Chapter Eighty-Seven: Elegy

The female assassin was pinned tightly beneath Liu Jingye, her limbs immobilized. She glared at him with hatred written all over her face, yet there was nothing she could do.

“Be smart,” Liu Jingye said. “I’m not interested in serving as your sparring partner. Do you know why I left the ninja’s corpse lying there? Because I don’t want to bother with this twice. If you keep provoking me, I’ll bury you both together!”

The female assassin gave a crisp nod. As an assassin who cared nothing for other people’s lives, yet cherished her own and feared death, she truly lacked even the slightest professional pride.

Liu Jingye let her go, accidentally brushing against her ample curve. In truth, the second time he had encountered that decoy woman, he had already noticed something was wrong; only because Yuan Xiaoying had been there did he deliberately play dumb and let her go.

The female assassin shot him a cold look, her expression still frosty, since she had altered her appearance in a face-changing disguise.

She stood up and said bitterly, “Since the last time on the rooftop you dodged my bullet, I swore that as long as I live, I would one day put a round through you. It seems I won’t get that wish for now.”

“That’s all right. I told you you’d live to a hundred. There’ll always be a chance before then,” Liu Jingye said indifferently. “But for now, you’d better not act rashly. Next time, come back in another outfit, with another identity. Right now, we have a common enemy.”

No sooner had Liu Jingye finished speaking than the female assassin’s phone rang. She answered it, and after listening, said in a low voice, “Just as expected. Then have him pay extra according to the rules.”

After that brief sentence, she hung up and said to Liu Jingye, “Your analysis was mostly right. Huang Guangzong really does want to see us tear each other apart. When we just informed him that the mission had failed, he didn’t even hesitate. He immediately ordered us to continue the assassination attempt on you, and he’s willing to pay more for a better fighter.

“That damned old fox actually dared to play us! Against a freakish master like you, we could even end up wiped out.”

“So what are you going to do?” Liu Jingye narrowed his eyes as well.

“Of course we’ll send an even more formidable assassin after you,” she said bluntly. “We took the money, so we have to do the job. We can’t ruin our reputation. Failing is allowed, but breaking our word is not. Our slogan is simple: mission accomplished.”

“Then you might as well change careers and start delivering parcels!” Liu Jingye said irritably. “I thought that once I exposed his scheme, we’d stand on the same side and deal with him together.”

“You are you. He is he,” the assassin said coldly.

“All right, then. I’ll wait for your experts to arrive,” Liu Jingye said lightly. He drew the huge Desert Eagle from inside his coat. With a metallic click, he chambered a round. Man and gun seemed fused into one, perfectly natural, becoming the most terrifying killing weapon in the world.

The female assassin was slightly stunned. Then she made another call and said, “Suspend all tasks targeting Liu Jingye for now. I’ll handle him alone. You others just keep Huang Guangzong occupied for the moment. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“Good. You know what matters,” Liu Jingye praised again. “Seems your standing in the organization is very high. I’ve heard your group is quite famous across all of Asia. Looking at your build, what country are you from?”

“That’s none of your business!” the female assassin said. “From today on, killing you will be my lifelong goal. I’ll hover beside you like a shadow, appearing whenever I choose to kill you.”

“I genuinely wanted to cooperate with you and take Huang Guangzong down together, because there are certain things I can’t do myself,” Liu Jingye said with a helpless sigh. “But why do you keep testing my patience? I hate trouble the most. Are you forcing me to kill you right now?”

“That’s fine too,” the assassin said stubbornly. “If you don’t kill me now, one day I’ll kill you.”

“Why?”

“Because you wounded my pride as an assassin. You even shook my confidence. Without pride and confidence, what meaning is there in my life?” the female assassin said fiercely.

“You mean I gave you severe psychological trauma? You’re a little too fragile,” Liu Jingye said with a wry smile. “Even the great Napoleon suffered Waterloo. Even Sun Wukong was crushed beneath Five Elements Mountain. Even Pleasant Goat was captured by Grey Wolf more than once. Young lady, success is the mother of failure. Only failure can temper greatness.”

“What about you? Have you ever failed?” the female assassin asked cleverly.

After a brief pause, Liu Jingye said with pride and a touch of sadness, “I truly wish I had failed before. I wish I could be weak just once, cry just once. But unfortunately, I cannot afford to lose. If I do, what I lose will not be only my life.”

“I’ll help make your wish come true,” the female assassin said coldly.

After that, she no longer wished to speak. She turned and went upstairs. Soon she appeared again, fully dressed, and walked straight toward the door. Just as Liu Jingye was about to speak, she suddenly turned back, lifted the arm in her hand, and said, “You saved me just now. I’ll spare you once in the future. After that, we’ll be even, and I’ll continue trying to kill you.”

“All right, all right, welcome to come and kill me...” Liu Jingye said helplessly. “But before that, shouldn’t we discuss how to deal with Huang Guangzong?”

