Chapter 918: A Thick Saber

The courtyard was narrow and small, but the walls were very tall, which made the whole courtyard look like the lower half of a giant chimney.

He was a Green-faced killer, and he just stood in the courtyard with his head slightly down and a sword, one the likes of which not many people in Golden Roc Castle would use, in his hand. Occasionally, he would jab out with it, but not once did he seem satisfied.

It had been three full days, but his memories of the swordsmanship of that Central Plainsman didn’t blur a single bit. Instead, it became clearer and clearer as he recalled it over and over again.

That Central Plainsman’s sword strikes were fast, but not too fast for the Green-faced killer to parry or dodge.

That Central Plainsman’s sword strikes were steady, but most Green-faced killers could reach this level if they kept practicing their swordsmanship for over ten years.

That Central Plainsman’s sword strikes were very accurate. That last sword strike had gone right through his target’s throat. But this was just an elementary level skill for a Green-faced killer.

There was only one thing that this Green-faced killer had seen but was unable to replicate: taking control of the flow of battle after letting the opponent make the first move.

As the best killers, the Green-faced killers were the best at seizing the initiative. Killers were not at an advantage in face-to-face kung fu competitions, and they were usually desperate to take the initiative, and by no means would they let their opponents make the first move. However, the swordsmanship of that Central Plainsman was different from that of any other person – he had actually managed to gain the upper hand after giving his opponent the first move.

The Central Plains was thousands of miles away, so the Green-faced killer had never fought with a Central Plainsman before, but it turned out that that Central Plainsman’s swordsmanship could effectively restrain the unique skills of killers of the Western Regions.

“He must have a unique method of anticipating the situation. That’s why he can instantly see through his opponent’s move,” the Green-faced killer said loudly. His voice reflected off the walls repeatedly before entering his ear, as if there were a second person talking to him.

The courtyard next door was unoccupied. And in the one further away stood another Green-faced killer.

Holding a narrow saber, he suddenly leaped forward and jabbed it at the wooden target seven steps away. After hitting the target, he immediately drew back, seeming also fairly dissatisfied.

This Green-faced killer had an audience, who was almost touching and moving with him simultaneously. She looked feeble, pale due to injury, and her right hand was gone, but she didn’t try to conceal it.

Qian Ying shook her head. “We still don’t have it. The Dragon King’s saber strike was not just fast. It was incredibly fast. When I was fighting against him, almost every one of his moves made me feel like I wasn’t going to be fast enough to parry.”

These chimney-like courtyards were built one by the other, and more than half of them were unoccupied. About thirty or so were occupied. Dozens of Green-faced killers were practicing kung fu in their respective courtyards, with thirteen of them imitating Luo Qikang, seven of them imitating the Dragon King, five Lotus, and three Chu Nanping, Dog Butcher, and the Norlander Mo, Lin respectively. There were also four people standing transfixed doing nothing. Nobody knew why.

The look on Old Man Mu’s face gradually switched from surprise to indignation. Finally, after they left the area where those Green-faced killers lived, he said in a low voice, “The Unique King actually doesn’t think that I’m threatening enough! Even a guy like that Old Dog of the Kongtong Sect is worth learning from? What the… this is so annoying.”

Gu Shenwei didn’t let his guard down. He signaled Old Man Mu to keep quiet.

These killers were imitating their enemies not to learn from them but to find their flaws which would be helpful to them in both a kung fu competition and an assassination operation, which was one of the Unique King’s plans.

In the dark, Gu Shenwei thought for a while before waving at Old Man Mu, indicating that he wanted to go back.

This time, he sneaked into an unoccupied courtyard. Old Man Mu acted as a lookout outside.

The courtyard was dark, and moonlight could barely enter inside. After staying in a half squat posture for quite a while, Gu Shenwei cautiously moved forward and quietly walked into the only room in the courtyard.

The door was half open and it was totally dark in the room. In a room like this, even a killer who was used to moving in the dark would be like a blind man.

But Gu Shenwei was certain that there was nobody in the room. Even compared to that of killers, his hearing could be deemed as extremely acute.

Upon entering the room, Gu Shenwei turned left, moving forward along the foot of the wall.

