Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The sentry at the border of the Stone Kingdom brought back bad news: The allied forces of the four kingdoms led by the Kang Kingdom were headed toward the capital with a total of 2000 troops.
The residents of Stone Kingdom had not yet recovered from the coup and were now made to live in fear of their kingdom’s demise. The capital was never big to begin with, and it quickly became crowded with residents from the outer cities moving in.
The situation was very serious as Stone Kingdom only had less than 500 men in its standing army, some of them were even hired from Golden Roc Fort. Moreover, many of them deserted after Dragon King was announced as the prince consort, leaving less than 400 men in the army.
The bandits who had been subdued by Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus in the desert, along with a few others who had rushed over upon hearing the news, amounted to less than 200 men.
Taking into account the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain and the guards from the royal palace, the number of soldiers that Stone Kingdom could use barely reached 600 men.
The King was even more terrified than his own people and had completely lost all will to resist. All he ever did was to kneel in front of the ancestors’ tablets, repenting from day to night, complaining about his bad luck and pushing all blame to others.
Zhong Heng personally took the royal seal from the King and began issuing orders to prepare the kingdom’s defenses.
Gu Shenwei gathered the three members of the Shangguan family and told them what he thought, “I am returning to Jade City to save the Great Snowmountain troops. At the same time, I want to prove that the children of Supreme King did not die in my hands.”
All of them remained impassive. Gu Shenwei paused before continuing, “You have two choices. One, stay at Stone Kingdom and wait for the news to leak, the killers will come knocking at your the door. Or two, come with me.”
Shangguan Ru was the first to speak. She had been lukewarm towards him ever since they had met again. Her tone was businesslike and impersonal as if it was a formal negotiation. “You are going to use us to disgrace Supreme King and make Golden Roc Fort lose moral support.”
She referred to him as “Supreme King” rather than “father”. This was a good sign for Gu Shenwei, so he admitted frankly, “That’s right. That is why I won’t kill you. You are still of use here.”
Shangguan Ru did not utter another word and kept her gaze down as if everything was insignificant to her.
Shangguan Fei secretly sighed with relief. He was safe as long as he could still be useful to others. He said, “I will come with you. However, you need to protect… us.”
He had thought it through and realized that Stone Kingdom’s capital was currently in peril, therefore it was better to go with Dragon King rather than stay here.
Shangguan Hong did not think for very long as he was only preoccupied with one thing, “I can come with you but… the two of them need to promise that they will not assassinate me.”
“I won’t.” Shangguan Fei said, gritting his teeth.
Shangguan Hong immediately realized that there was a loophole in his words, so he added, “You cannot kill me in the open either, and you have to promise that you won’t try to kill me in any way.”
“I promise.” Shangguan Fei squeezed out these words from his throat, but his gaze was void of tolerance.
Shangguan Hong was more than familiar with the credibility of these “promises” made by the Shangguan family, but it was all he could ask for. Either way, he made up his mind to stay with Dragon King at all times from now on.
Everyone’s eyes rested on Shangguan Ru as she still had not made a clear decision.
“I will leave the Stone Kingdom with you, but not necessarily back to Jade City.”
She did not know where she really wanted to go. Stone Castle was no longer her home, and Jade City disgusted her, but Stone Kingdom was a foreign land to her, she had nowhere else to go.
It was settled then.
Gu Shenwei decided to leave that night. Lin Xiaoshan and over 20 swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain would remain in the Stone Kingdom and act as Prime Minister Zhong Heng’s bodyguards. The 200 bandits who had been forced into submission were also handed over to him. In this way, he would possess an independent army and this could help drive Stone Kingdom’s troops to fight.
Xu Yanwei, Guan Shang and Jiang remained with the Princess at the royal palace.
Gu Shenwei brought along Maid Lotus, the three Shangguan siblings and five bandits including He Sancai. He put together 10 people and prepared 20 steeds.
Xu Yanwei came to send them off. Seeing Miss Ru and Dragon King together again made her very happy. At the same time, she did not forget about the Princess in the palace. To her, it was normal for Dragon King to have many wives and concubines.
“You should visit the Princess before you leave, Dragon King. You are the prince consort now, but you haven’t even met her once.”
“We’ll talk about it when I’m back.” Gu Shenwei replied. He was not in the mood to see the Princess and had in fact, almost forgotten about her.
Xu Yanwei sighed silently. She felt that the women who were involved with Dragon King would never be happy, and she was fortunate that she had not slept with him at that time.
At dusk, Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus went to Nengjue Temple to pay respects to Master Fayan as promised.
The monks from the Four Truths Temple were all packed up and ready to leave the kingdom the next morning. They would return by the original route since they would not have to worry about traps.
Fayan promised that he would explain the truth to the chief of the Four Truths Temple. “Old monk is grateful that Dragon King did not start a killing frenzy in the Stone Kingdom. Please accept my humble gift.”
Each of them received a small package wrapped in cloth. Once they left the temple, they unwrapped the cloth to find a booklet inside.
The copied text in the booklet was still fresh, as if the writing had just been completed. The title was: Sumeru Mustard Mantra.
Fayan had refused to make a deal with Dragon King because he had long decided to give them the precious mantra that would help them with their Internal Strength.
The old monk was truly a strange person. Gu Shenwei was able to guess his thoughts but he was unable to understand him. This set of Internal Strength had to be a unique and important skill to the Four Truths Temple, yet he had given it away just like that, especially to people who were known as devils to the world.
