578 Making A Name (1/2)
Wildhorse flew into an uncontrollable rage. The inner corners of his widely-parted eyes titled toward the nose, making his eyes two very slanted lines. He never trusted Slave Huan. It was just that he had never expected that Slave Huan dared to play tricks right under his nose.
Liman was upset as well, but he thought of another possibility. ”It's not necessarily the Dragon King. The Golden Roc Fort is more likely to replace the girl with another one. The Dragon King didn't have a chance to do so, since we've been monitoring the whole process all this while,” said Liman.
Wildhorse rapidly made a number of hand signals and Liman could only get a general idea of them. ”You believe that it must be the Dragon King, don't you? But we have no proof. Don't forget that our task is to assist the Dragon King. This assassination task is just the beginning, and in the future, we'll have more important things to do together. I suggest you'd better not make a fuss about this incident.”
Upon hearing that, Wildhorse could only forcibly suppress his anger. For him, Liman's suggestions were pretty much commands, as this man was a son of Zhe Su, the most trusted general of King Rizhu.
Liman decided to downplay this incident, but he still had a few questions that he wanted to ask the Dragon King. As such, he and Wildhorse returned to the camp of the Dragon army and waited for the Dragon King in his tent.
After about 15 minutes, Maid Lotus came to the tent alone to receive them.
”Where's the Dragon King?” Liman asked, somewhat grumpily. As son of a Norland general, he always found deception and betrayal intolerable. After dissuading Wildhorse from making a fuss about this incident, he himself had somehow felt less calm than before. He felt more irritated as the Dragon King seemed to deliberately avoid and belittle him now.
”He's not here.” Maid Lotus said flatly and gave no explanation for the current situation.
”This woman is as evasive as the Dragon King. It looks like that I can only ask her more specific questions,” thought Liman. ”That woman is not the Supreme King's granddaughter.”
”Really?” Maid Lotus replied calmly, as if she had expected this to happen.
”Did the Dragon King know it beforehand?” asked Liman.
”How could he know? The Golden Roc Fort deceived all of us,” replied Maid Lotus.
”Where's your assistant? That woman is an expert at changing a person's looks with make-up. She was in the same carriage with that woman. Don't tell me that your assistant is unable to discover her disguise,” said Liman.
”My assistant is well-versed in using makeup, but it doesn't necessarily mean that she's able to discover what a person really looks like under his or her make-up. Besides, she's never met the Supreme King's granddaughter before,” retorted Maid Lotus.
Liman still refused to believe Maid Lotus and thought, ”Even Wildhorse noticed that the woman had disguised her looks. How come a disciple of the New Moon Hall failed to notice it?” ”You'd better go invite the Dragon King to join us,” said Liman.
”He's not here.” Maid Lotus slightly lifted up her chin and gave the same answer.
Wildhorse stepped forward and said to Maid Lotus in sign language, ”You had the Supreme King's granddaughter replaced by another woman during the trip.”
Maid Lotus remained silent for a moment and then said, ”Well, it's easy to say so, but how could I find such a sacrificial lamb in this place at such short notice? After all, it's neither the Dragon King's nor my territory.”
”The sacrificial lamb, yes. That woman clearly didn't know that she was going to be killed. Alas, Wildhorse moved too fast to kill her. Otherwise, we could've interrogated her to find out the truth,” Liman thought ruefully
”Maybe the real Shangguan Shaomin never came to Norland. The Golden Roc Fort is planning to use a fake Shangguan Shaomin to deceive the Khan. Now that we've killed her, the Supreme King's secret plan is undermined.” Maid Lotus finally offered the two men an explanation.
”Maybe?” Liman retorted, while pacing back and forth restlessly. ”You can't fob me off with a 'maybe'. This thing is of great importance to the plan of my lord.”
”Our enemies aren't some dumbasses. They would set up traps for us, and we would be fooled by them once in a while. That's not a big deal. Now we just need to find out the truth. Shangguan Shaomin will appear on a public occasion sooner or later, no matter who she's going to marry. An invisible girl can never become a consort of a lord,” said Maid Lotus.
”Is the Dragon King still able to assassinate her at that time?” asked Liman.
”Yes, otherwise why did King Rizhu choose to make an alliance with the Dragon King?” replied Maid Lotus.
Liman was still dubious about what Maid Lotus had said. He had been looking forward to learning some clever moves of the Dragon King before the mission, but at this moment, he thought that the only he had learned was that he could not trust anyone.
Wildhorse lost his cool and angrily swished his hands to make quite a lot of signs. This time, even Liman could fully understand what he meant.
What Wildhorse had just said was ”The granddaughter of the Supreme King must be with the Dragon King now”.
However, his guess soon proved to be wrong. Early next morning, both Liman and Wildhorse heard what the Dragon King had done yesterday night: he had accompanied Chu Nanping all the night, when the boy went around to challenge different Kung Fu masters into duels and made his name overnight.
Chu Nanping thought of another way of mastering the Emotionless Swordsmanship—practicing it alone by using two swords at the same time. He needed a large amount of practice and experiment to prove his idea and refine his skills, so he had gone on an outing with the Dragon King that night.
Early that evening, Gu Shenwei asked him, ”Are you ready?”
The boy nodded and picked up two swords. One of them was recently bought from a local blacksmith shop. It was large and heavy and not easy to use, but he had no choice.
At this place, it was uneasy to find a long sword which was commonly seen in the Central Plain.
They sneaked out of their camp, through the craftsman region and into the slums. A great number of Kung Fu practioners from foreign countries lived in this region now, and some of them were perfect opponents for Chu Nanping.
Tournament of the Royal Court had many different events, and winner of these events would be awarded a certain number of cattle or sheep. These things were attractive only to the local herdsmen. People from Western Region and the Central Plain would never perceive them as a good attraction.
This year, the rules of the tournament remained the same, but all the 10 kings of Norland promised to give a large sum of money to the ones who could wIn the games for them.
As such, many people were attracted here by those juicy offers and worked for different lords. Some of them were boastful bandits, and some of them were well-known Kung Fu masters who deliberately had their names changed.
Several days ago, these people had stirred up a large-scale commotion in the slums, which caused many people to be killed before they even got a chance to join the events. It was also during this commotion that the real Kung Fu masters were exposed and recognized by everyone.
Gu Shenwei planned to ask Chu Nanping to practice his sword techniques with these Kung Fu masters.
The first person that Chu Nanping picked off was a swordsman from the Central Plain. His name was Gong Ziying, which was probably a fake name. No one had heard of his name before, and he himself claimed to be a deserted disciple of a famous sect, who could not no longer sustain himself back in his home country and thus came here to seek opportunity.
He had shot to fame during the commotion, where he had taken on 7 bandits at the same time, cutting down 6 of them and then defeated 11 challengers in a row, killing 7 of them.
He had not yet been hired by any of the kings living in noble region, He was said to have charged the lords too much.
Unlike the other machetemen, Gong Ziying was not an alcoholic. He lived in a cheap tent that he rented and never ventured out at night.
The place where he lived was quite out-of-the-way and the only lighting there was the crescent moon in the sky.