Chapter 2008: Vengeance
Welcoming the bride was naturally of utmost importance during the wedding. Fang Long had made sure to send Yin Yang Path experts as escorts along the way, and there were also Heavenly Devil School and Unfeeling Path bodyguards. All of their preparations had been made out of fear that the disciples would do something extreme. After all, Qiu Honglei’s prestige in the sect was too high, and she was now getting married. It would definitely be difficult for some disciples to accept that reality.
But no matter how worked up those disciples were, no one had imagined that someone would actually try to directly assassinate the saintess! When the assassin suddenly rushed out from the crowd, they'd all thought that it was a crazy admirer of the saintess. They'd planned to teach that person a lesson, then let them go.
However, that person had just moved too quickly. Before the guards could intercept them, they had already rushed through a gap.
One Yin Yang Path guard had eventually reacted to what was happening, drawing his weapon to face the assassin. Unfortunately, the assassin’s sword was too fast, so fast that the guard was only midway through drawing his weapon before a sword thrust through his forehead and ended his life. Another guard swiftly met the same fate.
The assassin’s sword hadn’t stopped at all, continuing straight into the marriage carriage; after that, a woman’s scream tore through the air. However, the assassin didn’t stop there. With a tap of their toes, they turned into a streak of flowing light before vanishing into the distance.
The entire process happened in a mere few blinks of an eye, or perhaps a few breaths. A second prior, all of the disciples had still been heartbroken over the saintess now becoming a married woman, but how could they have expected that the saintess would be assassinated inside her marriage carriage?!
The Shadow Group!
The same words appeared in all their minds.
Only the Shadow Group’s top assassins could achieve such a result and immediately flee the scene.
Normally, with the saintess’ cultivation, there was no way she would die even if a top Shadow Group assassin came after her. However, today was her day of celebration, and there were guards all around. She no doubt had to be much more relaxed than usual. On top of that, the marriage carriage itself blocked her line of sight, so she likely had no way to react in time. That was the conclusion reached by many people who had been watching the whole procession with the cool gaze of a bystandar.
However, even more people began bawling their hearts out. The saintess was not only the goddess of countless male disciples’ admiration; she was a symbol of the sect, and yet she'd actually died here!
Many people rushed over in a panic to see what was going on, but the guards still had their duties to shoulder, so how could they let the crowd approach? They instinctively stopped those people, which quickly incurred public anger. Many people cursed, and some even began to fight back.
Just as the situation looked as if it could develop into an all-out brawl, a gentle voice suddenly said, “Stop!”
The people's bodies trembled, because they were all too familiar with that voice. They all turned around. An incredibly charming woman slowly walked over from a distance. Who else could it be but the saintess?
Many people were stunned. If the saintess was here, who was the woman who had died in the marriage carriage?
Qiu Honglei said with a sentimental tone, “Junior sister Pan expected that someone would cause trouble during this marriage, so she offered to draw their attention by entering the marriage carriage in my place. At first, I didn’t agree to it, but things really did turn out the way she thought. Unfortunately, for the sake of saving me, her decision only ended up taking her life.”
She had been secretly following from behind the whole time. She hadn’t expected such a variable to appear at all. She'd wanted Pan Qiaoqiao to attend the wedding so that Lu Sanyuan and the others would all gather in one place, but Pan Qiaoqiao had actually ended up dying here! Helpless to do anything else, she could only choose to show herself and once again take her place as the bride. Saving her master was the most important thing, after all. As for everything else, she believed that Ah Zu would understand. Either way, it wasn’t a real marriage.
The guards opened up the carriage curtains. Sure enough, the Heavenly Devil School’s Pan Qiaoqiao was sitting inside.
The Devil Sect’s people were all stunned.
Didn’t Pan Qiaoqiao and the saintess not get along? Why were they acting like sisters, with the former even giving up her life for the latter? Could it be that they were only doing all of that in the past to deceive everyone else?
Even so, that performance is just too good, right?
But even though the matter was strange, no one thought any more of it. They were still happier with this result, because the saintess was safe and sound. As for Pan Qiaoqiao, even though she had some pursuers, it was night and day compared to Qiu Honglei.
Only the guards who were in charge of the escort were a bit stunned, because they had always thought that they were guarding Qiu Honglei. They didn’t even know when Qiu Honglei had left the carriage! They figured that it had to have been that wench Pan Qiaoqiao who colluded with others to accomplish such a thing.
Even so, if the saintess had really been killed, they'd all have been out of luck, so this result actually seemed quite good.
They quickly brought out Pan Qiaoqiao’s corpse and found another marriage carriage for Qiu Honglei to get into. After all, the top priority was safely delivering the saintess to the wedding. As for everything else, they would make a careful report to their superiors after.
…
Meanwhile, the assassin’s figure moved like lightning, darting between the buildings. Along the way, he randomly tossed his hat, mask, outfit, and other such things into secluded corners. Soon after, he became no different from an ordinary Devil Sect disciple. A grin appeared on his lips; he was clearly satisfied with his work this time.
Suddenly, he trembled. He looked up and saw a man standing not far away.
Zu An sized him up, remarking, “This brother’s sword was really quite fast.”
