Death Scripture

A tall, strong sabersman was standing in the courtyard, completely immobilized by a heavy cord, and with a ferocious look on his face. Like an untamed, caged wolf, he was grimacing and letting out threatening growls at all those who dared to approach him.

Pang Jing walked around him and said, "Ha-ha. He's really something. He reminds me of the 'Ten Valiant Generals' of my family back in the Central Plains."

Clearly, the sabersman didn't quite understand the words "Ten Valiant Generals." Confusion gleamed in his eyes, but the look on his face only became even more ferocious. He revealed his yellowish teeth, spitting out bits of spittle from between them.

Old Man Mu jumped up high and gave the sabersman a kick at the back of his head. "You stupid big guy! He was saying that you were a dog. And you're really acting like one?"

Pang Jing smiled even more happily, giving no indication whether it was the clumsy sabersman or the short old man that interested him more.

"The Dragon King has arrived," a guard in the courtyard reported.

Pang Jing turned around and walked towards the Dragon King, stretching out his hand to point at him. "The Dragon King's reputation is well-earned. You took action so quick. I've just been informed of who the murderer is, but you've already caught him. This is not how it was supposed to be. You must tell me how you did it, and then I'll teach those subordinates of mine a lesson after I return."

Indeed, no matter who he was talking to, Pang Jing always acted as if he was very familiar with them and as if there was no need to be punctilious.

Gu Shenwei shrugged and casually replied, "I was just lucky."

The distance between the two was already very close, but Tie Linglong suddenly popped out and stood between them. After a brief moment of hesitation, Pang Jing found that he couldn't walk around her, so he gave up his attempt to approach the Dragon King, fished out that shiny, yellow gold ingot, and tossed it to the Dragon King. "Take a look. It's the cause of all these troubles."

Gu Shenwei took it, scrutinized it for a while against the sunlight, and then strode towards the captured sabersman.

"Kneel," Old Man Mu ordered.

"You're all standing. Why do I have to kneel?" The sabersman replied in a very aggressive tone, as if he was a guest who hadn't been received with his due courtesies. His voice was hoarse, loud, and sonorous like that of a broken bell.

"Because you're more special than us." Old Man Mu was just about to give the sabersman a kick in the back of his knee when the Dragon King stopped him.

"Your name?" asked Gu Shenwei.

The sabersman ignored the question, boldly sized the Dragon King up, and a very unconvinced look surfaced on his face.

"Gao Yang. You look like a wolf but you named yourself 'lamb.' Clearly, you have some evil intentions," said Old Man Mu.

Pang Jing burst into laughter again, as if he was here to amuse himself by watching a show, which was why Old Man Mu and Xu Xiaoyi didn't feel like his presence was redundant. Only Tie Linglong continued to stare at him with a serious look. She kept adjusting her position, staying between him and the Dragon King to prevent this Central Plainsman from getting too close to the Dragon King.

"You killed Wu Xuan?" Gu Shenwei asked another question.

The sabersman named Gao Yang still refused to answer. He spat hard at the ground and raised his head even higher, veins rippling beneath the skin of his neck.

"This kid is so rude. Dragon King, shall I smash his knees apart?" Old Man Mu had been eager to break the man's knees for a long time. Recalling his former methods of torturing people, he was itching to re-experience that thrill.

"One moment." Gao Yang finally spoke. "You're the Dragon King?"

Gu Shenwei nodded.

"Impossible." Surprisingly, a faint smile appeared on Gao Yang's face, as if he had just seen through an obvious lie. "How is it possible that the Dragon King is someone like you? He is at least a foot taller than me, and he leaves deep footprints behind when he walks. He also carries a five-foot long saber, not the toy-like, small piece of iron that you're holding."

Gu Shenwei had appeared in public many times, and every time, there were a lot of onlookers. But surprisingly, the residents' description of his looks had become even more dramatic. Most of them had merely glimpsed his figure from a distance, and they had mixed his image with those of his guards. With those swordsmen from the Big Snow Mountain as a foil, the Dragon King had become a very tall man in most of the residents' minds.

