Death Scripture - Chapter 62

Editors: J3000, Xu Xian

Chapter 62 Victory

Shangguan Ru escaped from her big brother's grasp and snatched the black jade palm and wooden sabre from Shangguan Fei’s hands. In silent fury, she stared at Shangguan Chui. She won this round, though she won it with outside help.

Navigating around the overturned table and chair, Aunt Dong hugged Shangguan Fei. “Yah, why's your neck bleeding? Who cut it?”

She turned to look at Shangguan Chui.

“Sister,” Shangguan Fei said with a glum face, he had suffered a lot tonight.

Stunned, Aunt Dong thought that little Gongzi must be frightened out of his wits.

“I did it, big brother thought I wasn't qualified to be a man of the Shangguan Family, I wanted to prove him wrong," she said with a taut face.

Shangguan Chui grunted and scorned arguing with a little kid.

Saying no more, Aunt Dong took out her handkerchief and carefully bound Shangguan Fei’s wound.

Gu Shenwei stood with the intention to walk behind Shangguan Ru, but Aunt Dong saw through his motives and shot him a hostile glance. He could only take the hint and obediently retreat to the wall .

Shangguan Yushi also got up, she discreetly helped Shangguan Ru arrange her clothes and tidy her hair, carefully avoiding Aunt Dong’s ire.

No one spoke in the room.

Some time had passed and King Lord still hadn't arrived. Shangguan Chui had been gripping the narrow sabre at his waist, his expression indiscernible under his huge eye bags. He suddenly said, ” Let me first kill these two dog slaves that instigated the lords' troublemaking.”

To the young lord, his cousin Shangguan Yushi was no different from a servant.

Shangguan Ru stuck out her hand to protect Shangguan Yushi. “I said, no.”

Shangguan Chui didn’t say anything, but he drew his narrow sabre. Even if there were 100 Shangguan Rus surrounding Shangguan Yushi, he could still accurately stab the target with one lethal move.

Mr. Guo didn’t have a sabre but he withdrew his hands back into his sleeves. He could easily kill with his bare hands, especially little kids with poor kung fu skills.

Gu Shenwei knew this shortie’s target was himself, so immediately went on guard. Not for self-protection, but to rush over and strangle Shangguan Fei instead. He really regretted not picking up the sabre just now.

“If you dare to kill my followers, you will become my enemy. I won’t accept your apology and I'll never reconcile with you. I won't treat you as my big brother, let alone Unique King’s eldest son. I will fight you my entire life until I kill you myself.”

Shangguan Ru knew she didn’t have the ability to protect those she cared about, so she made a threat. Her voice was too calm for a 12 year-old kid.

Shangguan Chui’s heart thumped. This little half-sister said something worthy of attention. But he couldn’t show any weakness. He was a killer, Shangguan family’s eldest son, and the heir apparent of Unique King.

The flickering candle light slid and leapt along the sabre blade.

“If you can’t kill her, you should respect what she said,” a voice said by the door.

Unique King had arrived and no one had noticed.

Everybody kneeled except Shangguan Ru. She rushed forward and shoved the black jade palm and wooden sabre to her father. “Father, these are my first gains as a great thief, I present all of them to you.”

Shangguan Fa’s strict face couldn’t help but reveal a slight smile. “These were mine originally.”

“But I stole them away, they temporally belonged to me. They can only belong to you after I present them.”

Shangguan Fa snorted and glanced at the corpse on the ground. “What’s this then?”

“He betrayed me, so I killed him.”

“You’re not even 13 years-old and you've already started killing.”

13-years-old: it was a sign of adulthood for the men of Shangguan family. They would be qualified to be called young lord and to start recruiting his own team of killers. Shangguan Fa’s unexpected words showed that he was treating his little daughter as a man.

Shangguan Chui and Mr. Guo, who were kneeling on the floor, exchanged a glance and thought, Not good.

“No matter if we are 1 year-old or 100 years-old, people of Shangguan family won’t allow betrayal.”

“Well said.”

Unique King rarely praised anyone. Shangguan Chui couldn't sit back and allow the situation to become worse, so he said, ” Father, Liu Sha Dian is an ancestral sacred temple and women are not allowed to enter, seventeenth sister…”

“Don’t call Ru’er seventeenth sister from now on,” Shangguan Fa said coldly. His drastic change of attitude startled Shangguan Chui. Not long ago, father was still furious about his daughter’s mischief, why has he suddenly turned all his anger towards his eldest son?

“Mr. Guo, pick an auspicious day, I’ll lead Ru’er to Liu Sha Dian myself. I’ll make a statement to the ancestors, Ru’er will be my – Unique King’s – tenth son from now on. All of you should call her Tenth Gongzi, and next year, she will be tenth young lord.”

Mr. Guo crawled on the ground and trembled as he said, yes. He could never have imagined they would suffer a crushing defeat. They'd intended to humiliate Madam Meng, but the result left themselves disgraced.

Gu Shenwei was kneeling in the corner. This was the second time he'd met Unique King. Feeling less timid than the first time, Gu Shenwei could think normally. He became full of admiration for the twins’ mother Madam Meng, whom he had only met once.

He had thought that Madam Meng was just your average mother who spoiled her son and daughter, and that Shangguan Ru’s father had encouraged the nurturing of her manliness. Now he knew he was totally wrong, the one that nurtured her daughter as a boy was Madam Meng. During all these years she must've instilled the idea in Unique king that, if the personality was right, a daughter could be treated as a son.

