Regarding the incident where Master choked to death on a chicken leg, Zhang San had always felt remorseful about it, after all Master died right in front of his eyes.
He remembered that at that time Master was eating with great enjoyment, and he was too lazy to haggle with Master, so he went to wash the dishes. When he heard a strange noise from the kitchen, Zhang San ran back to the dining table, but unfortunately Master had already choked to death at that point.
What a pity.
Master was an Earth-rank expert, having only lived to the age of 82 before dying prematurely.
Zhang San had always felt especially aggrieved about this, but he did not forget Master's teachings to him over the past 20 years for a moment.
From the age of 8 when he started following Master to be an assassin, to the age of 15 when he carried out his first independent assassination.
In Zhang San's memory, the most memorable thing Master had ever said to him was on the first day he worked as an independent assassin, right before he went out the door, Master said to him.
"My disciple, this world is simply a ghost world, a dog-eat-dog world. It's not our fault that we were born into this world."
"Therefore, if when carrying out assassinations, you encounter someone who seems extremely innocent and pitiful, don't show mercy either."
"Because as long as you recall your own life, you will know that you have suffered much more than them."
Zhang San had an especially deep impression of those three sentences. If at the end Master didn't add that sentence "Also, your Master is still at home waiting to eat chicken legs", Zhang San felt like the impression would have been even deeper.
...
...
Zhang San walked into Xiaoyun County and stopped in the bustling market.
He was now ready to take on a mission.
Even though not a professional assassin, he was still an assassin after all, and there was no escaping from the act of killing people.
In his 20 years as an assassin, Zhang San had killed many villains. Although he did not kill women and children, he also dared not say that all the people he had killed were bad guys, for example that scholar from a few days ago.
There were even some who seemed very pitiful and miserable.
But every time Zhang San took action, he would recall Master's three sentences, then say to himself in his heart:
Don't compare misfortunes with me.
I'm afraid you can't beat me.
Alright.
Zhang San slapped himself in the face, pulled himself together, it was time to get to work!
He told himself: Don't forget, you are an assassin, a professional assassin.
...
...
It must be said that becoming a professional assassin for an assassin organization, the money earned would definitely be much more than being temporarily hired by an assassin organization.
For example, for that scholar Zhang San killed a few days ago, the mission reward was 100 taels of silver. The organization that issued the mission was Baiyun Prefecture's number one underworld assassin organization - Black Cloud.
For temporarily hired assassins like Zhang San, they would usually only get half of the reward money, which was 50 taels.
Now let's look at professional assassins, using the Black Cloud assassin organization as an example. For the Black Cloud assassin organization's recruitment ad for assassins in Baiyun Prefecture, Zhang San had actually seen it himself before, and had even been tempted at the time.
After all with base pay plus commission, plus free room and board, plus given that regardless how powerful one was, the number of missions one could take per month or year was limited. It was impossible to literally be on the job contributing everyday of the entire year right. Therefore, due to having base pay and commissions, professional assassins generally had higher total income compared to non-professional assassins.
However Zhang San had already been a non-professional assassin for 20 years.
The reason was that while being a professional assassin earned more money, it wasn't stable enough!
Zhang San had also been shaken by the appeal of a professional assassin's salary before, but he firmly rejected the temptation for three reasons.
The first reason was that assassin organizations were not charities. They were proper underworld organizations.
They all said businessmen were black-hearted, but don't they know that compared to underworld businessmen, those regular businessmen were already both virtuous and talented.
Assassin organizations invested money and effort to train or nurture a group of assassins. So in order to ensure control over these assassins, they would definitely investigate the assassins, and even demand the assassins to actively hand over all genuine personal information.
Then after obtaining this information, the assassin organizations would proactively investigate the assassins' relatives and friends, especially family members.
If the assassins were later disobedient, the consequences...
So as it's been said, they are genuine underworld organizations, what sinister things can they not do?
But Zhang San had been orphaned at a young age, and Master had died 3 years ago. Based on reason there shouldn't have been these concerns, Zhang San's prudent nature led him to naturally think of a problem.
If an assassin did not have any close relatives and was an orphan, how would the organization ensure his loyalty and control?
Of course it would be done through drugs.
It's been heard that in earlier years there was an assassin organization called Lingjiu Palace. They really liked giving their assassins under them a drug called the Life and Death Talisman to take. After ingesting this poison, they would have to take the antidote every year, otherwise they would suffer agonizing pain worse than death.
Although this method was sinister, it worked! It almost 100% guaranteed the assassins' loyalty.
But this method was eventually rejected and scorned by others in the industry, and Lingjiu Palace declined.
But this case existed as a precedent. Zhang San did not believe what was written in those recruitment ads, about absolutely not drugging assassins, or anything written about them being a proper underworld organization that firmly opposed any sinister means.
Those ads were preposterous!
Not long ago the assassin organization Black Cliff was exposed to have been secretly putting the "Three Corpse Brain Divine Pill" into the food and meals of their assassins below them. It provoked the condemnation of all underworld assassins for a time, not knowing if it was purely to condemn this kind of behavior, or to vent anger at this damned Black Cliff for exposing inside secrets of the industry.
The second reason was how could you guarantee that the missions the organization assigns you would definitely be within your capability? Maybe the organization itself doesn't know the target's true strength.
In the jianghu, a group of assassins were ordered in one day's time to kill an ordinary looking person with seemingly no martial arts skills at all. At this time if you were a professional assassin, could you rebel against the organization's orders?
The answer was of course you could not. As for why you could not, please see reason number one.
Then this group of assassins would get killed in counterattacks by the ordinary looking person with seemingly no martial arts skills at all. Were there not enough cases like this already in the jianghu?
But if you were a non-professional assassin, then you would have ample time to observe the target. And if worst came to worst you could give up on the mission right?
Thirdly, what would you do if the organization did assign you a mission that exceeded your capabilities, but did not tell you about it?
In the jianghu, there were instances of a concealed and low-profile expert being suddenly surrounded by a group of assassins one day. After fighting for an entire day and night until exhausted, and finally dealing with the opponent, they would get killed by another wave of assassins concealed in hidden areas. Had you not heard of events like this before?
Zhang San believed that this was a means that many assassin organizations exploited their staff...oh no, exploited assassins.
After all in the jianghu there was this poem:
Protect Earth-rank low stage well, Earth-rank mid stage a gem.
Earth-rank high stage money tree, Star-rank assassin worse than grass.
In Dawu Country where everyone practiced martial arts, even a random small-time gangster on the big streets could be a low stage of Earth-rank.
If you put yourself in the shoes of an assassin organization's boss, and received a mission to assassinate a low stage Earth-rank expert, but your Earth-rank mid stage and above assassins were still on missions. A low stage Earth rank could be counter-killed by himself, two could also possibly be counter-killed, three would then make expenses higher than revenue, after all commissions had to be paid out.
But giving up on the mission represented lost considerable revenue, reputation could also suffer damage.
As capitalists, oh no, as proper underworld businessmen, money was definitely, surely, necessarily, absolutely, always, absolutely, not important.
However! Since reputation was involved, how could their underworld businessmen engage in actions like "giving up on missions"? Even though low stage Earth-rank were powerful, with enough people they could still be overwhelmed. So when it came down to it there was a choice to be made.
In the end which unlucky fools would have to be the first wave of assassins?
According to Zhang San's life experience, unless you were the boss's own son or illegitimate son, or the son of a high-level member of the organization, otherwise you really could not guarantee that you would definitely not be in the first wave.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
