Chapter 70: The First Monthly Test
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Today, Gu Shenwei was going to take his first monthly test in the Pyrowork Academy. It had rained a little early in the morning, but now it stopped and the sky cleared up. It was cool and breezy.
Not wanting to affect his apprentice's mood, Tie Hanfeng decided to stay sober this morning, so he did not drink any liquor at breakfast. As they walked out of their small yard, he took a deep breath of the fresh air and said to his apprentice, "It's such a nice day for killing. The smell of blood will soon fade and drift away in the wind. Come on, my apprentice, go ahead and kill them all. Slaughtering them like pigs."
He limped ahead, leading the way for his apprentice. Today, Gu Shenwei was dressed in black from head to toe and covered his face with a black cloth. This was the standard outfit for all the killer apprentices who went to take the monthly tests. Golden Roc Fort made this rule to protect the apprentices' identities. According to the fort's tradition, a real professional killer should remain anonymous throughout his life.
It was not easy for the killers to adhere strictly to that tradition. When they were young, they could still manage to keep things low-key, but once they entered middle age and became semi-retired, they would start to find enjoyment in bragging about their achievements. Tie Hanfeng was such a semi-retired killer. In the past ten days, he had told Gu Shenwei many incredible stories. According to him, the people he had killed lined up could span the whole gobi desert.
Boastful as he was, he would never reveal who he had killed, as this was one of the key principles of Golden Roc Fort. Even though now it was widely known as a gang of ruthless killers, its current leader, the seventh Supreme King, still pretended that killer gang business was a secret of the fort, as all his predecessors had done.
After entering the Pyrowork Academy, Tie Hanfeng greeted every yellow-belt and killer mentor with a big grin on his red face, as if he had come to attend a wedding party.
Just like him, most of the killer mentors here had just passed their prime time. They were over forty or even fifty, and by courtesy of their masters' kindness, they could now make a living by teaching instead of killing.
Besides Tie Hanfeng, there were seven or eight killer mentors. They all appeared to be on high alert and behaved in a highly professional manner. They dispersed in the yard and remained silent almost all the time. Every one of them had piercing eyes and habitually placed one hand on the handle of his saber. No one allowed even his own apprentices to stand within three steps from him.
Tie Hanfeng was the only exception. He left his apprentice behind and chatted excitedly with all his friends here and there. Surprisingly, unlike the yellow-belts who reacted coolly toward him, all the serious-looking killer mentors seemed to get along with him and even permitted him to stand close to them.
As Tie Hanfeng had only one apprentice, everyone immediately recognized Slave Huan, even though he wore the all-black outfit.
A yellow-belt came to him and said, "Alas, Slave Huan, what a pity! You're such a useful slave boy. I hope you can carry yourself to Reincarnation Cliff." With these words, the man guffawed loudly.
Since Gu Shenwei had to come here to help with carrying corpses every three days, he was very familiar with this yellow-belt. He laughed together with him and then said, "No matter who gets killed today, I'll carry him to Reincarnation Cliff."
He knew his words were a little bit muffled by his black cloth mask, but he was still surprised by the yellow-belt's reaction. That man kept shaking his head, as if he hadn't heard what Slave Huan had just said. After a moment, he walked away while murmuring to himself repeatedly, "It's such a pity."
Apparently, he firmly believed that Slave Huan would die today, which struck him as odd. The monthly tests were brutal, but most of the time, the losers would just get injured and only very few killer apprentices would be killed on the spot. Gu Shenwei began to wonder why the yellow-belt was so certain about it.
Tie Hanfeng limped back to him, still looking happy. He waved to a thin killer mentor, who stood far away from them, and then turned around to whisper beside his apprentice's ear, "Did you offend someone in the fort?"
"No." Gu Shenwei lied to his mentor without any hesitation. He had offended quite a lot of people in the fort and some of them did want to kill him.
"Your opponent today is determined to kill you."
"So am I."
This time, Gu Shenwei was telling the truth. He even started to doubt that his mentor was just trying to arouse his fighting spirit by saying that. He thought it was such an unnecessary move. He had got the trick of killing. The scars on his body could prove it.
"Huh, you little bastard. What a bold apprentice you are! You dare to cheat your mentor. Look, that son of a b*tch over there is your opponent today. His master said that he wanted to fight you since he had some personal grudge against you. He also said that this fight was between you guys and no one would interfere."
Gu Shenwei looked at the boy his mentor was talking about. He was of medium height and sturdily built, standing more than three steps away from the thin killer mentor. Even though the boy was in a black outfit now, Gu Shenwei was still sure that he had never offended any killer apprentice like him. He had stayed in the Carvewood Academy for only five or six days. He had not even gotten many chances to meet anyone at all there.
"No matter what, I'll kill him anyway."
Gu Shenwei grabbed his saber handle tightly to focus himself, without feeling guilty or nervous about his decision to kill a stranger.
"F*ck the personal grudges. I haven't heard this phrase for years. Well, go to kill him. Remember, no matter how many moves you exchange with him, you need to kill him with only one strike," Tie Hanfeng sneered and said.
A yellow-belt waved his hand to Gu Shenwei, summoning him to the test.
Gu Shenwei opened the door assigned to him and walked into the test room. It was shaped like a narrow lane, which could only allow two people to walk side by side and was dimly-lit by a tiny oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. The stocky boy was already inside the room, standing about 10 steps away from him.
The yellow-belts closed the doors, leaving the two apprentices inside.
Both of them were full of fighting spirit now. As they had no place to hide inside this "lane", they started to walk toward each other step by step. For a moment, Gu Shenwei felt an urge to ask the boy what kind of grudge he had against him, but he quickly threw this thought away. He guessed that the boy might just have made up this story to arouse his own killing intent. No matter what, he had already decided to kill this boy.
