At that moment, Wang Ping felt he was a dead man.
At the same time, he silently cursed his handler’s ancestors back eighteen generations. ’Is this how you do things? What happened to absolute secrecy?’
’Am I being thrown away like a pawn?’
Just as Wang Ping sank into despair, Shouchong did something that completely surprised him. Instead of lopping off his head with a single stroke, he retreated.
Then, he made a casual toss.
Wang Ping instinctively reached out. The Lotus Saber—the very blade that had shattered the rockery—floated lightly into his hands, exuding a bone-deep chill.
"This works out. Since it’s come to this, you can have it."
As Shouchong spoke these cryptic words, he pulled Xie Shi up beside him. His figure flashed like lightning, bursting through the roof and speeding off into the distance.
Almost simultaneously, Wang Ping felt his scalp prickle.
’This feeling... I’ve been targeted!’
For no reason, a realization dawned on Wang Ping. Then, he heard a voice shout from outside the Daoist Temple, "The one with the Lotus Saber is the White Lotus Rebel Leader!"
"...Huh?"
The moment those words were spoken, Wang Ping felt as if he were holding a searing hot branding iron. He violently flung away the Lotus Saber that Shouchong had just given him.
"A misunderstanding! It’s a misunderstanding!"
Wang Ping yelled at the top of his lungs, "I’m an undercover agent for the County Magistrate’s Office! I’ve performed meritorious service for the County Magistrate’s Office! I want to see the Chief Constable! Someone at the office can prove my innocence..."
The only response was the whistle of an arrow.
In that instant, Wang Ping felt a profound emptiness in his chest. He looked down and saw a gaping, bowl-sized hole had appeared in his torso.
It was the mark left by an arrow that had pierced straight through him.
’My second life has just ended, so unprepared. I really shouldn’t have dreamed of making a name for myself. I should have just been a simple farmer.’
’It’s just such an unjust way to die.’
’In the end, why did the constables from the County Magistrate’s Office suddenly show up here? And since they came, why didn’t my handler come with them?’
’I should have been able to survive this...’
As Wang Ping was thinking this in his final moments, he suddenly saw a pair of black leather boots. The owner of the boots seemed to be issuing orders:
"Get them! Don’t let them escape!"
"Take everyone who was under house arrest in the main hall into custody... There are too few people. Go to the front village and grab more. We didn’t mobilize all these forces just to come back empty-handed."
—It was his handler’s voice.
Just then, another voice spoke up. "Lord Chief Constable, one of the rebels just now claimed to be an undercover agent for the County Magistrate’s Office..."
’Yes, yes! That’s me!’
The chance to clear his name and live was right in front of him. Wang Ping’s will to survive flared up, but the man’s next words plunged him into an icy abyss.
"What undercover agent? The County Magistrate’s Office has never planted any agent in the White Lotus Sect. That was just some nonsense spouted by a rebel desperate to save his own skin."
At that moment, Wang Ping was beside himself with fury.
Given his moral standards, he had assumed the Court’s bottom line would be to simply deny him the credit and reward for his undercover work. He had been far too optimistic.
’They’re burning the bridge after crossing it!’
Thinking of this, all the fear, confusion, frustration, and indignation in Wang Ping’s heart finally coalesced into an indescribable, overwhelming rage.
But to his despair, there was nothing he could do.
He could only lie on the ground in helpless rage.
The next second, Wang Ping’s vision plunged into a bottomless darkness. In a daze, he seemed to hear the RUSTLE RUSTLE of pages turning.
......
「The front village.」
Once upon a time, this had been a quiet village nestled in the countryside. Now, however, it was ablaze, and the sounds of killing filled the air.
"Officer! Officer, spare me!"
"Help!"
"Run! Run for your lives!"
The firelight, tinged with blood, illuminated Chen Haoyan’s face. Though they were surrounded by a sea of flames, the constables gathered around this Chief Constable felt only an icy chill.
He stood in the inner courtyard of the Daoist Temple, calmly examining the shrine inside the house before him. The biting, bloody stench wafting in from the outer courtyard did not move him in the slightest. He paid no mind at all that the dead were not members of the White Lotus Sect, but merely a group of village children.
Just then, a constable hurried over, covered in dust.
If Wang Ping had been there, he would have recognized this man as the very same Street-Cleaning Tiger known as Master Liu, who used to collect protection money everywhere in the Grass Market outside the city.
"Lord Chief Constable, we’ve swept the area."
"Although this place is a White Lotus Sect stronghold, not many villagers actually joined them—only about a dozen or so. They’ve all been taken into custody."
"Sir, should we take them back for individual interrogation?"
Chen Haoyan turned around, his gaze calm.
"Interrogate? Liu Ye, it seems you’ve spent too much time in the Grass Market. Harboring rebels is the same as being a rebel yourself. Do I really need to teach you something so simple?"
At these words, Liu Ye was stunned.
"Sir, you mean..."
"Kill them all."
The three light words landed like a great mountain, weighing heavily on the constable and making him subconsciously glance around the Daoist Temple.
The ground was littered with corpses and severed limbs, a river of blood, yet not a single one held a weapon. Judging by the marks on their hands and feet, they had only learned simple body-strengthening exercises. There wasn’t even one person among them who had truly learned Martial Arts, or this encirclement wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.
Even a fool could see they couldn’t possibly be rebels.
But they were dead all the same.
Thinking of this, Liu Ye opened his mouth, driven by emotion, but then rationally swallowed the words he wanted to say. In the end, he could only force out:
"Yes, sir..."