To the far east above the horizon, the bloody sun rose then gradually swelled and inflated. The crimson red was then soon replaced by a golden luminescence that penetrated through the morning clouds and shone above the dense morning woods.
The orchid farm was inundated under a misty fog. The blazing rays of the ascending sun soon granted the fog a wheel of colors, turning the farm into a heavenly spot.
The time was still early, but Lin Naoi had already timely arrived.
Chu Feng was notified of her arrival.
Bathing in the warmth of the golden sun, Chu Feng stood in the yard, attentively devoting himself to the practice of the special breathing exercise. It had become a routine that he had never failed to follow.
A stream of strange feeling surge upwards from the bottom of his feet to the tip of his heart. It was a pleasant feeling of warmth. He felt as if he were standing in a greenhouse and bathing in a hot bath at the same time. He felt like his body had been covered with a trickling layer of strange substance that then ran deep into his heart and his organs.
This was a feeling that he felt both familiar and strange at the same time.
He recalled his experience in Kunlun Mountains: when the special tree on the summit of that bronze mountain rose into a full blossom, some petals withered off and drifted into his hand. It was a similar feeling of warmth in which he found an unspeakable pleasance. Lately, that feeling seemed to have had a resurgence, but it came back in a much greater magnitude.
It was an unparalleled comfort that he felt. From the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, he felt as if his body had been luxuriating in this stream of warmth of unparalleled pleasance. The warmth gave him strength, vigor, and vitality.
He finally opened his eyes. The scene before his eyes was a wondrous one. His skin seemed to have been inundated by a fine gauze gleaming with a golden glitter. The gauze was light and delicate, bestowing Chu Feng with a godly appearance.
It was this ravelling layer of golden mist that granted him the warmth that he felt fervently attached to.
The breathing exercise was done, and now he could finally see clearly the substance hovering above his skin. The golden gauze slowly dissipated, but it was not wasted to the air; instead, all seemed to have permeated his skin and seeped into his body.
Chu Feng felt different. He raised his head and stared into the mountains far in the distance. He could see the seeds of the pines, and the plumpness of the fruits on the trees in the mountains. He could even see a jumping squirrel actively moving around in search for its breakfast.
This was a superhuman eyesight!
At the same time, he could also hear the buzzing wings of a flying bee in the distance. He could even perceive the moment when the bees chose to land on the petals of a blooming flower.
Chu Feng felt like a prisoner finally breaking loose of his confinement, breathing the fresh air in the outside for the very first time. Chu Feng was now a man with good sight and an exquisite sense of hearing. All his senses became sharper than ever. A new world had been unlocked for him.
Yellow Ox was in the yard, practicing the special breathing exercise alongside the strong man himself. It saw the strange yet wondrous glow exuding from Chu Feng’s body, which looked astonishing and peculiar.
Chu Feng was not bothered by Yellow Ox’s presence. He tried to probe into himself in an attempt to have a better understanding of that strange feeling of warmth within him.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, Chu Feng disappeared from the location where he stood, leaving there all but a shadowy spectre of himself. Chu Feng was dashing out of the yard into the orchid farm. His speed had improved twofold and, by a rough estimate, this hundred-meter sprint only took him a bit over one second.
In terms of strength, what Chu Feng saw in himself was an even greater improvement.
His power had been tremendously enhanced!
The special breathing exercise had demonstrated its tremendous benefits to Chu Feng’s improvement of his body constitution.
Strength, speed, and sense, along with many other aspects had greatly improved. This was an evolutionary step in which he had achieved, and now, he had become ever so fearsome and awe-inspiring to all who claimed him their enemy.
"What’s the story behind this breathing exercise?" Chu Feng asked Yellow Ox.
However, Yellow Ox would rather conceal the secret than to truthfully inform Chu Feng with an answer.
It did, however, hint him with a few words: "Pollen. Catalyst."
The calf conjectured that Chu Feng’s rapid improvement should be thanks to the petals he received back when he was still an ordinary man.
According to Yellow Ox, the breathing exercise itself, though it might prove to be greatly handy when a trained fighter wanted to improve his skill, needed the assistance of a "catalyst".
Having eaten his breakfast, Chu Feng was greeted by a woman sent out by Lin Naoi to pick him up.
It was a young lady whose nose was spotted with freckles, but she was still young and pretty nevertheless. In comparison to the others whom he had received from the company, she was perhaps the most hospitable person amongst them all.
She came in a black car that looked rather decorous and stately, and it was of a hefty size too. A thick layer of steel plate formed the body of the car. Clearly, this was the latest technology invented by the almighty company.
