Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Old Man Mu and Dog Butcher widened their eyes and watched two brief yet wonderful kung fu competitions, shaking and nodding their heads without any comments. To Old Man Mu, this was something more difficult than giving up killing, and yet he did it anyways.
After the two Sect Leaders’ humble and polite discussion, Liu Yuanpu became the first contestant, with his opponent being Mo Lin.
A fast saber versus a fast sword. From beginning to end, the two competed against each other purely on each other’s speed the whole time. The spectators could barely find time to cheer and it was only at the end of the competition that the cumulative cheers and applause broke forth.
Mo Lin seemed to have reached a tacit agreement with Lin Yuanpu. They moved backwards simultaneously, put away their weapons and exchanged courtesies with a nod. The duel had ended in a draw.
It was also an unwritten rule in an informal kung fu competition that contestants would never exert their unique skills or fight with tooth and nail.
The second match was Mo Lin versus Lu Mian. The whole fighting process was so strange that barely anybody could tell exactly what the two contestants were doing, and thus only a few people cheered for them at the end. Deng Yuanlei was the only one who applauded dramatically, and the look on his face was more of fear than admiration.
The reason why people felt that the second match was strange was mostly because of Lu Mian. Before the fight began, people noticed that his face was growing redder, like burning charcoal, and then he started waving his sword around while nobody was there. He wielded the sword here and there, not attacking anyone or defending himself.
He was like one of those drunken swordsmen, wielding their swords in a casual and impromptu way.
Mo Lin watched this sort of threatless swordsmanship for a while, biding his time and not making a move. He hold his scimitar, like a young student who couldn’t understand the great works of a master and didn’t dare make any comments.
In the end, a brief one-move engagement took place between the two. Lu Mian had been wielding the sword by himself for nearly half an hour when Mo Lin launched his first attack. The strike was as quick as a lightning, and nobody could tell whether Lu Mian fought back or not. Anyway, the saber had barely entered the waving range of the sword when Mo Lin moved back immediately.
When everybody thought the competition was about to continue, Mo Lin gave a nod, indicating that the fight was over.
Tu Pianpian had a vague idea about what had happened, but couldn’t clearly understand it. When she saw her brother’s frown which indicated that he had understood more about the fight than she did, she felt especially ashamed. But she didn’t show anything on her face. In a loud voice, she said, “Now you know about the kung fu proficiency of the Sect Leaders of the Qingcheng Sect. Do you think that they’re qualified for a competition with you?”
“Yes.” Gu Shenwei answered himself this time. Lu Mian’s swordsmanship had greatly surprised him, but he wouldn’t display that either. “At noon, the day after tomorrow at the young king’s camp. Anyone is welcome to come watch the competition.”
“Your camp? No way!” Deng Yuanlei rejected without even thinking about it.. “The Dragon King picked the time, so the place should be our decision.”
Yet Gu Shenwei had already turned his horse around and signaled Old Man Mu and the others to mount their horses and get ready to leave.
Mo Lin got on his horse last. “His Majesty trusts you to honor the rules, so you should trust His Majesty too.
Deng Yuanlei knew the Dragon King’s ‘rules’ the best, and cried out, “the Dragon King’s a killer. There’s nothing he won’t do. We won’t…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Tu Pianpian interrupted. “The Kongtong Sect trusts Dragon King. At noon of the day after tomorrow, in the young king’s camp. We’ll be there.”
Deng Yuanlei knew that this old woman had a bad impression of him, so he sneered. To his surprise, Liu Yuanpu also declared aloud, “Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect, Liu Yuanpu, also accepts the fight invitation.”
Deng Yuanlei took a look at Lu Mian and then realized that nobody would support him, so he could only say, “Okay, then. It seems that everybody trusts the Dragon King… but there’re still several things to be made clear, like the rules of the competition, the Khan’s head…”
The Dragon King and his men had already gone far away and Mo Lin was the only one who had stayed behind. “You want the head, and His Majesty wants the hostages. It’s that simple.” After a few steps, Mo Lin turned over. “And we’re taking Khan’s body regardless.”
Deng Yuanlei had a vague premonition that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t dare speak out again because the two Sect Leaders of the Qingcheng Sect were eying him with hostility.
“The hostages are mine,” Lu Mian said, his voice quivering with excitement, which was completely different from the unperturbed temperament he had displayed while making his martial arts move.
“I will be the Sect Leader.” Liu Yuanpu raised his head and threw out his chest, looking a lot more composed than Lu Mian. “Whoever gets the Khan’s head shall be the final Sect Leader. You should be sincerely grateful that I am giving you this opportunity.”
“Sincerely grateful?” Lu Mian looked even more exited. His lips were trembling and he could barely speak.
Among them all, Tu Pianpian was the only one eligible to be a mediator. So she stood between the two. “We’re all from the Central Plains, so don’t give those outsiders any chances to laugh at us in Norland.” She glanced at Deng Yuanlei while talking. “Now that we have agreed that whoever gets the Khan’s head will become the Sect Leader, we should put a stop to this nonsense.
The Khan’s body had been placed in a tent at the depths of the palace, guarded by only five or six eunuchs. People could smell a kind of funky odor from far away, and the eunuchs were more than happy to hand over the headless body to Mo Lin. By now, they were disappointed but also relieved.
The eunuchs had hoped that in the end, some lord would come to take the body and that they would be handsomely rewarded for tending the body. But by now, most of the lords were dead, and the broken body had become a hot potato.
Some soldiers shoveled dirt onto the coffin and fully covered it up so that the smell wouldn’t spread. Then they put it into a giant net and used two horses to transport it.
