Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
It was more complicated than expected to recruit soldiers from the Land of Fragrance. Gu Shenwei put forth his ideas, but when he tried to put them into practice, he could do nothing but hand them over to Zhong Heng.
The Land of Fragrance was wide but sparsely populated, and only a small piece of land around the capital was registered. It would take at least a year or two to carry out national measurement.
Zhong Heng adopted a simple method. According to the length of service and number of military exploits, the soldiers recruited would be given various plots of land with no specific location. The soldiers would receive a certificate with their names printed, noting the exact acreage.
Only at the end of the service could soldiers get real land. Their immediate family members could inherit the land if the solders died in war, but they were not allowed to privately buy or sell the land.
Even before formal recruitment, they had managed to satisfy the existing 20,000 soldiers. Some of them had followed the Dragon King for many years and made outstanding military exploits, but they had not yet received much reward.
All swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain refused to accept the land of the Land of Fragrance. They liked the women there, but they didn’t like the sultry and humid climate and the overcrowded foliage. They missed their snowy hometown and their biggest wish was to return home one day.
They also had a request which they were too embarrassed to ask. The Dragon King knew what it was, but he could not publicly accept it because he had already promised Golden Roc Fort to New Moon Hall.
One of the conditions for New Moon Hall to cooperate with the Dragon King was that he would eventually take possession of Golden Roc Fort. According to Maid Lotus, Han Wuxian, the Master who had never shown himself, had greater ambitions.
Gu Shenwei was suspicious of New Moon Hall and didn’t want to leave Golden Roc Fort to join this unpredictable organization. But this idea could never be heard, so he used other methods to appease the thousands of Swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain, who, though small in number, were the most trustworthy force of the Dragon King.
The Swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain had their own unique Kung Fu. Through years of killing each other and fighting with the Golden Roc Killer, the Swordsmen had grasped a set of Kung Fu perfectly effective in fighting alone and in groups. But their lack of advanced Internal Strength is a fatal flaw. This was the main reason why many outstanding swordsmen made remarkable progress when they were young, but could never become top masters as they grew older.
Gu Shen personally selected 200 swordsmen under the age of 30 and rewarded them by teaching them the first 6 chapters of Wayless Qigong.
This was Maid Lotus’ idea. In fact, thanks to her, many disciples of New Moon Hall had been practicing divine kung fu for a long time and achieved great results.
Wayless Qigong was originally the supreme martial art enjoyed by Supreme King. But with the effort of the two traitors, its influence was spreading.
The other swordsmen were not awarded divine kung fu. Some of them were too old and had passed the best time to practice Internal Strength; some did not want it because they knew they were not very well talented. Gu Shenwei commissioned a large number of weapons from Wushan and gave the best of them to the swordsmen.
This way, he secured more loyalty from the swordsmen.
For them, Internal Strength and weapons awarded by Dragon King were far more valuable than the land of the Land of Fragrance.
Tuo Nengya’s machetemen preferred money and land. They were the only ones who got real land, which was just outside the capital of the Land of Fragrance.
Hundreds of forest savages had gradually accepted the outside world. Their idea was simple. They did not covet land or gold or silver, and their only hope was to return to the forest alive and bring the villagers out to see the world.
They were illiterate and could not understand the advanced instructions for Internal Strength. Gu Shen made a decision on their behalf, leaving a whole piece of land adjacent to the forest for these guard troops.
When he left the forest, Gu Shenwei also took a group of children and gave them all to Hu Shining for training.
Soldiers of the five countries could choose land or money, but no matter what, they would receive the credentials, only getting the real thing after the war.
The royal families of all countries were both worried and reassured by Dragon King’s move. They were worried that they might lose all of their own people but were reassured that the Dragon King would be busy focusing on running the Land of Fragrance and would leave their throne alone.
In any case, it was true that enough soldiers had been recruited in this way, and Dragon King’s army expanded every day. Zhong Heng even allowed some recruits to send their families to the Land of Fragrance first.
The nobles in the Land of Fragrance had more complicated feelings than the royal families in various countries. Land of Fragrance was their country, while it was now given generously to outsiders as a gift by Dragon King.
As for the slave soldiers, they were very excited about this. They became the most proactive soldiers, training tirelessly, all wanting to make contributions in the battlefield and get more land in the future.
During this period, there were several plots by nobles to provoke slaves to stir up trouble, none of which was successful. This indicated that land was easier to understand than freedom, and it was easier to arouse fighting ambition. Gu Shenwei regretted that he had not realized this earlier.
The number of the nobles was too small and their Kung Fu was too weak. After fighting a few battles, they were all silenced.
While Zhong Heng and Dugu Xian recruited and trained new recruits, Gu Shenwei was busy cleaning up the people around him.
First of all, Hu Shining’s killer apprentices had been “polluted” by Shangguan Yun, and their credibility was greatly reduced. But it would be a pity if they were all disbanded.
Gu Shenwei personally participated in the training, showing his machete skills in front of these apprentices, hoping to offset some of the influence of Shangguan Yun.
