Chapter 79: A Ruthless Kill

“Who told you that?” Lin Xiaosu said.

Liu Yuanchang slowly bent forward. “I believe that with your abilities, you really can uncover the truth behind the old locust-tree hollow incident, and really can bring turmoil to my Liu family.”

“That’s the truth,” Lin Xiaosu said.

“Pity you still trust the law too much.”

“What do you mean?” Lin Xiaosu fixed him with a stare.

“Since you’ve let me see how capable you are, do you really think I’d let you walk out of the Liu family alive?”

“You’d dare kill to silence me?” Lin Xiaosu’s whole body jolted.

“Heh. Kill to silence you. In your dictionary, isn’t that one of the Liu family’s favorite methods? Killing two of the Zhou family is killing; killing all of you is also killing. What’s so remarkable about adding three more bodies?”

A voice came from the doorway. “These two women can also be left alive for now. Aren’t you very interested in what happened in the locust-tree hollow back then? I can break your limbs, then rape these two women in front of you!”

It was Liu Liang.

Beside him stood another man, crew-cut, Liu Zhe, the second son of the Liu family.

The three Liu brothers were all present; the head of the Liu family was seated there; and the eleven most loyal core members of the Liu family were all in the courtyard.

Zhou Xi felt a chill run down her back.

Was this... part of your plan?

You had already figured Liu Yuanchang would move directly to seize the evidence—but did you also anticipate that they would dare to kill to silence everyone?

And that they would do it while stirring up those memories of the locust-tree hollow, memories that made her bones tremble?

If Miao Ruolan could not hold them off, what Liu Liang had said was entirely possible: break their limbs, rape her and Miao Ruolan, end their lives in the most humiliating way possible, then flatten the corpses with a bulldozer...

She did not even dare go on thinking.

Whoosh.

The light in the living room seemed to dim all at once.

A fist suddenly blasted out toward Miao Ruolan. Liu Junch, the eldest of the Liu family, had made his move.

Throughout it all, he had said nothing, arms folded, seeming like an outsider.

But now he struck, his fist carrying wind and thunder, going straight for Miao Ruolan, because she was the only obstacle the other side had set.

The fist rose; Miao Ruolan sprang up at once.

Five inches from her, she raised a hand and struck out with a wooden staff.

Boom.

Staff and fist met head-on. The staff shattered into splinters, and the fist withdrew.

A pained expression crossed Liu Junch’s face.

The backrest of the sofa behind Miao Ruolan vanished.

She had snapped it off and used it as her first strike. Regrettably, though the blow landed true, it still failed to break Liu Junch’s hand, and instead provoked an even fiercer second fist.

As that fist came out, it seemed a gale had swept through the room.

At the center of that gale was Miao Ruolan’s head.

She tapped the floor with her toe and somehow vaulted over the sofa, then kicked out in midair, striking the fist squarely.

With a thunderous crash, Liu Junch was driven back five meters, while Miao Ruolan also retreated three.

The Liu family’s foremost expert, apart from Liu Yuanchang himself, had gone head-to-head with Miao Ruolan and still gained no advantage at all.

“Second brother! Go!” Liu Junch shouted.

He attacked from the left, Liu Zhe from the right.

Miao Ruolan turned like a butterfly flitting through flowers, slipping past their pincer attack. Then, with a sudden kick so exquisite it seemed beyond comprehension, she sent Liu Zhe flying out of the hall.

Boom.

Her raised right leg met Liu Junch’s fist again in a hard collision. As usual, he was forced back, while she herself slammed into the wall behind her.

The instant Miao Ruolan gathered strength at her waist and sprang up...

A fist, swift as lightning and fierce as thunder, came straight at her.

She could only see the ferocious face behind that fist, and there was no way to avoid the thunderous blow.

Liu Yuanchang.

He had personally moved.

His timing was ruthless and exact. The choice of moment was equally precise: Miao Ruolan, holding off two masters by herself, had already exhausted her first force while her second had yet to form. How could she possibly block Liu Yuanchang’s full-power strike?

Just as despair flooded Miao Ruolan’s heart...

Suddenly, a tremendous force struck her, throwing her involuntarily to the left.

Liu Yuanchang’s fist hammered heavily into the wall.

With a sharp crack, the beams trembled, and a long fissure appeared in the wall.

A reinforced concrete wall, and he had actually punched a crack into it.

If that fist had struck Miao Ruolan’s head, her entire skull would have been smashed to pulp.

The house shook; the chandelier swayed violently.

Everyone froze for a moment...

No one knew when Lin Xiaosu had appeared before that wall, standing face-to-face with Liu Yuanchang, while Miao Ruolan was beside him. It was he who had stepped in at the critical instant and pulled her aside.

Liu Yuanchang stared at the suddenly appeared Lin Xiaosu, his eyes full of shock.

Others did not know how Lin Xiaosu had appeared, but how could he not?

That speed was beyond human.

The strange tales of investigations solved by the Phoenix City Detective Office that everyone liked to spread around absolutely did not include Lin Xiaosu’s skill.

He was a local, and had always been an ordinary man. How could he possibly possess such swift footwork?

Could it be that he had secretly trained in ancient martial arts as well?

But that made no sense at all. If he had trained, it could only have been Miao-family ancient martial arts, and the greatest flaw of Miao-family ancient martial arts was that the entry barrier was absurdly difficult. How could he have mastered it in such a short time?

Lin Xiaosu smiled. “Liu Yuanchang, you fell for it.”

“Fell for it?”

“Do you think I came into your Liu family just to analyze the case? To show off how clever I am?” Lin Xiaosu said. “There was only one real purpose: to stir your killing intent and make you strike with everything you had!”

Liu Yuanchang’s pupils contracted violently.

