90: Chapter 9 S-Class Housekeeping Service, The King of Hearts' Self-Doubt

The first ray of morning sunlight squeezed through the gap in the curtains like a red-hot knife, precisely scalding Xiao Fan's buttocks.

Xiao Fan grunted and rolled over.

He had clearly overindulged in last night's hotpot; all night long, he had been dreaming of wrestling with endless rolls of fatty beef across the mountains.

Woken up by the urge to pee, he pushed open the bedroom door with bleary eyes, intending to head to the bathroom.

The moment the door opened, his urine was scared right back into his bladder.

In the living room, a dark shadow was moving at high speed.

Fast.

It was too damn fast.

The speed was so great that only a blurry shadow remained, frantically weaving between the furniture.

But floating atop this shadow was an extremely discordant pink apron.

The Hello Kitty on the apron was grinning at Xiao Fan.

“A ghost!!!”

Xiao Fan let out a squeal like a pig, grabbing a frying pan from nearby to shield his chest.

The shadow 'swished' and nailed itself to the spot.

It was a man with a lean, powerful build, wearing a tight black combat suit with that pink apron layered over it.

He wore a medical mask on his face, and in his hand... he gripped a feather duster.

That feather duster, which had been sweeping dust just a moment ago, was now held horizontally in front of him, yet he brandished it with the Killing Intent of a peerless divine weapon.

“Pres... President!! A pervert has broken into the house!!”

Xiao Fan's calves were trembling; this look was pure mental pollution. Whether in the world of assassins or the world of cleaning, it was far too avant-garde.

“It's early morning, what are you wailing for?”

Gu Fan staggered out of the master bedroom with bedhead, a toothbrush in his mouth and a face full of white foam.

“That's the newcomer, Xiao Hei. From now on, he's in charge of our dormitory's cleaning and security.”

“Xiao... Xiao Hei?”

Xiao Fan's finger trembled as he pointed at the man radiating cold air. “This guy doesn't look like a good person at all. With that look in his eyes, I feel like he could stab me to death with that feather duster at any second.”

“You'll get used to it.”

Gu Fan spat out the foam. “Xiao Hei used to work in a specialized field, so he has some occupational habits. Hey, Xiao Hei, show our Vice President Xiao a little something so he doesn't look down on you.”

Xiao Hei didn't make a sound.

He simply bowed slightly in a standard assassin's salute, and then—he was gone.

The next second, he was hanging upside down from the chandelier on the ceiling.

The rag in his hand danced into a phantom blur, wiping the lampshade at a high frequency invisible to the naked eye. The dust was constrained by a strange force field, condensing into a small ball that fell precisely into his apron pocket.

“Gecko Wall-Crawling Art,” a secret technique of the assassin world, has now joined the deluxe cleaning package.

He landed silently, casually snatched three apples from the coffee table, and tossed them into the air.

Swish, swish, swish!

Blade light flashed wildly, moving so fast only a mass of silver light remained.

A fruit knife flipped and jumped between his fingertips.

The peels were sliced into a single, complete long ribbon, spiraling down into the trash can.

The three apples landed steadily on a plate.

Each had been sliced into uniformly thick rabbit shapes, the surfaces as smooth as mirrors.

“Flying Dagger Dismantling Technique,” a compulsory course for the assassination style, has now been applied to Advanced fruit platter preparation.

Finally, he lifted two large bags of trash by the door with one hand. With a light tap of his toes, his whole body floated to the door like a sheet of paper. He opened the door, closed it, and returned, without making a single sound throughout the process.

The S-rank assassination skill “Stealth” is now used exclusively for taking out the trash without disturbing the neighbors.

Xiao Fan was dumbfounded.

The frying pan in his hand hit the top of his foot with a 'clang'.

“Ex... Expert...”

Xiao Fan gulped hard. “This is a true expert! Sweeping with Sword Intent, slicing fruit with a heart for killing! President, even if this guy went to sweep toilets, he could attain the Dao!”

At that moment, Lin Xue also came out, yawning.

She was wearing sunglasses, but the moment she saw Xiao Hei, her whole body tensed up, and a throwing knife silently slid into her palm.

She recognized that footwork.

“Ghost Shadow Steps,” the signature move of the top ten on the Chain Abyss assassin rankings.

“This person is...” Lin Xue was about to speak.

Gu Fan waved his hand at her and took a rabbit apple, stuffing it into her mouth.

“Try it, Xiao Hei's handiwork. The skin is peeled evenly; it's a technical skill.”

Lin Xue chewed the sweet fruit, her eyes complex as she looked at the terrifying man in the pink apron who was currently bowing his head to clean the floor cracks with a toothbrush, then looked at Gu Fan, who had an expression of “it’s nothing special.”

She fell silent.

What exactly did the President do to this guy?

To be able to tame a king cobra that wanted to bite anyone it saw into a lapdog that could do housework?

This wasn't just a crushing of strength; this was a formatting and reinstallation of everything from personality to Soul.

“It's delicious.”