"You mean like this?" Gu Shenwei moved his foot aside, leaving a distinct footprint in the bluestone ground.

Startled, Gao Yang swallowed hard. "You're really the Dragon King?"

"You big blockhead. This is the Department of Guards. Everybody is acting so respectfully towards him. If he were not the Dragon King, then who else could he possibly be?" Old Man Mu couldn't understand how a man with so little discernment could exist in this world.

Gao Yang seemed to believe it. He abruptly exerted his full strength, his muscles rippling. With a couple of snaps, several ropes were broken. He let out a cry and pounced on the Dragon King.

Old Man Mu and the others saw the Dragon King's hint and didn't try to stop the sabersman. Over ten steps away, Pang Jing watched this scene with an amused look on his face, but his eyes were not on the Dragon King. Instead, they darted between the other people in the courtyard, constantly shifting back and forth.

Compared to Gao Yang, the Dragon King was somewhat thin and short, and his fist appeared even weaker. Gao Yang straightened his arm and squarely hit his enemy's lower abdomen.

Gao Yang suddenly felt like he had become a lot shorter. Originally he was looking down at the Dragon King, but now, he was looking up at him. And soon, fierce abdominal pains gripped him. He didn't know why, but his knees had descended to the ground. With an unyielding spirit, he clenched his teeth; his cheeks bulged like rocks, his nostrils dilated, and his face flushed scarlet. But he was just trying hard to subdue his urge to let out a pained yell, which made his face even more hideous.

Pang Jing laughed again. He pointed at Gao Yang and looked around trying to find others who shared his sense of humor. His attendants, who were all standing at the gateway, cooperatively let out a moderate laugh, but they were not the ones who Pang Jing was looking for.

Finally, his eyes fell on Qin Yeming. Among all those subordinates of the Dragon King, this teenager was the only one who was sophisticated enough to politely gave a smile when an honored guest's eyes swept across him.

After quite a while, Gao Yang's breathing became steady again, but when he spoke, his voice was even more hoarse than before. "You're indeed the Dragon King. Good. I was looking for you. Pay me."

"Ha!" Old Man Mu laughed first, but soon discovered that the Dragon King had no intention of letting him talk, so he had to choke down all the sarcastic words he was about to blurt out.

"I owe you money?" asked Gu Shenwei.

Gao Yang continued to kneel. "Of course. You have to pay for the killing I've done for you. It's been a couple of days. I don't even have enough money to buy wine because you didn't pay."

"Who did you kill?"

"Wu Xuan, of course. He stole the Dragon King's money, and so the Dragon King wanted him dead. It's a very normal thing. Though he has been very generous recently and even often invited me to go drinking with him, he never brought me with him when he went whoring. That was not cool, so I also wanted to kill him. The Dragon King promised me a thousand taels of silver, but I haven't gotten a single tael yet. You should have told me that there was gold on Wu Xuan. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had such a tough time. I've been meaning to contact you for a long time, but those guys outside the military camp didn't let me-"

Gao Yang was garrulous and somewhat incoherent, but everyone present in the courtyard basically understood his meaning.

Pang Jing, who had been listening very carefully the whole time, suddenly walked sideways, intending to make his way around Tie Linglong while she wasn't paying attention to him. However, after three steps, he found that the green-eyed little girl was still in front of him, so he had to give up and loudly say to the saberman, "Nonsense. All your words just now were nonsense. Earlier, you didn't even know who the Dragon King was. But now, you're trying to say that the Dragon King hired you to kill people. The Dragon King's sabersmanship is divine, and he has numerous kung fu experts at his command. Why would he hire you?"

Gao Yang tilted his body and glanced at Pang Jing, feeling that this guy who was laughing a lot was both hateful and confusing. "Don't the Dragon King's men do things on behalf of the Dragon King? Do you have to do everything yourself?"

