The first time Lin Feng killed a man, he was seven years old.
He never told anyone. Not his drunk father who beat him with a belt buckle. Not his mother who disappeared the same winter. And definitely not the police who came sniffing around the trailer park two days later when old man Zhao from the next lot went missing.
Lin Feng simply dragged the body into the woods, dug a hole with a rusted shovel, and buried the secret along with the corpse. The old bastard had tried to sell him for three cartons of cigarettes. Lin Feng decided the price was too low.
Fourteen years later, no one in Jiangzhou City would ever connect the quiet, plain-faced young man sweeping the university gate to that unsolved disappearance.
Lin Feng leaned on his broom, watching luxury cars roll in for the new semester. Bentley, Maybach, Lamborghini—each one worth more than every house in the slum he grew up in. The security uniform hung loose on his lean frame, and the cheap cap shaded eyes that looked half-asleep to anyone who bothered to notice.
They never did.
"Move, trash!" A red Ferrari honked impatiently. The window rolled down, revealing a pretty girl with heavy makeup. "Can't you see this is the VIP lane? Lowly janitors use the side gate!"
Lin Feng stepped aside without a word. The Ferrari roared past, splashing dirty water from last night's rain across his pants.
Inside the car, the girl laughed. "Look at that idiot. Probably never even touched a girl in his life."
Her boyfriend, a tall second-gen rich kid named Chen Hao, smirked. "People like him are born to lick shoes. Let him stare. It's the closest he'll ever get to something expensive."
Neither of them noticed the way Lin Feng's fingers tightened around the broom handle until the wood creaked.
Nor did they see the faint golden rune that flashed across the back of his hand before vanishing.
Lin Feng finished his shift at six in the evening. He changed out of the uniform in the staff locker room, stuffed it into a plastic bag, and walked across campus like any other poor student heading to a part-time job.
Except he wasn't a student.
And he hadn't been poor for ten years.
The phone in his pocket vibrated once. A text from an unknown number:
[Target confirmed on campus. Eliminate tonight. Reward: 50 million.]
Lin Feng deleted the message, slipped the phone away, and kept walking.
Jiangzhou University at night was a different beast. Neon lights, booming music from fraternity houses, couples making out under trees. No one looked twice at the average-looking guy in a cheap hoodie.
He stopped at a vending machine, bought a bottle of water, and leaned against the wall as if waiting for someone.
Three minutes later, a man in an expensive suit appeared. Early forties, slick hair, the kind of face that belonged on financial news. Vice President of Huaxia Bank, Liu Wei. On the surface, a respected philanthropist who donated libraries and scholarships.
In reality, the man who laundered money for half the underground syndicates in the province.
Liu Wei was laughing with a group of professors, clapping one on the back. His bodyguard's four ex-special forces stood at a discreet distance.
Lin Feng unscrewed the water bottle and took a slow sip.
To the average person, killing Liu Wei here would be impossible. Too many witnesses. Too much security. Cameras everywhere.
Lin Feng finished the water, crushed the plastic bottle in one hand, and started walking straight toward the group.
The bodyguards noticed first. One stepped forward, hand slipping inside his jacket.
Lin Feng smiled. A perfectly ordinary, harmless smile.
Then the world changed.
A pressure descended—like suddenly being underwater a thousand meters deep. The air itself seemed to solidify. Every person within fifty meters froze mid-motion. A girl's hair stopped mid-sway. A cigarette hung suspended an inch from a student's lips. Even the fountain water hung in glittering arcs.
Only Liu Wei and his bodyguards could still move—but barely. Their faces turned purple as invisible hands crushed their throats.
Liu Wei's eyes bulged. He recognized that pressure. Ten years ago, a monster had wiped out an entire mercenary company in the Middle East using the exact same aura.
"You" he croaked. "The Reaper… they said you died in Syria!"
Lin Feng stopped two meters away.
"I did," he said quietly.
Then he flicked one finger.
The four bodyguards exploded into red mist at the same moment. Not a drop of blood touched the ground—it simply vanished, absorbed by an invisible barrier.
The frozen students would remember nothing. When time resumed, they would only feel like they blinked.
Liu Wei dropped to his knees, piss staining his ten-thousand-dollar pants.
"Please… I can pay! Anything!"
Lin Feng crouched down so they were eye to eye.
"I don't want your money," he said. "I want you to deliver a message."
He reached out and pressed one finger against Liu Wei's forehead.
A black rune burned itself into the skin like a brand.
"Tell your masters," Lin Feng whispered, "the dog they buried fourteen years ago just crawled out of the grave. And he's very, very hungry."
Liu Wei screamed as memories that weren't his flooded his mind massacres in desert compounds, entire warlord armies erased overnight, the bounty that once reached two billion US dollars for the head of the man known only as Reaper.
Lin Feng stood up.
"Oh, and one more thing."
He snapped his fingers.
Time resumed.
The screaming started immediately. Students saw the bloodless craters where four bodyguards had stood a heartbeat earlier. They saw Vice President Liu rolling on the ground, clawing at the burning rune on his forehead, shrieking about ghosts and demons.
Lin Feng was already gone.
He walked off campus, hands in his pockets, blending into the night like he'd never existed.
His phone vibrated again.
[Job complete. 50 million transferred. New message from client: "Welcome home, Reaper. The game begins."]
Lin Feng stared at the screen for a long time.
Then he smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
The next morning, Jiangzhou University was in chaos.
