Chapter 318: Vicious Decision

Yue Yao went on, "Because I’ve been busy, I didn’t pay attention either. I’m still asking around about the specifics. I just wanted to tell you about this."

"Mm, got it, I’ll keep an eye out."

From Yue Yao’s words, Li Yan could tell that she’d been focused on the situation over in Li Country, especially since over the past few weeks she’d already arranged for part of the organization’s people to go there, so she hadn’t been paying much attention to the task updates on the platform. And this job in S City was probably not the type that stays open for public competition; once an Assassin or an organization takes it on, it stops being displayed and only reappears after the job fails.

Being able to draw in some professional Assassins probably meant it was a contract taken by an A‑level or even S‑level organization, and it might not be just a single job. But since Yue Yao had already missed it, she could only ask around through various private channels. Because of confidentiality concerns, there was no guarantee she’d get concrete information in time, so she chose to notify Li Yan at the first possible moment.

What she was doing wasn’t treating the Yun Country District as "their" turf; although it was one of "their" main activity zones, it wasn’t an exclusive monopoly, and there were other Assassins and organizations active there as well. Low‑end Assassins like that Crow that Liu Yuyang had found could be found everywhere, taking on jobs like beat‑downs, extortion, intimidation, and so on. The reason Yue Yao took it so seriously, to the point of telling Li Yan immediately after she found out, was because the two of them were both in S City right now!

It was just professional instinct on Yue Yao’s part. With both her and Li Yan currently in S City, and with "their" side launching a major offensive toward Li Country at this very moment, what if someone saw through this whole layout and they ended up being the mantis stalking the cicada while a yellow sparrow lurked behind? They had to maintain crisis awareness!

After hanging up, Li Yan fell into thought: does this have anything to do with the Liu family?

The Liu family had been quiet for weeks—was it because they knew their own Power was lacking and didn’t want to repeat Liu Yuyang’s mistake, so they spent big money to hire high‑end Assassins for revenge?

That possibility definitely existed!

The deeper he analyzed it, the more he felt he’d been careless. Those two low‑level Assassins were insignificant; killing or sparing them didn’t matter much. But how had they gotten in touch with Liu Yuyang?

Someone like Liu Yuyang, a promising elite, should normally be fairly aloof. If ordinary people offended him, he’d be too disdainful to bother. Even with Li Yan, it was likely only after he heard that Zhang Yurong had gone home for the New Year with him, realized he couldn’t catch up anymore, that he resorted to such a desperate move. In other words, those two Assassins weren’t his kept men, nor were they people he frequently used. If he went to them, it must have been through an introduction from someone he knew.

And this kind of murder‑for‑hire business isn’t something you casually talk about unless things have reached a certain point. Anyone willing to introduce him to killers would certainly be a trustworthy friend of similar status and circle. Even if that friend hadn’t asked about his grudge with Li Yan, hadn’t asked who exactly he wanted dead, at the very least he knew something was going on. After Liu Yuyang’s so‑called suicide, if the Liu family investigated, this information that couldn’t be shared with the police would no doubt still be told to Liu Yuyang’s father.

And taken together with everything else, it wouldn’t be hard to trace things back to Li Yan.

...

Realizing this, Li Yan gave a wry smile. Nearly three years of city life had seriously dulled his alertness and vigilance. If it hadn’t been for the boss’s reminder this time, he’d definitely be in a much more passive position.

He suddenly started to doubt his plan to retire.

The Assassin world is a dangerous jianghu, but isn’t the ordinary world just a bigger jianghu of its own?

If he retires, can he really walk away clean?

Maybe the only way is to do what he’d done before: take the most ordinary jobs, change work environments and cities every now and then, become a truly ordinary Mortal—only then could he, to the greatest extent possible, draw a clear line and live a peaceful life.

But can he actually do that? With the assets of several billion he’d piled up, he was doomed never to be just another nobody. Was he really willing to give up that fortune he’d traded his life for? To donate it all? If he didn’t give it up yet still worked and struggled like a regular person, wouldn’t that be like carrying a mountain of gold while begging for food? And in the process of washing white, he might even run into suspicion and surveillance from the government!

Duan Haibo was the best example right now. At first, when he wanted to become an ordinary person, there were still some unfinished grudges. Because Old Eight, Yu Mocheng, asked, Li Yan helped him take care of some of his enemies. Now he could live as an ordinary man, but even if he didn’t mind, he still had to consider his wife and family’s feelings. He’d saved up a good amount of money, yet couldn’t use it openly—he could only watch his parents and his wife work themselves to the bone and worry over things like rent, and that didn’t feel good either.

Duan Haibo could still ask Li Yan for help, gradually bringing his money out into the open in the form of getting him in on insider investments. But what about Li Yan himself, whose sums were many times larger than Hai Bo’s? Besides, his wife, Zhang Yurong, didn’t come from an ordinary family either. Once massive interests were involved, they’d inevitably run into all sorts of problems.

Take Liu Yuyang for example: if their lives had never intersected, there would’ve been no issue; if there hadn’t been such enormous financial interests at stake, there would’ve been no issue either. But a vast fortune is enough to draw out life‑and‑death struggles!

Even if he stopped being an Assassin, if something like this came up, what then? He’d still have to make a move, wouldn’t he?

The coffee arrived. Li Yan took a sip and stopped thinking about things so far down the road. First, he had to deal with what was right in front of him!

He’d already been planning to strike first, and after hearing this news, he could hesitate even less.