The assassin leader’s Asura mask looked especially sinister and terrifying in the torchlight.
He stared coldly at the strange figure in the middle of the clearing—a person with a black sack over their head, their entire body glowing with a bizarre Barbie-pink radiance.
After a brief inspection, realization flashed in the leader’s eyes.
“So, this is who has the nerve to break into Blackwind Stronghold in the dead of night, despite its heavily guarded defenses.”
The leader’s hoarse voice rang out through the night wind, like rough sandpaper scraping against itself.
“So it’s the Crown Prince, reputed to be cold-blooded and merciless, with countless lives on his hands!”
“I just never expected the Crown Prince to show up tonight dressed in such a… distinctive fashion.”
Trapped inside the burlap sack, Su Jin was so humiliated that the veins on his forehead bulged.
His identity had indeed been exposed.
“The Grand General is a man of truly unparalleled foresight! He knew that someone would come to raid the camp on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival!”
The leader threw back his head and laughed arrogantly. His laughter was filled with the madness and fatalistic resolve of someone prepared to die.
He turned around and kicked over a huge wooden barrel beside him.
Whoosh!
Black powder poured out, and the pungent smell of sulfur filled the entire clearing.
It was the highest-grade black powder, the most powerful kind available!
The leader lowered the torch in his hand until it hovered barely an inch above the gunpowder.
The dancing orange flames could lick the deadly powder at any moment.
“The Grand General has ordered that if anything happens to the storage room, we are to perish together with the enemy!”
The leader’s voice was deafening, filled with the fanatical devotion of a death soldier.
“To die alongside the Crown Prince of the Great Abyss and give our lives for our lord would be the greatest honor imaginable!”
“Let us all die together!”
The air froze.
The tension was taut as a bowstring pulled to its limit, ready to snap at any moment and unleash a devastating catastrophe.
Faced with certain death, Su Jin unexpectedly grew calm.
He had seen mountains of corpses and rivers of blood throughout his life.
He let out a sigh.
There was a trace of resigned helplessness in it, but not the slightest hint of fear.
He knew perfectly well that with this amount of gunpowder, combined with the dense array of repeating crossbows surrounding them, there was no way he could emerge unscathed from the explosion, no matter how skilled his lightness technique or how powerful his internal energy.
What was more, he had Su Yaoyao with him—a little girl who could only play a few strange tricks and possessed no internal energy whatsoever.
Su Jin silently tightened his grip around the blue-black poisoned blade.
The true qi within his body surged like boiling water, rising to its peak.
He intended to withstand the first shock wave of the explosion head-on.
Even if it meant suffering severe injuries, he would use his true qi to shield Su Yaoyao and carve a path through the enemy for her escape!
He might be a freak. He might spend every day thinking about how to torment others.
But this little girl was, after all, his sister by the same mother.
Even if she had fed him bizarre poisons, even if she had forced him to wear a burlap sack…
How could such a clever and mischievous little girl fail to live to a hundred?
Besides, how could the bloodline of the Great Abyss imperial family die at the hands of a bunch of lowly assassins?
“When the explosion goes off, run for your life. Whatever you do, don’t look back.”
Su Jin lowered his voice, his tone resolute.
Just as he was about to unleash his true qi and make one final desperate stand, a soft, fair little hand suddenly pressed firmly down on the back of the hand gripping his sword.
Su Yaoyao’s hand was not strong, but she was utterly composed.
“Why are you running?”
Su Yaoyao rolled her eyes.
“There are ten carts’ worth of refined iron and gunpowder right here. If I run away, who am I supposed to get to build my Gatling gun?”
Su Jin froze.
Through a hole in the sack, he stared at the little girl beside him in disbelief. She did not even reach his waist.
When was this the time to be thinking about that blasted Gatling gun?
The torch was practically touching the barrel of gunpowder!
And she was still worrying about some ridiculous Gatling gun?!
Before Su Jin could object, Su Yaoyao sauntered out from behind him.
