Thrum!
The deafening roar of hundreds of bowstrings snapping simultaneously nearly shattered their eardrums.
The air felt as if it had been forcibly crushed and detonated by this sheer power.
Without any warning.
The five black-clad assassins charging at the forefront suddenly froze.
Their expressions still maintained that murderous intent, and the swords in their hands were still raised in mid-air.
But out of thin air, an extra object had appeared in their necks.
Crossbow bolts.
Short, lethal, entirely pitch-black, with arrowheads gleaming with a cold light.
Pfft.
Five blooms of blood exploded simultaneously at their throats.
Perfectly synchronized.
The five assassins did not even manage to let out a scream. Gurgling sounds escaped their throats as their eyes rolled back, and they fell stiffly backward.
Thud!
The corpses crashed into the muddy water, splashing it everywhere.
Duan Tiande's pupils contracted violently, a reaction of instinctive fear.
As a man of the martial world, his reflexes were extremely fast.
Almost the instant he heard the twang of the bowstrings, he forcefully halted his forward momentum.
Stomping his heel viciously against the stone slabs, he used the recoil to retreat frantically backward.
Clang clang clang clang!
A dense series of collisions rang out.
He spun the twin water-parting daggers in his hands at lightning speed, shielding his chest and face.
Sparks exploded in the rainy night.
It was the sound of crossbow bolts striking against his weapons.
Duan Tiande only felt his hands go numb; both his arms throbbed with agonizing pain, feeling as if his bones were about to splinter.
He retreated over a dozen steps until his back hit a willow tree, barely managing to steady himself.
Looking down, he saw several notches chipped into his daggers, and the spot where he had just been standing was completely covered in crossbow bolts.
Densely packed, the tails of the bolts were still vibrating violently, emitting a humming sound.
Cold sweat immediately mixed with the rain streaming down his face.
This was absolutely not the method of a martial world vendetta.
This kind of crossbow bolt, this kind of power, this kind of precision and coverage.
They were military crossbows!
Furthermore, they were repeating mechanical crossbows strictly forbidden by the laws of the Great Qian Dynasty, equipped only by the Royal Imperial Guards!
"Who goes there?!"
Duan Tiande's voice was trembling. The chill seeping out from his very bones was colder than the freezing rain filling the sky.
No one answered him.
There was only the perfectly synchronized sound of footsteps.
Clack, clack, clack.
It was the sound of iron armor plates rubbing against each other, and the sound of combat boots crushing the puddles.
Heavy, oppressive, carrying a terrifying aura of slaughter.
From the high walls on both sides of the alley, from the pitch-black shadows on the riverbank, and even from behind the grounded, broken boat.
Countless dark silhouettes surged out.
They were everywhere, unstoppable.
Over a hundred soldiers clad in heavy, ink-black armor wore bronze masks, revealing only pairs of emotionless eyes.
In everyone's hands was an exaggeratedly designed repeating mechanical crossbow.
The dark muzzles of the crossbows flickered with a faint blue luster, locking deadly onto every remaining survivor in the area.
It was the gaze of the Grim Reaper.
The black-clad assassins who had just been clamoring to hack the Xu siblings to pieces were now completely dumbfounded with terror.
The steel swords in their hands were shaking.
They were desperadoes, assassins, but they were ultimately just rats scurrying in the gutters.
When had they ever seen a formation like this, one that belonged only to a regular army?
The encirclement slowly parted to form a pathway.
Those heavy-armored soldiers, radiating a murderous aura, stepped back neatly to both sides, as if welcoming their master.
A figure walked out from the deepest depths of the darkness.
There was no grand entourage, nor any arrogant display of power.
The man was only draped in an inconspicuous, oversized gray straw rain cape, wearing a bamboo hat with the brim pulled very low.
He was neither holding the hand-warmer that usually never left his side, nor was he rolling those two walnuts in his palm.
In his hand, he carried a blade pointing downward.
A Tang-style sword that had not yet been unsheathed, but still exuded a bloody stench.