When they were only five steps away from each other, Gu Shenwei was about to attack, but his opponent moved faster than him. He leaped forward, pointing his saber at Gu Shenwei's chest. Gu Shenwei instantly detected the deception in this movement. His opponent was just trying to get behind him.
Evidently, this boy stuck to Golden Roc Fort's fighting style. No matter how narrow the space was, he still tried to kill his opponent from the back.
While the boy was jumping about, Gu Shenwei just kept low and steadily rotated his body to avoid exposing his back to his opponent. For quite a long time, the stocky boy had failed to spot any chance to launch an attack, and they had not really exchanged any moves.
Soon, Gu Shenwei found that there was definitely something off about the stocky boy, who was preparing to jump up for the tenth time. The boy's shoulders had already started to sink, but his feet still on the ground, which perhaps was induced by tiredness.
Given that, Gu Shenwei easily predicted the boy's movement and struck at him.
In the next minute, the boy threw his saber away and used both of his hands to cover the wound in his chest. Blood kept spouting out from between his fingers, but he still struggled, trying to remain upright. After a moment, he could not control his body anymore. He involuntarily staggered backward and then fell onto the ground. Gu Shenwei clearly saw the boy's legs twitch a few times before he died.
Gu Shenwei had thought he had already got used to killing, but now when he ended someone's life in a fighting contest for the first time, he could not help but feel like he wanted to vomit. He had not felt this way for a long time, since he had thrown Mama Xue's dead body off the cliff.
To avoid the boy's blood, which was flowing on the ground toward him, he kept stepping backward until he suddenly felt a wall against his back. The impact woke him up from the shock instantly. He swiftly turned around and knocked three times on the door, telling the yellow-belt outside that the fight was over.
He put on a straight face to mask his unpleasant sensation and then walked out of the room. The yellow-belt outside was greatly surprised. Even those cool killer mentors also could not help casting their eyes on him.
During this monthly test, he was the only one who had killed his opponent with just one strike. There were a few unlucky killer apprentices who were seriously injured and sent to the Firewood Yard in the West Castle.
Gu Shenwei kept his promise. He himself carried the boy's dead body to the Giant Rock Cliff, chanted the "Death Scripture" three times and then threw the corpse off, hoping that the nestling could get this food.
The thin killer mentor did not care about his apprentice's death at all. As a seasoned killer, he had already become accustomed to such things. He had not even come to see his apprentice for the last time.
But Tie Hanfeng had come to see the dead boy. He had checked his wound carefully, without saying anything. When Gu Shenwei returned to the yard after throwing the boy's dead body away, his mentor got revealed his anger at him.
"You son of a b*tch. You've killed someone in the test. Are you proud of yourself now? What? Did someone tell you that you're not a real killer?"
"Yes," Gu Shenwei answered. He still remembered that Hu Shining, the training tutor of the Carvewood Academy, had told him that his kung fu had a "fatal flaw".
"Huh, you're really proud that you killed someone with only one strike in your first monthly test, aren't you?"
"No."
Gu Shenwei was confused now. He thought he had done very well in the test.
"Are you f*cking stupid? You cut into his chest. What the f*ck were you thinking? Haven't you learned anything from those idiots in the Carvewood Academy?"
"I've not been trained in the Carvewood Academy."
Gu Shenwei blurted, while holding his saber handle tightly.
Tie Hanfeng was stunned. He realized that he could not reproach Slave Huan for not knowing the basics, since he was the only killer apprentice who had not been trained in the Carvewood Academy in all these years. Tie Hanfeng had listened to Hu Shining's recommendation and had decided to take this boy as his apprentice even before he had met him in the Pyrowork Academy. Now he found he could only blame himself for underestimating the importance of basic killer training, but this could not stop him from spilling his rage at his apprentice.
"F*ck you and all your ancestors and relatives! Did you come to frame me? You don't even know the basics. How can you become a killer? I'll kill you now, you jerk. I'll chop you up and feed you to a dog, and then chop up the dog and feed it to a pig, and then chop up the pig and feed it to the rats. I'll kill all the rats and throw some of them in the mountains and the others into a river. After that, you may be reincarnated, but you'll always be missing some body parts."
Tie Hanfeng cursed while dashing toward Gu Shenwei with a saber in hand. He slagged his apprentice off for striking at the stocky boy's chest, but now he was also planning to attack Slave Huan from the front. He thought he was much stronger and experienced than the slave boy and did not need to use any advanced techniques to kill him.
Gu Shenwei was always on guard against his mentor. Seeing the malevolent look on Tie Hanfeng's face, he understood that his mentor did mean it when he said that he would kill him.
Tie Hanfeng kept rushing forward without raising his saber. He did not need to do so. He moved much faster than most people. He believed that the slave boy could never determine his moves, not to mention counter them.
Gu Shenwei did not raise his saber either. He was clear that he could not compete with his mentor in speed. If he raised his saber now, he would just give his mentor a chance to predict his movement and spot his weakness.
He took a step back and felt nauseous again. What Tie Hanfeng said sickened him. Although he was well aware that he talked like this all the time, he still could not endure such verbal abuse. Being brought up in a traditional Chinese family, he could hardly get used to this kind of filthy speech.
All the knife fighting skills and routines he had learned flashed across his mind, from the Gu family style to the the Iron Mountain style and Golden Roc Fort style. Nevertheless, Gu Shenwei was not satisfied with any of these moves. Suddenly, he thought of a move and raised his saber to stab Tie Hanfeng's neck.