Edited by Nyxnox
Chapter 089 Doc.u.ment
Gu Shenwei was the first amongst all of the killer disciples to find an a.s.sa.s.sination job outside the castle, which once again established his position among them firmly in the lead.
He was the one who had a.s.sa.s.sinated the horse-faced man, but due to the secrecy of the whole operation, no one knew that it was him. Additionally, the a.s.sa.s.sination strategy wasn"t made by him; he was simply the sabre of his Master.
The disciples didn"t care about the prince of the Stone Country or the low kung fu skills of the other victim What truly made everyone curious was how Servant Huan, a killer disciple who had only entered the city twice, found an a.s.sa.s.sination job without his Master"s help.
During the ten days that he was confined, there were always some disciples who, regardless of whether he was familiar or unfamiliar with them, sneakily approached the door and immediately asked this question after some basic greetings.
Gu Shenwei told the truth every time, saying that it was the business that came to him, not he who sought the business, that Xu Xiaoyi was a witness who he had let go, and so on and so forth.
But the rumors grew more and more exaggerated and in the end, Servant Huan had become a know-it-all in southern Jade City. No matter how much he tried to explain, the disciples all truly believed the rumors. Whenever someone followed his Master to the city, he would always go to Servant Huan, hoping that he could introduce them to a "job". The pay was not important; they just wanted some experience.
The whole matter finally ceased after Gu Shenwei turned down more than a dozen people in a row.
On the last day of the confinement, Lotus visited him. She came with two other disciples, but they left quickly so that Gu Shenwei and Lotus could talk privately for a while.
Gu Shenwei followed the agreement that was made several months ago and told Lotus the diagnosis G.o.dly Doctor Sun made there were only two methods in curing the Qi deviation. Those who followed Buddhism could go to the Four n.o.ble Truths Temple to learn the devil expelling sutra scriptures. All others had to find the talented people of the country of Fragrance, which was about 1700 miles away.
To Gu Shenwei, those two ways were about as feasible as illusions were real. Lotus made no comments; she couldn"t stay for too long anyways so she briefly told him one more piece of important news.
"We found the mastermind behind Shangguan Yuxing."
Shangguan Yuxing had once tracked Servant Huan for several days and also planned to let a disciple expert kill Servant Huan in the monthly test. But both Shangguan Yuxing and the disciple expert were killed by the red-crowned roc of the Giant Boulder Cliff and subsequently caused a series of a.s.sa.s.sinations.
“Who?”
Gu Shenwei had originally thought that the mastermind was either Shangguan Yushi or Luo Ningcha, but it turned out that he was wrong.
"Someone at Bai Yi Yuan, with a surname Guo. Maybe you have an impression of him."
"Mr. Guo?"
Gu Shenwei was both surprised and confused. He had only met Mr. Guo twice, the first being at the underground torture chamber of Xi Xin Yuan where Mr. Guo probably did not remember him; the second was when Shangguan Ru stole the black jade palm and they were blocked in the room by Mr. Guo. However, Gu Shenwei was just an inconspicuous follower behind the lord, and he even didn"t say anything at that time. Why would Mr. Guo want him dead?
"Wild Horse verified it. He once heard Shangguan Yuxing boasting that it was as easy as killing an ant for Bai Yi Yuan to kill a disciple."
Gu Shenwei wasn"t surprised that Lotus was on friendly terms with their previous opponent. What was on his mind right now was Mr. Guo, an unexpected enemy.
"I heard that you will soon be sent to Bai Yi Yuan. Be careful."
Lotus left after the reminder. Gu Shenwei ran through the conversation in his head again but still couldn"t understand Mr. Guo"s intention. Arguably, the one whom he disliked should be Shangguan Ru and Shangguan Yushi. And it also seemed unnecessary for a person with a status like him to spend lots of efforts in avenging a killer"s disciple.