It was a bullet-proof car with a look that could easily stand out from the crowd. Being all showy and particular had always been the consistent style for the Deity Biomedical Group. Even an average deployment was sent out with an excellent set of equipment.
"Please board our car, Mr. Chu." The young lady opened the door for him. "At your service, sir."
Chu Feng was lost in a daze because of something that had been bothering him ever since Lin Naoi made a call to him.
"Sir?" The young lady wore a warm and friendly smile, calling him gently on the side.
"Oh, I’m sorry. I was just a bit carried away by something I only just remembered. Do you mind heading back to your mistress and tell her that there is an urgent matter that I need to deal with right now? I will join her for lunch by noon," Chu Feng said to the lady.
The young lady seemed to be at a loss about what to do. "But… but Miss Lin has asked me to make sure that you are picked up."
Chu Feng hesitated for a moment, but he eventually shook his head, refusing to board the car with her. He assured her that he would arrive for their appointment timely and soundly.
The young lady was in the midst of her feelings of impotence. She wanted to ring up Lin Naoi, but after a while of pondering, she decided to head back first for now, since she knew that her mistress must have been swamped by all sorts of hustling business. Bothering her now would do her no good.
"I hope that it was just me being overly prudent." Chu Feng watched as the black car drove into the distance.
"Yellow Ox, mind the house!"
Chu Feng set off on his journey to the appointment minutes later. He trudged on a circuitous track hidden in the shadow of the woods of a forest. He did not use the highroad, but his speed allowed him to travel at quite a nimble pace. The briskness in his steps granted him the speed on par with that of the car.
In fact, the high road system had all been impaired ever since the upheavals that wrought the sizeable havoc across the world. Many sections of the road had been disjointed, leaving the drivers to adopt the rugged dirt track beside the damaged paved road. It made travelling by cars hardly a feasible option for many of the commuters on the road.
Chu Feng paced at a speed that he deemed appropriate. His superhuman stamina allowed him to travel at such a great speed for long distance without even a hint of tiredness.
The road became even harder to drive on after half a dozen of miles. The black car slowed down as it laboriously pushed forward.
Suddenly, a deafening rumble sounded in the distance, shattering the dreadful silence in the region. It was an unimaginable scene to behold, but Chu Feng was watching as the black car that had been leading the way in the distance ahead of him was bombarded with an accurate rocket.
The walloping force coupled with the horrifying sound of the explosion sent the entire car flying. Despite that it was a bullet-proof military-grade vehicle, the sheer power of the bombarding rockets rendered it completely ruined.
Boom!
The black car landed on its top with sparks and smogs discharging at once. The car was now only a pitiful wreckage.
In the distance stood the target of this heartless operation himself, watching as he stood in shock. His face turned ghastly pale. The worst that could be expected happened right in front of him; he anticipated death, but he never foresaw this scene of cold-blooded murder on one’s comrade.
"How vicious! How venomous!" Chu Feng furiously cursed with a murderous look. He was lamenting for that young lady who deserved better. He felt guilty too. He became the complicit in the lady’s death for failing to save her even as he had foreseen this happening.
Even so, he still could not believe how frenzied and crazed that woman had become. She was nothing but a mad dog, a damnable witch who deserved to be burnt alive!
Then, the firing squad fired another two rounds of bullets and rockets, dooming the lady and the car to their ultimate demise.
The blaring noise of the car’s deafening explosion resounded in Chu Feng’s ears. He looked calm and composed, but within him, there brewed a storm on the cold horizon of his heart: a storm that promised nothing but winds to level the mightiest of trees to the soil.
"I must kill you!"
The rain was promised, and the wind was unleashed, and there would no more sunshine and roses within his murderous heart.
However, at the same time, he also realized that this might perhaps be a desperate move that the woman had taken as a last resort. She feared that the truth might come to light, and that she would be righteously punished, so she wanted to do away with all those who had witnessed her crime.
"This woman is Lin Naoi’s cat’s-paw. She knows that I haven’t told her about anything that had happened, so she wants me dead before I get to see her."
Chu Feng could tell that his enemy had become desperate. She was now a cornered dog in a dead-end street who would turn and bite at any moment.
Chu Feng’s blood ran cold in his veins. He wanted to seek his revenge, even if that meant he would need to kill without reason. He could not bear the thought that some of his enemies would escape scot free.
He felt that his bottomline had been crossed, so now there was no turning back.
In a mansion at the county town.
A man and a woman cuddled together, caressing each other while sipping wine from their delicate goblets. The man laid back leisurely and carefree, but the woman seemed a bit nervous, looking expectant of something.
