“Beep, beep”
The sound of car horns behind him grew closer. Although Li Mo was running on an uneven muddy path where the weeds grew higher than a person, human strength could ultimately never match the speed of a vehicle.
He panted heavily as he ran. Staying with the Huo family all these years meant his training intensity fell far short of what it used to be, and his physical stamina was no longer what it once was.
Yet the sound of rushing water grew louder in his ears. He kept thinking to himself, If I just push through a little longer, persist just a little longer, perhaps I can still survive?
Clinging fiercely to that tiny shred of hope he was using to comfort himself, he sprinted forward with all his might. Raindrops lashed at his face like bullets, blurring his vision so he could barely see the path ahead. He could only hear a terrifying clap of thunder so loud it seemed to strike right beside his feet, startling him so badly that his soul felt momentarily ripped from his body. Driven by sheer panic, he ran even faster for his life.
I can definitely survive.
Li Mo repeated the mantra silently in his heart.
He would definitely survive, leaving behind no entanglements and shedding all disguises.
As Li Mo thought this to himself, a sharp “Bang!” rang out. He felt a violent wave of pain shoot across the back of his neck, making his footsteps stumble before his entire body pitched straight forward.
He could feel warm, bubbling blood continuously gushing from his wound.
So painful. It hurt so badly he felt as though he were about to faint, hurting so intensely that he had no energy left to care about who had fired the shot.
He raised a hand to touch the back of his neck it was a mangled, bloody mess. Fortunately, he didn’t have eyes on the back of his head; otherwise, he surely would have been frightened by his own reflection.
Looking at his bloody hand, Li Mo curled the corners of his lips and let out a laugh.
Perfect. It saved him the trouble.
His original plan had been that if the mission to assassinate Huo Jingxi failed, he would escape from Huo Jingxi’s house at top speed, follow his pre-planned route straight to the river, and use the current to drift downstream. This river flooded every summer, so once he jumped in, even if Huo Jingxi wanted to pursue him, it would be impossible to catch up.
Only, in his original plan, he had prepared a boat for himself; but right now, it was too late to go looking for where he had hidden it.
With the river now right before his eyes, he grabbed at the roots of the grass and clawed into the thick mud, dragging himself forward inch by inch.
Finally, with a heavy splash, Li Mo tumbled into the water.
If another flash of lightning were to tear across the sky, anyone looking would surely see the deathly pale hue of Li Mo’s face above the water’s surface.
The plan could be considered successfully executed.
That was the very last thought in Li Mo’s mind before he lost consciousness.
The rain continued to fall. An agonizing night was about to pass, but the sky remained pressed down by heavy, thick storm clouds, leaving the world between heaven and earth shrouded in pitch blackness.
Huo Jingxi sat on the bench in the hospital corridor. He had already changed his clothes, but blood was once again seeping through the wound on his chest. In less than a single night, dark stubble had sprouted across his jaw, and his complexion looked aged and weathered.
“Have they found him?”
The person standing opposite him shook their head.
“And the body? Haven’t they found the body either?”
The man hesitated for a moment before replying, “We are currently in the flood season. The river water level has risen, and with the rain pouring down so heavily last night, we can’t rule out the possibility that the body fell into the river and was washed away…”
His voice grew softer and softer, clearly lacking conviction.
Huo Jingxi pinched the bridge of his nose. Last night, he had clearly seen Li Mo collapse right where he was shot, falling straight into the bushes. How could he possibly have fallen into the river?
Did he hallucinate?
“Then follow the river downstream and search. Even if he’s dead, dredge his body out.” Feeling a throbbing headache, Huo Jingxi asked, “Where is Jingyan?”
“The doctor gave the young miss a sedative, and she is already asleep.”
“Do you know how long she and Meng Jinchi have been maintaining this relationship?” Huo Jingxi asked again.
“According to the household servant Xiao’ai, by the time she discovered it, it had already been two years.”
Two years—and at least two years at that.
