FID – Chapter 591

Chapter 591: Killing Step by Step

Grandpa Liu let his wife beat him, braced himself, stood up, and helped her to her feet. As they moved in the direction Li Junyue had pointed out, he explained, “In that situation just now, if you had called out and let them realize the person running wasn’t us, Miss Li would have been shot dead immediately.

But being mistaken for us, she at least has a chance to survive. Those men have a purpose for capturing us; they won’t kill us easily until the last moment. If you had stepped out, not only would her sacrifice have been in vain, but all three of us would have been doomed!”

Grandma Liu suddenly remembered—some of those men who passed by earlier were carrying bows and arrows!

Li Junyue had let them escape, and the bandits would never let her go. The bows they carried were meant to kill her!

“We have to hold on! Once we get out, we’ll find help! Zhixia and Nannan must already be searching for us nearby. As long as we meet up with them, maybe we can still make it back in time to save her!”

“Let’s go, right now!” 

With a newfound reason to persevere, Grandma Liu gritted her teeth and took the lead, forcing herself to keep moving forward. No matter how exhausted she was, she didn’t stop, her steps mechanical, driven only by determination.

Meanwhile, Li Junyue was running for her life. 

Her already frail body was at its limit. Her pale lips were bitten open, smeared with blood—she used the pain to keep herself conscious.

She could barely see the road ahead. 

Her vision blurred into a shimmering silver haze, but she pushed forward purely on willpower.

She could not stop. She had to hold on for at least half an hour! 

If she fell now, the two elders would never escape!

Her breathing grew heavier, her heartbeat pounded in her ears, mixing with the chaotic shouts behind her.

Li Junyue had no idea how long she had been running.

The sound of footsteps behind her grew closer. The sky was shifting from black to gray. Soon, as the light improved, they would see more clearly—and realize she was not the two elders.

Not yet.

She couldn’t—could not—fail at the final moment!

She bit down hard again, the sharp pain from her lips jolting her back to clarity. Her vision steadied, and she saw that she was almost at a dead end.

She had two choices.

A cliff—or the path to the right.

If she took the path, she would be heading toward the elders’ escape route.

But if she jumped off the cliff, they would believe the elders had fallen to their deaths—and stop chasing.

Li Junyue closed her eyes. A despairing smile curled at her lips.

With a final burst of strength, she sprinted forward—and threw herself off the edge. Her body tumbled down the steep slope, rolling violently downward.

By the time the pursuers arrived, all they could see was a faint figure still plummeting down below.

“Damn it! They fell off the cliff!”

“How could anyone survive, falling from this height?! They wanted them alive! All that effort for nothing—just for those two old bastards!”

On the cliff, the bandits lingered, unwilling to give up. They held their torches high, scanning the depths below, but saw nothing. Eventually, they cursed and left.

They had ruled this mountain for years and knew the terrain well. No one could survive that fall. What was the point of chasing? To collect a corpse?!

What they didn’t realize was that their fortress was already drowning in blood.

Where the swords of the black-clad figures passed, death followed. The ground was littered with bodies, blood pooling beneath them.

Nearly everyone in the stronghold had been forced to their knees on the other side—too terrified to move.

“I’ll ask one more time—where are they?”

“I—I don’t know! They—escaped—”

Slash—One question. One death.

One step. One kill.

The black-clad figures were like reapers. If the answer wasn’t what they wanted, they didn’t waste words—only cut throats.

Each time someone collapsed, the women in the crowd let out piercing screams, huddling together, afraid to even look.

“We really don’t know anything! All we know is that they escaped! The boss and the others went after them—they couldn’t have gotten far! They should be caught soon, very soon! Please, spare us!”

“Mercy… Please, have mercy! We had nothing to do with this! We were kidnapped and forced to be here! It’s not our fault! Please, don’t kill us!”

Men and women alike screamed, begged, and wept, their voices merging into a chaotic clamor that echoed through the mountain. 

The black-clad figures acted as if they heard nothing.  Or perhaps they were simply tired of the noise—their swords flashed.

Under the dim firelight, the silver blades gleamed cold and merciless.

When the bandit leader and his men returned, all they found was a field of corpses.

And standing before the pile of bodies—

Black-clad assassins!

These were not ordinary people.

A chilling sense of danger gripped the bandits, stopping them in their tracks, forcing them to step back.

“Who… Who are you?!” The bandit leader tried to sound fierce, but his voice wavered.

The lead assassin raised his sword and stepped forward, one slow step at a time. “Where are the two old people?”

The remaining bandits stepped back, their bodies trembling with fear. “G-Gone… They fell off the cliff!”

“Ugh—!”

Another man collapsed, dead before he could even react.

“Who… Who are you people?!”

A man standing nearby suddenly dropped lifelessly to the ground, unable to utter a single word. The sheer terror overwhelmed the remaining bandits, plunging them into complete despair.

They couldn’t understand how everything ended up in such a situation in the blink of an eye!

They couldn’t fight back! They couldn’t escape!

“Who ordered you to kidnap them?”

“W-We don’t know who they were! We only—only noticed they spoke with a capital city accent! Please, let us go! We’ll leave immediately and never return here again! I swear—”

Before the plea was finished, a silver flash cut through the air. The entire stronghold fell silent, with not a single person left alive.

The black-clad assassins vanished into the shadows.

As they disappeared, the first pale streaks of dawn stretched across the sky.

In the yamen, everyone had stayed up the entire night. The soldiers were scouring the entire city, and Qian Wanjin’s men were also operating secretly, but the reports coming in all indicated that no one had been found.

The city had practically been searched three feet down.

“Brother, have people search outside the city!” Liu Yusheng suddenly stood up. “I just thought of something. We’ve been busy recently, and Grandpa and Grandma have always been thinking of making us good food, but food in the city is scarce, and there’s hardly anything good to buy. I suspect they might have gone out of the city!”

After her suggestion, Liu Zhixia’s mind suddenly cleared. “They must have gone to buy wild game!”

In rural households, there’s often nothing to eat except wild vegetables, or they find ways to hunt in the mountains.

When they were young, some people from the village also came to collect wild game. Grandpa and Grandma must have gone outside the city to get some wild game for them!

Qian Wanjin and Shi Xianrou exchanged a glance, stunned. “No wonder Grandpa and Grandma disappeared, there hasn’t been a peep in the city! If they left the city themselves, no one would have noticed!”

“Come here! Pass the order down! Open the city gates immediately and search the nearby villages!”

As soon as Liu Zhixia gave the order, the yamen gatekeeper rushed in, out of breath. “Master, the Elder Master and Madam… a-are back! They’re right outside the door!”

Everyone in the hall stood up and immediately rushed outside!

Liu Yusheng’s heart was pounding in her chest. She ran as fast as she could, nearly reaching the fastest speed of her life. As she reached the yamen entrance, she saw the two unconscious elderly people.

Nearby, there were some servants and maids from the mansion, lifting the two elders.

“What… what happened?” Liu Yusheng rushed forward, grabbing the old lady’s limp hand, trembling as she checked her pulse. 

When she felt the steady beat, tears immediately flooded her eyes.