394 Hostage (1/2)

Shangguan Ru was still worried about her brother. The moment they lest the forest, she asked Dragon King, ”My brother is working for you, right?”

”I hope so,” Gu Shenwei replied, halting. He gazed at Shangguan Ru's face for a moment before turning back to look at the pitch black forest.

”You... what do you mean?”

”Shangguan Fei is acting on his own accord, nobody knows what he's really thinking about,” Gu Shenwei said. He was speaking the truth; he did not expect Shangguan Fei to tail behind them secretly, and the Ninth Young Master had concealed himself so well that no one had noticed him along the way to the forest.

Shangguan Ru was stunned for a moment before replying, ”What do you intend to do next?”

”Maid Lotus would never ask so many questions,” Gu Shenwei could not help but think.

He hesitated before replying truthfully again, ”I'll set fire to the forest.”

He had left behind a number of his soldiers to manage the capital and could summon a portion of them at any time he wished to set fire to all corners of the forest. This would kill off every living thing that resided inside it.

Shangguan Ru's eyes grew wide with surprise. She had heard numerous stories of how cruel the Dragon King could be, but even so, she could not accept what she was hearing with her own ears. ”My brother and that kid...”

”Allowing Old Man Mu to escape will only lead to the deaths of more innocent people.”

To Gu Shenwei, it was a simple choice. With people like Old Man Mu, he could never speak his terms plainly, the only way to handle them was to eliminate them.

Shangguan Ru pressed her lips together tightly and her jet black eyes were like a bottomless abyss; gazing into them made one dizzy. Gu Shenwei turned his head away again, right into Maid Lotus' cold gaze.

”The Blessed Child really know the eighth chapter,” Shangguan Ru said. She knew that it was pointless to plead - the Dragon King was no longer Slave Huan, and she could only try to convince him with benefits.

Gu Shenwei tried his best to make his tone sound calm as he replied, ”Then, he was purposely reciting the wrong version just now.”

Shangguan Ru grew a little red. She felt the man standing in front of her grow increasingly unfamiliar to her. ”I know this may be hard to believe, but... when I was in a daze, I kept having the same dream. The Chief Priest was saying something important but I could not hear clearly...”

That was why she made the same request to anyone she saw after taking the antidote: ”Go on.”

Gu Shenwei did not make fun of her, and this encouraged her to continue speaking. ”When I woke up, I recalled that one night, I did indeed hear the Chief Priest reciting the incantation, and it was exactly the same as what the Blessed Child recited just now - it sounded all over the place. I didn't pay much attention then and heard only half of it, but I have an idea now - ”

An idea, like a venomous snake, had taken hold of Shangguan Ru and kept circling in her mind. As she heard the incantation for a second time via the Blessed Child's recital, she had suddenly gotten a brainwave. ”The contents of the incantation are not entirely undocumented. In fact, they are written down in the archived documents kept by the Chief Priest. The only thing is, they have been separated into different books, so I think...”

Gu Shenwei immediately caught on to her idea: what the Blessed Child was reciting was not the actual eighth chapter, but a code that would allow one to discover the original texts from the archived documents.

Shangguan Ru's deduction seemed to be logical. If this was true, it would mean that even the Chief Priest and the Blessed Child themselves did not know about the secret.

The Indra fragrance could make one fall into a partial coma or be anesthetized, but it could also narrow the thoughts of the person who inhaled it. Under such circumstances, Shangguan Ru had spent nearly all of the previous month repeatedly hearing the Chief Priest reciting a portion of the incantation, and she had finally managed to notice a pattern in it.

However, she had only seen a small part of the archived documents kept by the Chief Priest, and it was still difficult to know if her deductions were correct or not.

Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus exchanged glances while Shangguan Ru said impatiently, ”I know, it's just a dream. But if I'm right, with that incantation, we can derive the eighth chapter from the documents.”

To get hold of the eighth chapter in this manner, they would have to give up their chance of killing Old Man Mu.

Gu Shenwei weighed out his options before shaking his head. ”Even if there is really an eighth chapter to Wayless Qigong, I still have to set fire to the forest. Old Man Mu poses a big enough threat to us that I cannot allow him to live any longer.”

Shangguan Ru was aware that what she was about to do was very foolish, but she still felt that she had to try. ”Give me some time, I will bring Old Man Mu and the Blessed Child to you.”

Gu Shenwei did not reply immediately. She tried again, this time her tone nearly bordering on pleading, ”Believe me this time, it imght be the only chance for us to get our hands on the eighth chapter.”

The other copy of the eighth chapter only existed in the mind of Supreme King and nobody could take it from him.

”Alright,” replied Gu Shenwei as he lifted his head to look at the starry night sky. It was soon going to be midnight. ”Once dawn breaks, I will set the fire. You... should remember to exit the forest in time.”

Shangguan Ru nodded joyously.

Maid Lotus, who had been silent all this while, said, ”I'll go in with you.”

”No, you stay, I can do it alone,” Shangguan Ru replied. She did not want to explain her plan for fear that the Dragon King would find her immature and make fun of it.

As such, Shangguan Ru turned back into the forest. Maid Lotus looked at the Dragon King, awaiting his orders.