Courtyard House: Home Alone

As time passed, the Japanese-style houses, shops, and clubs on Wusong Road were like candles being extinguished one by one by an invisible hand.

Lin Yifan's movements became faster and faster, and the coordination between his mental power and teleportation became more and more proficient. Often, before the corpse of the previous target had even fallen to the ground, he had already appeared at the next location.

At 2:17 a.m., he stood on the roof of the "Shanghai Japanese Club" and looked down at the sleeping street.

By 3 a.m., the eastern section of Wusong Road had been cleared. Lin Yifan returned to the three-story building, found a bottle of whiskey in Ito's study, and poured himself half a glass. The liquor was pungent and burned his throat, but he felt this was the most "human" moment of the night.

The spiritual power extended once more, this time sweeping towards the western section.

"Hongkou Dojo" is the key target in the western section. At this time, in addition to the snoring, there are a few rooms in the dojo with dim yellow lights on.

Lin Yifan probed into the room with his spiritual power and found that several people with Black Dragon Society tattoos were copying intelligence overnight—they didn't even know what they were copying, they were just mechanically transcribing the contents of Chinese newspapers into Japanese summaries.

The main building of the dojo was a traditional Japanese wooden structure. The main hall enshrined the so-called "Martial Saint," and the dojo had dormitories for the disciples on both sides. In the backyard, there was a cellar where seven or eight Chinese people were locked up. They were dressed in rags and covered in wounds, clearly having been captured for training or interrogation.

Lin Yifan downed the whiskey in one gulp and gently placed the bottle on the desk. He no longer needed to conserve his mental energy; the hundreds of Japanese soldiers he had eliminated in the eastern section had brought him to his peak condition—a calmness born of slaughter, like a stagnant pool, reflecting no ripples.

When he activated the teleportation, he appeared in the main hall of the dojo.

Before the enshrined statue of the "Martial Saint," a man was kneeling. He was an elderly Japanese man in his sixties, dressed in a white kendo uniform, meditating with his eyes closed.

Lin Yifan's spiritual power swept over his body and found that this person's blood circulation was different from ordinary people - he was a true master who had practiced internal martial arts, although he was considered a "rare talent" in this era.

"Now that you've arrived," the old man suddenly spoke, his eyes still closed, "why hide yourself?"

Lin Yifan raised an eyebrow slightly. His teleportation made no sound, and his spiritual power was even more invisible and intangible. The fact that the old man could sense the abnormality meant he was indeed quite skilled.

The old man finally opened his eyes, and when he saw that it was a "child" in front of him, his pupils suddenly contracted.

"Chinese?" he asked in broken Chinese.

"Here to collect debts." Lin Yifan looked around; the weapon racks on both sides of the main hall were filled with bamboo knives and real swords. "How many people has your Black Dragon Society trained here?"

The old man slowly rose and took an unsharpened bamboo knife from the shelf: "Young man, your killing intent is too strong. The true essence of martial arts lies not in killing—"

"What's the problem?" Lin Yifan interrupted him. "Is it that you used this bamboo knife to kill those captured Chinese people? Or is it that you used 'martial arts' as a fig leaf for your aggression?"

The old man's hand stopped in mid-air.

Lin Yifan's spiritual power had already swept across the entire dojo. Besides the old man in front of him, there were forty-one "disciples" living in the dormitory. Half of them were official members of the Black Dragon Society, and the rest were Japanese expatriates or ronin who came to learn "Japanese martial arts"—all of these people were on his elimination list.

"Mr. Funakoshi!" The sliding door on the east side was suddenly pushed open, and a sleepy-eyed young Japanese man poked his head in. "Why haven't you—"

His voice abruptly stopped. He had seen the "child" standing in the hall, and the slightly trembling bamboo sword in Mr. Funakoshi's hand.

Lin Yifan gave him no time to react. A bullet shot out from thin air, piercing the wooden panel of the sliding door and striking the young man squarely between the eyebrows. As the body fell to the ground, the dormitory was already in an uproar, with chaotic footsteps and shouts of Japanese rising and falling.

"You!" Funakoshi Fumio's expression finally changed, his bamboo sword held horizontally across his chest. "Who sent you?"

"Nobody sent me." Lin Yifan sidestepped the Black Dragon Society member who rushed out of the first dormitory, then slashed his Adam's apple with a backhand strike, the sound of bones breaking clearly audible. "I came on my own."

In the next three minutes, the main hall of the dojo turned into a battlefield of carnage. While dodging Funakoshi's attacks, the forty-odd students who had just woken up were instantly turned into corpses the moment they peeked out.

The only purpose of keeping Funakoshi Fumio around was for Lin Yifan to see how much difference there was between Funakoshi Fumio's martial arts and his own master-level martial arts.

Funakoshi Fumio's bamboo sword was indeed sharp, with each move aimed directly at vital points. If the opponent were an ordinary martial artist, he would have already subdued them by striking their pressure points.

But after just over three minutes, Lin Yifan lost interest, because he was not within the rules of "martial arts" at all—he teleported, he predicted, and he used his mental power to lock onto every minute muscle movement of his opponent.

When Funakoshi Fumio's bamboo sword finally touched the hem of his clothes, his fingers were already gripping the old man's throat.

"Your 'martial arts'," Lin Yifan pressed him against the base of the "Martial Saint" statue, his voice as calm as a weather report, "is utterly unbearable to look at."

His knuckles tightened. Funakoshi Fumio's face turned from red to purple, and the bamboo sword in his hand finally fell. In the last moment before his consciousness faded, he suddenly smiled.

At 4:17 a.m., Lin Yifan returned to the three-story building. In Ito's study, there was still half a bottle of whiskey left. He poured himself another glass, this time adding some water.

His mental energy swept across the entire Wusong Road, confirming that no target had been missed. The cleanup in the western section was more thorough than in the eastern section because the "overseas Chinese" there were more authentically connected—almost every family had some connection to the Black Dragon Society or the Special Higher Police.

He needed to go back to the hotel; he had to catch the train to Tianjin tomorrow morning. Lin Yifan drew the curtains and teleported away.

At 4:45, he returned to his hotel room, tidied up the rummaged rattan trunk, and carried it out of the room.

After settling the bill at the front desk, I left the hotel.

When they arrived at the train station, it was already 5:30 in the morning. The train was leaving in half an hour. Lin Yifan sat in the waiting room for less than ten minutes before the ticket check began.

He passed through the ticket gate, boarded the train, and found his first-class seat, which later became his soft sleeper compartment. The compartment had only two berths; after putting away his luggage, he lay down on his berth, closed his eyes, and prepared to rest.

Just as I closed my eyes, a series of Japanese curses came from afar and reached the door of the private room. Then, with a "whoosh," the door was pulled open from the outside.

When Lin Yifan opened his eyes, he saw a short, stocky man in his forties standing at the door of the compartment, cursing at the train attendant who was following behind him carrying two suitcases.

Hearing the Japanese soldier in front of him spewing "Baka" and "Shina pig," Lin Yifan's face instantly darkened. "Damn it, why do I always run into these damned bastards wherever I go?"

He didn't even consider that in this day and age, how many people who could afford to sit in first class were Chinese? He had already sentenced this Japanese devil to death in advance; he had no intention of spending more than thirty hours with a Japanese soldier.