He walked around the room and figured out the area of the room. To his surprise, the room was semicircular and purely made of stone bricks. The space inside was much smaller than what he had imagined it to be when he was observing it from the outside, which indicated that the walls were very thick.

Then he walked around again, at a slower pace this time, and carefully stroking these stone walls. Finally, he confirmed that the roughness of the surface was not natural. Someone had carved many patterns on the wall, all of which were a person holding a saber. He deduced from the proportions that the saber was much broader and thicker than a narrow saber.

Gu Shenwei recalled a Green-faced killer that he had known before – the mole that the Waning Moon Hall had taken great trouble to plant in Golden Roc Castle, Guan Shang. Her allegiance belonged solely to Han Wuxian, so there was no need for her to keep any secrets for the Unique King. However, she had never mentioned these patterns…

The sound of the external gate being opened was heard. It seemed as if Old Man Mu had failed to alert him. Gu Shenwei had no choice but to quickly climb up the stone wall.

Compared to the small area of the room, these walls were very tall. Gu Shenwei climbed about seven meters up before reaching the ceiling, on the surface of which there were no etchings of human figures. Gu Shenwei abruptly turned around with his back against the stone wall, parted his legs wide with the tips of his feet in the cracks that he had found when climbing up, stretched his arms into a line with his left hand pressing the sheath against the wall and the right hand clutching on to the edge of another crack, and narrowly managed to balance himself.

Gu Shenwei had just steadied himself when two people walked inside. One of them closed the door, and the other lit an oil lamp in the exact middle of a small stone table.

Gu Shenwei finally got a clear view of the shape of this room. It was indeed semicircular. He was on the flat side, directly facing the patterns on the opposite wall.

These patterns had been drawn with simple and unconstrained lines, presenting a sabersmanship that he had never seen. The style of this sabersmanship was very different from that of Golden Roc Castle, which was usually performed with narrow sabers. These moves were bold and unbridled, which was rather similar to the style of Central-Plains sabersmanship.

Both of the two were Green-faced killers. Gu Shenwei was holding his breath, hoping that they wouldn’t stay here for too long.

One of them raised the oil lamp, and then they stood side by side, looking directly at the leftmost patterns, which clearly indicated that this was not the first time that they had come here. Both of them were silent, trying to fathom those moves.

After a full quarter of an hour, they finally finished reading the last four or five moves and then put the oil lamp back onto the one-legged stone table. Then each of them pulled out a saber from under the table, both of which were very similar to the sabers in those patterns, and started fighting without saying anything.

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It was a typical Golden-Roc-Castle sparring style – every move was ruthless and callous. It looked like they were trying to kill each other rather than sparring. Two sabers clashed constantly, generating showers of sparks as well as gusts of wind, which made the flame of the oil lamp flicker.

After a few moves, the two stopped fighting, put the sabers down and started discussing, with the stone table between them.

“This sabersmanship is somewhat different from the ones we’ve learned.”

“It’s a pity that we didn’t find it earlier. We’ve only been practicing it for a few months and haven’t learned its essence yet. Otherwise, those Central Plainsmen wouldn’t have acted so arrogant in Golden Roc Castle.”

“That Central Plainsman’s swordsmanship is very good.”

“Um. But after we master this sabersmanship, we’ll be better than that Central Plainsman.”

The two Green-faced killers started contemplating those patterns on the wall again.

It turned out that this place had never been open to common killers. No wonder Guan Shang had never mentioned this room. Gu Shenwei deduced that the so-called “a few months ago” probably referred to shortly before or shortly after the battle of Thousand Horsemen Pass. At that time, Prince Xiao had just come up with the idea of selecting the Lord of Jade City via a kung fu competition.

Why had the Unique King asked the Green-faced killers to give up their assassination skills and start learning a completely different kung fu? Had he by any chance known in advance that there would be a face-to-face kung fu competition? Or had he made up his mind to make a radical change and turn the castle into a place the profile of which had nothing to do with killers?

Gu Shenwei was confused.

But what concerned him the most was the current situation. It was not easy to hide above two Green-faced killers. When the two were sparring, he had taken a few breaths, but now he had to hold his breath again.

The two Green-faced killers returned to the stone table.

“This is it,” one of them said. “Learning is an endless process. We can only make slow progress even if we keep practicing. I think that it’s time we test it.”

