Chapter 99: Education
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Tie Hanfeng had lived a long and glorious life as a killer. When he was immersed inside the world of blood and sabers, he had learned on his own about how to survive.
Slave Huan was his first apprentice, and will most likely be his only apprentice. From the beginning, he intended to teach Slave Huan his life experiences at a suitable time. Now he thought the time had come.
He did not drink today, nor did he say anything uncooth.
"Do you remember the one I made you kill?"
Gu Shenwei nodded. Of course he did. The horse-faced man had been talking to Tie Hangfeng a second before, but then he became the killing target.
"He used to be a famous man in the South City, and have countless ties with both Stone Castle and Meng's residence. But killing him did not cause any problems for us."
Gu Shenwei remembered that, the horse-faced man seemed as if he had never existed before. No one wanted to take revenge for him.
"But when you killed Pot-bellied Buddha, you made a problem. What's the difference? Think about it."
Gu Shenwei shook his head. Even though he thought of something, he was too shy to say it.
"This is what I'm gonna tell you: killing a man is different from killing a man safely. Killing a man is easy, you can do that with your bare hands. But killing a man safely? Making him bleed is not the first concern, you should first cut off his relations."
Tie Hanfeng talked excitedly. Although Gu Shenwei could not remember the other things he was taught, he was enlighted by this theory.
He thought of his Master Shifu's conversation with quite a few men before he killed the horse-faced man. At that moment, he thought those were nonsense. Now he knew what was Tie Hanfeng up to: the promise he made was an exchange for making those men withdraw their protection of the horse-faced man.
Before Tie Hanfeng had even given the command, the killing target was already dead.
Pot-bellied Buddha was no more important than the horse-faced man. If given enough money, Fifth Elder Meng would also abandon this subordinate. But Gu Shenwei broke the rule. He killed the man before his relations were cut off and he did not offer any compensation. This made Meng Mingshi want to take revenge for his lost face.
Although the Xu siblings were the ones who started this issue, they were forgiven because they gave a bunch of taels and had taken on a lot of debts.
Tie Hanfeng also mentioned Mister Guo, "Now do you understand why you can't challenge Mister Guo? He has a strong relationship with the Lord. Before you can even cause any trouble, trouble will come to you at the moment when you show up."
"So what should I do? Wait for him to kill me?"
Tie Hanfeng smiled complacently, like a child who finally had a chance to share his secret. "This is another side of 'relation'. The more relation one has, the harder he is to kill. So increasing the number of relations will surely make you safer."
Gu Shenwei was stumped. He still did not know what to do. The only two relations he had were his Master Shifu, who was popular inside the South City, but back in the fort, he was only a pickthank; another one was Shangguan Ru, but between them was Shangguan Yushi, who saw him as an enemy.
Tie Hanfeng seemed to have already prepared a solution, but he kept silent. One month later, Gu Shenwei had finished his affairs in the Archives Library and returned to Pyrowork Academy. Tie Hanfeng led him to complete the last task of a killer: to pledge allegiance toward a Young Master.
This was not the joke-like pledge Luo Ningcha came up with. It was the blood oath, which could never be broken. In the history of Golden Roc Fort, things happened like a bother killing his sibling, but a killer can never betray his master. Because regardless of whether the killer was loyal or not, once his master lost their power, every subordinate killer will be slaughtered and buried with him.
Gu Shenwei figured out his Master Shifu's intention. During this month, the surviving apprentices of the East Castle had pledged their allegiance towards different Young Masters, because the Young Masters had begun their scramble a year ago. The best chosen apprentices had already established relations with their masters.
Tattooed Arm Gang skipped this step. They had their master before they entered into the East Castle. No one scrambled for them, because thier master had the unalterable right.
Maid Lotus made her oath to Eighth Young Master already, and Gu Shenwei would do the same thing she did on the first day upon his return to Pyrowork Academy.
Pledging allegiance toward the enemy who slaughtered Gu Shenwei's family. It took him a whole night to comfort his complex emotions before he could make the oath.
Among all the sons of the Supreme King, the only two adult sons who stayed in the fort were the eldest son, Shangguan Chui who, following the usual customs, stayed behind to take care of things; the Eighth Son, Shangguan Nu, who had not built his own family for numerous reasons, stayed in the fort to assist his father, and took control of the External Affair Academy.
Gu Shenwei completed his task in the External Affair Academy. He learned the whole process from Maid Lotus, so everything went well.
The master of Tie Hanfeng was Third Young Master, hence he stopped his apprentice outside the gate, and stayed there.
The ceremony was simple: Gu Shenwei kneeled outside the Council Chamber and kowtowed for nine times, spoke out his name and slave name loudly, and spoke according to the conventions, "This killer has no root, he follows the master" and other sorts of stuff. And lastly, he begged for his master to keep him as a retainer.
Someone took out a bowl half-filled with water, and a pointed cone. Gu Shenwei used the latter one to stick his ten fingers, letting his blood drop into the bowl, which indicated the "blood connection". Afterward, the bowl was sent out, and there was less water than before, which meant the master had drank from the bowl and had dripped his blood inside it.
