Chapter 424: Lateness
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The Princess never expected to meet the Dragon King in this way.
Since she was young, she had not made any of her own decisions; all things were decided by others on her behalf. This time, Xu Yanwei planted the idea of meeting the Dragon King in her mind. Slowly, she thought of this idea as her own.
“The Dragon King is my future husband. This is a time of national crisis, so I should give my support,” the Princess thought.
The Princess was unaware of how many lies Xu Yanwei had told her in order to convince her to see the Dragon King.
The Dragon King was not as she had imagined. However, he was as handsome as Xu Yanwei had described, which satisfied the Princess. She had doubted the terrible legend that the Dragon King was a ferocious man with an evil spirit, but Xu Yanwei never mentioned his coldness.
It was as if an iceberg had entered the room. The princess felt her blood freezing. Simply saying the name “Dragon King” nearly exhausted all of her strength.
Once the Dragon King drew his saber, it scared her blood to a boil.
The next scene was beyond the Princess’ imagination; something she had never witnessed. Although she saw the whole process, she only remembered a few fragments, which also frequently reappeared in her future nightmares.
The Dragon King’s saber was as sharp as fire and pierced the body as easily as burning a small piece of paper. In the Princess’ memory, he slowly became the saber itself, burning with fire and destroying everything in an instant.
Her last memory was that there were three corpses on the ground, and she did not know where they came from. As if in a blink of an eye, she was magically transported from her original room to this horrible place.
The Princess’s only way of coping was to faint and refuse to admit that the present scene was a reality.
The three assassins had hidden on the roof and attacked from the sky when the Dragon King drew his saber, but they had lost the chance to raid.
Gu Shenwei moved quickly and killed the assassin on the left first. Before the target fell down, he circled behind him, which caused the middle assassin to kill the one on the right.
Finding that his companion had been killed, the last assassin turned to run, and the result was a saber through his heart.
As soon as the Princess fainted, Gu Shenwei burst through the window.
Xu Yanwei and Xu Xiaoyi were standing in the courtyard, chatting quietly and smiling. They were startled by the sudden rush of the Dragon King. Soon, they were startled once more at the sight of two people standing on the flat roof; they had somehow blended in with the surroundings in broad daylight.
The rooftop assailants did not retreat. But instead, they jumped down together and drew their sabers to attack the Dragon King.
Gu Shenwei shot through the middle of the two siblings, their mouths wide open. Two assassins masked with grey cloth, wielding shining narrow knives, collided directly with the Dragon King.
Xu Yanwei’s scream was still brewing in his throat when the Dragon King’s saber passed by suddenly. An assassin on the other side fell down as if to embrace her; however, he tripped over a stone on his last step.
Only one assassin caught the Dragon King’s trick.
When two identical sabers collide, the skill decides who wins, but Five Peaks Saber was sharper.
The assassin’s saber was cut in two, and so was he; his head tumbled all the way under the steps of the veranda.
Xu Yanwei hoped that she could pass out without being frightened by the scene, but her mind was exceptionally clear and her senses were ten-times sharper than usual. The scream hovering in her throat finally broke through the shackles and erupted like a volcano.
Gu Shenwei covered her mouth to stop her screaming. Xu Yanwei almost choked, but finally recovered.
Xu Xiaoyi grabbed his sister by the arm, “Dragon King…”
“The killer of Golden Roc Fort.” Gu Shenwei let go of Xu Yanwei, and quickly searched the yard with the Five Peaks Saber. After he checked the roof and the nearby room, he determined that the five men were all assassins.
Some court maids and eunuchs heard Xu Yanwei’s first scream and ran over to have a look, but immediately disappeared without a trace. As a part of rules of the palace, one must stay away from corpses before the fact was clear. One more glance would bring death to him or her.
The royal palace of Stone Kingdom was small, but the rules here were not much different.
Xu Xiaoyi soon realized the seriousness of the matter. “Several assassins lurked in the Princess’ room, and the Dragon King was deceived by my sister and me. Therefore, we will all be suspected of collaborating with the assassins.” He mused.
“Brother Huan.” Xu Xiaoyi was so nervous that he called him by his former name, “I really didn’t know there were assassins, my sister and I …”
“I know.” Gu Shenwei assured him while sheathing the Five Peaks Saber, which made Xu Xiaoyi slightly relieved.
Xu Yanwei also understood, but she thought more and then blurted out, “It was he who revealed the whereabouts of the Dragon King!”
“Who?” Gu Shenwei asked.
“Shangguan Hong,” she replied.
Gu Shenwei was slightly stunned. “How did Shangguan Hong get involved in this matter? He should have had no chance to contact the people in the palace.” He wondered.
Xu Yanwei quickly added, “Shangguan Hong advised me to lure you into the palace by not mentioning the Princess, but attracting your attention with the excuse of the King.”
Gu Shenwei questioned the credibility of Xu Yanwei’s words. Xu Xiaoyi’s thoughts were another matter. He asked with a cold face, ” Sister, how did you get along with that boy Shangguanhong?”
“How could I not?” Xu Yanwei opened her eyes in surprise and was dissatisfied with his question, “He is not ugly, he is smart, he can speak sweet words, and he can play the flute.”
