Death Scripture

There was a pile of dirty snow remaining from the late winter at the corner of a wall. Under the bright moonlight, the snow mounds looked like severely decayed corpses that would nourish new life at springtime.

A teenager was sitting upright on the top of a wall in Hope Alley. He finally realized why he felt that he had to come and see Immortal Peng.

He cradled the newly-forged sword in his arms as if he was embracing a long-lost lover. Although he did not know how to love people, he already had feelings of affection for his sword. He felt that the sword had meant everything to him.

He was like a child who had just learned to speak. He liked to speak on every occasion just to prove that he could.

He suddenly woke up. What Immortal Peng had wanted Xu Xiaoyi to convey was not a prophecy, but was actually a challenge from one swordman to another.

Gu Shenwei stood up again and he jumped from one wall to another like a hunting wildcat. Soon, he arrived at the back of Joy Pavilion. From there, he could vaguely see the peach forest in Gui Garden which was not far away outside the wall.

All the lights on the first and second floor had been extinguished. The only thing that could be seen was the flickering light of a lamp on the third floor.

Just when the young killer was wondering about how to climb up, someone came and opened a small window on the third floor. It had once prevented Chu Yangjun from competing with Gu Shenwei in swordsmanship.

A man stuck his head out of the window. His face was pockmarked, his eyelids were folded outward, and one of his nostrils was missing. It made him appear as if he had been burnt in hot water. He was so ugly that even the moonlight was shocked.

“Why did you come so late?” the ugly man asked before he jumped out and deftly landed onto the top of the wall. He slightly bent his legs and stretched out his arms to reveal two short swords.

Gu Shenwei knew that there were many strange people in Joy Pavilion, so he asked, “Are you Immortal Peng?”

“Yes.”

To Gu Shenwei’s surprise, Immortal Peng did not look like a sage at all. On the contrary, he turned out to be an ugly man who had no demeanor.

Since they met for a sword fight, they did not waste any time to talk nonsense. They focused all their attention on their swords. He was Ye Silang and Chu Yangjun’s Master Shifu. If Gu Shenwei wanted to kill him and improve his swordsmanship then Immortal Peng had to be taken seriously.

Like a spider, Maid Lotus was attached to the wall and was waiting for an opportunity to take action. She had agreed with Slave Huan that they would, at the same time, both openly and secretly hunt for the top martial artist.

As killers, they would do whatever they can to kill their opponent and to improve their own swordsmanship.

“You’re no match for him,” someone else on the third floor said while showing his face, which was just as ugly as his partner.

The second ugly man jumped out of the window and landed behind Gu Shenwei. He also held two short swords. It was exactly the same as the first ugly man’s.

“Who’re you?” Gu Shenwei was a bit confused and became vigilant. If this was a trap, then he and Maid Lotus would execute the backup plan—fleeing to the peach forest.

“Immortal Peng,” the second ugly man answered in an impatient tone. It was as if he blamed Gu Shenwei for having asked the question despite knowing the answer.

Gu Shenwei became more confused. ” Is he playing tricks on me? What’s the point of doing so? Is the fortune teller playing a game?”

A series of thoughts had flashed through Gu Shenwei’s mind before he suddenly realized that it was stupid of him to obsess about these when he was confronted with an enemy. Therefore, he decided to adopt the simplest solution.

He unsheathed his blade and tried to stab the first ugly man since his living energy was clearly visible and more obvious than Ye Silang’s and Chu Yangjun’s. Gu Shenwei was confident that he could defeat the man in one strike, and he felt that he did not even need Maid Lotus’ assistance.

He planned to jump over the first ugly man, stab him in the back, and then use his corpse as a shield against the second ugly man so that he could buy some time for breathing and for preparing the next strike.

Everything happened as he had expected. Like a crow, he flew above the first ugly man and landed precisely behind the enemies, however, the blade in his hand was gone. The first ugly man did not die, and he turned around. His arms were hanging down with short swords in his hands and his fierce eyes were filled with a hint of admiration. He looked as if he had watched a monkey perform movements that only human beings could make.

