Chapter 271 - 269: The Trial and Growth of the Yang Family’s Eight Disciples

The man with the scalpel was the most panicked, immediately shouting, "Someone’s here! Someone’s here!"

A grim look on her face, Cao Wei was already cursing Wan Mengjie, the intelligence broker, to hell and back in her mind.

One of them, a man with a grim expression, suddenly flung a dart. A closer look revealed a chain coiled behind the blade.

The dart shattered the glass in an instant, continuing unabated toward Cao Wei’s face. At the last possible second, she tilted her head just enough to dodge the blow.

Then, with a powerful heave, she pulled herself back onto the rooftop, leaving behind only the tinkling sound of shattered glass falling to the floor.

On the rooftop, Wan Mengjie was completely bewildered. "Why is the window broken? Was that on purpose or an accident?"

Cao Wei kept her voice low. "Retreat."

Whatever was going on in there, the situation had already escalated beyond their predictions.

Rushing into that cramped room to fight eight people of unknown strength to the death would be incredibly stupid.

But the ones whose party she’d just crashed weren’t about to let Cao Wei get away. They immediately climbed out the broken window and vaulted onto the Celestial Platform.

They were clearly all Martial Arts Practitioners, and they radiated a ruthless energy. All seven of them came up, leaving only the doctor behind!

A chill shot through Wan Mengjie’s heart, and she was scared witless. She scrambled to follow Cao Wei.

"We’re screwed, we’re screwed! Don’t tell me they’re actually the Rebel Species!"

Cao Wei said sternly, "Shut up! Split up!"

Wan Mengjie, decisive in her own way, immediately veered off in another direction.

Seeing them split up, the pursuers had no choice but to do the same. Five went after Cao Wei, leaving only two to chase Wan Mengjie. A very lopsided distribution.

Why?

One was dressed like the Queen of the Dark Night, while the other looked like a convenience store part-timer who’d taken a wrong turn.

Wasn’t it obvious who the real master was?!

As Cao Wei sprinted across the rooftops, she kept an eye on her pursuers...

’Speed... Mid-stage Marrow Refining at best...’

’Five of them... armed...’

Cao Wei was calculating the combat strength of each side.

She couldn’t just give up. If she scurried away with her tail between her legs, wouldn’t her honored master look down on her?

From the start, her plan had been to pull a feigned retreat—lure them into an open area, increase the distance, and then finish them.

Her long, straight legs sent water splashing through the rainy night before she used the complex terrain to vanish into a blind spot in an instant.

Just as the pursuers passed the spot where she’d vanished, a swift, dark figure shot out.

Cao Wei slammed a punch straight into her opponent’s abdomen.

Six ribs fractured, instantly puncturing his internal organs.

The force of the blow blasted through him, causing the rainwater on his back to explode outward.

"HRAAAGH!!"

He let out a wretched scream, but it wasn’t over. The tyrannical Power of the Innate Realm surged, sending the man flying more than ten meters, skidding across the surface of the Celestial Platform.

Cao Wei’s movements were both graceful and swift...

"Innate! She might be at the Innate Realm! Watch out!"

Cao Wei lowered her stance slightly, unleashing the full speed of the Innate Realm. In the blink of an eye, she was behind another one of them.

Her long leg swept in an arc behind her to kill her momentum as her right hand, now a blade, chopped down. Another man was struck down, his body smashing into the ground and cracking the concrete.

Even for a Martial Artist whose bones were as strong as iron, a single blow was enough to neutralize him.

The gap in their power was just too vast.

Cao Wei didn’t practice with weapons—hadn’t since high school. She relied purely on her fists and feet.

Such Martial Artists weren’t unheard of, but they were rare. They typically had to wait until the True Gang Realm to compensate for their lower lethality, and there were fewer compatible Martial Arts available to them in the earlier stages.

The trade-off was that they could focus exclusively on their unarmed combat techniques, honing them to an extreme degree.

This time, Cao Wei truly embodied the name "Rainy Night Fairy" as she danced across the Celestial Platform. The handful of Rebel Species members at the Marrow Refining Realm were utterly powerless to resist.

To draw a comparison, she was not much weaker now than Yang Shen had been in his final year of high school.

One could even see a shadow of Yang Shen in her fighting style.

The way she blended subtlety with ferocity, the powerful yet Harmonious flow of her movements... there were clear signs she was emulating him.

On a woman, it carried a unique charm all its own.

Her black cloak conducted a rainy night waltz.

A dart came flying. It was from the one who’d reacted fastest earlier, likely the strongest of the group. Cao Wei arched back in a graceful bend, watching clearly as the dart shot past just above her.

In her vision, the dart seemed to slow, so much so that she could see it shattering one raindrop after another... an illusion born of intense focus.

Then, with a twist of her long leg, Cao Wei deliberately let the chain attached to the dart wrap around her slender calf.

She wouldn’t risk grabbing it, in case the chain itself was poisoned, but the combat suit covering her legs negated that risk.

With a sharp tug of her right leg, she yanked the chain from her opponent’s grasp. Guided by inertia and her exquisite control, it coiled neatly around her calf.

Then, with the clash of metal, she launched herself forward, delivering a side kick to her opponent’s temple... with the chained part of her leg as the point of impact.

With a sickening THUD,

Eyeballs bulging, skull fractured, he was sent flying sideways. He slammed into a wall and got stuck there, his body twitching, a spiderweb of cracks spreading across the concrete behind him.

The entire exchange took less than a minute. Of the five pursuers, only two were left standing—the two weakest ones.

And they were only standing because they’d been the slowest runners.

They shared a terrified glance, then turned and fled without a second thought.

