Editor: Nyxnox
Chapter 084 Three Corpses
Big Belly Buddha took the 1000 liang of silver, but he still seemed unsatisfied. As he patted his round stomach, he said, “Ahh, my little girl, you’re Big Daddy’s money tree. Even if I added all the silvers I get from the other daughters together, the sum wouldn"t be as high as what you alone give. Tell me, how should I reward you?”
“Thank you Big Daddy. As long as you’re happy, your daughter is happy, I don’t need any rewards,” Xu Yanwei said as her voice trembled.
“That will not do, that will not do at all. It’s been several days since Big Daddy has taken care of you. Tonight, I’ll make up for all of it.”
“I, I’m a bit tired still, from last night …”
“Hey, when doing this kind of activity, it"s the man, not the woman that will be tired. This time you’ll be on top, let Big Daddy see if your techniques have improved or not.”
Xu Yanwei was still trying to find an excuse to refuse Big Belly Buddha just as he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her out from under the quilt, and casually threw her onto the floor. “Do you decline your guests with all kinds of excuses like this? Then you should be making more than 1000 liang silver. You should be giving me double that.”
The bodyguard’s eyes looked straight ahead as he bent his body a bit more forward. His back even touched the sabre tip that was behind the curtain but he didn’t even realize.
Gu Shenwei held the hilt with his left hand and kept the copy sabre pointed upwards. With his right hand,he smoothly pushed the end of the hilt forward by exactly one foot. Gu Shenwei immediately stepped out from the curtain along with his sabre to avoid the possibility of the bodyguard"s death throes pulling down the curtain and trapping Gu Shenwei inside.
However, the stab was perfect. The sabre directly pierced the bodyguard"s heart and in fact, there was more blood spit from the bodyguard’s mouth than there was blood spurting from the sabre cut. He didn’t struggle at all and just sat on the floor, dead.
Fresh blood dripped from the corpse.
Gu Shenwei held his sabre, as his eyes carefully watched the fatty who only had his pants on while revealing a body full of flab. Gu Shenwei made a circle and checked the bodyguard’s breath, making sure that he was dead.
Big Belly Buddha had a really big stomach as his fat even fell below his crotch, which made it look like a thick, greasy leather armour.
“Hey, I"ve only known him for three days. I"m not related to him at all.”
Big Belly Buddha seriously explained this to Gu Shenwei because he thought that the killer’s target was the bodyguard. He was not afraid as he had a backer, whose influence guaranteed that he would not be a.s.sa.s.sinated as long as he stayed inside southern Jade City.
Gu Shenwei took a single step forward. Big Belly Buddha hurriedly scrambled backwards, retreating backwards until he was sitting on the bed. He panted heavily as his fat chest heaved up and down, saying, “there’s 1000 liang silver over there little brother. You can take it all away if you want. Little brother, don"t forget that I’m a man of the Meng family …”
Gu Shenwei sliced horizontally, cutting into a thick layer of fat and easily slitting the weak throat. He had no concept about the ‘Meng family’, until he finally later remembered that the Madam of Golden Roc Castle was surnamed Meng.
Big Belly Buddha’s eyes widened. He didn"t try to dodge and just looked at the flash of the sabre with surprise. His body remained sitting up as if it couldn"t believe that Gu Shenwei had just killed him before falling to the floor with a heavy thump.
Xu Yanwei, who had crawled and hidden in the corner of the bed, was bouncing up and down. She screamed, grabbing the quilt corner and immediately biting it with her mouth. She vacantly stared at the part where the blood flew out of the corpse, her body shivering. However, she didn’t turn her head around or close her eyes, as if she was fascinated by the corpse.
The a.s.sa.s.sination was so smooth that Gu Shenwei even felt that he had prepared too much. “Do you want the head?,” Gu Shenwei asked according to Golden Roc Castle’s rule. If he were the client, he would cut the fatty’s head off and bring it with him.
