276: Chapter 276 is... because I've fallen for him?

Jianghai City was about to descend into chaos.

The news of Su Wanyue killing Qiu Hao spread further and wider through Jianghai City.

Like the rain that had suddenly blanketed the entire city,

it was only getting heavier.

Rainwater poured down like a heavenly river, crashing frantically against the Jianghai City branch of the Huayu Association, making a heart-pounding, desperate sound.

Inside the branch building, there was a deathly silence.

Even the staff members who usually clocked in every day were mostly gone.

This was only logical.

After all, most of these people were just ordinary workers with little to no cultivation.

Knowing what was about to happen here, coming to seek death with their own lives...

it simply wasn't worth it.

In the center of the empty ground-floor lobby, a challenge letter was quietly pinned to a red desk made of pure gold.

It was a challenge from the Qiu Family.

Not long ago, this challenge letter had been arrogantly nailed to the Huayu Association's gate by a Qiu Family death soldier.

In the vast Huayu Association branch, only a single, lonely figure remained.

Teacher Wang Jin.

She had changed out of the cheongsam she usually loved to wear.

She now wore a black, tight-fitting combat suit that was extremely practical yet still failed to hide her breathtakingly curvaceous figure.

What?

You're asking where Su Wanyue went?

A short while ago, after Su Wanyue had crushed Qiu Hao's head at the hospital and returned to the base,

she had suddenly said something to Teacher Wang Jin with a touch of caution.

“Teacher Teacher Wang Jin, when I was killing him... I seemed to have gained some sort of enlightenment.”

“I need to go to the underground secret chamber; I must enter seclusion immediately.”

“The gains from this seclusion shouldn't be small.”

Seemingly knowing what Teacher Wang Jin was worried about, Su Wanyue added another sentence.

“Don't worry, Teacher Teacher Wang Jin, my breakthrough shouldn't take too long.”

She gave a serious instruction.

“If those Qiu Family bastards dare to come and cause trouble at our Huayu Association and you can't hold them off, you must remember to wake me from my seclusion.”

“It doesn't matter even if I suffer a backlash because of it, but you must not let anything happen to you!”

At that time,

although the Qiu Family's challenge letter hadn't officially arrived,

based on her sharp intuition from years of struggling in the martial arts circles,

Teacher Wang Jin had already roughly guessed.

A monstrous disaster, enough to grind their bones to ash, was about to descend.

But she still agreed to Su Wanyue's request without hesitation.

She had even made up her mind.

Even if she truly couldn't stop the Qiu Family and had to sacrifice herself on the battlefield,

she would not disturb Su Wanyue's secluded cultivation.

Because Teacher Wang Jin knew better than anyone that the current situation was an absolute death trap with no hope of survival.

She was a mere Sixth-Rank Martial Artist, and even with Su Wanyue, a Tenth Stage mental-type martial artist,

they couldn't possibly withstand the full force of the Qiu Family, which was presided over by a Peak Twelfth Stage expert.

If that monstrous girl Wanyue could make a breakthrough in the secret chamber at the last minute,

perhaps that would be their only sliver of a chance in this catastrophe.

In the worst-case scenario,

supposing things reached the lowest point and Jiang Luoli, the President of Flower Feather Society, and Su Chen had both fallen,

then the young, highly gifted, and infinitely potential Su Wanyue

would be the only hope for their future revenge.

As for seeking help from the authorities?

Teacher Wang Jin shook her head bitterly.

News from the secret intelligence network earlier indicated that those madmen from the Qiu Family hadn't even spared the official Hall of Valor.

Identical challenge letters had been delivered to the officials' desks.

Taking advantage of the fact that the authorities were severely weakened by the natural disaster, the Qiu Family had allied with other martial families and was causing trouble everywhere, attempting to completely take over the governance of the city.

Moreover, their methods were extremely ruthless.

They launched massive attacks on civilian facilities that were struggling to operate under official maintenance during the disaster,

such as hospitals, schools, substations, food factories, and so on.

The martial families had completely lost their moral compass, seemingly prepared to use the natural disaster and the invasion of exotic demons to transfer the rule of Great Xia from the authorities to themselves.

The Great Xia authorities were currently also embroiled in a frantic, bitter struggle.

They had no time to spare for two insignificant nobodies like them.

These martial families...

were truly audacious to the extreme.

Teacher Wang Jin knew very well.

None of this actually had the slightest bit to do with Su Wanyue killing Qiu Hao.

From all the signs before her,

these martial families had probably been preparing for today's war for a long time.

“Drip...”

“Drip...”

Calculating that the time was about right, Teacher Wang Jin took a deep breath.

She picked up the long saber that had always been with her through life and death,

its blade covered in dark red bloodstains.

She walked quietly to the entrance of the Huayu Association.

Because it was so sudden,

and there were no ordinary people left to protect,

the Jianghai City branch of the Huayu Association hadn't even set up a single piece of cover at its entrance.

Teacher Wang Jin sat down on the threshold in a bold, imposing manner.

Under her black combat suit, her two alluring legs—thick where they should be thick, slender where they should be slender—

were stretched out casually across the steps.

Beyond the door was the overwhelming rainstorm and endless darkness.

“Zheng—!”

Teacher Wang Jin pulled an extremely coarse whetstone from her leg pouch.

Facing the shrill, cold wind,

stroke after stroke,

she slowly and forcefully ground the edge of her blade.

The blade struck eye-catching sparks in the darkness.

At this moment, Teacher Wang Jin

looked very much like an old general about to go to war, covered in battle flags.

She closed her eyes.

While doing her best to recover the spiritual energy in her body,

she asked herself with extreme self-mockery in her heart,

“Teacher Wang Jin, oh Teacher Wang Jin.”

“You'll probably die here today.”

“So...”

“What exactly are you doing this for?”

As a low-level martial artist who hadn't even touched the threshold of the Seventh Stage,

and as an outsider,

why work so hard?

Was it to repay Jiang Luoli and the Huayu Association for the favor of recognizing her talent?

Perhaps.

For a child from an ordinary family like her to be able to cultivate to this level,

the resources provided by Jiang Luoli's family and the appointment by the Huayu Association were indispensable.

But these didn't seem enough to be the reason for her to go to her death so resolutely.

Was it because she felt for Su Wanyue, that talented girl with a tragic past and a paranoid, yandere personality?

Teacher Wang Jin smiled bitterly.

This reason... while it existed, was also not sufficient enough.

Or...

was it purely out of the innate sense of justice she'd had since childhood,

truly unable to stand the Qiu Family's animalistic behavior of treating human lives like grass?

“Screech—”

The whetstone slid across the blade.

A sharp screech was quickly drowned out by the sound of the pitter-pattering rain curtain.

These reasons... they all were.

Or rather,

they weren't.

Before the absolute boundary of life and death, grand reasons fade away, while tiny specks of light shine brilliantly.

Deep in Teacher Wang Jin's gradually blurring memories, a young, handsome face, always carrying a bit of helplessness and stubbornness, slowly emerged.

Su Chen.

Yeah...

Perhaps wanting to help that unlucky brat was also one of the important reasons.