Pavilion Master Zhao Was Swatted Half to Death by Weiwei's Tail!

"Mm." Rest easy. Chen Fan stood atop the wall, nodding slightly as he looked down at the scene below. Without another word, he left the two to themselves; he needed to get back to sleep. He hadn't slept well all night. He had worried constantly that Qi Yue might die, which kept him popping out to check every now and then, nearly driving him to mental exhaustion. Fortunately, the outcome was good. That fellow... He was truly ruthless enough toward himself. "It's all over," Qi Yue said. Standing up, he looked toward the wall, only to find Chen Fan already gone. Exhaling a breath of relief, he patted Gongyang Yue's head and said with a smile, "My room is in the cave, but the interior holds important Fan Domain secrets, off-limits to outsiders. Tonight, I'll stay with you all in the guest area next door. First, I need to take a bath. I'm covered in stickiness." "All right." Gongyang Yue smiled through her tears as she let go of him. "As long as you're alive, nothing else matters." "You..." Gongyang Yiyue, standing nearby with a deep scowl, asked in a low, gravelly voice, "You joined Fan Domain?" "Mm." Qi Yue nodded slightly. "Otherwise, I couldn't have achieved complete body tempering." His original plan had been to slowly temper his body to eighty percent, then push it to one hundred percent using the Myriad Swords Piercing the Heart body tempering technique. However, the bamboo slip the Domain Lord had let him contemplate had not only vastly increased his pain tolerance against sword qi perforations, but also allowed him to comprehend many insights. Only because of that was he able to complete his body tempering in one go. He cared little for external possessions. Yet he knew full well that the bamboo slip was a priceless treasure. It would help him pursue his vengeance far better. From now on, his life was unquestionably sold to Fan Domain. Gongyang Yiyue stood in sullen silence, his expression grim. Certain things could not be spoken in front of Gongyang Yue. The Clan Head had originally agreed to this marriage, but now it was completely off the table. The prerequisite for agreeing to the match had been clear: Qi Yue had to join the Gongyang clan and take charge of it. Now that Qi Yue had joined Fan Domain, how could they possibly marry the young lady to him? That would be tantamount to having Fan Domain completely swallow the Gongyang clan once the Clan Head passed away. He looked at the young lady tugging on Qi Yue's robes with utter dependence, scowling deeply, truly at a loss for words. A purely ill-fated romance. It was hard to see any good outcome. Inside the room. Having washed up, Qi Yue sat indoors, feeling the power surging within him. He had broken through to Martial King, becoming Fan Domain's very first Level 10 cultivator. Level 10 was a watershed threshold. Crossing into Level 10 brought earth-shattering changes, whether for cultivators, architects, or artifact refiners. And this hurdle was exceedingly difficult to leap. Still, having only just broken through, his cultivation was unstable; he would need to ramp up his training tomorrow to solidify it. Jiangnan, Water City. This city sat at the border with Jiangbei, and traveling merchant caravans often stopped here to spend the night. It was deep in the night. The townsfolk had all gone to sleep. Those still awake at this hour were generally either sneaking off for an affair or gearing up for murder and arson—up to no good. Just as the night watchman's wooden clapper faded, several figures darted out like raindrops slipping into the sea, emerging from various alleys and streets to surround a pawnshop. Lurking in the shadows, Shao Qiu nodded with mild satisfaction. The past month of training hadn't gone to waste; their stealth had already yielded modest results. Their objective tonight was the pawnshop before them. It was an establishment placed in Water City by the Wind and Rain Tower, serving multiple functions: taking assassination contracts, liaising with clients, gathering intelligence, acting as a voice transmission relay, and the like. Naturally, it also performed the standard functions of a pawnshop, though only on the side. The Wind and Rain Tower had dispatched core members to assassinate the Domain Lord. Although the attempt had failed, a modest gift in return was in order. It just so happened to serve as target practice for Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion. The pawnshop sat at the far end of a secondhand goods market, its storefront understated and rarely visited. It had two floors. Right now, a faint oil lamp flickered on the second floor, while faint rustling came from the backyard stable. Water City was situated atop a natural ghost fire zone. Hence, the night was never completely pitch-black. The glow emanating from the natural ghost fire zone bathed the entire city, preventing them from hiding entirely in the shadows. "Numbers One and Two, move in." The command was telepathically relayed to the others; when venturing out on a mission, taking Flesh Ghost Mother-Child Fruit was an absolute must. Upon receiving the order, two Dark Pavilion members acted. One pressed against the wall and rapidly closed in on the pawnshop. Reaching a window, his wrist flicked, sending two thin jade flakes spinning through the slit in the casement to land without a sound. The two people behind the first-floor counter, burning the midnight oil to audit the accounts, froze