Chapter 417 - 290: Deep Cold Snowy Night, Shadow Assassination (Part 2)

Snowflakes danced above the eaves.

The leader of Shadow Tower was terrified and dared not move.

"Who hired you?"

From behind, a youth in a white cloak walked over the snow.

The Shadow Tower’s Ying Ren said nothing.

Thunk!

Black Blade pierced through, slicing open Ying Ren’s abdomen.

Ying Ren was in pain, yet still refused to answer.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The Black Gold Dual Weapons slashed relentlessly, cutting into Ying Ren’s body.

In just a few breaths, this formidable warrior at the late stage of the Lower Meridian Unlocking Realm was covered in wounds.

"I’ll ask one last time, who hired you?" Chu Ming approached Ying Ren.

"Kill me."

Ying Ren knelt halfway on the ground, his face contorted.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t say; he simply didn’t know.

The assassination process of Shadow Tower was such that killers like Ying Ren only knew their target; nothing else was disclosed.

He knew clearly that claiming ignorance meant death, and silence meant death as well. He might as well be straightforward and seek death.

"Alright."

Chu Ming could tell that this person would not speak, so he didn’t wish to waste any more time.

Thunk!

Black Blade passed through the chest, severing the Qi and Blood Power of the Lower Realm’s Ying Ren.

Chu Ming picked up Ying Ren’s body, jumped down from the eaves, found the corpses of the other two, collected the spoils, cleaned up some of the bloodstains, and then threw the bodies into an alley far from the mansion.

The snow was heavy and seemed unlikely to stop anytime soon.

The three bodies would probably only be discovered after the snow melted.

Chu Ming returned indoors; the woman was still unconscious.

He removed her Evil Ghost Mask, revealing a face that wasn’t too bad, though there was a hideous mark on her left cheek.

Every assassin in Shadow Tower bore the Evil Ghost Mark on their face, as did the faces of the previous three.

He turned his hand, took out an elixir, held it in his palm, and then a Star Ring of Primordial Technique appeared in his left hand.

He pried open the woman’s mouth, fed her the elixir and the Star Ring, then pinched her throat, causing both to slide down into her stomach.

The elixir wasn’t some beneficial one for condensing qi and blood, but rather a poison that corroded the organs and obstructed the flow of qi and blood.

After doing this, he took all the items from the woman’s body, then sat at the desk, and with a sweep of the Snow Qilin Cloak, quite a number of treasures appeared on the table.

Cultivation techniques, secret manuals, elixirs, weapons, identity tokens, and so on.

He examined them one by one, feeling somewhat disappointed.

There were seven cultivation techniques in total, four of which were named ’Night Casting Body’, presumably the technique of Shadow Tower.

There were discrepancies in the realm of the four techniques, with the highest being the method of opening the Seventh Meridian in the Lower Realm Eight Extraordinary Meridians of the leader of Shadow Tower.

The lowest was from the woman, only the method for the Third Meridian.

The woman’s realm was the Lower Realm Two Meridians, one meridian lower than the technique. The leading man’s realm was the Lower Realm Six Meridians, again one meridian lower than the technique, as were the other two.

It seemed that Shadow Tower strictly controlled the cultivation techniques, only allowing the next meridian to be opened.

The other three cultivation techniques were of even lower realms, merely those of the Upper Meridian Unlocking Realm.

Chu Ming took some time to look through them all, turning the basic techniques and secret techniques into fragments for the lake, then checked the other items.

The elixirs were ordinary; over ten bottles for refining qi and blood, and over ten bottles for restoring qi and blood, used for the Meridian Unlocking Realm.

There were six weapons, three pieces of armor, with sharpness and defensive power aligned with the Meridian Unlocking Realm.

Lastly, there were four identity tokens of Shadow Tower, each bearing the word ’Shadow’ on the front, but differing on the back.

The leader’s was marked ’Ying Ren’, while the woman’s was ’Mei’, likely their names or codenames within Shadow Tower.

On the side of the tokens were varying numbers of lines, with thirty-seven on Ying Ren’s, twenty-one on the woman’s, and twenty-six on the other two, their purpose unknown.

As for other items, they were miscellaneous and not of much value, and Chu Ming couldn’t find any information on who hired Shadow Tower to assassinate him.

"It seems I’ll have to wake this assassin named ’Mei’."

The Sword Gourd Spirit probed into the woman’s body; the poison he fed her had already taken effect, her organs beginning to rot, and all her meridians completely blocked.

Following the meridians to explore, Chu Ming also discovered that the woman seemed to have been poisoned long before, with a faint black thread entwined around her heart, ready to shatter it at any moment.

Chu Ming guessed it might be a poison given by Shadow Tower to control its assassins, similar to how the Crown Prince used poison to control those martial artists of the Martial Immortal Alliance in the Meridian Unlocking Realm.

In his right hand’s depth, a trace of Spiritual Light appeared at his fingertip, condensed from Primordial Qi.

Whoosh!

At the spot in the void, the Spiritual Light entered the woman’s body.

A moment passed.

Mei felt her head dizzy, opened her eyes blankly, everything around was pitch black.

In the next moment, she recalled something, her expression abruptly tense, then tried to mobilize her Qi and Blood Power.

She quickly discovered her meridians were sealed, all her Qi and Blood Power seemed locked at her chest, unable to be used.

Mei was terrified, recalling the moment before she lost consciousness.

How could the handsome youth in white, who appeared to have no imposing power at all, knock her out with a single palm?

Instinctively, she glanced down, unfastening her chest clothing, seemingly to check if she had been...

But as her gaze lowered, she sharply noticed a white silhouette directly in front of her.

She looked up.

Buzz!

In an instant, an intense fear smashed down like a colossal wave.

"You...!"

There was another person in the room, only now did she realize!

"Awake." Chu Ming looked at the woman, his expression indifferent, raising his right hand, Primordial Qi swirled around, "I ask, you answer."

"Huff... huff..."

Mei’s fairly high chest heaved violently, and that face that had a bit of attractiveness turned deathly pale, with the Evil Ghost Mark on it appearing even more horrifying.