Death Sutra Chapter 71

Editors: Rams, J3000

Chapter 071 Downhill

Tie Hanfeng laid on the new deck chair and touched the wound on his neck for every two sentences he spoke. The wound itself was minor and didn't even need binding, however its presence left a lingering fear on Tie Hanfeng.

Gu Shenwei stood several steps away, his left hand holding his bandaged right wrist. It was a deep wound that would've left Gu Shenwei in a similar position to that of the eighth young lord,  practicing  using the sabre with his left hand, if his Master hadn’t shown mercy at the last moment.

“What was that crap you used?” Tie Hanfeng gulped down a mouthful of wine, but he was not drunk to the degree of having a good temper.

“I’ve learnt a bit of swordsmanship before, I used it by accident.”

“Swordsmanship? Ha! Swordsmanship!” Tie Hanfeng seemed to have heard a big joke, or a boast from a liar whose face was as thick as the city wall. His tone was full of ridicule, “There are only two types of people using a sword in this world, one is the idiot, the other is the immortal, are you an immortal?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not qualified to use a sword, if I find you using sword strokes again, I’ll find a sword and skewer you from from arse to mouth. This is called ‘Gut Piercing Sword‘, a swordsmanship even the immortal doesn’t know.”

“Yes.”

Gu Shenwei, himself, also decided to not use the moves of the mysterious sword manual again. It could indeed surprise the enemy, but as he had suspected, this swordsmanship had a big flaw, if he used his full strength to attack without defense, but still wasn’t able to kill his opponent with the first move, he would immediately be vulnerable to a counter-attack. If that happened, he could only wait to be cut. It was too risky.

Tie Hanfeng severely forbade his disciple to incorporate sword strokes into his sabresmanship, and what worried him even more was the way his disciple attacked.

In fact, Gu Shenwei had been striving for a blow from the back when he practised the Golden Roc sabresmanship with his Master. So, Tie Hanfeng had never found his disciple’s ‘bad habit’ in the past up to 10 days. But practice was one thing, a fight for life or death was another. Once Gu Shenwei saw his enemy’s flaw in front of him, he would immediately put the rule aside and follow the habit of the Gu family’s sabresmanship, to attack from the front.

Having had none of the 10 months of basic training at Diao Mu Yuan made Gu Shenwei lack many qualities a good killer must have.

From this day, Tie Hanfeng deliberately started training his disciple’s footwork and urging him to attack from the sides and the back. Several days later, Tie Hanfeng became furious again, “Have your feet been squeezed to be crippled when your old Mum gave birth to you? Why are you as fucking slow as a cripple like me? Your feet should not touch the ground! Do not touch the ground! Do not act as slow as shit!”

Gu Shenwei had never been abused like this before. His father always said he was the smartest and most enlightened one amongst his three sons. Even Xue Niang praised him for learning kung fu fast. He'd even surprised the kung fu instructor at Diao Mu Yuan. All of this, however, was worthless in his lame Master’s eyes, he was cursed at full blast everyday.

For the first several days Gu Shenwei thought all the killer Masters taught their disciples like this and it was probably a tradition of Golden Roc Castle. But when he went to Lian Huo Yuan to carry corpses, he learnt from the yellow-belted overseers that only Lame Tie taught his disciple in this humiliating way.

“He has never taken a disciple before, you’re his first.” The overseer who was responsible for carrying corpses sympathized Servant Huan and dug up Tie Hanfeng’s unsavory past, “He doesn’t truly want to train you to be a killer, he just wants the title of killer Master, you know, this title is very useful.”

As for what the usage was in specific, the overseer didn’t say too much. Gu Shenwei also didn’t care to inquire, he was filled with disappointment at heart.

Gu Shenwei killed his opponent easily at the second monthly test. His opponent was a tall teenager who tried to fight face to face but only ended up dying even quicker.

Even if Gu Shenwei’s lightness skill was rough and his sabresmanship was average, his internal energy was the most powerful amongst all the disciples. Most of them had just practised the internal energy of Golden Roc Castle for about a year and were far behind the third level of balanced power.

What disappointed Tie Hanfeng the most was that last month’s intensive training had no effect at all, the deadly cut was still in the chest.

Gu Shenwei had no choice, the flaw exposing the teenager’s chest was too apparent, it seemed like a waste of time to circle behind to attack.

Tie Hanfeng didn’t become angry this time but showed a gloomy face. He had something on his mind and finally made the decision, “Fuck it, as long as you can survive in a year, who cares where you cut, front or back. Maybe you’ll become a unique killer. Just show your strong point, you kid, have a heavy killing aura, I like it, but you have to make it heavier.”

In order to stimulate his disciple’s killing aura, Tie Hanfeng used his unique method of training again.

“Come, kid, I’m the enemy that killed your father. I not only killed your father, but also cut him into pieces and fed it to a fat dog. That fat dog is now in my stomach. Come, you brat, you’re not human if you don’t get revenge…”

In this way, Tie Hanfeng had successively ‘killed’ Servant Huan’s father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. Even his past generations of ancestors who were buried long ago were dug up and killed all over again, and every time the method was different. It seemed that it would be an unsuccessful murder if the target had not been abused.

During this process, Tie Hanfeng gained great satisfaction from letting loose, but Gu Shenwei was greatly agitated.

The slaughter of his family was Gu Shenwei’s sore point, even others’ inadvertent mention of it would make his heart tremble and blood surge, let alone Tie Hanfeng’s malicious, ugly fabrications.

