and taken up arms. Upon the command from the Chief Master, they instantly obeyed the order whole-heartedly.

Lin Zhennan felt a measure of relief as he witnessed the entire Escort House working in unison, preparing to defend the honor of the Escort House. Walking back inside, he spoke to Lin Pingzhi.

“Pingzhi, your mom hasn’t been well for the last couple of days. The enemy will be soon coming; why don’t you move into the room outside her bedroom to guard her?”

“I don’t need…,” Madam Wang rejected, but before finishing the sentence, she suddenly realized what her husband had really meant. He wasn’t asking their son to guard her; instead, he was really trying to have their son close by, so they could protect him. Their son was a young man with very sensitive pride. If they had asked him to hide behind them, he would probably feel humiliated, and go straight out to challenge the enemy to a fight. That would be too dangerous! So she immediately swallowed the second half of the sentence down her throat.

“That’s right, Pingzhi. Mom is having joint problems these days; both my arms and legs feel weak. Your father needs to take care of the Escort House and can’t be accompanying me all the time. If the enemy gets in, I won’t be able to fight them off.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Lin Pingzhi stated without hesitation.

That night Lin Pingzhi slept on the bed just outside his parents’ room. The couple left the door open. Placing their weapons right next to their pillows, they slept dressed, so that they could jump up to fight at any time.

The night passed, uneventfully, until dawn, when someone outside the window called in a low voice, “Young Master? Young Master!”

Lin Pingzhi had not been able to sleep for the most of the night, and had just fallen asleep, so he didn’t wake up.

“What’s the matter?” Lin Zhennan asked.

“The Young Master’s horse…the horse is dead!” the man outside answered. Lin Pingzhi loved his horse very much, so as soon as the horse’s groom found out about the calamity, he rushed to tell Lin Pingzhi.

Roused by the words, Lin Pingzhi sat up in bed. “Let me go look.”

Lin Zhennan knew that once again, something had gone terribly wrong, so he hurried to the stable with Lin Pingzhi. The body of the horse lay on the ground. It had been dead for quite some time. As happened before, there was not a single wound on the corpse.

“Did you hear any noise last night?” Lin Zhennan asked.

“No, sir!” the groom answered.

“Don’t get upset. I’ll see to it that you receive another good colt.” Lin Zhennan patted Lin Pingzhi gingerly on the shoulder, as Lin Pingzhi quietly caressed the horse’s corpse, tears emerging from his eyes.

All of a sudden, Henchman Chen burst into the stables shouting in panic, “Chief…Chief Master, it’s terrible…horrible! All those escorts…the escorts were killed by the demon!”

“What did you say?” Lin Zhennan and Lin Pingzhi asked in unison, their voices filled with incredulity.

“Dead, all dead!” Henchman Chen kept muttering uncontrollably.

“Who is dead?” Lin Pingzhi demanded angrily. He grabbed Chen’s collar and shook him hard.

“Young…Young Master…dead!” Chen mumbled dazedly.

Hearing the words “Young Master dead,” Lin Zhennan was most disturbed. But he did not want to yell at Chen for saying those ominous words, afraid to show his uneasiness.

“Where’s the Chief Master? We’d better report this to him fast,” a man’s urgent voice floated in from the outside. “The demon is so vicious, what…what can we do?” another voice asked timidly.

“I am over here! What’s going on?” Lin Zhennan shouted loudly toward them, who, in turn, rushed over. It was an escort, followed by three henchmen.

“Chief Master, not a single escort we sent out, made it back,” the leading escort said.

Lin Zhennan had expected news of someone’s death when he heard the commotion. But he had sent out a total of twenty-three escorts and henchmen to gather information last night; how could all of them have been wiped out?

“Well, are you sure they’re dead?” he asked hurriedly. “Maybe they’re still investigating and just haven’t gotten back in time.”

The escort shook his head. “We have already found seventeen bodies….”

“Seventeen bodies?” Lin Zhennan and Lin Pingzhi cried out in unison.

Fear written all over his face, the escort confirmed with a nod. “Yes, seventeen bodies. Among them were Escorts Fu, Qian, and Wu. All of the bodies are in the Front Hall at this very moment.”

Without saying another word, Lin Zhennan hurried to the Front Hall. All the tables and chairs in the hall had been moved against the walls, and seventeen bodies lay on the floor in no particular order. Although Lin Zhennan was not a novice when it came to handling difficulties, when he took in the situation at the horrible scene, his hands could not help trembling and his knees almost gave out.

