Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next day, I woke from my sleep to find that my severed ear had been reattached.

When I touched it, I could feel rows of fine stitches, sewn together like a piece of cloth.

Cheng Du had not left.

He handed me a steamed bun. “Cao Wenyuan may still send someone else back to investigate. If you don’t want to die, leave this place as soon as you can.”

I gathered my courage and took Cheng Du’s hand. “Uncle…”

He lowered his eyes. “Do you know how to kill?”

My grip on his hand tightened. “I can learn.”

Cheng Du was not a deathsworn raised by the Cao family.

He was a well-known bounty killer in the underworld.

When he had no assignments, he lived in seclusion deep in the mountains where no one ever went, hiding from enemies seeking revenge and clients who wanted to silence him.

For some reason, the dark, black mosquitoes were especially fond of me. They completely ignored Cheng Du and greedily sucked my blood instead.

On my first day following Cheng Du into the mountains, my face was covered in tiny bumps. Enduring the itching that crawled all over me, I gripped the heavy sword in my hands and followed Cheng Du’s movements, practicing each stroke and stance.

That night, I was so exhausted that I fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, when I opened my eyes, I was grateful to still be alive.

Following a faint, clean fragrance, I stepped out of the wooden hut and saw white smoke drifting through the courtyard.

Cheng Du had lit mugwort to drive away the mosquitoes.

Beside him, porridge was simmering on a small stove, bubbling away.

When Cheng Du saw me come out, he took out a brand-new little bowl and ladled porridge into it.

I was three years old then, and very stupid.

But in that moment, I was certain Cheng Du would not kill me.

Becoming a killer was not an easy thing.

Exceptional martial skill was only the barest foundation.

Cheng Du said I had to read military texts thoroughly and learn how to adapt to circumstances on the fly.

I also had to be wary of others anytime, anywhere.

Wary of clients silencing me. Wary of targets fighting back. Wary of the authorities tracking me down.

Destroying bodies and eliminating traces, disguising my face and compressing my bones, concealing my presence…

Cheng Du was not fond of talking. He always threw a great pile of books at me to read, and I had to memorize them backward and forward, then truly understand and apply them.

Every two or three months, he would leave to carry out an assignment, then bring a corpse back with him.

Little by little, I learned how to peel off skin to make human-skin masks. I also learned how to use poison to dissolve corpses, how to cover the stench of rot with spices, and how to find the places least likely to be discovered and bury bodies nearby.

Most importantly, I came to know the exact positions of the heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys. I understood every vital point and weakness of the human body like the back of my hand.

Even so, Cheng Du still did not acknowledge me and never allowed me to take on an assignment.

Even when I turned eighteen, I had still never killed a single person.

Cheng Du was getting older and older.

He had always looked old to begin with, and as age caught up to him, he seemed even more haggard.

Yet for all the time and money he had spent on me, I had never been able to repay him in the slightest.

I could not help sinking into anxiety. Even in my dreams, I was killing people.

In those dreams, the first person to die beneath my sword had a face exactly like my mother’s.

The one who paid to buy my life was Cao Wenyuan.

But the person I hated most was Shen Yanxue.