Five years.

With his first mission successfully completed, Jiu Meiyu started to change up Yin Long's training somewhat. Most days were still spent training on how to properly work as an unseen assassin or information gatherer, but on days where there were easier missions, he would send Yin Long out along with Lan Yun. Yin Long also didn't neglect his own training or Bai Xiang's training, days quickly turning into weeks and then months.

Yin Long casually walked through the city, following the same path he had walked just about every day for the last three months while training with Jiu Meiyu. His figure heading to the brothel had also become quite commonplace to the people living in the area, so no one raised an eye when he entered the establishment and addressed the proprietress.

"Pleasures of the flesh. I'd like the same room as usual, and is Young Lan Yun available?"

The proprietress smiled sweetly at Yin Long the moment he entered the brothel, he had visited them almost every day recently so she had already become more than used to the orders of this big fish. But today, for the first time in three months, she couldn't supply what he wanted, apologetically shaking her head.

"Sorry, Miss Lan Yun is preparing for someone else right now, but I can give you the room and promise you that she will come there when she is ready."

Yin Long couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in surprise, but Lan Yun was rather popular due to her talents so it couldn't be helped that someone else had got here first. The proprietress allowed Yin Long to head to the room before she returned to her own position, Yin Long quickly opening the secret passage and reaching the underground room. Jiu Meiyu was sitting and reading a book in one of the seating areas, his gaze rising when he noticed Yin Long enter the room.

"Good, you've arrived. Lan Yun has finally hooked a big fish so she'll be absent from our training today. But that's just fine, I'll be teaching you some of the more lethal places to strike, so we don't really need a third person here."

He snapped the book shut and placed it down on the table in front of him before he stood up. He tore off his own robe so that he only stood in his underwear, clearly planning on using his own body to show Yin Long exactly which places should be struck if he wanted to kill his opponent. Yin Long wasn't fazed by Jiu Meiyu's sudden stripping, but one of his eyebrows still rose.

"A big fish?"

For even Jiu Meiyu to talk about it like this, it was clear that the customer she got today was quite a bit different from the ones she usually had. And sure enough, Jiu Meiyu explained it a bit more in a casual manner to show what he meant with a big fish.

"The eldest son of the Sui family from Stone Heart Village has come and placed his offer. It's a pretty tremendous offer for a mere prostitute so your appearance must have made him rather frantic and worried. Lan Yun is going to squeeze any information she can out of him, she's quite good at it so I'm certain that we're going to get our money's worth."

With Jiu Meiyu making things much clearer, there was no way that Yin Long wouldn't understand it. His eyes narrowed for a short second while his hand fondled his chin, but it didn't take long for him to make a decision. He straightforwardly turned around and headed down the same path he had just come from, waving his hand casually when Jiu Meiyu called out to him.

"You..."

"I made my choice, no one else decided it for me. I chose my path."

Jiu Meiyu wanted to call out once more, but he couldn't say anything after he understood the meaning of Yin Long's words, his expression distorting slightly. In the end, he was unable to stop Yin Long from leaving the underground room and returning to the brothel, after which he stepped into the hallway lined with doors leading to rooms used for more intimate encounters.

He slowly walked down the hallway while stretching out his senses, peering into the different rooms until he found the one he was looking forward. He stopped in front of the room and gave the door a few heavy knocks, an annoyed grunt coming from the other side.

The door was quickly pushed open by a black-haired and elegant youth whose upper body was bare. Looking past him, Yin Long could see Lan Yun sitting on the bed in her underwear, she had just been in the process of removing them. The youth spoke up somewhat disgruntedly when he first opened the door, but his tone quickly became milder when he saw who had disturbed him.

"What do you wa... Young Master Lang Yin? Forgive me for being blunt, but could you perhaps wait for an hour or two?"

Lan Yun used her eyes to quickly urge Yin Long to leave so that she could resume her work, this was after all what she had been trained for all along. But Yin Long simply pulled his gaze back and raised it to look at the youth in front of him. He didn't bother saying anything, his fist just suddenly smashed forward and crashed into the youth's chin, rocking his brain and knocking him out. Lan Yun couldn't help but spring up from the bed as the youth fell to the ground, her eyes becoming slightly bloodshot as she looked at Yin Long.

"What are you doing?! Do you have any idea how long Mistress Hua waited for a moment like this?! Do you have any idea how many years of work you just wasted?! How long do you think it will take to find another big fish when news of this spreads?!"

When news came out that the previous person who tried to buy her virginity was knocked out by the Young Master of the Lang clan, who exactly would dare to even approach her with such intentions? Even her normal work would become harder due to this, she couldn't even guess at how hard it would become to gather information in the usual manner. But even with her urgent voice and bloodshot eyes, Yin Long didn't seem moved in the slightest, just casually raising his gaze to look at her.

"I don't, I really don't know. But let me ask you this, am I my mother?"

The calm question immediately caught Lan Yun off-guard, it was one of the last things she had expected to hear in this situation. But Lan Yun had been raised by Lang Hua so she knew her business side well, she knew exactly how Yin Long's mother would have acted.

"You... No, no you are not. Mistress Hua would not have wasted an opportunity like this."

