Death Scripture

The night before Meng Mingshu went to the mansion of the Governor, he was still wavering. He asked Lü Qiying, “Will the Dragon King give me my family’s money back even if everything goes smoothly? I mean, he’s now the de facto lord of Jade City. If he resorts to violence, then who can possibly stop him? No matter how powerful the Central Plains is, their armies are too far away, aren’t they?”

Lü Qiying let out a hearty laugh to contrast against the Second Young Master Meng’s momentary stupidity. “Sure. If the Dragon King resorts to violence, then the 20,000 troops of the Central Plains certainly won’t be enough to stop him. As a result, we shall never give the Dragon King the chance to do so.”

Meng Mingshu wanted his family’s money back even in his dreams. In his mind, to get this large sum of money, it was worth waging a war over, not to mention becoming an enemy of the Dragon King. Therefore, he watched Lü Qiying in confusion, waiting for him to give a reason.

“You know what it means to make a small sacrifice in order to get a greater profit, right?” Lü Qiying appeared faintly impatient, wondering how he had failed to tell that this Second Young Master Meng was a fool when the Meng family had been in its prime.

“Of course I do.” Meng Mingshu also frowned. “Are you saying that my family’s wealth is the small sacrifice? Do you how much-”

Lü Qiying briefly snorted. “No matter how much the Meng family’s wealth is worth, can it possibly rival the value of Jade City in its entirety, or half of the Western Regions? The Dragon King is a very greedy man. His ambition is far greater than your family’s money. He wants Jade City, half of the Western Regions, and most importantly, he wants the Central Plains’ official recognition so that he can own all of these places rightfully.”

Meng Mingshu understood Tavernkeeper Lü’s words, but even more questions arose within his mind. “Wait. I’m confused. In order to take Jade City, the Dragon King is willing to give up the Meng family’s assets. I understand this, but if that’s the case, then won’t the Meng family be doomed? I mean, if I offend the Dragon King, then won’t he retaliate against me? So, I think that I might as well wait. Maybe the Dragon King will keep his promise and give me my money back some day.”

“Ha. First, the Dragon King will never be satiated no matter how much money he takes. Give you your money back? Stop daydreaming. He will suck Jade City dry and pocket the last copper coin in it. Secondly, both Jade City and the Western Regions is just bait dangling in front of the Dragon King, tricking him into thinking that there are greater profits ahead. All so that he will give up the Meng family’s money willingly. The Central Plains has been planning to take over the Western Regions for years. Do you really think they will hand it over to the Dragon King just like that? What kind of woman do you think Lady Xiao is? If she wasn’t a hundred percent sure, then why would she send me here? We’re just making the first move. Soon, you’ll see more and more people start to betray the Dragon King.”

“That’s true.” Light suddenly dawned on Meng Mingshu. “When the Dragon King realizes that he is not capable of taking Jade City, he will become more unwilling to give me my money back.”

“Tell me about it.” Lü Qiying admired Xiao Fengchai. That woman could read this man like a book and had anticipated his every reaction.

Meng Mingshu became even more confident that he knew how things would turn out. As a result, in the mansion of the Governor, he urgently suggested they put a bet on it, trying to send the Dragon King a message. “All I want is my money. I won’t get in your way to supremacy.”

But when he recalled that the Dragon King had once promised to return all of the money, but now that the Central Plainsmen would take half of it, Meng Mingshu still felt a painful loss. He could only try to comfort himself with this fact: there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. The Dragon King’s promise was tempting, but it was just further proof that he didn’t mean it. That Central Plainsman demanded an exorbitant price, but he was more trustworthy. This was how transactions worked.

On that very night, Luo Qikang was also uncertain about the plan that was to be carried out the next day. He was worried that the Dragon King might be agitated into taking impulsive action in front of everyone. He was the only one who dared to ask Pang Jing directly, “Do you think that the Dragon King will admit to the robbery? I feel that in no circumstances will he ever do that because that’s not who he is. I have you remind you that if he gets angry and decides to make a risky move, then I can only promise to keep you safe, but I won’t be able to stop him. The 20,000 Central Plains troops stationed outside the city are absolutely loyal to that Dugu Xian as if they are under some kind of magic spell, and they also admire the Dragon King from the bottom of their hearts and have no intention of fighting a war against him at all.”

