Old Man Mu’s corpse still could not be found. After the fire had died down, more than 100 people formed a single row and combed the remnants of the Flower Soul Forest, trying to find evidence of his body, but all they could discover were mutilated remains belonging to the dozens of soldiers from the Great Snowmountain who were killed by the All Annihilating Formation.
As such, Gu Shenwei had to remain in the capital for two more days and he continued to send out large numbers of his men to search for any remains. They nearly unearthed the entire ground where the forest used to stand, but to no avail.
Eventually, everyone had to agree with Shangguan Fei’s deduction: “As the fire raged on, Old Man Mu panicked and triggered one of his booby traps. He ended up being cut to shreds by his very own formation; his remains is surely among that pile of bones.”
This seemed like the only possible outcome for the old devil. Gu Shenwei decided that he could not delay his departure any longer and he made up his mind to leave the capital the next morning to catch up with the main troop.
He hoped that Shangguan Ru would stay behind in the Land of Fragrance and rule over the remaining slave soldiers, the elderly, women and children on behalf of the dead swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain.
However, Shangguan Ru had still not given a reply to his unexpected request.
Shangguan Fei was even more anxious than the Dragon King and more proactive than his sister on this matter. He tried to persuade her no less than three times a day. “Younger sister, it’s a great opportunity and you shouldn’t miss it. Do you still wish to travel southward? If you go any further, you’ll end up in the sea. Stay and be King, no, Queen of the Land of Fragrance. Isn’t that a great idea?”
“You won’t find any place better than here. See, each season is like Spring and the flowers are flourishing. The fruits and vegetables grown here are so abundant that no one can try them all; you only need one kind of food to survive here. Furthermore, the people here are great as well. Everyone is educated and polite. They are all obedient slaves and know what they should or shouldn’t do; you needn’t worry about them.”
“I did some thorough research. The Land of Fragrance is blessed in its current geographic location; easily defensible and surrounded by mountains everywhere. To its northwest is a forest inhabited by savages, and the only accessible route is a narrow mountain passage to its northeast. If you erect a checkpoint there, you can easily defend against a strong army of thousand men even with a hundred men. With that…”
He trailed off, and upon seeing that his sister was not particularly angry, he decided to come clean. “If you really do not wish to govern a country, let me help you out. Speak to the Dragon King and let me stay behind instead. To be honest, I have so many plans in mind. I promise that we’ll make the Land of Fragrance prosper and that its royal line will forever bear the Shangguan name. When that happens, why do we even need to return to the Stone Castle for? Here is a bigger, safer Stone Castle.”
“Just do it, sister. It’s not easy to win the Dragon King’s trust, and if you hesitate further, who knows, somebody else might take up the opportunity.”
Shangguan Ru had been pestered by her brother until she reached her breaking point. “Invite the Dragon King and Maid Lotus over,” she told him.
Shangguan Fei was delighted and shouted with joy. He was so excited that he was glowing. “That’s good. We have to work hand in hand immediately on various projects. Our nation has everything but young males; they have all been taken by the Dragon King. However, the men of the surrounding lands are too savage and we cannot welcome them into our country. We can only solve this with one method: let every remaining soldier take up to five wives and push them to produce more males. After one generation… Oh, you wish to see the Dragon King.”
Once the two guests arrived, Shangguan Ru chased her brother, who was still feeling excited, away.
Shangguan Ru invited the Dragon King and Maid Lotus in. She did not want to discuss her decision to stay, rather, she wanted to speak to them about the Blessed Child. “I wrote down a copy of his incantation. Take it and tally it against the documents left behind by the high priest; you should be able to piece the eighth chapter together.”
She had deduced that when the Holy King was betrayed, he had not believed in anyone again and hence divided the most important cultivation method of Internal Strength from his sect into separate ancient documents before coming up with an incantation that was mixed with truth and falsehood as a means to piece together the entire manual.
She placed the stack of papers on her desk but she knew that both the Dragon King and Maid Lotus were naturally suspicious. As such, she called the Blessed Child out and asked him to recite the incantation once more. “I wrote it down a little hastily and there are probably a few errors. We’d better check my copy with the source.”
