Editor: Nyxnox
Chapter 098 Captives
The first horse caught up and rode alongside the carriage as its rider waved his long sabre and slashed at the teenager on the roof.
Gu Shenwei didn"t have time to think about why the attackers were focusing on only killing him. His left hand tightly gripped the roof edge, his whole body flying out in a horizontal half circle before steadily landing back on the roof.
The rider stretched out his right arm, his body in a posture to strike with his sabre while the horse under him was still moving. Within several steps, the sabre fell and with it, so too did the rider. As he fell, his foot was entangled by the stirrup, so he was dragged along the ground for a while before the horse stopped.
"Attack together and don"t fight alone," shouted one pursuer as another four horses came up.
However, retention alley was the only straight street in southern Jade City that was not long. Xu Yanwei had already driven the horse to the end of the alley and entered a meandering maze-like alley when Gu Shenwei killed the first pursuer.
The twisted alley was not wide enough for four horses to move forward side by side, allowing Gu Shenwei to take the chance provided by the sharp turn and killed one more person while he could. Another two stood on their horses and jumped onto the carriage roof with the last person following closely behind.
The riders were all average sabremen. They were ferocious and ruthless, but lacked technical skill. They even stood up to attack while on the roof. Gu Shenwei"s left hand gripped the roof edge, his body crouched like a cat. He waved his sabre once and cut one person"s ankle; he waved it twice and stabbed another one"s thigh.
Those two riders screamed as they fell off of the roof. Seeing this, the fourth rider didn’t dare to chase any further; he slowed down, trying to regroup with his upcoming companions.
Gu Shenwei blocked two waves of attackers but hadn"t yet captured a single person alive. The training he had received in the past was solely about killing people, which naturally meant that it didn"t anything on how to capture the enemy alive while being chased.
Another rider came forward, alone. When he reached the rear of the carriage, he suddenly leapt forward and jumped into the air, flying over Gu Shenwei and landing on the other side of the carriage, which was close to the position of the original driver.
His eyes were cold, and the rest of his face was stoic with the traces of the vicissitudes of life. It was hard to judge his real age, but it looked like his age was somewhere in the thirties and fifties. Like Gu Shenwei, he clasped the roof edge as soon as he landed and at the same time, waved his long sabre at Gu Shenwei.
This is an expert, Gu Shenwei thought as he took the initiative to cut at the enemy"s lower leg.
Fortunately, this person was not as powerful as the of the Stone Country. As he was reminiscing, the long sabre and narrow sabre collided as he fought a rival opponent.
The Golden Roc sabresmanship was more suited for sneaky attacks or a.s.sa.s.sination. It focused on killing in one move, so it couldn"t show its advantages in a face to face fight. As the two fought on the b.u.mped roof, most of the sabresmanship moves couldn’t be fully used. They could only channel the speed and strength of his blows and try to attack more than a dozen times in a single moment. The clanking sound lingered on but no one was held the upper hand.
The majority of the pursuers had caught up, and one person was trying to climb onto the roof but fell down. Another five riders were trying to play it safe by following along on the side and occasionally attacking, which made Gu Shenwei scramble for footing before falling into a losing position soon.
Gu Shenwei"s legs had already received two wounds when the carriage turned into another alley. Although the the wounds weren"t fatal, they restricted his movement.
The rider on the roof felt that it was the right time and shouted "go die" as he successively launched slashes with his long sabre as if he were a storm pelting Gu Shenwei with rain. His attack worked as Gu Shenwei could barely block and didn’t have any chances to counterattack.
One of the pursuers suddenly sped up and surpa.s.sed the carriage. He wanted to kill the driver since Gu Shenwei was far away and didn"t have time to impede him.
It was a hopeless situation now. But at this moment, many accidents happened simultaneously.
Xu Yanwei was driving the carriage screamed but didn"t get cut. However, the rider by her side was shot in the head and fell onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Several people jumped off of the roofs on both sides of the street. They arrived with sabres and the four riders behind the carriage were all cut down, falling off of their horses.
