Chapter 125: The Protectors
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Master Tiger Monk had half his body bitten off by the vegetarian tiger he kept. This incident caused a considerable stir in Jade City. What was worse, it happened on the last day when the six "possessed" youngsters' were studying the Exorcism Manuscript from the monk, ushering in a train of thoughts among people.
According to the words of the acolyte who served meals every day, Shangguan Ru liked to tease the tiger and feed it everything. He once saw the little girl stuffing insects into its mouth, thus forcing it to break its vegetarian habit.
Hearing this, Shangguan Ru felt herself being wronged, flushed with fury, and almost breaking into tears in front of the others. Since then, she had poor impressions of the monks in Four Truths Temple.
She felt sorrowful for the Master's death. The monk was different. He had never sermonized or pressed on her. Even when she was teasing and playing with the tiger he did not say anything.
She missed the vegetarian tiger even more. She spent so much time in getting along with it, yet it acted upon its instincts and ran away in the end. However, she was the only one who thought the tiger was innocent.
Lady Meng on the other hand, thought that her daughter was frightened, and complained in private that those monks of Four Truths Temple were too careless to let the Tenth Young Master stay with an untamed beast for seven days. Therefore, she took her daughter back to the castle and was determined to keep her close for some time.
The tiger escaped deep into the mountains after eating its master. Many people tried to search the mountains and revenge the monk but none of these searches beared fruit.
However, the eminent monks in Four Truths Temple did not blame this on anyone. What they believed was that this was Master Tiger Monk's predestined fate, and that he had merely harvested the fruit that his previous life sowed.
Only Gu Shenwei knew that Maid Lotus was behind the whole incident.
The Death Scripture that Master Tiger Monk taught did have effects. Even the mute Wildhorse felt calmness inside while reciting it. Although his Internal Strength had not increased, his ability to resist the devil inside seemed to have improved considerably.
Nonetheless, nobody was able to tell if it could crack the evil secrets of New Moon Hall until next time somebody passed out.
Gu Shenwei had wanted to learn the entire correct pronunciation of the scripture from Master Tiger Monk. However, he lived in the same room with the other two youngsters, making his late night egress suspicious.
Maid Lotus lived in her cottage alone, hence only she could conduct the mission.
It was not until they got back to Jade City that Maid Lotus had a chance to tell Slave Huan the whole story.
Maid Lotus wrote down the last few pages of Death Scripture and handed over a part of her writings to Tiger Monk in the second late night.
With a quick glance, Master Tiger Monk was astounded. He knew that this was the remaining parts of Death Scripture, because he had already thoroughly recited the quarter of the scripture he kept.
Maid Lotus then made a deal with Master Tiger Monk—he would teach her the right pronunciation, while she would hand over the complete Death Scripture on the premise of him keeping it secret. As to the swordcraft in the scripture, she did not mention it.
Master Tiger Monk had been studying the words on the clay slab for years, and it took him several days to figure out the correct pronunciation of the entire scripture. Later, he taught all of them to Maid Lotus, yet violated the promise of keeping it secret.
The monk had his thoughts on the complete Death Scripture through his study of it, however, he could not thoroughly comprehend the whole picture of it. He finally decided to hand over the complete scripture to the elder masters in Four Truths Temple, yet told Maid Lotus in advance.
"I had to kill him." Maid Lotus explained to Slave Huan. "Four Truths Temple is closely related to Stone Castle. If the scripture leaks, we will be exposed for sure."
When they were on the mountain, Maid Lotus caught a rabbit and fed it to the tiger, and she found out the tiger was able to eat meat.
In the last night of their stay, Maid Lotus stabbed the monk to death, took the complete scripture, and induced the tiger to eat half of his corpse in order to destroy the sign of a stab wound.
The tiger ran away, and Shangguan Ru became the major suspect, making Maid Lotus' plan flawless.
Gu Shenwei agreed with her plan. It was the only choice and also the way killers acted.
Shangguan Ru and Shangguan Yushi were taken back to Stone Castle, while the four brown-belt assassins stayed at South City, waiting for another mission.
They were assigned to several formal killers as their assistants to inquire intelligence and eliminate hidden troubles. On appearance, this arrangement was only to prove the four were not "killers", and therefore they were occupied with nothing every day.
They stayed in South City as bait.
New Moon Hall came back to jianghu with a declaration of war. However, they disappeared after the mysterious women planted the "evil spirit" into the youngsters. Moreover, both killers from Golden Roc Fort and Iron Mountain troops had slain some Barren Sect members in the desert, yet had not seen a single trace of New Moon Hall members.
Whiterobe Academy was the think tank of Golden Roc Fort. Counselors discussed and resulted in a consensus that the New Moon Hall members had already mingled into Jade City. Therefore, they planned to let the inferior brown-belt assassins induce the enemy to show up.
The "evil spirit" inside the four brown-belt assassins had not been fully exorcised yet, making them the ideal bait.
