, he had no desire to linger in battle. He tapped the ground with his toes and glided several feet backward like a ghost, evading the deadly blow.
The old eunuch's attack missed, but it snapped a large tree beside them clean in two.
What overbearing palm force!
Chen Ye was inwardly startled.
Come to think of it, this was the first true martial arts expert he had encountered since coming to this world.
Chen Ye had previously paid attention to the experts of the jianghu, only to find that they all practiced external martial arts, tempering their sinews, bones, and strength with straightforward punches and kicks. Though lethal, they were nowhere near as terrifying as the old eunuch before him.
The man's blue-gray palms in particular gave off a stench that assaulted the nose. He had clearly trained in some sort of vicious poison art.
No wonder Chen Ye had always felt a faint, intermittent sense of danger deep within the imperial city. An old poisonous creature like this had been lurking there.
Chen Ye understood, and he also knew that he absolutely could not let the fight drag on.
Otherwise, once the sounds of battle drew a large force of imperial city guards, tonight's operation would be a complete failure.
I have to end this quickly.
At that thought, Chen Ye hesitated no longer. He turned and ran.
"Trying to leave? Not so easily!" The old eunuch gave a vicious laugh and gave chase.
In fact, the old eunuch was also utterly shocked at this moment.
His Five Poisons Divine Palm had been forged from five rare poisons gathered from across the realm, and it had taken decades of arduous practice to master. Wherever his palm force reached, a touch meant death, and a brush meant doom.
Since mastering it, he had never encountered a worthy opponent.
If he had not committed so many evil deeds in the jianghu that everyone was calling for his head and he had nowhere else to go, he would never have castrated himself and entered the imperial palace as a eunuch.
Even so, his strength remained unquestionably among the very best.
Yet this little eunuch, who had appeared from who knew where, possessed movement techniques so strange and swift that he had not only survived the Five Poisons Palm but held out until now.
This stirred a great killing intent in the old eunuch, and he pursued him faster and faster.
Just then, Chen Ye, who was racing ahead, flicked his wrist sharply backward without turning his head!
Whoosh!
A cold flash of blade light streaked through the night, heading straight for the old eunuch's throat.
Startled by the sudden knife, the old eunuch skidded to a halt and bent backward at an impossible angle, narrowly evading the deadly blade by a hair's breadth.
But before he could catch his breath, his pupils abruptly contracted.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several more flashes of blade light followed in quick succession, striking from fiendishly tricky angles and sealing off nearly every path of escape!
"Ah!"
The old eunuch let out a shriek and swept both palms out, forcibly knocking two flying knives away with his incomparably fierce palm technique.
But against the remaining knife, he was powerless to turn the tide!
Pfft!
A dull sound of a sharp blade entering flesh rang out, and blood splashed.
The flying knife plunged deep into the old eunuch's left chest!
At the very last moment, the old eunuch had used his formidable strength to forcibly shift himself half an inch, sparing his vital heart.
A sharp pain struck him, and the old eunuch let out a muffled grunt. He had just tried to catch his breath when he discovered to his horror that the little eunuch ahead had vanished without a trace at some unknown point.
This is bad!
Alarm bells rang wildly in the old eunuch's mind. He was just about to react when a bone-chilling killing intent silently swept in from behind.
He whirled around, only to see a ghostly blade reaching out from the darkness.
The little knife rapidly grew larger in his wide-open eyes, then... lightly swept across.
Rip!
A thin line of blood appeared on the old eunuch's neck.
His eyes widened in disbelief. He clamped both hands tightly over his neck, trying to stanch the blood that kept pouring out, but it was all in vain.
He could never have imagined that after roaming the jianghu unchallenged for decades, he would die at the hands of an unknown little eunuch.
His corpse fell to the ground with a thud.
Without hesitation, Chen Ye drove another knife into the old eunuch's heart, snuffing out his life completely. Then he dragged the corpse behind the nearby rockery and hid.
He had already heard a jumble of footsteps in the distance. The palace guards had clearly been alerted by the commotion and were rushing over.
A moment later, a squad of Imperial Guards carrying torches and halberds arrived.
"Who goes there?" the officer at their head shouted sternly.
His answer was a figure slowly emerging from the shadow of the rockery.
It was an elderly eunuch in a dark purple robe, with deathly pale skin and a sinister face that was deeply unsettling.
The Imperial Guards who had rushed over all shuddered at the sight of him. They hurriedly put away their weapons and bowed. "Greetings, old ancestor!"
The old eunuch waved a hand impatiently. "Some petty intruder slipped in just now, but I've scared him off."
"There's no need for any of you to be alarmed. Go back to whatever you were doing."
"Yes!"
The squad of Imperial Guards looked as though they had been granted a great pardon. After bowing once more, they hurried away and resumed their patrol.
Meanwhile, the old eunuch swept his sleeve, turned, and walked toward the Hall of Mental Cultivation.