Chapter 65: Zhao, the Young Master of Hidden Dragon, Beneath the Moon

The night was late May.

Though only a sliver of moon remained, the mountain air was crisp, and its light cast a serene glow upon Zimei Villa.

Suddenly, the moon vanished behind a veil.

No, not clouds.

A colossal flying car materialized above the villa, utterly silent.

No sound, just a looming presence.

Lin Xiaosu’s eyes snapped open.

With a soft hum, the vehicle’s underside unfolded, and eight enormous spiders descended in unison.

These were spiders of a shocking scale, each as large as a small car.

They weren’t organic arachnids, but spider-shaped robots! Two landed in the courtyard, their footsteps soundless.

Two more clung to the main building’s roof, equally silent.

Two descended onto the hillside, one to each side.

The final pair perched in the treetops, forming a crossfire with those on the slope.

Lights blazed in the villa’s main building as the middle-aged proprietor flung open the door, witnessing three figures plummeting from the sky.

The central figure was powerfully built, his body shimmering with silver light.

To his left, long hair danced around a figure resembling an immortal fairy from a dream.

The figure to his right shifted and blurred, appearing to descend, only to vanish mid-air, swallowed by the very atmosphere.

The villa owner’s face darkened with an ominous gloom.

Thump, thump, thump…

He hurried down the stairs.

Within the lodging building, guests rushed to the windows. A startled cry shattered the night’s stillness.

Two of those who emerged from the flying car and landed were Lin Xiaosu’s companions from Lao Mountain: Number 88 and Chang Ye.

The one who vanished mid-air was, of course, New Moon.

Another of their group from Lao Mountain.

The owner and his middle-aged wife descended from the building and approached Number 88. "Are… are you here to stay the night?"

They exuded a rustic, unsophisticated air.

From their expressions to their awkward Mandarin Chinese, they were indistinguishable from ordinary farm owners.

Number 88 and Chang Ye remained silent, their gazes fixed on something behind them.

A young man strolled into view behind the couple. "They’re not here for lodging; they’re here to dismantle your entire operation."

His voice was light and carefree; it was Lin Xiaosu.

With those words, he moved past the couple, placing himself before them.

"Young man, what do you mean? We country folks don’t understand such things."

"Understanding isn’t necessary. Simply open that room and reveal the cave hidden behind the wall, and everything will become clear!" Lin Xiaosu raised a finger, pointing to a room on the second floor.

The owner’s eyelids flickered as he followed the gesture. Then, a change came over his eyes…

"The game is up; no need to keep acting!" Lin Xiaosu stated. "Choose: surrender quietly, or put up a desperate resistance."

The owner looked up sharply!

His eyes underwent a complete and sudden transformation.

His pupils contracted into serpentine slits.

His hand shot out, a normal hand initially, but in the blink of an eye, it was covered in silver scales. His nails sprung forth like sharp blades, lunging toward Lin Xiaosu’s throat.

The speed, the unnaturalness, were both inhuman.

However, Chang Ye’s gaze turned glacial, and her finger darted forward to intercept.

The owner’s hand was still three inches from Lin Xiaosu’s throat.

Chang Ye’s fingertip touched the owner’s brow.

The contact was like a drop of ink on shimmering mercury. The silver streaks that had begun to coalesce on the owner’s face were instantly quenched by the encroaching darkness. The owner’s eyes widened, his gaze fixed on the long-haired Chang Ye.

Confusion clouded his expression.

This was the Chang Ye’s poison, control and subjugation in a single thought.

More effective than any handcuffs.

The lights seemed to flicker.

The woman leaped into the air, agile as a leopard cat.

Chang Ye’s hair danced, sealing off the space above. Just as the woman was about to collide with it, her form shifted, flattening against the wall behind her. In the next instant, she stretched out, scaling the building towards the roof.

Her movements were uncanny, surpassing even a cat’s agility tenfold.

Before an ordinary person could blink, she had reached the rooftop, making no sound.

As she revealed her fierce, cat-like eyes to those in the courtyard below, a figure materialized above her. Boom! A foot slammed down upon her head.

With a cry, the woman tumbled from the roof.

Falling from the three-story building, she managed to right herself in mid-air, landing lightly and precisely on her feet and hands, graceful and silent.

Swish! Number 88 stepped forward, a needle flashing in his hand. He accurately pierced her ear.

The eerie green light faded from her eyes, replaced by the look of an ordinary woman. She collapsed, limp…

Crash! A window shattered in the villa.

Swish! Another window burst open as a figure bolted toward the hillside.

Chang Ye extended her hand, tossing a pistol to Lin Xiaosu. Then, she herself leaped into the darkness. Thwack!

With a flick of her left hand, a dagger pierced a black figure’s temple.

Lin Xiaosu caught the pistol. Thwack!

A bullet roared from the chamber.

The bullet hurtled toward the guest room ahead. As it left the barrel, the room seemed untouched, but as the bullet shattered the air, the window imploded and a figure dove out, a black dagger clutched in his hand.

His dive brought him directly into the path of Lin Xiaosu’s bullet, hitting him squarely in the forehead!

It was the young man who had been glued to his phone all day.

His eyes were wide with disbelief.

Thump. He landed, motionless! "Xiao Se, your valor remains undiminished!" A voice rang from above, accompanied by the sound of two bodies hitting the ground.

