180 Immortal Peng (1/2)

There was a pile of dirty snow remaining from the late winter at the corner of a wall. Under the bright moonlight, the snow mounds looked like severely decayed corpses that would nourish new life at springtime.

A teenager was sitting upright on the top of a wall in Hope Alley. He finally realized why he felt that he had to come and see Immortal Peng.

He cradled the newly-forged sword in his arms as if he was embracing a long-lost lover. Although he did not know how to love people, he already had feelings of affection for his sword. He felt that the sword had meant everything to him.

He was like a child who had just learned to speak. He liked to speak on every occasion just to prove that he could.

He suddenly woke up. What Immortal Peng had wanted Xu Xiaoyi to convey was not a prophecy, but was actually a challenge from one swordman to another.

Gu Shenwei stood up again and he jumped from one wall to another like a hunting wildcat. Soon, he arrived at the back of Joy Pavilion. From there, he could vaguely see the peach forest in Gui Garden which was not far away outside the wall.

All the lights on the first and second floor had been extinguished. The only thing that could be seen was the flickering light of a lamp on the third floor.

Just when the young killer was wondering about how to climb up, someone came and opened a small window on the third floor. It had once prevented Chu Yangjun from competing with Gu Shenwei in swordsmanship.

A man stuck his head out of the window. His face was pockmarked, his eyelids were folded outward, and one of his nostrils was missing. It made him appear as if he had been burnt in hot water. He was so ugly that even the moonlight was shocked.

”Why did you come so late?” the ugly man asked before he jumped out and deftly landed onto the top of the wall. He slightly bent his legs and stretched out his arms to reveal two short swords.

Gu Shenwei knew that there were many strange people in Joy Pavilion, so he asked, ”Are you Immortal Peng?”

”Yes.”

To Gu Shenwei's surprise, Immortal Peng did not look like a sage at all. On the contrary, he turned out to be an ugly man who had no demeanor.

Since they met for a sword fight, they did not waste any time to talk nonsense. They focused all their attention on their swords. He was Ye Silang and Chu Yangjun's Master Shifu. If Gu Shenwei wanted to kill him and improve his swordsmanship then Immortal Peng had to be taken seriously.

Like a spider, Maid Lotus was attached to the wall and was waiting for an opportunity to take action. She had agreed with Slave Huan that they would, at the same time, both openly and secretly hunt for the top martial artist.

As killers, they would do whatever they can to kill their opponent and to improve their own swordsmanship.

”You're no match for him,” someone else on the third floor said while showing his face, which was just as ugly as his partner.

The second ugly man jumped out of the window and landed behind Gu Shenwei. He also held two short swords. It was exactly the same as the first ugly man's.

”Who're you?” Gu Shenwei was a bit confused and became vigilant. If this was a trap, then he and Maid Lotus would execute the backup plan—fleeing to the peach forest.

”Immortal Peng,” the second ugly man answered in an impatient tone. It was as if he blamed Gu Shenwei for having asked the question despite knowing the answer.

Gu Shenwei became more confused. ”Is he playing tricks on me? What's the point of doing so? Is the fortune teller playing a game?”

A series of thoughts had flashed through Gu Shenwei's mind before he suddenly realized that it was stupid of him to obsess about these when he was confronted with an enemy. Therefore, he decided to adopt the simplest solution.

He unsheathed his blade and tried to stab the first ugly man since his living energy was clearly visible and more obvious than Ye Silang's and Chu Yangjun's. Gu Shenwei was confident that he could defeat the man in one strike, and he felt that he did not even need Maid Lotus' assistance.

He planned to jump over the first ugly man, stab him in the back, and then use his corpse as a shield against the second ugly man so that he could buy some time for breathing and for preparing the next strike.

Everything happened as he had expected. Like a crow, he flew above the first ugly man and landed precisely behind the enemies, however, the blade in his hand was gone. The first ugly man did not die, and he turned around. His arms were hanging down with short swords in his hands and his fierce eyes were filled with a hint of admiration. He looked as if he had watched a monkey perform movements that only human beings could make.

Someone had snatched his sword. Gu Shenwei was so stunned that he took a few steps back.

The two ugly men were not the ones who had taken his sword away, but rather it was a third person who had appeared at the window on the third floor. Dressed in a white robe, the man had a square face, thick dagger-shaped eyebrows, and a long whisker reaching his chest. He held a white rope in the right hand and the killer's sword in the left.

”Come upstairs,” the white-robed man said in a commanding tone.

Although he did not intend to threaten anybody, he made it difficult for Gu Shenwei to refuse.

”Who are you?”

Gu Shenwei made up his mind to escape at the moment when the white-robed man was distracted while answering his question. It turned out that he was too reckless on this visit because the situation in Joy Pavilion was much more complex than he had imagined. However, what the white-robed man said next made him stay.

”Immortal Peng.”

The young killer no longer treated it as a game. He felt peeved, but he could not sense the danger.

The two ugly men jumped off the high wall, pushed the back door open, and entered the first floor.

They left the door open for the killer.

Gu Shenwei had always been a skeptical person, but somehow, he trusted ”Immortal Peng”. Like an obsessed person who had solved half of a puzzle, he felt like continuing on regardless of what the price might be.

Gu Shenwei stamped his foot and also leaped down from the high wall before entering Joy Pavilion. After receiving the hint, Maid Lotus would secretly leave. It would be wiser to let Gu Shenwei go inside alone just in case there was a trap in there.

There was no one on the first floor, where the tea utensils were neatly arranged. The second floor was similarly empty, there was only a circle of chairs that were placed near the wall. The third floor, however, was crowded with people.

It was a large room. In the middle stood a slender bronze statue, which vaguely resembled a flying female celestial. One of the statue's arms was raised high while holding a small lamp.

All of the light in the entirety of Joy Pavilion came from it.

There were about 30 or 40 people either sitting or standing around. Most of them were ugly and physically handicapped. Gu Shenwei had seen several of them on the first floor of the teahouse before. There were four or five other people who were particularly handsome. For example, the demeanor of the white-robed man with a long whisker and a white rope was comparable to Ye Silang and Chu Yangjun.

In other words, there was not a single ordinary-looking man on the third floor. They were either extremely ugly or extremely handsome.