Chapter 177 Elder Brother
Meng Mingshi and Shangguan Yushi were actually lovers. The effect of Meng Mingshi’s words was no less than if Yu Gongzi had died and then resurrected.
Gu Shenwei felt his heart thumping and many of his doubts were quickly resolved. He felt that he was so foolish that he didn’t see it earlier. It was actually not his fault. He had never experienced love and could not know that subtle feeling.
Meng Mingshi and Shangguan Ru were embittered towards each other and they would quarrel every time they met, but he had always behaved politely in front of Shangguan Yushi. Actually, Meng Fifth Gongziliked Yu Gongzi the first time they met and that was why he did so much for her in secret. And that was also why Shangguan Yushi had dared to slaughter the sabremen of the Qiu Society without fear of revenge.
The sabremen’s lives were worth no more than the weeds by the roadside in the esteemed gongzi’s eyes and were worth it to win the beauty’s smile.
As for Duke Gao’s death, Gu Shenwei also understood it now. That duke always short of money must have known about their love affair and extorted money from her. Shangguan Yushi had given him some money, and that was not her money, but the Meng family’s. Duke Gao had caused himself to be killed when he opened his mouth for the second time.
Shangguan Ru couldn’t think of so many things. She held her narrow sabre, her face a suffocating red and her black eyes getting larger and larger. It took a long time for her to spit out two words, “You lie.”
Meng Mingshi took out a piece of jade from his robe and held it in his hand for Shangguan Ru to see.
The jade was white and had the shape of a deer with two green eyes, which was not a particularly precious thing.
Shangguan Ru staggered and almost fell, as if she had been hit by a sledgehammer. She stared at the jade for a long time before she also produced one from her robe.
The two jade pendants were almost identical.
For a moment, Shangguan Ru’s eyes were welling with tears as if she was about to cry out, then she gritted her teeth, put away the jade, and placed her sabre horizontally in front. “Impossible, you stole it, or you picked it up. Yu Gongzi couldn’t have …”
With his arms lowered, Meng Mingshi stared at the dead Shangguan Yushi with an infatuated expression. Even the ruthless killers knew what was going on.
“Nothing is impossible. You people in the castle think she was born
to be Tenth Gongzi’s sidekick, but she was actually a hundred times smarter than you, and more qualified than you to be a young lord. We had already made a perfect plan and almost finished it.”
“Plan?” Shangguan Ru repeated confusedly, and her hand holding the sabre began to tremble.
“The Qiu Society was founded for her, so she could play a realistic game with you, and get rid of the person we both hated. It’s this Servant Huan. Then we would have found a way to send you back to the castle. At that point, I would be controlling the Qiu Society, and she the Kun Society herself. We two would have made a career out of it. By that time, no one could say that I’m a useless blacksheep, and no one would dare to think she’s inferior …”
“Shut up!” Shangguan Ru cried out with a shrill voice, her tear finally coming out. “Yu Gongzi wouldn’t betray me!”
“Of course she wouldn’t betray you. She needed you, but she just thought you were too young and weren’t suitable for controlling the Kun Society. So she wanted to help you expand the Kun Society and return an overawed Kun Society back to you when she married into the Meng family.”
Shangguan Ru couldn’t believe it, and her head was in a mess. The honeyed words Yu Gongzi had said rang out in her ears again, “She said she would never marry anyone.”
Meng Mingshi lovingly looked at Shangguan Yushi’s lifeless face. “She said that she regretted making that vow.”
Shangguan Ru staggered back to a chair, sat down limply, and dropped the narrow sabre onto the ground. She curled up like a little girl abandoned by her parents, repeating and muttering the word ‘impossible’, until she suddenly jumped back onto the ground and snapped, “If it wasn’t you, then who killed Yu Gongzi?”
Meng Mingshi seemed to have just thought of this problem. His eyes wavered, then he pointed at Servant Huan, “It was him. It must be him who did it.”
Shangguan Ru’s mind was completely disoriented, so she blurted out without thinking, “Was it you? Did you two hate each other so much that you had to kill each other?”
“It wasn’t me. I couldn’t command so many sabremen.”
Gu Shenwei had already guessed who was the mastermind behind it, but it was not yet his turn to reveal the truth.
Shangguan Ru also realized that Meng Mingshi’s accusation was too ridiculous. It was impossible that several dozens of sabremen would listen to an average killer’s order. “Those sabremen were the Qiu Society’s people.”
“I don’t know. They might be men
men of the Qiu Society, but I didn’t give the order. And the sabremen also didn’t admit to it. I’ve already sent someone to investigate, but I haven’t gotten any results yet. If I can’t find out who did it, I’ll just kill them all.”
Meng Mingshi wasn’t a qualified Society Leader. After Shangguan Yushi’s death, he could only drink and grieve alone and had no formed plan of avenging her at all.
Both the kidnapper and the abductee were lost in their thoughts, puzzled.
It was fine that Shangguan Ru couldn’t figure it out because she didn’t know anything, but Meng Mingshi was actually full of clues. Gu Shenwei really wanted to crack his skull open and put the idea straight in.
“I see,” Meng Fifth Gongzi finally got rid of the influence of the alcohol and sadness and figured out what he should have known long ago. “It was your brother, Shangguan Fei, who gave the order!”
Shangguan Ru looked at Meng Mingshi as if he was a fool and was just about to refute him before Tuo Nengya’s voice rang out, “Who is it?”
“Golden Roc Castle,” A cold voice answered.
Tuo Nengya must have believed the other side’s story, so instead of blocking the outsiders as Shangguan Ru had ordered, he pushed open the door and let a dozen or so black-robed men in.
