Dinner was another spread of rare delicacies. Xu Yiyi and Ruan Tang ate with great satisfaction, and Xu Lai was happy as well.
After dinner, Xu Lai began clearing the table as usual. Xu Yiyi practiced the piano under Ruan Tang’s guidance, but her mother was clearly distracted.
"Still thinking about the company?" Xu Lai asked.
"You should just rest for a few days. What’s yours cannot be taken away by anyone."
"Xu Lai, do you think we should get a bodyguard for Yiyi?" Ruan Tang suddenly asked. "I always feel like your uncle and the others are up to no good."
Xu Lai chuckled softly.
Bodyguard? He had already prepared one.
After Ruan Tang coaxed her daughter to sleep, Xu Lai, who was lying in the guest room, flickered and vanished into thin air. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the noᴠelfire.net
He reappeared in an area of East Sea City slated for demolition. The residents had long since moved out, leaving the neighborhood dark and deserted at night. The uninhabited houses were dilapidated, their walls overgrown with weeds.
On the rooftop of the tallest abandoned building, Tan Chang, who had been dozing, opened his eyes. He was about to go find something to eat when he discovered a figure standing beside him. He was so frightened that he tapped his toes on the ground and shot back five meters.
"Who’s there!" Tan Chang’s voice was ice-cold, his heart filled with shock.
He was a top shadow operative trained by the Jiang Family, always the one to appear silently before others. But now, not only had Tan Chang failed to notice someone was beside him, he didn’t even know when the person had arrived! If this had been the battlefield, he would have been dead a hundred times over.
As the clouds gradually dispersed and moonlight poured down, Tan Chang saw the face clearly—it was Xu Lai!
Tan Chang immediately grew annoyed. "Why don’t you make a sound when you walk? That’s terrifying."
"You will protect someone for me." Xu Lai stood with his hands behind his back before a window with shattered glass, gazing out at the moonlit scene.
Tan Chang’s mind raced. He had heard that many of his peers, after retiring from the business, returned to the city to become bodyguards. Most of them protected beautiful female CEOs or campus beauties, and their stories usually ended in romance. Could it be? Was this good fortune about to befall him today?
"Xu Yiyi is my daughter." Xu Lai glanced sidelong at Tan Chang and said flatly, "Five years old."
Tan Chang slapped himself hard across the face, constantly reminding himself: You are an assassin, devoid of emotion.
"As your reward, I will help you reach the Seventh Grade."
"What did you say?" Tan Chang doubted he had heard correctly.
"If you didn’t hear me, then forget it."
Tan Chang stomped his foot. "No, wait! Did you just say you would help me reach the Seventh Grade?"
Before Xu Lai could answer, Tan Chang frowned again. "Even a Ninth Grade Martial Ancestor wouldn’t dare claim they could help me break through my Boundary. Could it be you’ve found some legendary natural treasure?!"
Tan Chang’s eyes blazed. But seeing Xu Lai’s expressionless face, his burning desire was instantly extinguished as if doused by a bucket of cold water.
Even if he had, I couldn’t possibly snatch it. Xu Lai is a Martial Ancestor! Even if he was just a Seventh Grade, the lowest of the upper three ranks, he was still an elite expert at the pinnacle of the Martial Dao.
"Understood, understood. I’ll protect your daughter for you," Tan Chang sighed, his heart bitter.
A Martial Ancestor. To any Martial Artist, it was an unattainable existence.
Tan Chang was already at the peak of the Sixth Grade, just one step away from that legendary Boundary. But this single step had blocked countless prodigies throughout the ages. He had also sustained a hidden injury in his youth. He knew that reaching the Seventh Grade was practically impossible for him.
"With me, nothing is impossible," Xu Lai said, snapping his fingers.
The bright moon in the sky sprinkled down moonlight that transformed into luminous butterflies, which began to whirl around Tan Chang.
What Divine Skill was this? It could actually turn moonlight into butterflies! This scene made Tan Chang gasp.
In that moment of stunned silence, all the butterflies made of moonlight poured into Tan Chang’s body. The moonlight was warm, coursing through his limbs and meridians. In the blink of an eye, it healed the old, hidden injuries within him. At the same time, as the butterflies dissolved, Tan Chang felt his body fill with powerful bursts of energy. He hastily sat down cross-legged and began to frantically absorb it.
"Mommy, the moonlight turned into butterflies! They’re flying!" a little girl following behind her mother widened her eyes, pointing up at the sky.
Her mother, looking down at her phone, didn’t lift her head. "Children shouldn’t lie," she said.
The little girl pouted and fell silent but continued staring at the sky.
Suddenly, one butterfly broke away from the group, flying joyfully toward her. The little girl stopped in her tracks and extended her tender little hand. The butterfly landed in her palm, its bright wings fluttering.
The little girl carefully reached out a finger to touch the butterfly’s wing. As if startled, the butterfly flitted up but didn’t fly far, instead continuing to circle around her. It eventually landed back on her fingertip.
"Hello," the little girl said, smiling happily.
The butterfly, of course, couldn’t speak. It just fluttered its wings, scattering dots of moonlight. As the little girl watched, enraptured...
The butterfly suddenly disintegrated, turning into beams of light that merged into her body. She looked around in confusion.
Noticing that her daughter had stopped, the mother finally put down her phone and snapped, "Hurry home! The sea breeze is freezing at night."
The little girl, somewhat bewildered, rubbed her eyes. When she looked up at the sky again, the butterflies were gone. For a moment, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had imagined it all.
「But ten years later.」
A woman with bizarre sword techniques and footwork like a butterfly roaming the heavens appeared out of nowhere. On Sword Ranking Mountain, where no Martial Artist had ever managed to leave their mark, she carved the very first name.
Her surname was Xu. Her given name was a single character: Butterfly.
She was revered by later generations as the foremost Sword Sect in three hundred years of the Martial Dao.
Xu Lai withdrew his gaze from the sea and fixed it on Tan Chang, nodding silently.
The kid has talent. It’s just a shame he’s fated to be short-lived.
Tan Chang, having absorbed a massive number of moonlight butterflies, let out a painful howl, his face contorted in anguish. He had no new enlightenment. He was simply relying on a colossal surge of energy to forcibly break through to the Seventh Grade, and every second felt like death by a thousand cuts. Roaring, Tan Chang endured it all and frantically absorbed the energy.
Just as Xu Lai grew tired and began to yawn, a tremendous pressure surged toward the heavens. Tan Chang stood up, his entire body enveloped in a terrifying aura.
Suddenly, another moon materialized in the sky. It was not a full moon, but a crescent.
This phenomenon lasted less than a minute. It appeared as abruptly as it vanished, but it was still seen by many Martial Artists. They watched the sky with shock and awe. Celestial phenomena were rare, and whenever one occurred, it always signaled a momentous event.
And in the Martial Dao World, every time a celestial phenomenon of this nature graced the heavens, it signified the rise of a new—