at first. Their faces twisted in shock, but before they could react, the thin jade flakes detonated, dispersing into clouds of white mist. Inhaled into their lungs, the fumes swiftly sent them tumbling unconscious to the floor. "Who's there?!" A sharp shout came from upstairs, clearly prompted by the thud on the ground floor. The voice bristled with vigilance, while the faint rustling in the backyard stable instantly ceased. Yet the assassination was not staged in waves; it struck simultaneously. Two operatives had already scaled to the second-floor window. Holding poisoned silent needles as fine as ox hair, they fired abruptly through the window into the room. The man upstairs who had just spoken took a needle right between his brows and slowly collapsed. The backyard stable was the thorniest spot. Six people were concealed here—not external affiliates, but evidently full-fledged members. Hearing the noise from the ground floor, they had snapped awake and entered a state of high alert. And yet... What these six had to face was a genius assassin who, at seventeen, had founded the God Slaying Hall with his own hands and single-handedly slaughtered his way up the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land. Shao Qiu. Before the men hiding in the stable could react, a curved shadow blade shot out from the darkness. The gleam of the blade refracted several times off the walls, silently sweeping across a throat with each pass. The cuts were as fine as red threads, only beading with blood after a long pause. In the blink of an eye, before any of the six could even catch a glimpse of their assailant, they had all hit the dirt. The clearance was complete. From the moment the thin jade flakes were tossed in, the entire operation had taken only seven breaths of time. In seven breaths, a secret outpost of the Wind and Rain Tower was thoroughly eradicated. Inside the pawnshop's ground floor, Shao Qiu walked in from the stable with an ugly expression. Looking at the two operatives sent in first, he rasped, "This was merely a peripheral outpost. Its strongest assassin wasn't even as formidable as an ordinary assassin who ambushed the Domain Lord. "Yet you still required me to step in. "Why did those first two men make a sound when they hit the floor, giving us away? "How did I teach you? "Didn't I say that the very first thing you do is secure the body with spider silk so it doesn't fall?" Shao Qiu walked over to the counter, hauled up an unconscious man from a chair, and propped him upright on the floor. As the unconscious man's legs went limp and he began to collapse, Shao Qiu's wrist flicked slightly. Several nails trailing spider silk shot out, striking with pinpoint accuracy. The silk snapped taut, and with slight twitches of Shao Qiu's fingers, the unconscious man began dancing on the spot like a marionette. "I don't expect you to master this trick in a short time. "But at the very least, you ought to be able to keep a body from hitting the floor, couldn't you? "Feed these two the antidote and begin the interrogation. "The rest of you, search for anything of value." Shao Qiu cast a disappointed, exasperated glare at the group before joining the search. Their mission this time was not merely to wipe out all of Wind and Rain Tower's outposts; another objective was to find the location of Wind and Rain Tower's headquarters, so they could uproot this power once and for all. Half an hour later. Everything of value had been scavenged. The two who had been knocked out, having been awakened and interrogated, had already been silenced with a sword to the throat. Before departing, Shao Qiu solemnly drew a minimalist insignia on the stone floor using the blood of the deceased: A short blade shrouded in shadows. This was the emblem he had designed for the Dark Pavilion. He then drew from his robes a command token he had asked Xiao Qiu to forge before leaving and set it beside the symbol. This was the Dark Pavilion Hunting Token he had specially created for the pavilion. As a hitman, one kills without leaving a name, acting solely for coin. But he was an assassin. To him, killing was done precisely to leave a name. He wanted the name of Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion to be known by all under heaven. Only then did he look down at the kraft paper in his hand, murmuring in a low voice, "Sea Embryo... I seem to recall the Domain Lord mentioning that he needed this heavenly material." According to the intelligence, Wind and Rain Tower had recently acquired a heavenly material and earthly treasure known as the Sea Embryo, which was being urgently transported to their headquarters. This news could not be reported back to the Domain Lord. They were currently too far from Fan Domain, well beyond the maximum transmission range of a voice transmission talisman. Fan Domain's intelligence and communication network had yet to be fully established, so their group was operating entirely with a free hand. In other words, even if he took these people out of Jiangnan right now, headed straight south, and rebuilt his own faction on the Guanxi Plain, no one could stop him. The Domain Lord had granted him an extraordinary degree of autonomy. It was just that he had no desire to leave. "Move out." The group swiftly withdrew from the pawnshop, intending to find a place to rest for the night and resume action the following day. Time slipped by quickly. Five days passed. Now, only one day remained until the Fan Domain