Chapter Forty-Two: The Golden Hand

Such unconditional trust from Shiyu Rou filled Yan Yuanqing's heart with warmth. No matter how his mother-in-law treated him, Yan Yuanqing cared only about his wife's attitude. As long as she was willing to accept him, willing to gradually place her trust in him, then Yan Yuanqing felt that everything he had done was worthwhile.

As Shiyu Rou and her mother finally headed down to the basement, the gentleness and kindness in Yan Yuanqing's eyes instantly vanished. He grabbed a kitchen knife and rushed out of the house. If the battle were to break out indoors, the house would surely suffer.

In a flash, several figures appeared, surrounding him.

“Bounty Hunter Guild?” Yan Yuanqing asked coolly, maintaining an air of dominance even in the face of overwhelming numbers.

His question caught the group off-guard; clearly, they hadn’t expected him to see through their identities so easily. But now, there was no reason to leave any witnesses.

“Go! Take care of this guy and then find the eldest daughter of the Shi family—dead or alive!” someone ordered.

“Yes!” The group swarmed forward, weapons raised, aiming for Yan Yuanqing’s vital points.

Yan Yuanqing remained motionless, as if resigned to their attacks. Yet, unnoticed by all, a faint golden light had already wrapped around his hands, even the kitchen knife in his grip seemed to gleam with a legendary brilliance.

One attacker swung a machete down at Yan Yuanqing. Seeing Yan Yuanqing raise his right hand to meet the strike, shock flickered in the assailant’s eyes. But cruelty and bloodlust quickly replaced his surprise—he was certain that this blow would end Yan Yuanqing, that his blade would slice through the hand, then split the skull and body in two.

But in the next instant, that cruelty turned to utter shock and terror. Yan Yuanqing’s hand firmly gripped the blade, and a closer look revealed golden light swirling around his fingers, like a protective golden armor shielding him from harm.

“Impossible! What is that golden light?” the attacker cried, but he would never find out.

Yan Yuanqing’s right hand clenched suddenly. The sound of metal shattering rang through the courtyard as the machete broke into countless fragments and fell to the ground. As if unfazed, Yan Yuanqing threw a powerful punch straight into the black-clad man’s chest.

The crack of breaking bones was soft yet unmistakable. The man flew backward, blood gushing from his mouth mid-air. When he hit the ground, he felt a crushing pressure on his chest, as if suffocating. Only then did he realize that Yan Yuanqing’s punch had shattered the ribs on the left side of his chest, the bone pressing into his heart, making each beat a struggle. Starved of blood and oxygen, his life was slipping away.

“Help... help me!” he gasped, but his companions paid him no mind.

In the last moments of his life, he saw with his own eyes: Yan Yuanqing, like a god of war, stood unmoving, dispatching each foe with a single blow. One by one, his companions fell, and one of them even had his thigh bone snapped in two with a single kick.