Chapter 23 – Assassin

Lao Ha’s body lay on the bed, covered with a quilt, with only a pair of feet exposed, the odor of blood was faint, it was obvious that the assassin had already taken care of it, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Fan Xian’s nose was very sensitive under Fei Jie’s tutelage, he might have missed it.

Fan Xian remained standing quietly in the corner, the darkness hiding the assassin and himself.

Learning from the method of the blind man’s five bamboo, he tried to calm himself down, his true qi flowing slowly through his body, and his heartbeat forming a tacit harmony with the clamor outside the street.

The assassin should not have left yet. The secret agents of the Procuratorate had always been meticulous in their methods, and all after poisoning Fan Xian, they must have waited until nighttime to confirm the death of this bastard before leaving Tanyu Port in the night. And in this city, since the assassin had posed as Lao Ha’s nephew, he must have been most familiar with this building, and would not have been willing to look for another place of observation.

But things had developed somewhat beyond Fan Xian’s preconceived notions, and as he carefully observed the room, he did not notice the presence of anyone other than Lao Ha’s cold corpse on the bed.

He slowly walked along the wall towards the inside of the room, trying to be careful that his body didn’t make a sound by touching the furniture in the room, and his gaze drifted over the roof of the room and some corners that were not easy to notice.

As he walked along the wall near the window sill, the light from outside filtered in through the window; Lao Ha’s family was obviously not rich enough to use glass, so the light inside the room was not very bright. Fan Xian then stood quietly next to those velvet lights, using the contrast between the light and the darkness to cover his tracks.

After standing for a long time, he frowned, thinking that he might have really misjudged the situation, and that the assassin who had poisoned him might have left Tanyu Port long ago, and if that was the case, he had obviously made some mistakes by coming here in the first place instead of taking control of Butler Zhou.

He walked over to the bedside, wanting to take a look at the cause of poor old Ha’s death, but as his footsteps got closer and closer to the bed, his mood grew more and more tense, for he heard some sort of suppressed and extremely light breathing, which had previously been hidden amongst the noises of the food court, and which he had not been able to hear until Fan Xian had gotten close enough to hear the bed.

It turned out that the assassin had ducked behind Lao Ha’s corpse after realizing that someone had come in.

The breathing behind the corpse on the bed was very steady, about seven breaths per minute. If Fan Xian didn’t possess an abundance of innate true qi unimaginable to normal people and a keen ear, then it must have been impossible to hear it.

Fan Xian’s footsteps stopped and he looked at the bed for a long time, wondering if this was a trap.

Outside the window still came the sounds of hawking that represented life, interspersed with very soft sounds from the distance, and one could hear what appeared to be some kind of carriage driving this way.

He knew that at the front of the building was a vegetable farm, and it happened to be just here that the road became narrow enough that the carriage must have had some difficulty in passing, so he gripped his dagger gently and waited quietly.

The assassin also waited behind the body, he did not see who it was that entered the room, he only knew that the other party seemed to possess the same patience as himself, and after a long time he felt that he seemed to have underestimated the dangers here in Tanyuu Harbor, and that he should not have stayed here waiting to silence any characters that might have traced their way here, but instead he should have departed at an early stage.

A carriage slowly traveled through the vegetable market, the vendors on both sides began to rant and rave, the driver’s sad face was clearly visible, if he wasn’t in a hurry, he wouldn’t want to take this road.

After a long time the vendors vacated a section of the road, the coachman thanked the people around him, then with a wave of the horse whip, the coach stepped forward, but squeezed a crate of eggs, the vendor selling the eggs was very angry and pulled the horse’s reins, the whole vegetable market boomed with a very noisy sound.

Inside the small building next to the vegetable farm.

Hearing the roar from outside, taking advantage of the cover of the sound outside, Fan Xian raised his right foot strangely fast, stomped on the ground, and his entire body jumped to the edge of the bed, and with a flip of his right hand, a long, thin dagger fiercely stabbed down towards the back of Lao Ha’s corpse!

In that instant, Fan Xian saw the assassin’s appearance clearly, his eyes were cold, the eyebrows on his eye bones were a bit scattered, you could tell that he wasn’t very old, his appearance was very ordinary, only his lips were a bit thick and the skin on his cheeks was a bit dry.

The seemingly unprepared assassin on the bed suddenly moved his right hand, and a tiny black crossbow bolt pierced through his sleeve and flew out, shooting straight at Fan Xian’s face – and Fan Xian had just dipped his feet into the ground at this point, his right hand was already raised, and there wasn’t a single bit of defense on his entire chest and abdomen.

The crossbow’s flight speed was fast, like a ghostly light!

In the moment the crossbow gouge sounded, Fan Xian reacted, thanks to the education of the five bamboo’s wooden stick that was faster than the crossbow over the years, his toes dipped to the ground but did not step on the ground, his heel did not touch the ground, and with the power of his toes, he twisted, and his entire body deviated a few inches to the right in the air without any way of borrowing any strength.

The crossbow arrow extremely thrillingly brushed past the left side of Fan Xian’s face and shot deeply into the wooden beams of the roof with a muffled thud.

The assassin’s face was filled with shock, seemingly unable to imagine that the person who had come was actually that beautiful young man who should have already died from the poison, and even more so that this young man would actually be able to dodge a hidden crossbow that was fired at such a close range!

And at this time, the slender dagger in Fan Xian’s hand had already followed the direction of the twisting body and ruthlessly stabbed into that assassin’s body, emitting a very unpleasant muffled sound, like the feeling of a kitchen knife hacking into pork. It was just a pity that Fan Xian had been a bit off in order to avoid the crossbow, and the slender dagger had only plunged into the assassin’s shoulder instead of killing him.

The assassin bounced on the bed like an eel in the water, his left hand’s sharp edge appearing as he prepared to get up and give Fan Xian a fatal blow – but immediately, a sharp pain in his shoulder and a downward impact caused him to involuntarily fall back down, and the fingers gouging the concealed crossbow loosened.

When he got up, he had already prepared for the pain in his shoulder, but he hadn t expected this pain to be so intense, and …… that little boy s dagger had actually gone through his shoulder and ruthlessly dug into the bedpan, pinning his body alive!

The assassin’s movements failed, and Fan Xian’s left hand was strangely quick to counter-choke the other man’s throat. The fear of death finally appeared on the assassin’s plain, unassuming cheeks, and his thick lips opened slightly as if he was about to say something.

Fan Xian’s heart shrank, feeling a slight chill, and without giving the other party a chance to speak or counterattack, his tiger’s mouth pressed hard, and with a click, the assassin’s neck snapped, his head tilting to the side, killing him instantly.

His hand was still placed on the assassin’s broken neck for a while, feeling the broken bones there, as well as the oozing blood gradually becoming colder, before he finally withdrew his hand, and began to half crouch his body to gasp for air.