Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Xu Xiaoyi felt restless. He was born and raised in Jade City. Even as a little boy, he had heard that Golden Roc Castle was powerful and formidable, and his childhood had left him with a lasting profound horror for the Unique King. He couldn’t stop the Dragon King from making his move, but he also couldn’t stop worrying about him either.
When the night-watchman struck the gong for the fourth night-watch, indicating that dawn was about to break, Xu Xiaoyi’s restlessness swelled to the point that he found it impossible to remain sitting, so he started pacing back and forth across the floor. There were several moments when he had wanted to order his men to go downtown and investigate what had happened, but he had managed to regain control of himself every time.
Right before the sun was about to rise, Gu Shenwei returned. Upon entering the room, he fell to the ground, devoid of strength. With all of his effort, Xu Xiaoyi managed to support his body and drag him onto the bed.
The Dragon King’s originally pale face was now ghastly white as if there were a layer of pure snow on it, and even his lips had lost its usual color. Staring rigidly at Xu Xiaoyi, the Dragon King was clearly in great pain.
After recognizing the severity of the situation, Xu Xiaoyi unexpectedly calmed down. He knew that the Dragon King was in danger of falling into Qi deviation and that he needed a quiet place to recuperate and guide his internal energy. But the situation they were in was extremely perilous. “Was it really the Unique King?”
Gu Shenwei blinked and confirmed Xu Xiaoyi’s worries. As he was putting all his effort into restraining the frosty Qi which was on the verge of rampaging out of control, he was unable to spare enough strength to speak out.
Xu Xiaoyi thoughts moved unprecedentedly quickly. “Don’t worry, Dragon King. I’ll take care of it.”
Xu Xiaoyi’s house was not a safe place. Although he still had several safehouses both inside and outside of Heaven’s Pass, none of them met the criteria as a place for the Dragon King to recover. After pondering for a while, he walked out and ordered all of his men to defend those strongholds, in hopes of distracting their enemies.
But none of his men’s kung fu were good enough to hold back the killers of Golden Roc Castle, and they wouldn’t be able to protect the Dragon King even if all of them gathered around him in a ball. After contemplating their dilemma for quite a while, he made a unilateral decision to ask Shangguan Ru for help.
Shangguan Ru seemed to have had a premonition that something had happened, so not only did she come in person, but she also brought dozens of female soldiers with her.
The 1,000 female soldiers of the Land of Fragrance were still escorting the ladies of the other countries, and only a few of them had come back with Red Bat to meet up with the Instructor.
Standing outside the door, Shangguan Ru glanced into the room before signaling Xu Xiaoyi to talk with her in the room next door.
“The Dragon King can’t stay here,” Shangguan Ru said.
“I agree, he can’t. But I have an idea. There’re 5,000 Restoration Army troops that were brought here by Shang Liao and the prince of Shu Le. 1,000 of them used to be the Dragon King’s guards, and their camp isn’t far away, about a day’s ride. They’re very loyal to the Dragon King and I think that they can keep the Dragon King safe.”
“Is Shang Liao trustworthy?”
That was the problem. Regardless of however loyal the guards were, they were still under the command of the General of the Right. If Shang Liao decided to let one or two assassins in, nobody would be able to stop him.
“Then what should we do? Another alternative is the Xiaowan Kingdom, but the troops there are also from the Norland. Can we trust them?”
This was yet another problem. Shangguan Ru then asked, “Do you trust me?”
“The Dragon King does; thus, so do I.”
“Then take the Dragon King to Xiaowan Kingdom. Duodun has agreed to let the provisions convoy through, so the Dragon King can disguise himself and leave with them.”
“With regards to the safety issue…”
“Tell Shang Liao and the prince of Shu Le to assign some soldiers to escort the convoy, but don’t tell them about the Dragon King. I’ll also accompany the convoy myself.”
Xu Xiaoyi nodded. The capital city of the Xiaowan Kingdom was closer to Heaven’s Pass than the guards’ camps were, and using the provisions convoy as camouflage seemed like a good idea. He did some quick calculations before saying, “If we borrow soldiers from Shang Liao and the prince of Shu Le, and then make the necessary arrangements, we might miss the convoy as it departs this morning.”
“Then delay it for a day. I’ll keep the Dragon King safe while you go do what you have to.”
