Editor: Costard, Nyxnox
Chapter 199 Brother and Sister
Shangguan Fei didn"t understand why it had gone like this.
The six people outside the peach grove should have all been impersonated by insignificant minions. The ambushers of the Qiu Society had been divided into two groups. The first group acted as bait, and when the Kun Society sent the same amount of fraudulent sabremen to attack them, he would have personally led the second group of sabremen to suddenly appear and attack them. Afterwards, he would boast about his involvement in the battle. By that time, who could dare say that he was a coward?
His sister, Servant Huan, and Tuo Nengya all should have been trapped on the other side of Southern Jade City and killed by that idiot, Guan Houlin. If his mother asked about it, he could put all the blame on the strategist. He could even go to his mother with the strategist"s head to ask for punishment. Although that burly man used to be a good guy and his thick chest provided the sense of security that Shangguan Fei longed for the most, Guan Houlin had recently become increasingly stupid and wasn"t trustworthy anymore.
This plan should have been as perfect as the one when he had a.s.sa.s.sinated Yu Gongzi and seized power from both the Kun and Qiu Society. But instead, this time he had fallen into a trap.
His sister Shangguan Ru and that old sabremen Tuo Nengya were actually amongst the six negotiators. And the fraudulent sabremen were not feints at all, but experts of the Kun Society led by Wild Horse. There were also some of Tuo Nengya"s elite sabremen who were lurking deep inside the peach grove.
Shangguan Fei and the few sabremen he had brought with him were no match; they almost dropped their sabres and surrendered as soon as the battle started.
When he saw the coffin, Shangguan Fei collapsed onto the ground.
"Apologize to Yu Gongzi." Shangguan Ru pressed the narrow sabre against her brother"s neck. She couldn"t express what she was feeling, and there was no pleasure of revenge, nor any sympathy for her brother.
"I"m sorry." Shangguan Fei"s mind was in chaos now. He couldn"t figure out why he had been seen through and also didn"t know what his sister would do to him. "I didn"t intend to kill her, I was just playing for fun like before. I didn"t mean to kill anyone. Those sabremen didn"t follow my orders. Sister, please forgive me. I"m your real brother. Mother, mother will be angry, so please don"t kill me …"
Shangguan Fei begged in tears.
Shangguan Ru looked up at the people around her. The masked Wild Horse"s eyes showed a desire to kill. The old sabremen Tuo Nengya nodded encouragingly while staring at her with sharp eyes.
They were waiting for her to kill; only she was qualified to kill the son of the Unique King.
Shangguan Ru raised her sabre but didn"t slash down. Instead, she took several steps back, took another sabre from Lotus, and threw it to her elder brother. "Do not say I didn"t give you a chance. Let"s have a kung fu compet.i.tion. The loser dies and the winner lives."
The circle of the onlookers widened to make room for the brother and sister.
As he glanced at the sabre on the ground, Shangguan Fei shuddered as if it were a serpent by his feet. He suddenly rushed to the coffin and held one corner tightly. "I don"t compete with kung fu, I don"t compete with kung fu. Forgive me, sister, I won"t fight with you anymore. Yu Gongzi, my sister is going to kill me, you have to persuade her …"
Shangguan Fei put his head and arms on the coffin, howling. Although Shangguan Yushi used to always bully him with his sister at the castle, she was also the one who tried to dissuade his sister from going too far.
Shangguan Fei was panicking and cried out the words "Yu Gongzi", which not only didn"t earn him any sympathy, but instead enraged his sister even more.
Shangguan Ru lifted her sabre for the second time and snapped, "Shangguan Fei, go beg for forgiveness from Yu Gongzi after you die!"
The narrow sabre cut down, and Shangguan Fei fell.
Wild Horse looked very surprised and Tuo Nengya sighed lightly. Lotus held Tenth Gongzi, hoping that Servant Huan could come as soon as possible. Because except for him, no one else could stir Shangguan Ru"s murderous heart again.
Shangguan Fei didn"t die, but had just fainted from fear. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his sister was weeping.
"Did you know? I would never kill you. How could you hate me because of that?" Shangguan Ru said with more and more tears.
Although the enmity between the brother and sister had lasted a long time, its outbreak was from Shangguan Ru placing the sabre on her brother"s neck to threaten Guo Xiansheng and protect Servant Huan and Yu Gongzi.
Shangguan Fei didn"t know whether he was alive or dead. His sister"s words went into his ears like the rustling of wind through leaves, meaningless. "Sister, you"ve killed me. I"ll go tell mother, and she will avenge me. Sister, you"re always picking on me, and now you can never bully me again."
Shangguan Ru cried even harder. The ones looking at her were not only the killers of the castle, the cutters of the Kun Society, but also outsiders like Tuo Nengya. All the education she had been told said that she must show her strong side and look cold and callous, that any weakness would encourage her enemy and bring her death. But she just couldn"t help it. She just couldn"t use the narrow sabre on her own brother.
Shangguan Fei finally realized that he wasn"t dead, that he wasn"t even scratched.
"Sister." He was unable to stand up. His arms were wrapped around his sister"s leg, and he howled so loudly that he couldn"t even beg for mercy.
Lotus held Tenth Gongzi and looked first at Wild Horse. Wild Horse"s eyes were almost on fire, and his grip on the sabre hilt tightened and loosened three times before he lowered his head to avoid her gaze.
