Chapter 28: Chapter 28: The Case on the Way Home (First Update)_1
"Whatever the outcome, it has nothing to do with him. If you meddle on your own, don't blame me for embarrassing you," Liu Qianqian said as she began to walk towards the other end of the corridor.
The woman in black left behind watched her retreating figure, her mouth curling into a wry smile. Why couldn't the young miss understand, even if she could win first place in the Alchemist competition, with a Spirit Embryo within her, the family would still not allow her the freedom to marry.
As for that boy called Fang Ren, they should never have met. In the end, the young miss was only adding to her own sorrow for no reason at all.
...
After leaving the teaching building, Fang Ren threw the pieces of his cell phone into a trash can, unable to calm the turmoil in his heart.
If he hadn't accidentally heard about the matters behind Liu Qianqian, he might have never had anything to do with her again. But now that he knew, and the impact of her circumstances on him was so great, it seemed their paths were inevitably intertwined.
At least until he could help her regain the right to choose her marriage, their paths were intertwined.
Fang Ren had always thought Liu Qianqian was just a child from an ordinary family, but over the phone, he could infer from the words of her mother that she was a distinguished lady, and even a name was mentioned for her potential marriage partner—Fang Lizhong.
Fang Lizhong, the second young master of the Tianjiang Fang Family, exceptionally talented among the young generation of Cultivators.
At the age of eighteen, he had entered Zone One's battlefield to resist the invasion of the Void Monsters for an entire year, and after returning from Zone One, his strength became even more enigmatic and unpredictable, with no one yet fully grasping it.
Although women with a Spirit Embryo within them end up marrying geniuses of the current Earth, if the woman's family is of a common status, it's impossible for her to be the legitimate wife of a Cultivation genius; at most, she would be a lover without even a name.
Since Liu Qianqian could marry such a person as his legitimate wife, it also indicated that her family's status was probably not much different from the Tianjiang Fang Family's.
Considering this, the conclusion naturally arose: she was very likely a member of the Tianjiang Liu Family, a giant clan almost the equal of the Tianjiang Fang Family.
The lack of freedom for the children of great families is age-old, unchanging through the centuries.
"First place, huh..."
Fang Ren walked towards the exit of the school, his head lowered as he browsed through the records of past university Alchemy competitions on his cell phone.
The first place of the previous competition was a girl named Lin Ling, who won with a Second-Class Advanced Rejuvenation Pill.
For university students of contemporary Earth, being able to concoct a two-level pill was an impressive feat reserved for the elite from key universities, and those who could produce upper-level two-level elixirs were even rarer.
To this day, there has yet to be anyone who could produce a three-level pill during their university years; no one has ever managed to concoct a three-level pill before the age of twenty-four, including the top Alchemy Grandmasters from Zone One.
Continuing his research, Fang Ren looked up the potential winners among the Alchemy geniuses of this university batch on his phone. After browsing through, he turned off the phone screen, a faint smile curving his lips: "A three-level pill should secure it."
As long as Liu Qianqian wins the championship, she can have the freedom to marry. Although it's already impossible between the two of them, he still wants her to be happy as a friend.
Besides, her refusal might not be because her right to marry freely was obstructed, but rather she never thought of dating him at all, truly feeling nothing for him from the start.
So, there's no need for regrets; the past is in the past.
Fang Ren, who always ran home, today was no exception, except that he was a bit late.
The setting sun had sunk behind the hills of the small city. The street lights on both sides of the road had been lit. The number of vehicles coming and going on the street increased, whether they were headed home or on some errand.
Boom—
"Save me!"
Just as Fang Ren was about to pass a small alley, a loud boom suddenly erupted from within, followed by the desperate screams of a man for help.
Fang Ren had reached the mouth of the alley and, hearing the cries for help, instinctively stopped and turned to look inside.
The alley was misty, with only the surrounding streetlights allowing him to faintly discern the goings-on inside.
Blood, the walls inside the alley were covered in blood, and at the place where the blood was heaviest, a middle-aged man covered in blood was pinned against the wall by a long sword, his face etched with terror as he screamed, kicking violently against the wall in agony.
In front of him stood a woman dressed in black, her body tightly covered revealing only her eyes. She held a sheathed sword in her hand, her gaze cold, utterly frightening.
The middle-aged man, seeing Fang Ren stop at the entrance of the alley, stretched out his hand towards Fang Ren, screaming louder, "Save..."
Swish—
A streak of silver flashed, and before the middle-aged man could fully cry out for help, his eyes bulged, staring blankly ahead as blood began to spurt from his neck.
