Death Scripture 279 Raising the Flag

The first reaction the citizens of Jade City had upon hearing about Mister Zao Tong's death was indignation.

The old macheteman was already semi-retired and rarely involved in matters of jianghu. How could one not grieve over his death after knowing that he was brutally murdered in his twilight years?

There was no doubt in everybody's mind that the murderer was the Dragon King.

On the night of Mister Zhao's death, a black flag was put up on a wall of his house, and none of his neighbors understood its significance. The next day when a curious soul went over for a closer examination of the flag, he found out that the red blotches on it seemed to be made of blood. Sensing that something was amiss, he broke into the house, only to find Mister Zhao's corpse sprawled on the bed.

A large laceration stretched from Zhao Tong's chest to his abdomen, and his bed sheets were covered with blood.

His death stirred up feelings of chivalry amongst the machetemen, and about half of them now were willing to join in the search for the Dragon King. Previously, only a few of them were willing to do it, and it was for the pay too. The streets and alleys of South City were now filled with reckless youths carrying machetes, and they spent their time eyeballing pedestrians who walked past them intently, hoping to nail the Dragon King.

The Dragon King's raising of the Black Blood Flag was as good as a declaration of war with the entire Jade City. What was puzzling was that all was quiet for the next two days, and there were only a few minor incidents of the grieving machetemen causing injuries to some citizens by accident. It was as if the Dragon King had hidden himself deep under the depths of the sea, and there was no trace of him at all.

Gu Shenwei had accomplished his first objective of killing the traitor, and his actions caused everyone else to focus their attention on South City. Taking advantage of this fact, he hid himself in a valley away from the city—he needed 12 hours to commit himself fully to withstanding the piercing cold caused by his qigong deviation.

Just like this, with only Chu Nanping's protection, he survived his first qigong deviation since his return to Jade City with no hiccups.

On the third day after the murder of Mister Zhao, news of him leaking the movements of the Dragon King to the Stone Castle began spreading around, and the citizens began debating about it. It was also on this day that another Black Blood Flag was raised.

The Kun Society had more than a thousand machetemen, and it was the largest gang affiliated with the Golden Roc Fort in South City. It also had a monopoly over most of the armed escort business. At the time of Mister Zhao's death, its master, Shangguan Fei, was hiding in North City and a blademaster was supervising its operations in South City.

The blademaster was known as Zhang Yan, and he was one of the few widely known killers around the city. He had a nickname, 'Murderous Saber', but everyone called him 'Merciless Saber' when speaking with him.

Zhang Yan was murdered even more brutally than Mister Zhao. He was decapitated and his head was impaled on the pointed shaft carrying the Black Blood Flag. It looked as if it was looking down on the entire Kun Society base from high above. It was only after dawn when sentries and a few neighbors who woke up early that day realized that the Kun Society's flag was replaced. Investigations later revealed that Zhang Yan was murdered at least four to six hours earlier.

The offensive flag with Zhang Yan's head stuck onto it was immediately removed, but news of the horrifying scene had already spread amongst the citizens of Jade City. The image was so vivid that it soon became deeply rooted in their minds, and everytime they thought about it, the memory made them feel afraid and strangely excited at the same time.

It had been a long time since there was any faction in Jade City capable of going against the might of the Stone Castle, and the citizens had a feeling that the struggle between the Golden Roc Fort and the Dragon King would be much more intense than the earlier competition between the young masters.

They were soon proven to be correct. The Dragon King struck again, without waiting for the shock from the news of Blademaster Zhang's death to die down. This time, his target was in North City.

The Governor's mansion was protected by around 200 guards who came from Norland, and they did regular patrols around the compound. There were also an unknown number of assassins from the Golden Roc Fort providing an extra layer of security, and they were never seen in the open.

On the second day after Zhang Yan's death, a Black Blood Flag was spotted flying above the Governor's mansion. It had replaced Norland's White Horse Flag, and two heads were impaled on the tip of its shaft. The victims were not the guards from Norland—they were killers from the Golden Roc Fort.

The last time a criminal offense was committed in North City was when the Tenth Young Master kidnapped Meng Mingshi. As for the last murder that occurred in the city, the citizens could only recall one which happened more than 10 years ago.

The Dragon King had picked his targets well and chosen the perfect locations to strike, and his actions created a wave of panic on a scale that the citizens of Jade City have never felt before. North City and the Governor's mansion were among the least likely places one could find a victim of a murder, and killers of the Golden Roc Fort were the most unlikely person to be assassinated.

