Chapter 62: Victory
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Shangguan Ru disentangled herself from her elder brother's arms and grabbed the Black Jade Palm and the wooden saber from Shangguan Fei. She angrily glared at Shangguan Chui without saying a word. Although she did not win by herself, she could enjoy her victory for now.
Bypassing the overturned chairs and tables, Aunt Tong held Shangguan Fei in her arms and asked, "Ah, why is your neck bleeding? Who did this?"
She turned her gaze towards Shangguan Chui.
"Sister,"
Shangguan Fei said with his face full of tears. He had suffered a lot tonight.
Aunt Tong was stunned and thought that Shangguan Fei must have been frightened.
Shangguan Ru said seriously, "I did. My eldest brother thought I wasn't qualified to be a man of the Shangguan family. I want to show him that I am qualified."
Shangguan Chui snorted. He would not lower himself to argue with a child.
Aunt Tong did not know how to reply. She took out her handkerchief and carefully bandaged the wound for Shangguan Fei.
Gu Shenwei crawled up from the ground and wanted to stand behind Shangguan Ru. After Aunt Tong shot him an unfriendly glance, he could only retreat to stand next to the wall.
Shangguan Yushi also stood up. She discreetly tidied clothes and hair for Shangguan Ru while being careful to not draw Aunt Tong's attention to her.
No one spoke in the room.
After a while, the Lord still did not show up. Shangguan Chui kept holding the dagger around his waist, with his expression blocked by his two big eye bags. He suddenly said, "Let me kill the two slaves who incited their master to cause trouble."
In the young master's eyes, his sister Shangguan Yushi was the same as the slaves.
Shangguan Ru stretched out her hand to protect Shangguan Yushi and said, "I said. No."
Shangguan Chui gave no response, but drew out his saber. He could accurately kill the target with only one slash, even if there were 100 Shangguan Ru protecting Shangguan Yushi.
Mister Guo did not have a saber, but he hid his hands within his sleeves. He could kill anyone even if he did not have a weapon, especially that little child with poor kung fu.
Gu Shenwei knew that he was the short man's target and immediately became vigilant. However, he took precautions not for self-protection, but for strangling Shangguan Fei to death. Gu Shenwei regretted that he had not picked up the saber on the ground just now.
"If you kill my people, you're my enemy. I won't accept your apologies and won't reconcile with you. I won't treat you as my eldest brother, let alone treating you as the Supreme King's eldest son. I'll pester you for the rest of my life, until the time when I'll personally kill you."
Shangguan Ru could only issue a threat, as she knew she was not capable of protecting those she cared about. Her voice was cool as if it was not a 12-year-old child's voice.
Shangguan Chui was surprised that there was something worth paying attention to in his sisters' words, but he could not show weakness because he was a killer and the eldest son of the Shuangguan family, and he would most likely become the next Supreme King.
The faint candlelight was flickering on the saber blade.
"If you cannot kill her, you should respect what she said."
A voice came from the door.
The Supreme King arrived, but no one noticed it.
All the people in the room knelt down, except for Shangguan Ru. She ran to stuff the Black Jade Palm and the wooden saber into her father's hands. "Father, this is the first trophy I gained as a thief. I offer them to you."
Shangguan Fa could not help giving a slight smile. "They originally belonged to me."
"But I've stolen them. They're mine for now. They could only belong to you after I have given them to you."
Shangguan Fa snorted heavily and glanced at the corpse on the ground. "What happened?"
"He betrayed me, so I killed him."
"You're not yet 13 years old, and you've already started killing people."
If a boy of the Shuangguan family was 13 years old, he would be considered as an adult. Then he would be qualified to be called "Young Master" and would begin to build his own team. From Shangguan Fa's words, they knew that Shangguan Fa had treated his youngest daughter as a man.
Shangguan Chui and Mister Guo looked at each other and thought. "That's bad."
"Regardless of whether we're one or 100 years old, we're not allowed to betray the Shuangguan family," Shangguan Ru said.
"Well said."
The Supreme King rarely gave praise to someone. Shangguan Chui could not allow the situation to deteriorate, so he said, "Father, Six Kills Temple is a place for our ancestors. Women are forbidden to enter. Seventeenth sister..."
"From now on, don't call her seventeenth sister," Shangguan Fa said coldly. The big change in his attitude scared Shangguan Chui. "Not long ago, father was furious at his daughter's bad behavior. Why has he suddenly vented his anger on his eldest son?"
"Mister Guo, choose a good time. I'll bring my daughter to Six Kills Temple and declare to my ancestors that my youngest daughter will be my tenth son. You should call her Master Ru. Next year, she'll be the Tenth Young Master."
Mister Guo prostrated on the ground and answered "Yes" in a quavering voice. He originally planned to humiliate Lady Meng, but he did not expect that he would fail like this. He disgraced himself.
Gu Shenwei knelt in the corner. It was the second time that he had met the Supreme King. He felt less fear than the last time and could think normally. He admired Lady Meng, the twins' mother who he had just met once before.
Gu Shenwei initially thought that Lady Meng was an ordinary mother who spoiled her children, and that the Supreme King had encouraged Lady Meng to raise their daughter like a boy. Now he knew that he was completely wrong. It was Lady Meng who nurtured her daughter as a boy. She kept instilling the concept into the Supreme King for those years: as long as she had the proper personality, a daughter could be treated as a son.