Gu Shenwei believed in Shangguan Ru. Furthermore, the documents left behind by the high priest were kept in the military camp, and even if she wanted to come up with a fake incantation, there was nowhere for her to begin with. Even so, he agreed to let the Blessed Child recite the incantation again.
It was one thing to trust someone, but to express that trust was another matter altogether. Gu Shenwei felt that he did not have to offer preferential treatment to anyone.
Throughout the past two days, the Blessed Child remained by Shangguan Ru’s side; he was willing to become her servant.
He was still much frightened after having been terrorized by Old Man Mu and stammered as he talked. After every few sentences, he would twist his head to look at Shangguan Ru and continue reciting only after being encouraged and comforted by her.
He quickly recited the entire incantation, which was a few thousand words long. Shangguan Ru had taken perfect dictation. Gu Shenwei was especially interested in the second half of the incantation.
The first few hundred words were exactly the same as what Shangguan Ru had predicted – they seemed like a clue written in some sort of code. Not only was it mixed with truth and falsehood, the content was also jumbled and there were many contradicting parts within it.
But that night, everyone realise something wrong in the first half of the incantation if the Blessed Child had recited more than the first 50 words.
However, the content of the incantation changed after 600 hundred words or so; it was no longer a jumbled-up set of instructions for Internal Strength cultivation, but a set of exhortations which actually made sense.
The creator of the incantation was exhorting his disciples not to practice the Dajue Book of Swordcraft without good reason.
Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus were finally convinced that ‘Dajue Book of Swordcraft’ was the proper title for this unique manual, and that ‘Death Scripture’ was only a description used after.
According to the incantation, good and evil come from the same source; and it varied from person to person. Say, using steel as an example: It could be used to make tools and equipment for the benefit of mankind, such as hoes and picks, but it could also be made into weapons which could harm others and the users as well. It also exhorted that the swordcraft taught in the manual was extremely powerful and was the only one in the world, only someone of great wisdom could control such a devastating force.
As for what constituted great wisdom, the incantation provided a simple analysis: if one practiced the Dajue Book of Swordcraft and there were any signs of its effect backfiring, then one should immediately stop learning it.
Not only had Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus experienced said signs while practicing and using swordcraft taught by the book, in fact, but they had also experienced its effects first hand.
The insight offered by the incantation was not quite the same as the afterword of the Death Scripture. The latter had been painstakingly translated by Master Lianhua into Central Plains Chinese, and it explained that there were sixteen types of possible interpretations and methods of practicing the scripture. No matter which method one chose, one would have to kill to improve on it, and as one’s powers increased, it would only be a matter of time before the effects backfired. The way to prevent it would be to decrease the rate of one’s killing to only one per year.
The ideal solution would be to first master Wayless Qigong. Once one’s Internal Strength had reached a certain level, one could mostly delay and reduce the effects of the swordcraft backfiring.
However, the incantation, which had ben passed down by the descendants of the Holy King for dozens of generations, believed that the backfiring had nothing to do with one’s Internal Strength. Instead, what one required was the very vague theory of ‘great wisdom’.
It was only a moment ago that Gu Shenwei felt that he could trust Shangguan Ru, but now, he could not help but feel that she was up to something.
The effect of Breaking Obsession on her was too great to be taken for granted, and she could have gotten the Blessed Child to add in a few paragraphs to convince the Dragon King and Maid Lotus to stop practicing the peerless and incredible Dajue Book of Swordcraft.
Gu Shenwei quickly scanned through Shangguan Ru’s expression. His suspicion was quickly reduced – Shangguan Ru had never seen the Death Scripture before, and even if its afterword was also the beginning of the Wayless Book, she had only seen the original text of the latter, which was written in a strange and foreign language. She had never seen the translation before, and it was not really possible for her to even come up with a set of exhortations within the past two days.
The Blessed Child also did not look like he was acting on someone else’s orders. He was only ten years of age and had grown up by the high priest’s side. As such, he had not yet learned to lie and was as transparent as a clear stream of water in the eyes of the Dragon King.
” It doesn’t matter, ” Gu Shenwei thought. Even if the Death Scripture eventually turned its practitioners into demons, he would continue to practice it. Everyone on this earth had to pick their path in life, and only he was destined to walk on the path of death.
