If Gu Shenwei had known that the young man was the Fifth Young Master Meng, who wanted to avenge Pot-bellied Buddha's death, he would have never come out of the flowering shrub.
The scuffle between the tenth child of the Shangguan family and the fifth child of the Meng family ruined the last day of the flower viewing party. Residents of Jade City kept talking about and laughing over this incident for days. Many years later, they still remembered it.
Slapping Meng Mengshi seemed to not be enough to appease Shangguan Ru's anger over the guy's mischief. She chased him down the hill and continued to beat him. At this moment, Shangguan Yushi, who went to fetch some sweet liquor, happened to come back with a flagon in her hand. Seeing Shangguan Ru fighting Meng Mingshi, she immediately threw the flagon aside and joined the fight. She beat all the young attendants away and then joined Shangguan Ru.
Meng Mingshi had learned a little kung fu, but all the moves he knew were impractical in a real fight. He felt dizzy after falling from the hill and was clearly no match for the girls, but he still talked big at the beginning of the fight. After a while, he could not hold on any longer and admitted defeat while crying like a baby.
His attendants, who had run away to avoid Shangguan Yushi, all returned now. They kowtowed to the girls and said, "Miss Ru and Miss Yushi, please kindly forgive us." Hearing the boys call them miss, the girls flared up and beat them even harder. They drove them to the middle of Bodhi Garden and made them stand beside a pond. After that, they kicked them into the pond one by one and kept throwing stones at them to prevent them from getting out of the water.
The ladies across the pond thought it was a show. They laughed at the scene and even applauded it. Suddenly, they saw Meng Mingshi struggling in the water and panicked.
The girls became excited and refused to let the boys off until Lady Meng came out to stop them. The servants of the Meng family hurriedly fished out their young master. After getting out of the pond, Meng Mingshi snuggled up in her grandmother's arms, bawling. After that, he rolled on the ground, crying that someone was going to kill him with a saber and Golden Roc Fort was plotting against him. His grandma thought that he was possessed by some evil spirit and also burst into tears.
The banquet ended in acrimony. Lady Meng led all the members of the Shangguan family back to Golden Roc Fort that night and did not pay any visits to the Meng family in the following years.
That night, no one found out what Slave Huan had done. The moment Shangguan Ru had woken up, he had swiftly retreated back into the flowering shrub. He did not know what happened after the teenagers left the artificial hill, and Shangguan Ru was unaware that a teenager had come out to protect her.
Meng Mingshi kept yelling that a teenager had appeared behind Shangguan Ru and wanted to kill him with a saber, but nobody believed him that evening; everybody thought that he was just having a panic attack.
A few days later, when Meng Mingshi recovered from the shock and looked sober, he finally convinced his family that a teenager wearing a brown belt had threatened him with a wooden saber.
Unfortunately, he had missed the best time to seek revenge on that brown-belt assassin. The Supreme King had sent an envoy to Meng Yuzun to make peace with the Meng family right after Lady Meng had returned to the fort. Now neither of the two parties wanted to mention this incident again.
Despite that, this thing still became a hot topic in the fort. Gu Shenwei heard many ridiculous rumors about the incident. Meanwhile, he also heard quite a lot of valuable information, and much of it was about Lady Meng.
Lady Meng, the mother of the twins, was just a distant relative of Meng Yuzun. In fact, she was Meng Mingshi's cousin. Her parents died during her childhood and thus she had been brought up in Meng Yuzun's family.
When she had grown up to become a beautiful young lady, she had been picked out from all the unmarried young ladies of the Meng family by Shangguan Fa, who had just lost his wife and planned to marry another one. It was said that she had not been favored by Meng Yuzun's family when she had been little. That was why she seldom visited the Meng family after she married.
As for the fight during the flower viewing party, Lady Meng was firmly on her daughter's side and resolutely refused to apologize to Meng Mingshi. The Meng family could only suppress their anger and accept the Supreme King's suggestion to downplay the whole incident.
