Immortality Starts With Generosity

Chen Haoran didn’t have time to finish thinking before he was picked up and slammed against the wall. The assassins pressed hard against his neck, and blood began to trickle.

“Where is she?” His interrogator’s partners swept every nook and cranny of the barren room for any trace of Lan Fen.

Did Lan Fen sneak out again and just coincidentally missed getting ambushed? Was she ever cultivating in here at all? Had she gotten what wanted and left? In the midst of all those wild thoughts, Chen Haoran finally spotted it sitting in the center of the room.

A single gold tael.

One of the assassins spotted it as well and quickly crossed the room to pick it up. Chen Haoran relaxed his body as the assassin suddenly looked up towards the ceiling.

And saw nothing.

Lan Fen struck at that moment. Appearing out of thin air in front of the assassin and thrusting her fingers into his eyes. The man fell back screaming just as his partners began to react. Chen Haoran grabbed the wrist of the assassin in front of him and twisted the knife away to land a powerful knee into his midsection. He fell back and Chen Haoran dove to his fallen sword unsheathing it in a single motion.

Lan Fen rose from a now unmoving body with bloody fingers and rolled under the charge of the second assassin. He didn’t let up and continued to press her with the superior speed and strength of his cultivation level. Lan Fen, despite the vanishing trick, still had not recovered her cultivation and was desperately dodging by the thinnest of margins.

“Lan Fen!” Chen Haoran shouted, and he threw this sword across the room. The assassin casually batted it away with his knife only to stumble back when Lan Fen took the opportunity to land a heavy fist into his throat. The man backed away coughing and swinging wildly while Lan Fen picked up his sword.

Chen Haoran’s relief lasted until the first assassin dashed over to him and he realized he had just thrown his only weapon.

“Lan Fen you better accept that sword!” He yelled as he hastily dodged a knife aimed at his kidney. Chen Haoran reached out again to grab the assassin’s wrist but was neatly avoided and left with a slit palm for his trouble.

“Lan Fen!”

“Are you insane!” She shouted back taking a heavy blow with the flat end of the sword and rolling with the force away from her opponent.

“Keep the sword please!”

“I will shove this sword up your ass!”

Received Hundred-Fold: Mortal Rank Mysterious Watered-Steel Sword

“Works for me,” he said muttered to himself. The first assassin had closed in again and Chen Haoran stepped close and reached out as if to grab him. What he grabbed instead was the hilt of the sword that suddenly appeared in his hand. The assassin was unprepared for Chen Haoran’s follow-up thrust with the ripple-patterned sword piercing his chest. Circulating his qi to the fullest Chen Haoran roared and ran the assassin through penetrating the wall behind him and leaving him pinned upright.

Blood pooled at the assassin’s feet as he gurgled out a final wet exhale. Chen Haoran breathed heavily before a thud from behind startled him. Flipping around he found Lan Fen had somehow stabbed the second assassin in the throat and was now rushing towards him.

“Are you a moron?” She cursed, ripping off the sleeve of her robe and revealing a muscular arm. She wrapped the torn cloth around his bleeding neck. “What sort of idiot throws away their sword!”

“You were weaponless though,” he said. He was sweating profusely and his breathing felt rattled as adrenaline died down.

“And your bright idea was to become weaponless instead?” Lan Fen mercilessly shot down his feeble excuse and ripped off her other sleeve to bind his cut palm.

“I’m sorry I’ve never been in a fight before.” Chen Haoran flushed with burning shame as he reflected on his performance. He didn’t even think to use the Canyon Carving Sword before foolishly getting rid of his sword. Lan Fen at least seemed to know how to fight unarmed. Meanwhile, he couldn’t even use his strongest move.

Chen Haoran fell to the floor after Lan Fen finished binding his wounds. She on the other hand escaped with only minor scratches. After giving him another once over she went to search the assassins' bodies.

Chen Haoran meanwhile had stabilized his breathing and calmed down. He had killed a man but that didn’t bother him much. What really had his hands shaking was how close he was to getting killed, if the reward had come any later then he had no doubt the assassin would have killed him. He couldn’t even blame it on the difference in cultivation, not when Lan Fen still didn’t have any and managed to kill two of them.

On Lan Fen’s side her pat down only turned up empty pockets and she grunted in disgust.

“Who were these guys?” he said.

“Just some Seventh-Layer thugs,” Lan Fen said. “Scum used as hitmen rather than proper assassins, we were lucky they were so weak.”

Chen Haoran looked at her with a blank face. If they were weak then what did that make him? What the hell was Lan Fen’s definition of strong then?

“Why did they come here?” They were clearly here for Lan Fen and were informed enough to know exactly where she was in the estate.

“It doesn’t matter, once I’ve restored my cultivation it will no longer be an issue,” she said. Lan Fen had rested her chin and was staring into the air as she answered him as if having a separate conversation but he could hear the dismissiveness in her tone.

Chen Haoran saw red.

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter!” he yelled. Lan Fen frowned but he didn’t care. “I was ambushed where I thought I was safe. I have a right to know why.”

“Take care Chen Haoran,” Lan Fen warned him. “I have not acted on my suspicions towards you, such as where that sword came from.” She nodded to the blade still pinning the dead assassin to the wall. “Among other things, I would ask that you extend me the same courtesy.”

“My secrets haven’t almost gotten you killed,” he bit back. “I’m not like you. I was thrown into this mess and I would appreciate you not adding more threats to my life.”

“Are you saying I chose to be in this situation?” Lan Fen’s voice was low and threatening. Her golden eyes added to the fierceness of her glare. She was dangerous, that thought had always been wriggling in the back of his mind ever since their wedding night. It only lent credence to his speculations.

“I think you chose to have an ‘accident’,” he said drawing out the word. An accident that completely erased her cultivation without leaving her any permanent injuries or health issues and could be fixed by just cultivating hard? Yeah right. “I think you chose to hide the fact you weren’t crippled from the Lan family.” Lan Fen was one of the best talents in the city by all accounts. Even if there was no familial love the Lan family wouldn’t easily give up an asset like her when she could recover in the future. Which meant they thought she couldn’t. “Excuse me for thinking you chose this too.”

Lan Fen’s face was stone as she silently stared at him. He could be sure that his guesses weren’t far off the mark then if she had no retort.

“I’m not going to ask why you haven’t even reached the First Layer despite all the cultivation resources I’ve gotten you. I’m not going to ask how you hid from the assassins. I won’t even ask what it is that’s making you go to such lengths that you’d risk your life being ruined. All I want to know is why I was almost killed tonight and what I might be killed for in the future.”

Lan Fen finally sighed and craned her neck to look at the ceiling. She rubbed her head and he saw her mouth open and close several times as if she wanted to speak. Eventually, her shoulders slackened and she sighed yet again.

“I am sorry,” she said. “You could have fled and yet you stayed to help me. Dealing with the assassins would have been more difficult without your intervention.” Lan Fen suddenly clasped her hands and bowed to him. “Thank you for fighting by my side.”

“No- I mean, we’re allies after all.” Chen Haoran was slightly flustered. This hadn’t been the response he was expecting at all.

“An ally.” Lan Fen tested the word as if saying it for the first time.

“So do you have any idea why these guys came here?” he said.

“They were most likely here to rob me. No actual enemy of mine would send killers so weak.”

“Rob you?”

Lan Fen pulled out a token made of purple metal with a golden lily engraved on it. “The last time I left the estate I called in a favor owed to me. Whoever is behind those men must have caught wind of it and sent them.”

“And that is?”

Lan Fen smiled, “A very exclusive invitation to a very special auction."