Translator: AstralGhost Editor: Kurisu

  The countless hidden guards around the manor were all the elite of the elites. They were proficient at subterfuge and assassination operations.

  "Captain, what kind of people do you think are in there? To actually mobilize all out us out here."

  In a coffee cafe not far from the manor, a young man and a lady sat side by side, chatting. They looked no different from a couple in love.

  The girl lowered her voice and told the young man, "The people in there are all martial practitioners. This is Beijing, and so many martial practitioners are gathered together in one place. We naturally need to have eyes on them, and monitor their movements to understand their objectives."

  Jiang Tao raised the cup of coffee to his lips and took a light sip, savoring the taste on his tongue. A hint of fear lingered in his eyes.

  "Oh, it's just a bunch of martial artists? Is there a need to be so nervous?" Zheng Li asked with some confusion. Their group were all elites, and two-thirds of their entire department had been mobilized for this mission.

  "What do you think of our instructor? Is he strong or not?"

  Jiang Tao did not answer her directly, and suddenly asked her another question in return.

  Zheng Li thought for a moment and replied seriously, "The instructor is naturally strong, But provided that we have all our equipment, it would only take at most 10 people to take him down. But if he also had a gun, we might need 30 people to kill him, and that is if he did not focus on escaping."

  "Then I'll let you in on something. The instructor can only at most be considered a junior in front of these experts. Among them, there's even a powerful expert who could go against a thousand-strong elite private army all by himself!"

  Jiang Tao shook his head as he said each word slowly. Experts like that basically could never be surrounded and killed. Even if they couldn't win, they could run.

  "How can that be possible?! Is that still a human?"

  Zheng Li's face was filled with shock and disbelief. From the way she saw it, the instructor was already extremely powerful. But, unexpectedly, the captain said that their instructor would only qualify to be a junior in front of these people. There was even a person who could handle 1,000 elite private soldiers by himself? How was that possible!?

  Jiang Tao sighed lightly, having completely anticipated this reply. "Zheng Li, you haven't been in our department for long, so you don't know how strong these people are. You think that we're here to stop these people at the critical moment?"

  "Otherwise?" Zheng Li asked with puzzlement.

  Jiang Tao laughed bitterly and said, "Would you believe me if I told you that those people inside already know about us being here? If those people really want to do something, our only purpose here is to report this upwards."

  For other matters, their department was fully capable of handling them. But to these martial artists at the peak of the martial world, they were nothing but chess pieces.

  Zheng Li fell into a deep silence. In her 20-something years on earth, she had never imagined that the strength of a single person would actually be powerful enough to make a the country feel apprehensive!

  Inside the manor, the Cerberus strutted through the outer hall with its nose in the air, following the scent of the food and eating happily.

  There were large amounts of food placed here, and they were all prepared by world-class chefs. Some even contained ingredients that were greatly beneficial for martial practitioners.

  "Wu~ these are so hard to eat. But this Lord Dog will just make do."

  "Wu, wu, compared to the food that owner gives us, this stuff is really much too inferior."

  Insatiable and Black Hole grumbled as they ate, but their speed at chowing down the food remained very quick.

  Mystic One simply found a quiet spot and stood there with a glass of blood-red wine.

  "Hm? That looks pretty yummy."

  Insatiable's eyes lit up and signaled to Black Hole as it looked over at a fish atop a table nearby.

  The two gluttons grinned cheekily and ran over with their tails wagging excitedly. The fish on the table was like a piece of art. Its entire body was covered in five brilliant colors, and it seemed to hold lots of energy in its flesh.

  This fish looked extremely fresh, as though it had just been caught. But in reality, it had already been processed through special means. The guts and other dirty stuff had been pulled out of the fish through its mouth, and it'd been completely cleaned up.

  The fish's insides were stuffed with other lamb-type Demonic Beast meat and various precious spirit herbs.

  Then, a mixture of specially mixed oil and hot soup was poured into the fish's stomach. This process took three days—nine rounds of hot soup were poured into the fish before the entire process was completed.

  "Woof!"

  The Cerberus swallowed the fish in one gulp, and also licked the plate clean on the way out.

  "Mm, not bad, not bad, this is considered rather nice tasting compared to the other stuff."

  The Cerberus jumped onto the chair and flopped down against it.

  "Ying'er, this is something that I've prepared specially for you, I've spent a lot of effort on it."

  Zeng Siqing smiled suavely and led a girl over by the hand.

  "Really? I didn't expect that you even managed to find a five-colored fish, looks like I'm in luck today!"

  Qiu Ying's eyes lit up with excitement. The five-colored fish was said to be extinct, and they supposedly only lived a thousand zhang beneath the frozen lakes in forbidden lands. By itself, this fish was something that was immensely nutritious and greatly beneficial to cultivators.

  Its taste was incredibly delicious, but it'd been 50 years seen the last traces of this fish had been seen.

  Qiu Ying knew what the other party was planning; but the lure of the five-colored fish was irresistible for her. From this point alone, Zeng Siqing's plan was undoubtedly very successful.

  The focus of today was the Zeng Clan. The Zeng Clan was a martial family, and as they had a Controlled Dan Heavenly Expert in their clan, they were extremely powerful.

  The Zeng Clan was a large clan with powerful connections. They had over a hundred juniors in the younger generation, and more than a dozen were even more outstanding than Zeng Siqing!

  Zeng Siqing had placed his sights on Qiu Ying, the shining jewel of the Qiu Clan. The Qiu Clan was a small clan with few members. There were only 18 males of the younger generation in the family. As the only girl in the family, she was very doted upon by everyone.

  If he could obtain Qiu Ying, that would mean that he would have gained a strong support for himself. Besides that, Qiu Ying was also extremely beautiful.

  But despite chasing after her for an entire year, he had not even managed to have a meal together with her yet. This was because Qiu Ying's status was special. If it was another girl, Zeng Siqing would have taken the forceful approach long ago.

  After much effort, he finally found out about Qiu Ying's love for delicacies. Thus, he exhausted a great deal of energy and found a five-colored fish. And, finally, Qiu Ying had agreed to savor the fish with him. Zeng Siqing was extremely eager; after all this time, he'd finally obtained a good start!

  "Eh? Where's my fish?!"

  When he brought Qiu Ying to the table and saw the plate that was even cleaner than his face, Zeng Siqing eyes widened with disbelief.

  "That's impossible, it was definitely still here when I left!"

  Zeng Siqing rubbed his eyes repeatedly, as though hoping to wake himself up from an illusion.

  "Hmph!"

  Qiu Ying snorted coldly and turned around with a swish to leave. She felt like she had been duped.

  "Ying'er, don't go! Wait a moment, the five-colored fish was really here just now!"

  Zeng Siqing began to panic, wanting to save the situation.

  Qiu Ying turned and said with disdain, "You mean that it was here just now, but the moment I came, it left? Could it be that a cooked duck can fly away, or a cooked fish could just swim away by itself?!"

  "Damn it! Come here! Where did everyone go? Scram out here for this daddy!"

  Zeng Siqing's face was as black as a thunder cloud as he hollered with rage.

  A 30-something-year-old woman came running over in a hurry. Seeing that Zeng Qingsi was upset, her face turned pale and she hurriedly bowed. "Young Master, you called me?"

  "Where is my fish?! I asked you to keep watch over here, where did you go?!"

  Zeng Siqing was like a volcano which would erupt at any time.

  This spot was on the edge of the yard and situated beside a pond. The scenery was extremely beautiful, but not many people came near this area. Zeng Siqing's roar also did not attract much attention.