Chapter 90: Capturing a Key Witness Alive! Lin Chen's Knife Is Already at the Throat of the Wang Family!

Midnight, East City.

The moon was mostly obscured by a thin layer of clouds. The light in the alleys was just dim enough to hide faces, yet bright enough to distinguish the path underfoot.

Zhou Tie led the way.

The gray hemp short coat he wore was obtained from Liu Buyu of the Logistics Team. His sleeves were rolled up twice, revealing the faint outline of veins on his forearms.

His iron spear was disassembled into three sections.

Wrapped in a cloth bundle on his back, the spear tip was separately bound in oilcloth to prevent reflection.

He Jian followed half a step behind him. He had swapped the long blade at his waist for a narrow short blade, hidden inside his lapel with the hilt facing up, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.

Four other Tongmai Realm core members were split into two groups, one in front and one behind, spaced ten paces apart, moving through the shadows at the base of the walls.

The six men set out from the dark alleys of Chengen Ward, making two eastward turns to avoid the route between Chongren Street and Yongan Lane, which the Wang family guards patrolled every half-hour.

This detour had been scouted by Sun Qi over the course of an entire day. Every blind spot at every corner was marked on paper, precise down to the number of steps.

He Jian lowered his voice.

"Chongan Lane is just ahead."

Zhou Tie raised his hand, and all six men slowed their pace simultaneously. Their boots made almost no sound as they lifted off the stone slabs.

Chongan Lane was a dead end. The entrance was narrow, the end even narrower, and at its deepest point sat No. 7 Courtyard.

It was a two-entry courtyard with walls just over ten feet high, built of gray brick. There were no shards of porcelain or iron caltrops atop the walls; it looked like an ordinary residence.

Zhou Tie crouched at the corner of the lane entrance and peeked inside.

The gate to the front courtyard was ajar, a sliver of dim yellow light leaking through the gap.

A guard leaned against the left side of the doorframe, his head nodding as he dozed. The blade in his hand rested on his knees, its scabbard rubbing against the doorframe with a faint friction.

Another guard paced the courtyard, his boots hitting the stone slabs in a slow rhythm—three steps, then a pause to scan the surroundings, then another three steps.

Both men possessed the aura of the Blood Refining Realm Late Stage, steady and focused, contained within three inches of their bodies.

Zhou Tie opened his palm and made two gestures to He Jian.

He Jian nodded and drew his short blade halfway from his lapel, holding it in a reverse grip with the edge facing down.

Zhou Tie looked back at the four men behind him. His lips didn't move, but his gaze paused on each of their faces in turn.

All four men nodded simultaneously.

Zhou Tie extended three fingers, then folded one, then another.

The moment the last finger retracted, He Jian's figure vanished from the lane entrance.

His movement over the wall was even cleaner than Zhou Tie had expected. His hands gripped the top of the wall, and he vaulted over silently, landing in the shadows at the base of the front courtyard wall. He bent his knees slightly upon impact to absorb the momentum.

He took three steps along the wall and was already behind the dozing guard.

His left hand reached out from the side, fingers clamping the guard's jaw while the base of his palm pressed firmly above the Adam's apple, sealing the vocal cords.

His right hand simultaneously pressed onto the Dazhui Point at the back of the guard's neck. A surge of Middle Stage Tongmai Realm True Qi poured in, grinding down along the spine and forcibly suppressing the Qi and blood that had just begun to stir in the man's Dantian.

The guard's body stiffened for only an instant before going completely limp, collapsing silently to the ground like a sack with its bones removed.

He Jian gagged him with a strip of cloth, pulled his limbs back, and tied the rope with two dead knots.

The whole process took less than four breaths.

At the same time, Zhou Tie vaulted in from the other side of the wall.

He didn't use his spear; the three sections were still wrapped in the bundle on his back. Instead, he pulled out the middle section of the spear shaft that was tied to the side of the bundle.

It was a solid iron rod, a foot and a half long and barely thicker than a fist.

The pacing guard had just reached the center of the courtyard, his back to Zhou Tie, and his foot hadn't even settled on the stone slab.

The iron rod swept out, striking the tibia of his left calf with unerring precision.

The force wasn't massive, but the angle was cunning, hitting the thinnest part of the shin bone.

The guard's knee buckled, and he pitched forward. Just as his mouth opened to cry out, the other end of the iron rod pressed against his heart. True Qi permeated through the rod, suppressing his own True Qi circulation to its lowest point.

"Make a sound and you're dead."

Zhou Tie's voice was right at the back of his head, cold as iron.

The guard lay flat on the stone slabs, his body rigid, even his breathing becoming three times lighter.

He Jian came over and bound him, gagging him and tying his limbs with the same two dead knots.

The front courtyard was cleared.

Zhou Tie signaled toward the wall. Two core members vaulted over to guard the front gate and side door, while the other two remained at the lane entrance to provide support.

He assembled the iron spear, screwing the three sections together and tearing away the oilcloth from the tip. The iron point glinted coldly in the moonlight.

He Jian walked to the door of the main room in the back courtyard, leaning his head against the panel to listen for two breaths.

"Someone's inside. Shallow breathing. Just one."

Zhou Tie nodded, placed his hand on the door bolt, and gave it a gentle push.

