Under the same moonlight, a torrential downpour hammered mercilessly upon the dilapidated tea shack beside the desolate official road, crackling loudly. In the muddy earth, beyond the scent of soil, hung a thick, suffocating odor of blood!
Less than two hours earlier, Gu Tingye had intended to rest at an abandoned tea shack, isolated from any village or inn. Raindrops drummed against the tattered thatched roof, pattering incessantly. Yet, just moments before the water boiled, a beast-like intuition honed by years on the edge of danger sent a sudden chill down his spine—
It was too quiet! Beyond the rain, not even the chirping of insects could be heard!
Pretending to adjust his baggage with lowered head, his peripheral vision swept over the surroundings like a hawk’s—the “merchants” in rain capes huddled in the corner of the tea shack had thick-knuckled fingers gripping their cups, their tiger’s mouths calloused from long years of wielding blades. Their gazes seemed casual but were in fact subtly locking onto all his escape routes.
“Sir, your hot tea is here…” Before the hunched “old proprietor” could finish, the poisoned dagger hidden beneath the tray struck like a viper, aiming straight for Gu Tingye’s back!
In that split second, as if eyes had grown on his back, Gu Tingye twisted aside violently! Simultaneously, his right foot kicked over the scalding brazier before him.
“Bang—crash!” Charcoal, boiling water, and sparks erupted wildly! The searing pain and sudden chaos forced the two assassins disguised as merchants in front of him to instinctively retreat and block!
Now!
The soft sword at Gu Tingye’s waist rang out as it left its sheath, transforming into a silvery streak of cold light. Instead of parrying, it executed a cunning, vicious thrust, piercing precisely through the wrist of another assailant sneaking up behind him. A scream instantly tore through the rainy night!
“Kill him!” Seeing the ambush exposed, the lead dark-faced man roared furiously, abandoning all pretense. His thick-backed ghost-head saber whistled through the air, cleaving straight toward Gu Tingye’s skull—its momentum heavy and fierce, unmistakably a military combat style!
“Gu family bastard! You’re courting death!” The dark-faced man’s blade grew increasingly ruthless.
Yet Gu Tingye only fought with colder calm, his eyes icy. Deliberately leaving an opening, he exposed his back. Another assassin took the bait. As if seeing behind him, Gu Tingye abruptly crouched and spun, his soft sword tracing a bizarre arc that slipped past the assassin’s armpit, slicing off half of his ear. Amid the scream, Gu Tingye threw his full weight against the already teetering wooden wall.
“Crash!” Splinters flew as he tumbled into the icy downpour and mud outside…
“After him! Don’t let him escape!” The dark-faced man’s eyes reddened with rage as he charged out first.
At an extremely steep muddy slope, the dark-faced man’s ghost-head saber descended with crushing force! Gu Tingye appeared exhausted, slipping and falling, yet just as the blade was about to strike, his body twisted like an eel. A swift, fierce sweeping leg kicked hard against the other’s mud-caked ankle.
“Crack—ah!” The crisp sound of snapping bone and a piercing shriek echoed simultaneously! The dark-faced man’s lower stance shattered completely, losing all balance as he tumbled like a ragged sack down the bottomless steep slope.
Gu Tingye didn't even spare a glance back. Hearing the footsteps and startled cries of the other pursuers behind him, a ruthless glint flashed in his eyes. He too slid directly down the other side of the steeper slope! Gravel and dead branches tore his skin open and flesh apart, yet he gritted his teeth tightly, using this near-self-mutilating method to finally shake off the pursuit completely.
As the rain gradually weakened, Gu Tingye leaned against a withered tree, breathing heavily. He tore off a relatively clean piece of cloth from his inner garment and, biting it with his teeth, tightly bound the terrible wound on his shoulder. Cold sweat mixed with rainwater dripped continuously from his jaw.
"The Bai family…" he squeezed out these two words through gritted teeth, his eyes filled with towering hatred and icy, frozen ferocity. These so-called blood relatives were actually this vicious! Hiring assassins to kill, relentless and unending!
He struggled to his feet, each step pulling at countless wounds. He looked toward the direction of the capital, his gaze complex to the extreme—disgusted with that hypocritical cage, yet hating even more those who wanted him dead!
He must return! For revenge!
Gu Tingye's fingertips dug deeply into his palms, blood mixing with rainwater as it dripped down.
This action suddenly reminded him of that snowy night when he was eight years old—he had also clutched a blood-stained handkerchief like this, hiding behind the carved screen in the ancestral hall, listening to Madam Qin's venomous schemes beneath her gentle voice.
That year, he had just been falsely accused by the Fourth Branch of stealing the ancestral jade pendant and was punished by kneeling on the bluestone slabs all day, his knees frozen to a bruised, purplish-black color.
It was Madam Qin who first helped him into the warm chamber, personally rubbing medicinal ointment on his frostbitten legs, her breath forming white puffs as she said, "Ye'er has suffered, Mother's heart aches for you." He would forever remember the scent of chenshui incense mixed with ointment on her, remember the warmth of her hands beneath the silk when the sleeve embroidered with intertwined branch crabapple brushed against his cheek.
Until that night, when he sneaked back to the ancestral hall to retrieve the protective talisman he had left behind, he overheard the conversation between Madam Qin and Mama Xiang: "…Raise this little wolf cub to be useless. Once he grows into a profligate son and the eldest's health fails, the position of the Marquis's legitimate heir will naturally belong to Tingwei… Take him to the gambling den tomorrow, have those servants teach him how to roll dice…"
Gu Tingye's pupils contracted sharply. Through the gap in the screen, he saw the medicinal ointment he had smeared earlier on Madam Qin's collar. That glimmer of pure white stung his eyes painfully under the candlelight.
So all the late-night deliveries of ginseng soup, the deliberately arranged poetry lessons—they were all arsenic laced with honey. He bit down hard on his sleeve to keep from crying out, the taste of blood rising in his throat hurting more than the frostbite on his knees.
Now, in the curtain of rain, the burning pain of the wound on his shoulder actually cleared his mind. Madam Qin's plan to ruin him had been remarkably successful—over the years, he had indeed become a notorious profligate in the capital, fighting cocks, racing horses, squandering money like dirt, even his father publicly calling him the disgrace of the Gu family.
But they hadn't anticipated that Gu Erlang, who lost all his monthly allowance in the gambling den, would squat in the backyard of a pawnshop munching on cold steamed buns while silently reciting Wei Liaozi; that the libertine punished by kneeling in the ancestral hall for fighting had long carved the survival rules of the three teachings and nine schools into his bones.
Now, he returned covered in wounds, ready to personally tear open this facade of tender affection.
On the outskirts of the capital, on the muddy official road, a blood-soaked lone wolf, filled with soaring ferocity, was step by step pressing toward the vortex of power.
In Yangzhou, under warm candlelight, the Sheng Residence in Yangzhou was brightly lit and filled with joyous celebration…