The Beauty CEO's Personal Expert

Chapter 1580 - 1885: Dark Pavilion Assassin (Part 3)

"These utterly heartless people are so vicious." Seeing this scene, everyone gained a deeper understanding of the ruthlessness of the Dark Pavilion.

At this moment, a disciple from the Dragon Tiger Hall hurriedly ran inside, shouting in panic, "Master, Master, something bad... ugh!" Before he could finish his words, the disciple saw the head hanging from the ceiling, turned pale, and gagged immediately.

"What happened again?" Tong Zhentian’s tone was a bit sharp; waking up to such an event early in the morning would put anyone in a bad mood.

The disciple took several deep breaths to steady himself, "Master, something happened over there, several people are dead."

How many died? Upon hearing this, everyone was shocked.

"Lead the way!" Tong Zhentian spat out the order with a dark face, then followed the disciple out of the room. In no time, the group arrived at a house in the northeast corner of the hall.

Seeing this house, Ling Chen’s eyes narrowed slightly as he said, "Isn’t this the room where the person delivering the antidote is held?"

Tong Zhentian didn’t respond, instead, he rushed directly inside. This was the small dark room the Dragon Tiger Hall used specially for disciplining disciples, completely enclosed. After capturing that middle-aged man distributing the antidote yesterday, Ling Chen had him locked here and specifically assigned a disciple to guard it. That middle-aged man was likely to know a lot about the inner workings of the Dark Pavilion, so nothing could go wrong.

Inside, the middle-aged man was lying in a pool of blood, long dead. Beside him, two disciples of the Dragon Tiger Hall were also killed. Ling Chen stepped forward to check the wounds on the bodies; they were all killed with a single slash, clearly the work of the same assassin.

All dead!

Ling Chen bit his lip in frustration; anyone connected to the Dark Pavilion was dead, not a single one was left.

"Didn’t the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion capture four people? I wonder if anything happened to them," Chen Junfeng said.

"Master Su sent them back to the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion, planning to execute them there." Pausing for a moment, Ling Chen continued, "I’ll ask her when I see her later."

"First, get these corpses cleaned up. Today’s Martial Arts Tournament still has to proceed as usual; we don’t have time to waste here," Tong Zhentian immediately made arrangements.

After a quick breakfast, the group drove to the venue.

As everyone expected, due to yesterday’s sudden incident, the Martial Arts Tournament was heavily affected. The massive venue had only a few thousand attendees, mostly martial artists, sparse and lifeless, unlike the bustling scenes of the prior two days.

With such a small audience, no one had the enthusiasm to continue holding the Martial Arts Tournament. Even if they persisted, it was with a lack of focus, merely going through the motions.

At the main command center, Su Mei and Du Kang were already there, talking about something. Ling Chen and his group entered and greeted Su Mei.

"Master Su, may I have a word?"

Su Mei responded softly, following Ling Chen to a corner, and asked, "What’s up?"

"I wanted to ask, where are the four people caught yesterday?"

"I’ve already sent them back to the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion. Rest assured, blood for blood, I won’t spare their lives."

"You misunderstand, that’s not what I was asking, rather..." Ling Chen’s words were cut off by the sudden ringing of Su Mei’s phone.

"Sorry, let me take this call first." With that, Su Mei took out her phone and stepped aside. Whatever was said on the other end caused a noticeable change in her expression.

"Master Su, is everything alright?" Ling Chen couldn’t help but ask when he saw Su Mei standing there in a daze.

Su Mei turned back, looking into Ling Chen’s eyes, which were as deep as ink, and asked, "You were asking about those people just now, do you know something?"

Hearing this, Ling Chen was a bit confused and asked rhetorically, "Master Su, what do you mean by that?"

"My people just told me that all four prisoners are dead, but it wasn’t us who did it, they were secretly killed by someone." Pausing for a moment, Su Mei hesitated, then continued, "To be honest, after we sent the four prisoners to the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion, I didn’t execute them immediately. I had them imprisoned instead, as I wanted to extract more information about the Dark Pavilion from them. Unexpectedly, someone secretly infiltrated the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion and brutally killed them."

"Just as I thought!" Ling Chen nodded and said, "I thought we were the only ones who encountered such an incident. This morning, Li Haibin and the others were all killed right under our noses, which is why I asked about those four people’s situation. Now it seems, the Dark Pavilion is even more terrifying than we imagined."

"Now the only lead we had is broken, and with the Dark Pavilion on guard, they definitely won’t act rashly. This is bad news for us."

Ling Chen sighed softly and said, "Forget it! Let’s not talk about this right now. The most important thing at the moment is to successfully continue the Martial Arts Tournament."

Saying this, the two returned to the group and discussed the current predicament.

"There are only a few thousand people at the venue now, most of them martial artists. There are just a handful of spectators genuinely there for the spectacle. Besides, I checked the comments online; people are still anxious about yesterday’s events, with some even criticizing the Martial Arts Association for failing to protect everyone. Some even comment online saying we’re just a bunch of performers, not real martial arts experts."

Hearing these remarks, Tong Zhentian’s expression wasn’t pleasant. Understandably so, being the president of the Martial Arts Association, seeing people openly insulting the association and belittling their value would make anyone uncomfortable.

Looking at everyone present, Tong Zhentian said, "There are no outsiders here, so feel free to speak your minds. Let’s see if there’s any effective method to restore the Martial Arts Association’s public image."

Su Mei pondered for a moment and said, "Didn’t we hold a press conference yesterday? The media explained things for us in their reports. I believe most of the public is rational and should understand. I think we should increase our publicity efforts..."

"It’s useless," He Ziyun interjected, "Master Su, if we had enough time, you could try that method, but the Martial Arts Tournament is already halfway through, with only two days left. Do we have any spare time for publicity? If it can’t have an immediate effect, then no method will work."

He Ziyun’s words made everyone fall into deep thought. Indeed, with only two days left for the Martial Arts Tournament, they didn’t have any time to waste.