Chapter 48: The Ancient Profession

Assassination is an ancient profession. Ever since the dawn of political power, this trade—capable of yielding massive results with minimal cost—burst onto the stage of history.

This was the first assassination Lin Shize had ever encountered in this world.

The good news was that the target of the assassination wasn't him; the bad news was that he had no choice but to intercept the assassin.

From another perspective, the two sides were neither enemies nor allies, yet they were forced into a life-and-death struggle.

Zhao Dahu led the soldiers, constantly compressing the man's moving space.

The two kicks he had just taken made Zhao Dahu acutely aware of this man's terrifying prowess; his chest still ached, and he struggled to catch his breath.

Yet no matter how agile the man was, he was powerless against a hundred fully armed soldiers.

Over there, the battle had already been settled, while Lin Shize was still engaged in close-quarters grappling with the woman.

Leveraging his advantage in brute strength, Lin Shize hugged the woman with a death grip.

The woman writhed continuously like a snake once more, yet she could not break free from Lin Shize's arms.

She felt utterly aggrieved, having never encountered such a rogue fighting style before.

The man was clearly a frontier soldier, whose methods should have been sweeping and forthright. Yet once their weapons were discarded, he abruptly altered his combat style.

Caught off guard for a moment, the woman was locked down by Lin Shize and found herself completely unable to escape.

Having practiced martial arts for many years, she believed she had seen all sorts of people, yet she found herself hard-pressed to deal with Lin Shize's ruffian-like tactics.

Amidst the swirling dust, the woman twisted her body persistently, but Lin Shize's arms only tightened further.

Gazing at Lin Shize's hands with their bulging veins, the woman bit down without hesitation. *If you're going to act like a rogue, I'll act like one too!*

"Ah!"

Lin Shize let out a cry of pain. *Is this woman part dog? She actually bites!*

Reversing his leverage, he pinned the woman beneath him, pressed down on her arms with both hands, and straddled her waist, using the power of his hips and legs.

"Bite me? Go ahead and bite me again!"

"Let go!" The woman's voice turned somewhat panicked. This posture was entirely too awkward.

"I won't let go! What if you bite me again after I do?"

Lin Shize exerted even more force with both hands.

"You scoundrel!" Humiliated and enraged, the woman thrashed her legs with all her might, causing Lin Shize's body to bob up and down, making their position increasingly ambiguous.

The more the woman struggled, the harder Lin Shize pressed down, until he was practically plastered against her body.

"Big sister! You tried to kill me the moment you arrived, and you're calling *me* a scoundrel?" Lin Shize couldn't fathom what was going on inside this woman's head. Who would have the mind for that kind of thing in a life-or-death moment?

The woman shouted with a crying sob, "I'm going to kill you!"

Hearing her say this, Lin Shize dared not let go even more.

Suddenly, the woman exerted force with both legs, shoving Lin Shize to the side in an attempt to pin him down.

Lin Shize reacted swiftly, rolling with the momentum to pin the woman beneath him once again.

This time, however, the woman's back was facing upward; he locked her arms behind her back in a reverse joint-lock and straddled her waist once more.

*Huh?*

The sensation transmitted from beneath him gave Lin Shize a momentary pause. As someone who practiced martial arts year-round, this woman possessed an exceptionally curved and lifted backside, palpable even through her iron armor.

"Ah!"

The woman's gasp already carried a trembling note. That delicate cry made the others freeze, involuntarily casting their gazes toward the two of them.

*This posture... are they playing it this wild?*

By now, no matter how the woman thrashed, she could no longer break free from Lin Shize's confinement.

The woman felt like wishing for death right now. This foul scoundrel had actually humiliated her to this extent; the moment she got the chance, she swore she would kill him!

Lin Shize had no such thoughts whatsoever. This was simply a rose with thorns, and the lethal kind at that.

The two assassins were bound hand and foot and thrown onto the ground, finally giving Lin Shize the opportunity to speak.

"Who are you people? Why do you want to kill Chu Luolong?"

The man remained silent, but the woman said through gritted teeth, "Bah! You and that beast who is worse than an animal are cut from the same cloth."

Lin Shize shrugged and said, "You say he's worse than an animal, and I won't argue with that, but I haven't even met you people, yet you came at us with the intent to kill."

The woman retorted, "That beast forcibly seizes commoner women and tramples on human lives. We are killing him to uphold justice on behalf of heaven. You are assisting a tyrant, and you will come to a bad end sooner or later."

*Oh my, this little lass speaks in fluent rhymes. What is she, an imperial examination candidate?*

Lin Shize hurriedly stopped her and asked, "I only met him a few days ago. You say he forcibly seizes commoner women and tramples on human lives?"

The woman gritted her teeth and said, "His heinous crimes are too numerous to record. If you truly have a conscience, let us go and let us kill him."

Lin Shize shook his head like a rattle-drum.

"I cannot let you kill him, at least not right now."

"As for the heinous crimes you mentioned, do you have evidence? Why should I believe you?"

The woman sneered, "Believe it or not, I just know that you officials protect each other, and none of you are good people."

Seeing that the woman did not trust him, Lin Shize had no choice but to crouch down in front of the man, look into his eyes, and ask, "Can you tell me?"

Lin Shize had a persistent feeling that these two people didn't look like bad guys. If he had to use a single word to describe them, it would be chivalrous heroes.

Such people loved to champion the cause of justice and stand up for the weak. Lin Shize had no desire to kill such people, but their stubbornness gave him a massive headache.

He hoped this man could be reasonable.

The man glanced sideways at Lin Shize, completely disbelieving his deceptive nonsense. This fellow must be trying to trick them into gaining their trust and then extract information from them.

"Kill me or carve me up, do as you please."

Lin Shize hadn't expected the man to drop such a line.

Slowly standing up, he gazed at them coldly and said, "Since that's how it is, don't blame me for being unpolite."

"Men, take this woman into the house. Let me see if she's tender or not."

"First torture her, then kill her, or first kill her, then torture her, and then torture her again, and kill her again, and kill her again, and torture her again!"

Liu Wu was stunned dumb. *Is our boss this ruthless?! The young lady is as pretty as a jade flower, she can't be killed!*

Zhao Dahu understood that Lin Shize was likely just trying to frighten them.

He strode over to the woman and dragged her toward the distance.

The woman struggled continuously, shouting, "Let me go! Let me go! You bunch of beasts! Just kill me! Even as a ghost, I won't let you off!"

Sitting on the ground, the man's entire body trembled violently as he underwent an extreme internal struggle.

Finally, he roared at the top of his lungs, "I have a petition written in blood inside my tunic! It can prove his crimes!"

Lin Shize raised a hand to halt Zhao Dahu's movement and retrieved a blood-stained petition from the man's tunic.

At the very top of the blood petition, the handwriting was extremely neat, presumably written by a single person drafting the complaint. It stated that Chu Luolong had forcibly seized twenty-three commoner women and even instigated brutal murders, with the Thirteen Eagles acting as his accomplices.

At the bottom were over a hundred crooked names accompanied by bloody fingerprints.

Lin Shize let out a long sigh, drew his sabre, and walked step by step toward the woman.

The woman's face turned pale as chalk, yet she held her head high and said, "You will go to hell."

Lin Shize said indifferently, "I've killed many people, so naturally I'll go to hell."

With that, a cold flash of light gleamed from his sabre, and the woman closed her eyes, resigning herself to her fate.

"No!"

A despairing roar echoed from behind him. The man fell to his knees and closed his eyes in agony...