Chapter 23: A Perfect Resolution

As the man in black collapsed, Lin Xiao didn’t slow down. Without hesitation, he slipped behind the burly attacker whose arm he’d just broken. His eyes gleamed with a cold resolve. In one swift motion, he snapped the man’s neck.

The entire sequence took less than a minute.

Before the rest could even react, two of their own lay dead at Lin Xiao’s feet—felled with terrifying precision.

The remaining seven stared in shock. These weren’t petty thugs—they were trained killers. Assassins. Men who had survived blood-soaked battlefields, who wouldn’t flinch in the face of a special forces soldier. And yet…

Here was one man, unarmed, tearing through them like they were nothing—like butchering livestock.

Among the stunned was their leader, a scar-faced man who had previously kept to the shadows atop a nearby rooftop. His narrowed eyes glinted as he raised his pistol, aiming straight for Lin Xiao.

Bang!

The shot cracked through the air. A bullet streaked toward Lin Xiao with deadly speed.

But Lin Xiao didn’t flinch.

A cold smirk touched his lips. He sidestepped at the last instant, the bullet grazing past—and in the same breath, he surged toward the next target.

“Damn it! The intel was wrong, this guy’s a damn master!” the scar-faced man cursed, a chill sinking into his heart.

He was a seasoned killer, deadly with firearms. But his shot—clean, precise—had been dodged as if Lin Xiao had seen it coming before he even pulled the trigger. The man before him wasn’t just fast—he was inhuman.

Before he could recover from the shock, Lin Xiao had already closed the distance to another attacker. With a sharp pivot, he drove a crushing kick into the man’s chest.

Thud!

The man’s sternum crumpled under the blow. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he was launched backward like a rag doll, his body slamming against the ground several meters away.

Lin Xiao moved again, ready to strike the next target—but his instincts screamed a warning. Without thinking, he twisted sharply to the right.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bullets tore through the air, punching into the spot he’d just vacated. A fraction of a second slower, and he would’ve been shredded.

Now fully alarmed, the remaining assassins abandoned their original plan to eliminate Wan Caixuan. Lin Xiao had become their sole target.

Three men wielding machetes rushed him, fanning out to trap him in a pincer formation.

Meanwhile, the scar-faced man and three other gunmen trained their smoking barrels on Lin Xiao.

They knew one thing: if Lin Xiao wasn’t killed first, their mission was already doomed.

But even as the four opened fire in unison, their bullets failed to find their mark. Lin Xiao moved like a ghost—slipping through their barrage as if he saw the bullets coming before they were fired.

“What? Impossible!” the scar-faced man choked out, his voice trembling with disbelief.

They had him surrounded. Four shooters. Four angles. How had he evaded them all?

Panic gnawed at the edges of his mind, quickly giving way to fury. The intel had been clear. The target was supposed to be unguarded. Who the hell was this monster?

Face contorted with rage, he roared, “Fire! Kill him! Now!”

But Lin Xiao was already moving.

A cold smirk touched his lips. Then, like a predator closing in on its prey, he shot forward—his body low, fast, lethal—straight for the man barking orders.

He’d seen through the chaos. That voice. The authority. The scar-faced man was the leader. Take him out, and the rest would crumble.

As Lin Xiao charged, a surge of desperation and fury erupted in Scarface. Gritting his teeth, he raised his gun and unleashed a wild barrage of bullets.

But Lin Xiao moved like wind and shadow—too swift, too fluid. In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance and appeared before Scarface, unharmed and calm.

“Too slow,” Lin Xiao said, his voice like ice.

Scarface froze. The man stood before him, relaxed as if nothing had happened. Years in the underworld hadn’t prepared him for this. This wasn’t a man—it was something else entirely.

“Die!” Scarface bellowed, flinging aside his useless weapon. He drew a combat dagger from his waist and lunged at Lin Xiao’s throat in a final act of defiance.

Lin Xiao merely sidestepped.

“Struggle all you want,” he said, voice low, almost pitying. “It won’t change your fate. You’re too weak.”

With that, Lin Xiao drove a powerful kick into Scarface’s chest.

Scarface was sent flying, his body airborne for several meters before slamming into the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

Before the man could react, Lin Xiao advanced—and with brutal precision, drove his knee into Scarface’s neck.

The sound of breaking bone echoed. Scarface’s body spasmed once, then stilled. His eyes remained wide, frozen in disbelief, even in death.

Lin Xiao looked down without emotion. He had seen worse. Much worse.

He stood calmly, scanning his surroundings. From his time in the army, he knew that to show mercy to an enemy was to be cruel to oneself. Especially so when these people were assassins to begin with.

The remaining black-clad men froze in disbelief as they saw their leader fall like a ragdoll. Panic flared in their eyes. Without a word, they turned to flee.

“Thinking of running? Did you seek my permission?”

They hadn’t gone far when a chilling voice echoed from behind, followed by a blood-curdling scream.

The slowest among them stumbled forward, clutching his throat, blood seeping through his fingers as he crumpled to the ground.

The remaining black-clad men were terrified.

“Scatter! Run!” one of them yelled. The group broke formation, each bolting in a different direction.

A few minutes later, Lin Xiao returned to the roadside, his expression calm but with a flicker of regret in his eyes. The attackers had scattered, and though he could’ve taken them all down, he hadn’t chased far. His priority was Wan Caixuan. For all he knew, the retreat was a ploy to divert him.

Two of them escaped. But he wasn’t particularly bothered, they were merely strays.

The meticulously planned ambush had begun and ended in mere minutes. From the time Lin Xiao stepped out of the vehicle to when the last enemy fled, no more than five or six minutes had passed.

Lin Xiao walked up to the car and tapped on the rear window.

“President Wan, it’s all over. You can come out now.”

“Ah…. Oh…. okay…”

Wan Caixuan’s voice trembled slightly. She pushed open the door and stepped out, visibly shaken.

It took a moment for Wan Caixuan to compose herself. Her eyes fell on the lifeless bodies strewn across the roadside. Her already pale face lost the last trace of color. She looked away, unable to bear the sight.

And then she looked at Lin Xiao. Her gaze took on an incredibly complicated hue.