Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Both Nie Zeng and Tie Linglong thought that they had found the assassin first and rushed at him at the same time. Only Chu Nanping strictly adhered by the killer’s principles and leaped into the assassin’s route of retreat.
The two of them were obsessed with competing against each other and had forgotten that since the other side could sneak inside the heavily guarded camp, he couldn’t have been an ordinary kung fu expert. Only when their narrow sabers unexpectedly missed their target did they become startled.
This wasn’t the kind of assassin from Golden Roc Castle that always kept a low profile when performing a mission. After escaping from the two killers’ attack, not only did the intruder not rush to run away, but he instead exposed himself by jumping to a nearby flagpole.
Chu Nanping quietly thrust out his sword, and the man drew his sword in response. With the force of the rebound, he leaped several feet up the pole again. But instead of pursuing him, Chu Nanping jumped to the ground instead. He already knew that he had no chance of defeating that man.
“Deng Yuanlei of the Qingcheng Sect greets the Dragon King.”
The one who answered him wasn’t the Dragon King. As soon as his voice finished speaking, an old woman’s shrieking voice rang out, “Dwarf Deng, I demand an explanation.”
Deng Yuanlei had once used the comatose Tu Pianpian as a weapon. After she woke up and heard about it, Tu Pianpian had held a grudge against him.
“Haha. Tu Pianpian, in order to seek power and wealth, your Kongtong Sect has betrayed your own country and pledged allegiance to a barbarian. Do you still have the face to ask me for an explanation?”
“Bastard! Who said that I pledged allegiance to a barbarian? You…” Before she could finish her words, a short squat figure had pounced onto the flagpole and stabbed at Deng Yuanlei with a long crutch.
Deng Yuanlei parried the crutch with his long sword and jumped to another flagpole with the rebounding force. “Tu Pianpian, to tell you the truth, your kung fu is really not as good as your younger brother’s…”
Next, Deng Yuanlei’s face changed slightly. In the blink of an eye, he had been surrounded by a variety of people, tall and short. Either overtly or covertly, they all blocked his way. He laughed again and said, “Dragon King, I’m just a messenger and I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“Just walk normally if you are a messenger then; there’s no need to prance around like a monkey,” Gu Shenwei said loudly. As he said that, he walked to the flagpole. Although the teenage killers trained by Hu Shining were a bit late, their ring of encirclement was airtight. Nie Zeng had also corrected his mistake and was now quietly guarding a corner.
Tu Pianpian didn’t notice the change around her. Enraged by Deng Yuanlei’s provocation, she was just about to run after him before she was stopped by Dog Butcher who hastily said, “Senior Sister, this is the Dragon King’s camp.”
“So what? Can he stop me?” Although she said this, she stopped her steps.
Deng Yuanlei looked down a few times and jumped to the ground. Then he walked forward with his head held high as if he didn’t put those killers in his eyes at all. When he was within five steps of the Dragon King, he proudly said, “Our Sect Leader has heard that the Dragon King’s sabersmanship is very good and he’d like to ‘learn’ a few moves from the Dragon King. If the Dragon King doesn’t mind, please choose a date and place.”
“Why would I fight with the Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect?”
Deng Yuanlei was stunned slightly. Then he smiled. “If the Dragon King dares not…”
Old Man Mu suddenly popped out and looked Deng Yuanlei up and down as if he was inferior to him, Old Man Mu. “This old man heard that the Qingcheng Sect Leader’s wife’s sexual techniques aren’t bad, so I’d like to ‘learn’ a few moves from her. Please choose a date and place.”
Deng Yuanlei snorted. “So this is how the Dragon King treats his guests?”
“No.” Gu Shenwei took a big step forward and struck out three times in a row with his palm.
The two had fought each other before and knew of each other’s ability. If the Dragon King had a saber in his hand, Deng Yuanlei would have been a bit afraid of him. But he was empty-handed now, so all Deng Yuanlei cared about were the killers surrounding him. Since he wasn’t afraid, he immediately fought back with his sword but also didn’t dare to use his full strength.
