It was... Black Rakshasa!?
He recognized this man. Or rather, this man had once been his living nightmare.
Black Rakshasa and White Yaksha, the Assassin Duo of the Dawn Society—no one targeted by these two ever survived.
As the man drew closer, a powerful sense of suffocation suddenly seized Xue Ming's heart. He wanted to get up and leave his seat, but his body refused to obey, sinking deeper and deeper into the chair as if falling into a bottomless abyss.
"No... no, no!!" Xue Ming howled with wide-mouthed terror, tears and snot streaming down his face.
It wasn't until he stood up with a start that he realized the people around him were looking at him with strange expressions. In an instant, the sound of the storm faded away, and the pale lights overhead flickered, his world filled with buzzing and dizziness.
There was no storm, and there was no man walking on the wing. The woman beside him was sleeping soundly, and there was no storm outside the plane.
Instead, there was a calm night sky, with black clouds rolling below.
Everything that had happened before had also been a dream.
Xue Ming felt a wave of relief once more and slumped into his seat. The repeated shocks had left him mentally exhausted, and he still felt a lingering fear.
Then, he noticed something. The briefcase he had placed in the upper-left compartment had shifted several centimeters to the right.
This shouldn't have happened. There were supposed to be fixed grooves there. Had it moved because of the earlier turbulence?
Everything he had just experienced made Xue Ming extremely sensitive to such minor anomalies. Once the plane landed, members of the Pole Star Society would come for him and find a way to get him out of Red Heaven. Even if this document were stolen, he was the only one who could sense the presence of the Eight-Spider Holy Remains through his resonance with the Eight-Spider Hive Mother. Those lunatics had no reason to kill him.
In fact, he was like a walking treasure; the underground factions were more likely to fight over him.
As long as the plane landed, he would be safe.
At a time like this, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.
A moment later, to be safe, Xue Ming stood up. He carefully stepped around the sleeping woman, ignored the flight attendant's advice, reached up to retrieve his bag, and walked quickly to the restroom.
Xue Ming sat down with a solemn expression, laid the briefcase flat on his lap, opened it, and began checking the documents page by page.
The handwriting on them was his own. He had an excellent memory, and he would notice any abnormality in the content immediately.
After confirming everything was correct, Xue Ming nodded. Then, he suddenly noticed a black envelope placed under the last sheet of paper. It had a gilded edge, neat handwriting written in Royal Ink, and was sealed with black-gold wax.
It looked like an invitation.
Xue Ming's heart skipped a beat, and a terrible premonition began to grow wildly in his mind.
"Excuse me, sir, did you leave something outside?"
A brief knock sounded at the door, accompanied by a mature, steady voice.
"No. Please respect my privacy and leave at once."
The unease in his heart made Xue Ming feel inexplicably irritable. As if possessed, he grabbed the invitation and tore off the outer decorations. When he saw the contents on the envelope, his growing unease turned into instant terror.
"Excuse me, did you leave something outside?"
"No, get lost!" Xue Ming responded rudely, his voice almost a roar.
His psychological defenses collapsed the moment he saw this invitation.
This was a death invitation from the Assassin Duo!
"It must be a dream. This has to be a dream too."
Darkness spread toward him as death whispered in his ear. Xue Ming kept comforting himself, as if seeking inspiration from his own words. His trembling gaze shifted and landed on the washbasin, where a sharp razor lay.
Suddenly, Xue Ming frantically grabbed the razor.
A wail came from inside the restroom. A man in a suit stood at the door, checking his wristwatch and counting the time.
At that moment, the restroom door was suddenly thrown open. A blood-covered Xue Ming stumbled out, clutching his eye sockets tightly. He cursed with venomous words as he ran forward blindly.
His brain was trembling. Xue Ming was mad. The intense pain and terror had robbed him of the ability to think. He didn't understand why he couldn't wake up from the dream, or why he couldn't just die immediately!
"Excuse me, did you leave something behind?"
He didn't know where he was running; instinct drove him away from the man.
In his world, that man in the suit seemed to have transformed into a devil. Darkness continuously closed in, and the man's questions were like maggots in the bone, chasing his every footstep.
"Excuse me, did you leave something behind?"
"Stop asking! Stop asking!" Xue Ming roared with bloodshot eyes. "Shut up!!"
Why did that damn guy keep asking that damn question!?
This had to be a dream. It had to be. He had to wake up, no matter the method.
If only death could make him die immediately, how could he die?
The outline of an object appeared in Xue Ming's mind.
A gun. That's it. If he just shot himself with a gun, he would die no matter what!
There was a gun under his seat. The Pole Star Society had prepared it for him. He hadn't thought he'd need it, but he never expected it to be useful in a situation like this.
Like a drowning man grasping at a straw, Xue Ming struggled and flailed his arms, swimming forward. Countless hands reached out from the darkness behind him, clutching at him. The passengers in the two rows were like silent spectators in a pantomime, quietly watching a judgment. They ignored the man's miserable state, and he didn't notice anything strange either, only fleeing, fleeing.
The distance of dozens of meters felt long and distant in this moment. When he finally reached his seat, he found a passenger had taken it at some unknown time.
"Get up! This is my seat!" Xue Ming's eyes were fixed on the area beneath the seat, where he could faintly see a metal box tucked in the gap.
Wonderful. The people from the Pole Star Society hadn't lied to him. They really had thoughtfully prepared a gun for him—small yet lethal in this cramped space, precise and effective!
He still didn't notice any abnormality.
The figure in the seat remained unmoved.
"Didn't you hear me?" Xue Ming looked up and roared, "I told you to get lost!"
The roar stopped abruptly.
Because he saw a bloodless face.
The owner of this face had pale, cracked lips, and there was a deep purple bruise on the neck. The dilated pupils were stained with blood,
as if he had seen something extremely terrifying before dying.
Blood dripped down from the edge of his clothes one drop at a time, landing on Xue Ming's face.
This dead person...
Was himself.
Darkness swallowed Xue Ming, and a pair of large, powerful hands were placed on his shoulders.
The man in the black suit, dressed like a solemn and silent mourner at a funeral, spoke in a gentle, slightly raspy voice into Xue Ming's ear.
"Excuse me, do you need any help?"
Xue Ming's eyes went dull as he replied, "Take me away. I... left behind my life."
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