It was getting late, and Gu Shenwei secretly headed for the Firewood Yard.
He was no longer that ignorant boy who had just entered the Stone Castle, making mistakes where ever he went. He knew how to listen to the footsteps and signals of the guards, and advanced forward between the patrol intervals.
Ever since he left, Gu Shenwei has never returned here, and even as he was lethally wounded, he loathed coming to this place to risk his life.
This time, he was also not ready to visit any old friends.
He leaned against the wall and clambered up onto the roof. Hands and feet latching upon the tiles, body plastered parallel to the ridge, like a nimble civet cat, he quietly went forth. There were very few masters residing in Firewood Yard. A little disturbance would not alarm the people below.
Outside Firewood Yard, there was a triangular piece of flat ground with several pine trees and a cliff at the far end.
Gu Shenwei tied one end of the thin rope to a tree, and with the other end of the rope slowly dropping off the cliff, tried not to make any noise. This was also the most important reason that Barren Sect needed him. Because iron nails notched into the stone cliff made such a cacophonous noise that traveled very far, they could only climb to a certain height and needed someone to assist from above for the last stretch.
The surface area of the Ghost Cliff, situated outside the Firewood Yard, was massive, and Gu Shenwei was very perplexed, wondering if the disciples of the Barren Sect could find the drooped thin rope in the dark. But this issue needed no worry.
This was a pitch-dark night with a darkened moon and sparsely lit stars. The Barren Sect had chosen a fine day.
Gu Shenwei waited for a long time under a tree. In the beginning, he was still wondering how Shangguan Ru was progressing. And the more he thought about it, the more his heart sank. He decided to simply let go of things and not think about it. What's done has already been done, and it would be useless to regret it now or attempt to come up with a better plan.
He remembered how it was when he first entered Golden Roc Fort. He would often be sitting there thinking about his loved ones, desiring to follow them with the leap of his entire being. Even now, as his grand plans for revenge had revealed a glimmer of hope, he still found the path ahead of them swathed in a mist of uncertainty, as if there was no possibility of reaching the end. Death seemed to be the most alluring option.
Gu Shenwei's mind surfaced many texts from the Death Scriptures . They were not words that looked puzzlingly like a spell from the last pages of the scriptures, but swordcraft from its first few pages.
Someone who had the power to determine his life or death could well be climbing up the cliff along the rope. The plan he had devised with Shangguan Ru might not work successfully. With his back leaning against an ancient pine tree even older than the Stone Castle, Gu Shenwei's heart experienced an unparalleled stillness, and at that moment, those flamboyant words seemed beckoning, waiting for him to enter.
However, just like being in the underground chamber in the desert, Gu Shenwei obtained what he needed in a moment of life and death. After slaying an enemy in the dark, he scarcely knew how he found his target. At this very moment, unlocking the Death Scripture's final door of secrets lay right in front of him, but he could not find the keys to open that door.
Someone jumped out from below the cliff. One, two... seven men in black were on the ground, propped up on one knee and surrounding the young man under the tree as if he were a seated mystical divine wraith.
"I did it," said Gu Shenwei.
A person in black spoke up. Gu Shenwei listened to this voice, which seemed to belong to the woman who planted a greater finger force in him. "Very well, wait here."
Gu Shenwei all the more desired to follow them, but he still followed that figure's order.
Six men in black reached the bottom of the wall, leaped up the roof, and blended into the darkness. Their Lightness Power was much better than Gu Shenwei's, and one could scarcely see their silhouettes.
There was, however, one man in black who sat kneeled opposite Gu Shenwei. From afar, he looked like a piece of tilted stone.
"What does it feel like to rape women and kill children?" The man in black suddenly asked, his voice light, laced with clear animosity.
This was the younger sister of macheteman Nie Qing.
"Nothing special." Gu Shenwei said, still sitting under the tree. With not even a saber by his side, he would not be able to resist if the other wanted revenge.
"When you're dead, what you feel would definitely be very special."
Gu Shenwei had long experienced near-death several times, but he decided not to argue and stayed silent. Afterward, he asked in reply, "How many years of life did your master give you?"
The way that Barren Sect imparted its Internal Strength is exceptionally singular. Peripheral Force could be toxic and led one into qigong deviation on a regular basis. But it could also be medicine for good, promoting the bearer's Internal Strength. With such means, the Barren Sect could firmly control its disciples.
"You'd better worry about your own life. If tonight goes wrong, you'll die tomorrow afternoon. Want to know how painful it is to die? I've seen it. I tell you, at first you'll lose all strength, and then your skin will start to itch, like getting bitten by countless ants. But it isn't painful, not painful at all, and afterward, you'll feel that itching sensation slowly seeping into your blood and bones, and you'll wish to tear your whole body asunder, only you'll feel bereft of energy. You could only oh so gently, scratch, and even when you're bleeding profusely, you'll still be unable to die. That itchiness will never go away. Eventually, you might need only an hour, or several days, depending on your fate. You'll die of the itch rather than the pain. And at that moment, you'll only be scratching, with not a single piece of well-formed skin on your body. No pain, only the itch."
Nie Qing's sister's voice was not loud, but it was filled with venom, and every single word was like a dagger that could kill.
