Su Yueyuan forced out a smile. “It is our citizens’ fortune, and also the Su family’s fortune, that General Zhao is willing to fight for us.”

At the mention of Qianye, Nighteye smiled faintly. “All he knows is about fighting and killing.”

“That might be so, but the neutral lands are far from peaceful and there’s danger lurking everywhere. Only an expert can ensure the safety of his family.” Su Yueyuan felt that he no longer knew how to talk. His conversation had no substance.

“Only a character like City Lord Su can be called an expert.” Whatever Nighteye said, she made everyone feel as though it was a matter of fact and not intentional praise.

Su Yueyuan had a strange feeling that only an expert like Su Dingqian could leave a mark in her heart.

After chatting a while longer, Su Yueyuan excused himself and left. He was practically fleeing as he exited the courtyard.

Liu Daoming was rus.h.i.+ng over at this moment, looking quite anxious and his every step as quick as the wind. He couldn’t help but become startled upon seeing Su Yueyuan coming out from the compound. “You’re out?”

“Of course.” Su Yueyuan’s brain was still muddled. He glanced back once and confirmed that the courtyard doors were still behind him.

“This… nothing happened, right?” Liu Daoming inquired in due seriousness.

They were currently at war, and Qianye was someone Su Dingqian attached great importance to. If something were to happen at home while he was out fighting—especially when it was related to the city lord—it would cause an uproar among the experts, and no one would be willing to work for the Su family anymore.

These independent experts lived to fight, but they had no concept of loyalty and devotion. If one were to push them out, they would appear in the other faction’s ranks on the battlefield. This was also the reason why Su Dingqian was recruiting so many experts. One more expert recruited meant one less enemy, and this was no small matter.

Seeing Liu Daoming so tense, Su Yueyuan felt somewhat baffled. “I came out after exchanging a couple of words. What could ever happen?”

“All is good then.” Liu Daoming heaved a sigh of relief and refrained from asking why Su Yueyuan had gone to Qianye’s courtyard.

After the man’s departure, Nighteye remained seated in the courtyard, reading a book in great detail. It was almost as though there was no end to this book and that she would continue reading eternally. This was no different from when she was back in the empire.

Within the room, Little Zhuji let out a yawn. She had finally woken up from her sleep but was still feeling a bit groggy. Seemingly sensing something, she sat up abruptly with her hair standing on end!

In a split second, she flipped over and landed on all fours, keeping her body close to the ground in a combat-ready position. Her young spirit felt as though a pair of giant eyes were looking at her. That existence was incomparably lofty and contained a terrifying aura of antiquity. A mere glance was enough to nearly immobilize Zhuji.

At this point, Zhuji was acting half on intelligence and half on instinct. It was precisely this inherent terror that filled her with the urge to run away.

At this moment, Nighteye looked up and said calmly, “Awake?”

The voice roused little Zhuji from her nightmare and dragged her back to reality. She jumped off the bed with an “ah”, wanting to pounce into Nighteye’s arms. Just as she had landed, however, her legs gave way and caused her to fall down. She rolled several times over and couldn’t clamber up for the moment.

With how strong her body was, not to mention falling off her bed, she would be fine even if she jumped off a hundred-meter cliff. Why couldn’t she even stand up?

“What’s wrong?”

“No more strength,” the little fellow said with a bitter expression. Exchanging a glance with those eyes had drained her of all energy.

Nighteye sighed, apparently helpless about her mischief. She walked to Zhuji’s side and lifted her up, saying, “Now you’re fine, right?”

Zhuji was swaying about and seemed as though she would collapse at any moment. She grabbed onto Nighteye’s sleeves and said, “I think I had a nightmare.”

Nighteye crouched down in front of her. “Oh? This is your first nightmare, right? What did you dream off? Tell me.”

Zhuji gave it some thought. “I’ve forgotten.”

“Think harder.”

The la.s.s tried hard to recall what she had dreamt off. After a long while, she said with a sour expression, “I’ve really forgotten.”

“Very well then.” Nighteye got up, but Zhuji pulled her back, saying, “I’m hungry.”

Zhuji had just eaten her fill a day ago. She had already pa.s.sed the phase where she had to eat every day. Recently, a single full meal would usually last her several days, during which she would digest the food and absorb its essence. Her sudden declaration of hunger meant that she had used up most of her energy stores.

Nighteye sighed helplessly and went into the kitchen with a cheerful Zhuji following close behind. There were large pieces of high-quality beast meat piled up in the kitchen. Some of them, Qianye had bought before leaving for battle, while the others were from the small house by the sea.

With Zhuji’s eating habits, just food expenditure alone cost hundreds of gold coins each day. She would devour over ten thousand gold coins worth of food every month. Under normal circ.u.mstances, she alone could gobble up the entire military budget of an expeditionary army division. This little fellow wasn’t someone ordinary people could raise.

Only after returning to his residence and seeing Bluemoon did the tongue-tied Su Yueyuan wake up from his reverie. Everything that had happened just now seemed like a dream. Now that he thought back to it, his actions were all rather odd and completely unlike himself.