This was an excellent opportunity to get much closer to the Sui family, the family in charge of leading the Stone Heart Village. What's more, the youth he just knocked out was the eldest son of the Sui family, just a bit of appeasing and pleasing could make him spit out plenty of information. Lan Yun knew that Yin Long knew this, yet he still didn't seem to care, shrugging his shoulders.

"She probably wouldn't no. But I did, and do you know why?"

From what he had heard about his mother and how she worked inside the darkness of the clan, she would not have thrown away a chance like this. It was a good chance to increase the hold that their clan had on the families leading the villages that they were in charge of, decreasing the chances of them rebelling in the future.

Lan Yun obviously didn't know why Yin Long had thrown away such a chance and thus shook her head. And in turn, Yin Long asked her the same question he had asked her once before.

"Because I chose it, I decided it. I chose to waste this opportunity, just like I was the one who chose to enter this line of business. Did you?"

It was a very selfish way of acting, he decided to throw away the chance, so he would do it without a care for the consequences. But Lan Yun didn't care much about how selfish it was, she was more focused on trying to answer his question. But while she hesitated and was unsure on how to answer, Yin Long cut her off and gave the answer that she knew was the right one.

"I..."

"No, no you didn't. My mother chose it for you, trained you for it long before you even knew what it meant."

Lan Yun knew that Yin Long was right, of course she did. Everything she did, she did because Lang Hua had trained her for it, trained her to be a good tool for the Lang clan. But she didn't know anything else, she really didn't know any other way to live. And if she admitted that she didn't act of her own will, she was basically admitting that she was just a mindless tool, a fact that no one really wanted to admit. Yin Long simply looked at her complex expression for a few seconds before he continued to talk, making his mindset abundantly clear.

"She probably did the right thing, you have to be somewhat cold-hearted to run the darker side of a clan. But that doesn't mean that I'll do the same, I really don't think I can. I chose this path on my own volition, and I'll kill just about anyone I have to to make sure that Little Huo can run the clan peacefully. All the blood I spill, I will bear on my own hands, because it is a choice I made. Is it selfish to think like this? Damn straight it is. Is it wrong to think like this? Not at all! There's nothing wrong with acting selfish and doing what you want, you just have to live with the consequences. And even if it's selfish and might go against what mother wanted, I have decided that I want you and Jiu Meiyu to only bear things that you yourself have decided to bear, not what others have decided for you."

There was nothing wrong with acting selfish, people were inherently selfish after all. Even things that looked like they were done for others could have been done with selfish intentions, even if that intention was just something as simple as "I don't want this person to suffer." Yin Long knew that his actions right now were going directly against what his mother had worked on, but he couldn't help it.

He wanted to protect his sisters, but to go so far as to turn people into nothing more than tools to do so? He didn't think that he had that strength, he didn't think that he was cold enough to do so. Killing people was far easier, mainly because he basically only killed people he considered enemies. Turning someone unrelated, someone innocent, into a disposable tool was something far harder for him to swallow.

Yin Long's way of seeing things was not suited for someone working in the dark side of a clan, people in that line of work needed to be colder so that they could do whatever they needed to. But he didn't care, nor did he care about Lan Yun's dumbfounded expression, raising his hand and stretching out all his fingers.

"I'll give you five years, five years of life without my mother further training you further, five years to live life in a slightly more normal way. If you after five years still think that this path mother chose is the best, and still believe that you yourself want to go through with these plans, then I won't interfere."

He believed that five years should be enough time for Lan Yun to get rid of some of his mother's influence, it should at least be enough for her to find one or two things she wanted to do for herself. And as long as she could find one or two such things then he was certain that she would be able to act a bit more selfishly rather than just acting like a tool.

Lan Yun maintained her dumbfounded expression as Yin Long bent down and grabbed onto the unconscious youth's throat, dragging him through the hallway. Lan Yun quickly regained her clarity and followed after him, a slight sense of foreboding spawning in her mind.

Yin Long dragged the unconscious man out of the hallway and up the stairs, straight through the main hall of the brothel in front of the dumbfounded expression of the onlookers. He quickly reached the entrance and threw open the doors, the proprietress warily stepping forward.

"Young Master, what are you..."

Yin Long glanced at her for a second before slapping the youth awake, his groggy eyes slowly focusing. The moment he regained his focus, Yin Long flung out his hand and threw the youth out of the brothel, shouting at him in a loud and arrogant voice befitting of a lazy Young Master.

"Now fuck off! I have claimed Lan Yun, so unless I give the go signal, don't even think about laying a hand on her. I'll let you go this time, but if it ever happens again, I'll just let heads roll so that you'll learn."

Lan Yun immediately realized that her sense of foreboding had been correct. He didn't even give her the chance to hide the information, loudly proclaiming it so that it would be impossible to hide. But that was Yin Long's plan, like this it would be far easier to give Lan Yun the five years he had spoken about. Now there wouldn't be too many people having thoughts about her, giving her more peace and time to think about herself.

He clapped his hands after throwing out the youth, turning around again and heading for the set of descending stairs. He acted as if he hadn't done a single thing, beckoning for the once-again dumbfounded Lan Yun to follow him.

"Let's go, there's still far more training to be done."