“Why…Why…Why?” he muttered, his voice so dry that the others could barely hear him.

“Alas, Escort Gao was an honest and diligent man, who’d expect that the demon would not spare him, either.” Voices came from outside the Front Hall, and seconds later, five neighbors walked into the front hall, carrying a door plank. A dead body lay on top of it.

“When I opened my door this morning, I saw him, lying dead in the middle of the street,” one of the neighbors explained. “I recognized him as Escort Gao from your Escort House. I figured he probably had some kind of plague, so I asked a couple of neighbors to help me carry him back to your Escort House.”

“Many thanks! Many thanks!” Lin Zhennan cupped his hands[17] and bowed. Turning toward a henchman standing by the side, he instructed, “Give three taels of silver to each of these wonderful neighbors. You can go to the bookkeeper to get the money.”

Frightened by all the dead bodies in the hall, the neighbors thanked Lin Zhennan and hurried away, and before long, the bodies of four more escorts were sent back. Lin Zhennan counted the bodies and came to a total of twenty-two. Escort Zhu’s was the only one not among them, but it might not be long, before his body would be found, somewhere.

Lin Zhennan walked back to the East Hall. Pouring a cup of hot tea for himself, he tried to calm down, but that didn’t help. Still feeling completely dumbfounded, he walked out of the gate and looked around. The stumps of the two broken flagpoles had been taken away, but he found himself even more disturbed. The foes had killed over twenty people in the Escort House, but had never actually shown themselves; they never formally announced their intentions, nor did they reveal their true identities. He turned around and glared at the big sign bearing the golden words “Fortune Prestige Escort House,” thinking, “The Fortune Prestige Escort House has been renowned for decades. Will it come to ruin in my hands?” Then he heard the sound of hoof beats approaching from the street. A horse slowly trotted toward the Escort House, and a man lay slumped back in the saddle. Lin Zhennan walked to the horse, and he wasn’t surprised to see, that it was Escort Zhu. The enemy must have killed him and just left the body on the horse. The horse remembered the way home and came back, all by itself.

Lin Zhennan let out a deep sigh, as tears poured down his face and fell on the body of Escort Zhu. “Brother Zhu,” he carried the body into the hall, murmuring, “if I can’t avenge you, I’d rather die. Why…why did you leave so hurriedly without even telling us the name of your killer?”

Escort Zhu was just a regular escort in the Escort House, and not particularly close to Lin Zhennan. Lin Zhennan’s tears were shed more out of frustration than from the sadness at losing a friend.

Madam Wang stood in front of the hall holding her golden saber in her left hand. Pointing at the courtyard with her right hand, she shouted challengingly.

“You cursed murderers! Why are you hiding yourselves and sneaking around? If you are real men, I dare you to come to the Fortune Prestige Escort House and fight a real fight. Aren’t you afraid of being looked down by doing all of this sneaking around?”

“Did you see anything?” Lin Zhennan asked his wife in a whisper as he placed Escort Zhu’s body down on the ground.

“No, I didn’t see anything,” Madam Wang growled. “These rotten lowlifes must be frightened of our Lin Family’s seventy-two moves of the Evil-Resisting Sword Art.” She waved the saber in the air and continued, “They are frightened of the golden saber in my hand, too!”

Suddenly, sound of snickering rose from a corner of the roof, and then with a hiss of wind, an object zipped through the air and struck the spine of the golden saber. Madam Wang felt a shock run through her arm and had to let go of the weapon. The saber flew into the air and landed in the middle of the courtyard.

Wasting no time, Lin Zhennan unsheathed his sword and jumped up to the roof, and with a move called Cast Upon Demons, the tip of his sword danced like the scatter of falling petals and flew toward the origin of the attack. Having not been able to face his enemies, he found his anger growing for the past couple of days and now reaching a point of explosion. Sparing no strength, he attacked with full force. But the attack hit nothing. The corner of the roof was completely empty, with not even a shadow. He jumped onto the roof of the east room, but found no one there, either.

Madam Wang and Lin Pingzhi also jumped up to the roof with their weapons drawn. Filled with fury, Madam Wang snarled.

“Damn you! You son of a dog! Be a man, come out and fight. Are you scared? What kind of shameless cowards are you?”

“Where did that son of a dog go? Who was he?” she asked Lin Zhennan.

Lin Zhennan shook his head. “Keep your voice down,” he whispered.

The three searched the entire roof and then jumped back down to the courtyard.

“What hit your saber?” Lin Zhennan asked in a low voice.

