Death Scripture

The Pot-bellied Buddha seemed to be satisfied after getting the one thousand liang of silver, he patted his round belly and said, “Oh, my good girl, you are really my money tree. You’ve earned more silver than the other daughters earnings combined. How can I reward you?”

“Thank you, Father. I’m happy as long as you are happy, so I need no reward,” Xu Yanwei’s voice was trembling.

“Why not? I haven’t made out with you for days. Let me make it up this time.”

“I, I’m a bit tired, from last night…”

“Well, women would never be tired for such things. It is men who would feel exhausted. I would like you to be on top so I could see your progress.”

Xu Yanwei was still thinking of wriggling out of it when Pot-bellied Buddha grabbed her hair, pulled her out from the quilt and throw her onto the floor, “Did you treat your guests in the same way? Then one thousand liang is far from enough. We should double the amount.”

The bodyguard in front of the door already became goggle-eyed and leaned forward a little. He was so concentrated that he failed to feel the knifepoint behind the curtain that had already touched him.

Gu Shenwei held the handle with his left hand and kept the counterfeited saber slightly upward. His right hand pressed on the end of the handle and pushed it by force. When the counterfeited saber moved smoothly forward by about a foot, Gu Shenwei immediately left the curtain and pulled out the knife so as to avoid being entangled due to the curtain being torn by the dying bodyguard.

A perfect thrust right into the heart. The guard was spitting a lot more blood compared to the blood flowing from his wound. The bodyguard died without any struggle.

Blood was dripping from the knife.

Knife in hand and keeping an eye on the stripped flabby man, Gu Shenwei took a circuitous route to check the breath of the bodyguard, making sure that he was really dead.

Pot-bellied Buddha had a belly really worthy of his name. The fat even dropped below the crotch, just like a thick layer of greasy leather armor.

“He had served for only 3 days, and I had nothing to do with him!”

Pot-bellied Buddha explained earnestly to Gu Shenwei, thinking that the killer’s only target was the bodyguard. He was not scared because he had a backing, who could protect him from being murdered in the South City.

When Gu Shenwei stepped forward, Pot-bellied Buddha became alarmed and took a step backward to sit on the bed. With his fat breast palpitating, Pot-bellied Buddha breathed heavily and said, “You can take the one thousand liang over there. I’m a member of the Meng Family, young man…”

With a heavy horizontal chop, Gu Shenwei cut apart the thick fat of Pot-bellied Buddha and his throat. He knew little about the “Meng Family” and didn’t realize that the mistress of the Golden Roc Fort was surnamed Meng after a long time.

With his eyes wide open, Pot-bellied Buddha failed to evade and could just see a flash of light from the knife before his stiff body fell down heavily onto the floor.

Xu Yanwei, was hiding at the corner of the bed. She screamed and bit a corner of the quilt hard due to fear. Looking at the place where the dead body was bleeding, she trembled like being bewitched, unable to turn around or close her eyes.

The assassination was so successful that Gu Shenwei even felt his previous preparations unnecessary. “Do you want the head?” Asked Gu Shenwei according to the rules of the Golden Roc Fort. If he were the guest, he would cut the head of the fat man off and take it away.

It was not until Gu Shenwei asked her again that Xu Yanwei heard it. She suddenly turned to the killer without a blink, seeming to be bewitched again. After quite a while, she understood what Gu Shenwei had said and replied, “No, No.”

Gu Shenwei took the silver of about fifty liang from the short desk. This was the rest of the reward for a successful assassination agreed on before.

“I’m leaving now.” He said while throwing the knife away, then he left from the back door following the planned route. There were still very few people on the street, so he returned to the Southwall Tavern soon.

The sister and brother were no fools. They would deal with the odds and ends, maybe hide away or escape, they would find a way. In short, they didn’t need to be cared for by other people.

It was before noon and the last drunkards in the tavern had been driven away. The workers were cleaning up the mess to prepare for another messy evening.

Being the first guest, Gu Shenwei did not drink, which made the workers very unhappy. They called the manager and wanted to send the unpopular teenager away.

Gu Shenwei put one hundred liang of silver on the table and said, “I only want one cup of wine, the reddest.”

This could settle any possible disputes. The workers immediately cleaned up the table used by Tie Hanfeng last evening and served a cup of the best wine in the tavern.

Looking at the red liquid, Gu Shenwei tried to overcome the vomiting feeling deep inside his stomach. Although he had been accustomed to the killing of others with him participating the slaughter of apprentices and death of various folk, he would still feel like this. It’s only that he covered it so well that others couldn’t see it. However, this part of him ashamed him.

After a short while, Tie Hanfeng came back with his face lit up with joy and waved at his apprentice at the door.

Gu Shenwei went up to Master Shifu and left the cup of wine on the table without even touching it.

They went back together to the Stone Castle on the mountain. Tie Hanfeng was in such a good mood that he kept talking along the way, but he did not mention the internal injury of his apprentice.

Gu Shenwei had thought of bringing up the assassination jobs he had undertaken by himself to Master Shifu, but he hesitated at the last moment. This assassination was so easy that even the weakest apprentice in the East Castle could easily succeed, so it was not worth boasting about.