After three moves, the two retreated at the same time. Deng Yuanlei smilingly said, “Good palm techniques, Dragon King, but compared to our Qingcheng Sect’s…” Before he could finish speaking, his legs suddenly became limp, and he surprisingly knelt on the ground. “You…”
Gu Shenwei still had a lot of the Waning Moon Hall’s knockout drugs. In order to convince the other side, he hadn’t used it during their first competition. But this time he didn’t want to rely on his bare hands to deal with this kung fu master of the Qingcheng Sect, especially when this master had broken into his camp at night, acting all arrogant.
Old Man Mu knew what kind of tactics the Dragon King had used. Before Deng Yuanlei could point it out, he jumped over, poked him heavily in his chest and then slapped the other side in the face. “Little Qingcheng Sect, even if your Sect Leader comes here himself, he won’t be qualified to speak directly to the Dragon King. Are you afraid now? Will you beg for forgiveness now, and not act cool anymore?”
Deng Yuanlei was not convinced at all. After being slapped in the face, he felt both shameful and angry. But his acupoint had been struck by Old Man Mu, and he felt a strand of turbid Qi stagnating in his chest. His face turned from a lack of air and he couldn’t speak out at all.
The soldiers who had come out to watch for fun all laughed out loud.
Old Man Mu was much taller than the Deng Yuanlei who was kneeling on the ground. He put his right arm on the opponent’s head and excitedly asked, “Dragon King, what should we do with this scoundrel?”
“Throw him out of the camp.”
“Ah? Simple as that?”
Gu Shenwei nodded and raised his voice so that the people around him could hear. “The Qingcheng Sect can come to challenge me at any time. There’s no need to specify a date or a place, but if anyone dares to sneak into the camp again, I’ll cut off his head and publicly display it above the gates.”
Old Man Mu pressed Deng Yuanlei’s head and forced him to nod a few times and said, “He says that he’s heard it and that he will never dare to do this again.”
Two guards came up and took Deng Yuanlei outside the camp. Old Man Mu followed behind, kicking Deng Yuanlei from time to time, feeling quite at ease without the good girl’s being his conscience.
The soldiers returned to the tent and went back to sleep. Fang Wenshi, who had run here panting, held the Dragon King’s saber and sword tightly in his hands. As soon as he arrived, he breathlessly asked, “Are you all right, Dragon King?”
“I’m fine.” Gu Shenwei took his weapon back and motioned for Azheba to follow him.
Fang Wenshi followed a few steps behind as if he were the Dragon King’s bodyguard.
Azheba was standing nearby. Although he hadn’t clearly seen how the Dragon King had defeated his opponent so quickly, he knew that the Dragon King hadn’t used his real kung fu.
“This is me. I’ll do whatever I have to when necessary, and even use knockout drugs. I’ve fought with this man before. His kung fu skills are no poorer than mine but he still couldn’t avoid being humiliated in the end.” He deliberately didn’t conceal his trick.
Fang Wenshi kept shaking his head. If the Dragon King was really an unscrupulous man, he wouldn’t have told the truth.
Azheba was even more confused. The Dragon King was growing stranger and stranger in his eyes. “The Dragon King is not going to join in on the kung fu competition?” He clearly remembered that the Dragon King had attended several competitions before.
“I won’t accept any contests that have been forced upon me. Will the Khan wrestle with the enemy leaders? Will you lay down your bow and arrow to compete against your opponent with a saber? We all choose the most advantageous competitions for us. I have thousands of men while the Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect is relying on his advanced martial arts skills. We are both trying with every means to gain the upper hand.”
Azheba bowed his head, feeling that the Dragon King’s words seemed reasonable but also at the same time unreasonable.
Fang Wenshi secretly nodded, thinking that the Dragon King was getting more and more skillful at winning over his subordinates.
When they arrived at the shamans’ holding cell, a guard led the two inside with an oil lamp.
Four shamans sat on the ground with a lot of injuries on their bodies. Seeing the Dragon King come inside, they all shivered. One young shaman rushed to say, “Dragon King, I’ve confessed everything. Seriously, I’ve only seen Han Xuan once…”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
The young shaman was relieved, but the Great Shaman’s eyes were full of hatred and fear. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“You might as well say it again.”
“A few years ago, the Khan asked the Masters to try their new magic on the Court Attendants Army…”
“Masters?” Azheba asked confusedly, “Which ones?”
