Auction night, murders and revelations (3)

The moment he saw a knife flying towards him, he unconsciously jumped to the side, withdrew his twinblade from the spatial ring and rushed towards his opponent, using nature energy to propel him.

A tenth of a second later, Long Ming performed a vertical slash, severing the sides of the entrance to his room, but unfortunately his opponent managed to retreat far enough to avoid his attack.

Soon after, Long Ming came out of his room and started to run to the right, while spinning his twinblade to accumulate Qi in his blades. Soon after, he suddenly rushed towards the opponent, and sent all his Qi towards him.

The opponent seemed to disappear for a moment before suddenly appearing several meters away.

Long Ming began to stare at him coldly, analyzing every aspect of his appearance, as he deduced what his abilities and weaknesses were, as well as formulating a way to neutralize him.

She looked like a woman, but huge bangs hid most of her face, and she wore sparse clothing, making it difficult to tell whether she had a feminine or masculine silhouette. In her hand were two knives, but Long Ming theorized that her main weapons were throwable weapons hidden in her clothes.

'it must be the killer from before', Long Ming thought. Then, he closed his eyes, and in the next instant, he advanced towards her.

Upon noticing Long Ming's approach, the woman threw one of the knives towards her and, after Long Ming dodged it easily, she made a small gesture with her fingers.

Before he could understand the meaning of those gestures, he caught a glimpse of that knife changing direction and heading towards her. Quickly, he took a long leap, reaching a height of several meters, and spun his body in the air, then directed all the wind into the soles of his feet and propelled himself forward, traveling at the speed of an arrow towards his opponent.

The woman hurriedly threw the other knife towards her, but Long Ming just redirected it with nature energy and continued quickly heading towards her. A tenth of a second later, she was within range of his blade, so he made a powerful diagonal cut towards her shoulder.

Soon, his weapon blade got stuck in the woman's shoulder but, to his surprise, she took advantage of this to approach him and stab him with the tips of her fingers towards his face.

Her fingers passed across the corner of Long Ming's face, creating a long tear on his cheek. But he managed to turn his face enough to not make this wound too lethal and removed his twinblade from the woman's shoulder.

Within moments, the woman's entire clothes began to be stained with her blood, but she didn't care about it and began a hand-to-hand fight with Long Ming.

Long Ming had an awkward posture for fighting at such a short distance, and the woman took advantage of this to pressure him and prevent him from adjusting. He tried to use his footwork to avoid the woman's blows, but she proved to be an extremely competent fighter, and in addition, each of her blows seemed reinforced with Qi, making them quite strong.

After long seconds, Long Ming finally managed to redirect the wind towards her, moving her away a little, and managing to readjust himself.

'an assassin skilled in hand-to-hand combat and who shows no pain when having her shoulder cut off. She must be experienced and very well trained', he concluded, taking advantage of this short time to reflect on this fight. At this moment, her clothes were dirty and there were several bruises around her body, the result of this woman's powerful blows.

The woman quickly ran towards her, but this time Long Ming was prepared and directed the surrounding Qi towards her feet, causing her to stumble slightly, and performed a series of slashes towards her.

She tried to dodge the cuts, but if she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, Long Ming was even more skilled at pressuring an opponent using his twinblade.

Within seconds, several cuts appeared around her body, making her appearance extremely pitiful. But just as he was about to make another vertical cut, she suddenly gestured with her fingers and the two knives abruptly flew towards both sides of Long Ming.

In an unnoticeable period of time, Long Ming decided to take a risk on that strike and applied even more strength to his movements, while allowing the two knives to pierce her body.

"argh!", the two felt immense pain in the next few moments, as Long Ming's twinblade sank even deeper into the woman's shoulder, and Long Ming realized that those knives were not as simple as they looked.

But the woman was the first to recover from her stupor and ran towards Long Ming again, allowing the twinblade to cut even more of her body, then threw a punch with all her strength into his chest. Long Ming hurriedly dropped his twinblade and used both forearms to defend himself from the blow.

He felt her entire body vibrate because of the blow and he was thrown a few meters before regaining his balance. After that, he spat out all the blood that was in his mouth and looked seriously at the woman.

"you damn... how could a simple peasant at the height of his body be so strong and skilled!?", she screamed in disbelief, his body had several cuts, mainly two cuts on his shoulder that made it possible to see his bones and parts of its organs. But Long Ming wasn't much better, although he looked externally better (despite the multiple bruises and the two knives stuck in his body), his organs were a mess and it was likely that he was having some internal bleeding.

"And why would an elite assassin be so determined to kill a humble peasant?", he asked, trying to mobilize all the energy of nature into his body. At this moment, he closed his eyes, to focus even more on this task, unfortunately, he was unable to perceive what the inside of his body was like through resonance, making it possible to only send as much energy to himself.

After a few tenths of a second, the woman quickly ran towards him, and Long Ming withdrew a sword from his spatial ring.

In a few moments, the two were extremely close again, then the woman gestured with her fingers, removing Long Ming's two knives and causing a considerable amount of blood to come out of his open wounds. But at this very moment, Long Ming seemed to become even faster and slashed diagonally towards the woman, cutting her even more.

Long Ming instinctively closed his eyes and felt the impression of feeling a kind of energy in his body, then, still instinctively, he mobilized this energy throughout his body. This energy seemed to resonate with the energy of nature, and the gold in his eyes became even more powerful.

Soon, he performed several more blows with the sword, making the woman's condition even worse, before she fell to the ground.

"Ahh… are you dead?" Long Ming asked unconsciously, as the golden glow in his eyes disappeared, marking the end of the resonance.