Upon witnessing this, Fang Ren froze completely, having been nothing but an ordinary student all his life; when had he ever seen such a cruel and bloody murder?
After the woman in black had killed the middle-aged man, her cold eyes turned towards Fang Ren.
At the moment their gazes met, Fang Ren felt a buzzing in his head as the urge to survive compelled him to immediately take steps to flee.
Yet he found himself unable to move his body when it was under the gaze of those eyes, as if controlled by a force, leaving him to stand there dumbly, waiting for the other to slaughter him.
"Master, the target has been killed by me, but the process was witnessed by someone else," the woman in black reported coldly, one hand by her ear.
"Kill them."
As the voice from the earpiece sounded, the woman in black transformed into a shadowy figure, her long sword gleaming like flowing light. Before Fang Ren could even catch her movement, she had already appeared in front of him in an instant.
Clang——
Silver light flashed by Fang Ren's body, and the blade of the long sword finally cleaved into the corner of a wall in the alley, sinking into the concrete like mud, more than half a meter deep, severing the steel rebar inside.
"Assassination complete, all tasks finished," she said, her eyes filled with a cold light as she stood with one hand still by her ear, her voice exceptionally icy.
"Return immediately."
"Yes."
Hum——
The black figure once again turned into a ghostly apparition and vanished from Fang Ren's sight, leaving the surroundings deathly quiet.
It took about twenty seconds before Fang Ren gradually came to his senses. He touched his head in a daze and realized he was unharmed. After checking himself three times, he found that there were indeed no injuries on his body; the woman's sword hadn't struck him at all.
Fang Ren, with a cold sweat on his back, crouched down to feel the marks on the corner of the wall, noting traces that looked like burn marks where the steel rebar had been cut.
If that sword had struck a person, there would be no need to think about it; that person would be sliced into two halves.
Turning his head, Fang Ren immediately left the spot, without any further delay or curiosity.
The stroke of the woman in black was clearly deliberate. Fang Ren didn't understand why she had intentionally reported to the person above that she had killed him, the witness.
Was she a principled assassin who only killed her targets and spared the innocent? Or did she recognize him, someone from his own circle?
The latter seemed absurd and the former somewhat far-fetched, but, after all, the female assassin hadn't killed him. He considered himself lucky.
Upon reaching home, Fang Ren's heart was still filled with an uneasy beat. In that moment when his life was threatened, he couldn't forget just how fragile life could be.
The gap between a mortal and a cultivator was immense. For a cultivator to kill a mortal was as easy as a flick of the wrist, akin to an elephant stepping on an ant.
It was precisely in that instant that Fang Ren suddenly realized how naïve he had been to want to retaliate against those who had framed Sister Hui Qing.
Being so weak, and considering that Sister Hui Qing's family background wasn't ordinary, those who could frame her were surely high-ranking officials on Earth, a meeting with whom was something many people couldn't even dream of in their lifetimes. Talk of revenge against such individuals?
He felt unqualified, and likely would be for his entire life.
With these thoughts, Fang Ren began to contemplate the grey root within him. Could it be a Spiritual Root?
If it were, then he would have the right to discuss those matters.
He might keep a low profile, but he was determined to do his utmost for the things he wanted to achieve, as long as there was a possibility.
"Ah Ran, it seems like something is weighing on your mind."
Seeing Fang Ren lie down on his bed as soon as he entered the room with a frown, Mu Hui, who was sitting at her computer desk, paused her soap opera, turned her head, and spoke.
"Mhm," Fang Ren responded with a nod, frowning.
"Can you tell me about it?" Mu Hui asked.
Fang Ren looked at her and hesitated for a moment, then said, "Today I saw a man... being killed right in front of me. The person who killed him is a cultivator."
"Murder?" Mu Hui looked surprised. "Why would a cultivator kill someone?"
She didn't understand; in her values, shouldn't cultivators be defending humanity? Why would they kill their own kind?
Fang Ren saw her surprise and was puzzled himself. "Isn't it normal for cultivators to kill if there's some kind of grudge or feud?" he asked.
"But even with the biggest grudges, it shouldn't reach the point of taking a life, right?" Mu Hui said, frowning.
After hearing her words, Fang Ren grew more confused and said, "Isn't that a normal occurrence? It happens often in human society."
"Often?" Mu Hui was even more surprised. "Even though they are all humans, why should they kill each other? Shouldn't they unite and resist the Void together?"