“Damn that son of a dog! I don’t know,” Madam Wang snapped.

They searched the courtyard but could find neither darts nor other missiles. The only thing they were able to find were small grains of bricks spread over the floor under the osmanthus tree. Obviously the attacker had hit Madam Wang’s saber with just a small piece of brick, and it was quite frightening to imagine that such a small piece of brick could have carried such great power. Seeing the fragments of brick, Madam Wang stopped cursing. Her anger was quenched, and completely replaced with fear. She froze for a moment, and then walked into the room, silently.

After the husband and son entered, Madam Wang shut the door behind them. “The enemy is too skillful. We’re not in the same class. What…what shall we…?” she whispered nervously.

“We can ask for help from friends. It’s perfectly normal for people to help each other in a time of need,” Lin Zhennan replied.

“We have many true friends that we can trust, but how many of them can fight better than we can? The ones that are no better than us won’t be any help anyway,” Madam Wang questioned.

“Yes, you are right,” Lin Zhennan admitted, “but the more people, the more brain power. It might not be a bad idea to ask them for ideas.”

“Fine! Who do you think we should ask?” Madam Wang asked.

“Let’s get friends who live close by, first,” Lin Zhennan suggested. “I will transfer all the elite fighters from our Escort Houses in Hangzhou, Nanchang and Guangzhou, and also invite famous Kung-Fu masters in our province and the neighboring three provinces.”

“Don’t you think that would hurt the reputation of the Fortune Prestige Escort House?” Madam Wang frowned.

“Wife, you are thirty-nine years old this year, right?” Lin Zhennan suddenly asked out of the blue.

“Why are you suddenly asking about my age? I was born in the year of the Tiger,[18] don’t you remember how old I am?” Madam Wang spat at him.

“I’ll be sending out invitations for your fortieth birthday party…,” Lin Zhennan said when Madam Wang quickly cut him short grouchily.

“Why the hell are you so interested in seeing me get a year older? You think I’m not old enough already?”

“You’re not old at all! You don’t even have a single gray hair.” Lin Zhennan shook his head. “I am using your fortieth birthday as an excuse, so when we invite relatives and friends over, we won’t rouse any suspicion. When everybody arrives, we shall only tell our close friends the true story, then there will be no damage to our reputation,” he explained.

Madam Wang thought about it for a while and finally agreed. “Very well! It is your decision. But what do I get for a birthday present?”

“A big one! Let’s have a cute, fat, baby boy next year!” Lin Zhennan whispered in her ear.

“Bah, you old goat! Still talking nonsense in such a crisis.” Madam Wang’s face went scarlet, and she spat at her husband half in annoyance.

Lin Zhennan grinned, and then left for the bookkeeper’s office so he could arrange to have the invitations sent out. The joke was just to ease his wife’s fear; he, himself, was still deeply worried. “Water a mile away can not put out a fire at hand. Terrible things will most probably happen again in the Escort House this very night. When our friends arrive, there might not be a Fortune Prestige Escort House waiting for them,” he thought to himself.

When Lin Zhennan arrived at the door of the bookkeeper’s office, he was greeted by two very frightened servants.

“Chief…Chief…Chief Master…something horrible…horrible has happened,” one of them mumbled in a trembling voice,

“What’s the matter?” Lin Zhennan asked.

“Bookkeeper Mr. Dong just sent Lin Fu to go buy some coffins, and right…right after he turned the corner on East Street, he fell to the ground dead,” said the servant fearfully.

“What? Where’s the body?”

“Still lying on the street.”

“Go bring the body back here,” Lin Zhennan directed. “Now, our enemies are becoming more reckless. They even dare to commit murder in broad daylight, and right in the middle of the street,” he thought aloud.

“Yes, sir…yes, sir…!” the two servants answered, but neither of them moved an inch.

“Well?” Lin Zhennan roared.

“Chief Master, you’d better go have…have a look…at….”

Lin Zhennan knew something bizarre must have just happened again. He gave a snort and walked toward the gate. Three escorts and five henchmen were already there. They stared through the gate, all looking very frightened.

“What’s going on?” Lin Zhennan demanded, and then saw for himself before anybody had a chance to answer. At about ten paces from the gate, an inch wide line was drawn on the stone slab street in blood. Words also written in blood next to the line read, “Cross the Line and Die.”

“When was this drawn? Did anyone see who did it?” asked Lin Zhennan immediately.

“Earlier, when Lin Fu died on East Street, everybody was crowded around him to see what was happening. There was no one here. I don’t know who would do such a thing,” an escort answered.

