Chapter 81: Assassination Plots
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
In the following 15 days, Tie Hanfeng often went alone on separate occasions to the city, always coming back on the same day and looking gloomy.
During those days, Gu Shenwei just focused himself on one thing, assassinating his mentor.
In the 15 days, he tried as many as 28 different assassination plans. Some of them were carefully considered and the others were just risky schemes he cooked up on the spur of the moment.
Tie Hanfeng reacted calmly to all the attacks. Every time after he successfully escaped an assassination attempt, he would beat his apprentice heavily. Sometimes, he would even comment on his apprentice's assassination plans.
"Idiot, you used knockout powder on a professional killer like me. Ha, I was taking them to numb my pain at a time when your mum was still a mere baby."
When Tie Hanfeng said this, Gu Shenwei was lying on the ground, paralysed by the knockout powder which backfired on him.
"What a dumb*ss you are. You glanced at the place where you hid the dagger before you launched the attack. You might as well have told me directly that there was a dagger under the tray. I can see right through you. Do you still dare to play such tricks on me?"
While saying this, Tie Hanfeng knocked the tray away, throwing food all over the ground. After that, he mercilessly punched his apprentice and knocked him down.
In order to achieve his ambition of killing his mentor, Gu Shenwei utilized all available resources. He turned to the core members of the former Tattooed Arm Gang. They gave him advice and provided him with rare poisons, specially crafted short weapons and various types of hidden weapons. They even secretly followed and watched Tie Hanfeng for him.
Gu Shenwei forbade his loyal friends from attacking his mentor for fear that Tie Hanfeng would kill them mercilessly. He carried out all the assassin missions by himself, since he was clear that his mentor would not kill his only apprentice.
Having failed more than 20 times, Gu Shenwei nearly succeeded one day.
He found out that his mentor never took the initiative to attack him. Based on this finding, he made a very sophisticated plan.
On this day, when Tie Hanfeng was lying in his chair, drinking and grumbling that his apprentice was such a burden, Gu Shenwei kept pacing back and forth in front of his mentor. He put on a worried look on his face, placing his right hand several centimeters away from the saber handle and his left hand behind his back hidden in a sleeve.
After a while, Tie Hanfeng finally got pissed off. "You bast*rd, what're you waiting for? What's the assassination method you're going to use today? Save it, dumb*ss. I've told you that I'm familiar with all those tricks. How about you kill yourself and rot in this yard? Maybe, you can stink me to death."
"Bullshit, old cripple! Your rotten leg smells much worse than my dead body. How can you put up with that piece of sh*t?" Gu Shenwei sharply retorted.
This pair of mentor and apprentice became increasingly rude to each other. Tie Hanfeng rapidly hurled countless insults at his apprentice, and Gu Shenwei tried his best to revile in return. However, he still did not launch an attack.
Tie Hanfeng was thrilled. He was glad to see his apprentice finally becoming his match at swearing and began to salivate uncontrollably. He made mean jokes about Slave Huan's body parts, cursed his ancestors, relatives and friends, and even made up a dozen dirty stories about his birth. He talked on and on, and at the same time still managed to keep drinking.
Gu Shenwei was clearly at a disadvantage in the beginning. He felt awkward to speak out such bad language and thus could not react quickly to his mentor's language abuses. As time went by, he began to change and gradually master a trick. He started to take the initiative to abuse his mentor, calling him old cripple or kiss-ass, no matter what his mentor said. In the end, Gu Shenwei finally broke his bottom line and made a long speech, contending that his mentor was a direct descendant of grotesque human beings and a combination of some filthy animals.
Gu Shenwei found out that swearing was not any simpler than killing. He had to be quick and flexible in this process, and once he used a sentence repeatedly, he would get ridiculed by his mentor. However, when he got the hang of it, he began to feel delighted. He realized that swearing was a good way to relieve the stress caused by killing people. The more he cursed, the more relaxed he felt.
This unprecedented quarrel between the mentor and the apprentice lasted nearly four hours until Tie Hanfeng suddenly passed out.
Gu Shenwei did not use hidden weapons or poison. Nor did he add any knockout powder to his mentor's liquor. He merely bought more liquor than usual for his mentor today. After long-time observation, he found out that his mentor enjoyed swearing while drinking. Given that, he gave his mentor this long-time quarrel as a delicious dish that went with his liquor. The plan worked. Now, Tie Hanfeng was totally drunk and unconscious.
Gu Shenwei stopped swearing. Instantly, the feeling of relief brought about by the quarrel was replaced by a strong desire for vengeance and blood.
He drew out his saber and held it against Tie Hanfeng's chest, feeling excited that he was about to end his mentor's life and become a red-belt killer.
He applied some pressure to his saber. It quickly pierced Tie Hanfeng's clothes and skin, and some blood began to ooze out of the wound. Curiously, in the next moment, he felt that his saber got stuck in something.
When he was about to push harder to thrust the saber into his mentor' chest, Tie Hanfeng opened his eyes abruptly. He swiftly drew out a saber from somewhere under his chair to stab Gu Shenwei in the chest.
If Gu Shenwei had continued to thrust his saber into his mentor's chest, he would have gotten stabbed by Tie Hanfeng's saber. He did not want to die together with the old cripple now. He had to avenge his family's deaths.
He jumped backwards to dodge his mentor's saber, and then raised his own, preparing to defend himself against Tie Hanfeng's attack.
However, Tie Hanfeng did not rise from the chair to beat him or open his mouth to curse him. He still widely opened his eyes and tightly held his saber while snoring. He did not wake up at all.
Seeing that, Gu Shenwei stood agape and felt quite ashamed of himself. He found out that he was not his mentor' rival even when his mentor was asleep.
