Chapter 113: Guests
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The teenagers stopped at the top of the slope and paused for a while so they could observe the situation in front of them. After that, they galloped toward the three riders.
When they were about 100 steps away from the riders, one rider suddenly shot an arrow into the ground ahead of them to warn them not to approach anymore.
Gu Shenwei took Liuhua's longbow and shot an arrow into the air.
He had received some training in archery. Although he was not a very good archer, he could still use an arrow to deliver something to the riders.
He had chopped off four fingers of the woman dressed in a black robe and carried all those fingers with him. He tied one of the fingers to the arrowhead and shot it out with the arrow.
A rider raised his hand to catch the arrow. He was shocked when he saw the finger on it. Affected by his mood, his horse began to neigh and bolt. The other two horses were also startled. The three riders immediately pulled their reins, trying to calm down their horses.
Right at this moment, an arrow suddenly flew out from a shrub on their left side and shot a rider down.
The two remaining riders hurriedly took out their arrows. However, before they could nock them, they were already hit by arrows and fell off their horses.
The next moment, Liuhua came out of the shrub and shot an arrow into each dead rider's mouth. This was the mark he left on everyone that he killed.
Killers only launched attacks from the side or the back of their enemies. Before the other three teenagers had appeared on the top of the slope to attract the riders' attention, Liuhua had dismounted from his horse and had sneaked all the way up to the riders. Although this place did not have any lush and tall vegetation, the dense grass and bushes still screened his movements very well.
The three riders had apparently underestimated these teenagers and thus had forgotten to guard against flanking and rear attacks.
Now, the four brown-belt assassins went to check the three dead bodies. Unfortunately, they did not find anything which could determine the riders' identities.
Gu Shenwei started to miss Tie Hanfeng. "That old cripple has extensive experience. He must have some knowledge of who they are."
Fang Wenshi finally caught up with the brown-belt assassins. He looked at the teenagers and the dead riders on the ground, nodding vigorously. "That's awesome. You really impressed me."
"You should keep going forward," Gu Shenwei mounted his horse and said to the scholar.
"No, you want to use me as bait. I won't go first," Fang Wenshi replied while shaking his head vigorously.
"You should be glad that you're still useful to us," Gu Shenwei said while holding his saber shaft.
Fang Wenshi's face suddenly changed. "I'm a very useful person. I'm excellent at astronomy and geography. I know the political situation in the Western Region and the tensions between the countries very well. I even know the local specialties of all the places in this region clearly. I'm an excellent counselor. It's a waste to use me as bait."
When the scholar was talking on and on, boasting of his talents and expertise, a troop was rapidly approaching them. It seemed to be a large troop. They could see the dust rising to the clouds in the distance.
"Counselor, what should we do now?" Gu Shenwei asked sarcastically.
Fang Wenshi did not seem to notice the teenager's ironic tone and replied seriously, "I've never learned Guiguzi and Sun Zi's military tactics. What I've learned is the strategies of Su Qin and Zhang Yi. Despite that, I can still give you a suggestion on the current situation. Look, there are probably nearly a thousand soldiers coming toward us, but we had only four killers. If we don't run away as soon as possible, we'll be dead when they start to shoot arrows at us."
With these words, the scholar turned his horse around and galloped away. When he arrived at the top of another slope, he stopped and looked back. He found out that the teenagers did not move at all and felt very confused.
When the troop came near, the teenagers discovered that it was not a large troop at all. There were only about 30 people in the troop. Their leaders were five people dressed in black robes just like the woman they had encountered last night.
"Go south!" A rider galloped ahead of the troop and shouted to the teenagers.
Gu Shenwei was determined to go forward. He refused to turn around or turn to the south, for he was sure that he would never get what he wanted in the desert.
He waved to Liuhua.
Liuhua drew his longbow and shot an arrow.
