Chapter 228: Slave Xin
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
After a whole night of pondering, Luo Ningcha put forth three conditions to Lady Meng for the exchange of the wooden slab. The conditions were: One, she wanted both Slave Huan and Maid Lotus to return to her; these two were initially her servants when she married the Eighth Young Master, and they should not be serving others. Two, she wanted to move to a big mansion, and never have to visit her mother-in-law in the morning again. Three, brought the Eighth Young Master back as she no longer wanted to live like a widow.
Lady Meng found the first two conditions acceptable and can be fulfilled easily but was completely baffled by the third one. Every young master wanted to live independently and increase their strength without any help from the fort. The Eighth Young Master’s returning was entirely up to Shangguan Nu himself.
Gu Shenwei pointed this out to Luo Ningcha, which made her furious. “My father is Bighead Kingpin, and I am his only daughter. His position as the leader of the Iron Mountain will naturally be conferred to my future husband. What is there left for Shangguan Nu to do? Just stay with me for a few years, and we can return to the Iron Mountain to claim the throne. This is the most reasonable plan.”
Gu Shenwei had been a messenger for both sides, while Maid Lotus was searching for the whereabouts of the wooden slab among the maids, but in vain. After returning home, no one ever saw it again, not even the maid that was always with Luo Ningcha; she must have hidden it very well.
Lady Meng had finally met Slave Huan. Setting aside past resentments, she did not send words by maids, instead, she sincerely chatted with him. Finally, she asked, “You’re always with Ru’er and are her most trusted killer. Now that she is facing a crisis, do you have any solutions?”
Lady Meng’s attitude alerted Gu Shenwei. He had never followed her orders to ease the tension between the twins. Instead, he had been adding fuel to the fire. Seemingly, she was good-natured, but she clearly has great resentments towards him deep down.
“As a killer, I follow my master’s will. Even if the bottomless abyss were in front of me, I would still jump in without hesitation.”
“I’m not asking you to jump into the bottomless abyss right now; I want you to come up with some ideas.” Lady Meng was very different from Luo Ningcha. A couple of oath was not going to convince her.
However, Lady Meng did not show even the slightest hint of her mind. “Madam, forgive me for being a little dim. In my opinion, there were no special motives when Eight Young Mistress took the wooden slab from you. How about pretending to agree? Afterall, retrieving the wooden slab and curing the Tenth Young Master’s illness should be our top priority.”
Lady Meng sighed and said disappointedly, “Ever since that child Yushi died, Ru’er has never been the same. I have been relying on you to keep her clearheaded. Who would’ve thought that you’re a fool just like her? Do you think we can compromise in the Stone Castle? My Eight Daughter-in-law is greedy. If I met her demands, would the twins and I have any future in the castle?”
Her intentions were obvious. Gu Shenwei immediately knelt on one leg. “I am the Tenth Young Master’s killer. It is my duty to protect my master at all costs. If anyone threatens the Tenth Young Master, I’ll launch a preemptive strike against him!”
Lady Meng was not very satisfied with his reaction. Thus, she said again with a sigh, “None of these two kids is sensible, especially Fei’er, who can’t do anything without his mother. He asks me about everything. I read his letters, they’re almost amusing. He said quite a few about you. He even blamed his failure on you. I wrote to tell him that he’s the master; he can’t put the blame on his killers and servants instead of working hard. If Slave Huan was that capable, why would he watch someone else bully his master? How was that going to benefit him? Slave Huan, I don’t care who your previous master is but I think you are very clear on who you should be following.”
Lady Meng’s words were almost threatening, but Gu Shenwei was not afraid. Lady Meng saw Slave Huan as an opportunist for his pledging to two masters. Little did she know about his real motives.
As long as he got the “Wayless Book” and got rid of his Peripheral Force, Gu Shenwei would be able to exact his revenge with no restrictions at all. Lady Meng would have never guessed that this servant’s ambition was to kill every member of the Shangguan family.
Lady Meng wanted Slave Huan to kill Luo Ningcha. However, she could not say these words herself. Gu Shenwei could only spare the trouble for her. “Madam, please give me just a few days, I will give Madam and the Tenth Young Master a very satisfying result.”
Gu Shenwei roughly knew what would happen in these few days.
Lady Meng claimed to be in the process of accepting the terms to appease her daughter-in-law: Slave Huan and Maid Lotus were returned to the Eight Young Mistress nominally, and the grand mansion was being tidied up. The only thing left was the Eighth Young Master’s return, but that was a little tricky.
Luo Ningcha had decided that she had achieved a great victory; she did not consider any of the consequences of her explicit provocations. Additionally, she had two killers taken turns guarding her day and night. She did not need bodyguards in case of assassinations; she only wanted to flaunt her victory.
She more or less knew that she needed to win people’s hearts over: As a statement, she gave the two killers a servant. It was this new servant that has caused Gu Shenwei some headaches.
Gu Shenwei’s new servant could be called an acquaintance of sorts, named Slave Xin; who was one of the ten teenagers that had entered the family through marriage at that time and carried corpses in the Firewood Yard for quite a while. Until now, he finally got out of the horrible place.
As soon as Slave Xin saw Slave Huan, he bowed and called “Lord Yang” with a strange smile on his face, as if he was reuniting with an old friend.
The ten teenagers had sworn to be brothers, but times have changed. “Who would still be honoring such a half-hearted pact from that long ago?” Gu Shenwei was puzzled but did not say anything.
