Chapter 3840 — Killing the Master

Everything had indeed unfolded exactly as Yu Jiang had anticipated. Those onlookers had not dared to give chase, and from such a distance they had no way of telling whether Nan Tianyong was alive or dead.

They would simply assume that Yu Jiang, wary of being set upon while his guard was down, had carried Nan Tianyong off out of sheer caution!

Everything was under Yu Jiang's control.

"Well then—no one will be disturbing us now. Ready to set off, my dear master?" The savage grin on Yu Jiang's face at that moment was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine.

Nan Tianyong, who had been at death's door and utterly insensible to the world around him, seemed suddenly to sense something—his eyes flew open!

Then, without the slightest warning, Nan Tianyong seized Yu Jiang's ankle in a grip, and said, his breath a faint thread: "Set... set off? Set off where?"

Seized thus by Nan Tianyong, Yu Jiang broke out in a cold sweat on the spot, gooseflesh erupting all over him; cunning as he was, even his mind went blank for a moment.

Nan Tianyong was, after all, a genuine expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage. Even now, hovering on the brink of death, what if this were a final flicker of vitality before the end—one last desperate killing blow? A mid-Foundation Establishment expert like Yu Jiang could not possibly withstand it.

Yet after waiting a moment in trembling dread, he found that Nan Tianyong made no further move at all. Studying the man's ashen face more closely, Yu Jiang's heart finally settled back into his chest.

Though misgivings still nagged at him, the arrow was already on the string and had to fly; after all, the words had left his mouth, and there was no turning back now.

Even in his gravely wounded, death's-door state, Nan Tianyong might not have been able to make out what Yu Jiang had just said—and even if he had heard it, he might not remember it afterward. But Yu Jiang did not dare take that risk.

Nan Tianyong was simple-minded, true enough—but as an expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage, could he really be some hopeless fool? What if the old man had fully grasped his intentions and was merely putting on an act to throw him off, biding his time to settle the score later?

The odds might be slim, but if it ever came to pass, Yu Jiang would be wishing he were dead!

"To hell with it—whether I rise to glory or lose everything, I have to gamble on this!" Having reasoned it through, Yu Jiang's eyes hardened with killing intent. Heedless now of whether Nan Tianyong might be enjoying a final flicker of life, a sword qi shot from his fingertip straight at the man's chest.

"You—!" Nan Tianyong had time for only half a word, disbelief plain in his eyes. He scraped together the last shred of his strength to resist—but alas, even an expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage could not muster any capacity for action after taking Wei Zhao's top-grade true-qi bomb full in the face.

After all, clinging to that last breath of life was itself a rare miracle.

Pfft! With a muffled sound of flesh and skin parting, the sword qi from Yu Jiang's fingertip bored straight into Nan Tianyong's heart—then gave a vicious three-hundred-sixty-degree twist.

Nan Tianyong's body convulsed violently. The hand gripping Yu Jiang's ankle clenched with desperate force, as though he had spent the very last of his strength—but alas, a mighty expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage, and at this moment he had not the slightest power to strike back.

To say nothing of a final flicker of life that might turn the tables on his treacherous disciple—he could not even seriously wound Yu Jiang. At most he might leave a bruise on the man's ankle, which availed him nothing.

"You... will not... die well... someone... will avenge..." Before the words were out, Nan Tianyong's neck lolled to one side—he had breathed his last.

"Tch! Someone will avenge you?" It took Yu Jiang considerable effort to pry Nan Tianyong's hand from his ankle. He sneered, "Oh, someone will avenge you, all right—the name of the Three Heroes of the Nan Clan is no empty boast. But the one who killed you is named Lin Er, isn't that so?"

There was no one about; no one had seen that it was Yu Jiang who struck the blow. And the wounds left by his sword qi were not noticeably different from those inflicted by Wei Zhao's true-qi bomb—the whole thing could be pinned on Wei Zhao, and others would be hard-pressed to find any flaw.

Pausing, Yu Jiang saw that Nan Tianyong, though dead, still had both eyes fixed hard upon him. He silently spat in disgust at his bad luck.

"Hmph! Dying with your eyes open, are you?" Yu Jiang curled his lip in mockery. "My dear cheap master, you needn't die with your eyes open. Your disciple will go personally to fetch your two brothers and see you avenged! But before that—these precious treasures on your person, your disciple will reluctantly take charge of for you!"

With that, greed flashed in Yu Jiang's eyes. He bent down and searched Nan Tianyong from head to foot—once was not enough, nor twice, but three times, until every last thing on the man had been stripped clean. Only then did he finally stop.

"No man grows rich without windfall, no horse grows fat without night feed—that saying is true enough!" Looking at the assorted treasures he had scavenged from Nan Tianyong, even a man of Yu Jiang's cunning could not help but swallow hard.

An expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage—how deep must his reserves run? To a mere mid-Foundation Establishment expert like Yu Jiang, this was worth far more than fifty years of bitter cultivation; even a hundred years might not have earned him as much!

Elated, he tucked each treasure securely on his person, then hoisted Nan Tianyong's corpse onto his back once more, deliberately putting on a show of grief, and turned back toward the Chongtian Pavilion.

He would carry the corpse back through the streets in plain view, making as much of a stir as possible; then he would fetch Nan Tianyong's two elder brothers to avenge him. By then, the affair would be sure to alarm the Sandie Pavilion and the Law Enforcement Hall—and that Lin Er would no longer be able to roam free!

Yu Jiang's calculations could not have been shrewder—yet never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that after he left with Nan Tianyong's corpse on his back, a familiar figure stepped out from the thicket nearby.

That figure was none other than Wei Zhao, who had fled with all his might after flinging out the top-grade true-qi bomb.

"Heh, killing even his own master, and trying to pin the crime on me—the Chongtian Pavilion has truly raised a monster!" Wei Zhao shook his head with a laugh. A man who had fought his way up from the mortal world and made countless enemies in the process—yet never had he seen anyone so vicious!

Even Kang Jingming would not have struck down Patriarch Xuanchen. This Yu Jiang was truly a piece of work—stopping at nothing to get what he wanted! (To be continued..) RT