Gu Shenwei finished his sentenced confinement and returned to his living place at dusk. He had to be a house-serf at Bai Yi Yuan the next day, so he had no choice but to seek explanations from his Master, Tie Hanfeng.
The Master and disciple still had grudges and doubts about each other, but they were no longer bitter rivals.
Tie Hanfeng quietly listened to his disciple"s story but didn"t answer right away. He went out at night instead, wandered around east castle, visited several acquaintances, and finally came back at midnight. He had already heard the story of stealing the sabre for Xue Niang from his disciple and had a general idea about it. After he acquired some basic information, the jigsaw puzzle in his mind was complete.
Tie Hanfeng explained the simplest part first, "The reason why Mr. Guo didn’t make a move by himself was not because of face, but because of the fact that private duels between killers are a felony. So, he can only openly kill you in the monthly test through another disciple."
Seeing his disciple"s puzzled looks, Tie Hanfeng added, "Do you still remember what I told you about training a dog? If you want a ferocious dog, you have to let them bite each other when they are little so that the weak ones can be eliminated. After the weak ones are weeded out, next you must establish the rules firmly so that the dogs are leashed to them. So Mr. Guo cannot directly attack you and in turn you also cannot directly attack him. In the castle, the only one you can openly kill is me. If you can take away your Master"s red belt and yao pai, this will be an honour. Huh, you can still try."
Gu Shenwei didn"t want to try any more as he already knew the gap between him and his Master.
"I also found out why he doesn"t like you. It"s the wooden sabre. Mr. Guo had his eyes on the black jade palm but brought back a fake sabre. You made him lose face in front of King Lord, so no wonder he wants to kill you."
With his Master"s explanation, Gu Shenwei finally understood the origin of this enmity Mr. Guo had for him. He speculated that Shangguan Nu must have cooked up a story in front of King Lord to explain why the wooden sabre of Liu Sha Dian was broken. And in that story, the eighth young lord would definitely not speak in favor of Mr. Guo.
Bai Yi Yuan was located in the northernmost area of east castle, but it was not actually part of east castle. It had many independent rooms and pavilions and was divided into thirty six different chambers. Bai Yi Yuan was complex, with each individual chamber having a unique responsibility and an independent relationship with the others. The head of each chamber was called "Suzerain" and directly reported to Unique King.
Mr. Guo was one of the Suzerains, but his duty was still a secret. Gu Shenwei guessed that it might be related with maintaining the safety of the castle.
Gu Shenwei was punished to be a house-serf at Bai Yi Yuan, but according to Tie Hanfeng"s teachings, this was not a punishment but an award. "Bai Yi Yuan is very important, you can learn lots of stuff that you can"t learn from me or at east castle. Just accept the position, you"ll come out soon anyways."
Gu Shenwei felt that his Master was too optimistic. HIs position was in the library chamber, which was responsible for keeping the files of the previous Unique Kings. More than a dozen house-serfs were tasked to clean the dust and extinguish bugs and rats to protect the piles of books and pamphlets acc.u.mulated over the past one hundred years. They were about mundane matters that occurred in Golden Roc Castle in the past years. Almost no one read them except the ones who wrote them.
In this seemingly unimportant library chamber, they had to fight with endless hordes of bugs and rats. Not to mention learning new things, one might even become rusty with their sabresmanship.
Tie Hanfeng knew his disciple"s personality very well, so he reminded him several times to not provoke Mr. Guo and also to forget about revenge on him. There was a huge difference in their status, so it was better to keep a low profile and let it go.
Gu Shenwei also didn"t want to cause more trouble, but he believed that life never went as one expected. When the enemy secretly cast a big net, he had to fight back.
The first sign of someone casting their net was always a trivial matter. Thus, Gu Shenwei could only understand and notice the importance of this matter later on.
The house-serfs of different chambers usually had meals at a big restaurant outside of Bai Yi Yuan. No one talked loudly but they had their own method of pa.s.sing information along.
That noon, a teenage house-serf near Gu Shenwei patted him and said in a low voice, "Are you Yang Huan from east castle?"
