Chapter 216: Business
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
In the end, Wei Lingmiao never got to see Shangguan Ru. All that was left was an image he had of an 11-year-old maiden, and it was refined by the descriptions of her beauty from other people. Master Wei considered it a great pity, and even traveling together with 50 pretty women could not make up for that.
Compared to Master Wei, Gu Shenwei was much luckier, since he would soon get a chance to meet his old friend, the giant red-crowned roc, again.
After traveling for two days, Wei Lingmiao and his entourage came to a place, which was said to be the haunt of the Demon Bird. This legendary bird intrigued Master Wei and a few other young masters, who came to accompany Wei Lingmiao on the trip. They ordered the whole team to camp by the roadside at evening and waited until it was pitch dark, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird. To their disappointment, the bird did not appear at all.
When all the people in the camp were fast asleep, Gu Shenwei sneaked out and wandered around the surrounding area. He had a strong feeling that the giant red-crowned roc would come to find him.
As he had expected, the bird came to him that night. As it flew down to the ground, the flapping of its wings stirred up the air, producing gusts of dust. Gu Shenwei could not see its black feathers clearly in the darkness, and the red feather on its head also looked dim at night. However, its red eyes were glowing under the moonlight, and one could see them even at a distance.
Gu Shenwei went over to hug the bird. Although he was not sure if the bird could understand him, he still told it what he had been through all these years, while facing away from the camp. The bird had spent a lot of time searching for Gu Shenwei, but it did not appear very excited after finding him. It just pecked at the killer while listening. Before the bird flew away, Gu Shenwei warned it to stay as far away as possible from humans in the future.
Master Wei had a large entourage. Apart from anything else, there were as many as 50 horse-drawn carriages for the prostitutes. As those women habitually went to bed late at night and got up late in the morning, the team could not travel as fast as planned. Master Wei did not mind it at all. He was in no hurry and partied with his friends every night during the trip. As a result, the time they spent traveling from Jade City to the eastern border of Golden Roc Fort's territory was twice as much as expected. After that, the team spent another 10 days to get to Bighead Kingpin and Shangguan Nu's base camp.
This camp was located near the mountain pass in the northeast. At this place, Gu Shenwei and Shangguan Ru had once been besieged by the Barren Sect and nearly gotten killed.
The Bighead Kingpin and Shangguan Nu knew beforehand that Wei Lingmiao would pass their camp on his way back to the Central Plain and prepared a grand reception for him. Overwhelmed by the warm welcome, Master Wei decided to spend three days in the camp. By doing so, he could also party with his friends for a few more days before they going back to Jade City. To repay the Bighead Kingpin and Shangguan Nu's hospitality, Wei Lingmiao sent the 50 prostitutes who were traveling with him to entertain the men in the camp. These men spent the next three days chasing the prostitutes around inside the camp and fought with each other over the women on various occasions, behaving like stags in heat.
The Bighead Kingpin was in favor of Wei Lingmiao's arrangement, as he valued strength and aggressiveness.
As for Shangguan Nu, he was supposedly the other leader of the camp but in reality it was different. The Bighead Kingpin was tall and strong and always cast a shade on Shangguan Nu when they stood beside each other. On the day when Wei Lingmiao and his entourage had first met with the Bighead Kingpin and Shangguan Nu, no one noticed Shangguan Nu until his father-in-law dragged him out as if he were a small chick. He had been standing beside the Bighead Kingpin all the while but was obscured from the view of the guests by the huge arm of his father-in-law. Anyone who was observant could tell from that meeting that the Bighead Kingpin was the real leader of the camp.
Shangguan Nu had been hoping to strike out on his own outside Golden Roc Fort all these years. Unfortunately, when he finally got such a chance, he ended up being controlled by a man who was even more tyrannical than the Supreme King.
The Bighead Kingpin did not want to share his power with anyone. In his eyes, Shangguan Nu, his son-in-law, should always obey him without question.
Shangguan Nu had brought 100 killers and 500 macheteman along with him when he came to the Bighead Kingpin's camp. Compared to the several thousand warriors of the Iron Mountain Gang, Shangguan Nu's troops were small in number, thus they ended up being assimilated into the Bighead Kingpin's forces without Shangguan Nu's prior approval.
