257 Five Days (1/2)
Chapter 257: Five Days
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
Fang Wenshi and the swordsman who worked as his guard were shut away in a room inside the Prime Minister's mansion until midnight.
When they finally walked out of the mansion, they worried that they would have to live in the street tonight. They could not return to the inn since all the gates of the city were closed at this moment. Fortunately, Xu Xiaoyi had sent someone to bring them to a hotel when they came out.
After entering his room, Fang Wenshi immediately closed the door and took off his wet pants. After heaving a long sigh of relief, he began to shout curses at his lord, as if the Dragon King was standing right in front of himself now. The counselor swore to the gods that he would never work for such a cruel wretch anymore and would set out to return to his hometown tomorrow morning without bidding farewell to Yang Huan.
Gu Shenwei did not hear these words, and Fang Wen did not leave in the end. It was not money or power that made him change his mind. He decided to stay because of a woman.
That woman directly pushed the door open, and then she leaned against the doorframe while looking the scholar up and down. When she found out that the scholar had already taken off his pants, she sneered, ”Tut-tut, what an impatient client. I've never seen any client like you before.”
”Who are you?” asked Fang Wenshi, his face flushed with embarrassment. He crouched, trying to use his shirt to cover his lower body.
”Someone paid me to serve you. What's the matter? Are you unhappy with me?” asked the woman.
Fang Wenshi stood agape, and the women smiled at him. He was not sure if he had said anything funny to the women. He just smiled back at her and did not want to leave anymore.
That night, Fang Wenshi did not have any time to ask others what had happened inside the Prime Minister's mansion during the day, which frightened Prime Minister Shi so much and made him release the hostages.
The next morning, when Xu Xiaoyi came to the hotel to console him, he finally got a chance to ask the merchant for more details about the incident.
Xu Xiaoyi told the counselor all the information that he knew. ”One of the wooden boxes sent to the Prime Minister's mansion contained half a human head, while the other four were just filled with gold, so the servants carried them to the warehouse. The warehouse supervisor weighed and recorded the amount of gold received. He then opened the door of the warehouse, preparing to put the gold into it. However, the moment the door was opened, all the people at the scene saw half of a head hanging down from a ceiling beam inside the warehouse.”
”Since it was tied to the beam with a thin rope, it kept swaying slightly. Upon seeing it, all of them were frightened to death. One of them passed out, and another two became paralyzed with fear. Three of them started to vomit and four of them got cold feet and couldn't move. In the end, only one of the servants managed to run away to call the guards,” said Xu Xiaoyi.
”When the guards came, they put the two halves of the head together and recognized that this man is the Golden Roc Fort killer named Xiang Kai, who's a frequent visitor to the Prime Minister's mansion.”
According to Xu Xiaoyi, Prime Minister Shi had also been shocked when he heard the news, since the warehouse was the most heavily guarded place in his mansion. ”Prime Minister Shi found it hard to believe that someone could sneak into his warehouse. He probably also suspected that there was a spy inside his residence. No matter what, that half of the head proved to him that the Dragon King could sneak into his mansion to kill anyone at any time.”
Upon hearing that, Fang Wenshi realized that the half of the head hidden inside the wooden box was just a reminder, and the other half of it hanging inside the warehouse was the real threatening message.
Xu Xiaoyi told Fang Wenshi that Prime Minister Shi had been frightened and irritated, and had hesitated for a long time before making a decision. ”The Prime Minister decided to release you and the swordsman in the end. After your departure, he invited Shangguan Tian to have a talk with him. He politely asked the young master to bring the Dragon King's head to his mansion within five days. He contended that if Shangguan Tian failed to do so, he would introduce the Great Snowmountain's messenger to the King of Shu-lik,” said Xu Xiaoyi.
After talking with Xu Xiaoyi, Fang Wenshi rubbed his neck and thought, ”What a risky plan. I nearly got killed yesterday. However, if the Dragon King hadn't taken this risk, it would've been really difficult to persuade Prime Minister Shi to give up the Golden Roc Fort by relying solely on the 10,000 taels of gold. Now that the Dragon King has to depend on himself. As long as he can survive the coming five days, we'll be able to meet the King of Shu-lik.”
Gu Shenwei was not content with just hiding for the next five days. He planned to prove his strength further to Shu-lik.
In a sense, this competition between him and Shangguan Tian was a close match. No matter how powerful the Golden Roc Fort was, it could only offer limited help to its Second Young Master within Shu-lik. The Dragon King, a former killer of the Golden Roc Fort, was very familiar with all the means and tactics used by the killers. As to Prime Minister Shi, he had already declared that he would not help either party in this competition.
On the first day, both parties adopted a similar strategy. The Dragon King and his guard, Chu Nanping, hid in a place that remained unknown to everyone. Even Xu Xiaoyi had no idea where they were. Shangguan Tian and Shangguan Hong moved out of the Prime Minister's mansion and disappeared too. Their servants and killers all moved to the Golden Roc Security Agency.
The first day was peaceful. Although both parties were well aware that killers would never expose themselves to rescue anyone, each of them still sent out scouts to monitor the other party's movements in case that someone in their own team was kidnapped. Knowing this, Fang Wenshi felt secure. He was pretty sure that he would be safe and be able to enjoy himself with that woman as much as he could during these days.
The second day, Golden Roc Security Agency send out all of its staff to search for Yang Huan and promised to give 50,000 taels of silver to the one who offered correct location of Yang Huan and 100,000 taels of silver to the one who brought Yang Huan's head to the security agency.
Everyone in the city was motivated and began to ask around for the pale-looking young killer. The locations of Fang Wenshi, Xu Xiaoyi and a few of the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain all got exposed. A few hooligans kept coming to the inn, intending to kidnap some of Yang Huan's friends to force the killer to show up. As a result, Xu Xiaoyi had to ask everyone in the team to stay together and hired some machetemen, who had no connection to the Golden Roc Fort, to protect them.
The Shu-lik government sent out troops to stop the hooligans, as the Prime Minister ordered that this competition was just between the killers.
Both parties of the competition had achieved nothing on the second day. However, from that day on, residents of the city showed more respect to Yang Huan, since they all heard about how he had threatened Prime Minister Shi with a Golden Roc Fort killer's head a few days ago. Now, every time when they talked about the pale-looking young killer, they would refer to him as the Dragon King.
On the third day, when all the hooligans in the city continued to hunt for the Dragon King, Golden Roc Security Agency suddenly recalled all of its armed escorts and kept them inside the agency for a whole day.