Cao Wei let out a soft breath as her adrenaline began to fade.

A first life-and-death battle was always more intense than you’d imagine, even when your opponents weren’t particularly strong.

She immediately capitalized on her advantage in speed and realm, chasing down the last two and knocking them unconscious. They were only around the late Bone Training stage and were utterly powerless to resist.

Then, as suddenly as she had left, Cao Wei returned to the bedroom.

She leaped inside in the exact same manner.

The doctor from before was, incredibly, still there!

A gash had been cut into the unconscious woman’s neck with a scalpel. When the doctor saw Cao Wei return, he clearly hadn’t anticipated that seven men chasing one woman would end with them being wiped out. He panicked instantly.

The intel said he was at the Early Innate Stage, but he was clearly a scrub with no stomach for a real fight. He backed away, step by step. "Stay back!"

Cao Wei’s gaze swept over the woman on the bed before settling on the doctor.

This was the time for a decision.

Although she had a contingency plan, the reality of clashing with the Rebel Species still gave her pause.

’Investigate... don’t hunt,’ her master had told her.

’So... I should kidnap him?’

Cao Wei felt no guilt about dealing with scum like him, but this was still a first for her.

Cao Wei lunged forward and quickly subdued him, breaking both his arms and binding him with the very same chain from before.

This doctor’s combat prowess was even worse than the dart-thrower from the Marrow Refining Realm.

The difference between a scrub and a Practical Martial Artist was like night and day. It wasn’t just a matter of skill; his will to fight was fragile. He’d already accepted defeat before the fight even began.

But then Cao Wei found herself at a loss. ’Should I just take him and leave? What about this woman? Just leave her here for someone else to find?’

’Should I bandage her wound? Will she bleed to death?’

’Wait! That intelligence broker is still being chased. I should be rescuing her, right? But how am I supposed to find them in the dark?’

The flood of chaotic thoughts and the complex situation demanding rapid decisions left Cao Wei feeling completely lost.

Just then, a figure leaped in through the broken window.

Cao Wei instinctively snapped into a defensive stance, horrified. ’I’m in the Innate Realm, and I didn’t sense them at all!’

Long Jiu wore a simple hoodie and wasn’t even carrying an umbrella, yet she was barely wet. Who knew where she had been hiding.

Her stunningly beautiful face was devoid of expression, her large, empty eyes unfocused. "Leave this... to me..." she said softly.

"He... is upstairs."

....

A few kilometers away, Wan Mengjie was slowly sinking into despair. The two men chasing her had mastered some unique Step Technique; she couldn’t shake them!

Desperation hardening her resolve, Wan Mengjie spotted a gap between two buildings and, after a brief hesitation, leaped down into it.

This was an old industrial district on the city’s outskirts, not some bustling commercial area. No one would be here to help even if she jumped from the rooftops, but she could at least try to use the more complex terrain to shake her pursuers.

But it seemed fate had it in for girls in stockings. The moment she landed, Wan Mengjie froze.

To her left... a wire-mesh fence over ten meters high. To her right... a brick wall of the same height.

’No! Are you kidding me?!’

’Why would they seal this off?!’

It wasn’t that she couldn’t clear them, but it would definitely slow her down. In the instant she hesitated, the two Rebel Species members landed as well, one to her left and one to her right, trapping her.

Boxed in.

Wan Mengjie’s face went pale. To her, the reputation of the Rebel Species was terrifying; they were said to be ruthless killers who wouldn’t bat an eye.

’I worked so hard to get here... my whole family took on debt to send me to Jiangti. My parents are still farming back home, waiting for me to graduate and fulfill our four-year pact... Am I really going to die here?!’

She slowly drew a Dagger from the small of her back. In all her time as a Nightwalker, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d had to use it. But it seemed that time was now.

’I may be at the bottom of my class, but I’m still a student of the Jiangti Martial Arts Academy!’

’A Martial Artist always has a final option.’

The two Rebel Species members watched her movements warily, but put on leering, taunting smiles, hoping to break the girl’s nerve.

"Well, well... the little lady’s got a nice figure. Looks like we’re in for some fun tonight."

"Boss, let’s break her arms but leave the legs. I could play with those legs all night!"

"You gonna play with them attached, or are you gonna tear them off first?"

"Of course I’ll play with them attached first, and then I’ll tear ’em off and play with them some more! Right in front of her, too! HAHAHA!"

Wan Mengjie said, "I’m a Jiangti student. According to the rules of the Jianghuai Night—"

Before she could finish, the two men howled with laughter. "Whoa! I’m so scared! A Jiangti student?! Go on, call your precious academy to come save you!"

"This just makes it even more exciting!"

Wan Mengjie sneered. "You really think you have me cornered? We’ll see who’s left standing!"

One of them said, "There’s one of you, and two of us. You do the math."

The two men closed in, shrinking the space around her. Just as the situation reached a breaking point, a noise came from overhead.

All three of them nervously looked up.

Just then, a bolt of lightning tore across the distant sky, illuminating seven figures in black cloaks on the dark eaves above, some squatting, some standing.

Revealing only seven pairs of piercing eyes...

The oppressive aura was so thick it felt tangible.

Yuan Rui looked down at the scene below. He understood their master’s intentions far better than Cao Wei did.

This trial by fire wasn’t just something Cao Wei needed; it was necessary for all eight of the Yang Family’s Disciples.

’These two vermin... they’ll make for good practice material...’

Yuan Rui glanced at his fellow disciples. ’It’s just a shame there aren’t enough to go around.’

"Make it clean."

Yuan Rui made a throat-slitting gesture.

He was much more decisive than Cao Wei, and also much more pragmatic.