Xu Yanwei finally heard Gu Shenwei after he asked again. She abruptly turned around and looked at the killer, seemingly lost in her thoughts. Her eyes didn’t even blink, and after awhile she finally understood the meaning and replied, “No, I don’t want it.”
Gu Shenwei took a piece of silver about 50 liang from the short table. This was the other half of the payment to be taken after the a.s.sa.s.sination was successfully completed.
“I’ll leave now.” He dropped the sabre as he finished speaking and walked out through his chosen route. He left from the back door as there were not many people in the street and he soon returned to the southwall tavern.
The sister and brother were not stupid. They either hid somewhere or ran away because they would be able to deal with the rest of the situation without anybody else"s help.
It was not yet noon, but even the last several drunks at the tavern were being driven away. The waiters were cleaning up and preparing for another messy night.
Gu Shenwei was the first guest but he didn’t drink at all, which annoyed the waiter. The waiter called the tavern keeper over and wanted to drive away this unwelcome teenager.
Seeing this, Gu Shenwei calmly piled 100 liang silver on the ground, saying “I only want a gla.s.s of wine with the reddest colour.”
This action immediately resolved all the arguments that the waiters might have had as they immediately cleaned up the table Tie Hanfeng used last night and served a cup of the tavern"s best wine.
As he looked at the bright red liquid, Gu Shenwei tried to suppress the waves of nausea rising in his stomach. Even though he had experienced slaughter and gotten used to all kinds of corpses, he still had this feeling. He just concealed it well enough so that others couldn’t find out, but this still made him feel ashamed with himself.
Not long after Gu Shenwei ordered his drink, the smiling Tie Hanfeng returned, waving his hand to his disciple who was standing next to the door.
Gu Shenwei stood up and walked towards his Master, leaving his winegla.s.s on the table. In fact, he hadn"t even touched it.
The two returned to the mountain castle together. Tie Hanfeng was in a good mood, and he chatted all the way back without mentioning anything about his disciple’s internal injury.
Gu Shenwei originally wanted to surprise his Master by personally attempting an a.s.sa.s.sination. However, this kill was so easy that even the weakest disciple at East Castle could easily complete it, which meant that there was nothing he could boast about to his Master.
In Gu Shenwei"s heart, Big Belly Buddha had the same status as the horse-faced man and both were already put in a forgotten corner. The person he guarded against in his heart was still his Master.
It turned out that Tie Hanfeng didn’t show any signs of wanting to threaten or use his disciples that whole day. Everything was as usual: boasting, cursing, drinking, more boasting, and sleeping.
"It"s still not time yet," Gu Shenwei thought. Even Xue Niang had to wait several days before he could make a request. He couldn"t do anything so he got on the bed to rest and slept comfortably until someone poked him, waking him up.
Gu Shenwei jolted awake and upon doing so, realized that it was already dark and that there were three men with vague faces standing in front of his bed.
He felt both ashamed and surprised by his circ.u.mstances. As a killer, he had slept like a dead man and was not at all aware about the intruders.
“Follow us,” a man quietly said. His voice was as soft as Gu Lun’s when Gu Lun had told his youngest son to leave the manor one year ago.
Gu Shenwei quickly dressed himself and obediently followed the three men out of the room. He knew where these men had come from and guessed that his Master had finally made a move. But the way he recognized them was a bit unexpected.
They were all executioners from Xi Xin Yuan.
Gu Shenwei had a miserable memory about Xi Xin Yuan, but at least they wouldn"t kill him without a reason. Thus, he didn"t worry about dying as he believed that Tie Hanfeng still valued him.
They had to walk through nearly half of the castle to reach Xi Xin Yuan as they started from east castle. When they reached their destination, the sky was already getting bright. The three men threw Gu Shenwei into a small black room on the east side and left without saying anything.
They didn’t bring him to the underground torture chamber, which was, all things considering, a good sign.