Three men from the Central Plains guarded nearby. They didn’t care about the broken body. Rather, they were standing guard in case Mo Lin tried to steal the head.
No unusual actions were detected.
Gu Shenwei was familiar and thus impervious to the smell. He watched the soldiers’ reaction quietly.
The soldiers followed their orders, but judging from their looks, none of them believed this hastily-wrapped-up body was the Khan.
Mo Lin was perhaps the only one who was truly grieving. He himself shoveled dirt onto the coffin and carried it into the giant net with the soldiers.
After they left the palace and were on their way back, Mo Lin said, “the Khan had always felt that people around him were not trustworthy, and that everybody wanted him dead. I never expected it to be true.”
“There were more people who didn’t believe he could die at all,” Gu Shenwei replied, watching the Court Attendants Army members in the procession. They had joined the 500 Court Attendants Army soldiers and were now retracing their steps back to the camp.
“I don’t know which kind of people would disappoint the Khan more.” Mo Lin still felt that the whole thing was unbelievable. With so much betrayal and also extreme loyalty, the Khan had still died and his body left almost unattended. “Loyalty can also cause evil consequences. I guess that there are barely any people left that believe this.”
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, then Gu Shenwei wouldn’t have believed it either. In terms of loyalty, he was in no place to compare himself with the Khan.
At this moment, most of his concern was about the kung fu of the two Sect Leaders of the Qingcheng Sect, especially that of Lu Mian. Behind him, Old Man Mu and Dog Butcher were also consulting in low tones. They were talking so passionately that it seemed like they bore no grudges against each other at all.
Gu Shenwei was eying the back of a soldier the whole time and he didn’t even realize how long he had been staring there when all of a sudden, he felt a chill crawl up his back. He quickly raised his hand and ordered the procession to stop.
Most of the 500 cavalrymen were still following them, while only four of them were leading. And the one who had alerted Gu Shenwei was among the four soldiers in the front.
The night was still dark. Gu Shenwei never accustomed himself to the geography of the spacious grasslands, and he still constantly lost his sense of direction if he didn’t pay extra attention to it. “What direction are we going?”
Mo Lin came around from his grief and noticed that something was wrong. “We’re headed excessively south.”
Gu Shenwei whipped out his saber, and the four soldiers jumped off of their horses, each headed in a different direction. Their lightness skills were superb, which made it clear that they were not common Norland cavalrymen.
But the four had already missed their chance to escape.
Gu Shenwei caught up with the one he suspected the most in just a single leap and hit him with a palm attack. When he grabbed the unconscious captive and turned around, Mo Lin, Old Man Mu, and Dog Butcher had also finished their jobs.
Old Man Mu subdued his killing desire with great efforts, gnashing his teeth while saying to Dog Butcher, “I’m faster than you.”
The other cavalrymen gathered around immediately, all panicking and wondering what had happened.
Gu Shenwei removed the captive’s helmet, revealing long hair and clearly indicating the owner’s female identity. After wiping her face several times, all the cavalrymen gave an exclamation in unison.
“Get ready to fight,” Gu Shenwei ordered. Since the disciples of the Waning Moon Hall had led the procession onto a wrong path, there must be an ambush lying in wait.
The 500 cavalrymen reacted quickly, some readying their bows for a fight, while others held out their sabers to guard the coffin and some going out on patrol.
There were four captives. Only the one Gu Shenwei had captured was from the Waning Moon Hall, the other three were all male Norlanders.
Mo Lin was the first one to manage to get his captive talking. “They killed the leading soldiers while they were peeing and disguised themselves as them, but he doesn’t know where the ambush spot is.”
Gu Shenwei hadn’t noticed that they were going in the wrong direction, and the cavalrymen behind him had merely followed along. They didn’t dare ask any questions – actually they didn’t know the purpose of this night operation at all.
Gu Shenwei brought the captive in his hands back to consciousness by shaking her. “What’s your name?”
The captive was young. In order to disguise herself as a man, she had stuffed her clothes, and that was where Gu Shenwei spotted a flaw. She looked at the Dragon King, fear in her eyes. “Han Ting.”
“Where were you leading us to?”
Han Ting smiled, showing off the typical madness of the Waning Moon Hall for the first time. “Where?”
Gu Shenwei tried to dig through her mouth with his fingers, but it was already too late.
Han Ting bitten a poison capsule and killed herself. Gu Shenwei dropped the body, checked his palm, and found nothing unusual. “Find some soldiers who know the right direction. Kill these three.”
Old Man Mu whistled in excitement, yet Gu Shenwei didn’t allow him to do this task and instead assigned this simple task to the cavalrymen.
All three captives were struck in the acupoint or had broken bones, which made them unable to escape. Facing tens of arrows, they cried out loudly in Norland dialect, but nobody showed any compassion.
None of the arrows missed their targets. Each of the captive was hit by more than ten arrows.
Mo Lin had already found some soldiers who could lead the way and brought them here. He heard the final scream of the captives. “They said that Your Majesty was the incarnation of the devil, coming here to scourge the grassland.”
Gu Shenwei jumped onto his horse. He believed that this reputation’s was going to be with him for a long time. ‘It’s not terribly wrong though,’ he thought. At the very least he hadn’t come here to bring them happiness.
The procession had barely started adjusting its direction when the area to their south was lit up by a large number of torches. Although Gu Shenwei wasn’t in the ambush ring, he wasn’t far from it either.
“This time I’m free to kill, right?” Old Man Mu was very excited. But as the number of torches grew bigger and bigger, it seemed there were hundreds of thousands of enemies in ambush. Old Man Mu was not so sure anymore. “These sons of bitches, motherfucking bastards. Let’s fight while retreating.”
