Editor: Nyxnox
Chapter 216 Interrogation
Big Head God had prepared a large number of gifts for his daughter, and Shangguan Nu also had to show concern for the family. So, when Meng Mingshi and other well-wishers left, Gu Shenwei stayed to escort those gifts back to the castle.
Wei Gongzi took the fifty beauties away with him and continued the journey. Seeing that she was about to leave home forever, Xu Yanwei was surprisingly sad. She hated the place where she had grown up and had no idea that she had sentimental feelings towards it.
She looked for every opportunity to chat with Gu Shenwei along the way, and her excitement gradually shifted to depression and finally to weeping sores. Gu Shenwei saw it all in the eyes, but she was determined to not turn back.
"Take care of Xiaoyi. You are a good person, so I can rest assured if he follows you."
This was the first time Gu Shenwei had been called a 'good person', so he felt really uncomfortable. As a killer, the words sounded more like an ironic remark, but he simply nodded. He was a good listener and rarely spoke.
"Now that you are not my lord anymore, I can tell you that you are the best guy I've ever met."
Gu Shenwei habitually thought that Xu Yanwei was probably trying to please him for the sake of her younger brother Xu Xiaoyi, so he bluntly said, "I'll protect Xu Xiaoyi as long as he keeps digging up information for me."
Xu Yanwei slightly straightened up as if she were about to lose her temper again, but finally, in a low voice, only said, "You don't know who you are."
Gu Shenwei sneered in his heart. He was a person who wanted revenge and that was it. He had once even felt that Xu Yanwei was of some use, but he would not force her to serve him, and nor would he ask for her allegiance again and again.
After Zhong Heng told the secret, Gu Shenwei became indifferent towards Xu Yanwei's uncontrollable crying when he saw her off on the next day. He just felt that she was too unlucky in that all the men she had chosen were unreliable and that her road was about to come to an end. What was good was that she had already left Jade City and had somehow fulfilled her greatest wish.
For the first two days of his stay in the camp, Gu Shenwei followed a Registrar to examine the gifts listed in the booklet. The next afternoon, a few cutters he was unfamiliar with asked him out for a drink. He got so drunk that he vomited everywhere, which made him a laughingstock throughout the whole camp.
That night, he slipped out of the camp. Two horses were tied down at the appointed spot; one for riding and another for carrying water, food, and weapons.
Gu Shenwei had left his sabre and sword in the camp, and someone would dress in black and impersonate him if necessary to make the bandits of Iron Mountain believe that he was still in the camp.
Not long after he moved out, the red-crowned roc arrived with a gust of wind. The two horses got scared and almost threw their rider off. Gu Shenwei had to wave his hand to beckon the roc to fly higher.
An idea suddenly occurred to him. Wouldn't it be quicker if he could ride on the roc? So he tied the horses to a small tree and took out two pieces of black cloth and blindfolded them. Then he ran forward for about a mile before he called the roc to fly down.
Gu Shenwei tried a lot of tricks to get on the roc's back, with surprise, entreaties, commands, and even threats. His most successful attempt was grabbing the feather on the roc's back, but he was still immediately shaken off. He finally understood that this bird would not let anything ride on it.
It liked this human because his smell reminded it of its childhood, but that was all. It would not be a pet like a cat or a dog, nor would it be ridden on commands like a horse or cow.
It had no master, and would never take anyone as its master.
"Well, you are free. Would you like to kill with me?"
The roc habitually turned its head to look at the man and suddenly rose into the air.
Killing was its favorite thing; it didn't even have to learn how.
Gu Shenwei chased the roc on horseback, galloping day and night before finally finding a camp on the roadside the fourth day after the departure of Wei Lingmiao.
Wei Lingmiao had chosen a desolate place to camp. There were no traces of human habitation for a hundred miles around.
Gu Shenwei hid himself for the moment and set off into the night. He came to the vicinity of the camp at the second night watch period and started checking the outer periphery. Soon after, he found two hidden sentries. But instead of disturbing them, he went through the middle and approached the camp to observe what was going on inside.
In addition to the fifty beautiful women, Wei Lingmiao's procession included forty-two men, of whom twenty were guardsmen and the others supply servants.
There was a bonfire burning in the middle of the camp, and over thirty men were digging a large pit under the supervision of several guardsmen. These diggers were already below ground level and one could only see dozens of shovels throwing earth out.
More than a dozen women standing nearby giggled from time to time, as they still didn't know for whom the pit was reserved.
Before long, the people in the pit jumped out, dropped their shovels, and started teasing those women, as if digging the pit was just a new trick Wei Gongzi was playing on a whim.
Then the other women were called out, and following that the slaughter began.
Most women didn't even have a chance to scream or change their facial expression before they were beheaded and fell to the ground.
Gu Shenwei had been watching from a distance. He was waiting for the guardsmen to return to the tent and relax their vigilance before making a move. He had planned on fighting those forty-two men alone, but didn't want to let anyone escape, so the only choice left for him was to quietly assassinate them one by one.
He had carefully observed those guardsmen and knew their strength and weakness well.
His plan, however, was disturbed by the roc. The thick smell of blood was irresistible to the roc, and it descended from the sky without even being summoned.
A fierce gale sprang up with the sand, and people on the ground looked around for the source of the wind. No one looked up, and it was not until the first scream rang that people finally reacted and drew their sabres to defend themselves.
Gu Shenwei immediately acted. He quietly returned to the position of the two hidden sentries and killed all four guards who were completely focused on looking out over the rioting in the camp, paying no heed to the killer's approach.