"we will both die," she spoke in response. Before Long Ming could understand what she was trying to say, the woman's body began to swell, and in the next instant, a powerful explosion erupted.

Long Ming felt that death had finally overtaken him, as he helplessly watched the explosion reach his body. For some reason, he seemed relieved and resigned to this death; but just as the explosion seemed about to obliterate his entire body, a mysterious layer of energy appeared around him, completely protecting him from the blast.

'What?', he didn't know how to react, staying still in that same pose.

"you are actually quite interesting. To think that you would be able to face an elite assassin, even if you were just a beginner", a familiar voice suddenly sounded from the keyboard of his room. He turned stiffly and looked in that direction.

"Miss Xie Meng Fei, what are you doing here?", he asked, a little nervous and mentally hoping that his initial idea wouldn't come to fruition.

"heh, it's obvious from your expression that you think I'm here to kill you too, don't you? but don't worry, I actually planned on interfering if it looked like you were going to die. Fortunately, I didn't need to interfere, with the exception of this last one desperate move of this assassin; but I believe I can still consider this as your victory alone", she stated as she descended from the roof and calmly walked towards him.

"Really? Phew...", Long Ming let out a sigh of relief upon discovering that she didn't plan to kill him. Interestingly, his acceptance of death disappeared the moment that explosion went away.

"Anyway the—"

"Old Gao is sleeping soundly, I guaranteed it," she interrupted Long Ming's question as she guessed what he was wanting to ask.

"Don't worry, he's really just sleeping. He'll wake up in a few hours," she added with a small laugh as she noticed that Long Ming stiffened and walked more.

"ahh...do you happen to have a first aid kit", he asked as he noticed your consciousness fading briefly.

Xie Meng Fei didn't speak anything, as she approached him and took out a pill from her robes.

"Swallow," she ordered, then made him swallow that pill the next moment.

Long Ming looked at her with a confused expression, before feeling an overwhelming heat surge throughout her body, causing her severe discomfort.

"relax, this is an excellent recovery pill, so there's no need to worry. Just direct the medicine through your merids... actually just concentrate, let me do that part", she stated calmly as she watched the pained expression and Long Ming's discomfort, as well as the reddish color all over his body.

Long Ming helplessly obeyed, as he really didn't have many things he could do in that state. Then he closed his eyes and began to meditate. Soon after, she stood right behind Long Ming and placed one of her hands on his back.

Moments later, he felt a mysterious energy enter her pores and travel along specific paths inside her. This energy traveled through several paths, but soon arrived at a specific point on her body, close to her navel.

Then, Long Ming felt an intense pain suddenly surge throughout his body. He forcibly suppressed a cry of pain, and continued to meditate; At this moment, he felt another form of energy appear in her body, but this time coming from her stomach and traveling indiscriminately throughout her body.

However, before this energy began to travel disorderly through his body, the other energy (which traveled along those specific paths) began to surround this chaotic energy and direct it to those same paths.

Moments later, he noticed the two energies traveling cyclically through these 'paths' over and over again. He felt his strength return after each 'cycle', and after a few hours his entire body returned to normal.

"good, very good. Fortunately, it seems that you have a good absorption of the effects of the pills", she said in satisfaction, upon noticing Long Ming's condition. At this moment, his wounds had healed, and except for his torn clothing and bloodstains, it was impossible to tell that he had just participated in such a brutal battle.

"Do you know who that assassin was?" Long Ming then asked as he stared at Xie Meng Fei, it was obvious to him that this woman seemed to have some idea of ​​what was going on.

"She should be a recruit from a secret assassination organization that was ordered to kill you. From her skills and cultivation level, she was a rookie who had just finished her basic training," Xie Meng Fei replied sincerely. Long Ming felt that she knew more than just that, but she didn't seem to want to reveal so many things.

"Did you already know that there was a murderer wanting to kill me?", he then questioned, his expression was serious, but lacked murderous intent. After all, he was too weak to even consider killing her; but in the future this could happen.

"yes. More precisely, I knew. I don't think my husband nor those old family guardians know about this event. Since the residence is so large, they are unable to pay attention to every corner, and that assassin was skilled enough to hide from the common guards," she replied.

This seemed logical to Long Ming, as the Wu family would not focus all of their eyes on the guest area, especially when their only guests were two 'ordinary' men, so to speak.

"then you would allow that woman to kill me", he concluded, staring at her.

"If you weren't kind to my daughter, yes. But since you ended up becoming good friends, it was likely that I would help you. Anyway, it doesn't make sense for you to focus on these little details; what matters is that you're alive thanks to to my help. And know that this only happened because it seems that my Ying'er likes you", she spoke seriously. Long Ming felt like he was being stared at by a fierce tiger capable of killing him at any moment, but he decided to let him live, finding him amusing.

"...I see", he sighed in sequence. In fact, that explosion could have killed him if it weren't for her help, so he had no choice but to thank her. Even though this entire situation happened purely because of Xie Meng Fei's permission.

"Do you happen to have any more questions?", she then asked.

"hmm, yes. One last one. Who are you?"

"...Currently I'm just a wife and a hard-working mother," she replied after contemplating for a few seconds. Despite her simple and rather banal answer, Long Ming noticed that there were many more things that she decided to hide.

As he reflected on her response, a kind of mystical wind passed through him and, when he looked ahead, he noticed that there was no one else.

"ahh... it looks like I've become a fisherman in the middle of a storm", he muttered to himself, quite tired. At that moment, the sun was already rising, so he returned to his room and prepared for bed.