Chapter 277 - 145: Instant Kill

Qin Xiangyun’s hand emerged first, resting on Zhan Mubai’s forearm.

She used the support to rise, and her head poked out of the carriage.

Sunlight fell upon her jewel-covered hair ornaments, refracting into a myriad of rainbow-colored glints.

Zhan Mubai found it blinding and instinctively looked away.

"TSS—!"

In the next instant, a strange sound suddenly cut through the air.

Zhan Mubai felt a sudden weight on his arm. When he looked back, he didn’t notice anything amiss at first.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Qin Xiangyun’s body suddenly went limp and collapsed.

"Xiang..."

Zhan Mubai looked closer but still couldn’t see anything wrong. Until the next moment...

"TSS—!"

Another identical, incredibly faint and brief sound whipped past.

Zhan Mubai still didn’t see a thing, but he already knew what had happened.

He had felt it with absolute clarity: a Flying Needle piercing his left temple, carrying a potent surge of Dark Force.

The Flying Needle exited through his right temple, but the Dark Force erupted inside his skull like a Thunder Burst.

By the time he understood what had happened, his brain had been completely pulped.

Just like Qin Xiangyun, he collapsed limply, unable to make a sound. The expression on his face was frozen from the instant before the Flying Needle struck.

Soon, someone discovered their bodies.

In just that short time, black blood had begun to seep from their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses.

The skin around their temples had turned completely black. Even the surrounding blood vessels had darkened, spreading out like spiderwebs.

A large crowd quickly gathered.

Gasps and screams filled the air. Pushing, shoving, and bumping, the crowd descended into chaos.

Just then, a white figure flashed behind the crowd, silently retrieving the two poisoned needles embedded in the stone wall across the street.

"Move! Everyone, move!"

Qin Zhao came charging from the distance, roaring furiously.

The Cloud Platform Hall Master and Hong Jinhai followed close behind him.

The crowd parted as if split by a great sword, retreating to either side to clear a path.

"How could this happen?! Who was it?! WHO?!"

Qin Zhao rushed over and scooped up Qin Xiangyun’s body.

Seeing the horrific state she was in, Qin Zhao’s face twisted in anguish. He roared hysterically as thick veins bulged and throbbed on his neck.

"Outrageous!"

The Cloud Platform Hall Master was instantly enraged as well.

He was one of the old ancestors of the Qin Family.

In broad daylight and in front of a huge crowd, the killer had dared to murder the eldest daughter of the Qin Family’s main branch right under his nose.

This wasn’t just a slap in the face.

It was grinding his face—and the face of the entire Qin Family—into the dirt.

"Men!"

Hong Jinhai was equally incensed. He gave a grim, low roar.

"Lock down the scene immediately! Conduct a thorough search! We must find the killer! For this villain to dare commit murder right in front of me... it’s utterly lawless! A crime beyond forgiveness!"

For a moment, the three most influential men at the scene erupted with a nearly tangible fury.

Yet, the more their anger blazed, the more incompetent it made them seem.

They had examined the scene and found no clues whatsoever.

They had examined the bodies, too. Aside from determining the cause of death was a poisoned needle, they had no other concrete leads.

Under these circumstances, they couldn’t even begin to form a basic theory.

It was truly a display of impotent rage.

"Ugh... Huh?! Oh no—!"

Suddenly, Qin Zhao violently shoved Qin Xiangyun’s body away, and it slammed heavily onto the ground.

All eyes were drawn to the corpse. The moment they saw it, a fresh wave of screams erupted.

Both of the corpse’s temples had completely rotted and caved in. The pulp inside the skull had turned entirely black and was bubbling with a dark foam.

The crowd’s gaze shifted from the body and fell back on Qin Zhao.

They saw that where the black blood had touched him, his skin had already started to blacken, swell, and even show signs of decay.

Seeing this, the first reaction of both the Cloud Platform Hall Master and Hong Jinhai was to recoil.

"Help me... Hall Master, help me..."

In the blink of an eye, Qin Zhao’s skin began to putrefy.

First, a layer of densely packed blisters swelled on the surface of his skin. Then they began to burst, oozing black, venomous blood.

Immediately after, the muscle tissue beneath the blisters started to disintegrate, turning into something like shredded cotton.

A thick, pungent stench of decay exploded outwards. The surrounding crowd scrambled back in alarm, terrified that the very air was now toxic.

"Cut... cut it off! Quickly!"

Someone in the crowd roared.

"A knife! Give me a knife!"

Qin Zhao reacted instantly. ’To save myself, I have to cut away the poisoned flesh now!’

’Any hesitation and the poison will seep through the muscle into the bone. Then I’ll have to cut the bone itself.’

"A knife... A KNIFE—!!"

...

「Several miles away.」

In an unremarkable dead-end alley.

Chen Cheng took off his white robe, turned it completely inside out, and put it back on. It was now a black robe.

He pulled up the large hood, hiding his entire face in shadow.

This was the Black and White Robe he had designed himself three days ago. He’d had the Li Family and Hu Niu secretly rush its creation.

’I originally just wanted a white robe.’

’Then, I subconsciously thought of the dualism of Tai Chi and had a flash of inspiration, designing this robe that was black on one side and white on the other.’

’It conceals my appearance, misdirects onlookers, and hides a world of secrets...’

’The best part is the special fabric Hu Niu found. It doesn’t easily stain with blood or retain smells.’

Chen Cheng was very satisfied with today’s trial run.

And he wasn’t just satisfied with the Black and White Robe; the operation’s outcome had far exceeded his expectations.

’I had originally planned to follow my usual procedure: spend time on surveillance, learn the target’s movements and habits, wait for the right time and place, and then finally eliminate them.’

’But today, I had barely found a suitable hiding spot when the perfect opportunity to strike fell right into my lap.’

’Since things worked out this way, I could naturally skip all the steps in between.’