Translator: Myuu Editor: Myuu
The blood-curdling scream in the dead of night stabbed into one’s ears like a sharp knife.
As soon as Yan Liqiang heard the blood-curdling scream, he immediately sprung up from his bed without thinking. He quickly draped his clothes over himself, wore his shoes, took his weapon, then swung his door open and rushed out.
When Yan Liqiang rushed out, Liang Yijie also rushed out from the room adjacent to his, carrying a long sword with him. Both of them exchanged glances and then rushed to the entrance of Sun Bingchen’s room together.
“Sir…!” Liang Yijie shouted. Sun Bingchen’s door had also been swung open. Sun Bingchen came out of the room, frowning. His wavering gaze fell on the courtyard in the distance. Before Sun Bingchen could even say anything, an unpleasant laughter that sounded like sand rubbing against a damaged pot rang out in the courtyard where Yan Liqiang and the rest were. Amidst the laughter, a black figure flew toward them from a roof in the distance like a nightingale. When the figure was more than thirty meters in the air, he hurled something toward the courtyard before he landed.
“SIR, WATCH OUT…!” Liang Yijie’s gleaming sword flashed out and he was instantly in front of Sun Bingchen, shielding him.
It turned out that the black thing wasn’t a hidden weapon. After falling to the ground, it rolled a few times before coming to a stop. Yan Liqiang glanced at it under the bright moonlight, only to discover that it was a human head. The neck was still dripping blood, the face had a furious expression, and the head had a beautiful long beard. The owner of this head was none other than the master of the manor — Lord Fu, whom Yan Liqiang had only just met once!
The advisor to the Crown Prince who had just met Sun Bingchen recently was beheaded in just the blink of an eye, and his head was tossed before Yan Liqiang.
“Lord Sun, how’s this for a greeting gift?” The nightingale-like figure who tossed the head to them stood on the roof in the courtyard where Yan Liqiang was. He was looking down at Sun Bingchen and the other two from up above and laughing strangely.
The man was fully clad in black with unkempt hair. His face was so thin that his cheeks were sunken. Only his eyes glowed green like ghost lights on his extremely pale face without a trace of blood. At first glance, he was as creepy as a thousand-year-old corpse that had just crawled out of a grave. Not only that, Yan Liqiang couldn’t tell his age either.
As soon as this person appeared, Yan Liqiang, who was also in the same courtyard, felt every hair on his body standing on its end and his heart was pounding hard. A faint powerful aura had completely shrouded the entire courtyard. Trapped in this aura, Yan Liqiang felt as helpless as a fish on a pan, waiting to be grilled. His own life and death were not in his hands.
Sun Bingchen swept his gaze across the head on the floor and grief flashed across his eyes. He then raised his head to glare at the man standing on the roof. He uttered bitterly, “The Banes of Heaven and Earth, the Black and White Impermanence [1]…”
“Hahahaha, I didn’t expect Lord Sun to have heard of us. How truly flattering…!” All of a sudden, the man standing on the roof laughed like a maniac.
“Assassinating an official of the imperial court is a serious crime that warrants the nine familial exterminations…!”
“Serious crime…?” The man snorted coldly in disdain. His creepy eyes glowed like ghost lights. “My brother and I have taken seven hundred, if not, five hundred lives. We’ve been wanted by the authorities for decades. What difference would one more life make?”
“Are you here to kill me too?”
Black Impermanence stuck his similarly pale tongue out to lick his lips and laughed creepily. “I would love to pluck your head off to play with it. Unfortunately, we have only been asked to pluck two heads off this time. We’ve already taken one off. The other one would be that person you brought here with you. As for you, since you are an important person to that old Emperor, we’ll be leaving your head attached to your neck for a few more days and claim it when someone offers a good price, hehehe…”
Just then, a few more blood-curdling screams rang out from another courtyard nearby. Following the screams, a figure ran across the roof with lightning speed and appeared on the roof of the courtyard where Yan Liqiang and the rest were staying in.
