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In the safety corridor of the Vienna Hotel.
In the dim light, the footsteps downstairs stopped at the third floor.
And as long as the footsteps paused, Qing Chen had his hand back over Xu Zimo's mouth again.
Xu Zimo blinked in the darkness, staring intently at Qing Chen in front of her. She didn't know what the other person was waiting for, nor what he planned to do.
The girl just felt that everything happening tonight was unlike her past academic life.
It was like lightly tapping a wand on a wall in a bar, the wall cracking open, and on the other side was a magical world, Diagon Alley.
This girl, who had known only studies for the first seventeen years of her life, was now pressed into a corner, her heartbeat racing. Between her narrow nostrils, the breath she exhaled condensed into dew drops in Qing Chen's fingers.
Xu Zimo knew that when the footsteps resumed, she would witness things she had never experienced before in her life.
But for some reason, she wasn't scared at all.
Time passed, and those footsteps on the third floor started again. The sound of the shoe heels stepping on the stairs was particularly stark in the empty safety corridor.
At that moment, Qing Chen moved too.
The young man put his index finger to his lips signaling Xu Zimo to stay quiet, then turned and silently moved towards the stairs.
The next moment, the person climbing the stairs and the descending young man encountered each other on the fourth floor.
The other person had not expected anyone to be there!
The assassin tried to draw a gun from under his arm, but he knew he was too late.
The moment Qing Chen appeared, the young man's figure was as swift as a ghost, fast as thunder.
Qing Chen leapt down from the stairs, enveloped in great speed and momentum. The person climbing only just caught sight of the young man before he could hear the whistling wind rushing toward him.
In an instant, the young man hit the assassin like a freight train, slamming him against the wall.
With a thunderous crash, the assassin felt as if all his organs had shattered.
Qing Chen was the first to get up, kneeling on the ground. He flipped a silver-white dinner knife into his palm and viciously stabbed towards the assassin's spleen.
The assassin lay on the ground, his hands crossed over his stomach, trying to block the force of Qing Chen pressing down on him.
Yet, he suddenly realized that no matter how hard he tried, the dinner knife was still inching down.
Eventually, the tip pierced his clothing, broke through his skin, and penetrated his spleen, with blood gushing out like a fountain.
"Don't scream," Qing Chen let go of the knife, saying it calmly.
He wasn't speaking to the assassin but to Xu Zimo, who had followed him down.
The girl stood above on the stairs, shocked by the scene, and then saw Qing Chen pulling a silenced pistol from under the assassin's arm.
At that moment, she understood completely that ordinary people do not carry silenced pistols.
"You…" Xu Zimo said, "Do you need me to find someone to help?"
"No, thank you," Qing Chen replied.
Xu Zimo pursed her lips again, those same four words.
She looked at the bloody scene in front of her, at the young man standing beside the assassin's corpse, with an unprecedented shock.
So this was the origin of her sense of alienation, because they really were not from the same world.
They were separated by thirteen stair steps, as if by a vast river that could not be crossed.
Qing Chen glanced at the corpse on the ground and said to Xu Zimo, "Go up this staircase to the second floor, then take Mr. Tian and the others to the bar in the lobby, don't wander around, there will be someone secretly protecting you there."
Saying so, Qing Chen walked up the stairs and brushed past Xu Zimo, heading back upstairs.
This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.
"Where are you going?" Xu Zimo grabbed Qing Chen's sleeve. "I'm a bit scared."
"Fear is a useless emotion, do as I say," Qing Chen said, "There should still be someone in our room on the fifth floor, they came upstairs after realizing I hadn't returned to my room."
"Won't you be in danger?" Xu Zimo asked worriedly.
Qing Chen glanced at the girl, "No."
At least not within the next 30 minutes.
Saying so, he left the safety passage and walked towards the corridor.
Summoning her courage, Xu Zimo started walking down when suddenly there were footsteps running from below up towards her.
Before Xu Zimo could react, a young man had already reached the fourth floor. He glanced at the corpse in the stairwell and then at the colorless face of the girl, smiled, and explained, "Hello, Kunlun Little Falcon, I'm here to help Qing Chen with the aftermath."
"Ah? Kunlun?" Xu Zimo, not a Time Traveller, had heard of Kunlun. Her first reaction upon hearing Little Falcon offering help was to breathe a sigh of relief, realizing Qing Chen was on the side of the good.
But still, the girl confirmed, "Qing Chen is a good person, right?"
Little Falcon was taken aback before replying with a smile, "Sort of."
"Um, he is in danger now, don't you want to go and help him first?" Xu Zimo said.
Little Falcon thought for a moment, "Probably not necessary, he's so capable he doesn't need my help. And our Kunlun has other operations tonight, I'm the only one who could come, can't be much help. Please go down now, call your classmates to join you in the bar, I'll take care of this and then come to you. However, try not to tell them what has happened, especially anything concerning Qing Chen."
The operation of Kunlun mentioned by Little Falcon was the illegal entrance of Deer Island Time Traveller.
Huan Yu choosing to act today was likely because he knew Kunlun was too preoccupied to intervene in other matters tonight.
"All right, I'll go notify the teachers and classmates now," Xu Zimo said as she ran downstairs.
As she ran down the stairs, images of Qing Chen's recent figure flashed through her mind, including the warmth of his palm when he covered her mouth.
At this moment, Qing Chen stood in his room, looking at the corpse lying on the floor with a bullet in its chest, his gun still emitting blue smoke.
This was another assassin lurking in the hotel.
He gently removed the earpiece from the corpse and pressed the call button, "Your man is already dead."
Huan Yu chuckled on the earphone, "Just as I had guessed, Liu Dezhu had just left, and you started making your move at the Vienna Hotel, but tell me, has your boss arrived in Xian City yet? Tell him from me, tonight, the game has only just begun."
Qing Chen responded calmly, "Daylight accompanies to the end."
...
A chapter of five thousand words, totaling ten thousand words in two chapters, owing one update to Penguin boss, and one more update still owed.
Thanks to Cangcang TNT for becoming the new ally of this book, the boss is generous, wishing his phone battery lasts forever!