Wen Ya kicked the door open and walked right in.
Half-finished red wine sat on the long table. She took in her surroundings, the gentleness in her tone vanishing, replaced by a hint of amusement.
"In such a leisurely mood, are we?"
Despite the forced entry, the house's alarm system remained completely unresponsive. Wen Ya had barged in like a bandit, and by the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
Giving no one time to react, she fired her gun first, sending the younger one to the afterlife.
The muzzle then turned, aiming at the older one.
The man trembled uncontrollably, pressing himself flat against the wall. His back was pushed so hard against the wallpaper it was as if he wanted to embed himself into it.
His lips quivered. "Who sent you?"
Wen Ya did not answer.
"I... I can pay you double!" Seeing Wen Ya remain silent, he screamed desperately. "You're an assassin from the Archive, right? I know they must have done this. I'm begging you, I can pay your organization double! Triple, quadruple, whatever you want!"
A living rich man was far more valuable than a dead one, and the Archive naturally understood this logic.
The problem, however, was that Wen Ya was not an assassin affiliated with the Archive.
"You really don't know how to teach your child," she said, looking down at the man who had slumped to the floor, her expression rather displeased. "So, I'm a little angry."
The man's legs gave out, and he slid down the wall, muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Did my kid offend you? I will definitely teach him a good lesson! Can I apologize to you? Miss Assassin, you can have anything you want... I..."
"Forget about it in this life, sir."
Wen Ya smiled brightly. "Just remember to be more careful in your next life."
After a single gunshot, complete silence returned.
Wen Ya looked down at the man on the floor.
His eyes were still open, his facial expression frozen in a weeping plea for mercy, looking exceptionally twisted.
She withdrew her gaze expressionlessly, pulled her phone from her pocket, and took a selfie with the crime scene, sending it to her husband.
She had no choice.
Without photographic evidence, given how harsh Shen Sigui was with them, he wouldn't pay them for the contract.
Stepping on the tail end of the night, Wen Ya walked with light steps, placed her gun into a shopping bag, and left as if nothing had happened.
In her earlier years, she was known by underground organizations as the Harbinger Bird. Wherever she went, peace ceased to exist.
On the way, the couple casually chatted about this topic over the phone.
Wen Ya complained casually, "Why was my old codename so ugly?"
"The Harbinger Bird? How is it ugly? Little birds are so cute."
"Really?"
In reality, this codename carried far more terrifying connotations than cute ones, but Shen Sixing lied without batting an eye. "Really."
He was on the phone while looking at the crime scene photo Wen Ya had sent him.
Ignoring the corpses lying haphazardly in the background, he looked at Wen Ya's soft and beautiful face in the photo. Shen Sixing stared at it for a few seconds and, in an unprecedented move, posted a status on his social media feed.
The caption read:
Even when killing, she's so gentle. I'm so lucky!
Shen Sixing currently had zero friends.
The last batch of people who were his colleagues had already been physically deleted.
The Archive was well-informed, and all the vigilant assassins had fled immediately.
However, everyone still had their social media accounts, not to mention it was rare for Shen Sixing to post about his daily life.
A group of assassins immediately liked the post and left comments: "Happy again, bro."
...
The two little boys played video games until late into the night and both fell asleep groggily on the sofa.
The adults were out on business, so Shen Yi cooked some noodles in the morning and called them to eat together.
After the birthday passed, everyone went back to their own business. Their parents were currently busy executing assassination missions.
In just a short week, various news channels were flooded. Turning on the TV or phone revealed videos of top executives from various corporations being murdered.
Some netizens joked: Is an assassin syndicate rushing to meet their quotas because the New Year is approaching?
People below liked the comment in droves.
To ordinary people, it didn't matter how many rich people died, but to the wealthy, this triggered significant panic. In the underworld, the prices for mercenaries and bodyguards skyrocketed. A few of Shen Yi's classmates sent messages, probing to see if she knew anything about the bizarre deaths of so many high-level executives.
Shen Yi, of course, replied that she had no idea.
During this time, Shen Sixing posted several photos of Wen Ya committing murders on his social media.
