Originally, Zhou Zishu was unwilling to interfere in affairs that were not his own. Liu Qianqiao was not a good person either; when he had let her off the previous time, it had already been on behalf of her skills of disguise, which meant that she could have had some affiliation with the previous lord of the Four Seasons Manor. This time, however, he suddenly felt that such a woman who had spent her whole life--up till her moment of death--foolishly waiting for a scumbag should die untouched, if she had to die. There was no need to suffer such humiliation from scoundrels like Huang Daoren.

Until now, Huang Daoren and the other two had never seen Zhou Zishu’s actual face. Upon his sudden emergence, the three of them froze for a moment. Willow Green Grandpa stared at him, and asked, “Who are you?”

Zhou Zishu lifted the corner of his lips in a smile, but did not reply. All of a sudden, he glided over as swiftly as a storm, and picked up Liu Qianqiao’s short sword. There was a blur before Huang Daoren, and then that man was already right in front of him. As he jerked back out of reflex, he felt an alarming chill at the front of his throat. In disbelief, Huang Daoren lowered his head and glanced down--his throat had been slit with the strokes of a ‘ten’[33]!

My throat has split--this was Huang Daoren’s last thought, after which blood from his throat spurted a good few feet. His whole body convulsed once, then toppled with a crash, and he became a dead Daoren.

The tip of his shoe touched the ground lightly, and Zhou Zishu half-spun around, the short sword in his hand still dripping blood. His long hair was carelessly held up with a strip of cloth--at this moment, a few strands of his long hair hung loose, and draped by his cheek. In the light of the dawn, an extremely pale and extremely handsome face looked at Peach Red Grandma and Willow Green Grandpa with the trace of a smile.

Peach Red Grandma and Willow Green Grandpa instinctively took a step backwards.

As though there was no strength in his legs, Zhou Zishu slowly walked over to them. The blood sluiced down the point of the short sword onto his hand, then through the gaps between his fingers, to drip a trail onto the ground.