52: What is this? This is slaughter!

Lu Xiaofeng, seeing the atmosphere about to collapse, immediately leaned out halfway from behind Lu Jiuyuan, a smile on his face:

"Oh dear, Three Friends of Winter, calm down! Calm down! My brother here might have a bad temper and a sharp tongue, but that's just his straightforward nature. You three Seniors are magnanimous, don't take offense!"

As he spoke, he subtly moved half a step forward, positioning himself precisely between Lu Jiuyuan and the carriage, acting as a human buffer.

"Lu knows that this matter concerns your sect's sacred object and Young Lord's blood feud, it's of great importance and absolutely no laughing matter!"

"Entering Listening to the Waves Garden just now was not to escape, but to ask Old Nine for help."

"Now that Old Nine has been brought out, I will definitely exert my full strength to help you three Seniors retrieve the rakshasa token, uncover the truth, clear my own name, and give your sect an explanation!"

Lu Xiaofeng spoke earnestly, patting his chest in assurance.

They, the Three Friends of Winter, still trusted Lu Xiaofeng’s reputation. If there was still one person in Jianghu who could retrieve the rakshasa token, then that person must be Lu Xiaofeng.

"This is the capital! The East Factory's lackeys are nearby. They have the numbers, the advantage is theirs, not ours!" Han Mei whispered through a sound transmission.

Ku Zhu's chest heaved a few times, forcefully suppressing his surging Qi and the feeling of humiliation.

"Good!" Ku Zhu squeezed the word from between his teeth, "Lu Xiaofeng keeps his word, we believe everything you say. However, to give an explanation to the sect, we must follow you!"

"Old Nine, these three cannot be killed, but the tracking Yin Child and his companions, they can be killed!" Lu Xiaofeng suddenly said:

"Yin Child... I remember him now!" Lu Jiuyuan nodded. Yin Child’s original name was Yin and Yang Child, a hermaphrodite.

He was inherently cruel and lecherous, most fond of deflowering women. After Sikong Zhaixing encountered him, he plucked out half of his eyes and half of his face, and also removed all of his male parts.

From then on, he transformed from Yin and Yang Child into Yin Child.

However, even though this beast was only half of what he used to be, his nature had not changed at all.

After he could no longer deflower women, he grew fond of torturing and killing young girls. Wherever he went, given any time, he would always torture and kill a few for fun.

Over so many years, there's no telling how many he had already killed!

He hadn't thought of him before, but now, hearing Lu Xiaofeng mention Yin Child, the image of this beast suddenly became clear in his mind.

Before his voice faded, Lu Jiuyuan's figure had already vanished!

He streaked over a dozen zhang. One moment he was standing in front of Lu Xiaofeng, the next, he had appeared ten zhang away to the left of the carriage, in a seemingly empty shadow of a wall corner!

"Pfft—!"

Sword light erupted!

Colder than ice, sharper than wind!

The sound of the Guhong Sword unsheathing was so brief it was almost nonexistent. That killing cold light, condensed to its extreme, had already pierced like a venomous Dragon towards a slightly raised snowdrift in the shadow of the wall corner!

Fast! Pure! Without any fancy moves, only the most lethal penetration!

"Urgh ah—!"

A scream, so shrill it sounded inhuman, suddenly tore through the silence of the winter night!

A short, hunched, half-faced monster was directly impaled and hung on the sword.

Blood splattered on the ground like spilled ink, a shocking sight.

That person was none other than Yin Child!

Half of his face was contorted into a terrifying grimace, his sole remaining eye was now wide with extreme pain and disbelief, staring fixedly at Lu Jiuyuan.

Through his neck and chest, a bloody hole was visible from front to back!

His heart, along with part of his lungs, had been completely shredded by the Sword Qi!

He hadn't even seen how the opponent had drawn his sword!

He only felt a blur before his eyes, followed by an indescribable sharp pain and coldness in his chest, and all his strength was instantly drained.

Damn it, you guys are chatting over there, and I'm honestly squatting here, why would you come over and kill me?

"You... you... I... didn't provoke... you ah..." Yin Child's throat rattled, gushing out a large amount of bloody foam. That

sole eye stared fixedly at Lu Jiuyuan, who had appeared before him like a ghost, filled with venomous hatred, fear, and a touch of absurdity.

I'm just honestly squatting here monitoring Lu Xiaofeng, what does that have to do with you?

You, this grandson, went aggressively to trouble the Three Friends of Winter.

But then you killed me with one sword.

"Pest!"

Lu Jiuyuan's face was devoid of expression, his gaze colder than an autumn wind.