Police swarmed the campus. Reporters fought for soundbites. The official story was already being shaped: Liu Wei had suffered a psychotic break triggered by drug use. The missing bodyguards? They never existed obviously doctored employment records.
No one mentioned the perfect circles of scorched earth where four men had been vaporized.
Lin Feng clocked in at the security booth like nothing happened. The head guard clapped him on the shoulder.
"Rough night, kid? You look like you saw a ghost."
"Something like that," Lin Feng said.
Across campus, a black Maybach pulled up to the administration building. A girl stepped out—long legs, cold face, the kind of beauty that made people forget how to breathe.
Su Qingxue, heiress of the Su Family, one of the four great hidden clans that secretly ruled half of China. Twenty years old and already called the Ice Goddess by the entire upper society.
She ignored the crowd of admirers and walked straight into the president's office.
Ten minutes later, the university president—a man who could make ministers wait for appointments—was personally escorting her out, bowing and scraping.
Su Qingxue paused at the bottom of the steps. Her gaze swept the campus like a blade.
And stopped.
Directly on Lin Feng, who was sweeping leaves fifty meters away.
For a single heartbeat, the air temperature dropped ten degrees.
Lin Feng met her eyes without flinching.
Su Qingxue's pupils contracted.
She had seen those eyes before.
In a classified military file stamped TOP SECRET.
Subject: Reaper
Status: Confirmed KIA 2019
Threat Level: SSS
Warning: If sighted alive, evacuate cities and nuke from orbit.
Su Qingxue's hand slipped into her purse, fingers closing around a custom Desert Eagle loaded with anti-personnel immortal-slaying rounds.
Lin Feng smiled and waved, like any friendly janitor.
Then he turned and walked away.
Su Qingxue didn't follow. Not yet.
Because she knew—if that man wanted her dead, she already would be.
That afternoon, Lin Feng sat alone in the cafeteria, eating the cheapest meal option: rice with a single egg.
A shadow fell across his table.
Chen Hao, the rich kid from yesterday's Ferrari, stood there with four lackeys. His face was twisted with rage.
"You're the janitor who disrespected my girlfriend yesterday," Chen Hao said loudly, drawing attention. "On your knees. Apologize. Then lick my shoes clean."
The entire cafeteria went quiet. Phones came out.
Lin Feng kept eating.
Chen Hao's face turned purple. "Did you hear me, trash? I said
Lin Feng finally looked up.
"Chen Hao, right?" His voice was soft. "Your father is Chen Tianlong, chairman of Tianlong Group. Net worth 47 billion. Mistresses in five cities. Terminal liver cancer, six months to live. Am I wrong?"
Chen Hao froze.
Lin Feng took another bite of rice.
"Your grandfather, Chen Batian, used to run the Black Tiger Gang twenty years ago. He personally executed seventeen members of the Zhao family in one night. Buried them in the eastern suburbs, under what's now the Number 3 Chemical Plant."
He smiled.
"Plot 17. About three meters deep. Want me to keep going?"
Every word was quiet, but the cafeteria heard it crystal clear.
Chen Hao's lackeys backed away like they'd seen a ghost.
Chen Hao himself went pale as paper. His grandfather's greatest secret—the massacre that let him wash his hands and become "respectable"—was known only to three living people.
And none of them were this janitor.
Lin Feng stood up, tray in hand.
"Oh, one last thing," he said, walking past Chen Hao. "Tell your old man the debt from twenty years ago is due. Interest is steep."
He dumped the tray and left.
Behind him, Chen Hao dropped to his knees and vomited.
That night, in the most expensive villa district in Jiangzhou.
Chen Tianlong, a man who made governors tremble, knelt on the floor of his study. His body was covered in cold sweat.
Across from him sat an old man in plain tang suit, sipping tea.
The old man was ninety-three, but his eyes were sharper than a hawk's.
"Grandfather," Chen Tianlong whispered, "he knew. Everything. Even the location of the mass grave."
The old man set down his cup.
"Then it's true," he said softly. "The little devil we failed to kill back then… has come back."
He stood up, walking to the window overlooking the city lights.
"Twenty years ago, we hunted a monster. We shot him, stabbed him, burned him, buried him alive. And still he crawled out."
The old man turned.
"Listen carefully, Tianlong. From this moment forward, the Chen family has only one mission."
He paused.
"Find Lin Feng. And this time, make sure he stays dead."
Far away, on the roof of an abandoned building, Lin Feng stood with his hands behind his back, staring at the moon.
Behind him, a shadow detached from the darkness.
A woman in blood-red robes, face hidden beneath a hood. Only her lips were visible crimson as fresh blood.
"Master," she said, kneeling. "All sixteen branches of the Blood Shadow Sect await your command."
Lin Feng didn't turn around.
"And the thing I asked for?"
"Found. The Su family has been guarding it for three generations. They call it the Dragon Suppression Nail."
Lin Feng finally smiled.
"Good."
He looked toward the Su family's ancestral mountain, a hundred kilometers away.
"Twenty years ago, they nailed me into a coffin and buried me alive to steal my power."
His voice was soft, almost gentle.
"Now it's my turn to return the favor."
Under the moonlight, his shadow stretched impossibly long—taking the shape of an ancient, nine-headed dragon that blotted out the stars.
The Reaper had come home.
And Jiangzhou City was about to learn what happens when you bury a god and forget to cut off his head.