Slave Xin rubbed his hands nervously. He first praised Slave Huan’s achievements over the years and then dwelled on his failures, trying to bring up the past.
Gu Shenwei had to broke in. “Slave Xin, do you have something to say to me?”
Slave Xin’s eyes sparkled; as if he was moved to tears. Gu Shenwei remembered that he was not like this. He could not help but feel a bit disgusted, but he immediately felt relieved. He realized that life in the Stone Castle was not an easy one, Slave Xin’s change was entirely reasonable.
“Lord Yang… I… I shouldn’t have said this…”
“Speak as you like. Although the Miss sent you as my servant, we were friends since a long time ago. There’s no need for you to hold back.”
Slave Xin said several “yes”, rubbing his hands harder. “You do know that I have previously helped you out, right? I’m not trying to gain any merit here, but I feel like I should tell you this…”
“Oh?” Gu Shenwei replied faintly as he pictured his younger self back at the Firewood Yard, isolated and helpless.
“Do you still remember… that white handkerchief?”
Gu Shenwei stopped cleaning the blade of his sword to get a good look at Slave Xin for the first time. “So, it was you.”
Written on the handkerchief was Gu Family’s sped-up technique of the Yin and Yang Strength. Gu Shenwei went through a lot of trouble to find it. He even went as far as killing Slave Yao. Afterward, this handkerchief was secretly returned, and Gu Shenwei had always thought the person who returned this was the deceased Slave Qian. He could not believe that it was the very cowardly Slave Xin.
“Hehe, it was me. I’ve always kept this secret for you, never saying a word to anyone.”
Slave Xin was illiterate, and the white handkerchief was thrown off the cliff. Not worrying about him blowing the whistle, he continued to clean his blade. “It’s not such a secret thing. It was just a small keepsake left for me to remember my family by, and I have no clue where it is.”
Slave Xin was stunned. The only reason why he dared to say this secret out loud was to receive gratitude but he was left disappointed. Not caring for his last bit of self-esteem, Slave Xin plopped down on his hands and knees and said in tears, “Slave Huan, no, Lord Yang, let me make a blood oath to you. I will forever be loyal to you.”
Slave Xin’s behavior was utterly unexpected. The blood oath was traditionally among killers, not for servants. Moreover, this was the first day of their reunion; there was hardly any room for loyalty.
Gu Shenwei put his sword down and said, “What is going on? Get up. If you have something to say, say it.”
Slave Xin refused to get up, but he decided to speak up. “I, I don’t want to die.”
“Who wants to kill you?” If it was Luo Ningcha, then Gu Shenwei thought he could ask her to spare his life.
“No… no one wants to kill me, but it’s… those who have offended you would die: Slave Xiao, Slave Yao, Slave Qian, they all died like this, even Slave San and the others too. In the past, they have all talked about you behind your back. Once you were gone; they either couldn’t stand the mistreatments and committed suicide or were killed by a big bird. There were a total of ten who followed the Miss, and now I’m the only one left… no, and you, Lord Yang.”
Gu Shenwei had been haunted by “evil” back then and did not think that Slave Xin would still obsess over such a thing in the past. “It’s not like you have offended me, so there is nothing to worry about.”
Slave Xin was truly frightened, to the point of banging his head a few times causing his forehead to turn purple. Gu Shenwei asked him coldly, “Who did you tell about the handkerchief to?”
“You know I wouldn’t say anything, even if I was tortured, but I had no choice! I had to leave the Firewood Yard. You know the Firewood Yard is not humane… so when he asked, I just answered.”
“He? Who’s he?” Gu Shenwei interrupted.
“The Blade Master of the Heart Cleansing Yard, Shen.”
Slave Xin originally wanted to keep the truth to himself, but after witnessing the death of every one of his companions and the reason behind their deaths all seemed to be related to Slave Huan, he could not hide it any longer. He was too afraid of the “evil” and trembled with fear at the sight of Slave Huan, even to the point of stuttering.
After the death of the first Young Master Shangguan Chui, Shen Liang launched a thorough investigation into Slave Huan’s and Maid Lotus’ background. Maid Lotus had a simple and clean background, nothing suspicious was found. However, Slave Huan’s background was obscure. Although the information he gave seemed normal, it did not hold water. Shen Liang was even more baffled by the white handkerchief Slave Xin mentioned. Unfortunately, Slave Xin was illiterate and could not tell him what was written on it.
Gu Shenwei finally understood why Shen Liang could not keep his eyes off of him. “And then?”
“And then? There’s nothing more. I left Firewood Yard right after and came to work for the Miss. I didn’t expect her to assign me to you.”
“Blademaster Shen didn’t have you collected information for him?”
Slave Xin repeatedly bowed his head. “Blademaster Shen forced me and wanted me to get some information about you from the Miss, but I have yet to see her, let alone talking to her. You must believe me.”
Luo Ningcha knew that Slave Huan got into the Golden Roc Fort to exact revenge for his family. If Shen Liang were to learn of this, it would be the end of Slave Huan.
“Okay, I forgive you,” said Gu Shenwei. He originally wanted to wait for the complete collapse of the Iron Mountain Gang to take care of Luo Ningcha and the “Wayless Book”, but the circumstances had changed. Now, he had to act before Shen Liang discovered his secrets.