Someone had snatched his sword. Gu Shenwei was so stunned that he took a few steps back.

The two ugly men were not the ones who had taken his sword away, but rather it was a third person who had appeared at the window on the third floor. Dressed in a white robe, the man had a square face, thick dagger-shaped eyebrows, and a long whisker reaching his chest. He held a white rope in the right hand and the killer’s sword in the left.

“Come upstairs,” the white-robed man said in a commanding tone.

Although he did not intend to threaten anybody, he made it difficult for Gu Shenwei to refuse.

“Who are you?”

Gu Shenwei made up his mind to escape at the moment when the white-robed man was distracted while answering his question. It turned out that he was too reckless on this visit because the situation in Joy Pavilion was much more complex than he had imagined. However, what the white-robed man said next made him stay.

“Immortal Peng.”

The young killer no longer treated it as a game. He felt peeved, but he could not sense the danger.

The two ugly men jumped off the high wall, pushed the back door open, and entered the first floor.

They left the door open for the killer.

Gu Shenwei had always been a skeptical person, but somehow, he trusted “Immortal Peng”. Like an obsessed person who had solved half of a puzzle, he felt like continuing on regardless of what the price might be.

Gu Shenwei stamped his foot and also leaped down from the high wall before entering Joy Pavilion. After receiving the hint, Maid Lotus would secretly leave. It would be wiser to let Gu Shenwei go inside alone just in case there was a trap in there.

There was no one on the first floor, where the tea utensils were neatly arranged. The second floor was similarly empty, there was only a circle of chairs that were placed near the wall. The third floor, however, was crowded with people.

It was a large room. In the middle stood a slender bronze statue, which vaguely resembled a flying female celestial. One of the statue’s arms was raised high while holding a small lamp.

All of the light in the entirety of Joy Pavilion came from it.

There were about 30 or 40 people either sitting or standing around. Most of them were ugly and physically handicapped. Gu Shenwei had seen several of them on the first floor of the teahouse before. There were four or five other people who were particularly handsome. For example, the demeanor of the white-robed man with a long whisker and a white rope was comparable to Ye Silang and Chu Yangjun.

In other words, there was not a single ordinary-looking man on the third floor. They were either extremely ugly or extremely handsome.

At the far end of the room, there was a huge screen full of Chinese characters, but Gu Shenwei could not clearly read any of them. This reminded him of Luo Ningcha who had never shown her true face.

The white-robed man came forward, bowed slightly while holding the sword with both hands, and returned it to its owner.

Gu Shenwei took the sword, hesitated for a moment before putting it back into his scabbard. No one spoke, and he did not speak either. But in his heart, he began to doubt whether his decision was right or not.

“Your swordsmanship is quite good. Who did you learn it from?” asked a one-legged man.

“My swordsmanship is not good enough, otherwise my sword would not have been snatched away,” replied Gu Shenwei.

“No, no. Your swordsmanship is good. It’s a pity that you’re not learning it right and you don’t have a strong will. That’s why you lost your sword,” a cman said.

“Who, who are you?”

“I’ve told you many times. I’m Immortal Peng.” This time the speaker was a handsome young man.

Gu Shenwei felt as if there was a disgusting and creepy reptile crawling around in his heart. He had seen mutilated corpses and mounds of dead people, but he had never felt as uneasy as he was now.

“You…” Gu Shenwei’s eyes scanned the faces of dozens of people and finally fell on the screen. The real Immortal Peng was behind it and the others were just his mouthpieces. As he realized this, he was no longer as afraid as he had been previously, although he still felt that it was a little weird.

“Hey, Your Excellency is really good at fooling people,” Gu Shenwei said so while he was actually thinking about Xu Xiaoyi. That boy was here before and had been making inquiries for several days, but he did not report such an important piece of information.

