Chapter 2 – The Death of Du Li (Part Two)

As his forehead touched the ground, he heard a “cracking” sound from ahead, something like porcelain shattering, mixed with the pop of firecrackers.

He flipped backward, landed, and looked up in one fluid motion, rebounding quickly like a compressed spring.

Amidst the flying debris, a shadow shot towards him like lightning. He instinctively raised his hand to block. A piercing pain shot through him as both his wrists were neatly severed.

He let out a blood-curdling scream. Having gone too long without pain or injury, he was no longer accustomed to suffering.

Fortunately, his agony ended quickly. An extremely thin and razor-sharp flying knife sliced past the throat of the guard in front of him and buried itself in his chest.

By the time the other guards rushed forward to surround and protect him, his suffering was already over.

All of this happened in an instant. They were fast. Du Li was fast. But she was faster.

In a life-or-death moment, the ones who are not the fastest are the only ones who die.

They fixed their eyes on her, the one who had caused this sudden and dramatic change, and lunged at her from different directions, blocking all possible escape routes, ready to tear her apart.

She wore a mask over her face, her exposed eyes didn’t even blink. She pulled out a tube and opened it.

Smoke and fumes burst forth, shrouding the entire Buddha hall. Several screams rang out. When the smoke cleared, the tips of their blades found nothing but empty air.

As the thick smoke dissipated, several more bodies lay on the ground with blood spurting from their throats. But there was no trace of her.

Inside and outside the Buddha hall, silence reigned. Dozens of guards searched the surrounding area in silence.

More guards hidden in the shadows outside kept arriving, drawn by the commotion. But Du Li had already met his end, and there was no turning back. The one who killed him had vanished without a trace.

The martial arts world is vast. There will always be someone faster and more elusive than Du Li. The day Du Li encountered such a person was the day his life ended.

His carefully cultivated and trained guards, who had protected him for years and ensured long-term survival, quickly understood what had happened.

The statue of the Buddha had exploded.

The Buddha statue was made of clay, hollow in the middle, just large enough to squeeze a person inside.

For the past three days, the Buddha hall had been guarded day and night. It would have been impossible for anyone to hide inside the statue under so many watchful eyes.

Unless the killer had already been inside the statue for at least three days. That is to say, at least three days earlier, she had already slipped into the hollow statue unnoticed.

Was the killer’s ultimate goal to kill Du Li?

How did she know the old Madam Du’s identity and hiding place?

How did she know Du Li would definitely come?

If Du Li hadn’t come, how long would she have stayed inside the Buddha’s statue? And how long could she have lasted?

All of this, they feared, had been long premeditated.

They re-examined Old Madam Du’s body and finally confirmed that she had been suffocated after being drugged with a sedative.

For a woman who was already so old and already near death’s door, it was difficult to detect any trace of foul play from the surface, especially since there had been no prior signs of being targeted.

Could it be that everything was under the assassin’s control and calculation?

Such a feat required deep enough cunning, meticulous investigation, precise calculations, tenacious willpower, and supremely superb martial skills…

The more they thought about it, the more terrified they became. Cold sweat poured from them. Their thoughts, as if by unspoken agreement, turned to one person—a person far more famous, mysterious, and terrifying than Du Li.

She was the most elite and mysterious assassin in the martial arts world. Perhaps she was the most outstanding assassin in a century. To date, she had never failed.

Apart from knowing she was a woman and the top assassin of the Stronghold, the martial arts world knew almost nothing about her. Not even her name.

Against such an assassin, even seeking revenge left no trace to follow.

She was someone they dared not provoke. As for the power behind her—the Stronghold—they avoided it at all costs.

As the most mysterious and terrifying assassin organization in the martial arts world, the very word “Stronghold” struck terror into countless martial artists, who fled from it in fear.

If the Stronghold wanted someone dead, no one could save them.

For this plan, she had prepared for a full six months.

She spent three months investigating and tracking Du Li’s movements, but she always arrived a step too late.

After the 13th failed attempt to track him, she realized that such pursuit was futile. She needed to find another way.

She meticulously collected and studied a large amount of information about Du Li. She discovered that for several consecutive years, Du Li would, at regular intervals and at irregular times, visit a certain place for no apparent reason.

She traced that place to a woman and then deduced that the woman was very likely Du Li’s mother.

Old Madam Du was indeed meticulous in her thinking and had hidden herself well. But the Stronghold had its ways of uncovering her identity.

The Stronghold’s intelligence network exceeded everyone’s imagination.

On his mother’s birthday and during times of serious illness, Du Li would certainly visit her in person.

She couldn’t wait for his mother’s birthday, nor could she predict when she would fall gravely ill. So she adopted the most direct and effective method—kill his mother, lure him out, and then lie in wait.

For her, killing an old woman who had hidden in a rundown temple for ten years without making a sound was far easier than tracking Du Li, even though there were many hidden guards inside and outside the temple.

She succeeded easily.

On the night Old Madam Du died, she hid herself inside the Buddha’s statue, constantly observing the world outside.

Finally, her moment came. At a moment Du Li least expected, she struck with all her might.

As long as she could get close to Du Li, she could kill him swiftly, no matter how many guards he had or how high his martial arts skill.

Du Li was the eighth.