Gradually, words about "the teenager with a saber" appeared around. Gu Shenwei believed that no one would discover that he was the teenager, until, one day, when Tie Hanfeng asked him about this incident. He admitted to his mentor that he was the one who had come out to threaten Meng Mingshi.
Hearing that, Tie Hanfeng did not know whether to laugh or get mad. Because of that, his facial expression looked quite weird. "You dumb*ss. You're such a troublemaker. You'll die for this sooner or later," he scolded his apprentice.
The next day, he came to his apprentice again. This time, he looked solemn. "You have a new mission. You'll take a long journey ."
"Is there something wrong?" Gu Shenwei discovered that his mentor looked a little worried and asked.
"F*ck it, you dumb*ss. Don't you know that he's the Fifth Young Master Meng?"
Gu Shenwei shook his head, wanting to explain that he had never met Meng Mingshi before, but after a thought, he decided to remain silent to avoid further irritating Tie Hanfeng. He knew that his mentor would hurl countless insults at him when he was in a fit of anger.
"He wanted to kill you to avenge Pot-bellied Buddha's death. It took a great deal of effort to appease the young master. Why did you have to stick your head out to scare him? Is your stupid turtle shell too small for you? Keep your head inside the shell. Don't stick it out anymore. Just mind your own business and hold your saber tightly, understand?" Tie Hanfeng spluttered.
"Yes, Master Shifu," Gu Shenwei replied while tightly holding his saber shaft in his right hand.
Tie Hanfeng panted for a while and then said, "It's good for you to leave this city to avoid the young master. Wealthy kids are forgetful. He'll forget about you after enjoying a few days in South City. This isn't escaping; this mission was scheduled a long time ago. If you guys do the job well, you'll receive immense rewards when you return."
"Who else is going with me?"
"Maid Lotus, Wildhorse, Liuhua, and Snowcamel."
Hearing the names, Gu Shenwei was thrilled. Just like himself, these people were also widely recognized as the standouts of the Dragon Year apprentices. "This mission must be quite challenging," he thought.
However, when he knew what they were going to do, he was greatly disappointed.
This mission had nothing to do with assassination again. They were asked to escort some goods.
Bighead Kingpin missed his daughter and needed to maintain a good relationship with the Supreme King. Given that, he would send a great number of gifts to Golden Roc Fort every winter. In return, the Supreme King would send gifts to Bighead Kingpin every summer. In the past, Golden Roc Fort had always sent red-belt killers to escort the gifts, but this year, it assigned the task to Little Flag Battalion.
It was an easy job. Seeing Golden Roc Flags and Iron Mountain Flags fluttering over the goods, even the boldest roving bandits would run away as soon as possible, let alone be covetous of the goods.
Meanwhile, it was also a very lucrative job. Golden Roc Fort would give the escort team members a large sum as a bonus, and Bighead Kingpin, who was famous for his generosity, would gift the team members with vast numbers of gifts too.
Seeing five brown-belt assassins receive this job, many red-belt killers felt jealous. Gu Shenwei guessed that the one who had helped to bring about such a sudden change of tradition must have been Luo Ningcha.
Just as he had expected, three days before the escort team's departure, Luo Ningcha summoned him and Maid Lotus to the Eighth Young Master's residence. She asked them to deliver a few messages and a girl to her father.
The girl was Little Sui: one of Luo Ningcha maids.
Gu Shenwei believed that only someone from the Iron Mountain Gang would think that it was normal for a daughter to send a concubine to her own father.
Luo Ningcha had written a letter to her father. She required Slave Huan to hand it to her father in person. After a while, she sent all her servants away except Slave Huan.
In the room Shangguan Nu had specially reconstructed for his wife, Luo Ningcha said to her "conspiracy teacher" through the hollowed-out wooden wall. "I pleaded with my husband to let you guys escort the gifts this year. I think you know what I want."
