Bai Yun left the bar before heading home. As he did, he started to read the information on the card given to him. Bai Yun had already told the bartender that he wasn't going to kill innocent people. The bartender had accepted it. There were many different kinds of personalities in the outer section of blood moon. Some of them were here to hone their craft, some to fight powerful enemies, and some for the thrill. So he was used to some eccentric requests. Besides, he had already thought of Bai Yun as a young master who wanted to play an assassin, so he was given some leeway.
The person that he was asked to kill was a local tyrant. Even though yellow city was controlled by the major forces of the continent it did not mean that everyone here was extremely strong. Just like anywhere else, there were mortals and weak people eking out a living in the shadows of the strong here too.
And the further you walk into the neglected parts of the city, the weaker and darker it gets. In places like this, the police of the city, which is controlled by the hunters union to maintain law and order in the city, does not even appear. Thus these places were even worse than the outside world, places where fists rule without reason.
And there were places where the strongest was only in the qi condensation realm even in the city. These would be places where most of the inhabitants were mortals. And it was in one of these places that Bai Yun's job was going to take him to.
In a little slum outside the city, there was a place called leftover lane. It was ruled by a local gang of bullies who would kill anyone who resisted their will and did whatever they wanted, including raping and pillaging. The job was placed by the inhabitants of leftover lane. Here the job was to kill the leader of the gang, a ninth stage qi cultivation realm practitioner.
Since the job was placed by the poor residents of the place, it was not very wealthy. In fact, the money offered by them was the very least that could be offered for a ninth stage qi condensation realm practitioner. As a result this mission was placed in the bottom of the pile, with no one willing to pick it up.
But the blood moon was very professional. If they could not finish the mission in a year, they would return the money deposited. This was the reason the people trusted the blood moon too. And the idea was good for blood moon too. Even if a mission was not completed, they would still gain money that they could keep for a while. The crescent moon organization could invest that money and make a profit in the period the money was deposited with them. Even if a single such mission was very cheap, a lot of similar missions would lead to a lot of money, which would lead to a lot of profit as well.
And the reason that Bai Yun ended up getting this mission was also because of the soft spot of the bartender. As a professional, he would never do the job for so little compensation, but giving the job to Bai Yun could be considered as public service.
Bai Yun looked at the map at the back of the card and started to walk home. The place that was mentioned on the map was quite far from the pub, so he had to walk a great distance. If he went there tonight, he would not be able to get back by daybreak. Bai Yun was not even the slightest bit bothered by the mission. He could most likely kill someone who barely reached the peak of qi condensation using the worst kind of techniques even in a frontal match. But he was terrified to his bones of the thought of his mother catching him out of the mansion. Death might be a preferable alternative.
So Bai Yun directly returned home. Thankfully it was still dark out by the time he returned. It seemed as if his mother had not checked in on him when he was out, his father must have made sure of it. Bai Yun knew that his father was still watching when he left last night.
Bai Yun crept back into his room and slipped under the covers once again. He slept for a few hours and went out at sunup.
Bai Yun spent the whole day both exercising as well as devising a plan for tonight. By the afternoon, he had recovered to his perfect condition. And, due to the secret technique he employed, he was stronger than ever before.
In the afternoon Bai Yun spent it trying to convince his mother to let him out of the mansion. After hours of persuasion and promises by him, and aided by his father, finally she relented. But even then she did not give in completely. She only relented under the condition that old Hi accompanies him.
Bai Yun was fine with it. After all old Hai was mostly responsible for protecting him from the shadows and would not interfere with his day to day activities. And more importantly, he would be able to get good help in transportation. If he was to travel all over as part of his missions, he might end up spending more time moving rather than killing. Yellow city was truly too vast, and the jobs that he would be getting would be all over the place. After all, the blood moon only cared about how he finished the mission itself, not how he got there.