Indeed, a middle-aged man in pajamas had landed horizontally, with New Moon standing on his stomach.

Lin Xiaosu stared at the garish face from the depths of his memories, a sour taste rising in his mouth.

It wasn’t so unusual to leap from the third floor, but using a genetically modified human as a cushion, leaving her unharmed while the cushion wheezed and gasped beneath her, his mouth agape – if he had to guess, he’d bet the man was silently cursing every ancestor he had…

Inside the lodging, panic erupted.

Screams pierced the night.

The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ say ⊥ at ⊥ six ⊥9⊥⊥book⊥⊥bar⊥⊥first⊥ hair!

Swish! The two enormous spider-bots in the courtyard floated up to cling to the windows of the hotel. Their mechanical voices boomed, "Police investigation! Everyone remain still!"

"Ah…" A scream was abruptly cut short.

"Don’t faint, honey! They said it’s a police investigation…"

"Husband, husband, what’s wrong?"

Chaos reigned within the inn.

Despite the announcement of a police investigation, the sight of colossal spiders guarding the windows, their blood-red eyes glaring down, speaking to you in human voices, was terrifying.

The battle lasted only moments.

New Moon eliminated two opponents, Number 88 accounted for three, Chang Ye took down two, and Lin Xiaosu shot one. Suddenly, he raised his gaze to the treetops above.

His eyes sharp, his hands faster!

Under the Eye of Heavenly Dao, he clearly saw a figure somersault with uncanny agility, dodging the bullet and vanishing behind a large tree.

In a fraction of a second, the figure appeared on the hillside.

Two large spider-bots stood guard there, their eyes flashing red. However, the figure seemed to move through the gaps in their detection, swiftly crossing the robots’ line of fire.

In the darkness, he moved with the speed of a leopard.

Lin Xiaosu channeled qi into his legs, ready to unleash his own, barely understood ancient martial arts lightness technique…

Then, an incredible scene unfolded before him.

On the other side of the hillside, a figure in white materialized. When he first appeared, he was fully ten meters away from the ‘leopard’.

But in the next instant, he stood beside the fleeing figure.

Thwack! A dagger sliced through the air, and the ‘leopard’s’ head was severed cleanly.

Just as the blood threatened to stain his pristine white clothes, he vanished, reappearing on the courtyard wall.

By the time the blood reached the ground, the white figure was already gone.

Lin Xiaosu’s heart pounded. This speed… even his Eye of Heavenly Dao struggled to follow. Who was this?

He was clearly an ally.

But he was unlike any Hidden Dragon operative he knew.

Hidden Dragon members either wore full Dragon Armor or adapted it into ordinary clothing. Whatever form their clothing took, it was always designed for optimal combat effectiveness.

For example, in the darkness, their clothes were black.

They also tended towards tight-fitting garments to avoid unnecessary risks.

But this person was different.

He wore a snow-white suit. His jacket and trousers were immaculate, his shirt was a vibrant purple, and his shoes were, unbelievably, white leather.

His suit jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a glittering gold belt buckle.

If he wasn’t mistaken, it was a limited-edition LV belt, costing a million yuan and requiring millions more in prior purchases to even qualify for a custom order.

Was this some kind of special operations attire?

It looked more like the kind of outfit that, when peeking out of a top-of-the-line ‘Lawrence’ luxury car, would send gold-diggers into a frenzy.

And his face… the archetypal face of a rich second-generation heir, a touch of manufactured melancholy on his thin features, his eyebrows and hair meticulously groomed. He had probably even used powder.

The young man stared at Lin Xiaosu. "Are you Lin Xiaose?"

Lin Xiaose? It wasn’t just a mispronunciation; someone had clearly picked up Lin Xiaosu’s nickname from someone else…

Lin Xiaosu countered, "And who are you?"

"I am Zhao Zhen."

New Moon chimed in, "This is Young Master Zhao, the ‘all expenses paid by Young Master Zhao’ Zhao."

Zhao Zhen fluffed his hair. "That was youthful exuberance! New Moon, you already embarrassed me, can’t you let it go?"

"What ’embarrassed’? All I did was go to one aerospace expo with you and shout, ‘all expenses paid by Young Master Zhao’?" New Moon retorted. "What’s so embarrassing about that? We always did that in nightclubs, right?"

"Big sister, that was an aerospace expo! Even Crown Prince Yabo, who thinks he’s the richest man on Earth, wouldn’t dare spend that kind of money! Your shout sent everyone running for the hills, leaving me a mess in the wind. My dad was laughed at by his business partners for half a year…"

Zhao Zhen descended into despair once again…

Lin Xiaosu’s mind was a whirlwind of thoughts…

"All expenses paid by Young Master Zhao" – he knew that meme.

It referred to the only son of the Jiangnan Group founder, a man of immense wealth. Whenever he appeared at a nightclub, it always meant a party, because whenever he drank too much, he picked up the whole tab.

Nightclubs weren’t cheap; a single bottle of liquor could cost tens of thousands.

He’d heard tales of one night where he woke up to discover a seven-million-yuan bill, which he paid without a second thought.

Lin Xiaosu had listened to those stories as if they were fantastical tales.

His roommates would spend half the night sighing over them, concluding with the saying: the world of the rich is beyond the understanding of the poor.

And now, this legendary figure stood before him.

And in a way he never could have imagined.

End of Chapter