The person who appeared before them had a similar appearance to Black Impermanence’s. His face was devoid of color and he was a bag of bones, also looking like he had crawled out from a grave. The only difference between them was that he was clad in white. If the one dressed in black was Black Impermanence, then this one dressed in white was undoubtedly White Impermanence.
White Impermanence was also holding a bloody severed head in his hand, a head that belonged to Ye Tiancheng.
Ye Tiancheng’s eyes were wide open, and the expression on his face was twisted in terror.
“You brought the head?” Black Impermanence asked.
“I did!” White Impermanence nodded and chuckled creepily. “This fellow was a cunning one. Quite a character he was. By the time I arrived, he had already cleared half of his acupoints and meridians with a few silver needles. Given another two hours, he probably would have escaped…”
“Hehe, how can the people who we have our eyes on possibly run away from us? Since we’ve got the heads already, let’s go…”
“Let’s go!” Both of them cast another glance at Sun Bingchen, then soared from the rooftop without saying anything as they prepared to leave.
Liang Yijie howled in rage and suddenly jumped up. The tip of the longsword in his hands went for both of them like dozens of cold stars.
Black Impermanence snorted coldly in mid-air. His hands, which looked like a pair of demonic claws, cut through Liang Yijie’s sword light. With a twist, the longsword in Liang Yijie’s hands was reduced into metal fragments and turned into something that resembled a fried dough twist. His sword light immediately dulled. Black Impermanence waved his sleeve and Liang Yijie instantly fell to the ground with a groan. He staggered a few steps back with a pale face.
“Junior, I will spare your life this time for the sake of that Hundred Swords geezer. The next time you overestimate your own capabilities, watch out for your head…” Black Impermanence’s voice lingered in the courtyard, but both of them had vanished into the dark sky without a trace, just like two wisps of smoke.
After Black and White Impermanence left, Yan Liqiang only then felt that the aura that shrouded the entire courtyard was instantly lifted.
A layer of cold sweat had already formed on Yan Liqiang’s back over this short encounter. From the beginning to the end, Black and White Impermanence didn’t even look at him once. They treated him like air. Even so, the immense pressure during the moment of life and death just now still made Yan Liqiang feel as though he had toured around the gates of hell. He didn’t strike out either because he knew it would have been futile no matter what, given his current strength. Having his Horned Python Bow with him on his back would probably have made no difference. The disparity between his strength and his opponents’ was simply too great. He wasn’t even on the same level as his opponents, so there was no way he could pit himself against them. He would really be courting death if he struck out recklessly.
Sun Bingchen trudged heavily to the severed head on the ground in sorrow. He gently picked it up from the ground as tears immediately cascaded down his cheeks…
Yan Liqiang opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. They traveled all the way from Gan Province to Hui Province and overcame all sorts of hardships. Yet, no one expected they would encounter two terrifying experts like that in Hui Provincial City just when they were about to enter the Imperial Capital. They took away Ye Tiancheng’s severed head with just a wave of their sleeves, instantly rendering Sun Bingchen’s careful schemes, as well as Yan Liqiang and Liang Yijie’s efforts over these days futile.
The entire process was as simple as a well-rehearsed stage play. It was so unreal, so illusory, and so fleeting. Yet the severed head in Sun Bingchen’s hands and the increasingly clamorous noises in the manor told Yan Liqiang that everything he had just experienced was real.
Yan Liqiang could already feel the immense power of the person whom Sun Bingchen and the Emperor was dealing with before they even got to the Imperial Capital.
That person didn’t want Ye Tiancheng to enter the Imperial Capital alive, so he was beheaded in Hui Provincial City. As for Lord Fu who served as the advisor to the Crown Prince, that was probably a warning to Sun Bingchen and the Emperor in the Imperial Capital.
Yan Liqiang didn’t know why, but he instantly felt relieved the moment he saw Ye Tiancheng’s severed head. He didn’t feel sorry at all, and was even secretly rejoicing. But of course, Yan Liqiang didn’t dare to let his face show his emotion, given the current situation he was in…