As for Maid Lotus, she was always inscrutable. Gu Shenwei had a real spiritual connection with her occasionally since both of them had chosen the path of death voluntarily.
The three of them remained silent for a while as no one was willing to begin a discussion about the deep meaning contained in the incantation.
Shangguan Ru was the first to speak up; she wanted to give Maid Lotus a gift. “It’s my mistake to plant a force inside your body. I’m extremely sorry about that. The only way to remove it is to use the Heart Stopping Finger of Seven Circles and Seven Apertures, but I can’t bring myself to practice it, therefore please allow me to teach you.”
Visible surprise swept across Maid Lotus’ expression before it vanished as quickly as it came. She was the Managing Master of the New Moon Hall and possessed superior Kung Fu; normally, anyone who had the opportunity to control her would never give it up easily.
“Tha… thanks,” said Maid Lotus somewhat unnaturally. She was not being ungrateful, but rather, she was not used to speaking words of such nature.
“I only have one request. I know that after learning the Heart Stopping Finger, you may have to kill. I hope that… whoever you kill deserves to die.”
There were thousands of people in this world that should be killed. In a sense, Maid Lotus completely believed that every life she took was justified; to her, even the maid whom she had killed just after shaking off the effects of Indra fragrance deserved to die.
Maid Lotus would not decieve Shangguan Ru with her words and therefore gave a straightforward reply, “Those that I kill with the Heart Stopping Finger in future will be considered as bad people even by your standards.”
Gu Shenwei took his leave first; he was uninterested in Old Man Mu’s Kung Fu. While Maid Lotus learned more techniques, he maintained his focus on the Death Scripture. Before leaving, he tried to convince Shangguan Ru to stay behind once more, “There are still 50000 residents in the Land of Fragrance, and they are simple-minded and innocent; they’ve not been influenced by the outside world. As such, whoever rules over this land will determine the direction their character will develop. Think about it, I will leave tomorrow in the early morning.”
It was already past midnight when Shangguan Ru finished teaching all of the Heart Stopping Finger moves to Maid Lotus. But she felt restless and could not fall asleep.
When he heard that his sister invited the Dragon King over but had not discussed the ‘very important matter’ of taking over the Land of Fragrance, Shangguan Fei was extremely agitated. But he knew it was inappropriate to burst into his sister’s room in the middle of the night. As such, he could only patiently wait till it was daybreak before coming to see his sister and find out what had happened last night.
“Sister, my good sister, Father wants us dead and Mother can’t save us. Now, we only have each other to rely on for help. Even if you don’t want to think about your future, spare a thought for me. If you don’t agree to stay, the Dragon King will never agree to let me remain behind alone. He will bring me into battle, and it will be against the Stone Castle. Look at me, I can’t possibly be a soldier. Do you know how much I’ve suffered over the past few months? I really cannot take it any longer…”
“Go inform the Dragon King that I’m willing to stay behind.”
Shangguan Fei jumped up in delight.
“But I have some conditions. The Land of Fragrance will not become a base of provisions for the Great Snowmountain. I will not interfere if any of the 50000 residents decide to work for the Dragon King, but I will never organize them to transport supplies to the Great Snowmountain.”
“About this, isn’t it a little too early to be setting such conditions?”
“That’s all I have to say,” replied Shangguan Ru, stubbornly sticking to her decision.
It was just as well, Shangguan Fei thought. The Dragon King obviously still harbored some feelings for his sister, and he might agree to the conditions. He thought that it was only a matter of time before the Land of Fragrance isolated itself from the outside world, and if they cut off ties with the Great Snowmountain at an early stage, they would need not have to worry about doing so later.
Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus had already packed up their belongings and were preparing to set off when Shangguan Fei came bearing his sister’s message to them. Dragon King came to see Shangguan Ru personally and agreed to her conditions. There were still dozens of soldiers from the Great Snowmountain, loyal to him, who remained behind in the Land of Fragrance. They would arrange the logistics themselves and there was no need for Shangguan Ru to interfere.
It was time for them to part. Unexpectedly, both of them were calm. Previously, they had no idea that they had been walking on separate paths for far too long, but the past few months together had made it evident, showing them that they were clearly moving in different directions after all.
“Bring my brother along with you. He’s the first person that the Land of Fragrance does not welcome,” she said, making her final request.