Seeing that the trend had changed, the rider on the carriage roof became fl.u.s.tered before he suddenly screamed as an arrow pierced his foot from inside the carriage.
Gu Shenwei saw a chance and leaped forward, catching the rider and using his hilt to hit the rider several times until he was knocked out.
The carriage slowed down until it finally stopped. It turned out that Xu Yanwei had made a full circle before returning to the retention alley. It was just in time to meet the returning disciples who had ran after those attackers.
Inside the carriage, Xu Xiaoyi was awake. He had been observing the battle for a long while and finally found a chance to shoot an arrow into the rider"s foot.
Gu Shenwei sat on the carriage roof, covered with cold sweat. He originally thought that the a.s.sa.s.sin was only one or two people and would quietly make a move. He didn’t expect for them to be a large group of sabremen and that their target was not the bait he laid out but he himself.
Some matters still went as he expected, but there was a lot that deviated from his expectations, and Gu Shenwei couldn"t understand why.
The disciples gathered together, one person carrying a corpse while another held an injured captive. Shangguan Yushi"s expression was very bad.
The dead person was Servant Liu, one of the killer"s disciples. He used to be a member of Servant Huan and Lotus"s a.s.sa.s.sination team. He was smart, but his sabresmanship was not as good.
For Golden Roc Castle, loss of its members during a mission was not a small mistake. As the Killing Lord, Shangguan Yushi must give a reasonable explanation after they returned to the castle. So, there was no wonder that she had a bad mood and was furious.
"Idiot, they should not have chosen him."
"Him" meant Servant Huan. The disciples kept silent. They were all survivors of the slaughter at East Castle, and were different people compared to Yu Gongzi who had lived in the inner chamber.
"They"d better say something, or all the blame will be on you. It was you who thought of this action and went ahead without discussing with me beforehand." Shangguan Yushi raised her head and lost her temper yelling at Servant Huan.
"I"ll take responsibility." Gu Shenwei produced a rope to tie the fainted rider before he jumped off the carriage and stuffed the two captive prisoners inside of the carriage with the help of the other disciples.
As soon as the carriage stopped, the siblings of the Xu family jumped onto the ground and put some distance between them and those disciples. Although they were at similar ages, in the eyes of the brother and sister, this group of teenagers were completely different and were even more formidable than those rugged and ferocious sabremen.
"How should we deal with those two?" One disciple asked.
Gu Shenwei rushed to say something before Shangguan Yushi opened her mouth first, "Both of them work for Golden Roc Castle."
Shangguan Yushi was still hesitating. As a Killing Lord, she had every right to order the deaths of these two baits, and this actually was more in agreement with the traditional rule of Golden Roc Castle.
Gu Shenwei pushed the sister and brother, whispering, "Go to southwall and find that Lame Tie Hanfeng."
At this moment, there were lots of hidden dangers in southern Jade City, so the sister and brother were very reluctant to walk alone. However, they also clearly saw that it was more dangerous to stay with this group of killer"s disciples, so they nodded and turned to flee. Their heart finally slightly rested when they left the retention alley again.
The disciples rearranged their formation and moved out again. This time, the inside of the carriage contained two corpses and two captives.
The attackers didn"t show up again, as the teenage disciples" power seemed to have shocked the mastermind behind the scenes.
They had a bit of trouble when they were pa.s.sing through the bridge, as the guards at the entrance of northern Jade City insisted on following the rules. They checked everyone"s yao pai and refused to let them bring the two captives inside.
The disciples had just killed on the streets and it was hard for them to accept the harsh regulations in the northern Jade City. It seemed that they would have killed the guards without hesitation as long as Shangguan Yushi made an order.