The first person to be driven close to insanity from the intense atmosphere was not the governor, Mo Chu, but the Ninth Young Master of the Stone Castle, Shangguan Fei. In his hysteria, he claimed that he himself was going to be the Dragon King's next target, and returned to the fort on the very same morning when the latest murder was discovered, against the advice of his subordinates. He would refuse to step out of the Stone Castle ever again.

Mo Chu felt that his authority had been repeatedly challenged by the Dragon King not even half a month into his term as the governor, and he swore that he would get his revenge. He publicly announced that he was going to summon 10,000 elite troops from Norland, to first destroy the Great Snowmountain's base camp and then to uncover the location of the Snowmountain Gang's chieftain. He planned to let his troops loose in Jade City and was even prepared to sacrifice the lives of innocent civilians to find the Dragon King.

However, his staff quickly brought him to his senses. They warned him that his plan could not be executed, as the Central Plain would send more troops to Western Region if Norland moved first, which would cause undesirable outcomes. They strongly advised the governor relying on the help of the Golden Roc Fort to capture the Dragon King in Jade City.

To everyone's surprise, the Dragon King struck again not even two days after Mo Chu was dissuaded from taking actions against the Great Snowmountain by his staff. At that time, Shangguan Fei was just beginning to feel a modicum of safety staying inside the Inner Residence, another Black Blood Flag was raised on the watchtower at the peak of the Stone Castle.

This act made the Golden Roc Fort lose a lot of face.

The Dragon King had not actually caused any substantial damage to the Golden Roc Fort by raising Black Blood Flags throughout the city, and the blademaster and killers who were murdered by him were expendable. Image wise, however, the Fort had taken a huge beating. It was like a clumsy giant picking a fight with a buzzing fly, swinging wildly but never able to hit its target. Not only could they not find the Dragon King, it was starting to look like they might even lose this game against the Dragon King.

Rumors began spreading throughout the city that the Dragon King was no longer alone, and that he had a team of more than a hundred killers with him, ready to challenge the assassins of the Supreme King. They said that the battle between both sides would take place in Jade City, and that once the real fight begins, at least half of the population in the city would be wiped out.

As the rumors grew more terrible in nature, they spread even wider. Some citizens who were timider even moved their entire family to villages at the outskirts of the city, and many merchants began packing for emergency evacuation.

Thus, Gu Shenwei achieved his second objective—to strike terror within Jade City so that he had a pretext for peace talks.

This achievement came at a huge price though. Although it seemed to outsiders as if the Dragon King was able to enter and leave Jade City as he wished, and that he could do anything he wanted, he himself knew that with every strike, his space to roam shrank by a huge margin. Killers from the Golden Roc Fort were beginning to corner him into a dead end.

His act of raising a Black Blood Flag in the Stone Castle was especially dangerous, even though it got the best results. Gu Shenwei did not intend to try it again.

To enter the Stone Castle, which was situated at the peak, he hid in the undercarriage of a water delivery cart, and just as it was nearing the stone bridge at the entrance of the fort, he quickly released himself from the cart and hid in the nearby bushes. He remained there until late night, when he climbed the wall of the cliff until he reached the bottom of the bridge. When the guard was slacking off, he shifted to the side of the bridge, and began climbing slowly and spider-like to the opposite end, using potholes as his handholds.

He was above a deep ravine, and if he slipped he would be falling to his death. Even Gu Shenwei himself felt that it was remarkable for his climb to be entirely accident-free.

The penultimate act of killing and planting the flag was the easiest part of his mission, as the Stone Castle was huge, and not all sentries were kung fu masters. The two guards at the watchtower were not even killers, and they were not even alarmed when Gu Shenwei was climbing up the wall of the watchtower and accidentally stepped on a loose piece of rock.

After he replaced the Golden Roc Flag, Gu Shenwei stood gazing towards the interior of the Stone Castle, his hand tightly gripping the shaft of the flag pole. He felt a strong impulse to rush inside and kill the inhabitants of this hated place.

However, he knew that security would be tighter the further he went into the castle. He controlled his impulse and left the same way he came from.

On his way back, he nearly met with disaster. When climbing back across the stone bridge, his fingers slipped and he nearly fell. Luckily, he managed to grip onto a small pothole with one hand. He clung on and remained suspended from his fall in this manner for a while, not daring to move.

