The little beggar shook his head: "I don't understand what you're saying. I only saw you knock this uncle unconscious, so you must be a bad person."
He looked at the two sharp, cold-light-emitting swords in the other's hands as if they were merely two branches.
"If you are a good person, leave quickly and stop making things difficult for us," the Dog Scum said with a straight face.
Ning Huaiyuan could only sneer, a rich blood-red color rising in his eyes for a fleeting moment.
"Dog Scum, you refuse a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit."
As he said this, he took another step forward, his Yinghuo Sword spinning in a flourish. He thrust out with a move called "Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves" toward the little beggar. The sword strike was as fast as lightning, with unparalleled power.
Yue Pingshan, who was barely managing to watch the battle from the side, felt his blood energy exhausted and his True Qi unable to rise. Seeing this move from Ning Huaiyuan, he couldn't help but shout in anger: "The Demonic Sect's Blood Burning Technique! You are actually a Dog Scum of the Demonic Sect."
As soon as he finished speaking, Yue Pingshan suddenly felt a numbness at the back of his head, blood rushed to his brain, his vision went black, and he instantly lost consciousness.
Ning Huaiyuan listened to Yue Pingshan's angry curses, the corner of his mouth curling into a smile, unmoved.
The Demonic Sect?
What is the Demonic Sect worth?
My goal as Ning Huaiyuan is to be the Number One Under Heaven in Martial Arts. For this, I have hidden my name, endured humiliation, and learned the exquisite Martial Arts of various sects, only to integrate them into myself so that I could cultivate peerless Martial Arts that shock the heavens and make ghosts weep.
How could a mere Mount Hua Sect contain a giant Kunpeng like me?
And right before me, this little beggar's dull and foolish expression truly disgusts me.
Go to hell.
Ning Huaiyuan thought to himself.
He thrust his sword straight out.
Then—he only felt a chill at his neck.
His field of vision drifted away in an instant.
He saw the soot-blackened roof of the Mountain God Temple, where there was a swallow's nest on the main beam.
But the swallow hasn't returned yet?
He thought this, and then felt his vision plummet until it fell heavily to the ground.
In front of the little beggar, Ning Huaiyuan maintained his posture of lunging with his sword, but his head had already left his body. Blood was pumped from the wound on his neck by his arteries like a fountain, then slowly fell through the air.
The little beggar stepped back, watching Ning Huaiyuan's headless corpse fall powerlessly before him, then raised his hand and clapped gently.
The applause echoed in the Mountain God Temple: "Come in."
As soon as these words were spoken, Xue Ling, dressed in night-traveling clothes, walked in from the rain. Seeing the unconscious Yue Pingshan and the headless, dead-as-can-be Ning Huaiyuan on the ground, her face was filled with disbelief.
"It was that simple?"
Yes, Yue Pingshan had been knocked out by Xue Ling outside, following Fang Bie's instructions, using a thrown stone. At such a close distance, against someone poisoned and unable to move, it couldn't have been simpler.
What Xue Ling couldn't accept was that Yue Pingshan was a Fourth Rank master, considered a top-thirty middle-tier force in Mount Hua, and this Ning Huaiyuan had hidden so many trump cards that his true strength might have approached the Third Rank. Yet, in front of Fang Bie, the two of them were truly played with from start to finish.
When Fang Bie appeared, pushing open the door to see two Martial Arts Masters fighting to the death, the scene was as awkward as it could possibly be.
Fang Bie himself didn't stop at all. He put on translucent gloves made of sheep intestine membrane and began searching Ning Huaiyuan's headless corpse, continuously pulling out a bag of loose silver, a stack of silver notes, a thin booklet, two small bottles of pills, and a box of hidden weapon silver needles from his disguised beggar's clothes.
Xue Ling was dumbfounded—this movement was too skilled, right?
And, the man just died, his body is still twitching slightly, aren't you disgusted?
However, Fang Bie's voice followed immediately.
"First, take down all the steel wires in this Mountain God Temple and tidy them up. After you're done, I'll split the loot with you."
Xue Ling curled her lips, but her body was very honest. She went to the walls of the Mountain God Temple and took down all the steel wires, which were as thin as spider silk, fixed to the walls.
These steel wires were arranged by Fang Bie in advance. Xue Ling didn't know when they were set up, but she knew that these steel wires were officially activated when Fang Bie pushed the door open with force.
This action signaled that the stage was finally set.
In this way, the terrifying and strange way Fang Bie dodged Ning Huaiyuan's attacks earlier could be traced. Because there were steel wires under and behind him at that time, Fang Bie was able to perform so many movements that completely defied the laws of physics by borrowing force from those wires, making the clueless Ning Huaiyuan deeply wary. When he activated his secret technique, wanting to use his full strength to fight Fang Bie head-on, he didn't expect that as he lunged, a steel wire was hanging right in front of his neck, causing him to walk right into the net.
As for Ning Huaiyuan's initial sword qi, it was also because Fang Bie was standing behind a row of steel wires at the time, which is why he could receive that sword qi unharmed and continue to play the fool.
However, these steel wires sounded very powerful, but their limitations were too great. If it weren't for such a rainy, windy night, and a closed location like the Mountain God Temple that facilitated the arrangement and hanging of the wires, and because the light was so dim that it was hard to detect their existence, Fang Bie would not have been able to carry out this assassination perfectly.
These steel wires were not completely fixed; they had arrangements for being deployed and retracted. That is why when the group of beggars first entered and left, they didn't touch any of the wires. It wasn't until Fang Bie entered and used the force of pushing the door to trigger the wires, while using his presence to attract attention and acting like a silly beggar to confuse Ning Huaiyuan, that Xue Ling, in the shadows, made micro-adjustments to the wires so that Fang Bie could move freely within the steel wire net.
As for now, after the mission was accomplished, Xue Ling had to dismantle all the wires. This was Fang Bie's requirement to avoid letting others see the clues.
But—let alone others, even Xue Ling couldn't see the clues.
Who would have thought that Fang Bie would choose this method to complete his assassination?
What about the so-called Martial Arts?
From beginning to end, Fang Bie only displayed some light-body movement techniques when dodging Ning Huaiyuan's attacks, but wasn't that mostly due to the help of the steel wire guide lines?
Thinking this, Xue Ling still gathered the steel wires bit by bit. Most of these were ordinary steel wires that Fang Bie could use to maneuver, but a very small number were exceptionally sharp and lethal, such as the one that finally cut off Ning Huaiyuan's head. Those wires had to be handled with extreme care; a slight carelessness would cut one's palms or fingers, as Fang Bie had specifically warned.
After finishing all this, Xue Ling looked up and saw that Fang Bie had already placed Ning Huaiyuan's corpse and head together. He then took out a small emerald-green porcelain bottle from his bosom and sprinkled powder into the flesh and blood. Immediately, a sizzling green smoke emerged, smelling somewhat like burnt feathers.
Before Xue Ling's eyes, Ning Huaiyuan's corpse was gradually disappearing along with the green smoke.
Xue Ling silently covered her mouth with her hand.
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