925 Opening Ceremony (1/2)
Standing in the snow, Shangguan Hong felt so cold that his face had turned a ghastly pale, but this was not the main problem concerning him. A possibly fatal issue he was facing was that he had run out of antidotes.
There was a price for rapidly improving his Daoless Divine Power with the help of the Seven Rotation Skill. The quantity of Shangguan Hong's Qi and blood was far more than that of a common person. For a man who had lost his genitalia, this was very ironic, but he would rather endure pains that others couldn't see than become a dwarf like Old Man Mu.
There were two methods of subduing his Qi that went into a violent circulation at irregular intervals. The first one was to bleed himself, but this method could only alleviate the symptoms, and should only be used when he had no other choice. And after he bled himself, Shangguan Hong would always feel horrified and worry that the scars on his body would be more than those on the Dragon King.
The other method was more effective and also milder. Lotus had made some special pills for him, which could helped restrain the uncontrollable Qi in him. The only downside was that all of these pills were in Lotus' hands, Shangguan Hong had no idea what ingredients they were made of, and neither did he have an easy way of accessing them.
He had taken the last pill two days ago. By no means could Shangguan Hong have expected that he would have to stay at the uninhabited bottom of this cliff for three full days. He didn't dare leave, but he was so anxious that he felt like he was about to go crazy.
'Nobody cares about me,' Shangguan Hong secretly complained in his head with his back to the five killers, cautiously controlling the anger in him. He was not yet eligible to vent his mood.
'I'll have to wait until I master the swordsmanship.' Shangguan Hong constantly fantasized about that day. On the top of the border wall between southern and northern Jade City, he had killed that assassin, believing that he had become a top killer. But then soon after, he had been hit by that mysterious sword blow in a small alley in southern Jade City, which had cruelly shattered his illusions.
'That guy's swordsmanship was so good.' Shangguan Hong still felt horrified at the thought of that sword strike. If weren't for the fact that he had ran away quickly enough, he probably would have died in southern Jade City without even knowing who had killed him. That sword strike was somewhat similar to the moves in the Death Sutra, but it also felt different from what he had learned.
What Shangguan Hong had adopted was the cultivation method of ”Killing Enemies,” which was callous and ruthless. In order to kill one person, he had to have the determination to massacre hundreds and even thousands of people all at once. But that mysterious person's killing aura was barely detectable. It was more like…
Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Shangguan Hong suddenly discovered that the killers behind him had pulled out their sabers, so he raised his head and saw a small figure walking towards them in the light of the setting sun.
”Is it Old Man Mu?” Shangguan Hong asked loudly. The figure was too far away for him to gauge his actual height.
”Ha-ha. Take a guess.”
It was definitely his voice.
”Why are you… Where's the Dragon King?”
”The Dragon King's at the camp. He sent me here to tell you that everything's fine. You may leave.”
Shangguan Hong was relieved, but soon, a wave of uncontrollable anger swept over him. ”Okay,” he said, trying hard to remain calm.
”You feel that you were played, so you're very unhappy, right?” Though he was far away, Old Man Mu could still easily tell that there was anger in Shangguan Hong's tone.
”We're all following orders. There's no point in being happy or unhappy.” Shangguan Hong walked towards Old Man Mu with the five killers, his voice more composed now.
”Heh-heh. We're all following orders, but orders have different contents. Handmaids have orders to clean the floor, make beds, and fold quilts. Soldiers have orders to fight enemies. Scouts collect intelligence. Generals command armies from their tents. The ones who followed the Dragon King into the castle are his henchmen. And who were the ones who stayed down here as lookouts? Oh, you guys. Ha. I guess that if I left a dog here, it also would have fulfilled the task just as well.”
Old Man Mu was in a good mood, so his words were meaner than usual. Even the five killers who had been rigorously trained by Hu Shining glared at him. Shangguan Hong was even angrier than them. Blood was surging upwards into his head, veins were protruding on his forehead, and his eyes were ablaze with fury.
Old Man Mu specifically ran a few steps closer to him to get a clearer view, laughing in satisfaction. ”If I had known that your anger would be so intense, then I would have brought you to the mountaintop. You could have burnt Golden Roc Castle with your fire of anger, so there would have been no need to set a fire.”
”What?!” Shangguan Hong was taken aback. ”The Dragon King burnt down Golden Roc Castle?”
Including the five killers, all six people turned their heads back and looked up, but besides the steep cliff, they saw nothing.
”It wasn't completely burnt down. There's still a part of it left standing. Alas, you guys must be the last batch of people of Jade City to hear about this, right?”
Surprisingly, Shangguan Hong was no longer angry. He didn't dare to get angry again. He could feel that there was something wrong with the surge of blood that had just flooded into his head. He didn't want to suffer through Qi deviation in front of Old Man Mu in the wilderness.
Old Man Mu would never easily pass up the opportunity to derive pleasure from humiliating others, so he kept nagging and flaunting his experience. It was pointless to laugh at Shangguan Hong and the others. The longer the listeners stayed silent, the more excited he got. He never stopped talking on the way back, but continued to give a full account of what happened last night.
As Old Man Mu talked, Shangguan Hong became more and more startled. When they walked out of the river valley, it was totally dark. Looking in the direction of southern Jade City, which was over ten miles away and ablaze with lantern light, he couldn't help himself from asking, ”The Master Commander and her subordinates invaded Golden Roc Castle, and the fight between her and the Unique King lasted for over a hundred rounds, and then the two sides called a truce. How… How is this possible?”
”I saw it with my own eyes. How could it be false?” Old Man Mu greatly exaggerated this fact, but he had no intention of correcting it.
Shangguan Hong stopped. He didn't expect that the situation of Jade City would change drastically again in just a few days, so he had to think carefully about what he should do next.
The five killers went into the woods to fetch the horses. With a big smile on his face, Old Man Mu looked at Shangguan Hong. ”We are the only two people who have ever practiced the Seven Rotation Skill. Isn't this some kind of destiny? We should get to know each other better.”