Pang Jing pointed at his own head. “I’m not stupid either. I certainly won’t challenge the Dragon King with merely 20,000 men. You haven’t seen the core of the whole plan yet.”

Luo Qikang’s face slightly darkened. He didn’t like being belittled, even if the one belittling him was his close friend. He couldn’t see through the plan because Pang Jing was keeping something back, not because he lacked wisdom.

However, the annoyed look of a serious person was Pang Jing’s favorite expression. Knowing where the limit was, he let out a laugh and said, “You forgot that half of the money will be mine tomorrow, no matter if the winner is the Dragon King or Meng Mingshu. So, does it matter whether the Dragon King will prove his innocence and make mincemeat of Second Young Master Meng or not?”

“Humph. You’re the only one who could think of this plan,” Luo Qikang praised in a cold voice. “Didn’t the Dragon King transfer all of the money away and hide it? So it won’t be easy for you to get your half, I suppose?”

“Oh, no. The Meng family’s money is still in Jade City.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nobody is surer of this than me.” Pang Jing deliberately made this remark in a mysterious tone, indicating that there were more secrets he hadn’t disclosed yet.

Luo Qikang snorted again but asked no further questions. All he needed to know was that everything was under Pang Jing’s control, and that the Dragon King would definitely suffer a loss. This was only a minor retaliatory action, not the final showdown.

The Dragon King always did things in a covert way. All of his subordinates were used to it. Xu Xiaoyi, however, knew a lot of inside information, so he was also the most worried one. That very night, he frequently visited the Dragon King’s room to deliver intelligence reports himself. The eleventh time he entered the Dragon King’s room, Gu Shenwei finally allowed him to ask questions. “If you want to say something, then say it. Stop sneaking around.”

Xu Xiaoyi chuckled, regarding the Dragon King’s “rebuke” as a sign of favor. “Then I’ll be honest with you. This is clearly a trap set by the Central Plainsmen, but the Dragon King doesn’t seem anxious at all – no, it’s as if you can’t wait to jump into it and refuse to be stopped.”

“A trap? Tell me what kind of trap you think it is.”

Stroking his mustache, Xu Xiaoyi thought for a while before saying, “I received a message that said that Second Young Master Meng is going to betray the Dragon King, but I believe that Pang Jing has no intention of getting the money back for the Meng family at all. Instead, he’s going to do publicly blackmail him. He wants to take the money from the Dragon King’s hands and put it into his own pockets. With regards to Meng Mingshu, he was born a hapless guy who is doomed to lose everything.”

Gu Shenwei nodded approvingly. “Your guess is right. How do you think I should handle it?”

“It’s very easy. Just don’t go to the Governor’s mansion tomorrow. Meng Mingshu can yell all day if he wants. We just have to deny all of his evidence. Everybody in Jade City already knows that the Dragon King has the Meng family’s money anyway, but nobody dares to mess with you, not even the Central Plainsmen.”

“What if I don’t have the Meng family’s money?”

Stunned, Xu Xiaoyi grabbed his mustache with his fingers and paused for quite a while, and then asked again, “Wha–What do you mean? The Dragon King doesn’t have the money?”

Gu Shenwei had always kept this a secret, but soon, it would go public. Xu Xiaoyi was in charge of collecting intelligence, which meant that he deserved to know it earlier than anybody else. So, he said, “I took action too late. There were only piles of rocks and iron ingots left in the Meng family’s vault. No gold or silver.”

“Ah?” Xu Xiaoyi widened his mouth in astonishment and accidentally pulled a small strand of his mustache off his lip. He grimaced in pain, but he was too anxious to groan. “The Dragon King isn’t kidding, right? Then where is the Meng family’s money? Did Old Meng hide it or… Oh, the Unique King! That old bastard beat us to it. Alas, alas… ”

Golden Roc Castle had kept the Meng family under its complete control for a long time. Even the old patriarch had merely been an impostor. So, they had more than enough time to replace those gold and silver ingots with stones and iron ingots.