Every time Shangguan Nu expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that he was never consulted before his men were taking orders from the Bighead Kingpin, his father-in-law would bang his fist on Shangguan Nu's shoulder and say while breaking out into guffaws, "Don't say that. We're family. What's mine is yours and vice versa. That's why the Supreme King sent you here to work together with me. Once we eliminate the New Moon Hall, the credit will be all yours. If you're not my son-in-law, do you think that I'll give a da*n about those crazy women in the desert?"
After several failed attempts to communicate with the Bighead Kingpin, Shangguan Nu gave up on trying to get back his men, but he still held a grudge against his father-in-law. In fact, Shangguan Nu was a little afraid of Bighead Kingpin, and so were his killers and machetemen. No one dared to act against the will of the giant.
Shangguan Nu could not turn to the Supreme King for help even when faced with such a problem. In his eyes, this action against the New Moon Hall was a test for him and it would not do him any good if his father knew that he failed to wrest over control from the Bighead Kingpin.
Gu Shenwei had a different perspective on the action taken against the New Moon Hall. He thought that Bighead Kingpin just planned to use it as an excuse to permanently station his troops in this place. He knew that Bighead Kingpin would never be satisfied with just leading a gang of bandits. He was certain that the giant wanted a domain of his own and wished to be recognised as a real lord, just like the Supreme King did.
The first time Gu Shenwei had come to this region in the northeast, it had been a barren, lawless place, but this time, to his great surprise, he spotted many small villages along the way. He heard that Bighead Kingpin had driven the roving bandits out of this district and strictly prohibited his warriors from robbing the residents. By doing so, Bighead Kingpin turned this region into a safe area and thus attracted many refugees to settle down in this place.
Gu Shenwei was delighted to see the rise and expansion of another major power right at the eastern border of the Golden Roc Fort's territory, but at this moment, he was more concerned about another person.
He had gone to visit the Eighth Young Master privately shortly after arriving, but he did not get a chance to meet with Zhong Heng until the last day of Master Wei's stay in the camp.
"Brother Yang, are you interested in doing a major business deal?" Zhong Heng asked right after he sneaked into the killer's tent at midnight.
Seeing Zhong Heng dressed like a Golden Roc Fort killer, Gu Shenwei asked nonchalantly, "Commandant Zhong, do you miss your officer's uniform?" He was cold to Zhong Heng on purpose, as he knew that this man was never so straightforward, and that the commandant was also good at manipulating others to do his dirty work.
"Hee-hee, I don't care much about what I wear."
After chatting for a while, Zhong Heng asked the killer if he wanted to do a major business deal again.
"Let the big business wait for a moment. Commandant Zhong, I came for the secret."
"It's the same thing. The secret is the big business opportunity I mentioned earlier."
Every governor of Jade City would get a "Protective Talisman", namely a substantial sum of money, when he completed his term and returned home. Wei Song was exceptionally greedy and had accumulated a huge sum of money in the city as his 'Protective Talisman'. According to Zhong Heng, although this money was an open secret in Jade City, it would get Wei Song impeached in the Central Plain.
"Wei Song can't openly carry that much money back to the Central Plain. Nor can he launder the money through banks like bandits. There are altogether millions of taels of silver. The banks are unable to handle such a large transaction. Besides, there's the problem of confidentiality. For all these reasons, Wei Song figured out another way to take the money back home. He asked his son to come to Jade City to play, but in fact Wei Lingmiao came here to help his father transport the money," Zhong Heng told the killer.
"Wait, I don't understand. The Kun Society hasn't given its one and a half million taels of silver to the Governor yet," said Gu Shenwei, bewildered.
"This fact proves their intelligence. Wei Song and his son deliberately let the whole city know that they've not finished collecting all the money for the 'Protective Talisman', so no one expected that Wei Lingmiao would be transporting millions of taels of silver back to the Central Plain."
"But where's the silver?" asked Gu Shenwei.
He had been traveling together with Wei Lingmiao's team all these days. This team had many horse-drawn carriages, but more than half of them were taken up by the prostitutes. Gu Shenwei remembered clearly that Wei Lingmiao did not have much luggage.