Shangguan Yushi didn"t make the order. She was very clear about the difference in their bottom line between the northern Jade City and southern Jade City. These guards came from different forces in Jade City, including Golden Roc Castle. Thus, even a person with a higher status than her couldn"t afford to offend them.
The northern Jade City was the only way to enter Golden Roc Castle, and there was no other way to circle around this.
"Discard the corpses, kill one captive, and use Servant Liu"s yao pai for the remaining captive." Shangguan Yushi ordered.
Two disciples carried out her command. They threw the corpses onto the street of southern Jade City. Those two captives were awake now, and the injured captive was too scared; he started begging with a crying voice, "Please let me go, I don"t know anything."
The words "I don"t know anything" caused his death. A disciple stabbed him to death and the corpse was again thrown to the side of southern Jade City.
Seeing this, even the guards at the gate of the northern Jade City who got used to killing couldn"t help but become frightened. They immediately opened the door and let them enter.
A normal a.s.sa.s.sination mission of the killer"s disciples had finally turned into a street fight that shocked the southern Jade City. When they had a chance to enter southern Jade City again, they would find out that the "teenage killer" had become a well-known big shot.
The captives were handed over to Xi Xin Yuan, but what happened next was completely beyond any of the disciple"s expectations.
Although the a.s.sa.s.sination mission commanded by Shangguan Yushi was imperfect because of the sensation it caused and the loss of a member, she wasn"t punished. Instead, she was awarded for the leadership she showed under stressful conditions.
On the list of credits, there was no Servant Huan. He was hidden in the corner of the text. Two days later, even the disciples who had partic.i.p.ated in the mission forgot that Servant Huan had once saved all of their lives. Only Lotus and several others knew what had happened and respected him even more for it.
The captive opened his mouth. No one could keep his mouth shut after entering Xi Xin Yuan, but what he confessed was not related with anyone of the castle. He was the leader of a group of wandering sabremen, and the one hired him was another unknown sabreman.
The investigation ended there.
Several days later, a rumour came out that said that the real employer was Meng Mingshi, the fifth gongzi of the Meng family in northern Jade City.
It took Gu Shenwei some time before he finally understood why this Meng Fifth Gongzi held grudges against him.
The origin of the matter was Big Belly Buddha, the father of the Xu family siblings. He claimed that he was "a man of Meng family" before he died. His claim was true as he was a subordinate of Meng Mingshi; a guide of his lord"s luxurious life. His death was a great loss to Meng Fifth Gongzi, who had just tasted the wonderful life of southern Jade City.
Meng Fifth Gongzi was notoriously cranky. He had received a great deal of money from the brother and sister of the Xu family, so he spared those two and only held grudges against the person who killed Big Belly Buddha. Golden Roc Castle only lightly punished Servant Huan, which dissatisfied him, so he created a surprisingly complex series of plots.
The Meng family was Golden Roc Castle"s most important money source and ally and since it was the killer disciple who had caused the trouble first, Unique King decided to let it go. As for how those two sides would resolve the problem, it was not a matter outsiders could know.
Gu Shenwei once again learned the difference between "solving the problem" and "finding the truth."
He didn"t believe that Mr. Guo had nothing to do with this. The doc.u.ment with hidden killing intent was not something that could be fabricated so easily by Meng Fifth Gongzi; the intricacies of the internal contradictions in the Shangguan family also perplexed him. The big young lord and Mr. Guo were not getting along well with Madam Meng, but at the same time they were secretly connected with the scion of the Meng family.
He buried the doubts deep in his heart and had a discussion about it only with Lotus. Lotus also thought that Meng Fifth Gongzi was a tool of Mr. Guo. Gu Shenwei and Lotus secretly contacted some disciples about revenge.
This action was ended even before it even began. Tie Hanfeng found out about his disciple"s little conspiracy and ordered him to immediately stop it before teaching him a very important lesson.
Gu Shenwei would remember the teachings of his Master for his lifetime, and each future a.s.sa.s.sination or scheme he made all strictly obeyed these principles.