Gu Shenwei could understand her hatred, but he waved it away. Strangely, as he heard Tie Hanfeng insult Nie Qing's wife, and when he himself killed Nie Qing's son with his saber, he did not have any regrets. For long, he tried vainly to explain this, but now, he had become indifferent. The Breaking Obsession words invented by the monks had seemed to lose its effect.
"I do prefer to kill with the single slash of my blade, no regrets."
"That's your Golden Roc Hall. When we capture the Stone Castle, the rules of the killer will change."
Nie Qing's sister named the Golden Roc Fort the "Golden Roc Hall". Gu Shenwei tried to guess who its owner was, and who the subordinate. There must be different opinions for both.
The two did not speak to each other for some time. After an hour, the six black men returned, and what struck Gu Shenwei was, they brought neither manuals nor treasure, but a person.
That person appeared to have been attacked on the acupoints, and he was laid in the black cloth bag, immobile.
Gu Shenwei had guessed the agenda to intrude the Stone Castle, but he had never imagined that the "agenda" was hidden in this person. After that, he was thoroughly shocked and even had a hint of admiration for the Golden Roc Fort's methods of hiding its secrets.
The logic of Shangguan Ru's plan would not have anticipated this person to be so important.
"You have achieved your goal." Gu Shenwei said, standing up.
This was the first danger in the entire plan. If the other side did not trust him or take the spy seriously, he might die here.
The leading woman in black ordered their disciples to bring their captives with them as they went down, with her being the last one. "Do you still remember the place where you were captured? Meet me there tomorrow at the noon. If you want to be a disciple of Barren Sect, you'd still have to be tested. Remember to keep your rope, just throw it down."
And so saying, the woman in black jumped down the cliff.
Before long, the ropes wavered and wavered. Gu Shenwei untied the knot and flung it off the cliff.
It would take another while, which was about what he predicted.
The disciples of Barren Sect did not attract any attention when they infiltrated into Golden Roc Fort in the night. Gu Shenwei did not ask to see anyone else. Waiting till dawn at the Ghost Cliff, he clambered off the wall before Firewood Yard was open, and borrowing a horse from Eight Young Master, he left Stone Castle hurriedly down the mountain.
The next threat was the Supreme King himself. If he were eager to start hostilities, Slave Huan would have had no choice to dispel the Peripheral Force within himself.
Gu Shenwei rode through the North City on his horse, and sometime before noon, he reached the level ground in the mountains where he and Maid Lotus were captured.
He unbridled his horse, letting it graze freely on the grass. He sat cross-legged on the floor, waiting silently, occasionally touching his belt girded around his waist where he would put his saber. He missed that feeling, and without it, he felt like a giant roc that has lost its wings, or a tiger that did not eat meat. He felt greatly irritated and powerless.
However, that which could save him was not a saber.
As noon arrived, Gu Shenwei suddenly realized that his body seemed to ache, and he started to scratch involuntarily. There were several ants on his arms.
Four masked women in black suddenly emerged from different directions. One of them sprung out before Gu Shenwei and kicked him viciously in the chest.
Gu Shenwei dropped to the ground, and his whole body itched, spreading from his hair to his toes.
"Why?" That tickling did not reach intolerable proportions, and Gu Shenwei jumped up, asking so. However, immediately, he felt his whole body weaken and even standing up became very difficult.
"Don't you dare try to fool me!" The woman who had attacked him asked stridently. She was the one who had planted the Peripheral Force in the body of the young man.
"What do you mean? I did everything according to your instructions."
"You revealed the secret."
"If I had done so, would I have dared to come to see you?"
'Hey, do you still want to coax me to dispel the Peripheral Force? What a pity, that person did not hold on long, he had let the cat out of the bag in a few words."
This was the third danger in the plan. Life or death, it all depended on whether Gu Shenwei could swindle the trust out of this woman.
"I don't know who 'that person' is that you're talking about. If it's that person whom we've captured yesterday, it has nothing to do with me. You've never mentioned your own motives, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't have known."
The itching sensation intensified. Nie Qing's sister had described it accurately. Gu Shenwei gritted his teeth and kept himself from scratching. He had to preserve his willpower to deal with this crisis before him.
"You don't have to know. As long as you have divulged the secret, someone in the house of Shangguan would naturally have guessed it."
Gu Shenwei's face was of all innocence. This expression was faked with practiced familiarity. "Okay, I had divulged the secret. The house of Shangguan had tampered somewhat with 'that person's' body. And what after that? Just let you go off? Laugh it all off, and the matter would just end? Supreme King would hardly ever bother himself over the life of an apprentice killer like me."
This was precisely what the woman in black couldn't understand. If Slave Huan had spilled the beans, Golden Roc Fort would have sent men to follow them. And upon finding the hideout at Jade City, the killers would have immediately killed them. However, they searched this flat land in the mountains and the vicinity, and had definitely not found men in ambush.
"Cut the crap, throw him here to die."
Gu Shenwei could hardly bear the torment of the itchiness anymore, and his body trembled. With a wavering voice, he said, "Tell me what it is you want, maybe I can help."
"You?" The woman in black asked condescendingly. "That's the most heavily guarded secret of Stone Castle. How would you know?"
"Mama Xue has once asked me to gather information on many things. I didn't know why, but she was pretty satisfied. So what I'd gathered might have been useful to her, and it may be of use to you too."
"Speak." The woman in black said hesitatingly.
"First make my itch go away. Damn, I can't bear it anymore."
Finally, Gu Shenwei could begin his bargain.
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