2 – Ever Heard of a Center-Stage Funeral?
Gu Zhi nearly died on the spot from the pain.
Second Uncle Gu Yi, who had been lounging nearby with a beautiful actress in his arms watching the show, jolted at the word “assets.” His fat trembled, and he shoved the actress aside to step forward.
He pulled apart the two who were clasped hands with deep emotion.
He said to Gu Yuan with a placating laugh, “Niece is so young, just the age for having fun. Why trouble yourself worrying about assets? Just leave everything to your uncles and me…”
—Niece is so young, just the age for dying young. What life do you have left to worry about assets?
Gu Zhi, who had been yanked away, felt like he’d been granted a reprieve.
His hand was red and bruising, trembling uncontrollably from the pain, yet he had to force a smile onto his face. “Second Brother is right, Niece needn’t worry…”
—Screw your mother, this hurts like hell.
Gu Yuan shook her head and spoke seriously, “As a member of the Gu family, I must shoulder the responsibilities of the Gu family. I will definitely manage the Gu Corporation properly and see to your funerals when the time comes…”
—Want to see a C-position funeral procession?
Uncles: “…”
Go to hell with your funerals. They had sons and daughters, plenty of heirs, and they weren’t dead yet!
Gu Zhi’s smile stiffened, a fake smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Niece is truly considerate…”
—Truly knows how to court death.
His gaze at her was vicious and cold.
She’d had the chance to hide outside and cling to life, but she didn’t want it. She insisted on coming back to seek death. Don’t blame him, her uncle, for being ruthless…
Gu Yuan looked at him with a beaming smile. “Thank you for the compliment, Fourth Uncle. Niece will definitely keep working hard.”
—Working hard to kill all of you.
The niece and her uncles chatted together, appearing extremely “kind and cordial,” which moved the surrounding guests to great “emotion.” They all moved a little farther away, so as not to disturb the family’s pleasant conversation.
Le Meng grabbed a handful of melon seeds and sat nearby watching the show while keeping an eye on the surroundings.
The one coming to assassinate Sister Yuan was Bei Chen.
“Have fun, Niece.”
Gu Zhi said with a beaming smile. He had also learned that the top-ranked assassin on the Reaper’s List, who had never failed, had accepted the job. His heart was wild with joy—she was finally done for!
Gu Yuan smiled without speaking, her gaze dark and unfathomable.
Suddenly, the keen instincts honed from years of crawling through hell made her feel a flash of cold.
They came fast.
The smile on her lips deepened.
Gu Yuan’s gaze swept over everyone around her: Gu Yi, who had his arm around the actress but kept glancing at her intentionally or not, and Gu Zhi, who was toasting with guests while his sidelong glare was vicious…
And the guests with their varied expressions.
They all seemed like wolves and jackals.
Trying to devour her alive.
Gu Yuan leaned back on the sofa with a smile, lazily swirling the wine glass in her hand. She took a light sip, her eyes slightly narrowed, as if a little intoxicated.
She sensed a cold, piercing gaze.
She suddenly opened her eyes and looked in that direction, her gaze icy and all-seeing. The hand pressed behind her back had already gripped her gun, index finger resting on the trigger.
At the critical moment.
Gu Yuan was about to strike first when she felt the faint sense of danger disappear. The surroundings were still lively with clinking glasses, as if the feeling of danger lurking everywhere had merely been her imagination.
Her brows furrowed slightly, but she remained vigilant.
Gu Zhi seemed to know the assassin had arrived too, and his gaze at her grew even colder. Just then—
“Bang—”
The gunshot rang out along with screams.
Gu Yuan’s expression turned icy in an instant. She had already dodged aside. She turned to look—the one who had been shot was actually Gu Zhi!
A bullet pierced his brow, blood streaming down his face, which still held a lingering coldness. He probably never imagined until his dying breath that the one to die would be himself, not Gu Yuan…
Gu Yi was splattered with blood.
He fainted from shock, a heap of fat lying on the ground, with people occasionally stepping over him.
Gu Yuan had no time to dwell on it.
Based on the direction of the gunshot, she quickly pinpointed the assassin’s position—due north of the banquet hall—and gave chase with Le Meng.
Le Meng ran while contacting people for backup.
Suddenly, the lights at the banquet went out.
In the pitch-black darkness, guests screamed one after another, and chaos erupted.
But Gu Yuan and Le Meng were unaffected.
