This woman, weak as a kitten, offered only an empty promise as a reward—yet can you imagine how many people were moved by such a promise? Countless. From that moment on, the threshold of the expert’s home was never quiet; so many came that the expert had to sleep with one eye open. In the end, he was still killed, and the one who killed him was a nobody.

Did the widow and orphan get their money back? Of course not. The nobody symbolically gave the mother and son a small piece of land, then ignored them, enjoying the fortune worth millions all to himself.

The fate of the widow and orphan was unimportant; what mattered was “reputation.” Without this pair, no one had the right to demand the expert’s estate. With these two puppets, everyone in the world could justifiably kill the expert, and do so with a clear conscience.

This is “reputation.”

“Reputation” is the most illusory and harmful thing in the world. A true assassin never seeks “reputation,” nor does he ever give his opponent a chance to claim it.

……

The master of Golden Roc Fortress, Gavin Spencer, the seventh generation King of the Lone Step, was in fact not a true king. He had no territory, yet there was not an inch of land among the thirty-six Western Regions he could not go. He had no subjects, yet from princes and ministers to peddlers and porters, all turned pale at the mention of his name.

He was the King of Assassins in the Western Regions.

No one could say for sure how skilled the King of the Lone Step was. He never participated in public duels. Those who sought him out, and those he sought out, all died cleanly.

The King of the Lone Step had almost no enemies; even the dogs of those he killed would end up decapitated.

There are two taboos for assassins, and Gavin Spencer always followed them without fail. To him, these two principles were more precious than life itself. So, when he learned that his eighth son had failed to eliminate all witnesses, his fury was unimaginable.

Seven generations of the King of the Lone Step, spanning over a hundred years, countless killings, enough exterminated families to form a small country in the Western Regions—never before had such a blunder occurred: killing the wrong person!

Several severed heads were lined up in a row on a long table. The foreign guest identifying the bodies could feel the master of Golden Roc Fortress’s burning rage and wisely slipped into the shadows.

Gavin Spencer picked up one of the heads and threw it at his eighth son, whose face was ashen. It was this head that had made him lose face before the foreign guest—a humiliation that could never be redeemed, no matter the cost.

“You are my son? Are you really my son?”

Gavin Spencer had a long, thin face, slightly dark, with deep-set eyes. The The Spencer Family had lived in the Western Regions for generations, inevitably mixing in some Hu blood. When he was angry, his gaze was as cold and merciless as the snowy mountains of the Gobi.

His question required no answer. The eighth son looked just like his father, only younger, his face flushed as if two red-hot iron plates.

There was only one way to extinguish the King of the Lone Step’s fury: killing. Even if it was his own son, he would not hesitate. Father killing son, brothers killing each other—such things happened often in the The Spencer Family. There was only one throne.

But Gavin Spencer hesitated. He thought of the eighth son’s mother, a woman who had once brought him much joy—her sly smile, her perfect body, still vivid in his memory after so many years. She died of an unknown illness, and like all women in this world, no matter how much they had invested in a man, their final wish was always for their own flesh and blood.

The illness struck quickly, so even on her deathbed she retained much of her beauty. Her sorrowful, lovely face made her plea hard to refuse or forget.

“Let Nu’er grow up to be a man like you.”

Gavin Spencer believed he had kept his promise, giving his motherless eighth son the most comfortable life, the strictest training, and the greatest trust.

“Women are trouble,” Gavin Spencer thought, his anger subsiding a little, but still like a caged beast, restless and seeking an outlet. So he drew the single saber from Noah Spencer’s waist.

Gavin Spencer had to do something. Rules were rules, and could not be compromised for anyone or anything. He forced down his urge to kill, and with a swing of the blade, chopped off his eighth son’s right hand—the hand that held the saber.

The sorrowful, beautiful face faded from Gavin Spencer’s mind.

“Seven days. Bring back the correct head.”

Who was the lucky survivor? What was his name? Gavin Spencer had only a vague impression. That man would surely die by the blade of Golden Roc Fortress. To have made the King of the Lone Step sever his own son’s hand—his death was already worth it.

……

Noah Spencer pushed away the subordinates who came to help him, staggering out of the main hall, burning with rage just like his father. The bleeding from his severed hand was stopped only with a large bundle of hemostatic medicine, but no medicine could stop the hatred in his heart.

He hated his father, who hadn’t even given him a chance to explain, believing the foreign guest’s denial and assuming he had made a mistake. This was his first time leading a mission on his own, which should have meant he could now stand on his own like his elder brothers. Now, he had lost his right hand, most of his martial arts, and all his dignity.

He also hated his useless subordinates. It was all their carelessness that caused his mistake and ruined his bright future.

But most of all, he hated that escaped youth—a man doomed to die, yet still lingering for a few more days. Even if he were killed a hundred times over, it could never make up for the loss of his right hand.