The scabbard was very old, wrapped in shark skin, and was already soaked through by the rain.
He just walked over, step by step.
His pace was very slow, very steady.
Every step he took felt as if it was stepping directly on everyone's heartbeats.
There was not the slightest bit of panic, nor his usual superficial flippancy.
He carried a towering rage that seemed ready to pierce a hole in the sky.
Xu Qinghuan stared blankly at that figure.
Rainwater dripped down her eyelashes, blurring her vision.
But that silhouette, even if it turned to ash, she would recognize it.
That sloppy old man who was usually always smiling, speaking sweetly to people and cleverly to ghosts, so fat that he could barely walk fast.
That wealthiest man in Jiangning who always spoke of harmony bringing wealth, who would haggle with a street vendor for half an hour over a few taels of silver.
At this moment, however, he was entirely consumed by murderous intent.
Strangers would be terrified.
Yet it was so familiar that it made her want to cry.
Xu Youde walked to the center of the scene.
He did not look at those assassins whose courage had been shattered, nor did he look at Duan Tiande, who was shivering under the tree.
His gaze passed over the glinting swords and shadows, landing on that mud puddle.
Lying there was his son.
Covered in blood, with half a water-parting dagger still embedded in his thigh, yet still fiercely protecting his sister behind him.
Standing there was his daughter.
The daughter he had held in the palm of his hand since she was a child, reluctant to let her lose even a single strand of hair.
Yet now she was covered in mud, clutching half of a broken arrow in her hand, her eyes filled with the madness that follows despair.
Xu Youde's footsteps paused.
For just a split second.
His face, hidden in the shadow of the bamboo hat, its originally hardened muscles, twitched slightly.
His heart ached terribly.
It hurt like absolute hell.
"Dad..."
The broken arrow in Xu Qinghuan's hand dropped to the ground with a clatter.
This single word, Dad, was called out in a fragmented, crying tone, yet it carried the grievance of someone who had finally found her protector.
Xu Youde did not speak.
He merely took a deep breath, the kind of deep breath that felt like it would burst his lungs.
Then, he turned around.
Those small eyes, usually narrowed into slits and brimming with shrewd calculation, were now wide open.
He looked at Duan Tiande.
With just one glance.
Duan Tiande felt as if his very soul had been frozen solid.
"Patriarch... Patriarch Xu!"
Duan Tiande forced out a breath, squeezing the words from his throat.
He knew he was finished.
But he still wanted to take a gamble.
To gamble on this merchant's weakness, to gamble on the rules of this world.
"The rules of the martial world dictate that taking someone's money means solving their problems!"
Duan Tiande gripped the water-parting daggers tightly in his hands, roaring with false bravado:
"I messed up today! I admit it!"
"But I am just a blade doing a job!"
"Patriarch Xu, let us speak plainly!"
"My employer is the Wang family of Jiangning! It is that old bastard Wang Ruhai!"
"Although I, Duan Tiande, am a crude man, I know the logic of keeping myself alive for another day!"
"As long as Patriarch Xu spares my life today, I am willing to go to the authorities and testify against the Wang family! I can even... I can even help you bite them back!"
Duan Tiande spoke faster and more urgently.
He was demonstrating his value.
"If you kill me, you will completely sever ties with the Water Transport Gang! You will make an enemy of the entire martial world!"
"And if the Wang family finds out I am dead, they will definitely think the plan has been exposed, and then it will be a fight to the bitter end!"
"Patriarch Xu, you are a man of big business. You should be able to calculate this ledger..."
"Calculate the ledger?"
Xu Youde finally spoke.
He slowly raised his hand and removed the bamboo hat from his head.
With a casual toss, he threw it aside.
The hat traced an arc through the air before landing heavily in the muddy water.
The rain instantly soaked his greying hair, streaming down a plump face that usually bore the warmth of laugh lines but was now as cold and hardened as ice.
"I, Xu Youde, have navigated the official circles for a very long time. I have spent my entire life doing business, calculating every single account."
"It has always been me taking advantage of others. No one takes advantage of me."
