Sword Shadow and Green Shadow regarded his words with skepticism.
Moon Shadow took two steps forward and said to the two, "Whether it is true or false, won't we know by going to take a look?"
Sword Shadow pointed his long sword and said sternly, "You two can't go past."
Seeing this, Moon Shadow did not bother to waste words with them. He said to Qiao Ying, "You go first. Leave this place to me and save your strength."
Sword Shadow: "Given your current state, do you think you can stop us?"
Moon Shadow staked it all: "I want to live, so I will definitely do my best." He was not helping Qiao Ying, but saving himself.
Qiao Ying glanced at him and did not hesitate too much. She resolutely took two steps back and left by another path.
Green Shadow's footsteps moved and she was about to give chase, but Moon Shadow blocked her way with his body: "Kill me first before going after her, it won't be too late."
Green Shadow looked at the injured, breathing ragged Moon Shadow.
"Can't you grant me this small request after our encounter?"
The running Qiao Ying heard fighting sounds behind her.
Qiao Ying took many twists and turns in the maze-like castle before finally circling back to the original route. Her light footsteps were almost inaudible.
The dome of the castle was towering high, and the tiny Qiao Ying below was completely unable to contend against it.
At the end of the corridor was an enormous oil painting.
The style of the painting was bizarre and intricate in its details, like an opened, gaping abyss ─ it was the entrance to the underground castle.
And guarding the entrance was Meihua Q.
The two met at this narrow passage.
"We meet again," Meihua Q looked at Qiao Ying and let out a harsh laugh, the hatred in his eyes for Qiao Ying reaching its peak.
The weapon on Meihua Q's wrist was ready to strike.
He gritted his teeth and hated: "You burned my nurturing chamber, killed my clones, destroyed my painstaking work over the years. All this time, even in my dreams, I was thinking of killing you."
He couldn't wait to settle this score with her first before letting her get to JOKER.
Qiao Ying looked at the almost frenzied Meihua Q: "Since you like those clones so much, I'll send you down to see them."
The muscles on Meihua Q's face twitched neurotically: "Little brat spewing nonsense, I want to see how long you can remain arrogant."
"I will cut off your limbs and keep you in a vessel as an experiment subject, letting you beg for life yet unable to die!"
The moment his words fell, the chains on Meihua Q's wrists came alive like silver snakes. With a flick of his wrists, the silver snakes deftly maneuvered in midair. The blade at the end made a beeline for Qiao Ying's throat. One strike would end Qiao Ying's life on the spot.
The person watching the screen quietly enjoyed this fight. Those previous assassins didn't even make Qiao Ying use her full strength.
Now, fighting Meihua Q, Qiao Ying had to go all out.
JOKER watched for a while before falling into thought.
Then he suddenly said, "If the two of you fight, who will win and who will lose?" He was speaking to the girl beside him.
The girl looked towards the screen at the girl whose skill matched hers...
JOKER casually remarked: "She's hurt."
On screen, Qiao Ying's entire arm was tightly wrapped by the chains. The chains were like thorny vines with dense barbs along them. Her sleeve quickly filled with countless drops of blood that spread out. The blood quickly pooled and dripped down drop by drop.
Meihua Q continued to tighten the chains, almost wishing to shred her entire arm into pieces.
Qiao Ying tugged at the chains while competing in strength with him. Blood flowed from her clenched fingers. Suddenly, she relaxed her grip and released the chains. Her arm was almost chopped into pieces by the returning force, but right before the last second, she lunged forward.
She had to get rid of him quickly, otherwise when the other two, Green Shadow and Sword Shadow, caught up, she would only have death awaiting her.
Caught off guard by the returning force, Meihua Q staggered back two steps. By the time he steadied himself, Qiao Ying was already before him.
JOKER: "Old Q let his guard down."
On screen, the hatred-muddled Meihua Q, intent only on torturing Qiao Ying to vent his anger, was pressed by Qiao Ying and his head smashed against the huge oil painting.
Blood sprayed.
Adding to the already bizarre painting style was an extra hint of eeriness.
Qiao Ying finished him off decisively.
Meihua Q exclaimed in fright: "You can't kill me. Without me, you can't open this..." door.
The dagger pierced his fragile neck, trapping his remaining words in his throat. Meihua Q collapsed on the ground, eyes wide open and full of unwillingness as he glared.
Qiao Ying's footsteps faltered slightly before she quickly steadied herself. She slowly raised her head to look towards the pinhole camera above the oil painting, meeting JOKER's gaze across the screen.
There was no canvas. The entire oil painting was painted directly on the wall, or rather, it was actually a hidden elevator wall.
She groped on the painting for a bit. A recess appeared in the middle where the opened abyss was.
An electronic scanner emerged.
Qiao Ying went right up to it.
The mechanical voice sounded: [Iris recognition successful]
JOKER finally reacted a little as he watched Qiao Ying step into the elevator. This reaction was much bigger than when he personally witnessed Meihua Q's miserable death earlier.
He was not surprised that Qiao Ying knew where the entrance was and how to open the door. From her familiarity with the castle, he knew Blood Shadow must have told her everything.
He just assumed Qiao Ying would have used Meihua Q's iris.
Did Blood Shadow give her own iris to Qiao Ying? When did she start preparing all this?
Aside from being the assassin secretly nurtured by Blood Shadow and having Blood Shadow's genes implanted, what was the third possibility for Qiao Ying's identity?
Thinking of something, JOKER involuntarily turned to look at the girl two steps away from him...
The elevator door opened and Qiao Ying appeared in the hallway where she had fought with Meihua Q earlier.
Behind her, the elevator door slowly closed. The oil painting merged back into one painting. Strangely, there was no blood on the door.
There was also no corpse of Meihua Q on the ground, and no traces of the earlier fight. The blood that dripped from her arm had also vanished without a trace.
The floor was spotless like it was renewed. If not for the remaining blood and wounds on her arm, she would have thought the earlier life-and-death battle with Meihua Q was imagined.
Yet Qiao Ying did not find any of this strange at all.
After much difficulty coming from the front hall of the castle to here, she now retraced her steps and walked towards the front hall.
All was peaceful along the way.
This place ─ Moon Shadow and Sword Shadow should have been fighting Green Shadow here, but there was no sign of them at all.
Qiao Ying continued towards the front hall.
Here ─ there should have been six corpses, yet they had all vanished without a trace.
All traces of her and Moon Shadow passing through here earlier were gone.
At a corner, the wall here originally had a bloody palm print from Moon Shadow, yet of course it would not be here now.
This was clearly the first floor of the castle, yet she had clearly taken the elevator down to the basement just now.
The sounds of the waves and wind were much softer. The airflow here was not as good as earlier. All signs showed she had not returned to her original spot but had indeed gone underground.