“Why didn’t the Dragon King tell the truth back then? You didn’t take anything besides a reputation as a robber?” Covering his mouth, Xu Xiaoyi spoke in a muffled voice. But it was his heart that was in a greater pain. Though he hadn’t been responsible for managing money for a long time, he still regarded the Dragon King’s loss as his own loss out of sheer force of habit.

“Back then, the Dragon Army was short of money. I needed others to think that I did the robbery,” Gu Shenwei explained. The move had worked. It was because of this somewhat shameful reputation that the Dragon Army had managed to purchase large amounts of provisions and armaments on credit. “Besides, I did get something. There was still some money left in the Meng family’s trading companies and various banks. Not much, but I did get it.”

Xu Xiaoyi still felt that it was a painful loss. It felt like he thought that he had been leaning against a mountain of gold ingots, but when he woke up, there was only one gold ingot in his hand. It was just too huge a psychological gap. “So the gold ingot in Wu Xuan’s hand was actually from Golden Roc Castle.”

“They were sending me a message.”

“What kind of message? Displaying their strength?”

“The Unique King wanted me to know that he has the money, that he was going to give it to the Central Plainsmen. Pang Jing wanted to tell me that he had already received the money, and that I had to either cooperate with him during this show or lose everything and be haunted by creditors all over the city.”

Xu Xiaoyi abruptly jumped, which was merely three feet. It was not as high as Old Man Mu’s jump, but it was the best that he could do. After landing, he indignately said, “That Shangguan old bastard and that Central Plains guy are this sinister? Now that they are colluding with each other, why does the Dragon King still want to compete for the position of Lord of Jade City? Let’s just fight them. Block off the pass and call the Norlanders back. I don’t believe that those Central Plainsmen can stretch their hands thousands of miles longer to fight against us. They have some mere tens of thousands of troops here. The Dragon King can defeat them with a single finger.”

Gu Shenwei shook his head. “It is not yet the right time. If we’re to wage a war against the Central Plains, them it has to be a final showdown the victory of which will ensure ten years of peace at least. The civil strife of the Norland isn’t over yet, and they need time to regain their strength. We won’t be at an advantage if we start a war right now. Besides, Pang Jing will split the money with me. I won’t suffer any losses.”

“Pang Jing will split the money? Wha–What does he mean exactly?”

“He’s trying to build a balance of power. It’s a clichéd trick of the Central Plainsmen.”

“So Pang Jing is not in full support of the Unique King?”

“We’ll have to wait to find out.” Gu Shenwei believed that the Central Plains didn’t want the Western Regions to be under the sole control of any side. They wanted the Unique King and the Dragon King to keep competing against each other and for the Central Plains’ favor.

Xu Xiaoyi sighed, feeling that the loss of money was less painful now. “Alas. From all the money to none of it, and then from nothing to half of the money. I don’t know whether we profited or suffered losses. Is the Dragon King okay with this?”

“I’m not.” Many years ago, Gu Shenwei had made up his mind to be someone who ruled, not someone who was ruled. No matter how reasonable Pang Jing’s plan was, he was unwilling to just be a petty part of it. “I have my own plan.”

Xu Xiaoyi’s eyes lit up, as if he could see the whole mountain of gold and silver ingots again.

That night, during which a lot of confusion arose and a lot of explanations were given, passed like that. Duan Zihua, who was a member of the old mansion of the Meng family, was kneeling on the ground. His face was ashen because there were too many people that he was going to betray – his old master, his young master, the Dragon King, the Unique King, Xiao Fengchai… He didn’t see how he could survive past this day.

Gao Yang was also escorted to the hall, shackles around his hands and feet. Standing with his head up, he faced the people crowding the hall. His eyes swept through the crowd and then rested on the Dragon King. “I figured it out. You were the one who hired me to kill that guy. You’re denying it because you don’t want to pay me.”

Duan Zihua raised his head and said, “Gao Yang, do you still remember me?”

Gao Yang didn’t know this skinny old man, but he remembered his voice.