While he managed to accomplish his mission and people began to think that he could do anything he wanted, after his close shave, Gu Shenwei decided that he would never sneak into the Stone Castle in this manner ever again.

He struck in the dead of the night, picking his targets and planting more flags around the city. During the day, he would 'hide' by openly mingling in the busiest teahouse in South City.

The guests in the teahouse soon became familiar with him, and they thought that he was living nearby. No one bothered to consider the fact that he was a stranger who only began appearing a few days ago.

He was pleased with the reactions of the citizens in Jade City. Even though most of them were fearful of the impending battle between the Dragon King and the Golden Roc Fort, quite a number of them felt that it would just be a spectacle of a bigger scale then they had ever seen before, and that it would not affect them personally. "Let them kill each other, what does it have to do with us? I don't know any kung fu, and don't wish to claim the bounty on the Dragon King anyway," was the prevailing train of thought.

The bounties were doubled, but the amount of people who were willing to try to claim them grew lesser substantially.

Next, Gu Shenwei changed his strategy of only targeting killers from the Golden Roc Fort. That night, he struck again, this time at a few inns situated at the outskirts of East City. The next morning, when four merchant caravans got ready to move off from the inns they were staying at, they noticed that a Black Blood Flag was struck on each of their cargo carriage. The blood on each flag came from the head of security of each caravan, and they were machetemen from the Kun Society who were paid to act as armed escorts.

Gu Shenwei was so efficient that the team mates of the victims, who were all sleeping near each other, did not even wake up when they were murdered and decapitated. They only noticed that their leaders were murdered upon waking up, and it led them to shout hysterically in panic, totally unconscious of losing their image as battle-hardened machetemen.

None of the four caravans dared to move off that day.

Trading was an important source of income for Jade City. A substantial portion of earnings of the Golden Roc Fort and the Meng family came from it, and the lives of the ordinary citizens were also closely interlinked with trade. The Dragon King was causing major disruption to the daily flow of everyone's lives by his actions.

What made matters worse was that some machetemen began following the Dragon King's example—they started to kill and plant Black Blood Flags after the deed. Some of them were caught but found to have no connection whatsoever with the Dragon King and the Great Snowmountain, while others managed to avoid detection just as Gu Shenwei did.

The struggle was an exercise in subtlety.

Gu Shenwei's motive was to stir up panic in Jade City, which would lead to dialogue amongst each party involved in the situation, as well as allowing them to anticipate what was to come. However, he had to maintain close observation of public opinion on the ground. He knew he had to hold back his killings at some point in time, before he managed to offend everyone.

On the 18th day after he raised the first flag, when he thought everything was going smoothly, his luck ran out.

At this juncture, even he had to admit that it was no longer kung fu or smarts that allowed him to single-handedly cause so much disruption and panic in Jade City. Luck played an important part in his success.

That very afternoon, he was chatting idly as usual with 'familiar faces' in the teahouse, unaware that danger was nearby.

The hot topic of that afternoon was when would the Dragon King stop killing or be killed himself.

"It'll never end," said a middle-aged man. He sounded as if he was a soothsayer bemoaning the fate of mankind and the entire universe. "It's Jade City's doom, and no one can escape from it," he continued.

His statement set the tone for the afternoon's discussion, and the others started sounding more and more pessimistic.

"Jade City has been around for a few centuries, hasn't it? Is it going to fall because of the Dragon King?"

"If this continues, no one will be able to conduct business, so how can the city survive? What do we have of our own? Even our grains and food are imported from far away."

"Why not we let the Dragon King and the Supreme King duel amongst themselves. Whoever survives wins, and we'll get the peace we want," suggested someone boldly. No one took the speaker seriously.

The guests soon began talking about other matters to avoid dampening their moods by continuing with the heavy topic about the city's impending doom. Out of nowhere, an old man, who Gu Shenwei had noticed the first day he had started to mingle in the teahouse, spoke up. "Business in other parts of the city has been affected, but this teahouse has profited from it. Everyone comes here when they have nothing to do, and there are new guests here everyday."

The manager was all smiles as he nodded, agreeing that business was indeed brisk these few days.

"New guests."

Gu Shenwei's expression became serious, as his right hand reached into his long robe for his Five Peaks Saber.

Killers of the Golden Roc Fort had successfully trapped the Dragon King.

Chapter end