Gu Shenwei and Shangguan Yun slapped each other simultaneously.
Gu Shenwei was not confident using the swordcraft in the Death Scripture, nor was it necessary against a foe like Shangguan Yun. Before their next move, Han Fen, lying on the ground near the door, leapt up suddenly and started her second attack on Shangguan Yun. Gu Shenwei watched her, and thought that her skills were above the level of the disciples from New Moon Hall.
The fight was over in the blink of an eye.
The slap that Shangguan Yun had used on the Dragon King was a feign attack. It’s real purpose was to elude the sword behind him, using his strength to slide to the side of the bed.
He slammed against the bed violently, and Gu Shenwei and Han Fen were hit by a flying quilt. Next, they heard the young prince shriek with fear next to the door.
“Dragon King, please think about my suggestion. It’s doesn’t go into effect until next spring,” said Shangguan Yun.
“I’m glad that Maid Lotus is still alive. I wish you two can move forward shoulder to shoulder to achieve your big picture soon,” he continued.
“Dragon King, I’ll return your favor one day…” he concluded.
After saying these words, Shangguan Yun disappeared into the underground passage.
After awhile, Han Fen woke up, seeming to transform into someone with high kung fu skills. She entered the passage first to go after Shangguan Yun.
In fact, she was not the real Han Fen, but Maid Lotus.
Gu Shenwei followed her closely.
In the room, the young prince shrieked more loudly, for he had found his mother was dead.
“Shangguan Yun talked while running, as if he wasn’t worried about being caught by us. Did he lead us here deliberately?” Gu Shenwei wondered.
“The Dragon King has strong Internal Strength, but you seemed to be easily attacked by Qigong Deviation. Do you need any help? I can help you get rid of it, and then I’ll owe you nothing,” said Shangguan Yun.
“Why didn’t both of you exert Dajue Book of Swordcraft? I thought it was just a legend. It’s destiny. Thousands of people live in the Golden Roc Fort, but only the Dragon King was able to get the secret manuscript in the end. Haha, what a coincidence!” he continued.
…
The passage was very long and forked off into different directions, but the prison seemed to be at the end. Before checking, Gu Shenwei heard Shangguan Yun’s voice again, “Oh, I almost forgot. Your loyal young killers ate something bad. If you delay for another moment, they might…”
Maid Lotus suddenly stopped, and then stepped back. She moved beside Gu Shenwei, and said, “My girls are over there.”
To catch Shangguan Yun, Gu Shenwei accelerated his pace immediately. Although he had many doubts, he decided to worry about them later. Now all he thought about was killing the enemy.
As they were leaving the passage, Shangguan Yun, “Keep him alive. He’ll tell the truth.”
Meanwhile, “he” was thrown to the Dragon King in the passage, and cried, “Please don’t kill me, please…”
The man was Shangguan Hong.
Gu Shenwei hit the back of his head with his swordhandle violently.
Shangguan Hong stopped crying instantly, and fell to the ground, unconscious.
Suddenly, a light appeared and the door at the end of the passage opened. Shangguan Yun walked out of it, and the Dragon King was stopped by several people.
Gu Shenwei squeezed through the crack of the door, and as he was rushing through it, stabbed someone with his Dragon Head Sword.
It was dawn outside.
They came to some woods outside of the Capital. “This is their escape route when the Royal family of the Hui Kingdom is in danger. But this passage wouldn’t work if the enemy appeared inside the Royal Palace,” Gu Shenwei thought.
Ten attendants were waiting for their master there. The Dragon King stabbed one of them, so the rest drew out their weapons. Gu Shenwei recognized one of them.
Chipo was an infamous and bossy theif. Having been humiliated by the Dragon King before, he hated his guts. He dashed to attack the Dragon King first, disregarding the great distance in skills between their martial arts.
To avoid fighting with the Dragon King, Shangguan Yun quickly to left the woods without stopping. His Lightness Skill wasn’t like killers from Golden Roc Fort. He didn’t jump around. Although he moved fast, he didn’t pant.
Dozens of the disciples of New Moon Hall showed up. They had followed Chipo and his companions all the way, hiding in the shadows outside for a long time.