"That's my last secret. They changed the silver into gold, and now the women are sitting right on top of the gold."
Upon hearing that, Gu Shenwei suddenly realized that the bottom plates of the carriages were gold plates wrapped in thin wooden coverings. "I bet none of the prostitutes have expected that their carriages would be so expensive, not even in their wildest dreams." Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
"Wouldn't Master Wei feel that it's too conspicuous to be traveling back to the Central Plain with 50 prostitutes?"
"The Central Plain is far away from Jade City. No one there knows what Master Wei did here, and before entering the Central Plain's domain, Master Wei will..."
Zhong Heng made a throat-cutting gesture.
Even a seasoned killer like Gu Shenwei, who had engaged in murders and schemes for years, was shocked by the viciousness of this plan. "Commandant Zhong, I guess this is why they want to kill you. Am I right?"
"Alas, you're right. At that time, I was clear that the Governor was just using me to do all his dirty jobs, and I had no choice but to obey my superior officer. I knew he wanted to keep this a secret, so I tried to blackmail him into paying me 100,000 taels of silver as hush money. I planned to retire and live in seclusion in Western Region after I got the money. However, the Governor doesn't want to give me such a chance."
"It looks like Commandant Zhong is interested in the gold."
"There's nothing wrong with robbing them of their ill-gotten gains." Zhong Heng, who had been a slick politician a month ago, was now talking like the bandits from the Iron Mountain Gang. "Brother Yang, aren't you interested in it? You spared my life, and now I come to repay you with this bit of information," Zhong Heng asked with a subtle smile on his face.
Gu Shenwei knew that Zhong Heng was planning to use him to kill Wei Lingmiao and this was exactly what he intended to do during this trip. Nevertheless, he still did not promise Zhong Heng anything. He was suspicious of Zhong Heng's intention, for he was not acting like himself today. "I'm still young and not that ambitious. I don't know how to handle that much money. Besides, the Eighth Young Master is here. Why don't you ask him to do this business?"
Zhong Heng had expected the killer to ask such a question and decided to be frank with the youth. "The Eighth Young Master wants to do this business but he can't, since the Bighead Kingpin always keeps a close watch on him and his killers."
Thinking of the way Bighead Kingpin treated Shangguan Nu in public, Gu Shenwei was pretty sure that Zhong Heng told the truth, but he was still a little suspicious. "Commandant Zhong, you can do it by yourself, can't you?" he asked.
"Me? No, I can't. Master Wei is protected by several kung fu masters. They'll kill me before I even get close to the young master," Zhong Heng replied.
"I see. Well, I'll do it."
Zhong Heng was a little surprised. He thought before that he would have spent a long time persuading the young killer, however, the killer quickly agreed to do this business with unexpected readiness. "How many people do you need? The Eighth Young Master can't send his killers out, but he can give you as many machetemen as you want. The Bighead Kingpin doesn't pay much attention to the machetemen," he asked the killer.
"No, thanks. I've prepared for such a situation."
Gu Shenwei sounded as if he had secretly brought a team here, which deeply impressed Zhong Heng. While nodding admiringly at the young killer, Zhong Heng said, "Five days later, Master Wei will arrive at a courier station of the Central Plain. If you ride at a fast speed, you'll get there within two days. Master Wei will kill the prostitutes before arriving at that courier station. You'd best take action before he gets there."
Gu Shenwei nodded to show that he understood and then he asked, "Commandant Zhong, how much money do you want? I should thank you for giving me such a good opportunity."
"I want 20% of the gold. I'm broke now. To be honest, I don't like this feeling I have now. Besides, the Eighth Young Master also wants in. He'll protect and support you in exchange for 40% of the gold. The remaining 40% will be all yours, Brother Yang."
Gu Shenwei was amazed by this offer. He doubted that his original master Shangguan Nu was content with receiving a reward which was the same amount for a servant for such an operation. Despite that, he still agreed to do this business. He was determined to take this chance to kill Wei Lingmiao.
He could not wait to kill Master Wei and to question the young master about the reason for the murder of the entire Gu family. This thought had kept him wide awake every night during this trip.
Zhong Heng had once told Gu Shenwei that Master Wei had gotten involved in the assassination by pure chance, but the young killer did not believe it.