CLANG! CLANG!~~
"The sky is cold, the earth is frozen!~~"
The sound of the Night Watchman's footsteps and his clapper made Qin Fang halt.
He had already left Wang Long's courtyard and was now heading for Lan Gui Fang.
A Night Watchman, carrying a lantern, was passing down the street.
Qin Fang leaned against the wall, patiently waiting for the Night Watchman to pass.
Soon, the Night Watchman disappeared down the main road. Qin Fang let out a soft breath, his eyes glinting, and hurried toward Lan Gui Fang.
Three targets remained.
These three would undoubtedly be the most difficult.
After all, Lan Gui Fang was a brothel, alive with music and revelry every night. At this hour, there were likely still many people awake.
And right now, he didn't even know where his targets were inside Lan Gui Fang.
Finding and killing them without anyone noticing would not be an easy task.
But these three had to be eliminated. Otherwise, when the bodies of Wang Long and the others were discovered at dawn, Wang Hu would immediately summon these three underlings for questioning.
And once the questions turned to who Wang Long might have offended recently... he himself would very likely land in Wang Hu's sights.
In his current state, he had absolutely no way of facing the Iron Tiger Gang head-on.
'What should I do, then?'
To be honest, Qin Fang had no plan at the moment.
He could only go to the scene, assess the situation, and improvise a strategy.
...There was no other choice.
The unexpected could happen in any situation.
Forget about killing someone... you could even fail at simply finding them, couldn't you?
Qin Fang remained calm, not growing anxious or impatient because of this unforeseen complication.
...His life in exile hadn't given him much, but the ability to remain calm at all times was perhaps his greatest gain over the past few months.
During his exile, he was all alone with no one to rely on... If he couldn't even keep a level head, he would have died long ago in one of his many clashes with other exiles, never getting the chance to reach True Martial.
As these thoughts flashed through his mind, Lan Gui Fang came into view in the distance.
Lan Gui Fang was located on South Market Street, one of the main thoroughfares, not tucked away in some alley.
By now, all the other shops on the street had long since closed and extinguished their lights. Only the red lanterns hanging at Lan Gui Fang remained bright.
Facing the street was a two-story pavilion with ornate, upturned eaves, shrouded in pink gauze that exuded an air of ambiguous allure.
Qin Fang stood in the shadows at the base of a distant wall, observing with cold eyes.
The Night Watchman had just passed. It must be around one in the morning, so the front of the pavilion looked quite deserted.
However, the faint sounds of string and bamboo instruments drifted from within, indicating that it was still bustling inside.
Occasionally, one or two drunken patrons would stumble out, their steps unsteady, muttering incoherently.
Some of the women would see the men out, their voices affected and their smiles like blooming flowers. But as soon as the patrons were gone, their expressions would change in an instant, and they would turn back inside with looks of disdain or disgust...
No wonder they say whores are heartless and actors are faithless.
Qin Fang's eyelid twitched slightly as he took all this in with his cold gaze.
After watching for a while, he furrowed his brow slightly.
The simplest method would be to walk right in, pretend to be a customer, and gather information covertly.
But he would inevitably be remembered... He was too thin right now, tall and skinny, making him far too memorable.
After a pause, he sighed helplessly.
'...Alright, if I were healthier, I'd probably be even more memorable.'
'After all, a man as handsome as me stands out in a crowd no matter where he is.'
'Truly unsuited to be a killer or an assassin.'
'Then I'll just have to find a way to get in secretly.'
After observing the front for a little while longer, he first found a corner to hide his bundle. After a moment's thought, he took out a few taels of loose silver from the bundle and tucked them away safely.
He couldn't forget his Darts, of course, and tucked them into his robe as well.
Only then did he take a deep breath and start moving along the base of the wall toward the side, to see if he could find a way into Lan Gui Fang from the side or the back.