“Yes.”

Standing there silently, the two seemed to be communicating with each other in a mysterious way. Before long, one of them picked up a thick saber, and the other fished out two daggers.

The new sabersmanship versus the old techniques was the test that they had just talked about.

Strikes made with the thick saber were so ferocious that it seemed as if the stone walls were about to fall apart, which offered Gu Shenwei a chance to take a breath.

The Green-faced killer using daggers swished around the room like a giant insect. Though his strikes were different from those made by someone using a narrow saber, Gu Shenwei could still distinctly tell that his moves were of the Golden-Roc-Castle style.

This was a face-to-face kung fu competition, so the one fighting in the Golden-Roc-Castle style was not at an advantage, which offered Gu Shenwei an opportunity to see the complete sabersmanship of the thick saber. That Green-faced killer was performing this sabersmanship with decent proficiency, but he still couldn’t completely rid himself of his previous habits. Occasionally, he would speed up his moves, which, instead of strengthening his attacks, had a detrimental effect on the steadiness of his sabersmanship and thus exposed his flaws.

‘The Green-faced killer using a thick saber is going to lose in a few moves,’ thought Gu Shenwei, but then he was abruptly startled. The Green-faced killer using daggers rolled on the ground and attacked his opponent from down below, which meant that he might see the intruder near the ceiling at any time.

Gu Shenwei didn’t know how to get the better of the opponent after letting the opponent make the first move, so he prepared himself. If the necessity arose, he would make the first move and then immediately run downhill with Old Man Mu. In that case, the plan to steal the golden-crowned rocs would have to be postponed.

All the assassination skills of the Golden Roc Castle focused on swiftness and lightness. When performing these skills, the killers barely touched the ground, which was why their footwork was relatively unsteady. This was an noticeable disadvantage when performing this thick-saber sabersmanship. The Green-faced killer using daggers had discovered this, which was why he chose to attack from below his opponent.

His victory was certain.

During the past few months, these two people had practiced this new sabersmanship almost every day, but they had never seen each other as partners, and they didn’t even know each other’s names, so they definitely wouldn’t show mercy during this test.

When he rolled over on the ground for the seventh time, the Green-faced killer using daggers, who was about to give a lethal strike to finish his opponent, finally discovered that there was a third person hiding near the ceiling. He was surprised but not flustered. Immediately, he switched targets.

Gu Shenwei braced his legs and was about to leap down. He was planning on killing the one using the thick saber first, since this one was still unaware of his existence and thus defenseless against his attack. Then, he would deal with the Green-faced killer using daggers, who had already seen him.

As the only one in this room who was unaware of the situation, the Green-faced killer wielding the thick saber was still performing the immature new sabersmanship, ruthlessly slashing at his companion.

Though the two Green-faced killers were having a life-or-death fight, they were not really enemies. Because of this tiny difference, the Green-faced killer using daggers had overlooked the danger coming from his companion. He had just thought of switching targets when his companion bisected him.

Gu Shenwei hurriedly controlled himself and nearly fell off the stone wall. He tightened the grip of his right hand along the edge of the crack and managed to regain his balance.

The Green-faced killer with a thick saber watched the body on the ground for a while and then looked at the patterns on the wall again. “It’s a little strange,” he said. After putting the thick saber under the stone table, he grabbed the two parts of the body and walked out of the room without putting out the oil lamp.

He would probably come back to clean the blood on the ground.

This was his chance to leave. Pressing his right hand against the wall, Gu Shenwei let go three times before finally landing on the ground lightly. He didn’t leave the room immediately, and instead leaped to the rightmost part of the semicircular wall. There were two lines of words there, which he hadn’t been able to read earlier.

Big Snow Mountain Luoshen Peak

Tiangang Sabersmanship

Gu Shenwei quickly left the room and he had barely climbed to the top of the wall when that Green-faced killer returned.

There was kung fu from the Big Snow Mountain in the depths of the Golden Roc Castle, and it was a sabersmanship that Gu Shenwei had neither heard of nor seen before. This was too weird. It was even weirder than a large group of Green-faced killers were imitating him and Luo Qikang.

There were only swordsmen in the Big Snow Mountain…