The rider reacted quickly and drew his bow almost at the same time to aim and shoot. His arrow precisely blocked Liuhua's arrow, but he still fell off his saddle with a cry.
Liuhua had shot two arrows at a time, but the rider had only succeeded in blocking one of them.
The troop now realized that these four teenagers were not ordinary travelers, but they did not attack the boys when they significantly outnumbered them. Instead, the troop started to retreat in an orderly manner.
The brown-belt assassins followed the troop from a distance. Soon they saw another troop consisting of about 70 people one or two kilometers ahead of them. That troop had set some antler railings over there to block the road. This roadblock was located right between two high hills. If they wanted to move forward, they had no choice but to break through this block.
Behind the antler railings stood three rows of bowman.
Gu Shenwei led his brown-belt assassins to retreat a few kilometers. When they stopped, he ordered his assassins to arrange the horses into a circle for them to sit inside and take turns to have some sleep. He also shared some of their water and dried food with the horses.
Killers usually launched their attacks at night, so Liuhua, Snowcamel and Wildhorse all considered it quite normal to have some rest now so they took turns to sleep. They were waiting for the night to fall.
Gu Shenwei could not sleep. He thought about the woman's words again and again. "We don't want your goods. We want the person."
"It seems that the unknown enemies don't want to kill all of us. They just intend to drive us into the desert. That's good. I don't plan to eliminate all of them either. After all, they're Golden Roc Fort's enemies," Gu Shenwei thought to himself. Now he only hoped that he could send the gifts to Bighead Kingpin as soon as possible and then send Shangguan Ru safely back to Golden Roc Fort. That little girl had never expected that her identity would have caused so much trouble to the escort team.
At evening, when Wildhorse, Liuhua and Snowcamel were busy preparing themselves for assassination tasks at night, Gu Shenwei said, "Relax, we don't need to go out tonight. Let's wait here for the team behind us."
Hearing such a highly unusual decision, all the three teenagers looked at their chief in disbelief. However, as it was a taboo for killers to act against their leader, they still chose to accept Slave Huan's decision without saying a word.
At this moment, the brown-belt assassins suddenly heard the scholar's voice that came from outside the circle. "Young Heroes, could you please give me some water? I haven't drunk a drop of water for nearly two days." The next moment, they saw Fang Wenshi crawl into the circle from under a horse's belly.
Slave Huan's attitude toward the poor scholar also confused the other three teenagers.
They saw him give his own water sack to Fang Wenshi and let the scholar drink a mouthful of water. "Now we've around 100 people and many horses and camels, but only less than half of our people can fight. How can we defeat 100 enemies?" Gu Shenwei asked Fang Wenshi.
Fang Wenshi looked left and right, wondering where the teenager's 100 people were. After that, he took another mouthful of water, wiped his mouth and said, "l have to remind you first that I'm not a military professional. I've read only a few books on battles."
Gu Shenwei raised his hand to encourage the scholar to continue talking.
"Well then, if you don't mind. Are our enemies well trained soldiers?"
"No, they're just a group of bandits with bows and arrows."
"And we've only 50 people who can barely fight in a battle?"
"Yes, pretty much. Most of them are hired machetemen, but we've about 10 professional killers."
"Killers aren't good at confronting their enemies head-on. Well, if you want me to, I can still give you a suggestion." Fang Wenshi drank another mouthful of water and patted his stomach before asking, "Do you still have some dried food?"
Gu Shenwei gave all the remaining dried food to the scholar. Fang Wenshi quickly gobbled all of it. His mouth was so full that he had to take quite a lot of water to swallow the food down. After that, he breathed out a sigh of relief and said, "Here's my suggestion. Let the machetemen lead the charge on the battlefield to attract the enemies' arrows, and you killers charge right behind them to protect yourselves. Only in this way can you get close enough to your enemies to kill them. This method may work, but I'm not sure. I really don't know much about battle tactics. When you grow up, oh, no, I mean when you become strong enough to annex countries and contend for hegemony, you can come to me and ask for my advice."