Gu Shenwei had guessed what Luo Ningcha wanted, but he still shook his head, while saying, "Miss, please tell me what you want. I dare not to read your mind."
"You told me that a woman can only depend on her father and her husband. Did you forget it? My husband is unreliable, so I can only ask my father for help. You must try everything to persuade my father to attack the Meng family's caravans and make them lose all their money." Luo Ningcha sounded peaceful. After learning some conspiracies from Slave Huan, she could control her emotions better now.
Gu Shenwei was excited to hear Luo Ningcha's plan since it would ruin the relations between Golden Roc Fort's two major allies. He thought it was worth a try and believed that Lady Meng, who was on bad terms with the Meng family, would never interfere in this issue. As Lady Meng did not seem to rely on the Meng family to win the lord's affection, Gu Shenwei guessed that the lord probably loved the lady for another reason.
"I see, but Miss, I'm just a humble slave boy. Bighead Kingpin probably won't believe my words."
"Take this with you as a token. My father will believe everything you say."
Luo Ningcha raised her hand to put something in the hollowed-out wooden wall. Gu Shenwei walked to the wall and saw a green jade ring there. He put it in his hand carefully and caught a glimpse of Luo Ningsha at that moment. She still wore a veil even when she was behind the wall.
After hearing Luo Ningcha's plan, Gu Shenwei began to look forward to the mission. He sincerely hoped that Bighead Kingpin would follow her daughter's advice to attack the Meng family's caravans. He thought it would be a heavy blow to Golden Roc Fort.
This escort mission was more complicated than he had expected. The five chosen brown-belts assassins had a lot to prepare. The day before their departure, the killer mentors appointed Slave Huan as the chief of the brown-belt assassins. This appointment nearly caused another gang war in Little Flag Battalion. However, being strictly monitored by the five killer mentors, the teenagers finally gave up their assassination attempts.
The killer mentors took turns to lecture the chosen brown-belt assassins, repeatedly emphasizing that now they were not apprentices anymore and should forget about their gang wars. All of the mentors required them to trust each other and work together as a team. In Tie Hanfeng's words: now was the time for the puppies to obey rules. He said, "Stop biting each other inside the fort. You have to work together to fight against wolves outside the fort now."
Gu Shenwei did not expect much of his team and he thought that the mentors must have purposely chosen these five brown-belt assassins. Slave Huan and Maid Lotus were members of the former Tattooed Arm Gang. Wildhorse and Snowcamel were from the former Snow Mountain Gang. Liuhua was a lone wolf and had never joined in any gang.
Slave Huan could never forget that it was Wildhorse who had left a deep wound in his chest, and Maid Lotus always wanted to take revenge on Liuhua who had shot two arrows at her. Liuhua also still held a grudge against Slave Huan since the slave boy had battered him unconscious during a mission last winter.
As the chief of the brown-belt assassins, Gu Shenwei only hoped that they would be able to work peacefully together during the trip. To achieve that goal, he needed to deal with these problems in advance.
The night before their departure, he went to meet Wildhorse and made a deal with him. They promised each other that they would temporarily put aside all of their resentment and work together to complete this mission.
Although Wildhorse had cut his own tongue, it was still quite easy to communicate with this leader of the former Snow Mountain Gang, who was reasonable and understanding. The real headache for Gu Shenwei was Liuhua.
Liuhua was more secretive now. Teenagers of Little Flag Battalion seldom saw him even though he was also a member of the battalion. He liked to hide in the darkness like a poisonous snake, preparing to launch an attack at any minute.
Nobody liked Liuhua. No one trusted him. He had absolutely no friends. Given that, Gu Shenwei could not find him or ask anyone to deliver a message to him before their departure.
He began to wonder , "It'll be a good thing if I can find a chance to kill this poisonous snake during the trip." This thought made him feel excited.
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