Gu Shenwei hated his Master to death, he even thought in his dreams about how to kill his Master. Once Tie Hanfeng drank too much and lost consciousness. Gu Shenwei had already laid the narrow sabre against his neck, the scene of spewing blood had flashed many times in his mind, but he gave up in the end.

He couldn’t kill someone out of illusionary hatred.

Tie Hanfeng’s training method, degrading as it may be, was surprisingly effective.During his third monthly test, Gu Shenwei released all the anger he had accumulated in the past month on his opponent; he almost cut his enemy in two as soon as they met, and his anger was finally quenched a bit.

Gu Shenwei killed his opponents with one move for three months in a row. Amongst all the disciples only a few people had made an achievement like this, this quickly gained the attention of many people. Due to this, the yellow-belted overseer formally notified Servant Huan that he didn’t have to come to carry corpses again. He seemed to treat Servant Huan a bit like a killer now.

“No, I will come, I want to get used to the smell of the dead.”

Gu Shenwei only replied like this because he wanted to continue providing food for the unknown chick, which, however, left a very deep impression on the overseer’s mind. He spread these words out. Soon, more than half of the disciples who had killed their opponents in one move carried the corpses to Afterlife Cliff by themselves. Now everyone thought this was a symbol of power and a mysterious ritual.

Lian Huo Yuan‘s burden became less because of this, Gu Shenwei, however, almost couldn’t find any food for the chick. His delivery changed from once every three days to once every six days, then every nine days.

Only Tie Hanfeng was not happy with his disciple’s performance, he was even a bit angry and puzzled. He spent lots of time checking the wounds on the corpses, asked the details of the kung fu competitions, ran around to seek information from different people and sometimes didn’t even return for a whole night.

On the fifth day after the third monthly test, Tie Hanfeng threw out the question he had once asked: “have you offended someone before?”

“No.” Gu Shenwei’s answer was as firm as the first time, but his heart flipped, suspecting if his master had heard some rumors about him.

“Then why in the past three tests have all of your opponents really wanted to kill you?”

“I don’t know, doesn’t everyone want to kill their opponents?” Gu Shenwei was unaware of this, he'd dispatched his opponents easily and hadn’t uncovered their hidden motives.

“It’s not the same. These three had deliberately changed their opponents to fight with you.”

No matter who was the designator behind the scenes, Gu Shenwei thought, this person was stupid, all the disciples he'd sent were weak.

“I only entered the castle a year ago, I don’t know too many people.”

Gu Shenwei thought of several suspects but he would never tell his Master. Tie Hanfeng seemed to believe his disciple this time, he thought for a while, "Motherfucker, are they coming for me?” He muttered.

Tie Hanfeng's concern grew, and he spent another three days looking for clues, but didn’t reveal anything. Then, that very noon, he suddenly sat up from the chair, and said: ” Disciple, follow me downhill.”

Gu Shenwei was practising his sabresmanship at the moment and  was startled by hearing this. He was still a killer’s disciple and couldn’t leave the castle casually according to the rule.

Tie Hanfeng didn’t care about this, he ordered his disciple to get ready right away while whispering, “It’s been three months, the sperms almost rush into my brain.” He turned around and happened to see Servant Huan’s puzzled eyes, so he ferociously added, “One more look and I’ll use you to reduce my lust. All the other little disciples repay their Master’s favour like this.”

Gu Shenwei immediately understood, which made him almost throw his sabre at his Master.

Tie Hanfeng only mentioned it, boys weren't his preference.

From this unexpected trip downhill Gu Shenwei learnt another one of his Master's hobbies, besides drinking wine and cursing people. With this, he felt even more disdain towards his Master.   

Women, as soon as they left the castle, Tie Hanfeng started chattering, totally regardless of the fact that his disciple was still a 15 years-old virgin.

Tie Hanfeng talked about women the same way he talked about his killing, his stories were half true, half false, and full of incredible exaggerated plots. Such examples ranged from having sex with ten women in one night to finding himself lying on the bed of a palace after daybreak, and so on and so forth.

Tie Hanfeng's popularity spoke for itself when the master and disciple duo were unimpeded as they smoothly left the castle grounds.

At the foot of the mountain, north gate of Jade City, someone took away their weapons. Walking on the broad, clean street of North City, Tie Hanfeng said a bit proudly: “This is the safest place in the whole Western Regions, where even pet dogs can die naturally.” 

Gu Shenwei had been here twice, the first time was when he travelled to the Western Regions, the second time was when his elder sister was going to get married. Although he wasn’t able to see the city clearly those past two times, he still had a deep impression of the bright houses and the exquisite, elegant pedestrians of the North City.  

It was not difficult to understand the reasons for Jade City's prosperity, with half of it being the safest place in the Western Regions and the other half being right under the nose of the most powerful killer’s castle.

But Tie Hanfeng’s interests were clearly elsewhere as he led his disciple through the half city and arrived at the more famous South City, whose boasted fame was of an opposite kind to the North City. This place was the other reason for Jade City's prosperity.

Dirty zigzagging streets, grotesque pedestrians and crumbling houses. Between the North City and the South City, it was like the difference between heaven and hell.

Tie Hanfeng took a deep breath of the dirty air. With narrowed eyes and enjoyment written on his face, he was like a traveler who'd finally returned home. After a while, he revealed the true purpose of this trip: “Let’s go kill someone, it was him who stabbed me in the back and wanted me – Lame Tie, to lose his disciple.”

Chapter end