Once the sun set, Bai Yun asked old Hai to drop him off near the leftover lane. Funnily enough, there were multiple leftover lanes in the city, so old Hai accidentally took him to the wrong one at first. He had used one of the clan's map to locate the place. After all, someone like old Hai had no reason to go to such places at all. Only after confirming their location with the map given along with the mission, and realizing the mistake, did they turn back and go to the right one.
Old Hai dropped off Bai Yun a short distance from leftover lane. Leftover lane was a street in the area that was a few hundred meters long. It mostly had houses or huts belonging to the poor. But some of these houses were also shops selling some basic items. But due to the late time, most of the shops were closed, and most of the houses seemed to be in the darkness, signifying that the people had already fallen asleep.
Bai Yun walked down the street in the shadows. He was well hidden in the shadows. He wore very dark clothes and was wrapped up in a black hood to blend in with the shadows. He couldn't completely erase his presence due to his low cultivation, but he was able to use the experience from the Assassin God's legacy to make his way sneakily. Hiding in the shadows, and moving only when the moon was covered by the clouds, no one was able to make out Bai Yun as he moved.
This way Bai Yun quickly made his way to a small hut near the end of the street. This was the house of the person who had given the mission.
Bai Yun looked around. This house was also hidden in the shadows, and there was no light inside. Bai Yun waited outside and looked around before he slipped inside. Not even the slightest sound was made as he entered the house.
The house was a single room hut. Inside the house, there was a middle aged man sleeping on the floor alone. He was a mortal who had never stepped onto the road of cultivation. Bai Yun knelt next to him and took out his dagger and held it in his left hand. He then covered the middle aged man's mouth and nose with his right hand. After a moment the middle aged man stirred and woke up. When he realized that someone was choking him he tried to struggle. But his struggle was quickly brought to an end as Bai Yun brought his dagger to rest right in front of his eyes. The middle aged man froze as he stared at the dagger in front of his eyes with terror.
"I wouldn't make a noise if I were you." Bai Yun said. The middle aged man turned his eyes to Bai Yun. Bai Yun moved his dagger to the middle aged man's neck. The terror in his eyes only grew.
"Now I am going to remove my hand from your mouth." Bai Yun said with a smile. If anyone saw that smile, they would only think that the person smiling was an innocent child who knew nothing of the ills of this world. Though to the middle aged man, it looked like the smile of a devil.
"And when I do, you should not make a sound, capiche?" Bai Yun continued. "You see if you make a sound, I might be startled. And if I am startled, my hand will jerk. I have this bad habit that when I am startled, I reflexively cut off people's heads. So you wouldn't want to startle me would you?" The middle aged man shook his head as if his life depended on it.
"Good." Bai Yun said. "So you will cooperate with me right?" The middle aged man nodded furiously.
Bai Yun smiled and gently removed his hand from the middle aged man's throat. The middle aged man only stared at Bai Yun in terror and did not make even the slightest movement. The two of them stared at each other for a while before Bai Yun reached out with his hands. The middle aged man froze when he saw Bai Yun's hand appraoching him. But Bai Yun did not say anything and only gently patted his head. "Good boy." He said.
This image of a middle aged man being patted on the head by a child would only be a funny one anywhere else, but humor was the last thing on the middle aged man's mind right now.
"I am from blood moon." Bai Yun explained. "You placed a mission there a month ago didn't you?"
The middle aged man was now frozen in terror. He was too terrified to answer. Bai Yun's face hardened. "Answer." He said curtly. In response, the man nodded furiosly.
"Good I was afraid I entered the wrong house." Bai Yun said. "Due to your dumb luck, I was given the mission as a test." Bai Yun explained and then removed his dagger from the man's throat. With a flourish of his hands, the dagger disappeared.
Bai Yun stood up and then stepped a few steps back. There was nowhere to sit in the hut, so he took out a chair from his storage ring. He then sat cross-legged on to the chair and tiled his head. By now the man had stood up and was standing submissively in front of Bai Yun.
"Lets talk shall we?"