Chapter Eighty-Five: Watching the Tigers Fight from the Mountain

At half past three in the morning, the world was hushed to utter silence, the hour when ghosts were said to roam, the darkest moment before dawn. Liu Jingye was in high spirits, bare-chested and moving with furtive lightness as he climbed the stairs. Both rooms were silent.

“Come on, little darling.” Liu Jingye smiled with a sly look. Though the rooms were already dark, he turned off the main power just to be safe, and at once the upstairs and downstairs merged with the blackness outside.

With a spare key, he first opened Zhang San’s door, leaving it ajar, then swiftly opened the room of the woman, Li Si. He easily fixed the position of the bed, crept over on tiptoe, and deliberately panted heavily, like some wild beast wheezing for breath.

Suddenly he sprang into the air, pouncing like a hawk on a rabbit, landing straight on the bed and pinning Li Si beneath him.

Li Si jolted awake at once. All she could see were lecherous eyes and hear rough, heavy breathing.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Though startled, she did not panic, and asked calmly.

Of course Liu Jingye ignored her. Power burst through his whole body as he pressed down her arms and legs, leaving her unable to move. Pretending to be consumed by desire, he leaned straight toward her neck and face, gnawing and breathing as if he meant to force himself upon her.

Li Si immediately cursed, “Pervert! You’re dead!”

Though her limbs were restrained, a true expert’s entire body was a weapon. Seeing his face draw near, she simply lifted her head and rammed it forward with her forehead.

There was a dull thud, like two watermelons smashing together.

Liu Jingye pretended to be in pain, shouting a few stupid sounds in imitation of Zhang San’s mute babble, then rolled off and fled.

“So it really was you, you mute bastard! Just wait till I kill you!” Li Si roared, leaping from the bed in a camisole and shorts as she chased after him.

Liu Jingye ran to the doorway and shut it with a flick of his hand, creating a split-second gap in time. In the corridor, he pushed open Zhang San’s half-closed door again, as if someone had just dashed inside and had not yet had time to shut it.

Then he slipped directly into the room opposite.

By the time he closed the door, Li Si had burst out as well and rushed into the neighboring room. From inside came a roar like a lioness’s: “You filthy thing, slapping my backside wasn’t enough, and now you dare to launch a midnight sneak attack? You’re dead!”

Then came a string of crisp, crackling blows, like firecrackers popping, the slaps landing like beans being fried.

A furious male shout burst out: “Baka!”

A muffled impact followed, and Li Si was sent flying backward, crashing heavily onto the corridor floor, a trace of blood spilling at the corner of her mouth.

She sprang up at once, wiped the blood away, and said coldly, “So it’s an Iga shadow ninja. But with your rank as a middle ninja, you actually dared lay hands on me? You’re courting death!”

With that, Li Si became a wildcat in the night and flashed back into the room. In the darkness where one could not see a hand before one’s face, the two of them closed in and fought hand to hand.

From the room across the hall, Liu Jingye heard every word of their exchange.

“So they’re not in the same camp after all. I didn’t expect the little Japanese devils to show up this quickly, and they even sent a middle ninja. They’ve upgraded.” Liu Jingye sneered. “Then this woman called Li Si must be from the Black Sun Assassins. Their identities are obviously both fake. No wonder the Japanese disguised himself as a deaf-mute—clearly he can’t speak Chinese.”

Just then, a loud crash rang out: the sound of a window shattering. A black shadow leapt through the frame, and another shadow followed close behind.

“The show has begun.” Liu Jingye smiled with satisfaction. With a tiny scheme, he had exposed their identities and driven them to kill one another. He truly deserved a pat on the back.

Liu Jingye hurried downstairs as well and went to the back courtyard to watch the excitement.

“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such an exciting fight.” Standing in the doorway, he watched calmly, wary of blood splashing onto him.

“Though these two aren’t top-tier experts, both are formidable. Ah, so this is the lightness skill of a ninja—indeed remarkable, as light as a swallow... Hm, and this is the skill of an assassin? Truly well deserved: eye gouging, throat locking, groin strikes...”

Like a commentator, Liu Jingye spoke with growing excitement and thrill as figures flashed through the yard. One was nimble and graceful, the other ruthless and savage, like boxers in a heavyweight-versus-lightweight match, one fast, the other fierce.

At that moment, the female assassin suddenly made a feint, seeming to sweep his legs. The ninja took the bait, springing upward. He rose a full meter and a half into the air, but the female assassin merely crouched; she had not swept his legs at all. Instead, she suddenly stood up.

The ninja was horrified. While suspended in the air, he could no longer alter his movement, and could only watch as the female assassin seized his ankle and yanked backward. In an instant his body was flipped sideways in midair and slapped flat onto the ground in a miserable heap.

Seizing the chance, the female assassin rushed in to strike a fatal blow at the back of his neck. But just as she extended her hand, the ninja suddenly flicked his wrist, a flash of cold light cutting through the darkness. She leapt back at once.

A three-inch gash appeared on her forearm, blood spraying out in an instant. Her arm trembled slightly from the pain.

The ninja rolled to his feet, gripping a six-pointed shuriken, a multifunctional weapon that could strike at close range or be thrown like a dart. It was made of tungsten steel, yet a sickly green gleam flickered along its edges; it had clearly been poisoned.

