"If you have the guts, go ahead and kill me!"
Incensed by the slap across his head, Tong Tianba whipped around and glared furiously at Fang Shuwen.
Fang Shuwen felt a touch exasperated. "Are you going to say 'kill or butcher me as you please' next? For some reason, I've been hearing that an awful lot lately."
Tong Tianba's face darkened. Before he could speak, Fang Shuwen pressed his index and middle fingers together, and the invisible thread slipped forth in absolute silence.
With a flick of his hand, Fang Shuwen jabbed his finger directly into Tong Tianba's Qimen acupoint.
Having had a section of his spine dislodged by Fang Shuwen, Tong Tianba remained completely paralyzed despite his immense strength, utterly powerless to resist.
When the finger first struck, it did not seem like anything extraordinary. Only a faint ache rippled outward from the acupoint. Frowning slightly, he sneered, "I'd advise you not to waste your..."
Before the words *waste your effort* could leave his mouth, that faint ache suddenly surged through his body like a bolt of lightning.
In that single instant, the mild discomfort morphed into unfathomable agony!
Prior to this, Tong Tianba had believed he was immune to pain. His external iron-body cultivation had started from humble beginnings; while not as extreme as the Record of the Azure Corpse, it had still required the constant tempering of his flesh, breaking his body down to rebuild it stronger until he was finally impervious to blade and spear. Achieving his current realm had demanded tremendous suffering. He had long grown accustomed to pain.
Yet only now did he realize that all the agony he had endured in the past was merely skin-deep.
This torment he felt today was true agony, an excruciating misery that made him wish for death. It was as though thousands of silver needles were coursing beneath his skin and boring into his marrow. Pain racked him everywhere, yet he could not pinpoint where any of it originated.
Unable to hold it in any longer, the tower of a man let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Fang Shuwen quietly channeled the thread while silently observing the effects.
Thanks to the threefold boost to his Comprehension, he had gained a fresh understanding and mastery over this technique. Had Tong Tianba been a spineless coward, Fang Shuwen would not have had the chance to experiment. But because the man was a stubborn brute who refused to talk, it provided the perfect opportunity to test the technique again.
More importantly, Tong Tianba possessed an extraordinary physique far superior to the likes of Zhang Fang. His higher pain tolerance afforded Fang Shuwen greater room for insight; Fang Shuwen was even beginning to experiment with channeling the Beiming Divine Art to amplify the thread's power.
Tong Tianba howled for a full cup of tea's time before his entire body began to convulse, fine trickles of blood seeping from his seven facial orifices.
He had held out far longer than Zhang Fang and his cohort. This was not solely due to Tong Tianba's robust constitution, but also because Fang Shuwen's mastery of the thread had improved significantly in this brief window.
Seeing Tong Tianba's wretched state, Fang Shuwen withdrew his hand with a hint of regret.
The pain receded like an ebbing tide. When Tong Tianba looked back at Fang Shuwen, not a shred of defiance remained in his eyes; in that single span of a cup of tea, absolute terror had been etched deep into his marrow.
"Speak. Why do you want to kill those two?" Fang Shuwen pointed toward the master and servant protected in the middle of the Lu'an Escort Agency's ranks.
Tong Tianba took a ragged breath. "Fourth Master Qin's orders... I don't know the reason."
Lu Guiyan's expression turned grim. "Do you... know their background?"
She wanted to know where the Fierce Tiger Gang found the audacity to touch friends of Feixue City.
Tong Tianba shook his head. "That doesn't matter."
To the Fierce Tiger Gang, killing was as routine as daily meals. It made no difference who the master and servant were; what mattered was that Fourth Master Qin wanted them dead. For the gang, that was more than enough reason.
Fang Shuwen's brow twitched slightly. "How did you know we would pass through here tonight?"
Exhaling a long breath, Tong Tianba swept his gaze across the members of the Lu'an Escort Agency.
Sun Qian's face changed. The moment Tong Tianba's eyes landed on him, he spun around and bolted.
Yet before he could take more than two or three steps, a fist came crashing straight at him.
Four Seas Dragon Fist!
The one striking was, of course, Mo Beidou.
Sun Qian did not fear Mo Beidou. Under normal circumstances, the two could have fought back and forth on even terms. But today was different. Mo Beidou's junior brother was far too terrifying. Even Tong Tianba had been no match for him; Sun Qian was nothing before someone like that. Thus, he had no heart to tangle with Mo Beidou and merely sidestepped, hoping to slip past him.
Doing so, however, left his defenses wide open.
Mo Beidou shifted from a fist to a claw, employing the hooking and locking maneuvers of the Plum Blossom Scattered Hands to latch onto Sun Qian's shoulder. Stepping forward, he hurled Sun Qian ahead of him.
Thrown off balance, Sun Qian crashed onto his backside. He tried to scramble to his feet, but a chill ran down his neck. Looking up, he found himself staring directly into Lu Guiyan's eyes.
Rested against his shoulder was Lu Guiyan's goose-quill saber.
Lu Guiyan's expression was conflicted. "Escort Leader Sun, it really was you... Why?"
Looking at the blade at his neck, Sun Qian knew there was no hope of getting away. "Weren't you already suspecting me? Otherwise, why would you have handed that matter over to Old Mo? If not for that, I wouldn't have slipped up in my haste and exposed myself."
Glancing at the saber again, Sun Qian let out a reckless sneer. "Why else? For money, of course! Someone gave me three thousand taels of silver to leak the escort route to the Fierce Tiger Gang. Why wouldn't I take it?"
Fang Shuwen raised his eyelids slightly. "The person you mentioned isn't from the Fierce Tiger Gang?"
"Probably not." Sun Qian glanced at Fang Shuwen, a flash of dread in his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he said, "Don't use that technique on me. I know I won't live through this, so I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I don't know who he was. When he approached me, the Young Chief Escort had just accepted this job, and we hadn't even set out from Julu City yet."
Lu Guiyan sighed. "So that's why the Fierce Tiger Gang was able to lie in ambush along our route? But... if that's the case, why didn't you reveal our location to them while we were in Guangning City?"
"...Because you were dying back then!" Sun Qian stared at her. "Once you died, the job would have been ruined anyway. I had already planned my way out. I was going to leave the Lu'an Escort Agency and take those three thousand taels of silver to live a peaceful life anywhere I wanted. I've had more than enough of living on the edge of a blade, never knowing if I'd see tomorrow... I just wanted to... to live well, that's all." His voice broke into a faint wail.
The next instant, Mo Beidou's heavy fist smashed squarely into his face.
"You bastard! You wanted to live well? So you'd betray the Young Chief Escort? She's still so young... The Chief Escort has only this one daughter, how could you be so heartless?"
Several young escort attendants rushed over to pull Mo Beidou back before he beat Sun Qian to death.
Fang Shuwen turned his gaze back to Tong Tianba. "Do you know anything about what he just said?"
Tong Tianba shook his head. "All I know is that he secretly sent us a message this evening. He didn't mention your location in Guangning City, only that... you would be passing through here. Beyond that, I know nothing."
Chapter 57