The assassin seemed to have decent looks. His face was abnormally pale, as if he never saw the sun, but he wasn’t a dark elf, and was actually purely human.
After what just happened, Zu An had rushed over after hearing the news. No matter how fast the assassin was, how could he be faster than Zu An?
At first, he'd planned to secretly follow him and see if he could find some clues regarding the Shadow Group. After all, the group was too mysterious. Even the Embroidered Envoy only knew a trifling bit about them. However, who would have thought that after so long, the assassin hadn't gone to any secret Shadow Group rendezvous point, and changed his outfit to become an ordinary Devil Sect disciple instead? Zu An didn’t have that much time to waste on him, so he'd decided to just show himself.
“How long have you been following me?” the assassin asked, although the question was a feint to confuse his opponent.
As soon as he said that, he suddenly shot out like lightning and instantly appeared in front of Zu An. A long and thin sword appeared, aimed at at the space between Zu An’s brows. The Yin Yang Path’s two veteran experts had been instantly killed by this move. They hadn’t even had time to draw their weapons.
However, the assassin’s eyes soon widened, because his sword that had always been successful in every endeavor actually stopped. It was clamped between two very ordinary fingers as if it were nothing. At any other time, who would dare to try to overestimate his sword and try to stop it this way? The sword ki his weapon possessed would surely have cut through those two fingers, then penetrated the opponent's skull. But regardless of how much strength he exerted, his sword didn't budge even an inch.
He was horrified. He decisively abandoned his sword and rushed back in retreat. As an assassin, he had never had thoughts such as 'my sword and I are inseparable’, and had always turned his nose up disdainfully at the idea of dying with the sword. As an assassin, the most important thing was preserving his own life. Only then would he have a chance of completing the mission. Even though the sword was important, compared to one’s life, what did it matter?
Perhaps because of the terrifying pressure he felt from the opponent, he felt that he was moving faster than ever before, even more so than when he'd assassinated the saintess. Even so, he still didn’t relax in the slightest. At the same time, he scattered a handful of poisonous powder behind him, and he activated all kinds of magic weapons he had accumulated over the years. As long as he was given a moment to catch his breath, he would be able to disappear into the alley up ahead. Then, he would just change his appearance and blend into the crowd. The opponent wouldn’t be able to catch him again.
However, his body suddenly froze. Fear appeared in his eyes for the first time; his acupoints had just been struck.
Just what kind of monster is this? Why is his cultivation so ridiculously high?
Zu An retracted his finger and arrived in front of the assassin, saying, “I just have some questions to ask; there’s no need for you to run so quickly.”
The strength this assassin displayed wasn’t inferior to that of the representative disciples in Violet Mountain’s great daoist competition. Judging from his age, he seemed even younger than many of those representative disciples, and yet he was on par with them. The Shadow Group really was full of mysteries.
When he saw the horror in the young man’s eyes, Zu An chuckled and casually sat down on a rock to the side, asking, “What is your name?”
The young man kept his mouth shut. He clearly didn’t wish to speak.
“If you can’t even answer something like that, maybe I should just send you to the Yin Yang Path. Those fellas over there don’t only like women; they’re also quite interested in pretty boys like you,” Zu An said with a sneer.
“You…!” The young man’s expression changed. He didn’t fear torture, but that kind of thing made him shiver just thinking about it. “Your respected self’s cultivation is so high, so why would you do such a thing that would shame your status?”
You have successfully trolled Jing Li for +110 +110 +110…
“So it was Jing Li,” Zu An remarked with a chuckle, as his plan had been to anger the assassin in the first place. “Who says you have to act a certain way just because your cultivation is high?”
The young man was shocked, exclaiming, “How do you know my name?”
“I have my ways,” Zu An said calmly. “Can you tell me what your role is in the Shadow Group? With your cultivation, I’m sure you’re not just some petty foot soldier.”
The young man’s expression changed several times, but in the end, he still kept his mouth tightly shut.
Zu An frowned slightly, saying, “There is a limit to my patience. I have other ways of finding out everything about you, but that would require me to cripple your cultivation. I believe you don't wish for that to happen.” Then, he activated his Heaven Devouring Sutra and aimed it at Jing Li.
When Jing Li sensed the terrifying pressure, his expression changed. He clearly knew that Zu An wasn’t lying. He took a deep breath and said, “I am not from the Shadow Group.”
“You’re still trying to lie in this kind of situation?” Zu An harrumphed. “Anyone could tell that you’re from the Shadow Group.”
“That's exactly what I wanted them to think,” Jing Li replied.
Zu An was shocked. He now had some suspicions himself, saying, “Continue.”
Jing Li looked at him with a complicated expression, asking, “If I speak, will you let me go?”
“An assassin like you shouldn’t be asking such a childish question,” Zu An said with a chuckle.
Jing Li sighed, saying, “I definitely wouldn’t ask something like this if it were anyone else, but your respected self’s cultivation is the highest out of anyone I have seen. I believe you're definitely not someone who would go back on your word.”
“Don’t try to give me such a high-sounding label. Let’s hear what you have to say first," Zu An replied.
Jing Li sighed in relief when he saw that Zu An didn’t promise him anything, saying, “That's because I have a deep grudge against the Shadow Group. I want revenge against them!”
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