Chapter 36: Be Careful When Traveling at Night

Lu Chuan coughed, though he did not say much. Still, out of curiosity, he opened Chen Miaomiao’s status panel.

Name: Chen Miaomiao!
Age: 16!
Attractiveness: 94!
Affinity: 10!
Current reward for sheltering her: Primary Assassination Skills!

Seeing this, Lu Chuan was stunned. Assassination? He was already well-versed in that. Did he really need to acquire the skill this way? Or was there something different about it?

He proceeded to extract the skill, and to his surprise, Chen Miaomiao’s affinity rose to 10; it seemed her perception of him had improved. Now, his repertoire of skills was just enough for his needs, so he felt no particular rush. Upon extraction, he felt a subtle, trickling sensation emerge in his mind. A wealth of assassination techniques he had never understood before flooded his consciousness.

Only then did he grasp the distinction. As a former mercenary, he was accustomed to killing, but most of his work involved direct confrontation; he had had little exposure to true assassination. Assassination was a discipline—it involved gathering intelligence beforehand, infiltration, staging accidents, and so on. Sometimes, one might spend years laying the groundwork just to ensure a target was eliminated without a trace.

Lu Chuan, however, lacked such patience. Yet, after absorbing these new insights, one name immediately came to mind: Zhou Tong. He could not let Zhou Tong survive until the grain levy; by then, even the slightest ability the man possessed could make things incredibly difficult for him. Previously, Lu Chuan had been reluctant to pursue assassination because his methods were too crude. But now, with the primary assassination skills integrated into his being, he felt he could ensure Zhou Tong’s death had nothing to do with him—or perhaps, even frame someone else for it.

However, this required careful planning. Originally, killing Zhou Tong would have been a trivial matter, but a major variable had emerged: Zhou Zheng.

Zhou Zheng was like a hound with a sharp sense of smell, and a very vigilant one at that. No one knew if he might uncover something. Or, even if he couldn’t pinpoint the problem, he could still make life in Bingzhou unbearable.

After dinner, just as Lu Chuan was preparing to sleep, Chen Miaomiao tugged at his sleeve, her expression icy. "Come outside with me!" she said, before leaving the room.

Lu Chuan looked at her curiously, then sighed and followed. *Damn it,* he thought, *if you weren't a source of rewards, I wouldn't bother with you at all.*

"What is it?" Lu Chuan asked, walking outside to face the solemn-looking girl.

"Let me go, please. I will pay you back for the money," Chen Miaomiao said.

Lu Chuan fell silent.

"Don't worry, I won't go back on the 5,000 coins. I can even pay you more. After these two days, I know you are a good person!"

"Don't!" Lu Chuan waved his hand hurriedly. "Don't get the wrong idea. I am not a good person! I wasn't before, and I won't be in the future." He looked at her calmly. "Do you know why I bought you?"

"Why?" Chen Miaomiao was taken aback. She remembered that day when he had walked by; he seemed to have picked her out of the crowd at a single glance. Although she was attractive, that alone wasn't enough to justify spending 5,000 coins on a farm girl. She had assumed he was interested in her looks, but since returning, he hadn't touched her once—and he already had two stunning beauties at home who were devoted to him.

"Because you look a bit like a friend of mine. Her name is Chen Qingqing," Lu Chuan said, sitting down casually. "Of course, you don't look much like her right now. But I look at people's bone structure. You're just thin and malnourished. As long as you get enough nutrition, you'll look exactly like her." His voice carried a tone of certainty.

At that moment, Chen Miaomiao’s breath hitched. "Where... where is she?"

Her voice trembled, as if the name held extraordinary significance. Lu Chuan glanced at her and patted her shoulder. "What good would it do to tell you? Do you dare to go find her now?"

Chen Miaomiao seemed to lose all her vitality in an instant, standing there in a daze. "What... what do you know?" she asked, suddenly tense.

Lu Chuan looked off into the distance. "I only know what I ought to know, Chen Miaomiao." He smiled, speaking her name softly.

Chen Miaomiao instinctively stepped back, looking at him as if he were a devil. She gripped her clothes tightly, her eyes filled with panic. "You... you know who I am?"

Lu Chuan gazed into the distance again. "I said, I only know what I should know. As for what I shouldn't know, I am completely ignorant. So, you can rest easy."

His voice was calm, yet it struck her heart like a heavy hammer.

On the windowsill inside the house, two little heads were pressed against the frame.

"The master is pulling someone's leg again."
"Looks like it. Didn't you see? Dieyi was scared stiff."
"What do you think Dieyi's real identity is?"
"What does it have to do with us? In our eyes, she's just Dieyi. When the master wants us to know, we will."

Su Ruan and Bai Siyu whispered to each other.

Outside, Chen Miaomiao finally managed to steady her emotions. After a long while, she asked, "Why help me?"

"It's nothing," Lu Chuan replied, shaking his head. "If you want to leave, go pack your things. Ask Siyu for some travel money. Set off under the cover of night."

"You have no status and no travel permit. If you're caught by soldiers during the day, you'll likely be beaten to death." Lu Chuan paused, then added, "Oh, and there are wolves, tigers, bears, and wild boars on the mountain. You'd better be careful when traveling at night."