Ye Xuyang looked very calm, as if he had no idea who Yue Qianyu was or what kind of sect the Baiping Sword Sect even was. He simply drank his wine in peace.

“Foster father, seeing how completely confident you are, does the client have some backup plan up their sleeve?” Su Mohan said, and then suddenly remembering the client, he asked again, “Who is the client anyway? I bet only the Qin Estate of the Money King could afford to do such massive business with us.”

Right after asking, Su Mohan seemed to realize that his question was totally unnecessary. In the assassin trade, you could never know who the client was, let alone what other ideas they might have.

“I do not know if the client has a backup plan, and I do not know who the client is either.”

The response was exactly what Su Mohan had expected. Just as he was wondering why Ye Xuyang was so confident, Ye Xuyang spoke again, “But I do know that the risk of this job is not very high, and the client will personally take part in this operation. We are only there to provide backup.”

Su Mohan asked, “Since we are not masking our faces this time, what identity should we use to join the operation?”

Ye Xuyang replied, “The higher ups want us to blend into the various sects participating in this action however we want. The main thing is that we cannot expose our identity as members of the Tianji Gate.”

To understand the full story behind this siege of the Baiping Sword Sect, one must start with the history of the martial arts world. The martial arts world was already volatile, and with the country in turmoil, the entire martial arts community was trapped in endless warfare and non stop bloodshed.

The Yuewen Hall and the Baiping Sword Sect were the closest geographically among the four major sects, which also made their conflict of interest the most obvious. As the sayings go, two tigers cannot share the same mountain, and you cannot let another person sleep soundly right next to your bed. Because of this, the two sects had fought over a hundred battles, large and small, over the centuries in an attempt to swallow each other up, making them bitter rivals all along.

Twenty years ago, seeing that the Baiping Sword Sect was on its last legs under the leadership of Shan Mengqing, the Yuewen Hall believed they were about to win without even fighting. Little did they know that Shan Mengqing would suddenly pass the position of sect leader to Yue Qianyu and commit suicide by the sword at the peak of Zijin Mountain, kicking off the era of Yue Qianyu leading the Baiping Sword Sect.

The Yuewen Hall assumed that the Baiping Sword Sect would only collapse faster under Yue Qianyu’s rule, so they ignored it for the first two years. To their surprise, the sect did not fall and instead showed signs of staging a comeback. Consequently, the Yuewen Hall launched over a dozen offensive campaigns over the span of a decade.

The Yuewen Hall suffered devastating losses during these dozen or so attacks, and even their leader, the Holy Master, lost his life in the conflict. Later, Jiang Tianxing, the Scholar in White who was known as the world’s finest strategist, took over the position of Holy Master. He managed to deter the Baiping Sword Sect from launching a counterattack, temporarily ending over ten years of brutal fighting and giving both sects a few years of much needed rest and recovery.

Until these past few months, four people died one after another in the martial arts world. In truth, four deaths over a few months is completely normal, but none of these four were ordinary people. They were all highly respected individuals who had long been famous throughout the land, powerful figures who could call the shots and manipulate situations at will, and people who had made friends far and wide.

Aside from sharing the common trait of having incredibly high status, they had another similarity: they all died under the Withered Sword Style, and in the entire world, the only ones who knew this technique were Yue Qianyu and his personal disciples.

Although Yue Qianyu had taught students all across the land, very few were personally taught the Withered Sword Style. Even though Yue Qianyu claimed he would give the world’s heroes an explanation, and had even written letters to gather his personal disciples at Zijin Mountain to find the killer in front of everyone and let the spirits of the four heroes rest in peace, the Scholar in White, Jiang Tianxing, seized this opportunity. He rallied dozens of martial arts sects, big and small, planning to wipe out the Baiping Sword Sect once and for all.

These dozens of sects were all based north and south of the Huai River. Some were friends of those four martial arts heroes, some were small sects that had been miserably oppressed by the Baiping Sword Sect, and others were large organizations hoping to easily slip into the ranks of the four major sects once the Baiping Sword Sect was destroyed.

The alliance leader of these dozens of sects for this siege against the Baiping Sword Sect was Jiang Tianxing, the Scholar in White, while the deputy leader was Qin Guanghai of the Qin Estate.

Whether it was the Yuewen Hall, which held a grudge against the Baiping Sword Sect, or the Qin Estate, which possessed the greatest financial power, both were suspected of hiring assassins for help. As for who the client actually was, that remained the ultimate secret of the Tianji Gate.

Since this operation was rather unique, Ye Xuyang decided to split up from Su Mohan to give him some real world experience. He just needed to slip away quickly if he saw things turning sour during the big battle.

Although Su Mohan did not know what method Ye Xuyang would use to sneak into these sects, he had already come up with his own way to blend in.

The sky was perfectly clear for miles, and birds were nowhere to be seen. The sky over Yancheng was so clear that it felt like you could see all the way to the edge of the world, yet not a single bird could be spotted in such a bright sky.

In fact, as long as you were in Yancheng, whether the sky was bright or gloomy, you would never see any birds. Yancheng was exactly like the place described in the poem: a land where birds have vanished from a thousand mountains.

There were two main reasons why Yancheng had no birds. First, Yancheng was located by the Yellow Sea and was a city that relied on salt mining and manufacturing to make a living. It was also the most economically developed city in the Kingdom of Song. However, rapid economic growth often brings rapid environmental destruction, so many picky birds had migrated away.

Of course, the second reason was the real cause of the birds’ complete disappearance. Yancheng was home to the wealthiest family in the world, the Qin Estate of the Money King, and Master Qin Guanghai, the third son of the family, absolutely hated hearing birds chirp. Consequently, he ordered his men to slaughter every single bird in Yancheng and even stationed many lookouts outside the city specifically to shoot down any birds that wandered into this forbidden zone.

At first, everyone was puzzled as to why Qin Guanghai had never hated birds before. It was not until after the battle of Jiutou Mountain that he started making life miserable for these poor little birds.

Later on, people found out that Qin Guanghai had suffered a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Jiutou Mountain. Having completely lost face, he had to beg like a dog just to keep his life and return home.

His hatred for birds started right around that time because, on his way back, the birds kept making chirping sounds that sounded like mockery, leaving him with a permanent psychological scar. Since he already viewed the battle of Jiutou Mountain as a humiliating disgrace, hearing birds chirp would trigger those painful memories. As a result, he formed a deep grudge against the little birds, though it was a pity for these lively and lovely creatures.

Although many people felt sorry for the birds, they were powerless to do anything. After all, the old master of the Qin family had passed away, and Master Qin Guanghai was now running the show. The Qin family was not only a dominant bully in Yancheng but was also at the peak of its power in the martial arts world. Qin Guanghai even boasted that within two years, the Qin family would definitely secure a spot among the four major sects.

The people of Yancheng could only swallow their anger without daring to speak up. Wealthy young men who liked taking their birds out for walks could only hide at home to play with them. If Master Qin Guanghai caught them by accident, losing the bird would be the least of their worries, as they might even face a violent end themselves.