71 The First Monthly Tes (1/2)
Today, Gu Shenwei was going to take his first monthly test in the Pyrowork Academy. It had rained a little early in the morning, but now it stopped and the sky cleared up. It was cool and breezy.
Not wanting to affect his apprentice's mood, Tie Hanfeng decided to stay sober this morning, so he did not drink any liquor at breakfast. As they walked out of their small yard, he took a deep breath of the fresh air and said to his apprentice, ”It's such a nice day for killing. The smell of blood will soon fade and drift away in the wind. Come on, my apprentice, go ahead and kill them all. Slaughtering them like pigs.”
He limped ahead, leading the way for his apprentice. Today, Gu Shenwei was dressed in black from head to toe and covered his face with a black cloth. This was the standard outfit for all the killer apprentices who went to take the monthly tests. Golden Roc Fort made this rule to protect the apprentices' identities. According to the fort's tradition, a real professional killer should remain anonymous throughout his life.
It was not easy for the killers to adhere strictly to that tradition. When they were young, they could still manage to keep things low-key, but once they entered middle age and became semi-retired, they would start to find enjoyment in bragging about their achievements. Tie Hanfeng was such a semi-retired killer. In the past ten days, he had told Gu Shenwei many incredible stories. According to him, the people he had killed lined up could span the whole gobi desert.
Boastful as he was, he would never reveal who he had killed, as this was one of the key principles of Golden Roc Fort. Even though now it was widely known as a gang of ruthless killers, its current leader, the seventh Supreme King, still pretended that killer gang business was a secret of the fort, as all his predecessors had done.
After entering the Pyrowork Academy, Tie Hanfeng greeted every yellow-belt and killer mentor with a big grin on his red face, as if he had come to attend a wedding party.
Just like him, most of the killer mentors here had just passed their prime time. They were over forty or even fifty, and by courtesy of their masters' kindness, they could now make a living by teaching instead of killing.
Besides Tie Hanfeng, there were seven or eight killer mentors. They all appeared to be on high alert and behaved in a highly professional manner. They dispersed in the yard and remained silent almost all the time. Every one of them had piercing eyes and habitually placed one hand on the handle of his saber. No one allowed even his own apprentices to stand within three steps from him.
Tie Hanfeng was the only exception. He left his apprentice behind and chatted excitedly with all his friends here and there. Surprisingly, unlike the yellow-belts who reacted coolly toward him, all the serious-looking killer mentors seemed to get along with him and even permitted him to stand close to them.
As Tie Hanfeng had only one apprentice, everyone immediately recognized Slave Huan, even though he wore the all-black outfit.
A yellow-belt came to him and said, ”Alas, Slave Huan, what a pity! You're such a useful slave boy. I hope you can carry yourself to Reincarnation Cliff.” With these words, the man guffawed loudly.
Since Gu Shenwei had to come here to help with carrying corpses every three days, he was very familiar with this yellow-belt. He laughed together with him and then said, ”No matter who gets killed today, I'll carry him to Reincarnation Cliff.”
He knew his words were a little bit muffled by his black cloth mask, but he was still surprised by the yellow-belt's reaction. That man kept shaking his head, as if he hadn't heard what Slave Huan had just said. After a moment, he walked away while murmuring to himself repeatedly, ”It's such a pity.”
Apparently, he firmly believed that Slave Huan would die today, which struck him as odd. The monthly tests were brutal, but most of the time, the losers would just get injured and only very few killer apprentices would be killed on the spot. Gu Shenwei began to wonder why the yellow-belt was so certain about it.
Tie Hanfeng limped back to him, still looking happy. He waved to a thin killer mentor, who stood far away from them, and then turned around to whisper beside his apprentice's ear, ”Did you offend someone in the fort?”
”No.” Gu Shenwei lied to his mentor without any hesitation. He had offended quite a lot of people in the fort and some of them did want to kill him.
”Your opponent today is determined to kill you.”
”So am I.”
This time, Gu Shenwei was telling the truth. He even started to doubt that his mentor was just trying to arouse his fighting spirit by saying that. He thought it was such an unnecessary move. He had got the trick of killing. The scars on his body could prove it.
”Huh, you little bastard. What a bold apprentice you are! You dare to cheat your mentor. Look, that son of a b*tch over there is your opponent today. His master said that he wanted to fight you since he had some personal grudge against you. He also said that this fight was between you guys and no one would interfere.”
Gu Shenwei looked at the boy his mentor was talking about. He was of medium height and sturdily built, standing more than three steps away from the thin killer mentor. Even though the boy was in a black outfit now, Gu Shenwei was still sure that he had never offended any killer apprentice like him. He had stayed in the Carvewood Academy for only five or six days. He had not even gotten many chances to meet anyone at all there.
”No matter what, I'll kill him anyway.”
Gu Shenwei grabbed his saber handle tightly to focus himself, without feeling guilty or nervous about his decision to kill a stranger.
”F*ck the personal grudges. I haven't heard this phrase for years. Well, go to kill him. Remember, no matter how many moves you exchange with him, you need to kill him with only one strike,” Tie Hanfeng sneered and said.
A yellow-belt waved his hand to Gu Shenwei, summoning him to the test.
Gu Shenwei opened the door assigned to him and walked into the test room. It was shaped like a narrow lane, which could only allow two people to walk side by side and was dimly-lit by a tiny oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. The stocky boy was already inside the room, standing about 10 steps away from him.
The yellow-belts closed the doors, leaving the two apprentices inside.
Both of them were full of fighting spirit now. As they had no place to hide inside this ”lane”, they started to walk toward each other step by step. For a moment, Gu Shenwei felt an urge to ask the boy what kind of grudge he had against him, but he quickly threw this thought away. He guessed that the boy might just have made up this story to arouse his own killing intent. No matter what, he had already decided to kill this boy.
When they were only five steps away from each other, Gu Shenwei was about to attack, but his opponent moved faster than him. He leaped forward, pointing his saber at Gu Shenwei's chest. Gu Shenwei instantly detected the deception in this movement. His opponent was just trying to get behind him.