Chapter Fifty-Nine: Deadly Intent in the Midnight Hour

Striding out of the Golden Rose, Lin Qi felt the icy wind whip snowflakes against his face. The bone-chilling cold cleared his blood-rushed mind just enough for him to think. Ya and Ling had come for him—there was no doubt about it. These two women were here because of him.

Yet Lin Qi was certain he’d never crossed anyone from the Vias Commercial Federation, and he’d never had conflict with women, either. Thinking back over the trouble he’d stirred up these past years, unless Ya and Ling happened to be Black Horse House’s fiancées, he couldn’t imagine any reason why these noble-born, stunning twins would seek him out.

“The Pavel family—an emerging military aristocracy in the Empire. Given their influence in the Imperial circles, a marriage alliance with a powerful house from the Vias Commercial Federation makes perfect sense,” Lin Qi mused as he walked slowly through the alleyway, following the most likely train of thought.

“The nouveaux riches of Vias have money, but lack powerful backers. The Pavel family has thousands of soldiers ready to fight and die, but they lack funds. If these two houses were to unite, their prospects would be extraordinary!”

He snorted coldly and punched the alley wall. The dull ache in his knuckles brought him back to reality. Recalling what Blackbeard had taught him as a child, Lin Qi quickly dismissed this most obvious possibility and began to consider other scenarios.

Another possibility: these two arrogant and impolite women had been recruited by Dunark’s pampered sons and daughters specifically to make his life difficult. But based on Lin Qi’s understanding of Dunark’s spoiled elite, they didn’t seem like the type capable of such schemes.

Dunark’s playboys were decadent, superficial, vain, and hypocritical. Compared to their ancestors, these children, born into luxury, had long since lost any fighting spirit. That was the main reason Lin Qi had been able to treat them as his personal piggy banks in his youth. Even after being humiliated by Lin Qi, none of them dared reveal the matter for fear of losing face, which allowed him to squeeze them month after month, year after year.

Would these spoiled scions, long accustomed to Lin Qi’s bullying, really go out of their way to find two such women to deal with him?

Highly unlikely. He could set that possibility aside.

Then, who else could it be?

He sifted through countless faces in his mind as he walked out of the alley, and as he emerged, his sharp reasoning locked onto a man with dazzling violet eyes, hair as brilliant as flame, and an exceptionally handsome face—except for the fact that he was a one-eyed dragon.

“Arthur! You little pretty-boy parasite, living off women, you certainly know how to surprise me!”

No doubt about it—the two women troubling Lin Qi were outsiders, wealthy and absolutely noble-born. In such a bitter winter, instead of hurrying back to the Vias Commercial Federation, these two chose to have a dockyard broker take them out for entertainment!

Two rich, beautiful, aristocratic women—who randomly picked a broker in the dock district, an unfamiliar, notoriously unsafe place, to take them to an equally unfamiliar lounge. And the moment they entered, they locked eyes on Lin Qi, challenged him to a face-to-face wager, and even brazenly involved Enzo’s life!

Was this the behavior of normal aristocratic heiresses?

Those young ladies should be like Angel—let out a shriek at the sight of a mouse, then faint in a blaze of glamour, awaiting some noble gentleman to rush over, kiss her crimson lips, and revive her with artificial respiration!

Which heiress had the courage to wager a million and bet with a human life at stake?

“Adorable Arthur, you damned one-eyed bastard, you really must be tired of living!”

Clearly, these twin sisters had been sought out by someone to specifically make Lin Qi’s life difficult. Otherwise, how could everything be so coincidental? Lin Qi had only just returned to Dunark, made his first trip to the Golden Rose for pocket money, and suddenly these inexplicable women appeared.

With a cold laugh, Lin Qi crouched down, scooped up a huge pile of snow from the ground, and packed it into fist-sized snowballs. Without much regard for public order, he hurled the snowballs toward the alley’s exit. The sound of shattering glass echoed—dozens of street lamps were smashed, the oil lamps inside their housings broken and extinguished, plunging the long stretch of the coastal avenue into darkness.

He walked forward a ways, then stopped atop the breakwater and blew a whistle made from a thumb-sized sea snail.

A low, tiger-like roar rang out, deep and resonant, yet oddly penetrating. Carried by the howling winter wind, the tiger’s cry quickly spread—within moments, half the dock district had heard the strange sound.

Soon, a chorus of tiger-like roars responded from afar, one after another, passing outward in waves. In the blink of an eye, the calls swept through the whole city of Dunark and continued into the distant black pine forest, reaching deep into the woods.

On dozens of boats moored in the harbor, shadowy figures stirred, all turning their gaze toward Lin Qi.

Lin Qi focused intently on blowing the whistle, shifting its frequency and tone to convey his message.

On the harbor’s far edge, a massive whaleboat over a hundred meters long violated port management rules and slipped from its berth in the pitch-black night. Guided by an expert navigator, the whaleboat threaded its way through a thousand vessels in the harbor, slowly approaching Lin Qi on the breakwater.

This whaleboat, over a hundred meters long, was a special vessel equipped with powerful whale harpoons. These harpoons, driven by magical force, were used to hunt the high-level monster known as the ‘Unicorn Mad Whale’ native to the Northern Sea.

Of course, under certain circumstances, these formidable harpoons could be used to hunt other prey—such as humans.

A dozen burly sailors leapt onto the breakwater. Lin Qi spoke a few quiet words with them. The sailors hurried back to the whaleboat, brought over three sets of whale harpoons, and arranged them on the dock.

In the distant alley, a large group of figures emerged silently. Lin Qi’s sharp eyes spotted, at the head of the group, a tall, thin man with a strange scythe slung across his back—one of Blackbeard’s most loyal lieutenants, the leader of all the dock district’s roughnecks, his strength rivaling that of Hammer and Slaughter: ‘Death’s Right Hand’ Bal.

Among those following Bal, some openly carried military-grade crossbows strictly regulated by the Empire.

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Preparing to leave the hotel for some activities—not sure when I'll be back, so here’s an early chapter.

Three chapters completed today. Signing off.