Lin Xue swallowed the apple and gave a professional evaluation. “His knife work is better than mine.”

...Meanwhile.

Tianqiong City, a secret Chain Abyss base deep underground in the mountains.

In the command hall, hundreds of screens glowed with a faint blue light.

King of Hearts sat in a high-backed chair, the edges of the playing card in his hand already frayed from his constant rubbing.

“Still no news?” His voice was colder than ice.

“Report, sir!” The technician was sweating profusely. “‘Shadow's’ vital signs are very strange...”

“Is he dead?”

“No... not dead. His heart rate is too steady, so steady it's like... like he's performing some kind of aerobic exercise?”

The technician stared at the heart rate line on the screen, which was pulled straight, and his tongue felt heavy.

“However, his adrenaline levels are spiking periodically, with very high peaks, close to a combat state.”

King of Hearts frowned.

The data didn't match.

During combat, it's impossible for the heart rate to be this steady.

If he was captured, why would his adrenaline be skyrocketing?

Unless... he was currently executing an extremely dangerous, high-difficulty infiltration mission that required intense focus and carried a constant risk of death?

“As expected of Shadow...”

King of Hearts took a deep breath, his eyes filled with unmistakable admiration.

“He has successfully infiltrated the enemy's interior and is undergoing trials we cannot even imagine.”

On the screen, the red line for adrenaline broke through the ceiling once again.

At this moment, Xiao Hei was hanging outside the window of the sixth floor of Dormitory 44, wiping the glass.

Gu Fan wouldn't let him use a safety rope, saying it would scratch the paint on the exterior wall.

He gripped the window frame with one hand, half his body suspended in the air, the cold wind making his hair stand on end.

“He is using his life to transmit intelligence to us.”

King of Hearts clenched his fist. “I cannot sit idly by. Dispatch a ‘Scout Bee.’ I want to see his situation with my own eyes and provide fire support if necessary!”

Buzz—

A fly-sized miniature drone was catapulted from the base into the sky, streaking across the horizon toward the academy.

Ten minutes later.

Dormitory 44.

Xiao Hei had just finished wiping the glass until it could reflect images and was preparing to change rags to wipe the windowsill.

As a top assassin, he was extremely sensitive to changes in airflow.

Something had entered.

Very light, very fast, with a faint motor hum.

Not a fly.

A scout.

Xiao Hei's gaze changed.

In this moment, he was no longer Xiao Hei the cleaner.

He was Chain Abyss's ace, “Shadow.”

Any prying was a desecration of his work results (the spotless window).

He had spent half an hour and wiped this glass three times before it was free of even a single fingerprint.

If a fly dared to land on it... unforgivable!

Xiao Hei moved.

Gu Fan had confiscated his knives.

In his hand, he only had a toilet brush he had just used to scrub the toilet.

But for an S-rank assassin, everything can be a weapon.

The mechanical bee that had just squeezed through the window gap didn't even have time to focus its camera before it met the final image of its life.

A man wearing a pink Hello Kitty apron, like a wrathful Vajra, stood in the backlight.

The toilet brush in his hand, still dripping with water, carried an Aura of thunderous power as it stabbed forward with incomparable precision.

This thrust combined the decisiveness of an assassin with the fury of a cleaner.

Pfft!

A muffled sound.

The expensive “Scout Bee” was impaled by the toilet brush, its parts even shredded into the air by the stiff bristles of the brush head.

All signals were instantly cut off.

Chain Abyss Base.

The image on the large screen froze at the final frame.

A rapidly expanding toilet brush head, and behind it, that cold, ruthless face boiling with Killing Intent.

Dead silence.

The entire command hall was silent.

The playing card in King of Hearts' hand floated to the ground.

He took off his gold-rimmed glasses, rubbed his eyes hard, put them back on, and stared intently at the frozen image.

“What... weapon is this?”

King of Hearts' voice was trembling.

“The shape resembles a toilet brush... but the angle, power, and speed of that strike are simply violent aesthetics... Could this be the legendary ‘Great Filth Spear Technique’?”

“Shadow... he actually went so far for the mission as to wear such humiliating clothing and use such an inconceivable weapon...”

“What kind of enemy is he actually facing?”

“What kind of expert is hidden by Gu Fan's side? To be able to push ‘Shadow’ to this point? To require the use of a strange weapon like a toilet brush to counter them?”

A massive wave of self-doubt grew wildly in King of Hearts' mind.

He felt he had severely underestimated the strength of the Lying Flat Society.

“Pass down the order.”

King of Hearts picked up the card from the floor, his expression more solemn than ever before.

“Suspend all direct actions against Gu Fan. That dormitory... contains great terror.”

Inside Dormitory 44.

Xiao Hei shook the pile of parts off the toilet brush with a look of disgust and swept them into the trash can.

“You got my windowsill dirty.”

He muttered a sentence, picked up the rag again, and carefully wiped away the fine dust dropped by the mechanical bee.

That back view was focused and devout.

It was as if what he was wiping was not a windowsill, but his own faith.