Gu Shenwei drank it all. Now he became the "loyal" subordinate of Shangguan Nu. Anyone who wanted to kill him had to cut off Gu Shenwei's relation with Shangguan Nu first, othewise, one had to kill him in a very secretive manner.
After a hundred years, the blood oath ceremony had been simplified a lot. A first, the killer and the master had to kill an enemy together and swore by the enemy's blood. The more powerful their enemy was, the stronger their oath would be. After that, a series of complicated ceremonial rites was needed. Recruiting a new killer would take several days or even months.
However, as there were more and more killers, the blood oath had become a formality which was used by the Young Masters to expand their forces.
The reason Gu Shenwei knew this was because he spent nearly a month on reading the books that were covered with a thick layer of dust.
One could never read through all the books in Archives Library, there were way too much. One had to be selective. The one who taught Gu Shenwei on what to select was Zhang Ji, who was teaching at school.
What impressed Zhang Ji was Gu Shenwei's talent of reading and indentifying the problem in a single file. Besides, when Gu Shenwei went back to the Archives Library, he took the initiative to ask Zhang Ji for advice. At first, Zhang Ji refused him, yet after their conversation, he was so impressed that he not only taught him what he had learnt in all these years, but also gave him tasks to do, compelling this pseudo-disciple of his to read the necessary materials.
What Zhang Ji always said was, "History told us everything, and one of them was that no one learns from history." He had taught the children of the Shangguan family on how to write and read and told them the fort's history, thus he deeply understood this sentence.
During this boring and dull month, Gu Shenwei learned the history of Golden Roc Fort, and found out Zhang Ji was right: Most of the numerous failed killing action attempts had shared the same reason for their failure; every Supreme King had once made a similar mistake and had tried to correct it by using a similar method.
The killer's funeral was also simplified. In the past, they had to hold the ceremony in Reincarnation Cliff for three days, and only dropped the body at the end of the third day. The whole process displayed the people's ultimate respect toward the dead. Unfortunately, the ceremony today was almost humiliating.
Killing actions were much easier too, which came about as the result of the stronger power of Golden Roc Fort. In the whole Western Region, there were not many factions who could stand against the sabers of Golden Roc Fort's killers. Hence there was little need for reconnaissance or bribery. The only custom left was to send one spy.
"Bribing the traitor" was Zhang Ji's favorite part. Every time he asked Gu Shenwei to read the material about this part, he stroked the book's cover and sighed, "People's heart, ah, it's all in here."
Sometimes bribing a traitor can be very expensive. Thus during the reign of the last Supreme King, the cost of this part was severely reduced. Moreover, in the King's final few years, he even made a rule that unless there was a major killing action inside the fort, they would never engage in "bribery".
Zhang Ji talked about this with bitter hatred every time. "Gold was the sharpest dagger in the past, and the cousellor was the best killer. Now everything changed, the only thing left was some butchers. A real killer doesn't exist anymore."
Zhang Ji did a thorough research of the outdated "bribery" skill, and even summarized a theory. "The master always takes the slave's obedience for granted, but the slave doesn't. Every insult received, every flattery given, he'll memorize it as a debt and will wait for a suitable moment for his master to repay it all. If his master doesn't repay, or refuses to, the seeds of betrayal will be planted. Pay attention, this kind of man is who you should bribe. I've seen many instances of loyalty and betrayal. One thing you should learn is that the master is always stupid. He thinks he can do anything he want, ignoring that everything has its price. So in every situation you can always find the ideal betrayer, and this man is usually the most loyal, obsequious and dedicated man."
Gu Shenwei listened to him with admiration and some shock. Because he was indeed the ideal betrayer. If he asked for his repayment, Golden Roc Fort could not afford to repay him.
This experience had greatly affected Gu Shenwei. The history, and what Tie Hanfeng taught him, were the largest braces for him before he completed his vengeance.
The only regretful thing was that no information about the current Supreme King was stored in the Archives Library. Gu Shenwei could not find any details about the slaughter of the Gu family.
But this was the first time Gu Shenwei felt, psychologically, that he was not that weak. During their expansion, the Shangguan family had abandoned many things that they thought were trivial. Now behind their unprecedented power, there were also some places that were unexpectedly fragile.
Gu Shenwei could not make a plan for now. But the path before him was no longer a mist, nor did Golden Roc Fort's power seem to be invincible. It was only a common stone fort which was located on the peak.
While Gu Shenwei's thoughts were largely enlighted, his kung fu had been left behind. The evil consequence that Mama Xue brought to him had become apparent. He experienced another qigong deviation, and he completely passed out this time, too. This time the meditation of Nameless Swordbook was not helpful. Furthermore, his Internal Strength did not grow.
He had stagnated in the third level of Yin Strength for more than half a year. In the past, the other apprentices's Internal Strength were all weaker than him but now some of them had surpassed him.
On the third day after the pledge, Gu Shenwei took part in the seventh monthly test, but this time he failed and nearly died, which made Tie Hanfeng very annoyed. As a result, Gu Shenwei took out the Nameless Swordbook again.