Huo Jingxi drew in a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the searing anger rising within him.
Meng Jinchi must have said something to Huo Jingyan; otherwise, why would she have appeared at that exact place at that exact time, and why would she have shot Li Mo?
Clenching his hands tightly into fists, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t figure out how Meng Jinchi and Huo Jingyan had gotten together.
“Chairman, someone wants to see you.”
Suddenly, Secretary Wen walked over, breathing heavily, with another person following close behind.
Huo Jingxi looked up and saw that the visitor was Meng Jinze.
“What are you doing here?” Huo Jingxi’s gaze turned sharp and wary.
Meng Jinze walked over and sat down beside him, reaching out to grab Huo Jingxi’s arm to stop him from standing up. “I remember our relationship was pretty good when we were kids. How did things turn out like this now?”
Huo Jingxi’s gaze paused for a moment before he pried Meng Jinze’s hand away. “What do you think?”
He furrowed his brows. Their relationship had been good when they were children, but they were too young then to understand family feuds. Later, when they entered the empire’s political circles especially in recent years during the governor’s election the Meng family had constantly plotted against him behind the scenes.
So he had no idea how Meng Jinze had the nerve to ask him that question. Rolling his eyes inwardly, Huo Jingxi stood up, ready to leave.
“Then let’s not talk about the two of us.” Knowing he had brought this on himself, Meng Jinze looked up at Huo Jingxi’s tall retreating figure and stopped the man with a single sentence:
“Let’s talk about Li Mo instead.”
Huo Jingxi’s footsteps halted. “Was he sent by you?”
“If you want to think of it that way, you can,” Meng Jinze said. “But where is the proof?”
Turning around, Huo Jingxi looked at Meng Jinze’s smug, petty expression and felt an urge to pull out a gun and blow his head off.
Yet Meng Jinze showed not a shred of fear, continuing unbothered, “The empire’s caste system classifies people without social identities as seventh-class commoners. In reality, such people are very rare because they are usually infants abandoned by their parents right after birth. But as you know, anyone born in a proper hospital won’t become a seventh-class commoner. Li Mo, however, was one of those exceptions. He had no identity; his parents gave birth to him in some unknown, dusty corner and threw him away.
“At the end of that year, a teacher surnamed Li picked him up, which is how he got the name Li Mo. From then on, he entered a training camp and was raised to be an assassin.
“The first time I ever heard Li Mo’s name was from my mentor. It was the first time he had spoken of someone with such glowing praise.
“And the truth is just like that, Li Mo really is a talented person. In every single aspect: marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, acting, musical instruments…
“Moreover, you probably wouldn’t guess this, but he actually taught himself mathematics halfway through. Back then, their people had already infiltrated the competition’s judging panel, but he was just that brilliant. Without pulling any strings, he won first place fair and square, caught the eye of your Huo family, and married you.
“Since you like him so much, you must be dying to know whether he actually loved you or not, right?” Meng Jinze paused briefly before continuing, “I don’t know the exact words he said to you, but the answer to that question is definitely ‘he didn’t love you,’ am I right?”
Hearing this, Huo Jingxi clenched his fists, finally unable to hold back his interruption: “What does that have to do with you?”
Meng Jinze spread his hands. “I just want to tell you that subjectively speaking, perhaps he didn’t not love you, but only he knows the answer to that. Objectively speaking, however, even if he truly had feelings for you, he was never allowed to love you.”
“Why?” Huo Jingxi frowned.
“Do you know why your pheromone match rate with him was 100%?”
“Because his scent gland was once surgically modified.
“But when they modified his gland, they also implanted a nano-sized micro-robot inside it. This is something every assassin they train goes through, though what Li Mo endured was far more agonizing because his modification surgery was custom-tailored one-to-one to match your pheromones.
“Li Mo was sent here to assassinate you. If he ever dared to defy their will, that robot would instantly travel through his blood vessels to his heart and kill him in the shortest time possible.