“Young n.o.ble Su, is something the matter? You don’t look so good,” Bluemoon inquired.

“No no, it’s nothing. I’m fine, I’m doing very well! You take a rest first, I have some business to attend to.” Su Yueyuan fled after replying thus.

Watching his receding figure, a barely discernible wisp of gloominess emerged in Bluemoon’s eyes.

...

Meanwhile, in the wilderness, Qianye had just taken out a Crystal Spider scouting party. This time, he had no intention of interrogating them—he merely launched a violent ambush and ended the battle in a flash. He then left without even cleaning the battlefield, almost as though he were hiding from someone.

After Qianye’s departure, a grey shadow suddenly appeared in the distance. After the mysterious a.s.sa.s.sin came into being, the defense-specialist knight also materialized out of thin air. The two of them gazed speechlessly in Qianye’s direction.

“What do we do?” the knight asked.

“What else can we do? He never stays anywhere for more than three seconds. At this distance, I won’t hit him even if I manage to take aim. There’s no opportunity at all.” The grey a.s.sa.s.sin’s voice was oddly distorted, fluctuating in volume, and inexplicably uncomfortable to listen to.

The knight said slowly, “He should’ve found us by now.”

“Not necessarily, it looks more like professional caution to me. He himself must be a good sniper because only a sniper will know how to prevent getting sniped.”

“You think he doesn’t know we’re tailing him?”

The grey figure replied calmly, “He shouldn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t have ambushed that scouting party. Even a small opening during the battle would give me the opportunity to fire, and you should know that if I open fire, he only has a fifty percent chance of evading.”

The knight remained silent.

The grey shadow sneered, “Even if we get into a head-on clash, I still have you, right? He can’t break through your defenses. If you can keep him bogged down, I’ll surely find the opportunity to kill him.”

The knight seemed quite confident in his defensive prowess. “Fine, we’ll keep on chasing him. But it’s best if you don’t kill him when you fire. This person is very sharp and might actually be a good candidate for a team member.”

“You’re good at everything except that one thing. In your heart, the organization is more important than anything else!”

“The organization was built from that sire’s sweat and blood.”

“Fine, fine, I won’t argue with you. I’ll be merciful when the time comes.”

The two once again went into hiding and chased after Qianye.

Qianye ambushed yet another scouting party, but things didn’t go all that well this time. This small unit was actually led by a viscount. This viscount was a rare proto-arachne—he had no human upper body and was simply a large spider from head to toe. He had disguised himself as a servspider and only erupted with power after Qianye had charged into their midst. A pair of razor-sharp limbs stabbed at Qianye’s back at lightning speed. The latter did his best to evade but failed to dodge the attack entirely, suffering a slash to the back.

With a m.u.f.fled groan, Qianye spun around and fired. The ma.s.sive firepower of the grade-seven weapon sent the arachne viscount flying, two of his limbs being blown away in the process. Qianye also seemed injured—he turned and fled the battlefield instead of giving chase.

The arachne viscount clambered up and summoned his subordinates to help him dress the wounds. This kind of injury couldn’t be considered lethal, but his combat strength would suffer greatly. He gazed at the direction of Qianye’s departure with eyes full of horror.

Even though Cui Yuanhai’s gun had many deficiencies here and there, firepower was the only thing it wasn’t lacking in. Being shot by this weapon was comparable to a blast from a cannon, something that filled the valiant arachne viscount with dread.

The viscount gave it some thought, and then issued the order to retreat. With the core fighting power of the group injured, the unit’s combat strength would be reduced by half. That was too dangerous during such times. He turned back into a wounded servspider and mixed into the leaving group.

The arachne viscount felt safer and more relaxed after covering over ten kilometers without any mishaps. At this point, a dark grey bullet whistled through the air and drilled into his body, accurately shattering his arachnid nucleus.

The squad didn’t even notice the arachne viscount turning limp, up until he collapsed with a loud boom.

The knight appeared like a specter with the Unbreakable Bulwark in hand. As the origin s.h.i.+eld danced about, its edges turned into terrifying sharp weapons no enemy could block. Flesh and blood flew about in the blink of an eye as the entire Crystal Spider scouting party was wiped out.

The knight didn’t seem all too happy about this impressive accomplishment. The grey figure appeared beside him, saying, “It’s nothing alarming. We’ve already lost him anyway, right?”

The knight patted his hands. It seemed as though he were wiping away some nonexistent bloodstain and producing sounds of grinding metal as he did so. The grey figure couldn’t help but cry out, “Stop! Don’t make that disgusting sound! It’s not my fault that we lost him. That’s your responsibility, okay?”

The knight made no reply. He walked around the battlefield, butchering the surviving people with his s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+eld.

The grey figure seemed ready to compromise. “Fine, let’s forget about this problem. The appointed time is upon us. We had better get to that d.a.m.ned place, I really don’t want to b.u.mp into those things.”

Finally convinced, the knight left with the grey figure.