The female assassin clenched her teeth, consumed by rage, but regrettably she carried no weapon. Otherwise, she would already have finished him with a gun.

Still, an assassin has an assassin’s pride. In a life-and-death struggle, all else is cast aside, and there is no room for distinctions between man and woman. She tore off the white camisole she wore, wrapping it tightly around her arm to prevent the poison from spreading. Though half her body was exposed, she did not care in the slightest.

“Truly fierce,” Liu Jingye said coolly. Though his eyes were fixed on the assassin’s exposed upper body, they remained clear and composed, without the least stir of emotion. “The enemy is the enemy, male or female. Anyone who is distracted by such things is only courting death.”

The ninja understood this principle as well, and so treated her as though she did not exist. The six-pointed shuriken shot from his hand straight toward the assassin’s throat, intending to end the battle at once.

The female assassin growled and sidestepped the dart. Her speed was like thunder on the run. In an instant she had charged before the ninja, unleashing a fierce offensive. Her speed was twice what it had been before, and her attacks grew even more vicious.

The ninja’s strength was limited, and the earlier fall had affected him too. His speed and agility were clearly diminished, and he found it increasingly difficult to withstand her ferocious assault. Her every move was vicious; one touch could mean death.

He began considering retreat.

“It is said that ninjas have several principles: if they can win, they must kill; if they cannot win, they run; and if they cannot run, they’d rather die than talk.” Liu Jingye sneered. “That’s just the Japanese character through and through.”

In the blink of an eye, the ninja had already been forced by the female assassin into a hard, direct clash. He was clearly at a disadvantage. Taking a blow to the ribs from her fist, he endured the pain and threw down a smoke bomb.

At once, yellow smoke billowed through the courtyard, hanging thickly in the air. But though the smoke was dense, the night was black and the wind strong; in almost no time it was blown apart.

Yet the ninja in the yard had vanished.

The female assassin said furiously, “Earth escape? Damn it...”

“He can’t escape anywhere.”

Just then, Liu Jingye’s voice came suddenly from behind her. Before she even had time to turn, a black shadow swept past her like a gale. In the next instant, Liu Jingye appeared at the far corner of the yard and drove three thunderous punches into the black courtyard wall.

“What terrifying strength,” the female assassin said in shock.

With those three blows, the sturdy wall seemed as though it might collapse. When the strikes ended, a figure slumped weakly down the wall and lay motionless, life or death unknown.

“This hardly counts as earth escape; he merely used the darkness to hide himself.” Liu Jingye dusted off his hands dismissively. “With such a fierce struggle just now, no one could possibly hold their breath the whole time. Even a deaf man would have heard him.”

At that moment, the female assassin suddenly collapsed with a thud as well. Her wounded arm shook violently under its own control, while her hand and forearm had already turned black. The upper arm, bound too tightly to allow blood to flow properly, had become swollen and red.

The ninja’s poison was not only a blood toxin, but also contained a nerve poison. The woman’s mind was beginning to blur, yet a fierce will to survive allowed her to cling to her last shred of dignity as she pleaded to Liu Jingye, “Please... help me suck it out...”

Liu Jingye smiled. “That’s usually something men say to women.”

“Please...” she tried again, but the poison spread too quickly. In the span of a single sentence, she lost consciousness.

“One half dead, the other half alive—how am I supposed to deal with this?” Liu Jingye said with a wry smile. “These two really are well trained, each with their own traits. An assassin can discard everything at a crucial moment, even strip naked and not care. A ninja is even more absurd—he sleeps in black clothes and black trousers, carrying poisoned weapons on his person, always keeping himself in a state of combat readiness.

So how should I handle them?”

Liu Jingye was troubled. He looked toward his family inn. Dawn was approaching, and the neighbors around him would soon rise to begin their day’s labor. No smoke, no blood—this was a rare peace.

With a helpless smile, he muttered, “If I killed them, I’d still have to dig the pit and bury them myself. What a nuisance.”

An hour later, the female assassin slowly awoke on Liu Jingye’s bed, covered with a quilt. The first thing she saw was Liu Jingye by the bedside. Weakly, she asked, “I’m not dead... then what about the poison in my body?”

“Relax. The toxin didn’t spread. I was just in time and cut off the poisoned arm for you,” Liu Jingye said lightly.

“What?” The woman was so shocked she nearly leapt up, but as her body moved slightly, she immediately felt the arm was still there. She lifted the quilt and looked. The poison had already been neutralized. “You sucked it out for me?”

Liu Jingye raised his eyebrows. “What, do you want to repay me by sucking something out too?”

Her face reddened, and she said nothing. Liu Jingye, however, went on, “As an assassin, how can you lack even the slightest awareness of being one? You were actually afraid to die?”

Before the woman could speak, Liu Jingye turned his head to the other side. The black-clad ninja was sitting limply on the floor, a six-pointed shuriken stuck in his shoulder as if nailed there.

Liu Jingye said, “And you—what kind of ninja are you? You can’t fight, you can’t run, and if asked a question you confess at once... Ah, the world has changed. All the old fine traditions are gone...”

From this day on, I will switch to three updates a day: noon, six in the evening, and ten at night. Please keep an eye out and give your support.