Lin Zhennan raised his voice and said loudly, “I, Lin Zhennan, am tired of living; I’d like to see how I’m going to die, after I cross this line.” He strode out of the gate.

“Chief Master!” Two of the escorts cried out.

Lin Zhennan waved them off and stepped over the line. The blood used to draw the line and the words was still wet. He scuffed the words out with the bottom of his shoes and then went back through the gate.

“This is just an attempt to scare us,” he said to the three escorts. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Brothers, would you please first go to the coffin shop, and then make a visit to the Heavenly-Peace Temple in the west end of town to have the monks come over for a mass to calm the souls, deliver them from the purgatory, and drive away the evil spirits?”

The three escorts watched the Chief Master stepping over the bloody line with their own eyes. Seeing that no harm had befallen him, they were quite relieved. After getting their weapons, they walked out the gate side by side. Lin Zhennan watched them stepping over the bloody line and rounding the corner of the street. He waited a little bit longer and then went back into the house.

Walking into the bookkeeper’s office, Lin Zhennan said to Bookkeeper Huang, “Mr. Huang, will you please write some invitations to some relatives and friends for a wine party in honor of my wife’s birthday?”

“Of course, sir! And which day would that be?” Bookkeeper Huang asked.

Suddenly, sounds of running steps came from outside. A man rushed in through the gate. Lin Zhennan stuck his head out and heard a loud thud. Someone had fallen. Hurrying toward the place from which the sound came, Lin Zhennan saw Escort Di, one of the three escorts he just sent to the coffin shop, laying on the ground. He was barely alive.

“Brother Di, are you alright?” Lin Zhennan held him in his arms and asked frantically.

“They’re all dead, I…I…I ran back,” Escort Di gasped.

“Who did this to you?”

“Don’t…don’t know…don’t know….” Then after a couple of shudders, Escort Di lay still.

Within minutes, everyone in the Escort House heard the news. Madam Wang and Lin Pingzhi both came out and all they heard from the crowd was: “Cross the Line and Die.”

“I’ll retrieve the bodies of the other two escorts,” Lin Zhennan said with determination.

“Chief…Chief Master…you can’t go,” Bookkeeper Huang muttered. “Great courage brings great rewards. Thirty taels of silver for the one that…that brings the bodies back.” He made the announcement three times, but no one answered.

“Where is Pingzhi? Pingzhi? Pingzhi?” Madam Wang suddenly shrieked frantically, her voice filled with fear.

“Young Master! Young Master!” everyone started calling together with Madam Wang.

“I am here!” Lin Pingzhi’s voice floated in from outside the gate.

With a surge of relieved happiness, everyone rushed to the gate, and rounding the street corner was Lin Pingzhi, with a body over each shoulder – he had carried back the two dead escorts. With weapons in their hands, Lin Zhennan and Madam Wang both rushed over the bloodline to guard Lin Pingzhi’s back.

“What a brave young man the Young Master is! He has great courage!” all the escorts and henchmen cheered, while Lin Zhennan and Madam Wang were both filled with pride for their son.

“Child, that was too reckless. These two escorts were good friends, but they were dead, already. It wasn’t worth the risk,” Madam Wang said reprovingly.

Lin Pingzhi managed a smile, but deep inside, he was miserable. “The whole affair is my fault,” he thought to himself. “It is all because I couldn’t contain myself and killed that guy; so many people have died because of me. If I only worry about my own life like a coward, how can I bear to ever look at myself again?”

“Unbelievable, Mr. Hua is dead too!” Suddenly shouts came from the back room.

“What happened?” Lin Zhennan shouted as the steward of the Escort House walked out in quick trots.

“Chief Master,” the steward said fearfully, “Mr. Hua went out the back door to shop for some vegetables, and he just dropped dead about ten paces out the back door. There are the same…the same words in blood.”

Mr. Hua was just a cook in the Escort House. His cooking skills were top notch; he was quite famous for his White-Gourd Pot, Buddha Over the Wall,[19] Pickled Fish, and Fish-wrap Wonton. He was Lin Zhennan’s secret weapon when he wanted to socialize with local officials and rich business owners.

Hua was only a cook, neither an escort, nor a henchman. It was an unwritten rule that wagon-pullers, sedan-carriers, grooms, and porters were to be left alone when bandits raided escort convoys. With enemies so ruthless, it would probably result in a massacre of the entire Escort House. Lin Zhennan shivered at the thought.