Xu Xiaoyi blushed and could not think of anything to criticize his sister, so he muttered in a low voice, “Dogs can’t eat…”
Xu Yanwei didn’t say anything but grabbed his ear tightly and asked, “Who is the dog?”
“I am a dog! I am a dog!” Xu Xiaoyi immediately yielded and begged his sister to let go of his ear. He rubbed his ear and then looked at the silent Dragon King, “Sister, it’s all your fault. You made the Dragon King fall into a trap.”
“I, I also didn’t want to do this. Although I said that, it was not necessarily Shangguan Hong who divulged the secrets.”
Gu Shenwei did not immediately express his opinion. He bent over and removed the mask off of a corpse. “Do you know this man?” he asked.
They looked at the corpse carefully and shook their heads together. Soon, Xu Yanwei nodded again immediately, “He seems to… he seems to be a eunuch in the palace.”
“Is the sickly King of the Stone Nation really that heartless?” Xu Xiaoyi jumped up and said, eager to rid he and his sister of suspicion.
Gu Shenwei still refused to comment, “The Princess fainted, you go and have a look.”
Xu Yanwei was surprised and then hurried into the room.
“Go and call someone to identify the bodies,” Gu Shenwei instructed.
Xu Xiaoyi took the order. He left to call the supervisor eunuch in the palace at a much faster pace than usual.
Gu Shenwei did not want to express his real thoughts in front of them. He already had a rough plan in his heart, but it was not the right time to implement it.
Facts proved that this was a planned assassination. The head eunuch recognized that all five assassins were worker eunuchs in the palace. After that, he called the eunuch in charge and learned that they had been in the palace for a period of time. They were probably hired in the same month that the Princess was married.
This was a late assassination and the rules of Golden Roc Fort were clear. The five assassins were ordered to kill the Dragon King in the palace. Obviously, they had been watching the Princess’ behavior in turns, thinking that they would see the Dragon King in her palace sooner or later.
They had waited for nearly ten months.
Nobody knew what went wrong. Although the death of the Dragon King had been spread throughout the whole Western Region, the five men did abandon their mission but stayed hidden. At the time when the siege was most tense, they did not help the troops outside the city to assassinate the generals in the city.
Gu Shenwei ordered to block the news and asked the supervisor to investigate everyone’s background in the palace according to the personnel file, including eunuchs, imperial guards, handymen, and court maids, especially the time of entering the palace. He wanted to see if the assassins had any companions.
Gu Shenwei anticipated that he would not find any clues. He wanted to use the two slightly contradictory acts of restricting news and investigating to send a signal to the secret enemy that he had not found the truth.
Since the assassins had long been hidden in the palace, in the view of Xu Yanwei and Xu Xiaoyi, other people also got rid of the suspicion. Xu Yanwei specifically told the Dragon King and brother not to tell others that she suspected Shangguan Hong, “He is timid and afraid of the Dragon King, so I am afraid that he can’t stand this failure.”
The Princess woke up an hour later. When she learned the details from Xu Yanwei, she was frightened and ashamed. She felt that it was a very shameful act to faint in front of the Dragon King.
Gu Shenwei did not think so. Although he still had no feelings for the Princess, he found a suitable person to solve some small matter.
the Kung Fu high priest of the Land of Fragrance left a pile of books and incantations, hiding the crucial chapter 8 of the “Wayless Book.” It was a time-consuming and laborious work and required an extensive vocabulary, which was enough to exclude the vast majority of people in the army.
Gu Shenwei asked Xu Yanwei if the Princess would like to take this task, and Xu Yanwei readily promised, “The Princess especially wants to do something for you. Is the content of the book important?”
“It is very important, and she must keep it a secret.” Gu Shenwei replied.
Xu Yanwei immediately shut her mouth tightly and nodded solemnly.
The Princess was indeed willing to do it, but it was a pity that the Dragon King did not hand over the task to her personally.
After leaving the palace, Gu Shenwei went to visit DuGu Xian again.
Dugu Xian was carefully planning the content of training. Upon seeing the Dragon King, he nodded casually as if they had never left each other, “It would take eight months for us to turn the mob into useful soldiers, at least eight months.”
But the army of Golden Roc Fort would attack within a month.
“Is the winter not suitable for war in Xiaoyao Lake?” Gu Shenwei asked.
In the face of this sudden problem, Dugu Xian was stunned. After thinking for a while, he knew how to answer it and said, “Yes, normal generals will not fight in winter, especially cavalry, because providing fodder for tens of thousands of horses is enough to bring them down. One of the important reasons why the four-nation coalition forces were unable to attack the capital of Stone Kingdom at the beginning was that they chose to fight before the end of winter, so many weapons were not used.”
“It’s September, that is to say, as long as the army of Golden Roc Fort takes no action within a month, we can rest for the winter,” suggested Gu Shenwei.
“Well, this should be the case. However, Shangguan Jianyi is as stubborn as the Supreme King and may be reckless and fight in the winter, or he may get here tomorrow.”
Anything is possible. Dugu Xian refused to make an assertion, but Gu Shenwei gradually had ideas in his mind. He would not necessarily have eight months to rebuild his patchwork army, but it was much better to have more time.
“Shangguan Hong should come in handy,” he thought.