Xu Xiaoyi was still a bit hesitant about leaving the Dragon King’s safetly complete in Shangguan Ru’s hands. He raised his right hand involuntarily, stroking his moustache, and weighed the situation for some time before acquiescing. “It was the Unique King who hurt the Dragon King.”
“I know.” Shangguan Ru smiled as she responded, which only deepened Xu Xiaoyi’s worry. “The Unique King won’t come here himself. He definitely doesn’t want Duodun to know that he’s hiding in Mo Chu’s mansion. He’s probably already returned to Golden Roc Castle by now.”
Xu Xiaoyi thought that the Tenth Young Master’s analysis was very reasonable. “Tenth Young Master can surely handle some common killers.”
Shangguan Ru nodded with a smile, but she didn’t pointed out an obvious truth: any killer directly under the command of the Unique King was by no means common.
Xu Xiaoyi left hurriedly. Now that Shangguan Ru had come with her female soldiers, his former plan of distracting the enemies had become pointless. He withdrew his men, reassigned them to guard the periphery, and then left to meet Shang Liao and the prince of Shu Le.
Shangguan Ru made some defensive assignments of her own with her female soldiers. She knew the style of Golden Roc killers very well, so her assignments were very specific and detailed. Even the roofs were under a constant rotating surveillance.
After all of this was done, she quietly entered the Dragon King’s room.
Gu Shenwei was guiding his internal Qi to fight against the frosty Qi, his body quivering, his face pale, and sweat beading on his forehead. Originally, he had made a remarkable recovery from his Qi deviation, but this time, the situation was dire and the severity was worse than what he expected.
Shangguan Ru gazed at the face which was both familiar and alien.
Gu Shenwei opened his eyes and nodded once, extremely slowly.
Shangguan Ru walked over and sat on a chair that Red Bat had brought to her in the yard. Then she unfastened the wooden saber, put it on her knees horizontally and said in a low voice, “Get me some wine.”
Red Bat obeyed, but unlike the normal wine, she instead brought over a small pot of wine and an even smaller cup.
Shangguan Ru didn’t seem to mind. Red Bat filled the cup as Shangguan Ru watched on. When she finished, Shangguan Ru played with the rim of the cup as her fingers danced slowly on it before she downed the cup in one gulp.
Xu Xiaoyi bustled about for the entire morning, but things didn’t go very well. The General of the Right Shang Liao was very surprised by his request to borrow soldiers, and he asked a lot of both relevant and irrelevant questions before reluctantly agreeing to send a mere fifty soldiers. “No more. You know that most of my men are in the south. This is all I can spare.”
Things were a lot simpler at Shu Le prince’s camp. He also didn’t have many soldiers, and he could only spare a hundred men. Even after taking on dozens of newly-hired sabermen, Xu Xiaoyi barely reached two hundred men.
Xu Xiaoyi picked these sabermen out one by one by himself. Most of them had previous worked with Xu Xiaoyi. He thought that these men at least looked familiar, so they probably weren’t Golden Roc killers in disguise.
The next thing he had to do was find a reliable convoy, which also took a lot of time. After he had finished all of his tasks, it was already late in the afternoon. Xu Xiaoyi was thirsty, but he hadn’t even had time to stop and drink water. Instead, he spent all his time wondering if there were any potential flaws in the plan. This was the first time that he had dealt with an issue involving Golden Roc killers, and they held no advantages except for numerical superiority.
In an unhurried manner, Shangguan Ru was still enjoying her wine in the yard. She had barely finished half the pot when Xu Xiaoyi returned. He drank several consecutive cups of the wine, shook the empty pot, and then said in a muted voice, “I’ll have someone bring some more over.”
Red Bat had returned to her room to rest so she was not in the yard. Like a child who had done something bad, Shangguan Ru quickly nodded. “I had someone bring Xiao Fengchai here. Since we’re protecting the Dragon King, we might as well bring her under our protection as well.”
The Dragon King’s cooperation with Xiao Fengchai to transfer the Meng family’s wealth over wouldn’t stay a secret for long. Soon, the most famous prostitute of Jade City would once again attract a lot of people’s attention.
“What about Lü Qiying? Do we need to protect him too?”
“Not for now. The Unique King doesn’t care about him.”
After all, Lü Qiying was just the owner of a merchant caravan and the Unique King wouldn’t bother trying to kill him.
“The Dragon King will hide among his caravan and depart in the early morning. Lü Qiying doesn’t know about the plan at all. The Dragon King… can walk, right?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem for him.”
