Sleeping with a Blade for a Pillow

Ten years ago, he was Du'e, the most renowned assassin in the martial world. After slaughtering thirty-six traitors in a single night, he faked his death and disappeared.

Ten years later, he is Shen Du, owner of a teahouse in a small Jiangnan town. He sleeps until the sun is high, makes tea, snacks on melon seeds, and listens to storytellers. His greatest talent is playing dumb.

His dream is simple: to coast through the rest of his life just like this.

But when a person covered in blood stumbles into the teahouse and dies before him, clutching a token engraved with Shen Du's "death anniversary," Shen Du knows his ten years of peace are over.

People from every corner of the martial world flood into town, and old debts come due one by one. Forced to act again and again, he goes from "I don't know Snow Listening Tower" to "All right, I'm Du'e." But as the truth comes to light, he discovers that the most terrifying thing isn't being hunted by his enemies. It's that...

His "freedom" over the past ten years was all planned by someone else. He thought he'd escaped the martial world, but in truth, he'd merely moved from one small cage into a larger one. Even the mute girl who works beside him is a rope tying him down.

But this time, he won't run.

Cooled tea can always be reheated. After hiding for half a lifetime, it's time to sit down.