"Are you sure about this?" Mu Rong Shu asked after my mom left. I nodded, my arms folded and my mouth set in a thin line. "That's your family."
"The moment they cast me out, they are no longer my family. Also, you knew they tried to kill me, right? You were the one sent to assassinate me, after all. At my grandmother's request."
"…that's true." Mu Rong Shu hung her head. She looked at me. "I always wondered why you didn't kill me. I thought you would…"
"I told you before, didn't I? You never had the intention to kill me in the first place. You didn't give off any murderous aura, unlike Du Wang."
"Yeah, I never liked being an assassin," Mu Rong Shu admitted, stretching out on the couch. "It's so, I don't know, outdated. This is like the modern period. Murder is illegal. Yet my family is skulking about underground, doing all these…things."
"Laws are useful, but you need power to enforce them. Unfortunately, there are ways to circumvent the law and…or taking the law into one's hands, but no system is perfect. No matter the era, there will always be a need for…such jobs."
"But I don't want to be an assassin." Mu Rong Shu sulked. I snickered.
"Then don't." I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. "You can be anything you want. No one can force you to become whatever you don't want to. And if they do? You have me. I'll set the record straight. Nobody forces my wife to do anything she doesn't want to."
"Ha ha." Mu Rong Shu giggled, leaning her head against my chest. "I still remember how you stood up to grandfather and freed me from the shackles of assassination. Telling him that I belong to you, that I'm your person…I can't believe he ended up misunderstanding. Still, I'm glad he misunderstood. I'm glad that he let you marry me."
"Yeah, well…" I kept her close, resting my chin on her head. "Unfortunately, things are going to get a lot more difficult from here on out. You remember the Spirit War my mom mentioned earlier? And the attack yesterday?"
I had briefly explained to my wife what the Spirit War was, and how summoners were forced to fight against each other. She naturally was aware of what had happened last night because I saw no reason to hide it from her.
They would come after her eventually if they wanted to attack me. It was best to prepare her for the upcoming war.
"That's all I know for now. I didn't even hear about this until yesterday night." I tightened my grip on her shoulder. "It'll become increasingly dangerous to stay by my side. You'll be in danger. They will attack you too…try to use you as a hostage to threaten me."
"Even so, I won't leave you." Mu Rong Shu squeezed in, her voice determined. "I will stay by your side and fight with you. Nobody touches my husband. I didn't learn all these assassination techniques for nothing. I don't like killing, but if they provoke us first, then I won't hesitate to fight back. Leave your back to me, dear. Two of us fighting together is better than you fighting alone."
"Thanks. I'll be counting on you then."
After dinner, at night, I noticed that someone was trying to sneak into the courtyard of our house.
Being part of the Mu Rong family – a clan of assassins – the home we lived in was set up defensively. It wasn't some impregnable fortress – that would attract way too much attention from the public – but we had implemented certain security measures to prevent intruders and other assassins from infiltrating our home.
In the garden, several formations glowed softly. They were normally invisible, even with the esoteric circles drawn into the grass, but they contained very real power. The air above them shimmered with potent qi, with barriers forming over the house. Even if an intruder managed to penetrate the barrier by chance, he or she would find himself or herself bombarded by killing arrays.
The security was supposed to be watertight. In theory, anyway.
However, there were a couple of people who sought to put this to the test.
One of them was a normal person. Well, that might not be accurate. He might be a human, but he was far from "normal."
He was a cultivator, after all. And not just any cultivator. He was a summoner.
The figure next to him, however, was not human. Or at least not human in the way that we understood the term.
He was a summoned spirit.
The man beside the summoned spirit smiled as he surveyed the house belonging to the Mu Rong family. It was but one of many, a small, isolated manor amidst a sprawling complex. It wasn't connected to the other houses, which meant that the neighbors wouldn't notice anything amiss unless they accidentally triggered an alarm or something.
From what he knew, the Mu Rong family didn't pay much attention to this particular daughter and her husband, so they were usually left alone. Nobody would care if anything happened to them, except the grandfather. The patriarch of the Mu Rong family apparently evaluated his granddaughter and grandson-in-law very highly, but none of his relatives shared the same opinion, save the brightest and sharpest.
Unfortunately, Mu Rong Shan and his father, Mu Rong Hai, and his mother, as well as Mu Rong Lin and his family, lived pretty far away from this particular house. They were closest to Mu Rong Lao's complex, which was in turn pretty distant from Mu Rong Shu's house.
If anything, the relatives next to Mu Rong Shu didn't care about her.
So they wouldn't do anything if they heard something. At least the man, Sha Ren Gui, thought so. And he had reason to believe that, having seen how Mu Rong Qiu, Mu Rong Hua and the other Mu Rong relatives and their families treated them.
Fools, Sha Ren Gui thought. Unlike Mu Rong Hua and formerly Mu Rong Qiu (who had never bothered his cousin and cousin-in-law again after a certain incident), he was aware of the true strength of the son-in-law of the Zhao family. That was why he viewed him as a threat and was determined to eliminate him as quickly as possible.
