Chapter 112: A Counselor
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
As this time the murderer did not have time to cut the eight bandits' chests and stomachs open after killing them, the brown-belt assassins finally got a chance to determine the real cause of the bandits' death. They discovered a long and narrow wound inside every dead body, which started from the throat and ended in the lower abdomen.
After checking the dead bodies, Gu Shenwei sent Snowcamel away on sentry duty. He and the other two teenagers stood beside the extinguished campfire together, waiting for the machetemen to come back.
The machetemen were late, which made Gu Shenwei feel anxious. "The machetemen probably have already run away or gotten killed by that crazy woman's partners. That woman doesn't look like an ordinary bandit at all. She's so possessed with something and clearly against Golden Roc Fort. Given that, these unknown enemies probably came here for Shangguan Ru."
He felt very frustrated. All this time, he had been longing to join the fort's enemies to have his revenge on the fort, but now when he finally met them, he had no choice but to act against them.
He wondered if he should give up his own plan and went to join them now.
On second thought, he decided not to do so, since he believed that no one was trustworthy except himself. His revenge plan had just begun, and he was determined to continue it.
After restoring his confidence, he tightly held his saber shaft and considered how to defeat the unknown enemies. "That crazy woman is good at kung fu, but I'm able to kill her with one strike. The unknown enemies have never seen anyone of us fighting. They don't know what we can do. That's a good thing for us."
Wildhorse and Liuhua stood beside their chief, one on the chief's left side and the other on his right side. They reminded silent all the time. Wildhorse was unable to speak. Liuhua did not like to talk. Both of them were quite displeased with the fact that Slave Huan was their chief now.
Gu Shenwei turned his head to look at them, guessing what they were thinking now. "After traveling for days, we finally caught a captive. However, I killed her before getting any valuable information out of her. They must disapprove of my performance very much."
"Let's take a rest for now. The enemies aren't very far away from us. I plan to launch a pre-emptive attack on them."
With these words, Gu Shenwei kicked two corpses away to sit on a rock beneath them. Shortly after he took a seat, he stood up abruptly and drew out his saber.
He found another person beside the rock, who was still alive.
That person had somehow rolled himself into a ball and hidden under the two dead bodies' legs. He was dressed in a color which was similar to that of the rock beside him and camouflaged himself well. The teenagers thought that all the people in the camp were already dead and relaxed their vigilance. Given that, they did not hear this man's breathing sound when they were standing near him.
When they took a closer look at the man, they found out that he looked like a scholar even though now he was even dirtier than the roving bandits.
The man was thin and dressed in a shabby long robe. He was tightly tied up with a rope, and now his body was as stiff as the rock beside him. He appeared scared, and his eyes widened in fear. This unlucky guy had been caught and brought to this camp by the bandits. Last night, he had seen a demon-like black bird come to kill the bandits and then he had seen some fierce teenagers with sabers pop out to catch the bird. He had not slept the whole time, but he felt as if he had a nightmare which lasted throughout the night.
Gu Shenwei lifted up his saber, pointing it at the man. The man knew that he could no longer pretend to be a rock and began to cry for mercy. "Don't kill me. I'm not a robber."
Gu Shenwei severed his rope and asked, "Who are you? Why are you here?"
The man tried to get on his feet while shivering. However, he was too weak to stand up right now. In the end, he failed to straighten his legs and slumped down on the rock. "My surname is Fang and my last name is Wenshi. This name stems from the opening sentence of all the Buddhist classics, 'Ru Shi Wo Wen' (I heard it from Sakyamuni). I just wanted to take a shortcut, but these brothers caught me on the road and asked me to pay a ransom. Alas, look at me. I'm just a poor scholar with no money in my pocket. Oh, no, I did have some money in my pocket at that time. They took it away and still asked me to pay the ransom. How could I get that much money? That's why I'm in this camp. I was frightened to death last night seeing the cruel female devil slaughter them all. Fortunately, I met you, a group of teenage heroes. You killed the devil and saved my life. I can't thank you enough."
Gu Shenwei was well aware that the man was just trying to flatter them by calling them 'teenage heroes.' He clearly remembered that this man had not made a sound or appealed for help when the 'heroes' had come out to fight the woman. He snorted and sheathed his saber, thinking that it was unnecessary to be suspicious of such a poor scholar. "You can leave now," he said to the man.
Fang Wenshi was startled. He could not believe his ears. He looked at the three "teenage heroes" one by one and suddenly bowed deeply to them. After that, he turned around and ran away. After only a few steps, he stumbled and fell to the ground. He quickly staggered up and continued to run. It seemed that he would get exhausted very soon.
"We should kill him."
Liuhua the Silencer suddenly spoke. Gu Shenwei was surprised to discover that this thin and small boy had such a deep voice.
"No, let him explore the way for us."
Gu Shenwei replied while looking at Fang Wenshi. He thought that this man would probably be able to help them lure the unknown enemies out.
When Fang Wenshi distanced himself enough from them, they began to stroll after him.
After traveling for about 500 meters, Fang Wenshi saw several horses galloping toward him. He tried to stop one for himself but failed and fell to the ground again.
A moment later, the horses met the teenagers and stopped. There were only six horses now, and one of them carried a dead macheteman.
The moment the horse stopped, the dead body flipped over and fell down from the saddle, revealing an arrow shot into his chest.
Liuhua came to the corpse and knelt beside it. He fingered the arrow shaft and carefully checked the wound, with a grim face.
Their enemies were not far away.