Seeing how Dragon King’s practice had achieved results, Hu Shining also helped elaborate by telling how the Dragon King had grown from a rejected apprentice to a first-class killer, arousing more respect from these apprentices. There were some exaggeration in his telling, but he was careful to hide the part where the Dragon King killed his master, which was not the ending he would want.
The hearts of people were unpredictable. Even children had to be watched out at any time. Gu Shenwei decided to continue to train these apprentices as useful killers, but he would never assign them the most important tasks.
As for the newly selected group of children, Gu Shenwei reminded Hu Shining to strictly separate them from the previous group.
Next, Gu Shenwei was to solve his biggest problem.
Gu Shenwei was puzzled by his excessive indulgence in carnal pleasure with the Princess the past three days. He felt that this was a huge security threat and was determined to find out why.
He did not need to look for suspects. He knew for sure that it was Maid Lotus’s doing. He even did not intend to take any retaliatory measures. But he needed to know the details.
Gu Shenwei could live with the fact that there were unfaithful people around him, a wart that even the most imperious emperor could not eradicate completely. But he must be very clear about their schemes so that he could be prepared with sufficient counter-measurements for the time when the wart became a cancer.
To others, he could interrogate them directly. To Maid Lotus, he couldn’t even show his intention to investigate.
The opportunity finally arrived.
Maid Lotus was very interested in the “Sumeru Mustard Mantra” left by Monk Fayan. She had been treated by Fayan and therefore felt that this manual was very effective in alleviating her own evil yinqi.
The scripture was divided into two volumes, hidden under the throne of the Stone Kingdom and protected by the unknowing king day after day.
Before practicing, they had a big problem to solve. The scripture was too profound and full of transliteration of the Sanskrit and countless parables. Neither of them could understand it.
Gu Shenwei suddenly understood why among the letters from Fayan congratulating him on his marriage, there was one for the recommendation of an eminent monk of the capital.
At the critical moment before the war, the Dragon King was not able to go to the monk to ask for Buddhist doctrines, and therefore this task fell to Maid Lotus.
Maid Lotus was ready to leave for the capital to visit the eminent monk, bringing two scriptures and a letter from Fayan with her.
Knowing Dragon King’s worries, she requested for a companion to go with her as she was afraid of not being able to remember.
Gu Shenwei did feel uncomfortable, and therefore he did not pretend to refuse and assigned Chu Nanping to listen to the eminent monk’s speech as well.
Chu Nanping was one of the key people that Shangguan Yun had tried to convert. This young swordsman’s brother had died under the Dragon King’s sword. In Shangguan Yun’s view, this had caused a rift between the two of them.
However, after a short conversation with Chu Nangping, Shangguan Yun gave up his efforts. Chu Nanping saw the world in a different way. He was cultivating the Emotionless Doctrine. To him, revenge for his brother was a ridiculous idea. Of course he wanted to kill Dragon King, but it was a goal to demonstrate that his practicing Emotionless Swordsmanship had reached the highest level. At this moment he wanted to protect the Dragon King. Nobody else could kill the Dragon King before he did.
Shangguan Yun knew what had happened to the “Secrets of Love” in the Joy Pavilion, so he stopped trying.
Chu Nanping was still one of Gu Shenwei’s most trusted people.
With Maid Lotus not around for the time being, Gu Shenwei decided to investigate.
Although the Princess felt deeply humiliated, she still abided by her duty as the Queen and sent people to the barracks every day, sending her regards and asking Dragon King to come to the palace to see her.
The Princess did not expect the Dragon King to accept the invitation. When the news came that the Dragon King was on the way, she was both surprised and delighted.
But before long, the pleasant surprise turned into disappointment.
This meeting was more like an interrogation.
After dismissing the maid, Gu Shenwei threw a series of questions at the Princess, ones that even a husband and wife would blush with shame.
At first, the Princess refused to answer.
“It is very important.” Gu Shenwei said, believing that the Princess would listen to reason, “someone did something to us. I have to find out the truth.”
“Who did what? What does this mean?” The Princess asked in dismay.
“Think about it. We were not ourselves those three days. We must have been under someone’s control; otherwise we would not have done that kind of thing.”
The Princess blushed. She had never known about her own desires, much less what the former Dragon King had been like, so she had no idea whether they were behaving normally those three days.
But the Dragon King’s words did remind her that at this very moment, she had no desire for the Dragon King. She had thought it was because she was resentful. With a second thought, she realized this was her natural instinct.
“I don’t know. Was the food drugged? ”
“Impossible. I checked carefully. There was no problem with the food. I need you to recall carefully. Did anyone approach you suspiciously around the wedding? The person who put their hands on you was proficient in strange arts. He did not necessarily have to resort to drugs.”
The Princess blushed again; some words were difficult to say. Even in retrospect, she felt embarrassed. But the Dragon King’s eyes bore into her like knives. Her only choice was to tell the truth. “I don’t know who it was, or it might just be a dream. There were some nights when a person came and poked me on some points of my body and I felt … very comfortable.” She said.
This was a useful clue. Gu Shenwei turned to leave. He knew who to interrogate next.
The Princess was left alone, and she sighed with relief and sorrow. She missed the life when she had only been someone else’s puppet.