“The people from the Essence Pavilion of the Western Regions,” Gu Shenwei answered.
Azheba knew those people and had even met several of them, as they had thrown Shangguan Ru and several others into prison under the name of the Khan.
They were really a bunch of weirdos. Very weird.
As he grew older, the Khan had become more and more suspicious of those around him. For a person who had enjoyed unlimited loyalty from the moment he was born, he, in his late years, suddenly felt that loyalty was scarce in his life.
The disciples of the Essence Pavilion had shown him lots of wonderful ‘magic,’ especially in regards to controlling people’s minds, which made him very excited. So he came up with a bold plan.
The Court Attendants Army was the core of the Khan’s power. He didn’t trust the noble officers who would return home after ten years of service and instead only trusted the soldiers who served him from cradle to grave. Even so, that loyalty seemed insufficient.
The hypnosis used by the disciples of the Essence Pavilion had many limitations, but it did have a good effect on heightening people’s already present emotions. The task entrusted to them by the Khan was to make the soldiers only loyal to he himself.
It was a secret plan. Of all the generals and officers, the Commandant was the only one who had known even a little bit of it.
The shamans of the army were chosen to be the assistants for the Masters. They orchestrated the events and had the hypnosis take place during the ordinary soldiers’ simple prayer rituals, which was one of their traditional duties, and therefore never it received any attention or suspicion.
In the first year, the disciples of the Essence Pavilion had almost attended all of the rituals. Sometimes they knocked the ground with crutches to make noises, sometimes they made strange noises with their mouth, and sometimes they simply observed the soldiers’ behavior.
The shamans had never figured out the Masters’ tricks. They only followed their orders and did what they were told.
Two years later, the disciples of the Essence Pavilion no longer came anymore. They probably thought that there was no apparent effect, and the Khan had also lost interest in it. But the soldiers had already fallen into the habit of praying, and the shamans, who had not received the order to stop, could only continue organizing the rituals.
Not long after the guests of the Western Regions came to the Royal Court, the Masters showed up again with a woman.
The woman called herself Han Qin, and she showed more ‘magic’ and completely conquered the shamans. “She’s not a human. She’s a demon, a very powerful demon. No one can defy her will,” The Great Shaman said with a voice drenched deep in despair.
“The shamans all experienced the demon’s sexual techniques,” Gu Shenwei explained again.
Azheba felt himself caught in a fog again. What the Great Shaman and the Dragon King were saying was beyond his understanding.
The attempt made by the disciples of the Essence Pavilion had actually partially succeeded. The signs weren’t apparent when the Khan had still ben alive, but the effect fermented after his death until it finally exploded with a surprising amount of force. But no one could control it, not even the disciples of the Essence Pavilion. By contrast, the shamans who had always been confused had an advantage over the others.
Han Qin, a disciple of the Waning Moon Hall, was the first to discover that the force, though uncontrollable, could still be used. She carried out the orders of Lotus and used the opportunity to start a large-scale scuffle.
“The soldiers are just confused for the time being. There’s definitely a way to wake them up.” Azheba still didn’t want to give up.
“If there is enough time, then the soldiers will naturally forget the indoctrination, but we happen to have no time.”
Azheba knocked hard on his temple, hoping to get some dark thoughts out of his mind. “Give me a chance. I’ll return the Court Attendants Army to normal.”
Gu Shenwei thought for a moment and then said, “You have two days.” The army needed two days of rest, which was already a big compromise made by Gu Shenwei.
His task was to change thousands of people’s thinking developed and cemented through years of habit in just two days. Azheba nodded, but was actually wholly unprepared for the momentous task he was about to perform.
All of a sudden, a strong gust of wind blew in, and the tent wobbled. Gu Shenwei and Azheba gripped their saber hilt at the same time.
The tent was torn in twain by two sharp claws, and the red-crowned roc descended from the sky. The half-closed wings occupied almost the whole tent. It stood on one leg and stuck out the other towards Gu Shenwei, its red eyes burning with anger.
On the scaly leg was a flying dagger. Gu Shenwei gently picked it out and immediately smeared some hemostatic medicine on the wound. Then he picked up the flying dagger and saw several words engraved on it: ‘Leader of the Qingcheng Sect.’