Auction. Tomorrow would be the day of the auction, and though it was only morning, many factions had already dispatched representatives to Fan City, intending to purchase a batch of Skeleton Horses to take back and to attend the auction. The sun hung overhead. Inside Fan City, Chen Fan listened to Wang Kui's report beside him: "Seven factions have already settled their credit balances, bringing in a total of 730,000 ghost stones." Several days had passed since the opening of the Fan Domain marketplace, and during this period, business in the marketplace had been booming. "The auxiliary materials required on Pavilion Master Zhao's end have all been purchased. Over these past few days, we acquired a large volume of ghost materials—ghost creature carcasses made up a smaller share, with ghost bones being the majority. In addition, we purchased a variety of assorted exotic treasures, seeds, daily necessities, and the like. "Total expenditures came to 73,400 ghost stones." "Mm." Chen Fan nodded slightly. The auxiliary materials were the main drain on ghost stones. Zhao Shengping's reasoning was that a heavenly material and earthly treasure like Earth Gold was exceptionally rare, so if they were going to use Earth Gold to forge night-travel suits and specialized weapons, the auxiliary materials had to be top-tier as well to forge even stronger spirit treasures. Chen Fan hadn't refused; he had agreed. "The stationmasters from the Wang family have also all been dispatched and established their own outposts. At present, our transmission range has improved drastically. To the south, we can directly reach as far as Jiangnan's Water City. "To the west, we can reach as far as Northwest City behind Pingcheng. "As for the large vehicle, the Giant Tortoise, sales have picked up recently, with quite a few factions purchasing one." "Whew..." Chen Fan stretched lazily, leaning back in his chair as he listened to Wang Kui's report. "Still no word from Shao Qiu and his group?" "None." The outposts they had established over these days were all public outposts, flying the banner of Fan Domain. If Shao Qiu saw them, he would certainly contact them through the outpost personnel. Yet there had been no contact whatsoever. That left only two possibilities: Either they had ranged too far, completely beyond the currently established outposts. Or they had gone far, far away—venturing off to the Guanxi Plain, never to return. "Domain Lord," Wang Kui hesitated for a moment before venturing cautiously, "could Pavilion Master Qiu have taken his people and defected...?" "No." Chen Fan was quite confident on that score. He smiled and said, "Only I can help him realize his dream, and only I can help him reach the pinnacle. "Whether it's Shao Qiu or Zhao Shengping, they both had their own factions in the past, yet both of their factions later collapsed. Do you know why? "They each have their own specialties. One excels at artifact refining, the other at assassination, but neither is skilled at running an organization. Especially Shao Qiu—he only cares about assassination. But sustaining a faction isn't just about doing what you're good at. "It requires managing countless affairs. "Only in Fan Domain can they truly flourish without having to worry about anything else. I'll provide the safety net for them. "Of course," Chen Fan added, "there's also the chance he found a faction even more suitable than Fan Domain. That isn't impossible. If he truly has defected, then it'll be time for the Nine-Five Dragon Carriage to make an appearance." Just then! "Domain Lord!" Xiao Qiu's urgent voice suddenly crackled from a voice transmission talisman. "Pavilion Master Zhao was swatted half to death by Weiwei's tail!" Fan Domain. Having rushed back, Chen Fan looked at Zhao Shengping, who lay half-dead in the altar, and then at Weiwei, who was sprawled on the ground nearby with an apologetic expression. Chen Fan frowned. "What happened? Weiwei never hurts people." "I don't know either," Xiao Qiu said, shaking his head. "I was busy working inside when I suddenly heard a tremendous crash outside. When I rushed out, I saw Zhao Shengping knocked unconscious by a swipe of Weiwei's tail." "You tell me." Chen Fan looked at one of Zhao Shengping's disciples standing nearby. "Reporting to the Domain Lord," the man stammered somewhat timidly. "Master was forging the night-travel suits when he suddenly discovered that Fan Domain had an exotic beast like the Sky-Swallowing Crocodile. He was thrilled on the spot, realizing that if he could incorporate one of the Sky-Swallowing Crocodile's scales during the forging process, its defensive power would increase tremendously." "And then your master went up to it brandishing a hammer?" Chen Fan couldn't help but laugh out of sheer exasperation. "No," the man hastily shook his head. "Master asked other Fan Domain members, and after learning that this exotic beast belonged to Fan Domain, he tried to communicate with it, asking if he could borrow a few scales. Exotic beasts understand human nature quite well, after all. "It agreed! "I swear, I saw it nod! "So Master happily took out an awl, getting ready to pry off a few scales. But the moment he started, before he'd even pried one loose, it swung its tail..." Chen Fan was silent for a long while before turning his head toward the Sky-Swallowing Crocodile. "Did you agree?" The Sky-Swallowing Crocodile shifted its body, shook its head, then nodded, and immediately followed that by shaking its head again.