Lin Xiaosu went on, “That fist of yours is no weaker than the eight palms you used against the Zhou family. With a professional instrument to monitor it, one can calculate the force of your punches and palms, and the damage done to the bricks inside this wall. Combine that with the bricks I brought out from the Zhou residence for comparison, and the evidence proving you killed the Zhou elders forms a perfect closed loop!”

Everyone in the Liu family’s eyelids jumped.

Cold sweat seeped out across their backs.

Even someone ignorant of forensic investigation could feel how dangerous Lin Xiaosu’s words were.

It was ironclad evidence, mountain-high and inescapable.

Liu Yuanchang slowly lifted his gaze. “Pity you forgot that today, you are not getting out of here.”

Inside and outside the hall, everyone’s nerves tensed at once.

“Kill them. Leave no one alive!” Liu Yuanchang said in a low voice.

Everyone rushed forward together...

“Idiots,” Lin Xiaosu said only two words.

Before him rose a mountain of shadow.

A huge fist came straight at him. Liu Yuanchang had turned his attack on Lin Xiaosu.

The fist was about to land, and Lin Xiaosu did not dodge.

His right hand shot up as well, another fist.

Boom.

The two fists collided!

Liu Yuanchang’s face twisted violently.

His arm’s meridians had been damaged!

Lin Xiaosu’s fist was the same one he had used to kill the poisonous lizard man. The lizard man’s scale armor was so hard it could barely be pierced, bullets on it were like scratching an itch, but when Lin Xiaosu punched, he penetrated the skin and struck straight to the core. Against such invulnerable genetic beings, he was even more efficient than dragon scales.

Today was the first time he had used it on a martial artist. It could not destroy bones protected by inner force, but it did shred the meridians in his arm.

Lin Xiaosu’s expression also changed.

The force behind Liu Yuanchang’s punch was terrifying. Without experiencing it firsthand, one could never imagine such a bizarre power.

The fist itself was immensely strong.

But that was by no means the whole of it.

It seemed to carry a tearing inner force, as though countless streams of qi, like drilling cones, surged up his arm the moment they met Lin Xiaosu’s fist. Yet Lin Xiaosu’s own singular nature came fully into play: every meridian in his hand had already been opened, including the microscopic channels invisible to the naked eye, and these tiny pathways were half opened as well. Once they were unsealed, they formed an intricate maze within the arm. The tearing true qi plunged into that maze, filling it, and in the process silently dissipating its own impact.

For an instant, he even felt the arm brimming with true qi, its strength increasing further.

Whoosh.

Liu Yuanchang’s left fist struck again, from an extremely treacherous angle.

It was about to hit Lin Xiaosu’s chin.

Suddenly, Lin Xiaosu shifted aside and struck out with another punch, hitting true once more.

This time Liu Yuanchang let out a scream; his left arm was violently broken.

But as the current inheritor of the Liu family’s ancient martial tradition, and with fifty years of cultivation behind him, how could he be ordinary?

Even with one arm broken, his legs remained killing weapons.

With a whoosh, both legs came whirling through the air like a windmill. This was really not an attack one would expect in modern society...

Unfortunately, Lin Xiaosu’s reactions again exceeded his expectations. He slipped aside to avoid the edge of the attack, then kicked Liu Yuanchang flying. In the next instant, he suddenly appeared along Liu Yuanchang’s flight path and sent out his right fist with full force.

That punch landed squarely on Liu Yuanchang’s back.

With a crack, Liu Yuanchang’s entire spine shattered into dust and debris, and the nerves along it turned naturally into a pool of rotten sludge.

On the other side, Liu Junch and Liu Zhe joined forces against Miao Ruolan. Their family’s ancient martial arts were heavy and forceful; no matter who took a hit, it would be disastrous. Unfortunately, Miao Ruolan’s greatest strength was her agile footwork. No matter how fierce the technique, if it could not land, it was useless. Her occasional counterattacks were exquisitely refined, leaving the two Liu masters unable to even touch a single hair on her head after all that time.

Instead, she had kicked them several times.

As for the others who tried to rush in and help, Liu Liang had just entered before Miao Ruolan kicked him right back out. A dignified inheritor of ancient martial arts could not even get into his own hall.

The other underlings, knives and daggers flashing in their hands, could only shout and cheer.

Liu Junch fought himself into a frenzy. Raising a hand, he drew a dagger...

At that very moment, he suddenly froze. Why was his father lying on the floor?

A blur flashed beside him, and Lin Xiaosu appeared.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Liu Junch stabbed with the dagger. The newly appeared Lin Xiaosu vanished once more. Just as Liu Junch’s heart turned cold, there was a thud behind him. His eyes widened, and he slowly slid down the wall.

Liu Zhe was shocked. “Big brother...”

Thud.

A foot struck Liu Zhe precisely. It was Miao Ruolan’s foot. Liu Zhe was sent flying backward, hurtling toward the wall. Just as he was about to crash into it, a fist seemed to materialize in the air and smash into his back.

Liu Zhe slid down into a heap of dead mud.

Liu Liang finally managed to enter the hall, and the gang of underlings behind him surged in with fierce momentum. But everyone was dumbfounded. The three masters of the Liu family were all sprawled like rotten sludge.

Liu Liang, this libertine who had run roughshod over the countryside and treated the laws of the world as nothing, felt ice-cold terror in his heart at that moment...

“Liu Liang, I hear you’re very fond of beds. Congratulations. You’ll spend the rest of your life in one.”

As Lin Xiaosu’s voice fell, he was already at his side. His fist rose, and Liu Liang’s spine was destroyed, his nerves snapped to pieces.

The underlings all went deathly pale at once, the daggers and blades in their hands trembling violently...