The female assassin did not pay him any attention. Liu Jingye went on, “Then at least let me know how to contact you!”

Still no response. Unwilling to give up, Liu Jingye said, “If you won’t let me see your face, at least tell me your name!”

“Wound...”

Her voice drifted in from beyond the door. Liu Jingye gave a bitter smile. “As expected of an assassin. Even your name represents death.”

Liu Jingye sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette in silence, calming himself. Then he muttered, “This assassin organization really isn’t simple. Just the disguise technique alone is beyond imagination. She had three separate plain-clothes appearances in a row, and each time she was a completely different person, including her voice and mannerisms. No wonder they say every qualified assassin is a first-rate actor.

“That old fox Huang Guangzong. I thought that since his son had just been taken down and he was standing at the center of the storm, he’d keep a low profile. I never expected him to be even crazier than his son, coming up with a two-birds-with-one-stone scheme to make us slaughter each other, while also colluding with Japanese ninjas to make trouble for me. If you insist on clamping onto me like a dead leech, then I’ll break your teeth!”

He said this savagely, then turned and saw the ninja’s corpse. With a sigh he said, “I never expected the first body to be inside this house to be a Japanese one. I heard that decades ago this area was a major battlefield against the Japanese. Now another Japanese has died here. Fate really does have a way of arranging things.”

As he spoke, he found a large sack. In the countryside, things like that were plentiful. He stuffed the Japanese corpse inside, strapped it to the back of his little motorbike, and also slung a shovel over his shoulder.

By then, the sky was just beginning to brighten, and there was hardly anyone on the road. He headed north all the way to the cemetery at the foot of the mountain.

This was the burial ground for their village and several nearby ones, a place with more than a century of history. He chose the most desolate mound, one overgrown with weeds even on the grave, and began digging at once. At about half a meter down, he simply tossed the Japanese man in, covered him back up, and made it look as though an old grave had just been freshly turned.

Burying the dead in a grave was only fitting. No one would ever discover him there.

“The feeling of burying a little Japanese devil with my own hands is downright satisfying,” Liu Jingye said with a cold laugh.

When he returned to the inn, he took a shower, then went online to check the latest developments in the city and get a basic sense of Huang Guangzong’s situation.

“I didn’t expect that old bastard to still be a figure of influence lately,” Liu Jingye said. “The plan for the Japanese to invest in and build a factory in the city’s development zone has officially begun, and construction is already underway with support from multiple sides. Huang Guangzong has been appointed general manager of this foreign-funded company.”

Along with this piece of news came another related report: his son, Huang Xing, had officially been approved for arrest by the procuratorate and would soon be indicted and brought before the court. His charges included kidnapping, leading a mafia-style criminal syndicate, and trafficking drugs and firearms, along with several other serious crimes. He was highly likely to be sentenced to death.

“His son is guilty beyond redemption, yet the father is basking in glory. Even a blind man could see that the two of them are connected,” Liu Jingye said with a helpless sigh at the stark contrast between the two reports. “Our laws in ancient times were much better. In a case like this, the whole family would be implicated. Forget exterminating nine clans; at the very least, three clans would be wiped out.”

“This is acting in Heaven’s stead, this is true justice. You are the underground judge, the superhero in the darkness!”

Yuan Xiaoying’s words suddenly echoed in his ears. In this day and age, far too many wealthy and powerful people could stand above the law. Indeed, someone needed to step forward and punish them.

Liu Jingye took the black pistol from his coat and gently stroked it as he said, “Old friend, you’ve followed me through battle and killed enemies at my side for so many years. Now our enemies have become those lawless scum who wreak havoc on the common people. We have another chance to fight shoulder to shoulder. You must be excited too.”

At that very moment, another new message was posted online, from the official Weibo account of the authorities: “Yesterday afternoon, several senior Japanese executives from the foreign-funded Okamoto Bioengineering Company, together with its general manager, Huang Guangzong, met with the chief secretary of the authorities along with technical staff. They provided a detailed introduction to the products they are about to develop and produce. In addition to boosting the city’s economy, these products will have significant effects in resource conservation, recycling, and other areas.”

Along with the news was a photo of the chief secretary and Huang Guangzong. In just a few days, the chief secretary had appeared publicly with Huang Guangzong many times, completely ignoring Huang Xing’s scandal. The degree of support was obvious.

“It looks like if we want to deal with Huang Guangzong, we first have to knock out the umbrella protecting him,” Liu Jingye said. “I wonder how things are going with Chen Yuxin’s trip to the capital to file her complaint. It’s been so many days and still no word.”

He called her, but her phone was switched off.

Liu Jingye felt somewhat worried. Before leaving, Chen Yuxin had instructed him that if there was still no news after a full week, he should directly publish the materials online to draw social attention.

He was still hesitating over whether to make them public when, at that moment, the great iron gate in the yard was pushed open, and a group of people walked in, leaving Liu Jingye utterly stunned...