Although it was a street-front establishment, the entire Lan Gui Fang couldn't possibly be just this one small building. Otherwise, how many customers could it accommodate? There had to be a larger area behind it.
Sure enough, there was a narrow alley running along the side of Lan Gui Fang. Qin Fang followed the base of the wall to it, looked around to make sure no one was there, and then entered.
The courtyard wall of Lan Gui Fang was a bit lower than the one at Wang Long's home, but the trouble was that this back alley seemed to be part of Lan Gui Fang's property, so it was one continuous wall with no particularly low sections.
Even though it was slightly lower than Wang Long's, it was still over two and a half meters high, with a coping on top for water drainage, making it difficult to climb.
Qin Fang had no choice but to continue deeper into the alley.
A short while later, he let out a long sigh of relief...
He had finally found a spot where it connected to a low-walled residential house.
The wall of the residence was just over two meters high; at Qin Fang's height, he could touch the top by reaching up.
He first observed the house. It was pitch-black inside. If anyone was home, they were likely fast asleep.
Then, Qin Fang took a deep breath and decided to sneak in from here.
He began to climb...
The alley was probably too narrow for any clutter to be piled up in the passageway. With his left index finger severely injured, the climb was so painful that it drew beads of cold sweat on his forehead and made his face turn pale.
Fortunately, his endurance was astonishing. Ignoring the pain in his finger, he finally managed to struggle his way to the top.
He sat on the wall, catching his breath for a moment, before moving onto the wall of Lan Gui Fang.
Peeking inside, he discovered that Lan Gui Fang was a typical multi-courtyard complex.
He was now in the innermost part.
He could see an exquisite tile-roofed house, and in front of it, one of the inner courtyards.
The courtyard was quiet, with some neatly trimmed flowers and plants.
Qin Fang scanned the area and, confirming no one was there, took a deep breath. He repeated the same maneuver he used to enter Wang Long's courtyard: he gripped the coping with both hands, lowered his body, and then dropped to the ground.
He landed on his backside and sat there, panting nonstop.
Beads of sweat the size of nail heads dripped from his forehead.
...The injury to his left hand had inevitably been strained during the climb, and it was now clearly more swollen than before.
'It might leave a serious long-term injury...'
But he couldn't worry about that now.
If these targets didn't die, it was uncertain how long he himself would live. How could he possibly worry about a single finger?
"I just hope Master's medical skills... are good enough..."
He thought.
He took a moment to recover. Once the pain in his finger had subsided somewhat, Qin Fang finally rose carefully. He listened intently, and after confirming there was no movement, he proceeded forward from this unfamiliar courtyard.
Next, he had to find those three targets...
And he had to do it without being discovered.
That was the most troublesome part of this whole endeavor.
With that in mind, he carefully entered the second courtyard.
But the moment he saw the state of this courtyard, Qin Fang stopped instinctively, his eyelid twitching slightly.
There were rows of rooms here. Many of them were lit, and from some, he could hear the rapturous laughter of women, or... the same sounds he had heard from Wang Long's room.
In addition, he saw many people walking around the courtyard. Some were talking loudly, accompanied by flocks of chattering courtesans.
The entire courtyard was hung with numerous red lanterns, bathing everything in a crimson glow...
Qin Fang's eyelid twitched as he was wondering how to handle the situation.
Suddenly, a voice rang out not far away, and his gaze instantly shot toward it.
"I want Xiao Taohong to keep me company tonight! Where's Xiao Taohong? Get her over here!~"
Qin Fang's eyes immediately narrowed slightly.
Although the voice was a little slurred, likely from drunkenness.
He was all too familiar with that person...
Scrawny and thin, with shifty, rat-like eyes and a mole with black hairs growing from it on his left cheek... He looked even more grotesque under the red light.
This was none other than Wuzi Zhang, the man who had kicked him earlier that day.
'Found him just like that?'
His eyes narrowed slightly as he quickly scanned his surroundings.