Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The boy, who was walking alone in the winter night, was about 10 years old. Although his skills looked immature, he was perfectly calm and steady. He quickly found the entrance to the inn at the end of the alley and untied the cord securing the saber on his back.
He did not carry a sheath and the weapon seemed too long for the boy, but he just casually held it in his hand, as if it were a simple task he was accustomed to perform.
He leaped over the wall into the inn and walked back out through the door not long after, the saber already on his back again by now.
He appeared somewhat giddy with satisfaction and thus was light on his feet now. He quickly walked out of the alley and then made a detour toward the northern part of the city.
Gu Shenwei quietly followed him from a distance, while thinking, “The innkeeper must’ve got hold of some very important information unintentionally, but he didn’t think of it when I came to visit him. This might be the reason why he got assassinated tonight.
“As to this boy, he’s probably one of the apprentices trained by Hu Shining. The Golden Roc Fort has so many kung fu masters and will never send a small child to perform an assassination alone.”
Most of the apprentices at the secret base in Shu-lik were selected by Gu Shenwei, but only a few of them had left a deep impression on him. As such, even if the boy had stood facing him right now, he probably would have been unable to recognize him.
After walking down several streets, the boy believed himself to be completely safe. He sped up and entered a messy-looking area.
Upon seeing that, Gu Shenwei immediately shortened the distance between himself and the boy with quick steps, and when he was taking a turn to chase after the boy who had just disappeared into the shadows, he was ambushed. A hidden weapon suddenly flew out from somewhere behind a tree, which was only a few meters away on his right-hand side.
This hidden weapon’s arrival was sudden, but the level of its speed and ferocity was not that of the hidden weapons emitted by the little prince back in the Council Chamber of the royal palace. Gu Shenwei had guessed beforehand that the boy might be a lure and this might be a trap, so he remained vigilant against such surprise attacks all the time when he was chasing after the boy.
He took a small step forward to avoid the weapon and then leaped to the top of the wall on his right-hand side to stop the ambusher from escaping.
The ambusher, who was dressed completely in black, was evidently surprised by the Dragon King’s action and immediately jumped into the yard of the house. When the ambusher landed and was about to get up again, a cold saber was already placed against its neck.
“Maid Lotus!” the ambusher cried in a low female voice, trying to save her life with these two words.
The moment this ambusher had begun escaping from this place, Gu Shenwei had found her Lightness Skills very familiar. He predicted that she would jump up and down for many times and abruptly change direction during the vertical jumps to get rid of her follower before quickly leaving this place following a straight route. Given this, he chose to stand in the way through which she had to pass and prevent her from jumping up again.
The person sleeping inside the house seemed to be disturbed by the noise coming from outside and gave a little murmur.
Upon hearing that, Gu Shenwei pressed his saber against the female assassin’s throat and forced her to move backward until her back was against the wall of the yard. She behaved cooperatively and kept silent all this while. She even raised up her hands and placed them beside her ears, as a way to show that she would never fight back.
The person inside the house coughed several times and then fell back to sleep as there was no noise coming from outside again.
“I’ve come here to save you,” the female assassin said while deliberately approaching the Dragon King and blowing air onto his face, acting as if she were a close friend of the Dragon King.
Gu Shenwei was familiar with the crazy women from the New Moon Hall and knew their moves well. He slightly raised his left hand to block the airflow and at the same time, put more weight on his saber with his right hand, as a way of warning the woman not to emit a sound.
The female assassin was very obedient. She immediately stiffened her body and even kept her eyes unblinkingly fixed on him.
She turned out to be more childish than probably the boy he had been tracking. She seemed not scared at all, as if the saber against her throat were just a toy.
He waited until the person in the house fell fast asleep and then whispered to the woman, “Evidence.”
He found it very strange that Maid Lotus, who should have returned from the trip to Jade City by now, had not yet shown up. As for this female assassin, she seemed to be a very cheerful person and did not belong among those disciples of the New Moon Hall.
“Look at my sword,” said the female assassin, cordially. In the meantime, she moved her eyeballs downward toward her sword.
Gu Shenwei did not follow suit. He used his left hand to take out the sword from where it had been stuck in her belt, while looking straight into her eyes.