“Those who knew me said I was sad at heart. Those who didn’t know me said I was seeking for something.”

Gu Shenwei stared at the screen and ignored whichever strange person was talking this time. He replied, “You seem to have expected me to come.”

“Hmm, I thought you’d be here a long time ago, but you were too skeptical and had wasted a lot of time.”

“Haven’t you told your own fortune?”

“If you believe in fortune-telling, then it’s true. If you don’t believe in it, then it’s nothing. Others believe in it when I tell their fortune. I don’t believe in it, so I never tell my own fortune.”

Immortal Peng was frank. Gu Shenwei realized that his alertness was constantly diminishing. As long as he relaxed a bit, he would unwittingly feel at ease. Although he was surrounded by dozens of people, all of whom seemed to be top-notch experts, he did not feel nervous at all. He was very certain that no one would hurt him.

“Well, I’m here. What do you want from me?”

“You killed Ye Silang and Chu Yangjun.”

“Humph, were they your disciples?”

“No, they’re just people who learned swordsmanship from me and then left me.”

In Gu Shenwei’s eyes, Immortal Peng was deliberately mystifying things again. However, he soon understood that he had learnt a lot of martial arts skills from Mama Xue, but they were not master and disciple.

“So you had used me to kill them.” Gu Shenwei was not afraid to think of others in a most unkind way and he was rarely wrong.

“I didn’t mean to kill them or to use you. It was just a competition between two styles of swordsmanship. I just wanted to know the result.”

It was a creepy conversation. Each time Immortal Peng spoke, he used a different voice which could come from any direction. Gu Shenwei stared at the screen and imagined that the other side to be a top-notch ventriloquist so that he could feel a little bit more normal. He said, “The murderous sword defeated the dueling sword.”

“To me, the Emotionless Sword has surpassed the Affectionate Sword.”

“Haha.” Gu Shenwei raised his head and laughed. Suddenly, before his laughter ceased, he dashed toward the screen in an attempt to see Immortal Peng’s true face.

A man appeared from nowhere to block his way.

Gu Shenwei immediately retreated. He should have changed his direction and rushed forward again, but he was startled by the look of the person in his way. His Internal Breath stalled for a bit, and he missed a good opportunity to attack.

The one that came out from behind the screen was a teenager whose face appeared to be immature, but his eyebrows and eyes strongly resembled Chu Yangjun’s. It made him appear as gentle and tranquil as a woman.

“You are… Chu Yangjun’s younger brother?”

“I’m Immortal Peng.” The teenager still repeated the same answer.

Gu Shenwei was startled and puzzled. Before he even knew it, he was gripped by the teenager on one wrist. Their hands seemed to stick together, regardless of how hard he struggled to free himself. He attempted to draw his saber with the other hand, but it was also held by another person.

The men who were gripping his wrists were holding hands with the others. Thus, they were connected to each other as they formed a circle.

Again, the killer lost his ability to detect the danger. It was as if he knew that everyone had no intentions to harm to him and that Immortal Peng was helping him.

A pitch-black cane, which seemed to be made from either iron or wood, slowly protruded from behind the screen, and was gently laid on the teenager’s shoulder.

A current of gentle Internal Breath entered his left arm and exited his right three times before everyone loosened their grip. Someone retracted the crutch and the teenager drew back behind the screen.

“So that’s why. Now I see,” Immortal Peng said again using someone’s mouth. “That’s quite something. You’ve mastered such a swordsmanship despite having to keep the Peripheral Force suppressed.”

“Can you remove it?” Gu Shenwei blurt out with a trembling voice. The Peripheral Force was both an internal injury and his sore spot. He tried not to think about it, but the three-year period set by Mama Xue was drawing to an end and he was looking forward to a miracle.

“Yes, I can.” An old voice full of authority rang out. Gu Shenwei was startled by it even though he had no reason to be startled.