“Don’t be afraid.” He tried to calm everyone. “Humph, these damn bandits only have the guts to attack when one is off guard. You’ve all seen the Young Master, Madam Wang, and I step across the line. What did those damn thugs do? Nothing? They dared do nothing.”

Everybody agreed obsequiously, yet no one dared to step out of the gate. Lin Zhennan and Madam Wang frowned at each other and neither had any idea of what to do.

That night Lin Zhennan scheduled the escorts to guard the Escort House, but when he checked upon them, he found no one on duty. All the escorts just huddled within the hall. When they saw the Chief Master, all stood up looking embarrassed, yet no one wanted to move. Lin Zhennan knew that the enemy was just too vicious, and after the deaths of so many people, he still had not come up with a solution. No wonder everyone was so scared. So he uttered a few words of comfort, ordered servants to bring wine and dishes to the hall, and then drank together with the escorts. Greatly worried, each one just drank the wine silently, and no one talked much. Not long after, many became drunk and fell asleep.

The following noon, several horses suddenly thundered out of the Escort House. After a short investigation, Lin Zhennan found that five escorts simply could not bear the stress and had fled without notice. He shook his head and sighed.

“When trouble comes, each bird will fly in its own direction. I can no longer take care of each of you, brothers. If you feel like leaving, please go ahead,” he declared.

Some escorts started berating the five for lack of loyalty, while some others kept their silence and only sighed. They were probably wishing that they had fled as well.

Near dusk, five horses came back with five bodies. The five escorts, who wanted to escape, only ended up losing their lives before everyone else.

Lin Pingzhi was enraged. Sword in hands, he dashed out of the gate and stood three paces beyond the line of blood, yelling, “A true man would take full responsibility for his own actions. I, Lin Pingzhi, killed Yu from Szechwan. It has nothing to do with anyone else. If you want your revenge, come to me. Stab me through the heart and slice me up! I won’t complain. But you keep killing innocent people; what kind of monster does something like that? Lin Pingzhi stands before you. Come and kill me if you dare! If you are too scared to come out, then you are just a pack of craven weaklings; you son of a dog.” The sound of his voice escalated, becoming louder and louder. Tearing open his shirt and exposing his chest, he pounded his own chest, shouting, “Come out and put your knife right through here! I am a real man and I am not afraid of death! Why are you so scared to stand in front of me face to face? You damn cowards! You filthy monsters!” His eyes turned red from his anger as he struck his own chest heavily.

Many bystanders watched him from far away, but no one wanted to come near the Escort House. Hearing their son shouting, Lin Zhennan and his wife both rushed out of the gate. Their anger and frustration had been steadily building over the last couple of days. The anger finally exploded, and they too began to pour streams of abuse at their unknown enemies.

The escorts looked at each other with admiration for the courage of the three. They felt no surprise that their Chief Master and his wife would shout defiance at their enemies, since the Chief Master was an outstanding man and Madame was a brave woman, but the Young Master looked as fragile as a girl, making him seem that much more heroic for his fearlessness.

The three shouted for a good long while, but were only rewarded with silence.

“‘Cross the Line and Die?’ I just crossed the line, what are you going to do?” Lin Pingzhi yelled out loud. He walked over the line again and stood straight with pride, sword in hand.

“Yes, yes. These damn thugs only bully the weak but fear the strong. They don’t even have the guts to come and face my son,” Madam Wang said to Lin Pingzhi tenderly. She grabbed his hand and dragged him back into the gate.

Lin Pingzhi was still trembling with fiery anger. After going back to the bedroom, he could no longer hold his tears back. Bending over the bed, he started to cry.

“Son, you are very brave. You are a true man of the Lin family. There’s nothing we can do if the enemy doesn’t have the guts to face us openly. Why don’t you go take a rest?” Lin Zhennan patted him on the head, trying to comfort him, but Lin Pingzhi continued to cry until he finally dozed off.

After dinner, Lin Pingzhi overheard his parents talking. It was something about some escorts, who were talking about digging a tunnel out from the back garden. This way, they could escape without crossing the line of blood. If they were trapped in the Escort House, all of them would die, sooner or later.

“If they want to dig a tunnel out, let them,” Madam Wang sniffed, “but I am afraid…afraid that…Humph!”

Lin Zhennan and Lin Pingzhi both understood what she meant. The escorts would most likely end up just like the five escorts who tried to ride away – losing their lives earlier, rather than later.

“Why don’t I go have a look? If it really works, then it might be a good way for all the escorts and henchmen to escape,” Lin Zhennan said. He went out, but soon returned, saying, “They were just talking about it, but no one really dared to dig.”

