Chapter 108: The Escort Team
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Gu Shenwei was just the chief of the brown-belt assassins, who worked as guards in the escort team. Golden Roc Fort appointed another one as the chief of the whole escort team. This chief would send the gifts to Bighead Kingpin on behalf of the Supreme King, the Eighth Young Master and the Eighth Young Mistress. All the five brown-belt assassins should also follow this chief's orders.
This chief was Slave Qing, who had once worked as the twins' attendant in the school. He had served under five or six children of the lord, and now he was finally promoted to a butler of Inner Residence.
Back in the school, Slave Qing had been Slave Huan's superior and had disliked this troublesome slave boy very much. However, he was just a cowardly bully. When he met Slave Huan again, who was a brown-belt assassin now, he behaved very politely to him. He intimately patted the boy's shoulder and said, "Slave Huan. What a promising boy. We can be good friends. When we come back, I'll buy you a drink. Hah-hah."
Golden Roc Fort prepared 20 boxes of gifts for Bighead Kingpin and sent 10 camels to carry these gift boxes. The escort team spent only two hours going down the hill, but then they spent a whole day in the city.
At the north gate, they handed in all their weapons to the guards, including the brown-belt assassins' weapons and the weapons in the gift boxes. After entering Jade City, Slave Qing went directly to South City with some of the team members to hire camel drivers, porters and cooks. As the Iron Mountain Gang had no fixed headquarter, he also needed to go to a betting arena to contact the gang's secret agent to get the current location of the gang.
The other members of the team traveled through North City and exited the city through the east gate. After that, they went to stay in an inn outside the gate as they waited for the gate guards to return the weapons back to them.
The Iron Mountain Gang frequently moved about all year round. It was impossible to find them without a guide.
Slave Qing brought a guide named Jiang Chenghai to the inn to join the team. This man had a weather-beaten face and looked quite reliable. Some people in the inn seemed to know him well and called him Brother Dao San or Dao San. Soon, the team members also began to call him by his nicknames.
At night, the team finally got everything ready. The brown-belt assassins got their weapons back. They all took sabers and daggers with them, except Liuhua, who only brought a longbow, a shortbow, a crossbow and many arrows.
That night, Gu Shenwei secretly ordered Maid Lotus to keep an eye on Liuhua. Although the killer mentors had repeatedly emphasized the importance of teamwork and forbad them to plot against each other, he still could not completely trust that lone wolf.
The next morning, the team left the inn for the camp of the Iron Mountain Gang.
Although Dao San was the guide, he was not riding at the forefront of the team. Snowcamel was at the head of the procession, carrying two flags on his back, which were a Golden Roc Flag and a flag of Little Flag Battalion. The Golden Roc Flag was black with red edge, and Little Flag Battalion's flag was brown with yellow edge. Both of these flags were embroidered with Golden Rocs. Behind Snowcamel and Dao San were the ten camels carrying the gift boxes and the flags of the Iron Mountain Gang.
The ten camels were tied together by a rope to form a queue. Five camel drivers worked together to drive them. One of the camel drivers was from the fort and the others were hired to do this job. They spent a whole night learning how to get along with these stubborn animals.
Behind the ten camels, twenty handymen walked with several other camels that carried food, water and tents for the team. Slave Qing and Little Sui traveled along with them. The former rode a horse, and the latter rode a camel, weeping all the way. Every time she thought of Bighead Kingpin, the man she was going to serve for the rest of her life, she would shudder in fear.
Slave Huan, Maid Lotus and Liuhua rode behind them. Wildhorse rode at the rear of the procession.
Gu Shenwei felt relieved to leave the fort and was quite pleased to take such an easy and rewarding mission. Even Liuhua seemed to behave himself properly now. Gu Shenwei had never expected that they would soon get into trouble.
At noon, a handyman ran up to him and reported that there were two riders in front of them at the roadside and they seemed to be waiting for the escort team.
As they were still inside Golden Roc Fort's territory, Gu Shenwei believed that the riders did not dare to covet the fort's goods, but as the chief of guards, he still needed to go to check the situation. He quickened his horse and galloped to the forefront of the team.
He observed the two riders from a distance. They were dressed in black, just like Golden Roc Fort killers, but they had slender figures like girls.
He continued to ride toward the riders, and soon he recognized them and sighed to himself, "That's a real trouble, a big trouble."
The riders were Shangguan Ru and Shangguan Yushi.
He had not seen Shangguan Ru for a long time and discovered that she was much taller than before. However, she was still obviously shorter than Shangguan Yushi.
Shangguan Yushi put on a straight face and looked away. Shangguan Ru looked at Slave Huan smilingly. Her eyes were still big and black, just like before. "Hey, we're the best machetemen in the whole Western Region. Do you want to hire us?" she asked.
"Well, I'm not the boss here," Gu Shenwei looked at them and replied with an expressionless face.
"Well then, ask you boss to meet me," Shangguan Ru stopped smiling and said, adopting an authoritative tone. This time, she sounded just like the bossy little girl Gu Shenwei remembered.
Slave Qing also recognized the girls and hurriedly rode to them. He got off his horse in a flurry and said, "Alas, Master Ru, why did you leave the fort? Did the lord and the lady know about this? Why did you come out by yourselves? Take care. Let me help you get off your horse. Alas, what should we do now? Slave Huan, how about we turn around to go home now?" While saying this, Slave Qing stretched out his hands to Shangguan Ru, wanting to help her get off her horse.
Hearing what Slave Qing said, Shangguan Ru became annoyed. She swished her whip to drive Slave Qing's hands away and shouted, "I won't let you go back. If you don't let us join you, we'll kill you and take all your goods away. I'll send the gifts to Bighead Kingpin by myself."