The door opened.

An oil lamp was lit inside, its wick burned down to half. The flame was as small as a soybean, casting a dim orange glow over the room.

Zhou Pingan was sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of the room.

His hands were tied to the armrests with thick hemp rope. The knots were tight and dense, and the skin of his wrists was marked with two deep, purplish-red rings from the binding.

His face was deathly pale, his eyes sunken, and the contours of his cheekbones protruded from beneath his flesh. A trail of dried blood ran from the corner of his mouth down to his chin.

Seeing the door open, he recoiled against the back of the chair, the chair legs scraping against the floor with a piercing screech.

"Who... who are you?"

His voice was hoarse, each word rolling in his throat several times before being spat out, carrying the stale air of someone who had been confined for too long.

Zhou Tie walked over, drew a short knife from his waist, and cut the rope on the left hand, then the right.

"We're from the Patrol Division. We're here to save you."

He sheathed the knife and hauled Zhou Pingan up from the chair.

Zhou Pingan's legs were too weak to stand. His knees knocked against the chair legs, and he would have fallen if Zhou Tie hadn't caught him with his elbow.

"Let's go."

He Jian glanced at the back courtyard wall from the doorway and looked back at Zhou Tie.

"Over the back wall."

Zhou Tie nodded, hoisted Zhou Pingan onto his shoulder, and headed for the back wall.

He Jian was the last to leave. He blew out the oil lamp and closed the door behind him, moving so gently that the hinges didn't even make a sound.

When they reached the back wall, He Jian went up first and peered into the lane from the top of the wall.

The lane was dark and silent; there was nothing.

He made a gesture to those below.

Zhou Tie handed Zhou Pingan up, and He Jian caught him. The two of them vaulted over the wall one after the other and landed in the lane.

The six men regrouped and began to retreat through the dark alleys they had come from.

When they reached the intersection of Chongan Lane and Yongan Lane, He Jian stopped.

His right hand moved to the hilt of his short blade.

"Someone's here."

Zhou Tie lowered Zhou Pingan from his shoulder, handing him to the two core members behind him. He leveled his iron spear across his chest, pointing the tip toward the shadows on the right side of the lane entrance.

Two people stepped out from the shadows.

Dressed in black and masked, they carried standard-issue long blades at their waists, though the scabbards bore no markings.

But the aura they exuded made the surrounding air feel significantly heavier.

Two of them, both at the Middle Stage of the Tongmai Realm.

He Jian's brow twitched.

"The Wang family's second line of sentries."

He looked back at Zhou Tie, his voice kept extremely low.

"Take him through the dark alleys. Turn left at the third intersection; Qian Xiaoliu is waiting there."

Zhou Tie's fingers tightened around the spear shaft.

"You're going to take on two by yourself?"

He Jian fully drew his short blade, the edge glinting coldly in the moonlight.

"I can hold them."

Without looking back again, he advanced toward the two dark figures at the lane entrance.

Zhou Tie gritted his teeth, hoisted the iron spear onto his shoulder, and led Zhou Pingan and the others into the dark alley on the right.

The sound of metal clashing came from behind—short, dense strikes, one after another, erupting in the night and quickly dissipating.

He Jian's short blade instantly locked in a deadly struggle with the two long blades at the lane entrance. The sparks from the clashing edges illuminated half the wall.

The two black-clad men used the same style of blade techniques—fast, heavy strikes, attacking from both sides with perfect coordination.

Using his short blade against their long ones, He Jian's figure darted back and forth along the base of the wall. His style was built for close-quarters combat, every strike cutting inside the reach of the long blades.

On the seventh move, his short blade parried a downward strike from the man on the left. The edge slid forward half a foot along the opponent's blade, coming within two inches of slicing his fingers.

On the twelfth move, the man on the right swept his long blade in from the side. He Jian ducked beneath the edge and lashed out with a reverse strike, cutting a gash in the opponent's forearm guard.

On the nineteenth move, both long blades attacked simultaneously, one from the left and one from the right, cutting off his retreat.

He Jian didn't retreat. Instead, he lunged forward, slipping into the gap where the two blades crossed. His short blade grazed the ribs of the man on the left, cutting through the fabric but failing to wound the flesh.

As he turned, the blade of the man on the right caught up to him.

The tip of the blade sliced across the outside of He Jian's left arm, cutting through both his hemp coat and his flesh.

A half-foot-long gash stretched from his elbow to the middle of his forearm. Hot blood surged out instantly, staining the gray hemp sleeve a deep black.

He Jian stumbled slightly but didn't stop.

He gritted his teeth, switched the short blade from his left hand to his right, and used the momentum of the strike to slide back two steps, opening up some distance.

The two black-clad men did not pursue.

They glanced at each other and simultaneously took half a step back.

Deep in the alley, the direction where Zhou Tie had taken the others was now completely silent; even the sound of footsteps had vanished.

He Jian held his short blade upright in front of him. Blood dripped from the wound on his left arm, falling onto the stone slabs one drop at a time.

He stared at the two dark figures and gave a slight tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Still chasing?"

The two black-clad men didn't answer. Their footsteps retreated toward the lane entrance, and once they reached the corner, they turned and vanished into the night.