In the next moment, Tie Hanfeng slowly closed his eyes, but still held his saber tightly.
Gu Shenwei hesitated for a long time before he completely gave up on this assassination plan. He did not have the courage to approach his mentor again, for he could tell that his mentor still harbored a killing intent for anyone who dared to approach him. He was amazed to see that Tie Hanfeng still somehow maintained his killer instinct when he was heavily drunk and soundly asleep.
He thought of Han Shiqi, a killer he had murdered a long time ago. That man was far weaker than Tie Hanfeng. Gu Shenwei could not understand why Han Shiqi had also been able to become a killer. He began to doubt the credibility of Golden Roc Fort's selection criteria for killers. He even wondered if Han Shiqi had really gotten the killer title through a special connection to some big shot in the fort.
Before this day, Gu Shenwei had often regretted that he had missed a chance to kill his mentor when he was drunk, but now he had no such regrets. He concluded from this failed assassin attempt that it was impossible to kill him even when he was drunk and asleep.
He had to admit that Tie Hanfeng was an outstanding killer and he himself still had much to learn from him. He thought that if he did not have the qigong deviation and had more years to live, he would love to stay with his mentor for a few more years.
The next morning, when Tie Hanfeng woke up at the first sight to see a saber in his hand, he frowned. After that, he saw a small scar on his chest and revealed an understanding smile. He stretched out his hand to grab his flagons only to find that all of them were empty. At this moment, he finally realized what had happened and flared up. He searched for his apprentice everywhere, wanting to beat him up.
Gu Shenwei hid for two days before he went back to his mentor's yard. He still wanted to assassinate his mentor. He tried a few more times but still failed. Like before, after each failed assassin attempt, he would get pummeled by his mentor. On a snowy day, when Tie Hanfeng brought him to see a doctor, he still had a bloody nose and a swollen, bruised face and looked stupid and funny.
Tie Hanfeng kept nagging that he had spent lots of money and asked help from lots of people in the past 15 days to get a chance for Slave Huan to meet the doctor. He warned his apprentice that he should behave himself and be extra polite to the venerated doctor.
Gu Shenwei, however, did not want to see the doctor at all. He worried that the doctor would discover that he was practicing Gu family's unique qigong technique, Yin and Yang Strength.
Tie Hanfeng discovered his qigong deviation. This was one of the reasons why he wanted to kill his mentor as soon as possible.
The doctor they were going to see was the famous Doctor Sun, who had been able to travel extensively and learn widely from dozens of well-known doctors in the Western Region and the Central Plain in his youth.
Doctor Sun now lived in a very grand house in North City and received all his patients in his study. All his patients had to make appointments in advance and would usually wait for several or even a dozen days before they met the Dr. Sun. The doctor refused to treat several kinds of illnesses, which included emergencies and traumas. He explained that he had never learned how to deal with these problems.
As soon as Tie Hanfeng and Gu Shenwei arrived at Dr. Sun's residence, the doctor's steward led them to the study.
This was the first time for Tie Hanfeng to meet the famous doctor. He behaved courteously. He revealed a flattering smile and bowed deeply to the doctor like an old bumpkin. After that, he pressed Slave Huan's head, forcing him to make a bow, and said softly, "Doctor Sun, we need your help."
The doctor was a tall, serious-looking old man, dressed in a blue gown. He did not have much hair on his head but had a waist-long, black and white beard. As he was so engrossed in reading a book in his hand now, he just grunted assent without looking at them at all. He continued to read two more pages and finally put down his book. After that, he looked at them and said, "It's liver and stomach damages caused by excessive drinking. You must be ill-tempered, cunning and guile. Such a disposition tends to drive your Qi and blood to your upper body. Look at your red face. That's a sign. You don't need any medicine. As long as you can give up drinking, you'll be able to get five more years to live. If you can't, you'll lose ten years."
Tie Hanfeng was stunned to hear that, but he would never quit drinking even if the doctor informed him that he would die tomorrow because of alcohol. "Doctor Sun, I'm not the patient. He is," Tie Hanfeng said.
"Why didn't you say it earlier? You guys always waste my time," the doctor said impatiently.
He shook his head and turned to look at Gu Shenwei. "Why do you bring him here? Don't beat him so hard next time, and he won't look so ugly."
Hearing that, Gu Shenwei felt much relieved. He thought that this doctor did not look like a man of real learning and would never be able to discover his qigong secret.
Tie Hanfeng pushed his apprentice toward the doctor and said, "Doctor Sun, we didn't come for the traumatic injuries. He has an internal one."
The doctor shook his head helplessly, clearly unhappy about the fact that this pair was wasting his time again. He stretched out three fingers to feel Gu Shenwei's pulse. All three fingers had very long nails. Doctor Sun placed them on Gu Shenwei's left wrist and then his right wrist. As time went by, the doctor's eyebrows knitted more and more tightly together.
After the pulse diagnosis, the doctor still frowned. He flicked his fingers, sending out many hair-thin strands of Qi. These strands hit the acupoints in Gu Shenwei's governing vessel precisely, which gave Gu Shenwei a fearful shock.
Beyond his expectations, this old bookworm turned out to be a qigong master. When he started to worry about his secret, a strand of Qi sent by Doctor Sun happened to hit his Xuanji acupoint. The Internal Strength left by Mama Xue instantly responded to the stimulation and went down to attack Gu Shenwei's Dantian.
Gu Shenwei cried out and tumbled backward. Doctor Sun grabbed his arm and shouted to Tie Hanfeng, "Red-faced cripple, you got screwed. He's a spy!"