In his heart, Pot-bellied Buddha and the horse-faced man had been put in forgotten corners. What he was always vigilant against was his master.

However, after a whole day, Tie Hanfeng had never shown any sign of threatening or using his apprentice, and everything went on as usual: bragging, swearing, drinking, bragging harder and sleeping.

“It’s not the right time,” thought Gu Shenwei. Even Mama Xue had waited for several days to throw out the evidence, so he could only wait. He went to bed and fell asleep comfortably until he was woken up.

Gu Shenwei sat up immediately and saw in the darkness the vague figures of three men standing in front of the bed.

He was ashamed and astonished. As a killer, he slept like a dead man and did not even notice that someone had broken into the room.

“Follow us,” said a man in a low voice, which was as calm as the voice of Gu Lun who had asked his little son to leave the manor more than a year ago.

Gu Shenwei quickly put up his clothes and obediently followed the three men out of the room. He knew where these people came from and guessed that Master Shifu would finally take action, in an unexpected manner.

They were all torturers of the Heart Cleansing Yard.

Gu Shenwei had a terrible memory in the Heart Cleansing Yard. However, at least he would not be killed for no reason there. Therefore, he did not worry too much as he believed that he was still useful for Tie Hanfeng.

It was required to pass around almost half of the Stone to go to the Heart Cleansing Yard from the East Castle, so it was already daybreak when they arrived. The three men locked Gu Shenwei up in a small dark room in the east wing without saying anything.

It was not the underground torture chamber, which seemed to indicate that things were not too bad.

After about one hour, the door opened, and four men came in. They stood in the doorway and with their backs to the sun, Gu Shenwei saw clearly their faces after a good while.

Tie Hanfeng was on the far left, beside him was Shen Liang, blademaster of the Heart Cleansing Yard. Gu Shenwei knew him and remembered that he was Eighth Young Master’s uncle. And the others were ordinary torturers who he did not know.

“You killed someone in South City yesterday.”

A torturer went straight to the point, which made Gu Shenwei a little surprised. He did not expect that the Heart Cleansing Yard was questioning him about it.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because someone paid me to do it.”

The torturer paused for a while, surprised about the apprentice’s frankness. The blademaster Shen Liang said, “Tell us all about this. Don’t miss any detail.”

Gu Shenwei confessed everything, from Xu Xiaoyi having seen him killing people to him leaving the building of Xu Yanwei after putting down the bloody counterfeited saber.

“The Xu siblings hired you to kill people?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve killed two people. Pot-bellied Buddha and his bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

After getting affirmative answers for the two questions, Shen Liang bursted into a short laughter as if he had heard a stupid and perfunctory joke.

“Do you believe him?” Shen Liang asked Tie Hanfeng.

Without a smile, Tie Hanfeng’s red face seemed serious and cruel, “Yes,” he said. There was something about resolution and anger in his voice.

Shen Liang shook his head helplessly and said, “I still have to hand him over. Brother Tie, You can’t afford the responsibility.”

Gu Shenwei was even more amazed as he found things were different from what he had understood. He also felt incomprehensible to Shen Liang’s calling Tie Hanfeng “Brother Tie”. How could Tie Hanfeng, who used to be so flattering as a beggar to the supervisor of the Pyrowork Academy, be so informal in the face of the blademaster whose position was much higher?

“Just give me some time.”

Shen Liang looked over the puzzled apprentice, failing to recognize that he was one of the teenagers accepting interrogation here one year ago. “I’ll hand him over before noon. In addition to the time for going downhill, you have two hours.”

The four men left without saying anything more. Gu Shenwei wondered what had gone wrong.

Pot-bellied Buddha called himself “member of the Meng Family”, and the Mistress was also surnamed Meng. The Meng Family was the richest family in the Jade City. This was the only clue he could find.

After two hours, Tie Hanfeng returned alone. “Let’s go.”

They left the Heart Cleansing Yard, and instead of returning to the East Castle, they led two horses and rode on them to go downhill.

On the way, Tie Hanfeng was in such a silence that was rarely seen on him usually. Finally, Gu Shenwei could not hold it and asked, “What’s going on?”

Tie Hanfeng looked at his apprentice and said after a while, “You’ve killed two people?”

“Yes.”

“But there were three bodies there.”

“What? But…” He had thought that the third body may belong to one of the sister and brother, but he realized soon that they would not draw the attention of the Heart Cleansing Yard, “Who was it?”

“The exiled prince of the Stone Kingdom, who was a major guest of the Stone Castle and would have returned to his kingdom to be king in a couple of days.”

Tie Hanfeng said easily but Gu Shenwei was too astonished to say a word. He had not killed the prince, nor had he seen anyone like a prince before, “But I hadn’t…”

“I know. I said I believe you.”

“Will the Fort hand me over?”

Gu Shenwei foreboded something terrible waiting for him during their way downhill.

“Not for now. We have three days to find out the murderer.”

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

Gu Shenwei felt it more and more difficult to find out Master Shifu’s real goal.