Chapter 8: Touch My Reverse Scale, and You Must Die!

Silent night quickly descended. Qin Ruo stood motionless in place, but his ears twitched slightly as he sensed a faint, almost inaudible breath dozens of meters away.

A shallow smile curled at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were filled with shocking killing intent.

"You reckless fool, daring to come looking for trouble with me."

Xia Fei Xuan, who was playing in the swimming pool, jumped in fright. A piercing scream erupted from the beauty's throat: "Landlord, what's wrong? It's dark!"

Qin Ruo calmly said, "Power outage!"

"Hurry and fix it! I'm scared of the dark!" Xia Fei Xuan's voice trembled with fear. Alone in the massive swimming pool, surrounded by pitch blackness where she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face—girls feared scenes like this the most.

Qin Ruo nodded. In a corner of the villa, a masked man in black held a dagger, his breathing and heartbeat perfectly synchronized. A pair of hawk-like eyes locked tightly on Xia Fei Xuan in the pool ahead, a cruel smile of imminent task completion rising on his lips.

His body was hidden with exquisite skill, as if he'd merged into the night itself.

This was a killer with vast experience. His sensitivity to his surroundings reached an unbelievable level, and his control over his own presence was at a limit ordinary people could scarcely achieve.

Even a mysterious powerhouse like Qin Ruo within five meters of him had been detected.

"Who is it?" The masked man suddenly spoke, his tone laced with surprise and disbelief. For someone to approach him within five meters unnoticed—this world actually had such a master.

"Heh, I should be the one asking you that. Sneaking into my house like a thief—what do you want?" Qin Ruo appeared before him, taking a drag from his cigarette.

"Hmph!" The masked man snorted coldly. His body blurred like a ghost and vanished from the spot.

Qin Ruo's eyes narrowed slightly, inwardly surprised: Didn't expect to run into a pretty skilled killer so soon after returning to China. But he's no match for me. The world-class killers I've offended shouldn't be after me... Could it be Xia Fei Xuan?

Just as Qin Ruo lowered his head in thought, faint footsteps sounded erratically behind him, now close, now far, accompanied by the masked killer's voice, low and sinister: "Kid, I wasn't planning to kill you, but you're begging for death. Fine, I'll grant it—die!"

As his words fell, the dagger in his hand was already less than ten centimeters from Qin Ruo's back—a distance no one could possibly block.

Unfortunately, Qin Ruo didn't dodge. He simply extended a hand calmly and gripped the killer's wrist firmly.

The killer's movement froze instantly. His eyes filled with incredulous terror, his breathing seeming to stop.

"You... you..." The mysterious killer was stunned, unable to believe what was happening.

This seemingly unreliable young man had caught him with one hand. His speed surpassed that of a professional killer like himself and even controlled him—what level of expert was this?!

Qin Ruo's fingers tightened slightly, and the crisp sound of bones cracking rang out. The killer endured the agony without making a sound, but his body began trembling uncontrollably.

Qin Ruo smiled faintly, spun, and kicked him straight into the villa's corner wall. In the next moment, the dagger from the killer's hand was in Qin Ruo's grasp. He lazily placed the blade against the killer's throat and drawled, "Tell me, who sent you?"

The killer sneered through the pain in his wrist. "You're a pro. I admit defeat today—my life's yours. But you think someone in my line of work would spill the client's name?"

Qin Ruo chuckled. "Don't be so sure. I've got a hundred ways to keep you alive but wishing you were dead."

"Then try it!" the killer spat.

Qin Ruo calmly crouched down and sliced off strips of flesh from the killer's arm. The man was tough, not uttering a sound.

Qin Ruo smiled, then pressed his glowing cigarette butt into the fresh, bloody meat. The searing heat made the killer's skin split open. A shrill scream tore from him, echoing amplified in the silent night.

From the distant pool, Xia Fei Xuan called out in fear, "Landlord, what was that sound? Are you still there?"

"Xia, I'm here. No sound—you must've misheard."

"Oh... Is it fixed yet?" Xia Fei Xuan asked.

"Hold on, it's too dark to see." With that, Qin Ruo looked down at the killer who'd passed out from pain. He yanked off the black mask, revealing a face in its thirties.

He searched the man's body thoroughly but found nothing valuable—the killer carried only the dagger.

Examining the dagger, Qin Ruo spotted three or four characters: Shadow Guest! Below it, a golden emblem.

A memory of Shadow Guest flashed in his mind.

If he wasn't wrong, Shadow Guest was China's largest assassin organization, with strictly ranked members taking on all sorts of missions.

Though Qin Ruo had been abroad for years, he was no stranger to major domestic powers.

Looking at the killer sprawled like a dead dog, Qin Ruo snorted coldly. This one was likely a Golden-rank assassin.

He shook his head. He didn't fear trouble, even from a infamous super organization like Shadow Guest.

He'd killed plenty abroad, but back home, he felt less inclined to kill. Yet seeing Xia Fei Xuan in the distance extinguished any hesitation.

She was the first person he'd met upon returning to China, and Qin Ruo admitted he felt something for her. This killer targeting her had touched his reverse scale.

Touch my reverse scale, and you must die!

Without hesitation, Qin Ruo slit the killer's throat effortlessly. He pulled a bottle of black liquid from his pocket and poured it over the corpse.

This was Corpse Dissolving Liquid—as the name implied, it melted bodies without a trace.

Qin Ruo watched calmly as the body dissolved bit by bit from the world, his expression unchanged throughout, accompanied only by his cigarette.

In the time it took to smoke one cigarette, Qin Ruo brushed the dust off himself and stood.

"Landlord, is it done yet?" Xia Fei Xuan's anxious voice came from afar.

"Not yet. Just checked—Zone C has a widespread blackout!"

"What do we do?!"

"Come up yourself."

"I... I can't find the way up!" Xia Fei Xuan was on the verge of tears, unable to see a thing in the darkness.

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Proofreader & Editor: Fat Goose 🪶