Chapter 9 Sworn Brothers
“The two of them want to escape, I saw them. Him as well, he also wants to escape.”
The triangle-faced teenager pointed at Gu Shenwei.
The other robbers who had heard the shout rushed in, holding their torches, but when they saw that Xue Niang had already gotten everything under control, they didn’t intervene.
Gu Shenwei had secretly decided to get revenge through unscrupulous means, but right now he even didn’t know how to be ‘unscrupulous’.
Therefore, when he faced with the triangle-faced teenager’s false accusation, he hesitated for a while, but didn’t refute to show that he didn’t want to betray the brothers.
Xue Niang snorted, not asking any questions. She threw the brothers up in the air and pressed her palms against their backs simultaneously. The two teenagers did not utter a sound. They fell back down onto the straw mattress; it was unknown if they were alive or dead.
The triangle-faced teenager’s eyes were shining. Watching others get punished, even if it was not through his own hands, still made him excited.
Xue Niang walked in front of Gu Shenwei. Without saying anything, her two fingers stabbed at Gu Shenwei’s left and right shoulders as fast as lightning.
Gu Shenwei was originally sitting on the straw mattress, but now he fell onto his back as he felt pain penetrate into his bone. He lost control of both his arms and his forehead broke out into large droplets of sweat, He shouted aloud in pain, before forcefully holding it back.
The triangle-faced teenager’s cheeks were red from excitement. He almost shouted ‘good’.
Xue Niang then walked to the triangle-faced teenager. The teenager knelt expectantly on the straw mattress and eagerly said,
“Xue Niang, you can rest a.s.sured, I……”
Xue Niang raised her arm and slapped his face. The strength of her slap was so powerful that the triangle-faced teenager somersaulted and fell heavily onto the ground, motionless. n.o.body knew if he was alive or dead.
“Snitching little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
After dropping this sentence, Xue Niang walked away. Although she hated the whistleblower, she still arranged for a robber to guard the tent.
Both the brothers and the triangle-faced teenager were not dead. They woke up early the following morning. Although Gu Shenwei’s shoulder was still hurting, it didn’t affect his movement.
The other teenagers avoided interacting, or even looking, at the four of them. They didn’t know what had happened; they just wanted to stay out of it.
The triangle-faced teenager’s cheek had a clear imprint left on it. He covered his face with hands, looking very puzzled. After seeing the brothers and Gu Shenwei walking to him, he immediately rolled out of the bed and sat up.
“Ai, what I did was for your own good. You can’t run away successfully, you would’ve gotten caught and be killed.”
“I had no choice. We are servants bought by others, being loyal to the lord is our responsibility. Likewise, you can also go and snitch on me.”
The brothers said something in their own language. The teenager’s triangle face alternated between blue and white, then said something back. Just then, Xue Niang came back again.
They had all learnt the skinny woman’s fierceness and no one dared to be presumptuous in front of her, so they all went back to their own places.
Throughout the morning, the 10 teenagers were cleaning the large and small incense burners outside the tent. Towards noon, though, something had happened that almost made Gu Shenwei forget his resentment towards the triangle-faced teenager.
It was not known when the Big Head G.o.d had came back. He strode into his daughter’s tent, his face livid. This look of his only appeared when he had to kill somebody.
The ban forbidding men from seeing his daughter naturally didn’t include him.
Everyone felt a dangerous tension in the air. They wiped the bronze harder while perking up their ears to listen. It was on this day, the sixth day after becoming a part of the dowry, that the teenagers were able to hear the voice of the Miss for the first time.
“No, I will not marry him!”
Her voice was crisp, like the first drink of ice water in the blistering hot summer. Unlike her rough father, her tone was firm and tough. This was a tone others didn’t dare to have in front of the Big Head G.o.d.
Big Head G.o.d’s voice lowered. Instead, it seemed as though he was trying his best to persuade her, but he only received an angrier statement from his daughter.
“I will not marry a cripple, Dad, cancel the marriage.”
Big Head G.o.d’s reply almost couldn’t be heard. The Miss then said something unrecognisable. Then a sound like the roar of a beast came from the tent, the bandit with an exceptionally huge body finally broke out, revealing his nature.
“If you agree, you have to marry; even if you don’t want to marry, you still have to marry. Even if you are dead, you still have to marry him, f.u.c.k!”
What answered the father’s threat was the Miss’s unwilling cry.
Big Head G.o.d bent his body to walk out of the tent. He stood in the doorway, roared again at the sky, then walked to the main tent. Each footstep seemed to make a hole in the ground. Along the way, everybody, no matter if it were the sub-chiefs or underlings or servants, all hid far away. No one had the courage to persuade him.
Big Head G.o.d gripped his iron spear, wanting to find somebody to vent his anger. There wasn’t a single figure before his eyes however, so he held the spear in front of his chest, and shouted angrily,
“Shangguan Fa, f.u.c.k your grandmother, if kill the wrong person, then just go to kill again, why the h.e.l.l did you cut my son-in-law’s hand? I, I……”
Even as a well-known bandit gang leader of the Western Regions, he could only say verbal threats to the Unique King, he actually had no choice.
“Who is Gu Shenwei? Find that little devil, let me pierce one hundred holes in him!”
Big Head G.o.d’s eyes were so red that they seemed like they were bleeding.
Gu Shenwei suddenly heard his own name. Surprised and frightened, a bundle of hot Qi went straight up to his head. He almost fainted. All of a sudden, he knew who his enemy was.
Soaring Eagle was right, it was the Golden Roc Castle that had slaughtered the Gu family. Furthermore, the one who had made the move was Big Head G.o.d’s future son-in-law!