The second person she looked at was Tuo Nengya. Servant Huan had expected that Tenth Gongzi might not be able to kill, so he insisted for Tuo Nengya to join the mission in the peach grove. Amongst all of them, only this old sabreman would dare to kill the son of the Unique King.
With the sabre gripped tightly in his hand, Tuo Nengya looked frozen.
Gu Shenwei was actually moving very fast. With a group of sabremen and a zombie-like Guan Houlin, he really couldn"t go any faster.
One moment Guan Houlin felt that he would definitely die, and the next he thought that Servant Huan was fooling him. He fell to the ground and refused to get up after walking for two blocks. "I"m not going, just leave me alone. I can run away and never return."
Gu Shenwei had no choice but to order several sabremen to carry the burly man in turn and move on.
He didn"t feel the will to kill in Shangguan Ru. Since the death of Yu Gongzi, the little girl had changed day by day and become more and more unlike a lord of the castle. The other killers might not feel it because they met her a lot, but Gu Shenwei had stayed in the Essence Pavilion and hadn"t seen her for months so her change was more apparent for him.
But he himself couldn"t show up in the peach grove, because that would have aroused the enemy"s suspicion and cause him to be accused of killing the lord. Actually, both he and Shangguan Fei had the same idea of not appearing at the killing scene.
So he could only place his hope on Tuo Nengya. That old sabreman was a principled person, who would not be frightened by Golden Roc Castle and would seek revenge at all cost.
While Gu Shenwei was still thinking, Lotus already knew that Servant Huan had misjudged the whole situation. They were killers of the castle and had gotten used to seeing other people with a killer"s mind. But Tuo Nengya was a sabreman, and had his own set of principles.
Tuo Nengya was moved by Tenth Gongzi. Lotus didn"t know why, but she could tell that the old sabremen had been touched, that he would not kill Shangguan Fei in front of Tenth Gongzi even if this was his only chance, even if Shangguan Fei would kill him tomorrow.
When Gu Shenwei finally arrived, all he saw was the endgame.
Desolate and disappointed, Wild Horse lifted Yu Gongzi"s coffin with the others. It had been a few months, and now they could finally bury her.
Shangguan Ru had held back her tears, but the sight of the newly arrived Servant Huan made her tears almost fall again. Gu Shenwei hid his disappointment, walked over, and whispered, "Everything went well. We won."
Shangguan Ru smiled apologetically. She had let many people down, especially Servant Huan.
The people of the Kun Society left. Gu Shenwei asked all the cutters to protect Tenth Gongzi while he himself stayed to deal with the aftermath.
"You don"t have to pay back the debt of the big young lord," Gu Shenwei said coldly. No one knew that letting go of Shangguan Fei meant that the sabre hanging over his head had fallen one foot lower.
Tuo Nengya held his head high and remained unmoved by the teenager"s sarcasm. "I kill beasts, not rabbits. I kill men, not women and children. I will avenge the big young lord, but only Unique King is qualified to be my enemy."
To the old sabremen, Shangguan Fei was just a frightened child, not a man at all.
Gu Shenwei sneered, thinking that he was really a fool. These sabremen were as stupid and obstinate as those swordsmen of Big Snow Mountain, who knew that the killers would use any and all unscrupulous means available yet still insisted on fighting them openly. Tuo Nengya had set himself an impossible goal of making himself appear upright and justified. In the view of the killer, he was just shirking responsibility.
"When are you going to attack the castle?" Gu Shenwei"s anger flared up, and his words became more and more caustic.
Tuo Nengya still kept his composure, "You will see. As long as you don"t cause trouble everywhere, you"ll see it within ten years."
Gu Shenwei didn"t know if he could even live through this year. He had an urge to kill and vent his anger, but held back in the end. "You want to leave Jade City?"
"Hmm, I"m going to travel all over the Western Regions to build a team that can defeat Golden Roc Castle. Not everyone is afraid of Unique King."
"Take him with you."
Guan Houlin didn"t see the ninth young lord, so he felt that he had been fooled. Hearing that he had to wander in the world with the old sabreman, he, who had just cried about running away, quit. "No no, I"m not going. I"ll go back to the ninth young lord to ask for punishment. He"ll forgive me. You"ve lied to me, you can"t fool me again."
This is perhaps the stupidest strategist in the world, Gu Shenwei thought. "The reason that the ninth young lord didn"t kill you was because he wanted to use you to lure me. Now you are useless, so the first thing he will do is to kill you, even faster than killing me."
Guan Houlin wore a strange smile as if the killer was his good friend and was deliberately joking with him by saying harsh words. "Heh heh, I"ll not be fooled. The ninth young lord will not kill me, our relationship … You know, he won"t kill me."
Gu Shenwei drew his sabre, stabbed it into the chest and pulled out immediately. The giant body collapsed before the burly young man"s smile faded.
"I want him to be seen escaping from Jade City alive."
"No problem," Tuo Nengya promised without hesitation.
Gu Shenwei returned to the Kun Society alone, thinking about the current situation.
Everyone knew now that Shangguan Ru would never be a young lord. The weakness she had shown was exactly Golden Roc Castle"s taboo. If she kept being weak and easily bullied, sooner or later she would be torn into pieces by the tiger and wolves inside and outside the castle.
She was becoming less and less useful, and Gu Shenwei could no longer achieve his goal of revenge through her.
Maybe killing her now would be more merciful.