Instead of rushing into the camp to compete in killing with the roc, Gu Shenwei lurked near the manger. Those people would run to this place if they still had any sense.
As expected, after the roc killed more than a dozen people, the rest of them finally came to understand that manpower could not match the Devil Bird's might and began to flee in all directions. Most of the people ran towards the horses.
Gu Shenwei let three men pass before he drew his sabre and attacked.
The crowd was in a state of extreme panic. No one was able to respond to the sudden appearance of a killer. They thought it was just one of their companions, and it was not until five more people fell that they finally realized that the roc actually had a helper. They quickly turned around to run away again. Some of the guards were not weak in martial arts. But once they got cold feet, they didn't want to fight anymore. They just wanted to run for their lives.
The three men had jumped onto the horse, but they were so panicked that they surprisingly weren't able to untie the reins. The horses were more frightened than the humans by the arrival of the roc. They jumped and hissed, shaking the people off their backs, and trampling them to death before Gu Shenwei could even make a move.
Half an hour later, the second massacre was over. A few people had managed to run far away, but they were all caught and killed by the roc.
This wasn't the assassination Gu Shenwei had expected, but it took less time than originally planned. He quickly counted the corpses and found forty in all, excluding the women's. There were still two living men, one of whom was Wei Lingmiao, the son of the Governor who didn't show up from the beginning to the end.
The roc was quite content and happy, with its wings outstretched and its claws alternately jumping off the ground, like a clumsy savage doing a comical war dance, or a young boy fresh out of childhood venting his excess energy.
Gu Shenwei came to the main tent and listened across the curtain before he suddenly stabbed into it and quickly retreated three steps.
A sabre stabbed out from inside the tent, slid down, and made a big cut. Then the sabre-wielder fell out. He also wanted to kill across the curtain but was a bit too slow to make a move.
Gu Shenwei added one more cut on the neck of the body before he stepped over to enter the tent. The bonfire outside was still blazing, which allowed him to clearly see what was going on inside.
Wei Lingmiao was sitting on his couch. He actually slightly smiled at the masked killer before saying, "What a formidable bird! It's really admirable that Your Excellency can tame such an awe-inspiring beast."
Gu Shenwei tore off his mask, Wei Lingmiao's expression changed slightly but returned to normal in an instant. "Is it Golden Roc Castle or the Kun Society?"
"Neither."
"Then it's personal."
Gu Shenwei nodded.
"Heh, Zhong Heng was really a wily old fox. I was screwed over by him."
"He is not dead."
Wei Lingmiao looked up and laughed as if a poet had finally thought up some amazing words after racking his brain for several days. "Ai, it seems that I've really underestimated the Commandant Lord. Do you know that it was him highly recommending you to me, saying that you were a natural betrayer and worth the effort to be bought over? I didn't expect him to shove such a sharp sabre in my hand. Well, tell me, how did the Wei family offend you? I hope it's not because I took your woman away."
Wei Lingmiao wanted to attract the killer to talk more. He knew that if there was anything that could dissolve the hatred, it was money, which he happened to have quite a lot.
"I'm surnamed Gu, and my name is Gu Shenwei."
Wei Lingmiao's face immediately turned pale and could no longer return to its normal colour. "You … That's impossible."
"I want to ask you a few questions."
"No no, it was my fault to not have saved your sister, but I've been trying to avenge her, and so has my father. He wants to avenge your whole family. I will persuade the emperor to dispatch troops after I return to the Central Plains. Within a year, I will crush Golden Roc Castle. I've taken a lot of gold and silver with me, just to buy off the powerful officials of the Imperial Court …"
Gu Shenwei let the other side keep talking until his own patience ran out. He had thought that watching his enemies panic would bring him the exhilaration of successfully exacting vengeance, but no. The killer's instinct told him that it was a waste of time.
"Three years ago, why did you come to Jade City?"
"I, I came for the wedding."
Wei Lingmiao was lying. Gu Shenwei clearly remembered that the Gu family was going to send their daughter all the way to the Central Plains and had never mentioned that the groom would come to the bride's home to escort her back to the wedding.
He raised his sabre and cut off one of Wei Lingmiao's fingers.
The sabre flashed and Wei Lingmiao saw his finger lightly jump to the ground. Then he felt the sharp pain, followed by the most genuine fear he had ever felt. "If you kill me, the Central Plains will not send troops. Do you want to avenge the Gu family alone?"
Gu Shenwei didn't know that his face was becoming hideous because of pain. "Why did you kill my elder sister? She was your fiancée."
"No no, do not listen to Zhong Heng's nonsense …" Wei Lingmiao's first reaction was to deny it, but his remark was tantamount to admitting that Zhong Heng was right. "I, I didn't know it was your sister at first, I really didn't know."
Wei Lingmiao cried, and he could no longer find an excuse to stay calm.
"And you let someone else rape her, after you?"
"No no, I didn't … They were killers, just like you. I had no choice, they didn't listen to me. Seriously, let me avenge your sister. Trust me, I can bring the army of the Central Plains here."
Gu Shenwei raised his sabre. For the first time, he didn't want to kill with one shot, but rather slowly torture the man in front of him.
"Shenwei, forgive me. The Central Plains intends to eradicate Golden Roc Castle, it's real! First it will be Big Head God, then the Unique King."
"In that case, it is useless to keep you."
Gu Shenwei slowly stabbed out with his sabre.