“At least, that was what Li Mo was led to believe, so he had no choice but to follow those orders to the letter. They weren’t afraid of him rebelling midway either, because his life was in their hands. You know, what leverage could possibly be more terrifying than a person’s life?
“However, that wasn’t the only purpose of implanting that nano-robot in his body. The ultimate purpose was to kill him the moment he assassinated you.”
Huo Jingxi refuted him: “He once told me that if I died, he would be able to live.”
“But you didn’t die, did you? And no matter how smart or capable Li Mo was, he was nothing more than a chess piece in their hands,” Meng Jinze shot back immediately. “His life doesn’t matter. Furthermore, the person destined to die was never you—it was Li Mo. Whether you killed him the moment you discovered his true identity or not, he was always going to die.
“Given the reputation he has built up among the commoners, what do you think will happen now that he is dead, Huo Jingxi? Do you really need me to explain that to you?” Meng Jinze uncrossed his legs, stood up, walked over to Huo Jingxi’s side, patted his shoulder, leaned in close to his ear, and lowered his voice. “And no matter how he died, in the end, there will only ever be one reason: he was murdered by your Huo family, you understand?”
“You” A surge of breath caught in Huo Jingxi’s throat. He kept his voice low, but he couldn’t mask the fury blazing in his tone. “So your younger brother seduced my sister simply to instigate her into killing Li Mo, all to drag our Huo family down from the governor’s race!”
“Correct.” Meng Jinze paused, his tone remaining calm. “Well, not entirely correct.
“And how can you use a word like ‘seduced’? Your sister was completely willing to be with my brother. Every time I saw her sneaking out of your house to go find Jinchi, she looked like she had the word ‘happy’ written all over her face.
“Still, I might as well tell you: Huo Jingyan was originally just a backup option. I just never expected that you would genuinely fall in love with Li Mo. I knew you wouldn’t have the heart to kill him, which is why the task naturally fell to Huo Jingyan.
“It was well worth all these years of Jinchi swallowing his pride and playing lover to a madman. There’s no need to frame anyone now because everyone saw it with their own eyes the person who pulled the trigger and killed Li Mo was none other than your sister, Huo Jingyan. That is an absolute, ironclad fact.
“So when Huo Jingyan wakes up, remember to tell her not to have any more contact with Jinchi in the future. He has no desire to date a murderer.”
“Meng Jinze, I never imagined you could be such a despicable person.” Gritting his teeth through their entire exposed plan, Huo Jingxi wore a face full of disbelief.
“That’s why martial artists like you always lack a few brains,” Meng Jinze remarked. “Though it’s still not too late for you to realize it now.”
At the same time, he pulled a newspaper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the Huo family head. “Reporters have already worked through the night to write these news stories. In two hours, they’ll be published in the empire’s largest newspapers and spread across every street and alley in the nation.
“So I advise you not to waste your energy searching for Li Mo’s body. You’d better start thinking about how you’re going to handle these newspapers first.”
Huo Jingxi took the paper. The most prominent headline blared: “‘Light of the Commoners’ Li Mo Mysteriously and Tragically Murdered Killer Turns Out to Be His Own Pillow-Companion?!” At that moment, he finally understood. Previously, when his public support had been soaring, the Meng family had remained completely indifferent precisely because they wanted to let him climb as high as possible, only to make his fall all the more devastating.
“Oh, right, there’s one more thing I forgot to tell you. When I said ‘they’ just now—the ones who trained Li Mo as an assassin, ordered him to kill you, and performed his gland modification surgery’ they’ are an organization dedicated to cultivating loyal executioners specifically for the Meng family,” Meng Jinze said.
“So, come to think of it, you really ought to thank our Meng family for finding you such a wonderful wife.”
“Huo Jingxi,” Meng Jinze flashed a provocative smile at him, made a parting gesture with his hand, and delivered the final sentence that pushed Huo Jingxi’s rage to its absolute breaking point:
“You’re welcome.”