Chapter 76: The Alliance
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Having suffered two qigong deviation attacks in recent months, Gu Shenwei was surprised that Maid Lotus now thought he had already cured his qigong deviation. It took him a moment to realize why she had such question.
Maid Lotus had practiced kung fu with him, and at that time, his Internal Strength had been just ordinary. However, months later, he was able to kill his every opponent with one strike in the tests for three consecutive months. Such a huge progress aroused Maid Lotus' attention and made her believe that he had already gotten rid of the lurking threat in the Xuanji acupoint.
"No, you've mistaken me. I have reasons..."
"I thought that we're friends. We've promised each other that we'll help each other get rid of the qigong deviation."
Apparently, Maid Lotus was not convinced. Gu Shenwei expected that, but he was not sure what he should do at this moment.
He was not as naive as he used to be. Since his family's disintegration, he had become even more skeptical than the most sophisticated elderly man in the world. He instinctively distrusted anyone and thus had not made any friend in the fort.
However, he really wanted to have some friends here. He needed the help of other people to have his revenge on Golden Roc Fort. He was well aware that he could not destroy the fort who had thousands of killers by himself even if he became a peerless kung fu master.
"I'll show you something."
Gu Shenwei made up his mind and took out the Nameless Swordbook that he had hidden under a rock nearby. He solemnly handed it to Maid Lotus, "Read the last few pages."
Maid Lotus took the dog-eared book, simply glanced over the pages, and closed the book.
"What's this?"
"I don't know. I got it by chance. Remember the words on the last few pages and recite them when you have a qigong deviation attack. It cannot help you get rid of it, but it can strengthen your Internal Strength. You can give it a try."
Maid Lotus was as skeptical as Slave Huan. She found it hard to believe that a book filled with so many dreadful pictures was about Internal Strength. She opened the book again to read the last few pages.
"You can take it. It does no harm to memorize the words."
"I'll return it to you."
"Well, I need to remind you that you'd better not learn the sword skill depicted in the first few pages. I've used it once. My opponent nearly chopped my hand off."
Maid Lotus nodded. "Well, I see. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, and regarding the bird... "
"I won't tell anyone."
Maid Lotus left with the Nameless Swordbook. Gu Shenwei faltered for a moment before leaving the Giant Rock Cliff. He did not know if he had made a right decision to tell Maid Lotus his secret.
As Maid Lotus had expected, Golden Roc Fort did not care much about what had happened to an apprentice and an unimportant relative of the Shangguan family, although this incident caused lots of gossips. Based on the clothes they had left near the edge of the cliff, the fort quickly determined that their deaths were accidental without a more thorough investigation.
However, this incident did not end there. It led to a string of assassinations. To Gu Shenwei's great surprise, it was not Shangguan Yushi who wanted to seek revenge on him for her brother's death but a bunch of teenagers who wanted to avenge Cloud Panther's death.
Gu Shenwei performed well in the fourth monthly test. His original adversary died before the test, and the replacement for the dead apprentice was just ordinary. After exchanging several moves with him, Gu Shenwei quickly spotted a chance to knife him in the waist and nearly cut him into two pieces.
On the evening of the same day, Gu Shenwei went to the Woodensaber Alley ruins, as usual, to buy liquor for his killer mentor and nearly got assassinated.
The liquor stall was the most crowded place in the whole market. Huddled together with a dozen of killers and killer apprentices, Gu Shenwei wondered, "This is like putting tigers and lions into the same cage. It's indeed a miracle that nothing has happened all these years."
As it was already mid-autumn, it was delightedly cool now.
The people were closely packed together in front of the liquor stall, and Gu Shenwei happened to be in the middle of the crowd. He had no room to dodge when someone stabbed him with a dagger. At that critical moment, his Yin and Yang Strength saved him.
His Yang Strength stretched and Yin Strength contracted. That was how he moved his lower back muscle six centimeters forward to dodge the fatal blow. He pushed his way through the crowd to get into the liquor stall and knocked over the lamp during the process, leaving chaos behind him.
He did not discover the attacker. Nor did he find out what led to the outbreak of violence which started from the moment he got stabbed. Many attackers who were hidden in the market simultaneously launched their attacks.
The chaos in the black market continued for a quarter, until night watchmen arrived to quickly disperse the crowd.
Ten people died. Three of whom were killer apprentices. The rest seven were just servants selling goods here.
Gu Shenwei fled the scene under the cover of the night instead of staying there and searching for the attackers. A moment later, he was just thankful that he had acted in such a rational way. If he had stayed inside the chaotic market, he would have probably been killed now, let alone finding out any clues about the attackers.
The dagger did not hit his vitals but left a penetrating hole in his waist. He already had many scars left by Tie Hanfeng, but this was the first wound an assassin inflicted on him.
He ran back home breathlessly, his waist bleeding. Tie Hanfeng who was waiting for his liquor quickly bound up the wound for his apprentice. After listening to the whole story, he smiled and said, "It's no big deal. It's the same every year. After several fights and killing about a few dozens of guys, apprentices will calm down. Take it easy."