After about two hours, the door opened and four men came in and stood in front of the door. As the sun shined down, Gu Shenwei squinted and held his hand up as his sigh adjusted to the brightness.
On the far left side Tie Hanfeng, and the one next to him was Shen Liang, the sabrelord of Xi Xin Yuan. Gu Shenwei knew him, and remembered that he was the eighth young lord’s maternal uncle. The other two were just normal executioners and Gu Shenwei didn’t have an impression about them.
“Yesterday, you killed someone at southern Jade City.”
One of the executioners asked this straightforwardly. Gu Shenwei was a bit surprised as he didn’t expect Xi Xin Yuan came to him for this matter.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Someone hired me.”
The executioner stopped for a while as he was surprised by the disciple’s frankness. Sabrelord Shen Liang opened his mouth, “Tell us what happened. Do not leave anything out. “
Gu Shenwei told them everything, from how Xu Xiaoyi saw him kill someone to when he dropped the blood-stained copy sabre and left Xu Yanwei’s small house.
“The brother and sister surnamed Xu hired you?”
“Yes.”
“You killed two people. One was Big Belly Buddha, and the other was his bodyguard?"
“Yes.”
Sabrelord Shen Liang asked these two questions and after hearing Gu Shenwei"s affirmative answers, his mouth made a short smile. It almost seemed as if he had heard a clumsy joke as his smile was full of perfunctory disdain.
“Do you believe him?” Shen Liang asked, turning towards Tie Hanfeng.
Tie Hanfeng wore no smile on his face, making his red face seem much more serious and ferocious. He said “I believe him” with a hint of resolution and anger.
Sabrelord Shen Liang helplessly shook his head while saying, “I still have to take him in. Brother Tie, you can’t bear the responsibility of this matter.”
Gu Shenwei became more and more surprised as he discovered that what was actually happening was much different that what he thought would occur. He also found the fact that sabrelord Shen Liang had called Tie Hanfeng "brother Tie" incomprehensible. Tie Hanfeng behaved as obsequiously as a beggar in front of the overseers at Lian Huo Yuan, but here he could casually talk with a sabrelord who had a much higher position than the overseers.
“Give me some time,” Tie Hanfeng said.
Shen Liang looked at the perplexed a.s.sa.s.sin disciple and didn’t recognize him as one of the teenagers being interrogated here one year ago, “I have to take him in before noon, you still have two hours excluding the time you go down the mountain.”
The four men left without explaining anything to Gu Shenwei. He was busy thinking it over, trying to figure out what was the problem.
Big Belly Buddha claimed that he was ‘a man of the Meng family’, the Madam was also surnamed Meng, and the Meng family was the richest merchants of Jade City. This was the only connection that he could think of that could explain his current situation.
Two hours later, Tie Hanfeng came back alone. “Let’s go.”
The Master and disciple left Xi Xin Yuan, but didn’t return to east castle. They bought two horses and went downhill instead.
Along the way Tie Hanfeng maintained a rare silence. In the end, it was Gu Shenwei who became impatient, saying “What’s all this about?”
Tie Hanfeng made a glance at his disciple and said after a while, “You killed two people?”
“Hmm.”
“But there are three corpses.”
“Ahh? But … ” He was thinking about who the third corpse could be between the sister and brother, but he soon understood that both of them would not interest the Xi Xin Yuan. “Who is it?”
“An exiled prince of the Stone Country who was a very important customer of the castle. He was going to return to his country for his coronation in a couple of days.”
Tie Hanfeng said all of this easily, but Gu Shenwei was still startled speechless. He hadn"t killed the prince and none of the people he had seen was a prince, prompting him to say, “But I didn’t …”
“I know, I said that I trust you.”
“Will the castle kick me out?”
They were traveling downhill and Gu Shenwei felt overwhelmed by an uneasy sense of foreboding.
“Not now, we have three days to find who the real murderer was.”
“Us?”
“Mmm, us.”
Gu Shenwei became more and more confused about his Master’s true goals.