When he took the sword off from her, she could not help wiggling and giggling, seemingly as if the scabbard had accidentally touched some ticklish place in her waist.
“She’s crazy like all the other disciples of the New Moon Hall, but in a very different way,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
No matter what the female assassin did, he still remained undisturbed. He held his breath to prevent inhaling any knockout powder and then quickly glanced at the sword in his left hand under the moonlight. There was nothing special about this sword, and he did not notice any mark left by Maid Lotus on the scabbard.
“Drew the sword out,” whispered the female assassin, somewhat anxiously. She even forgot about the saber against her throat and used both hands to grip the scabbard.
Gu Shenwei took hold of the hilt and pulled it gently. The next moment, he saw a broken sword.
Maid Lotus had two swords. The “Huan” sword had a character “Huan” carved on its the hilt, while the “Yun” sword bore a character “Yun” on its hilt. The ‘Huan” sword had been broken when they had worked together to ambush Old Man Mu back in the desert. Since then, Maid Lotus kept the broken sword.
The female assassin’s sword turned out to be the broken “Huan” sword.
“Managing Master treasured it so much that she carried it around with herself all the time. She hesitated for a long time before agreeing to lend it to me. Haven’t you recognized it?” asked the female assassin.
“Why does the New Moon Hall send this woman to assassinate me? And this woman even claimed that she did this to save me,” Gu Shenwei thought in bewilderment, but he could not talk with the woman at this place. He inserted the broken sword back into its scabbard, slowly sheathed his own saber, and then jumped over the wall to leave the yard.
The female assassin seemed to find the Dragon King’s behaviors very funny and shook her head. Knowing that she would never be able to escape from him, she also jumped out of the yard to catch up with the Dragon King,
As he had already lost track of the boy, he returned to his tent.
As soon as they entered the tent, the female assassin took out the flint and lit the oil lamp on the table. After that, she stepped aside and stood with her hands down. At this moment, she looked more like a maid than a captive of the Dragon King.
“What’s your name?” Gu Shenwei asked her. As he began to believe her now, his voice sounded a little softer than before.
The female assassin keenly noticed the change in his mood and started to smile, her eyes curving up into the shape of crescent moons. She tore off her mask, revealing a cheerful smiling face. “My name is Han Fen. ‘Fen’ as in “Fen Fang”(fragrant). I’m a disciple of the New Moon Hall and the most trusted person of our Managing Master,” said the young woman.
“If all she has said is true and she has never bragged about herself, Maid Lotus really chose a wrong person to trust,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
“How come I’ve never met you before?” asked Gu Shenwei. He knew quite a lot of disciples of the New Moon Hall in Jade City and was sure that this Han Fen was not one of them.
“Managing Master said that she wanted her most trusted person to hide in the shadows, so I always hid in the shadows. This is the first time I’ve come out to perform a task,” replied Han Fen.
“Why did you attack me?”
“I was helping you out at that time. Besides, I was also curious about your kung fu and so I tried you out. Managing Master is right. You do have superb kung fu.”
Gu Shenwei was struck speechless and thought, “It’s easy to say so, but it’s really hard to believe that this woman just wanted to ‘try me out’. She threw the hidden weapon at me with all her strength. What a crazy woman. No doubt she’s from the New Moon Hall, but why is she so happy and cheerful? Disciples of the New Moon Hall all look depressed, but this woman seems to be able to derive pleasure from nothing.
“Besides, she hasn’t told me the thing that I most want to know.”
He looked coldly at Han Fen, but she was perfectly calm and completely at ease. She even carefully observed him as if he was a rare animal. After quite a long time, she finally came to understand the situation. “Oh, you want to know more about the boy. Hee-hee, why didn’t you just ask me directly? I thought that you were searching for my vulnerable points. I’m indeed a disciple of the New Moon Hall and the most trusted person of our Managing Master. She has left a mark on me. If you don’t believe me, I can show it to you.”
With these words, she began to undress herself. Gu Shenwei always considered himself to be very patient, but at this moment, he felt that his nerves were worn out. He raised his hand up to stop her, while saying, “No, don’t bother. Let’s talk about the boy first.”
“Alright, well, that boy was trying to lure you into a trap, so I had to stop you,” said Han Fen.