Surprisingly someone called his made-up name. Gu Shenwei was so surprised that he couldn"t even respond quickly. After a while, he nodded and the house-serf replied back with another nod before continuing to eat without saying a word.
While more dishes were being brought to the table, Gu Shenwei took the chance to quickly glance up, discovering that some teenagers around his age from another chamber were pointing to him from afar.
This was not strange because Servant Huan was a bit famous at east castle and he had once been the leader of Bi Nu gang. It was normal that the other servants were interested in him.
One day later, on the fifteenth day of entering Bai Yi Yuan, Gu Shenwei was walking back to his Master"s living place at dusk when someone informed him that a big event would take place very soon at Lian Huo Yuan.
Later that night, Gu Shenwei went to a meeting for Bi Nu gang"s core members as there was an agreement to have one every three days. Although the slaughter between the disciples was over, they still remained vigilant. So they decided to keep in touch but without deciding the meeting location. Usually it was chosen by Lotus, who would then inform the others.
In fact, the Snow Mountain gang was still alive and it was even larger with more than twenty members. In comparison, the Bi Nu gang only had fifteen people left.
During this meeting, Lotus announced that according to the rumors, Lian Huo Yuan would organize its disciples to carry out an a.s.sa.s.sination. It was a real a.s.sa.s.sination mission and the target was someone outside the castle.
This action didn"t follow Golden Roc Castle"s traditions. Usually, the disciples would only perform a task outside the castle after they graduated as a killer, a requirement that no one had currently met within this generation of disciples. Those who had successfully killed their opponents in the monthly test had all died during the slaughter. Only Servant Huan had survived but he had also voluntarily forfeit to Lotus during his last monthly test.
However, this generation of disciples was also acknowledged as being the most excellent one compared to past years. Although only twenty or thirty percent had survived, they were mostly experts. For all of these reasons, the east castle broke tradition and specially arranged this a.s.sa.s.sination mission even though none of the details had been announced yet.
The disciples were very excited as everyone wanted to be chosen. Their killing intent was at its most vigorous peak, and they would rather spread their arms to embrace death than reveal their fear.
The killer Masters also knew about it, but they couldn"t reveal more information.
The next day, Gu Shenwei inquired about those teenagers who had pointed at him at the restaurant the other day and found out that they were house-serfs of the doc.u.mentation chamber.
There was only a slight difference between the names of "doc.u.mentation chamber" and "library chamber" but the responsibility and power between the two was like heaven and earth. The former was responsible for pa.s.sing, reviewing, and keeping all kinds of doc.u.ments that would be read by the current Unique King. People from this chamber often had a chance to see the King Lord and only after the current King Lord died would these files be sent to the library chamber for permanent preservation.
Similar to east castle, there were also many private deals at Bai Yi Yuan, which were secretly allowed as long as it was not related to any of the top secrets.
The disciple"s a.s.sa.s.sination activity was not a top secret, so Gu Shenwei was able to get a copy of the information on it. The 100 liang silver that Lotus had failed to bribe the yellow-belted overseer with was used here.
Although Gu Shenwei didn"t find the name of Servant Huan on this copy, there were a total of twenty disciples on the doc.u.ment, names which included Lotus, Wild Horse, and Liuhua. They were going to perform the a.s.sa.s.sination at the same time. However, not all of the information could be bought. The specific time and location had not yet been decided and the target"s information was also not mentioned.
Gu Shenwei felt a bit sorry for himself but also felt happy for his friends. He didn’t know why, but the doc.u.ment made him uneasy. He read it several times but still couldn"t find the exact reason.
In the end, he recognized the characters of "Suzerain Guo Chun" amongst those seven or eight seals. He thought, wouldn"t Mr. Guo play tricks again this time? But since Servant Huan was not on the list, he felt that he was being too suspicious and in the end, tore up the copy and went to sleep.
In his dreams, rows of words written with blood flashed intermittently throughout the night.