Surrounded by dozens of gleaming steel blades…
Facing the gunpowder barrels that were about to explode and the death soldiers who had descended into madness…
She reached into her oversized sleeve and pulled out something that glittered with golden light.
Click-clack.
The crisp sound of abacus beads colliding suddenly rang through the silent night sky.
The tiny abacus, crafted entirely from pure gold, reflected an alluring glow beneath the moonlight.
If the group of assassins recruited outside Blackwind Stronghold had witnessed this familiar scene, they would certainly have dropped to their knees on the spot and shouted, “Boss!”
Unfortunately, the Blood-Drop Squad No. 2 had not yet suffered the brutal indoctrination of workplace culture from future generations.
“Little girl, what are you doing with an abacus? Calculating how many ghost coins you’ll need on the road to the underworld?”
The assassin leader sneered, his eyes full of contempt and mockery.
Su Yaoyao’s fingers flew across the golden abacus. The crisp clacking of the beads rang out without pause.
She raised her head. Her clear, peach-blossom eyes were filled with pity for a group of truly exceptional suckers.
“I’m calculating exactly how much each of your pathetic lives is worth.”
Su Yaoyao’s bright, clear voice rang across the open space, sharp and undeniable.
“Perish together? Give your lives for our lord?”
“Why are you risking your lives? Who do you think you are—the Grand General’s own sons?”
She pointed at the assassin leader and began firing off her questions like a barrage.
“You keep saying ‘our lord’ this and ‘give our lives’ that.”
“Let me ask you this: Does your lord pay your social insurance and housing fund?”
The assassin leader froze.
Social insurance and housing fund?
Was that the name of some legendary martial arts manual?
The dozens of death soldiers around him exchanged bewildered glances. Their hands tightened around their blades, then paused. Clearly, none of them had understood a word.
Su Yaoyao gave them no time to think.
“Don’t understand? Fine. I’ll put it another way.”
“You risk your lives every day taking missions where nine out of ten people die.”
“If you’re seriously injured, or lose an arm or a leg, does your lord reimburse all your medical expenses?”
“Does he send palace physicians to treat you, or give you priceless snow lotuses from the Tianshan Mountains?”
The corner of the leader’s mouth twitched, and the flame in his hand trembled with it.
Palace physicians? Snow lotuses?
When they were injured, getting a little cheap wound medicine was already considered a tremendous favor.
As for brothers who suffered serious injuries and lost their usefulness, they usually had only one fate: death.
Where would any reimbursement come from?
Su Yaoyao’s gaze was as sharp as a blade, viciously cutting open the brainwashed hearts of these death soldiers.
“When you’re crippled during training, do you receive generous workers’ compensation?”
“When you spend the New Year guarding some desolate mountain in the freezing wind, do you get triple pay for working through a holiday?”
“And if you actually light this barrel of gunpowder today and are blown to pieces…”
“When you die, will the Grand General give your wives and children enough compensation to live for the rest of their lives?”
Su Yaoyao pressed them harder and harder, her voice growing louder and her presence more imposing by the second.
She was like an overbearing female CEO at an annual meeting, frantically selling her employees grand promises while savaging the competition.
“He won’t! He absolutely won’t!”
“He’ll toss them a few measly pieces of silver, barely give them a glance, and then turn around and recruit another batch of fools just like you!”
“Meanwhile, he’ll be drinking wine that costs a hundred taels a jug in the pleasure districts of the capital, with courtesans who charge a thousand taels for a single night in his arms.”
“And what about you?”
Su Yaoyao sneered repeatedly, casting a critical eye over these elite assassins.
“You get a pitiful few scraps of silver a month.”
“That little bit of worthless money wouldn’t even be enough to buy you a decent coffin. So what the hell are you risking your lives for?!”
“You’re earning rock-bottom wages, yet risking your lives like this. Don’t you feel cheated?!”
The soul-piercing question left the fearless assassins utterly dumbfounded.
They all exchanged glances, taking in one another’s patched-up clothes and sallow, perpetually underfed faces. Even the leader’s hand trembled around his torch…
