445 Rescue (1/2)

The boy, who was walking alone in the winter night, was about 10 years old. Although his skills looked immature, he was perfectly calm and steady. He quickly found the entrance to the inn at the end of the alley and untied the cord securing the saber on his back.

He did not carry a sheath and the weapon seemed too long for the boy, but he just casually held it in his hand, as if it were a simple task he was accustomed to perform.

He leaped over the wall into the inn and walked back out through the door not long after, the saber already on his back again by now.

He appeared somewhat giddy with satisfaction and thus was light on his feet now. He quickly walked out of the alley and then made a detour toward the northern part of the city.

Gu Shenwei quietly followed him from a distance, while thinking, ”The innkeeper must've got hold of some very important information unintentionally, but he didn't think of it when I came to visit him. This might be the reason why he got assassinated tonight.

”As to this boy, he's probably one of the apprentices trained by Hu Shining. The Golden Roc Fort has so many kung fu masters and will never send a small child to perform an assassination alone.”

Most of the apprentices at the secret base in Shu-lik were selected by Gu Shenwei, but only a few of them had left a deep impression on him. As such, even if the boy had stood facing him right now, he probably would have been unable to recognize him.

After walking down several streets, the boy believed himself to be completely safe. He sped up and entered a messy-looking area.

Upon seeing that, Gu Shenwei immediately shortened the distance between himself and the boy with quick steps, and when he was taking a turn to chase after the boy who had just disappeared into the shadows, he was ambushed. A hidden weapon suddenly flew out from somewhere behind a tree, which was only a few meters away on his right-hand side.

This hidden weapon's arrival was sudden, but the level of its speed and ferocity was not that of the hidden weapons emitted by the little prince back in the Council Chamber of the royal palace. Gu Shenwei had guessed beforehand that the boy might be a lure and this might be a trap, so he remained vigilant against such surprise attacks all the time when he was chasing after the boy.

He took a small step forward to avoid the weapon and then leaped to the top of the wall on his right-hand side to stop the ambusher from escaping.

The ambusher, who was dressed completely in black, was evidently surprised by the Dragon King's action and immediately jumped into the yard of the house. When the ambusher landed and was about to get up again, a cold saber was already placed against its neck.

”Maid Lotus!” the ambusher cried in a low female voice, trying to save her life with these two words.

The moment this ambusher had begun escaping from this place, Gu Shenwei had found her Lightness Skills very familiar. He predicted that she would jump up and down for many times and abruptly change direction during the vertical jumps to get rid of her follower before quickly leaving this place following a straight route. Given this, he chose to stand in the way through which she had to pass and prevent her from jumping up again.

The person sleeping inside the house seemed to be disturbed by the noise coming from outside and gave a little murmur.

Upon hearing that, Gu Shenwei pressed his saber against the female assassin's throat and forced her to move backward until her back was against the wall of the yard. She behaved cooperatively and kept silent all this while. She even raised up her hands and placed them beside her ears, as a way to show that she would never fight back.

The person inside the house coughed several times and then fell back to sleep as there was no noise coming from outside again.

”I've come here to save you,” the female assassin said while deliberately approaching the Dragon King and blowing air onto his face, acting as if she were a close friend of the Dragon King.

Gu Shenwei was familiar with the crazy women from the New Moon Hall and knew their moves well. He slightly raised his left hand to block the airflow and at the same time, put more weight on his saber with his right hand, as a way of warning the woman not to emit a sound.

The female assassin was very obedient. She immediately stiffened her body and even kept her eyes unblinkingly fixed on him.

She turned out to be more childish than probably the boy he had been tracking. She seemed not scared at all, as if the saber against her throat were just a toy.

He waited until the person in the house fell fast asleep and then whispered to the woman, ”Evidence.”

He found it very strange that Maid Lotus, who should have returned from the trip to Jade City by now, had not yet shown up. As for this female assassin, she seemed to be a very cheerful person and did not belong among those disciples of the New Moon Hall.

”Look at my sword,” said the female assassin, cordially. In the meantime, she moved her eyeballs downward toward her sword.

Gu Shenwei did not follow suit. He used his left hand to take out the sword from where it had been stuck in her belt, while looking straight into her eyes.

When he took the sword off from her, she could not help wiggling and giggling, seemingly as if the scabbard had accidentally touched some ticklish place in her waist.

”She's crazy like all the other disciples of the New Moon Hall, but in a very different way,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.

No matter what the female assassin did, he still remained undisturbed. He held his breath to prevent inhaling any knockout powder and then quickly glanced at the sword in his left hand under the moonlight. There was nothing special about this sword, and he did not notice any mark left by Maid Lotus on the scabbard.

”Drew the sword out,” whispered the female assassin, somewhat anxiously. She even forgot about the saber against her throat and used both hands to grip the scabbard.

Gu Shenwei took hold of the hilt and pulled it gently. The next moment, he saw a broken sword.

Maid Lotus had two swords. The ”Huan” sword had a character ”Huan” carved on its the hilt, while the ”Yun” sword bore a character ”Yun” on its hilt. The 'Huan” sword had been broken when they had worked together to ambush Old Man Mu back in the desert. Since then, Maid Lotus kept the broken sword.

The female assassin's sword turned out to be the broken ”Huan” sword.

”Managing Master treasured it so much that she carried it around with herself all the time. She hesitated for a long time before agreeing to lend it to me. Haven't you recognized it?” asked the female assassin.

”Why does the New Moon Hall send this woman to assassinate me? And this woman even claimed that she did this to save me,” Gu Shenwei thought in bewilderment, but he could not talk with the woman at this place. He inserted the broken sword back into its scabbard, slowly sheathed his own saber, and then jumped over the wall to leave the yard.

The female assassin seemed to find the Dragon King's behaviors very funny and shook her head. Knowing that she would never be able to escape from him, she also jumped out of the yard to catch up with the Dragon King,