They were Golden Roc killers for sure. With black clothes inside black robes and a red belt around their waists, they were not teenagers who had just acquired their title several months ago, but experienced adults. They immediately dispersed upon entering the house and even sent one person to guard upstairs.
No one could make a move without careful consideration now.
Meng Mingshi didn’t know these people’s intentions, so he was trembling with fear again. Shangguan Ru started the killers with round eyes, “Whose killer are these, to be so presumptuous?”
A slightly short black-robed man had been standing in the doorway, but now he lifted his hood, saying, “Sister, you’ve made a big mess. The castle has no choice but to send someone to clean up the mess.”
It was Shangguan Fei.
Shangguan Ru looked at her elder brother in amazement and blurt out at almost the same time as Meng Mingshi, “You sent someone to kill her?”
Shangguan Fei didn’t answer. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time and he could wait a bit longer. He came over to Meng Mingshi in a few steps and lifted him up while saying, “Fifth Gongzi, sorry to let you suffer. Come, send Fifth Gongzi home.”
Two black-robed killers came and held Meng Mingshi
Meng Mingshi up, walking outside. Meng Mingshi was sad, angry, frightened, and also bereft of strength. He couldn’t do anything and it was not until they reached the door that he straightened his body and cried out, “It was you, it must be you, how could I …”
The killers didn’t stop. They carried Meng Fifth Gongzi out and quickly left.
Shangguan Fei watched Meng Mingshi go with a smile. Now both the Meng family and the Qiu Society owed him a big favour. Next, he was going to make a move on the Qiu Society.
Brush. A narrow sabre pressed against Shangguan Fei’s chest. Shangguan Ru looked like an angry cat, her back crouched and her pupils infinitely dilated.
“Why?”
A black-robed killer wanted to come to the rescue, Shangguan Fei waved his hand. He had once been frightened to tears by the sabre in his sister’s hand, but never again. “Trying to kill me again? Sister, you always forget that I’m not your servant.”
“Just for this? You hate me, and so you killed Yu Gongzi?” Shangguan Ru could not believe that the teenager before her was her twin brother, and the hand holding the sabre started shaking again.
“I don’t hate you; I envy you.” Shangguan Ru was so calm that he didn’t seem like a teenager, nor like the cowardly and impotent ninth young lord in everyone’s memories. “Mother likes you, father likes you, and even values you above all his sons. But I hate Shangguan Yushi. Who did she think she was? How dare she disrespect me?”
Shangguan Fei also became angry, his eyes sparkling. He leaned forward, and Shangguan Ru unconsciously took one step back and her narrow sabre left her brother’s chest. “I’m the son of the Unique King! She was just a poor relative who came from nowhere. Her status was no better than a servant, so why should I put up with her?!”
“She didn’t … We didn’t …” Shangguan Ru cried again. She had lost control of her emotions. Too many unexpected events had come in succession and had exceeded her emotional capacity.
“Huh, of course you didn’t bully me. What am I to you? A little footman, a good slave. Sometimes I’m even inferior to a servant. Playing a servant is actually giving him face, so how could it be ‘bully’? Sister, I guess all the servants hate their lords to death.”
Shangguan Fei turned to Shangguan Yushi’s corpse, and sneered coldly, “Yu Gongzi’s ambition wasn’t small. She even wanted to seize your position, make you a mere figurehead, and take charge of the Kun Society herself. Look, sister. This is your best friend, who anxiously friend, who anxiously found a man first, then betrayed you faster than how the servants change their faces.”
“Shut up!”
Shangguan Ru’s narrow sabre pressed against her brother’s chest again, no longer trembling.
“Come, do it. Haven’t you once put the sabre on my neck to save two servants? Now Yu Gongzi is really dead, so avenge her. It’s our tradition to kill each other, I killed big brother, and if you kill me, your own brother, father will like you more.”
Shangguan Fei became a bit frantic, but none of the killers in the room dared to come forward to dissuade him.
The narrow sabre became as heavy as a mountain in Shangguan Ru’s hand. She couldn’t thrust it in, nor take it back.
Shangguan Fei snatched the narrow sabre and threw it on the ground casually, and said with a cold face, “Is it that hard to kill? You weren’t like this the night before when you massacred the sabremen of the Qiu Society, remember? Calm and talkative, as if the dead were a swarm of ants. Didn’t they have any brothers and sisters? No, everyone does. Sister, do you know the rule of the castle now? If you can’t bear to kill your own brother, how can you have the heart to kill the one you love, the one you respect, and the one you hate?”
Shangguan Fei looked at his little sister cruelly, his cheek flushed with excitement. The moment of revenge was better than he had imagined. If he could, he would like to experience it forever.
Shangguan Ru was stunned and stood where she was, her thin body looking like a leopard who had just left her mother. Bewildered, she kept an eye on everyone in the room, and said, “You’re not my brother. Both you and she have betrayed me.”
“And you have never treated me as your brother.” Shangguan Fei seemed to have held a sabre in his hand and was thrusting it into his sister’s body, not all at once, but slowly cutting through the skin, flesh, and blood, stirring the intestines.
Noises came from the outside, and there seemed to be a violent fight. Shangguan Fei smiled, looked at Servant Huan on the side, and ‘stabbed’ his sister for the last time. “Sister, open your eyes, everyone around you has betrayed you.”
Gu Shenwei’s heart thumped. He had been very careful in dealing with the lords of the castle, and didn’t expect that he had still underestimated this ninth young lord. Although he was already prepared for the betrayal, he had not yet thought about how he would face Shangguan Ru’s grief.