TL: Zhao
Editing: Krisaia
"What are you going to do with him?" Li Yiming asked as he watched Yunding Tower fade into the distance from the passenger seat of Lin Lu's car.
"I need to take him back to the capital, but…" Lin Lu said and looked at the scar-faced guardian. After witnessing his ability, she was unsure whether that task was even possible.
"Do you need help?"
"I know it's a bit much, but…"
"I can't hand him over."
"What?"
"I can't hand him over to you." Li Yiming repeated. "You've seen what happened earlier. He and I, and the other people at the banquet are the same kind of people. I don't know what the people in the capital are up to, and I can't afford to hand him over just yet."
After mulling over National Security's motives, Li Yiming concluded that there was much more to the situation at hand, and he could not afford to hand Fangs over knowing that endless troubles could emerge from letting them study a guardian thoroughly
"But he killed more than a hundred of us!" Lin Lu exclaimed. She could not care less about the research that was to be done. All she could think about when arresting Fangs was to serve justice for her fallen comrades.
"I'll make sure that he pays a price for it," Li Yiming said.
"No, he needed to be put on trial." Lin Lu became agitated.
"Your trials are a joke to people like us." A voice came from the backseat. Lin Lu instantly pulled a gun out from under her seat and pushed its barrel against the body of her seat.
A man covered in grease and dirt sat on the backseat with fingers crossed. He scrutinized Li Yiming with interest as he spoke.
"You almost killed me with that blow a year ago," Li Yiming said.
"I wasn't trying to kill you," The man answered as he continued to stare at Li Yiming.
"Who are you?" Lin Lu asked anxiously as she slowly moved her thumb over the safety of her handgun.
"I'm Wu Yun. I work at a factory." The man smiled and greeted Lin Lu. The next moment, Lin Lu's tense expression suddenly relaxed as she collapsed on her seat, falling unconscious.
"Are you here to take my life?" Li Yiming smirked as he reached for his pocket and took out a silver metallic sphere.
"I'm here to fight with you, to be precise."
"Right now?" Li Yiming frowned. Although Wu Yun kept his power entirely concealed, the pressure he felt from simply looking at him far exceeded Yun Yiyuan's.
"Not yet. You've improved, but you're not strong enough. I've heard that you became Aunt Wu's pupil? How many of her nine sword techniques have you learned to use?" Wu Yun smiled and shook his head.
"I don't just specialize in swords." Li Yiming squinted as he made ready to strike. He still remembered Wu Yun's strike at Liu Meng. 'If it weren't for him… Maybe…'
"There's no point in fighting if I know I'm going to win. Come back when you've learned everything from Aunt Wu." Wu Yun said as he pulled off one of his work gloves and threw it toward Li Yiming.
"Why did you try to kill Liu Meng?" Li Yiming did not catch the glove and it hit the transmission box.
"Someone asked me to."
"Who?"
"I'll tell you when you win. How about I help you dispose of this one here? It'll be troublesome if they get their hands on him." Wu Yun said as he jumped out of the car with Fangs.
'Heaven's Blade…' Li Yiming looked at the glove Wu Yun left behind with a grave countenance.
Li Yiming took a deep breath before picking up the glove. The moment his fingers touched the item, it was as if he had fallen into a deep abyss, and the giant shadow of a blade came crashing down from above.
'This blade…' Li Yiming recognized the strike which almost killed him. He wasted no time in shifting his metallic orb into a sword upon wrapped by purple thunder sparks. However, even thrusting the sword with all of his might was barely enough to stop the blow, as his sword shattered into pieces the moment it came into contact with the oncoming blade. The blade's shadow then faded away and Li Yiming spat out a mouthful of blood as both the seat on which he sat and the glove were shredded to dust.
'Heaven's Blade… Wu Yun…' Li Yiming stared in the direction Wu Yun left — he could tell that he had clearly surpassed the level of a sage, and yet he chose to perform a sneak attack on Liu Meng to take her life.
'What is he planning…? Did he really come to me just for a fight?' Li Yiming opened the car door. His lack of emotions came with a certain level-headedness, as he would have otherwise tried everything he could to stop Wu Yun simply for the fact that he might have known about Liu Meng's whereabouts.
The screeching of tires was heard as a black car rushed to the scene, and two agents jumped off the vehicle.
"Boss!" One of them rushed toward where Lin Lu was, while the rest kept their guards up as they looked at Li Yiming.
"She's okay. She fainted, that's all." Li Yiming could tell that Lin Lu was unharmed.
"Where's our target?" The agent asked he scrutinized the inside of the vehicle. It was a very odd scene, as Lin Lu was completely unharmed, but the seat upon which Li Yiming sat was completely gone, leaving only debris and a few metal wires standing.
Li Yiming did not mind Lin Lu and instead looked at Yunding Tower in the distance. He could feel a pair of icy-cold eyes staring back at him.
"We need to leave." Lin Lu's voice came just in time.
"Secretary Lin…" One of the agents said.
"What is it?" Lin Lu said as she glanced at Li Yiming to protest the disappearance of her target. She did, however, understand that nothing could be done at this point.
"We've received news of an emergency." An agent said as he took out a telephone.
"An emergency?" Lin Lu's chest tightened as she recognized the encrypted satellite cell phone. Under normal circumstances, she would not be contacted in such a way.
"What?" Lin Lu exclaimed as soon as she picked up the phone. "I'm coming right away."
"You need to come with us." Lin Lu hung up after a few seconds and turned toward Li Yiming with a serious countenance.
"Where?" For some strange reason, Lin Lu's expression stirred Li Yiming's heart, and he had a feeling that he would eventually find a cure for his condition if he followed her.
"A309," Lin Lu uttered a number.
"Alright." Li Yiming did not know what it meant, but he felt bad for refusing the request after the promise he had made, especially when he could tell from Lin Lu's tone that he was desperately needed in this situation.
As Li Yiming boarded a military plane, he gazed at the moon outside of the window. He still had no idea where this so-called "A309" place was, but at this point, he could tell that it was very far away.
"Could you explain to me now?" Li Yiming picked up a bottle of water and gave it to Lin Lu.
"Don't you think that you're the one who owes me an explanation?" Lin Lu did not accept the drink.
"The only thing I can tell you now is that justice will be served." Although Li Yiming did not confirm Wu Yun's intentions, he was almost certain that Fangs would be dead. Even if Wu Yun did choose to spare him, Li Yiming had already made sure to destroy his Heavenly Vein, so National Security would be able to capture him with ease.
"Who's Wu Yun?"
"Someone like me." Li Yiming answered.
One of our teams was ambushed, only two returned out of seventeen members, and both of them are gravely injured." Lin Lu knew that it was impossible to make Li Yiming divulge any information. When she checked the camera footage she had tried to hard to capture, a technical staff told her that the device has been fried by a powerful electric current. Lin Lu knew exactly where the current came from, and it only meant that Li Yiming did not fully trust her yet.
Li Yiming nodded and waited for the rest — it was not simply a failed mission.
"Both of the survivors suffered terrible injuries, and our medical staff determined that they're still in danger of losing their lives…" Lin Lu took a deep breath. "But they completely recovered after only three hours."