None told the youngsters the truth, yet the moment Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus heard that they were to stay at South City, they guessed their purpose. They only had a short conversation before they were brought away by the killers. The youngsters had to stay at different places to attract the enemy in a broader area.
The killer assigned to Gu Shenwei was his Master Shifu Tie Hanfeng, who verified Gu Shenwei's guess and was not concerned at all. "This is our chance. We are the killers from Golden Roc Fort. We're not afraid of some weaklings. Come as they may, I'll kill 'em all. When it comes to taking care of women, I've got my ways. I'll teach you when you get old enough. Haha."
Tie Hanfeng also wanted to train his apprentice as a business partner, thus he took this chance to get Gu Shenwei to familiarize with the rules and surroundings in South City. He lodged in a brothel at Pleasure Alley, and went to different taverns, betting arenas, and brothels, letting Slave Huan make acquaintances with various kinds of people.
Although these people might not be kung fu experts, they had a major influence in Jade City. Their influences wove an intricate web of connections, which was tenacious and concealed. Without an acquaintance, an outsider barely stood a chance to get into the web.
To "kill safely" and make some money, one had to locate himself on this web first.
Most of them were brokers or safeguards of a certain business and were called "Protectors" by those insiders. These businesses were insanely tricky, and they often surprised Gu Shenwei. For example, the Protector of the rice and flour trade was a skinny old man, said to be one of the most powerful people in South City. He had not run any business, only collected "protection fees" monthly, and guaranteed thriving business and no customer credits. Anyone who wanted to safely sell rice or flour in South City had to pay a visit to him before the business opened.
Any necessities in Jade City were sold three or four times the prices of that in the other places. Hence, a lot of wholesalers came here, leading to the rise of the Protectors' power.
Gu Shenwei had always thought that swords and sabers dominated South City, and this Master Shifu mocked. "You stupid little boy. You're just like those machetemen who have crawled to South City with mud all over their clothes, hoping to have good wines and women only because of your good machete skills. The truth is, even the well beings are just a bunch of hitmen, and the rest of them are just some rabbits for us to kill for fun."
Tie Hanfeng introduced Gu Shenwei to almost half of the Protectors, only to tell Gu Shenwei one fact. "Jade City is no different from the other places. Gold and silver dominate everything. Ah, f*ck, the perfect death for me is to be drowned in gold or die beside a woman on the softest bed, either of those two and not under a sword or saber."
Tie Hanfeng was of great attainments regarding kung fu. Gu Shenwei was uncertain whether he could kill him even after practicing Death Scripture . However, this cripple was also a killer who cared the least about machete skills. He was typically more negative towards things compared to Wildhorse and Liuhua.
However, these days were beneficial to Gu Shenwei. He knew much better about Jade City and found out Golden Roc Fort and the Meng family did not have full control in here. With the rise of their status and ambition, the two powers sprang up to the clouds, far away from the muddy streets in South City, giving small powers the opportunity to get in and grow. Although those small powers had numerous connections with Stone Castle, they maintained their independence.
Tie Hanfeng himself was sort of a Protector. He served several big Protectors, hiring bodyguards, clearing checkpoints, collecting bills, punishing rascals, and sometimes killing people.
"You must be very careful when you walk in South City, because you may offend someone heedlessly. Some patient who has trouble breathing may be a major Protector. If you stared at him, on the next day, his subordinates will come to cut you with sabers. There are always some idiots who believe the bullsh*t tales that they can kill at will here. In the end, they don't even know the name of the one they have offended when they die."
Gu Shenwei was a bit flushed. He used to be such an "idiot" and had not settled those troubles he had caused yet.
There were many Protectors like Tie Hanfeng. People could hang around in their places, but had to trade lives for doing businesses there. Tie Hanfeng's central place was Southwall Tavern, of which the manager was a Protector and also one of his biggest patrons.
Tie Hanfeng had been carefully expanding his business. A few months ago, he managed to buy a streetside storied building in Pleasure Alley, and solicited a prostitute named Xu Yanwei in it.
Gu Shenwei remembered that he had saved the Xu siblings twice last year. Anyhow, he had not expected that they would fall into Cripple Tie's "devilish hands" in the name of Slave Huan.
"The owner of this building is Yang Huan." Tie Hanfeng stood at the doorway and proudly introduced it to his apprentice.
It had never occurred to Gu Shenwei that he would own a brothel out of nowhere. He dreamed to be a killer, and the dream would become a joke sooner or later, as long as he stayed with his Master Shifu.
He had also a vague picture about Tie Hanfeng's intention. The cripple might be "buying over" him, and let him take charge of his business after he completely retired, hoping Gu Shenwei would support him later in life.
Gu Shenwei thought, "I may fail Master Shifu again."
Gu Shenwei had not seen the experts from New Moon Hall or Barren Sect until the eighth day of acting as bait, when he went to kill people with Master Shifu and found the enemy's trace.