Tie Hanfeng did not take this incident seriously, and went downhill the next morning for his private "business" again.
Likewise, Golden Roc Fort did not pay much attention to this incident either and did not conduct any investigation into it. However, beyond everyone's expectations, this thing did not end after a few fights. It developed into a slaughter. Golden Roc Fort had never seen such a slaughter among apprentices over the past few decades.
The apprentices had a peaceful day after the turmoil in the black market, but when the evening fell, they started to fight again and conducted a new string of assassinations. This fight ended right after the midnight, and by that time, 30 or 40 had already lain dead in the southeast corner of Golden Roc Fort.
Gu Shenwei suffered another assassination. Two masked men seemed to know that his killer mentor was away. They directly leaped over the wall and came into the yard where he lived. One of them stood sentry outside the house, and the other went in to assassinate him.
Fortunately, he did not entirely believe what Tie Hanfeng had said. He lay awake with saber in hand, clothed and on guard. When the assassin walked to the bed and raised his knife, he stabbed him in the heart with one stroke.
The assassin died silently inside the house, but his partner outside still sensed something wrong and fled at once.
Gu Shenwei removed the assassin's mask and saw an unfamiliar face. He carried the corpse out, dumped it beside the wall, and went back to sleep.
The next day, his killer mentor was still away. Surprisingly, Maid Lotus came to visit him early in the morning. She brought him the Nameless Swordbook and another 10 apprentices, who wanted to ally with Slave Huan.
Although Maid Lotus said nothing when she entered the house alone to return the swordbook, Gu Shenwei still knew for sure that she had already tried to recite those magical words during her recent qigong deviation.
"We need to unite," she said.
"We?"
"Yes, we, and many more people. Only when we unite can we resist the Snow Mountain Gang."
"It seems like we have to."
Maid Lotus asked the 10 apprentices to come in. When they saw the dead body in the corner of the yard, they gained more confidence in the alliance.
An apprentice aged about seventeen or eighteen, who was the oldest among the crowd, explained the whole thing to Slave Huan.
Killer apprentices in Golden Roc Fort came from various places. Only a small number of them were slaves of the fort. Most of them were small children bought or looted from different areas in the Western Region. These children were all under 10, and before they came to East Castle, they needed to be trained outside the fort for a few years until they completely forgot about their own origins.
During that training period, these children forgot their names, parents, and hometowns, and their minds were filled with killing techniques and loyalty to Golden Roc Fort. The most capable killers often came from this group of apprentices.
However, these children lived together for too long and inevitably had their own friends and even small groups. Conflicts among these groups often occured, and these conflicts gradually developed into gang wars among the apprentices in East Castle.
This year, a few dozens of teenagers united to form a gang, which attracted wide attention and hatred from the apprentices right after they got into the Pyrowork Academy. They were extremely cruel and exceptionally good at kung fu. To abide by the killers' silence principle, they all voluntarily cut off their own tongues.
In the Western Region, people generally took such tough and silent people as residents of the Great Snowmountain, so the apprentices referred to this group of teenagers as the Snow Mountain Gang. Some of them were indeed looted from the snow mountain by Golden Roc Fort, but none of them could remember this thing now. Now they were the fort's loyal servants and would mercilessly slaughter the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain for the fort.
Snow Mountain Gang was a bunch of bullies, who had provoked many complaints among their peers.
They did not believe in Cloud Panther's and Shangguan Yuxing's scandal and suspected that Slave Huan and Maid Lotus, who had gone to the Giant Rock Cliff to throw corpses on that day, had something to do with Cloud Panther's death. As Cloud Panther was an important member of the Snow Mountain Gang, the gang members were determined to seek revenge for his death. Meanwhile, they also took this chance to assassinate a huge number of their enemies.
"We're all slaves of Golden Roc Fort. Although we belong to different masters, apprentices in East Castle still consider us a gang. They call us the Tattooed Arm Gang."
All slaves of Golden Roc Fort had their slave names tattooed on their arms. Gu Shenwei had never expected that this feature would have made the other apprentices think the slave apprentices as a gang.
"It looks like I'm also a member of this Tattooed Arm Gang now. It seems that I did miss a lot of lessons for not having been trained in the Carvewood Academy."
"Some other gangs are dissatisfied with the Snow Mountain Gang. They're all willing to work with us to fight against those mutes."
The teenage apprentices all looked at Slave Huan with expectant looks on their faces. Slave Huan was the top dog of the slave apprentices. He had killed his every opponent with only one strike for four straight months. Only a few members of the Snow Mountain Gang could compete with him in the monthly tests.
"Alright, let's fight."
A dozen of hands piled up together. Slave Huan's hand was at the bottom, while Maid Lotus's was on top. She also was the only female killer apprentice in the room.
"What about killer mentors? And supervisors? What do they think?"
"Nobody will interfere." Maid Lotus answered. "It's a good way to knock out weak apprentices. We're on our own now. People who survive and kill the most won't be punished. Rather, they'll probably finish their apprenticeship sooner."
Gu Shenwei was excited to hear that. "Wow, there's such a rule in East Castle. In that case, why hesitate?"
He was ready to kill.