Fang Wenshi believed that a killer apprentice would never get a chance to hire a counselor like him in the future. Given that, after he had drunk enough water and eaten half full, he began to lose patience as he talked to the teenager.
Despite that, Gu Shenwei was still deeply inspired by the scholar. He thought of a plan, but he was clear that their top priority now was to survive this night.
"Let's get ready. We'll have some guests tonight."
Gu Shenwei had discovered that most people in the enemies' troop were ordinary roving bandits and only the people in black robes seemed to be good at kung fu. He believed that these black-robed people were also killers who liked to launch late-night attacks on their enemies. He decided to wait for them to appear.
It was getting dark, but Gu Shenwei did not make a fire for the night. He sat beside Fang Wenshi under the starry sky. At his feet lay three things wrapped in cloths. When seen from a distance, it looked like three sleeping people.
Fang Wenshi tightly held his own right arm, trying to stop it from trembling. He had asked the teenager to let him leave, but the teenager turned down his request. He began to complain in his heart, "This is the worst trip in my whole life. I failed to meet any big shots who I hoped to talk with and kept wasting my time on a bunch of bandits or killers, who'll never give a da*n about my expertise."
"Are you going to protect me?" he asked the teenager.
"I'm going to kill them, so they won't get a chance to kill you."
Fang Wenshi was stunned. What the teenager said did not sound like a promise to him at all. After a while, he forced a laugh to end the conversation and felt that his right arm was trembling even more violently.
"You said that you know the political situation in the Western Region. How about you tell it to me now."
Fang Wenshi was stunned again. After a moment, he began to talk, not for the killer apprentice but for the fact that talking could help himself relax.
"The 36 countries in the Western Region have enjoyed peace for a long time, which makes them drop their guard and neglect the political tensions between the great powers. Thirty years ago, when the Central Plain and Norland were at war and didn't have time to manage the Western Region, this region went through a quite long warring period. During this period, Shu-lik and Golden Roc Fort rapidly rose to power. When the Central Plain and Norland made peace and got involved in the political affairs of the Western Region again, Shu-lik had already gained a firm foothold in the region. That's how today's tripolar situation came into being. In this stable tripolar world, the 36 countries choose to depend on different great powers to ensure their own safety and thus coexist peacefully with one another. However, now the three biggest countries are dissatisfied with the current situation. They all demand more. At the same time, new powers such as Golden Roc Fort and Iron Mountain are getting increasingly strong and ambitious. Now, the situation is very complicated. Once, one of them stirs up political tensions…"
Suddenly, Gu Shenwei could not hear Fang Wenshi's voice clearly. He felt a strange heavy feeling in his stomach. This feeling, which was mixed with his tension and excitement, seemed to slow down his heartbeat and cool his blood.
At this moment, he really hoped that he could have a good sword at hand.
Fang Wenshi talked on and on, as if he was sitting with a king in the Western Region, who had 100,000 soldiers and just needed a counselor to tell him how to survive the turmoil in the future. He was so absorbed in talking that he did not notice the impending danger at all.
Suddenly, he felt that a gust of wind blew over his head. He stretched out his hand to touch his head and felt even more confused, since he discovered that his hat was gone and some of his hair fell off. Right at this moment, he saw the horse in front of him somehow split into two parts. A huge amount of blood gushed out of it and rained on him.
He was frightened to death and sincerely hoped that he could pass out at this moment. However, he was perfectly sober and saw everything clearly.
The fight between the brown-belt assassins and their "guests" ended quickly. During this fight, two people died and another two were wounded. The teenagers lost one of their horses, and the other five horses had already fled in fear.
Gu Shenwei did not get a chance to fight again, which made him feel very uneasy. The Qi inside his Xuanji acupoint became hot and started to swell. He felt as if his blood was boiling now. He knew that another qigong deviation attack was coming soon.