Otherwise he would present an immense danger during the Spirit War. Some threats were best gotten rid of as early as possible, or they would come back to bite you.
"Liu Shi Fu. Go."
"Oho. Are you sure about this?"
The figure beside him was dressed in white, an arrogant-looking man with a lean frame. Liu Shi Fu, who was an assassination – one of the most famous members of the Assassination Corps, his spirit had coalesced into an assassin. In one hand, he held a revolver, and in the other, he held a dagger. Despite his amused words, he was more than ready for combat.
"Yes. The summoner of Lu Bu must be eliminated as quickly as possible. You know how powerful Lu Bu is. We'll have to get rid of him before he can strengthen his summoned spirit."
"Ho…" Liu Shi Fu chuckled, stroking his chin with one hand after holstering his dagger. "I'm not sure about that. After all, this is Lu Bu we are talking about here."
"What do you mean?" Sha Ren Gui turned to his spirit, scowling.
"Lu Bu is notorious for his temperament and lack of loyalty. Leave them be, and they will eventually self-destruct after a while. Lu Bu might turn on his own summoner, if given enough time."
"We can't wait for that to happen. How many summoners and their spirits would fall to Lu Bu's spear before then? And what if Zhao Huan Shi secures his loyalty? He's no ordinary summoner. He's from the Zhao family…and he has a lot of experience in exploring tombs." Sha Ren Gui scowled. "No, we must destroy him tonight."
"Uh, you do realize that it's beneficial for us if Lu Bu eliminates many summoners and their spirits? Without their demise, the gate to the Spirit Realm will not open."
"Yeah, but…" Sha Ren Gui regarded his summoned spirit sternly. "It's pointless if we end up being one of them."
"You have so little confidence in yourself."
"Then let me ask you, Liu Shi Fu. Are you confident in defeating Lu Bu in a head-on battle?"
The silence from the assassin told his summoner everything. With a wave of his hand, Sha Ren Gui gestured at the house down below.
"I thought not."
"Don't worry. I have my own methods of winning. I'll just eliminate the summoner before he can summon his spirit."
Liu Shi Fu smirked, and then he vanished. Speeding down the hill, he reached the gates in a single bound. Vaulting over the gate, he then landed in the front garden. However, before he could collide against the transparent barrier that stretched over the front yard, he drew his revolver and opened fire. The magic bullet from his gun shattered the barrier soundlessly and he surged through the falling fragments without any hesitation.
Landing in the garden, he immediately spun around and threw his dagger. The small blade sliced through a line of qi and impaled itself deeply upon the center of a formation circle. The lights flickered out instantly, the killing array deactivated the moment it was destroyed.
Without any delay, Liu Shi Fu was on the move, weaving through the garden as swiftly as he could. His arm flicked out and he fired three consecutive shots, obliterating another barrier and destroying another two killing arrays.
"Hmph," he muttered as he strode through the garden. Qi beams lanced toward him, a few of the killing arrays having escaped his assault. Liu Shi Fu withdrew on reflex, twisting his body and whirling about to evade the lethal beams.
It almost looked as if he was dancing. In a series of quick, elegant moves, he avoided each and every one of the beams from the killing arrays. Placing a hand on the ground, he shifted himself by the barest of movements before firing his gun with his other hand, taking out yet another killing array.
Flipping himself off the ground, he managed to land some distance away before several qi beams converged to scorch a crater in the place he occupied a few seconds ago. Swinging his arm about, he fired several shots. Without even aiming, he was able to score direct hits, fizzling out the killing arrays before they could home in on him again.
Straightening up, he drew another dagger and proceeded toward the house.
"Like taking candy from a baby," he said with a smirk.
Raising his hand, he took aim, peering through the window and narrowing his eyes to detect his target. Not being human, he could instead make use of his supernatural senses to see through walls and pick out the aura of living humans.
All living humans exuded some form of qi, even non-cultivators. Their life force, or natural energy, the yin and yang essence of all living things. Though such essential energies were invisible to a normal person's eye, to a spirit, they were as bright as sunlight.
That was why Liu Shi Fu was shocked when he saw what was inside the house.
"Where…are they? Why is this house empty?"
"What?!" Sha Ren Gui snapped, suddenly alert. Even though he was far away, he could hear everything that Liu Shi Fu said, by virtue of their telepathic connection. "There's no one at home?"
"You sure you got the right address?"
"Yeah, I double-checked. This is definitely where Mu Rong Shu and her husband live."
"Then where are they?"
"Right here," I replied right after I slammed my palm into Sha Ren Gui's back, breaking his spine and almost knocking him out.
Liu Shi Fu spun around, but before he could do anything, a spear stabbed through his body, obliterating his heart and lungs. Blood spurted out of his mouth and he staggered, staying upright solely because his remains were being supported by Lu Bu's fearsome weapon.
"When did you…?" he spluttered.
"From the very beginning," Lu Bu replied coldly before he annihilated Liu Shi Fu's existence with a jolt of his spear.