"If you have the guts, then just kill me!"

Furious from the slap, Tong Tianba whipped his head around and glared at Fang Shuwen.

Fang Shuwen seemed rather exasperated.

"Let me guess, are you about to say I can kill you or cut you up as I please?

"I don’t know why, but I’ve been hearing that a lot lately."

Tong Tianba’s face darkened. He was about to say something more when he saw Fang Shuwen bring his index and middle fingers together. The line instantly and silently appeared.

He raised his hand and tapped, his fingers landing on Tong Tianba’s Qimen Acupoint.

Fang Shuwen had pinched a nerve cluster in his spine, and despite his ox-like strength, Tong Tianba couldn’t move in the slightest, forced to let Fang Shuwen do as he wished.

At first, the touch of the finger didn’t feel like anything special.

A faint pain radiated from the acupoint. His brow furrowed slightly.

"I advise you not to..."

Before he could even say the three words ’waste your energy,’ he felt that initially faint pain suddenly course through his body like a bolt of lightning.

In that same instant, the once-faint ache exploded into ferocious agony!

Until now, Tong Tianba had thought himself fearless of pain.

He had practiced his Horizontal Training Kungfu from the ground up. While not as extreme as the Cyan Corpse Record, it still required him to constantly temper his body, breaking it down to build it back stronger.

The end result was becoming impervious to blades and spears.

Therefore, reaching his current level of mastery had required enduring immense suffering.

Tong Tianba had long grown accustomed to pain...

But only now did he realize that all the pain he had endured before was merely skin-deep.

Today, this was the kind of ultimate agony that truly made him wish he were dead.

It felt as if a thousand Silver Needles were skittering beneath his skin, seeping into his very marrow. There was no spot that didn’t ache, yet he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the agony.

This tower of a man finally broke, letting out a blood-curdling scream. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Fang Shuwen silently channeled the line, analyzing the results.

Aided by his threefold increase in comprehension, he was already gaining new insights into this Technique.

If Tong Tianba had been a weakling, Fang Shuwen wouldn’t have had the chance to experiment... but the man was tough, stubbornly refusing to talk. This gave him the perfect opportunity to test the Technique again.

Most importantly, Tong Tianba’s physical constitution was extraordinary, far beyond that of Zhang Fang and the others.

His higher pain tolerance gave Fang Shuwen more opportunities to gain insight. He even began experimenting with using the North Nether Divine Technique to enhance the line’s power.

Tong Tianba wailed for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea before he began to convulse, with trickles of blood seeping from his seven orifices.

He was far more resilient than Zhang Fang and the others.

It wasn’t just because Tong Tianba had a robust constitution. More importantly, Fang Shuwen’s command of the line had progressed in that short span of time.

However, looking at Tong Tianba’s wretched state, Fang Shuwen withdrew his hand with a touch of regret.

The pain receded like the tide. When Tong Tianba looked into Fang Shuwen’s eyes again, all traces of defiance were gone. In the time it had taken to drink a cup of tea, an intense fear had been etched into his very marrow.

"Speak. Why were you trying to kill those two?"

Fang Shuwen gestured toward the master and servant who were being protected in the center of the Lu’an Escort Agency’s formation.

Tong Tianba took a deep breath.

"Master Si gave the order... I don’t know the reason."

Lu Guiyan’s expression soured at his words.

"Do you... know their background?"

What she wanted to know was how the Fierce Tiger Gang had the audacity to make a move on friends from Flying Snow City.

Tong Tianba shook his head.

"That’s not important."

For the men of the Fierce Tiger Gang, killing was a daily affair.

It didn’t matter who the master and servant were. What mattered was that they were the ones Master Qin Si wanted dead.

For them, that was enough.

Fang Shuwen raised an eyebrow slightly.

"How did you know we would pass through here tonight?"

Tong Tianba let out a breath, his gaze sweeping across the members of the Lu’an Escort Agency.

Sun Qian’s face changed slightly. The moment Tong Tianba’s gaze landed on him, he suddenly turned and ran.

But he had barely taken three steps before a fist flew at his face.

Four Seas Dragon Fist!

The attacker was, of course, Mo Beidou.

Sun Qian wasn’t afraid of Mo Beidou. Ordinarily, they would have been evenly matched.

But things were different now.

This junior martial brother of Mo Beidou’s was simply too terrifying.

’Even Tong Tianba was no match for him. Compared to him, I’m nothing.’

Thus, he had no intention of fighting Mo Beidou. He just sidestepped, hoping to slip past him.

But this move only created a massive opening.

Mo Beidou shifted from a fist to a claw. With a quick hook and lock of the Plum Blossom Scattering Hand, he seized Sun Qian’s shoulder, then stepped forward and flung him to the ground.

Thrown off balance, Sun Qian landed hard on his backside.

He tried to stand, but a cold sensation touched his neck. He looked up and met the eyes of Lu Guiyan.

Resting on his neck was none other than Lu Guiyan’s Yanling Saber.

Lu Guiyan wore a complex expression.

"Darts Leader Sun, it really was you... But why?"

Sun Qian glanced at the blade on his neck, knowing there was no hope of getting away with it.

"You were already suspicious of me, weren’t you? Otherwise, why would you have given that task to Old Mo?"

"If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry and exposed myself."

Glancing at the blade on his neck, Sun Qian gave a reckless, cornered smile.

"What else could it be for?

"For silver, of course.

"Someone offered me three thousand taels of silver to sell this escort’s route to the Fierce Tiger Gang.

"Why wouldn’t I take it?"

Fang Shuwen’s eyelids lifted slightly.

"This person you’re talking about, they aren’t from the Fierce Tiger Gang?"

"Probably not."

Sun Qian glanced at Fang Shuwen, a flash of fear in his eyes. He grit his teeth and said:

"Don’t use that method on me. It’s come to this, I know I won’t live. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.

"I don’t know who that person was. When he told me about this, the Young Chief of the Escort had just taken this job. We were still in Julu City and hadn’t set out yet."

Lu Guiyan sighed.

"So that’s why the Fierce Tiger Gang set up an ambush along our route?

"But... if that’s the case, why didn’t you tell the Fierce Tiger Gang our location when we were in Guangning City?"

"...Because you were about to die!!"

Sun Qian looked at Lu Guiyan.

"If you had died, the job would have been a bust.

"I had already planned my escape route. I would leave the Lu’an Escort Agency, take that three thousand taels of silver, and I could go anywhere and live a good life.

"I was sick and tired of this life, licking blood from a blade’s edge, never knowing if I’d see tomorrow...

"I, I just wanted... wanted to live a good life, that’s all."

His voice gradually took on a mournful whine.

However, the next moment, Mo Beidou’s huge fist had already smashed into his face.

"You bastard, you want to live a good life?

"And for that you’d betray the Young Chief of the Escort?

"She’s so young... she’s the Chief of the Escort’s only daughter! How could you be so heartless?"

A few young Porters came over to pull Mo Beidou away, worried he might beat Sun Qian to death.

Fang Shuwen, however, looked at Tong Tianba.

"Do you know about the things he mentioned?"

Tong Tianba shook his head.

"I only know that he secretly sent us a message this evening. He didn’t tell us your location in Guangning City, just that... you would be passing through here.

"As for anything else, I know nothing."