Xu Xiaoyi exhaled deeply, and then turned his head to glance at the setting sun. “The night is coming.”
All of the residents of Jade City knew the meaning of this remark: for ordinary people, it was a signal to party, but for Golden Roc killers, it was a signal to open their eyes and start killing.
“You don’t have to stay here.”
“I do, and I’m staying.”
Watching Xu Xiaoyi’s sweaty face, Shangguan Ru thought that the Dragon King was not alone after all, and that his followers were more loyal than Duodun’s. “But there’s nothing that you can help with here.”
Xu Xiaoyi blushed slightly, but he knew that Shangguan Ru had said this out of kind intentions so he relented and said, “All right. Then I’ll stay outside. Just call if you need me.”
Shangguan Ru smiled back. “Have someone get me some more wine. It’s going to be a long night, and I don’t want to spend it sitting here and staring at my own shadow.”
Night had just fallen. There was a small table before Shangguan Ru, and on the table, there were four wine jars which respectively contained grasslands milk liquor, West-Region wine, Central-Plains Nu’er Hong, and Huadiao. Below that, a dozen various containers, from cups to bowls, were placed in a line along with some cut fruits.
Xu Xiaoyi was much more generous than Red Bat, and he didn’t worry about the Tenth Young Master getting drunk.
There was only her in the yard, and all the other female soldiers were on duty at their assigned spots. They would arrive in no time if they heard any sounds.
Shangguan Ru drank very slowly, spending much more time savoring the differences and uniqueness of these different alcohols. She believed that this was much more fun than drinking in gulps, but she soon realized that one needed the right drinking buddy to set the mood for heavy drinking. At this moment, the only companions she had were the moon in the sky and the shadows on the ground.
The Dragon King would never be a good drinking buddy and Shangguan Ru felt rather regretful about that. She took her wooden saber and held it for a while. As she did so, the wine in her body turned into sweat and evaporated. Suddenly, she found herself in an active mood to drink. After staring at those containers for another period of time, she at last chose the biggest bowl. Before drinking, she said to herself in a low voice, “Fortunately, Red Bat’s not here.”
As she drank and wielded her saber, Shanggguan Ru really began to enjoy herself and feel that it didn’t matter whether she had a drinking buddy or not.
Using internal energy to force alcohol out of body was a unique skill that she had taught herself; not only could this skill increase her alcohol capacity, but it also sparde her from all the potentially embarrassing things that usually happened to drunk people. Although it was very wasteful to do so, she derived great pleasure from it and even believed that it was somewhat helpful in improving her internal energy.
She didn’t wield her saber in any fixed routines, but rather in an impromptu manner as she performed the Subtle Shadow Lightness Skill that Old Man Mu had taught her. Occasionally, she would also perform the Seven Circles Seven Apertures Heart Stopping Finger with her left hand. As she danced in the moonlight, her mood was increasingly improving.
The first two night-watches passed by quickly, and Shangguan Ru decided to start limiting her alcohol consumption. There was still more than half of the night ahead. She couldn’t let Xu Xiaoyi send more wine, and neither could she perform her duty of protecting the Dragon King while drunk.
Nothing happened during the following two night-watches, and there was still a little alcohol left in each of the four jars. Shangguan Ru tried hard to stop herself from downing it all. The wooden saber in her hand was moving faster and faster, her figure turned into a cloud of faint fog in the moonlight.
“Your sabersmanship has improved a lot,” said a voice from nowhere.
The hidden female soldiers made their moves instantly, but Shangguan Ru raised her hand and signaled them to stay put. And then she turned around and saw the Unique King’s familiar figure walking out of the room.
“But I still failed to detect your presence.”
“If you keep improving at this pace, then I soon won’t be able to hide myself from you. Did you learn some kind of new internal energy?”
“I stole the Daoless Scroll, so I dispersed the internal energy I learned from it.”
“If you asked me, then I would have taught the Daoless Divine Power to you. What made me mad was that not only did you steal the book, but you also gave it to outsiders.”
Shangguan Ru smiled. “I know, but I fear you just as much as everybody else, and I didn’t dare ask.”
The two remained silent for a while. When the Unique King spoke again, his voice was cold. “And yet you still chose to take the Dragon King’s side in the end. It’s very smart of you to plan out such an excellent betrayal. When did you side with him?”