However, their confusion and gratitude soon vanished. First of all, the text was extremely esoteric and was mixed with a great amount of transliteration from Sanskrit. Both of them could barely understand it, and they suspected that this could be another variation of the Breaking Obsession. Perhaps the old monk was trying to use this to make them remove their killing desire. Secondly, each of them had only received half of the mantra. Gu Shenwei had the first volume, and Maid Lotus had the second.
What was the monk’s real intention? Was he trying to sow discord? They could not understand and did not want to think too much about it. Maid Lotus gave her volume to Gu Shenwei, “You hold onto it for now since we won’t have time to practice it for a while.”
Maid Lotus was probably sincere about it, but Gu Shenwei was also aware of her interest in this divine kung fu. He did not take her volume, but instead proposed another idea, “Let’s hide it together, and we can take it out again once we return to Stone Kingdom.”
“Alright.” Maid Lotus said flatly.
It was these kinds of small matters which made them realize that they were being too polite to one another. Both of them had been acting carefully so as to not let the other become suspicious.
Perhaps this was Fayan’s intention.
At midnight, when the sky was the darkest, the group of 10 people quietly left Stone Kingdom’s capital.
Within the group, the bandit Zheng Tai, known as “Sand Devil”, was leading the group. The five kingdoms of Xiaoyao Lake were his territory and he knew his way around well. They did not take the main road but went toward the south for a few miles, before heading west, following the shore of the lake closely.
Xiaoyao Lake was quite big and extended onto a vast territory. Dark mountains could be seen looming from the other bank as the sound of the waves washing on the shore matched the hoofbeats of the galloping horses.
The 10 of them traveled all night and rested for a little while before continuing their journey again. By the time it grew dark again, they could see the troops of the Kang Kingdom from a distance.
Gu Shenwei could have snuck into the military camp during the night and assassinated a few high-ranking military officers but he did not want to waste any time, so he made a detour and entered the territory of Kang Kingdom at midnight.
Further west was the Sha and Hui Kingdoms. Out of the five kingdoms, only the An Kingdom lay on the southern bank of the Xiaoyao Lake, but they did not need to pass through there.
Zheng Tai tried to take isolated paths as much as possible. Only bandits like him who had lived in the wild for many years would know about these deserted paths.
The route was very concealed. The only flaw was that it was not an easy one. Although the group traveled relentlessly from day till night, by the time they reached the Hui Kingdom, they had already spent 10 days, rode seven horses to death and had been forced to abandon some water and food.
After passing through the Hui Kingdom, they would enter the Gobi desert for a thousand miles and would no longer be able to get supplies during this period. Therefore, it was necessary to stop and reorganize, as they would need to buy more horses and stock up on supplies like water and food.
It was easy to stock up water and food but difficult to buy horses as most of them were being used by Stone Kingdom to prepare for war.
They managed to catch up with the first wave of messengers from the frontlines who brought news that Stone Kingdom’s capital was surrounded and would be conquered within a few days.
More bad news for the Great Snowmountain arrived. It was rumored that Supreme King had hidden tens of thousands of troops and divided them into two routes, one would attack the Great Snowmountain camp in the west while the other would go for the “unfilial son” Shangguan Nu in the east.
Gu Shenwei tried his best to be optimistic: With Golden Roc Fort sending expeditions to both the east and west, it was unlikely for them to send troops down south. This way, only the four allied forces of the Xiaoyao Lake would be surrounding Stone Kingdom’s capital. As a result, Zhong Heng could maintain his defense for a little longer as there were not so many opposing forces.
Before leaving, Gu Shenwei promised Zhong Heng that he would return to Stone Kingdom with swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain. Time was running out.
After much delay, He Sancai finally managed to buy all the necessary supplies and horses. The others took this opportunity to have a good rest since they knew that once they entered the Gobi desert, it would be a long time before they would have soft beds and unrationed clean water.
Gu Shenwei had only slept for a short while before coming out to stand guard again.
He cannot make any more mistakes now that the war had resumed again. He had to be vigilant at all times.
Shangguan Hong did not sleep much either. He was waiting for the opportunity to talk to Dragon King alone. So he snuck to his side and whispered, “I could be of great service to you. Although I am not any kind of Young Master, I know many secrets that even the twins have not heard of before.”
“So you still have ‘secrets’.”
Realizing that Dragon King did not believe him, Shangguan Hong panicked. He was as pragmatic as any other person in Golden Roc Fort and would not feel secure unless he was holding onto something important worth exchanging “It’s true. I didn’t say it at first because I thought it was not important, but I’ve been thinking for the past two days about what will interest you. Then I remembered this.”
“Speak.”
“Uh, well, there is a secret passage that can directly lead to Stone Castle from the foot of the mountain. Technically speaking, it cannot be considered as a secret passage but it really goes all the way to the top.”
Gu Shenwei was unable to fathom how this secret passage was hidden since Golden Roc Fort was located on a precipice and all sides of the castle were bottomless abysses, “You had better not be lying about this.”
“I would never.” Shangguan Hong’s eyes sparkled in excitement, “As soon as we arrive in Jade City, I will show you the secret passage, Dragon King. This is my service to you, and it is greater than anybody’s else.”
Shangguan Hong returned to the temporary camp and slept peacefully.
Gu Shenwei noted this in his heart and moved stealthily around the camp. He discovered a stalker behind He Sancai as he returned with the purchased supplies.