"Hello? How is everything going?" the woman dialled on her communicator.
"That man is dead. He has become a pile of ash along with the car. Pity him… but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who matches the description of that "master-hand" whom you’d believed to have been helping him all this time, so our team is still waiting for him to show himself."
This report made the woman even more uneasy.
"Stay focused… Kill him on sight!" Her voice wavered terribly.
"Roger!"
The call ended.
"It’s all going to be alright, Wan Qing. What an easy task it is for them to accomplish. Don’t panic. Sit," the man calmly said as he took another sip of wine.
The man had a charming countenance. He looked like a gentleman of scholarly bearing. His behavior was gentle and courteous, and his voice was the epitome of grace and charms.
"You always put things that easy, Mu. But what I’ve done was taboo to say the least. What if Lin Naoi learns about…" Wan Qing’s face turned pale.
"Don’t worry. Let her know it, so what? Her family isn’t the only one in charge of Deity. The family of Mu is also an indispensable part of this empire. Furthermore, you are her best friend and her right hand. In just a few weeks, your sister will be married to her uncle, so what’s there to be worried about? Even if she knows it, what will she do? I don’t think that even a word of accusation will come out of that timid mouth of hers," the man lightly said.
"Speaking of this, I think I have to remind you that all began because I wanted to help you out. But do you think you can take us out of this sticky situation now?" Wan Qing asked.
"Take it easy, my girl. No one will ever learn about this. Those underlings from Bodhi Biogenetics are clashing with our men in the area where that bratty kid lives, so some accidental casualties of the innocent are expected… We can then blame Bodhi Biogenetics for that kid’s death," the young man calmly said.
Then, he shook his head. "In fact, I never wanted to kill him. All I want is to teach him a lesson, then we will see how Lin Naoi will react to this. Your dogged resolution to kill him was certainly something I have never expected…"
"How would I know what exactly was on your mind? I heard that you had assigned your men to stir up some troubles for him. Then, I learnt about the past relationship between him and our Lin Naoi, so I decided to lend you a helping hand… but who would have thought that such a simple intent would evolve to such a morass of troublesome business." Wan Qing was ever so regretful.
One step wrong, everything is wrong. She was bogged down deeper and deeper into the quagmire of troubles, and now she could see no way out of it.
"He is just a shrimp. From what I’ve learnt, there is hardly any chance that he could maintain a meaningful relationship with our Naoi, so I really don’t want any new problems to crop up unexpectedly all thanks to his existence."
The young man was muted by the woman’s words. "What is done is done. You’ve already killed him, so let it be. What we can do is only to make the best of a bad bargain. So, let’s leave out the mistake uncorrected and make the best out of it." The man paused as he took another sip of his wine. "But what about the ‘master-hand’? Killing him will resolve this matter once and for all." A confident smile emerged on the man’s palish face.
"Killing him? Should I remind you that all those I’ve sent forth to kill him were the best of the best, but without any exception, all went missing? So far, I still could not trace their whereabouts, so I can safely say, they all must have met their demise." Wan Qing frowned, looking ever so worried.
"Unless he is as good as the Vajra, otherwise, there stands no chance for him to single-handedly deal with all those people we’ve sent in. They will come back one day, trust me." The man maintained his great composure, still smiling warmly.
"Hope all is well."
"Don’t worry, my dear. All will be well."
Silent like a leopard, Chu Feng nimbly darted through the woods. He could feel the level of danger rising minute by minute. This place felt like an open pocket, open just for him to get ambushed.
By instinct, Chu Feng could tell that a deadly ambush had been set up in the proximity of the area. To him, things seemed to have evolved beyond just another assassination attempt. Their target today was not just the car alone, but also someone else.
"You thought that Chu Feng was someone not worthy of your time, didn’t you? You think he is a weakling, or ‘a despicable ordinary’, so you say. You think the man behind him is the muscle behind the brain, so alright, I think it’s time for me to show myself," Chu Feng viciously said.
Pong!
Soon, he found his first hidden target with his powerful senses. He quietly approached him from behind, then like a strike of lightning, the black blade of his dagger pierced through the air and slit the throat of that oblivious man.
The cruelty of the bloody scene culminated seconds before the man’s death. With only the last bits of consciousness, he turned around in shock and terror. The bloody scene culminated as the dead man turned around in shock and terror, looking at his killer in the eyes before ultimately tumbling into a pool of his own blood.
"I will kill you all. I will kill my way to the county town then back. You asked for a game, so I will give you the game. No one leaves before the game ends." Chu Feng coldly cursed, "So, let’s lose no time and let the game begin!"