She gave no further explanation about this simple statement. She seemed to believe that the Dragon knew everything that she knew and thus all she needed to do was to drop him a hint.
After having difficult conversations with Han Fen, Gu Shenwei confirmed two things.
Firstly, Han Fen was no doubt a disciple of the New Moon Hall. She was totally crazy although she looked normal. She also thought in a different way. She was simple-minded and only able to understand very specific questions. If the query was not specific enough, she would fail to get it and begin to ramble about all sorts of irrelevant matters she saw. For example, she would tell the Dragon King that his clothes looked a little bit worn out.
Secondly, the boy was indeed a bait to lure him into the trap.
Han Fen also explained the reason for the delayed return of Maid Lotus. It was a long story and she told it in reverse order. Given this, Gu Shenwei spent quite a long time sorting out the logic and understanding her story.
The New Moon Hall disciples worked like busy bees all the time. Once they were assigned to a job, they would never stop working. Over the past 8 to 9 months, when their Managing Master had been away from the Jade City, they had still been working methodically.
During the first few months, the Supreme King had deliberately turned a blind eye to his enemies’ activities in Jade City, while secretly planning to solve all the problems once and for all. Afterwards, when the cavalrymen of Norland began making war on countries of Western Region, the Golden Roc Fort killers also started purging its hidden enemies from both North and South Cities. All the people who favored or sympathized with the Dragon King suffered from the purges, including the disciples of the New Moon Hall.
Only a few New Moon Hall disciples got killed during this period. This was not because they were smarter than the others, but because their Master and Managing Master had prepared a plan B for them beforehand. The moment they noticed the Golden Roc Fort killers acting suspiciously, they dispersed and went into hiding. Some of them escaped from the city, and the others sneaked into North City.
While they were hiding, they continued to collect intelligence. Although none of them understood why they did this, they still strictly implemented the orders from their superiors. In their eyes, orders must be carried out.
A few months later, Maid Lotus sent out a secret code to summon the disciples upon her return to Jade City, and after analyzing all their intelligence reports, she found lots of valuable clues. She became particularly intrigued by one thing: a bunch of bandits who had openly surrendered to the Golden Roc Fort were on the way to the Xiaoyao Lake, and they did not take the shortcut in the east. They were heading for Shu-lik, which was located to the west of Jade City.
The leader of this bunch of bandits was Chipo, who had once fallen into the hands of the Dragon King and been bought away by some merchant in North City. He had faked his own death back then, but now he did not have to hide anymore.
Maid Lotus left half of the disciples in the city to continue collecting intelligence and led the other half, which was more than 40 disciples, to leave Jade City in batches. They headed toward the west, chasing after Chipo and his men.
Chipo changed his name and asked his men to summon their buddies immediately after they walked out of Jade City’s territory. He made generous promises to the newcomers and thus quickly recruited an army of more than 1,000 soldiers. After that, he led his army to advance toward the Hui Kingdom via the road in the west.
Before leaving to chase after Chipo, Maid Lotus ordered Han Fen to stay in the city and asked her to prevent the Dragon King from entering the ancestral shrine at all cost. She also left the “Huan” sword with Han Fen. Han Fen waited for another two months until she finally met the Dragon King in the capital of the Hui Kingdom, when he was nearly lured into the ancestral shrine by the boy who assassinated the innkeeper.
Upon learning that, Gu Shenwei asked Han Fen directly, “Where’s this ancestral shrine?” Now he had already gotten used to her direct manner.
“It’s located to the north of the palace, and all the dead kings are buried there.” Beyond his expectations, Han Fen had not only answered his question but also provided him some relevant information this time.
“What trap is there?”
“I don’t know, but Managing Master warned us not to get close to that place.”
Gu Shenwei frowned, as he had no idea what Maid Lotus was really up to. He became increasingly suspicious of Han Fen’s intentions but could not help asking her the question that he had asked many people recently. “Have you ever seen a young swordsman who looks like…”
“Who looks like a girl, isn’t it?” Han Fen interrupted excitedly. “Yes, I’ve seen him and nearly mistaken him for some disciple of my own sect. However, he’s not smart enough.”
She pointed at her own head and added with an earnest expression on her face, “He fell into the trap. He was lured into the ancestral shrine and never came out.”