The darkness actually worked in their favor. Gu Yuan gripped her gun tightly as the two stopped before an open window, its curtains rustling loudly in the wind.
They were on the ninth floor, with traffic flowing ceaselessly below.
“Jumping down from here would turn you into mush.”
Le Meng glanced down and quipped.
Gu Yuan looked at the dust on the windowsill—no footprints disturbed it. She narrowed her eyes slightly. A diversion.
She whirled around to look at the nearby exit and, sure enough, caught a shadow darting through the darkness.
The two gave chase once more.
Unfortunately, their target wove through the crowd, creating considerable resistance to their pursuit.
As she ran, Gu Yuan mulled over several suspicious points. She had always been highly sensitive to others’ malice and killing intent—that was why she always managed to turn danger into safety.
Just now, it was precisely because that killing intent had vanished that she’d carelessly approached the window, nearly giving the enemy a chance to ambush her. A grave mistake indeed.
But the other party hadn’t seized the opportunity to strike.
Also, she had been two or three meters away from Gu Zhi at the time. How terrible must one’s aim be to accidentally shoot Gu Zhi instead?
Moreover, the bullet that struck Gu Zhi hit him square in the forehead.
One shot, instant death—ruthless and clean.
One should know, the head is a smaller target, harder to aim at. Only someone with exceptional marksmanship and confidence would choose to shoot that spot on the body.
All the clues pointed to one answer—
Their target was Gu Zhi!
But besides her, who else would want Gu Zhi dead? He was a smiling tiger—vicious inside yet gregarious outside—and rarely made enemies.
Even if he did make enemies.
He would strike first and destroy them, like he did with her, like he did with her parents.
Who killed him?
And why?
Gu Yuan and Le Meng had already chased out of the banquet when their reinforcements arrived.
The group pursued into a maze of winding alleyways, riddled with branching paths. In the darkness, several distracting gunshots suddenly rang out.
The shots came from all directions.
Clearly, the assassin’s backup had arrived as well.
“Split up.”
Gu Yuan said, and the group dispersed.
Le Meng stayed by her side, not even winded after running so long. After hearing Gu Yuan’s analysis, she couldn’t help but speak up.
“Yuan-jie, since they weren’t here to kill us anyway, and they even killed our enemy—rounding up, that basically makes them a friend. Why not just let them off with their life?”
“They dared to steal my kill?”
Gu Yuan said sternly, “Unforgivable.”
She didn’t just want the Gu family’s lives—she wanted them disgraced and ruined, suffering worse than death.
Le Meng: “…”
She just felt that Yuan-jie was being a typical case of getting a bargain and then acting smug, you know?
The other party was probably still annoyed.
Wondering why they were being such busybodies, chasing them for so long.
“You go chase too.”
Gu Yuan said, and Le Meng nodded before leaving.
Leaving Gu Yuan alone, she holstered her gun and strolled leisurely through the dilapidated alley. She pulled out her phone and opened the navigation app.
She was facing north.
She tilted her head slightly and, sure enough, spotted a brilliant North Star in the northern sky.
There were still some things she hadn’t said.
She had deduced that the killer’s shot at Gu Zhi wasn’t a stray bullet, but she was also certain that killing Gu Zhi had been a spur-of-the-moment decision—that for some unknown reason, the killer had suddenly changed his mind. Because—
The killer who shot Gu Zhi was Bei Chen.
He was the top name on the Reaper’s List.
The Reaper’s List was the world’s assassin ranking.
She had studied this list before. Every assassin on it had a distinct personality.
For example, “Sweetheart,” ranked fourth—that is, Le Meng—liked to tie a bow on the deceased, sending them off looking pretty.
Ranked third, “Smiley,” would put a smiling mask on the dead, because he thought the contorted expressions of corpses were too ugly for his eyes.
As for Bei Chen, ranked first.
He was known as “the North Star that never falls above the Bay of Evil, the earthly hell.”
His signature wasn’t too obvious.
But after comparing many cases, she had still discovered his quirk, which was—
Sitting north, facing south.
Positioning himself in the north and shooting southward.
Though such coincidences were many, her intuition told her that today was not one of them.
She had chased after him mainly out of curiosity—
Why had Bei Chen suddenly killed his own employer, Gu Zhi, giving up a hundred million dollars, and even “neglecting” her, the actual target of the bounty?
Gu Yuan withdrew her gaze from the North Star. The cold, pale moonlight fell to the ground as she stopped in her tracks.
Several figures appeared ahead.