Pang Jing became speechless and didn't know how to rebut this stupid big man's rhetorical question.

Old Man Mu briefly nodded behind Gao Yang, thinking that this man wasn't incurably foolish afterall.

"My men hired you to be a killer?" Gu Shenwei ignored that small argument and asked a further question.

"Yes."

"What's his name?"

"He didn't tell me."

"Look around. Is he in this courtyard?"

First, Gao Yang's eyes swept across all those people he could see, and then he stood up, turned around, and checked the others. At last, he stared down at Old Man Mu for quite a while.

"Why are you looking at me? Do you want to frame me? If I hired you, then I would have killed you a long time ago."

"I want to stamp this locust to death." Gao Yang was caught by Old Man Mu, who had made him suffer a lot along the way. So, he had temporarily forgotten about the other things when he saw him.

"Then have a try. Let's find out whether the little locust will be stamped to death or whether your big foot will become bones."

The two glared at each other. Eventually, Gao Yang didn't dare raise his foot. He suddenly turned around and said to the Dragon King, "No. The man who hired me is not in this courtyard. The Dragon King has hundreds of thousands of subordinates. You can hide him wherever you want. Besides, that man came to me masked, and he carried a small knife just like yours. He said that he was your henchman. I didn't see his face."

Old Man Mu was so angry that he kicked him. "Why were you looking around if you didn't see his face?"

Pang Jing loudly said, "Dragon King, there's no need for you to continue this interrogation. Clearly, this stupid big guy was fooled. Somebody wanted to kill people in the name of the Dragon King. Heh-heh, this kind of petty trick could only trick someone like Gao Yang. Why waste time on this? You might as well kill him by way of law."

"I can't kill him," Gu Shenwei said as he turned around. Tie Linglong stepped aside. Pang Jing was finally allowed to approach the Dragon King, but he wisely stopped five steps away from him.

"The Dragon King also shows mercy? This guy violated the ban on killing. You still want to spare him?"

"The ban on killing is only applicable to the troops of the Dragon Army and those who volunteered to abide by it. Wu Xuan and Gao Yang are not among them."

Within the jurisdiction of the Department of Guards, most of the sabersman had expressed their acceptance of the Dragon King's ban on killing via various means, but a small number of people refused to abide by it for their own special reasons. Wu Xuan was a bounty hunter, so he was unwilling to be restricted while Gao Yang had no idea what the ban on killing meant at all. He was also not a member of any organization of any kind, so he was like a fish that had escaped through the net. Gu Shenwei had made some inquiries and known about this before he walked into this courtyard.

Pang Jing tentatively took two steps forward and get closer to the Dragon King, saying in a low voice, "The Dragon King still remembers our deal, right? We'll split the money, fifty-fifty. I wasn't joking."

"Neither was I," answered Gu Shenwei. "There are a lot of people eyeing this money. We can't let anybody else beat us to it. Maybe this sabersman can be useful."

Pang Jing nodded approvingly. "What do you have in mind, Dragon King?"

"I have a half-baked idea, but I need Governor Pang's help."

"Whatever you say, Dragon King."

"Um." Gu Shenwei returned the gold ingot to Pang Jing. "It's not appropriate to let this guy named Gao Yang stay here in my place. Please take him away."

Pang Jing's face was full of amazement. "What good will it do for me to take him away? He doesn't even know what his employer looks like."

"Didn't he say that my man hired him? Then I'll send someone to him. Maybe I can lure that person out that way."

Pang Jing was stunned. Clearly, he didn't expect that the Dragon King would make this move. Before he could react, Gu Shenwei waved at Qin Yeming. When the confused teenager walked up to him, he said, "You hired Gao Yang to kill Wu Xuan. The Governor wants to interrogate you. I can't cover for you. Go with the Governor."

Qin Yeming knelt down with a thud. He just wanted to be a common servant and had no idea why the Dragon King wanted to send him into the jaws of death.