In the end, through an unexpected crisis, she had surprisingly succeeded in convincing her husband to publicly acknowledge Shangguan Ru’s identity as the Tenth Gongzi.

Gu Shenwei admired Madam Meng from the bottom of his heart, and wanted to know  what means she had used to be able to control the actions of the ruthless Assassin King of the Western Regions.

To Gu Shenwei, Big Head God’s daughter was an idiot. With her identity and wisdom, she could never win the fight against her mother-in-law.

The horizon grew white, this long night was finally coming to an end.

Shangguan Ru was extremely excited; this crisis had been more real than all the other games she had played. At one point, she thought she'd lost miserably, but in the end, it was a big victory.

She even forced the snitch's name from Mr. Guo.

It turned out to be Shangguan Fei. He'd been bragging with several family scions the day before, and accidentally revealed the secret. Bai Yi Yuan took the gossip seriously and immediately prepared; It had not prepared to prevent the burglary, but to catch them red-handed with the goods .

Family feuds were always part of Golden Roc Castle, Unique King chose to let it go so no one else asked anything more. Even the overbearing Shangguan Ru understood this and didn’t criticize her big brother publicly.

Gu Shenwei’s little scheme was temporarily drowned out by the Shangguan family’s internal politics, the real wooden sabre from Liu Sha Dian was still hidden in a place only he knew.

He had little confidence in how long this secret would be kept. Sooner or later someone would find out the returned wooden sabre was a fake one. If that happened, even Shangguan Ru would not protect him and would treat him as a ‘traitor’.

Time was limited, Gu Shenwei had to find himself a way out. But first, he wanted to know what the secret of the wooden sabre was from Xue Niang.

Golden Roc Castle was like a towering, golden mountain. To knock it down, he had to be patient and find every visible and invisible crack in it. Gu Shenwei had already found a few, but he was still too weak and helpless, even when faced with the enemy’s flaws. So he only observed and collected information. One day, sooner or later, these cracks would be gathered in front of him to form a fatal gully.

The Shangguan family’s internal contradictions, Madam Meng’s ambitions, the wooden sabre’s secret…all these were cracks of Golden Roc Castle. There were also some small, subtle cracks, for example: Shangguan Yushi’s ambiguous status and eighth young lord Shangguan Nu’s cold treatment. Gu Shenwei had seen it with his own eyes and remembered it in his heart.

The King Lord had resolved the night's crisis and everyone was dismissed. Gu Shenwei saw there were plenty of wooden sabres around Shangguan Ru’s quarters, so he took one at random before he returned to his room. After two hours of hasty sleep, he crawled out of bed and took the wooden sabre to meet Xue Niang.

If he was blocked by a guard, he would say that he followed Tenth Gongzi‘s order to clean Kun Hua Yuan outside. Shangguan Ru was probably sleeping soundly right now and no one would dare disturb her.

He actually thought about this too much. He encountered many people, but no one blocked him, several even smiled at him.

Gossip would always spread like wild-fire. Shangguan Ru had become Tenth Gongzi now, even her close servant became somebody right away.

Gu Shenwei presented the wooden sabre, but Xue Niang was not very happy. She already heard about what had happened in the inner chamber. She put the wooden sabre on the table and said, “You’ve made it big.”

“Little servant also didn’t expect it to be so.”

“What is this wooden sabre, I heard that the wooden sabre was returned.”

“I carried two wooden sabres. I used one as a substitute at Liu Sha Dian and the other to hand over. The real wooden sabre was this one, I hid it at the bottom of Liu Sha Dian‘s wall without anyone knowing. I went back later.”

Most of what Gu Shenwei had said was true, the only lie was that he had never gone back to where he'd hidden the wooden sabre.

Xue Niang finally revealed a slight smile. She picked the wooden sabre up and glanced at it, her expression abruptly changed. She broke the wooden sabre effortlessly. “You’re bold, you dare to play with me.”

With the poke of an iron finger, Gu Shenwei fell onto the floor. The hot Qi in his xuanji acupoint rushed to his dantian, his body felt like it was burning. “Xue-Xue Niang, this, this is real, I didn’t… cheat you.”

Xue Niang kicked Servant Huan to relieve his pain slightly. “Do you think I can't recognize the wooden sabre of Liu Sha Dian?”

Gu Shenwei’s breathing became smoother, but he still couldn’t get up. “There might be more than one wooden sabre at Liu Sha Dian.”

“More than one?”

“I wasn’t able to check all of the places in time, this wooden sabre was embedded in the wall and merged with the figure in the mural. It was the closest, so I thought it was the one. Now, I feel the other places might also have embedded sabres.”

Xue Niang sat down again, she seemed to be convinced by the detail that the wooden sabre was embedded in the wall. Some of the information she had was accurate, but other parts were vague, and she had never entered Liu Sha Dian herself, so she naturally didn’t know the details.

“You can enter Liu Sha Dian again?”

“I can follow Tenth Gongzi to enter,”

Xue Niang was coming around, but she was still sceptical. “Don’t play tricks with me, remember, your secrets are in my hand, and your life is also in my hands.”

 “Little servant dares not forget.”

Gu Shenwei dragged his heavy body and left Xue Niang’s room. Contrary to Xue Niang’s order, he would play a trick right away. Furthermore, he had found out where the secret of the wooden sabre was hidden. Xue Niang’s eyes had revealed many things.