Shangguan Yun wasn’t surprised at the sight of them. He laughed as if everything was in his control. Obviously, he didn’t regard them as a threat.
He moved very fast. Suddenly he accelerated again and passed through two disciples of New Moon Hall. The two disciples, who practiced a unique occultism, lost their target before unleashing it upon him.
Though Shangguan Yun escaped alone, Chipo and the other attendants weren’t disappointed in him. Instead, they tried their best to stop the Dragon King so that their master would have more time to escape.
The fight in the woods was brief, but bloody. Because Shangguan Yun escaped, dozens of the disciples of New Moon Hall showed no mercy on the other nine attendants. They flocked to attack them with their hidden weapons and poisons, with assistance from the Dragon King’s sword.
Within half an hour, another eight attendants were dead. Gu Shenwei left Chipo alive, though.
“Shangguan Yun escaped anyway,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
Gu Shenwei didn’t know why the Third Young Master of Golden Roc Fort had made this trap. “He knew that it was impossible to kill me with this trap. Is it possible that he did it only to say those words to me? But those words are more like the usual last-minute artful talk that he makes up to obtain my trust,” he wondered.
He stopped guessing blindly, because some people appeared around him that would be able to give him answers.
The first one he thought of was Maid Lotus.
She ran out of the passage with a group of people, and caught up with Gu Shenwei. On the way to the capital, she told him what had happened to her.
Maid Lotus had followed Chipo, and then discovered a distinguished guest from Golden Roc Fort in the Royal Palace. Although she had never seen Shangguan Yun, she recognized him immediately and quickly figured out the truth. Ever since then, she started to follow Shangguan Yun.
She found that Shangguan Yun was a tough person to get close to, so she followed other attendants. Maid Lotus had seen Chipo set a trap to catch Chu Nanping at the ancestral shrine, but she didn’t stop him.
There were too many people. To avoid being exposed, Maid Lotus had divided the disciples of New Moon Hall into two groups. A few, including Han Fen, were asked to remain in the town to keep watch on the situation inside. Meanwhile, she followed Shangguan Yun and left the capital with three disciples.
She had intended to assassinate Shangguan Yun along the way, but she couldn’t find a good chance. It wasn’t easy to assassinate a vigilant man like him. Having seen him and his people take a boat across Xiaoyao Lake and move southward to enter Wushan, Maid Lotus resolved to find out their final purpose first before taking the next step.
They had crossed Wushan, and then entered the Land of Fragrance separately.
During their three-day stay in the Land of Fragrance, Shangguan Yun had talked with his sister several times. Maid Lotus did not know the content of their conversations, as she had never gotten close enough to them.
Shangguan Yun’s persuasion seemed to have failed, but he did not look disappointed on his way to the Hui Kingdom.
After tracing him for a long time, Maid Lotus gradually realized that she could never find an opportunity to assassinate a tough and cunning man like him. Instead, she realized that the enemy had begun to be aware that something was wrong.
One day, Maid Lotus had eavesdropped on one of Chipo’s conversations with some others. In this conversation, they mentioned Shangguan Yun’s plot against the Dragon King after his return to the Hui Kingdom. Besides that, they also vaguely expressed their fear of Maid Lotus. Upon hearing this, Maid Lotus came up with a good idea.
A disciple of New Moon Hall altered her appearance and pretended to be Maid Lotus. Then, this disciple was asked to assassinate Shangguan Yun with Maid Lotus’ sword. In the end, she was ambushed and killed instead of the Managing Master.
Ever since then, Maid Lotus had been considered a “dead person”. She came back and arrived at the Capital of the Hui Kingdom the day before Shangguan Yun. Next, she changed her identity and pretended to be Han Fen, aiming to make Shangguan Yun let down his guard.
Her plan almost succeeded. She found that Shangguan Yun’s intention was not to kill the Dragon King. He gave the Dragon King a slap, and then fled. During the process, Maid Lotus had no chance to use her sword.
“Ah, Han Fen, no, you’re Maid Lotus… you really fooled me,” Gu Shenwei said. He didn’t recognize Maid Lotus until she reached the exit of the secret chamber. Before that, he had never suspected this crazy, but innocent girl.