The four teenagers mounted their horses and gently pulled the reins to ride slowly behind the scholar.
Just like the other killers, these brown-belt assassins were not good at frontal attacks. Given that, they planned to find their enemies out and then assassinate them.
Fang Wenshi ran to the top of a slope and then turned his head to look at the teenagers behind him. Suddenly, he flopped onto the ground and did not get up again.
When the teenagers galloped to the man, he raised up his head and asked, "Are you from Golden Roc Fort?"
He had run only a short distance, but he was sweating profusely now. His face was as red as blood.
"How do you know?" Gu Shenwei was a little surprised that such a weak and poor scholar could recognize them.
"You're dressed in black, and there are birds patterns on your shoulders. Your weapons look different from the ordinary machetes. However, I've never seen any Golden Roc Fort killer wear a brown belt. Are you a killer apprentice?"
"Why did you stop running?" Gu Shenwei asked without answering the man's question.
"I can't run any longer. I'm starving and exhausted. Could you lend me a horse?"
The teenagers had two extra horses. Snowcamel had dragged them here.
"No, Golden Roc Fort never lends things." Gu Shenwei replied assertively, but in fact, he did not know whether there was such a custom in the fort.
"I see. How about you take me with you? You can introduce me to the Supreme King. I'll only need two or three sentences to please the lord. I promise that he'll be delighted to meet me and reward you generously for taking me to him. When I get a high position in the fort, I'll never forget you."
What Fang Wenshi said struck the teenagers as ridiculous. If they had never been strictly trained in the fort, they would have burst into laughter now.
They thought this scholar must have been crazy or shameless since he had apparently failed to talk himself out of trouble when he had run into the eight bandits. Despite that, the teenagers still managed to hold back their laughter and remained silent while hearing the scholar boast about his eloquence.
"How about you tell me two or three sentences now? If you can please me, I'll send you a horse," Gu Shenwei said.
"No, you won't understand it. Oh, no, no, I mean you won't be interested in the political situation and the strategies of the states. You teen heroes are brilliant enough to understand everything, but you're killers who only care about your killing business, aren't you?"
Gu Shenwei realized that this poor scholar was a counselor, but no matter what, he just wanted to use him as a bait to lure his enemies out. Now that this bait refused to cooperate, he had no other choice but to kill him.
Fang Wenshi looked at the shining saber with a bemused expression. He did not seem to notice the murderous look on the teenager's face at all. The next moment, he said something, which not only saved his life but also marked the beginning of the friendship between him and the teenager.
Years later, when Gu Shenwei mentioned this incident to Fang Wenshi, the counselor could not remember these words anymore and insisted that he had saved himself with an eloquent speech.
"You kill people with sabers. We, counselors, kill with tactics, and most of the time, we can kill more people than you do."
Like a bolt of lightning, Zhang Ji's words flashed across Gu Shenwei's mind. "In the past, the sharpest saber was money, and the best killers were counselors."
He had given up many of his old beliefs but still firmly believed in Mister Zhang's teachings. He considered them as guidelines for his revenge campaign against Golden Roc Fort. In his view, these guidelines were even more critical than kung fu.
He had never expected that such a shabbily-clothed scholar would have said something similar to Mister Zhang's teachings and thus started to take the scholar seriously.
For a moment, he even forgot about the unknown enemies nearby and focused on imagining the distant future.
Fang Wenshi was still young, probably in his early 20s. Although he looked dirty and poor, Gu Shenwei again spotted a fearless look on his face after careful observation. This was the typical look of a counselor, but it would always make the ordinary people think a counselor as an arrogant twit.
"Give him a horse."
Snowcamel was stunned, but after a moment, he still obeyed the order and threw the reins of a horse to the scholar.
Fang Wenshi was even more stunned than Snowcamel. Someone was touched by his words. This kind of thing had seldom happened to him during the past few years when he had been working as a counselor.
"Are you going to introduce me to the Supreme King?"
"No, I just want you to move faster."
Gu Shenwei had learned his lesson. Compared to the distant future, he cared more about solving the current problems. He still wanted to use the scholar as a bait.
Fang Wenshi reluctantly mounted the horse. When he turned his head back, wanting to say something, Gu Shenwei patted the horse with his saber. The horse immediately galloped forward with the scholar on its back. After traveling across a few gentle slopes, they vanished into the horizon.
The four brown-belt assassins trotted their horses forward while carefully observing everything along their way.
The road was getting increasingly rough. When they saw a high hill in the front, Fang Wenshi galloped back, his face extremely pale. According to Dan San, a day after traveling past the high hill, they would be able to meet an outpost of the Iron Mountain Gang. To the south of the steep hill lay some low barren hills. To the south of the small hills lay a vast desert.
When the scholar came to Gu Shenwei, he said, "They told us to turn back as soon as possible and to travel southward with all the other people."
"They?"
"Three ferocious-looking people, just like those bandits," Fang Wenshi said with stooped shoulders. It seemed that he had not yet fully recovered from the shock.
Gu Shenwei was a little disappointed by the counselor's cowardly performance.
The brown-belt assassins galloped forward without any hesitation. Fang Wenshi trotted his horse in a circle and then reluctantly followed the teenagers.
After traveling for one or two kilometers, the teenagers stopped on the top of a slope. They saw three riders in the front blocking the way. The riders wore felt clothes, revealing one shoulder. Every one of them carried a long machete on his back and held a longbow in his hand.
Gu Shenwei looked to the south, wondering what the riders intended to do by driving all these people into the desert.