Heaven had eyes. G.o.d’s will had protected him and let him be bought by Big Head G.o.d. He would follow his enemy‘s fiancee to approach his enemy’s side.
Ultimately, Big Head G.o.d didn’t find the opportunity to kill and vent his anger. The father and daughter’s anger, however, filled the whole camp, making everyone feel insecure. The first unlucky person was a bought virgin girl.
Big Head G.o.d’s surname was Luo, so naturally, the Miss was also surnamed Luo. She had a strange name; her name was Ningcha. Although Big Head G.o.d forbade other men to look at his daughter, her name was not a taboo, so the robbers would always talk about her using her name, and Big Head G.o.d wouldn’t care.
But, Miss Luo Ningcha herself did mind, especially when she was angry.
It was over this issue that the virgin girl caused trouble. She was from the mountains and spoke a dialect n.o.body could understand. She made efforts to adapt to her new environment, earnestly learning the common language. One of the earliest words she learnt was ‘Ningcha’. Unfortunately, she had not understood the meaning of this word, and hadn’t known that this was the Miss’s first name.
The second day after the father and daughter’s quarrel, the virgin girl was repeatedly reciting a few words of the Central Plains that she had mastered. After repeating the word Ningcha several times, she sighed for no reason. This however, was heard by the Miss.
Few people knew what happened next. Gu Shenwei and the other teenagers were working outside the tent when they heard screams in the tent.
The screams continued without a break. After a while, the punished virgin girl was carried out of the tent. Her face was full of blood, her original appearance almost unrecognisable.
Her eyes and tongue were gone.
Gu Shenwei didn’t know what the others were thinking, but he was very angry. This Miss Luo Ningcha was so cruel, she was no different from her ruthless father.
But his anger was just anger. Even if he didn’t need to take revenge for his family, even if he was still the young lord of the Gu family, Gu Shenwei would not have the courage to fight for the virgin girl.
The virgin girl was not dead. After two days, she returned to the Miss’s tent. Although she couldn’t speak and her eyes couldn’t see, she still had to serve the brutal hostess by using her ears to listen.
As for why Luo Ningcha still kept this little maidservant, perhaps only she herself knew the reason.
Every time he saw the blind, mute virgin girl groping in and out of the tent, Gu Shenwei would feel a chill from his heart spread to every root of his hair, both with sympathy and fear. He believed that other teenagers had similar emotions.
Perhaps because the virgin girl’s tragic experience reminded the children the necessity of being united, On the third day after the incident, the triangle-faced teenager surprisingly took the initiative to show goodwill. He wanted to reconcile Gu Shenwei and the brothers who wanted to escape.
“I came to apologize. I hope you can forgive my actions on that night. We live in the same tent, eat the same food, serve the same lord, and should help each other, like real brothers.”
While he was speaking, the triangle-faced teenager touched the palmprint that had not disappeared, his expression genuine. He had this ability of being able to change his expression at anytime, so fast that others thought they were two people.
He apologized with two different languages. Gu Shenwei and the brothers glanced at each other, then nodded together, showing that they forgave the triangle-faced teenager’s betrayal.
They all had more important secrets in mind and didn’t care about the triangle-faced teenager’s trick.
The triangle-faced teenager’s trick, however, was not just for reconciliation. Later that day, when the ten boys all went to the tent to take a rest, he coughed and spoke in a very formal way.
He first spoke in two barbarian languages, then finally spoke in the language of the Central Plains:
“Since we all agree, we officially swear to be brothers with different surnames. We will share the happiness and hardships together from now on.”
He glanced at everyone with a contemptuous look. Seeing no objection, then continued to speak in three languages.
“I, Lin Yang, will treat the people in this tent as real brothers from now on. I will not let the others be hungry if I have something to eat, I will not let the others feel cold if I have something to wear. If I’m rich, I will definitely let my brothers also be rich and succeed.”
No one had any objections, not because they really had brotherly feelings, but due to the mutual language barrier. They didn’t know the other people’s ideas, and did not dare to be the first one. Not to mention that this was Iron Mountain Big Head G.o.d’s camp. The father and daughter were on edge, and they could find an excuse to kill at anytime, so no one wanted to dispute right now.
The tent was in silence for a while. One teenager spoke in his native language, stammering something. He had probably stammered the meaning of an oath, because the triangle-faced teenager Lin Yang looked very satisfied.
One by one, each teenagers swore the oath. Some reluctantly, some pa.s.sionately, and even the two brothers who were betrayed made an oath, though their words were short and without much sincerity.
The eight teenagers all spoke the barbarian language of the Western Regions. Gu Shenwei couldn’t even understand a word, let alone their names. Finally it was his turn. He hesitated for a while, before saying coldly,
“I, Yang Huan, will be sworn brothers with all of you. If someone is stabbed in the back, he will be d.a.m.ned by the heaven and destroyed by the earth.”
This was not a sincere oath as Gu Shenwei had not even used his true name.
If it was several days earlier, the young lord of Gu family might have eagerly joined the oath ceremony, taken all the others’ words as truth. Now, he swore with lies, and he was very clear that none of the ten people’s oaths had a true word.
Lin Yang also knew it, but he was still satisfied. He couldn’t step too fast; he had to move step by step. Once they entered Golden Roc Castle, he would slowly grab this small group firmly in the hands. The Miss would be the owner in name, but he wanted to be the real leader.
The fifth day after the ten teenagers sworn to be brothers, Miss Luo Ningcha wasn’t able to change her father’s will and dressed up. She was ready to travel to Golden Roc Castle to get married. Gu Shewei also met the Gu family’s enemy, Shangguan Nu, for the first time.