That night, the three went to bed very early. Everyone in the Escort House had resigned themselves to their fates, and no one cared to stand guard for the night.

Lin Pingzhi slept till about midnight, when he suddenly felt somebody patting his shoulder. He jumped up and instantly reached for the sword under his pillow. Then he heard his mother’s voice.

“Pingzhi, it’s me. Your father has been gone for a good while and still hasn’t returned. Let’s go look for him.”

“Where did Dad go?” Lin Pingzhi asked in surprise.

“I don’t know!” Madam Wang replied.

The two grabbed their weapons and walked out of the room. They first peeked into the big hall, only to find that it was filled with candlelight and a dozen gambling escorts. Everyone had his heart in his throat for the last couple of days; finally realizing there was really nothing to do to improve the situation, they just stopped worrying about their safety. Madam Wang gestured Lin Pingzhi to follow her, and then left.

The mother and son looked everywhere, but still couldn’t find Lin Zhennan. They became more and more worried, but were afraid to alert the household. The news of the Chief Master’s disappearance at a time when everyone was scared to death would be disastrous. The situation would be completely out of control.

The two searched all the way to the rear of the Escort House, when Lin Pingzhi suddenly heard a faint noise come from the armory to the left. Fluttering candlelight shone from behind the window. Walking quietly by the window, he poked a hole in the paper[20] with his fingertip, and looked inside; then he called out happily.

“Dad, there you are!”

Lin Zhennan was hunched over something shielded by his body. When he heard the call, he turned his head back. Lin Pingzhi’s smile froze when he saw the terrified expression on his father’s face. His heart started thumping hard, and he just froze there, mouth wide open.

Madam Wang pushed the door open and went in. There was blood everywhere. Three benches were put together side by side and a body lay across them. The body was completely stripped, and the chest and belly were cut open. Madam Wang looked at the face and recognized it as Escort Huo, one of the five escorts who rode away and then was carried back dead. Lin Pingzhi walked in and closed the door behind him.

Removing the bloody heart from the chest cavity and holding it in his hand, Lin Zhennan exclaimed, “The heart was crushed to pieces. Just as I expected, it was…it was….”

Madam Wang completed the sentence for him, “It was the Heart Crushing Palm technique of the Qingcheng Sword School!”

Lin Zhennan nodded and then lowered his head in silence.

By then Lin Pingzhi finally understood that his father was performing an autopsy on the body, to try to determine the cause of the death.

Lin Zhennan put the heart back in its cavity, wrapped the body with oilskin, and then placed it in a corner. He wiped the blood off his hands with the oilskin and went back to the bedroom with his wife and son.

“The enemy is definitely an elite master hand from the Qingcheng Sword School. Wife, what do you think we should do?” he asked.

“The whole trouble started because of me, I’ll go challenge him to a fight. If I can’t win, then just let him kill me,” Lin Pingzhi bellowed.

Lin Zhennan shook his head. “This person can crush someone’s heart into pieces with a single hit without leaving any sign of damage to the body. His Kung Fu skills are remarkable. He must be a first-class master in the Qingcheng Sword School. If he had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead long ago. I think he is being deliberately cruel. He’s not just simply going to kill us.”

“What does he want?” Lin Pingzhi asked.

“He wants to play with us, like a cat plays with mice. He wants to see us squirm, until we are all frightened to death, and that’s when he will be satisfied,” Lin Zhennan answered.

“Humph, how dare this son of a dog show such disrespect to our Fortune Prestige Escort House,” Lin Pingzhi barked.

“He is surely looking down upon the Fortune Prestige Escort House,” Lin Zhennan stated.

“Perhaps, he is afraid of the seventy-two moves of Father’s Evil-Resisting Sword Art. Otherwise, why does he never dare to fight face to face with Father, and only sneaks around, stabbing people in the back?”

“Pingzhi,” Lin Zhennan said as he shook his head slightly. “Your father’s Evil-Resisting Sword Art is well and fine for dealing with regular gangsters. But this man’s Heart Crushing Palm Kung Fu is much better than mine. I…I don’t normally give up so easily, but after seeing Escort Huo’s heart, I…I…well.”

Seeing the dark expression that clouded his father’s face, Lin Pingzhi did not say another word.

“Since the enemy is so powerful, a real man should be ready to swallow his pride, so why don’t we just hide from him for a little while,” Madam Wang suggested.

“That’s what I have in mind, too,” Lin Zhenn