His fanboy demeanor was far too obvious.
One day, Shen Yi couldn't help but ask him, "Are you actually mom's career fan, Dad?"
Every time their mother killed someone, Shen Sixing's face would be filled with adoration.
The man smiled candidly. "Obviously."
The first time his heart skipped a beat was when Wen Ya saved him.
The woman had her back to him, holding a gun, and called him a useless piece of trash.
The swaying ends of her hair seemed to sway right into his heart.
...
As the New Year approached and their parents were busy with their great assassination enterprise, Shen Yi and Shen Xun went back and forth to the Shen family estate several times for special training.
Shen Xun was eight years old this year.
After the New Year, he would be thrown into a survival-of-the-fittest battle royale.
Shen Yi was a year younger than him, but Old Mr. Shen said she could participate early, completely ignoring the question of how a seven-year-old was supposed to survive on a deserted island.
To prevent Shen Yi from dying the moment she landed and giving away a free kill as soon as she entered the island, Old Mr. Shen would often throw her and Shen Xun into the back mountain to play battle royale.
Although called the back mountain, it was actually a continuous stretch of mountain forest with streams and cliffs.
When they were first thrown in to spend the night, Shen Yi was quite anxious, but this only lasted for a week. She quickly adapted to this routine.
She would often find a cave and curl up inside to sleep.
From then on, she lived the purely natural caveman life of using the sky as a blanket and the earth as a bed.
Unable to sleep, she stared at the rocks above her head, imagining the future. "After the New Year, when Grandpa throws us onto the deserted island, our lives will be even harder than they are now, right?"
Shen Xun was also awake.
His voice came from the sleeping bag next to hers, muffled but steady. "Don't be afraid. I'll protect you."
Anyway, he never expected Shen Yi to actually kill anyone.
When the time came, he would do the killing, and it would be enough for Shen Yi to just hide well.
Unaware that the other party had already planned everything out, Shen Yi replied earnestly, "I'll protect you too."
Two children, one eight and the other seven, made solemn promises to each other in the pitch-black cave.
"So cheesy."
Hearing the siblings through the listening device, Shen Sigui felt a full-body shudder of disgust.
He and Shen Sixing had a pretty good relationship when they were kids.
Shen Sixing was seven years older than him. From a young age, he had accepted that his older brother was the one who would inherit the family business, while he would help manage it as a deputy.
Just when he had finally completed his training and was ready to pursue his dream of becoming an outstanding assassin boss...
He turned around to find that his hopelessly romantic brother had run off with an infamous female assassin from the underworld.
When he learned that his own brother had dumped a massive mess onto him, Shen Sigui had confronted him in disbelief: "You abandoned the family for a woman, and now you're just living off her? Do you have no shame?"
Shen Sixing had been genuinely confused. "What's wrong with that?"
"So what!?" Shen Sigui repeated, flying into a rage. He emphasized every single word: "You are a mature, independent man! How do you have the nerve to live off a woman and be a live-in son-in-law?"
"Being a mature, independent man is indeed great," Shen Sixing first agreed with his words, but then his tone shifted and he said seriously:
"But becoming a stay-at-home husband has also been my lifelong dream."
"Even if you are rich, you shouldn't discriminate against the profession of a stay-at-home husband."
Shen Sigui was so infuriated at the time that his vision went dark.
As the saying goes, when people do not see eye to eye, even half a word is too much.
From then on, the two rarely kept in touch.
He had absolutely no affection for these children.
They were the continuation of that hopelessly romantic gene, a part of the mess left behind by his good-for-nothing brother.
However, to prevent the two of them from dying in the back mountain, he still sent out a drone and planted a listening device to check on the children's special training from time to time.
Who would have thought that the moment he put on his headphones, he would hear such a nauseating conversation.
On the screen, the two children had already quieted down.
Moonlight slipped in through the cave entrance, illuminating their two small faces.
The girl was curled up in a sleeping bag, her eyelashes resting gently as she breathed evenly.
The boy was lying on his side, facing the cave entrance.
Shen Sigui turned off the screen, coldly took off his headphones, and stood up to pour himself a glass of water.