He didn't even spare Yin Child another glance, as if he had merely casually crushed an annoying pest.

With a slight flick of his wrist, the sticky blood beads on the Guhong Sword were shaken off, splattering into several tiny red Han Mei on the ground.

The sword body was as clean as new, unstained.

"Thump!"

Yin Child's corpse slumped softly to the ground, his wide, single eye staring blankly at the hazy sky.

The entire process, from Lu Jiuyuan's disappearance to Yin Child's death, happened in the blink of an eye!

So fast that the Three Friends of Winter in the carriage, whose anger had just flared due to Lu Jiuyuan's "scram" command, had not yet subsided before they were completely frozen by this bloody, swift, and mind-boggling sword strike!

Han Mei's hand, stroking his beard, froze in mid-air: "He swept eighteen zhang in a flash, truly like a Shura piercing the sky."

The three exchanged glances:

"If he wants to run, can we stop him?"

"If he assassinates us, can we defend ourselves?"

"If the three of us can't kill him, won't he kill us instead?"

After these three questions in their hearts, they all instantly became obedient.

That was not swordsmanship at all! That was pure slaughter! It was death itself manifesting!

There was no testing, no maneuvering, not even the slightest superfluous movement.

Lock on, draw sword, kill! Clean and decisive to a chilling degree.

"Run!"

After the momentary shock, the remaining six people who had come to monitor with Yin Child scattered like a disturbed nest of rats, frantically scurrying in all directions.

"Want to run?"

His figure flickered, leaving behind an afterimage at his original spot, and he streaked out like a ghost!

"Pfft—!"

The first sword struck at the dark figure under the eaves to the left.

That person had excellent Qinggong, his figure like a swallow, and was about to flip onto the rooftop. But Lu Jiuyuan's sword was even faster!

The Guhong Sword, like a silver lightning bolt, pierced through his throat from bottom to top.

Blood splattered on the green brick wall, and the person, without even a chance to scream, fell like a kite with a broken string.

"The second one."

Lu Jiuyuan's voice was cold, devoid of any emotion. He flicked his wrist, shaking off the blood bead from the sword tip, and his figure turned to the right.

There, a burly man wielding two swords was fleeing frantically. Hearing the sound of his companion's death, he looked back in terror, meeting Lu Jiuyuan's murderous eyes.

"Spare me! I..."

"Pfft!"

Sword light flashed, and the burly man's plea for mercy came to an abrupt halt. The Guhong Sword accurately pierced his heart, the sword tip emerging from his back.

As Lu Jiuyuan withdrew his sword, he used the momentum to kick the corpse several zhang away, collapsing a low wall.

"The third one."

He didn't look back, his figure swift as lightning, charging directly towards the scholar at the street corner who wielded a pair of long and short iron swords.

Seeing no escape, the scholar gritted his teeth and turned, pressing the mechanism on his sword hilt. Twelve poisoned fine needles shot towards Lu Jiuyuan like a rainstorm!

"Petty tricks."

Lu Jiuyuan's sword momentum did not diminish. The Guhong Sword drew a silver light curtain in front of him.

"Clink, clink, clink" a series of crisp sounds. All the poisoned needles were struck down. The next moment, the sword light had already pushed aside the scholar's twin swords and pierced his glabella!

"The fourth one."

The scholar's eyes widened, looking at the long sword embedded in his forehead in disbelief, and slowly fell.

The remaining two had fled over a hundred paces away, one to the east, one to the west.

Lu Jiuyuan snorted coldly. Holding his sword in his right hand, he streaked eighteen zhang to the west. His left hand brushed his waist, and an embroidered needle was already launched.

The person fleeing to the west stiffened and fell to the ground.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Jiuyuan's figure, swift as an arrow, pursued the last person.

That person, hearing the wind behind him, turned back in despair. It was a beautiful woman. Tears welled in her eyes, looking pitiful:

"Young Master, spare..."

"Pfft!"

Sword light flashed, and a thin line appeared on the woman's throat, followed by a gush of blood. She clutched her neck, slowly knelt down, her eyes full of unwillingness.

"The sixth one."

He pulled out a handkerchief from his bosom, wiped the blood from the sword, threw it on the woman's face, then sheathed his sword and turned to walk back to the carriage.

The entire process took only about ten breaths. The Liao Five Heroes and the Green-Eyed Fox, six first-rate Jianghu experts, thus became six corpses.

The Three Friends of Winter watched with pounding hearts and tingling scalps.

What was this? This was clearly a massacre!

Lu Jiuyuan stood in front of the carriage, holding his sword, and said to Lu Xiaofeng:

"Now, it's quiet."