Eventually, with the help of an unforeseen crisis, she persuaded her husband to openly admit that Shangguan Ru would be his tenth son.
Gu Shenwei admired her from the bottom of his heart. He was also curious about what trick Lady Meng had used to be able to manipulate the killer king of the Western Region.
Gu Shenwei had thought that Bighead Kingpin's daughter was too stupid to win the fight against her mother-in-law.
At dawn, the long night was finally over.
Shangguan Ru was extremely excited as the crisis was more real than all the games she had ever played. She thought she had failed miserably at one point, but she managed to win in the end.
She even pushed Mister Guo into confessing the identity of the informer.
It turned out to be Shangguan Fei. On the day before they took action, he bragged with several clansmen and unconsciously revealed their plan. Whiterobe Academy paid more attention to the gossip of the fort. They immediately made preparations for it. They did not plan to prevent them from entering Six Kills Temple, but rather they prepared to catch them with the stolen goods.
Family feuds were always a part of Golden Roc Fort. The Supreme King chose not to hold anyone responsible for the incident. No one made further inquiries; even the overbearing Shangguan Ru also understood the rule and did not blame her eldest brother.
Gu Shenwei's little trick was temporarily covered up by the internal conflict of the Shangguan family. The real wooden saber of Six Kills Temple was hidden in a place that only he knew about.
He was not sure how long he could keep the secret. Someone would find that the returned wooden saber was a fake sooner or later. When it would happen, even Shangguan Ru could not protect him. Worse still, she would treat him as a "traitor".
Gu Shenwei was pressed for time. He had to find a way out for himself, but first, he needed to know what the secret of the wooden saber was from Mama Xue.
Golden Roc Fort was like a great golden mountain. If one wanted to pull it down, he must patiently look for both visible and invisible cracks. Gu Shenwei had already found a few, but he was too weak to fight back, even when faced with those flaws. Therefore, he just observed and collected information. He believed that someday these cracks would merge into a fatal ravine in front of him.
The internal conflicts of the Shuangguan family, such as Lady Meng's ambition and the secret of the wooden saber, were the cracks of Golden Roc Fort. There were several less tiny and covert cracks, like Shangguan Yushi's implicit position and Shangguan Nu who lost his father's favor. Gu Shenwei had kept all of them in mind.
Gu Shenwei knew there were many wooden sabers around Shangguan Ru's residence, so he randomly took a wooden saber before returning to his room. After sleeping for two hours, he immediately got up and left Inner Residence to meet Mama Xue with the wooden saber.
If there were guards blocking him, he would say that "the Tenth Young Master" asked him to sweep Kun Yard. No one would disturb Shangguan Ru, as she was sleeping soundly right now.
In fact, he was too anxious. He bumped into lots of people, but no one blocked him and several unknown people even smiled at him.
The gossip always spread at an unexpected speed. Shangguan Ru would be the Tenth Young Maste and even her close servant's status was immediately elevated.
Gu Shenwei offered the wooden saber to Mama Xue, but she was not happy because she had already heard about what had happened in Inner Residence. She placed the wooden saber on the table and said, "You've caused a big trouble."
"I did not expect to cause that."
"What happened to the wooden saber? I heard that it was returned."
"I brought two wooden sabers. One was used to swap places with the wooden saber in Six Kills Temple; the other was returned. This is the real one. No one knew that I hid it at the bottom of the wall of Six Kills Temple. I retrieved it afterwards."
Most of what Gu Shenwei said was true, except that he did not go back to take the real saber.
Mama Xue finally smiled and took the wooden saber. After glancing at it, she became angry and broke the wooden saber. "You're too daring. How dare you play a trick in front of me?"
Mama Xue stabbed Gu Shenwei with her Iron Finger. He fell down and felt a blast of heat flow into his Dantian, feeling as if his body was roasted in a fire. "Mama, Mama Xue, I didn't... lie to you. It, It's true."
Mama Xue kicked Slave Huan, which slightly relieved his pain, and said, "Do you think I can't recognize the wooden saber in Six Kills Temple?"
Gu Shenwei could breathe now, but he could not stand up. "There might be more than one wooden saber in the temple."
"More than one?"
"I did not have time to check all the place at that time. The wooden saber was inset into the wall and camouflaged by the character in the painting. It was closest to me. I thought it was the one you wanted. Now that I think about it again, I feel that the wooden sabers might be inset in other places."
Mama Xue sat down again. She seemed to be convinced by the detail of the wooden saber being inset into the wall. The information she had received was not clear. She had never entered Six Kills Temple, so she did not know the details in the temple.
"Can you enter Six Kills Temple again?"
"I can go there with the Tenth Young Maste."
Mama Xue somewhat believed in his words, but she was still skeptical. "Don't play tricks with me. Remember, both your secrets and your life are in my hands."
"I wouldn't dare to forget."
Gu Shenwei dragged his heavy body and left Mama Xue's room. He had found out where the secret of wooden saber was hidden from Mama Xue's eyesight. He would disobey Mama Xue's order and play another trick.