“Han Fen is the one I trust the most in New Moon Hall. I know her very well,” Maid Lotus said.
After finishing her story, she walked into the camp of the Dragon Army with them, which startled the soldiers were because they thought that she was dead. Maid Lotus said coolly, “I heard that you’ll marry the Princess soon. Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” replied Gu Shenwei without another word. He sometimes wondered whether he had stayed in the Hui Kingdom for two months just to dodge that wedding. “During that period, I received several letters from Zhong Heng. In those letters, he invited me to return to the Stone Kingdom, but I found all kinds of excuses to refuse. Although we didn’t mention the Princess or the wedding ceremony, we both knew that was the reason for our correspondence,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
Chu Nanping was the second one who explained to the Dragon King. Because other people were still weak, he was the only one who could manage to talk.
According to Chu Nanping, Hu Shining had hidden in the remote mountains with his many apprentices immediately after Shu-lik was broken. Since then, he had sent disciples to collect information in the city every day. After hearing that the Dragon King was dead, he had asked the disciples to leave, but only a few kids actually did. Most of them were willing to be killers without a master instead of returning to their former lives.
Later, when he heard about the Dragon King’s return to the Western Region, Hu Shining was overjoyed. He immediately asked his apprentices to pretend to be beggars and sent them to Xiaoyao Lake in groups.
Things happened as Gu Shenwei had predicted. Noticing that suspicious characters kept entering the capital of the Hui Kingdom, Hu Shining sent Chu Nanping to lure the enemies out. His plan failed, though. Those enemies had prepared in advance, so they surrounded them immediately.
Hu Shining only had about 40 subordinates, all around the age of ten. Given that, they were no match for Golden Roc killers. In the fight, most of them were caught alive, as ordered by Shangguan Yun. A few were killed, and Chu Nanping was the only one who managed to escape.
Later, those kids were locked up in the dungeon of the Royal Palace. Chu Nanping was also trapped and caught within a couple of days.
Before leaving the Hui Kingdom, Shangguan Yun spent three days chatting with each of them alone. After that, a couple of apprentices came onto his side. Many hadn’t changed their minds, but their attitude toward the Third Young Master of Golden Roc Fort changed dramatically. Their fear turned to admiration and reverence.
Shangguan Yun knew that Chu Nanping had been a disciple of the Joy Pavilion. To get close to Chu Nanping, he told him that they had met each once before, when he was learning martial arts at the Joy Pavilion. But Chu Nanping didn’t talk much about that meeting, acting as if he didn’t care about it.
Chu Nanping was as cold and composed as before. After being rescued, he didn’t seem very surprised, nor had joy appeared on his face at the sight of Gu Shenwei, even though they hadn’t seen each other for days. He briefly told Gu Shenwei what he had undergone, and then asked, “Did you force Tie Linglong to leave?”
“Yes,” said Gu Shenwei.
“But she didn’t come back to Shu-lik,” said Chu Nanping.
Their conversation was over.
Hu Shining begged to meet the Dragon King to remind him of his duty. He said to Gu Shenwei anxiously, “These kids have become a threat to us. After the Third Young Master’s brainwashing, they have changed their minds, even though they don’t speak it. Please find a way to solve this soon.”
Shangguan Yun hadn’t killed all of them. Instead, he left most of them alive and brainwashed them. He wanted to see what decision the Dragon King would make: To kill them all or risk raising them, always being wary of their betrayal.
Gu Shenwei wouldn’t kill them all. If he did, he would be the loser in this game with Shangguan Yun.
Shangguan Hong was the third one that the Dragon King questioned. Gu Shenwei captured him in the end. Before that, he had been caught by Shangguan Jianyi and the Third Young Master. None of them treated him as the son of the Supreme King.
Knowing the situation he was in, his face turned pale. He said with a fawning smile, “Dragon King, it’s useless to kill me. I’m nothing. Besides, the Third Young… Shangguan Yun asked me to tell you, ‘The glorious era of killers has passed. From today on, no more assassinations. Let’s fight in the battlefield, fair and square.'”