Slave Qing did not know what to do. He was so anxious that he kept stamping the ground. Suddenly, he saw Slave Huan wave to him. The brown-belt assassin trotted his horse to him and bent forward to discuss with him in a soft voice. After that, the slave boy galloped to the girls and said, "My boss agreed to hire you. Each one of you can earn 10 taels of silver a day, but we can only pay you after the trip. We offer free tents and free meals to you, but we won't guarantee your safety."
"Good, that's a good offer. We accept it." Shangguan Ru nodded solemnly and agreed.
"Ten taels of silver a day? Do you think we're beggars?" Shangguan Yushi waved her whip and grumbled.
"The pay is quite high for inexperienced young machetemen. I'm the chief of guards in this team, so you'll have to follow my orders in the following days. Regardless of your past achievements or how good your machete skills are, you must listen to me in this team." Gu Shenwei knew Shangguan Ru very well. He was clear that he needed to make this game seem as real as possible to please her.
Shangguan Ru was delighted to hear that. She smiled and said, "Of course, chief. We'll follow your orders." Shangguan Yushi, however, was even angrier now. Last winter, she had been Slave Huan's killer leader and bossed him around. She found it hard to accept the fact that now she should listen to this slave boy.
Slave Qing mounted his horse and watched Slave Huan act out the whole thing. He could not help shaking his head and thought of how this troublesome slave boy had used his own ways to please the young masters back in the school.
Gu Shenwei asked the girls to join Maid Lotus and Liuhua and sent Slave Qing to chat with them in case they discovered that the team was traveling much slower now.
This was Slave Huan's idea.
He suggested that Slave Qing should accept the girls and, in the meantime, ask the whole team to slow down. He told Slave Qing that Golden Roc Fort might have already discovered that the girls were missing and had sent people to find them. When someone from the fort caught up with the team to fetch the girls, they would be able to get rid of them without offending them.
Slave Qing agreed with Slave Huan's opinion and accepted his idea. Nevertheless, beyond their expectations, no one showed up to fetch the girls even when the sun began to set.
Slave Qing ordered the whole team to stop traveling and put up tents to camp beside the road. After that, he dragged Slave Huan out of the camp. He kept looking in the direction of Jade City and said, "Slave Huan, this is your idea. You have to be responsible."
"We don't need to wait anymore. The fort won't send anyone to chase us."
"What?" Slave Qing was shocked.
"I'm pretty sure that the lord and the lady hoped that we will take the girls with us and then bring them back to the fort safely."
"This must be another move the lord and lady had taken to make Shangguan Ru more like a boy. Actually, the fort could tell this plan to Slave Qing in advance. If it did, he wouldn't be so worried now, but the tenth child would be displeased," Gu Shenwei thought to himself.
"Are you sure?" Slave Qing still felt uncertain.
Gu Shenwei nodded and then went back to the camp. When he arrived, the cooks had already served the dishes for dinner.
Gu Shenwei was pleased to notice that there were some delicate dishes specially prepared for the girls. He thought that the cooks were quite smart. However, the girls did not notice this at all. They were too excited and kept chatting all the time.
Gu Shenwei deliberately kept a distance from the girls. For the time being, he did not need Shangguan Ru's help nor did he want to irritate Shangguan Yushi. He feared that the girl would do something insane during the trip if she became mad.
Besides, he also suspected that she might still want to take revenge on him for her brother's death. After all, Shangguan Yuxing did die because of him.
As it was getting dark, everybody had packed their belongings and was preparing to go to sleep. Suddenly, Slave Qing stumbled all the way to Slave Huan. He grabbed the teenager's arm and whispered, "Some people came right after us."
Gu Shenwei was greatly surprised, "Why did the fort take such a long time to catch up with us?"
He turned around and galloped toward the people behind the escort team. Beyond his expectations, he quickly discovered that they were not a team of killers but a caravan.
A moment later, the guards of the escort team caught up with their chief. "Are they bandits? Chief, do we need to eliminate them right now?" Shangguan Ru asked while tightly holding her saber shaft.
"No, they're not bandits."
Gu Shenwei was 100 percent sure that the people after them were not bandits since they were still inside Golden Roc Fort's territory.
Gradually, the caravan approached them bit by bit. They saw several riders gallop out to greet them. "Hello, friends in the front. Where are you going?" one rider asked.
"It's none of your business. We'll let you go first. Come on. Hurry up," Slave Qing urged impatiently. He did not want to meet any stranger during this trip since Shangguan Ru was still in his team.
"You look familiar, friend. You must have come from Stone Castle," another rider from the caravan said.
A moment later, a young rider galloped to them and his attendant lifted up a torch to light up his face.
Slave Qing hurriedly got off his horse and ran to the young man. "Alas, Mister Meng Mingshi. You still remember me? I'm Slave Qing. I accompanied Lady Meng to the flower viewing party," Slave Qing bowed and said.
Shangguan Ru and Shangguan Yushi immediately tensed up and simultaneously drew out their sabers. "What's he doing here?"
"Sheathe your sabers. We're guards and should only care about the safety of the goods on the camels' backs."
The girls exchanged a look. After that, Shangguan Ru grumpily put her saber back into the scabbard and then Shangguan Yushi also sheathed her saber. They returned to their tent without saying a word.
Gu Shenwei summoned the brown-belt assassins to assign night duties. Although they were still inside the fort's territory, they still needed to fulfill their duties as guards of the escort team.
"The Fifth Young Master Meng also travels along this road. This is not a coincidence," Gu Shenwei thought to himself.