Ning Chen stood with his hands behind his back, his face without expression, his eyes cold.
“I broke into the Tuoluo Kingdom’s North Royal Court, and I have been inside the Wu Kingdom’s palace. Nobody has been able to stop me… I can cut my way out of a petty little Ghost-Shadow Sect through blood too.”
“Would you all care to try?”
Gu Su frowned. “Ning Chen, this old man has told you there is no ill will toward you here.”
“Is that so?” Ning Chen’s face was all mockery. “And yet from the moment I stepped through your Ghost-Shadow Sect’s gate, ill will is all I have felt.”
Gu Su said, “Ning Chen, this is all a misunderstanding.”
Ning Chen laughed coldly. “Call your daughter out and let me insult her here in front of everybody. If you are broad-minded enough not to hold it against me, I will grant that this was a misunderstanding. How is that?”
“You are insolent!”
Gu Su was provoked. He was sect master of the Ghost-Shadow Sect after all, and his disciples were watching… and Ning Chen had not left him a shred of face.
Ning Chen’s cold eyes were like lightning. “It is not that I am insolent. It is that you people are asking to die.”
Gu Su’s face was ugly.
Just then an aged laugh sounded.
“All of you, stand down. Men like you cannot hold down the Great Xuan’s Idle Marquis.”
“One general’s fame, ten thousand bones. On a battlefield, the bodies heap up into hills and the blood runs like a river… It is not a thing you can measure against having murdered a few men.”
Ning Chen looked toward the voice.
An old man was coming toward them, unsteady on his feet: a loose black gown, a walking stick, hair and beard shot with white, and the look of a man the coffin was already waiting for.
But Gu Su, and the elders of the Ghost-Shadow Sect, and every disciple of the Ghost-Shadow Sect standing around them, bent and bowed their heads.
“Master…”
“We greet the old sect master.”
“We greet the grandmaster.”
They did not all call him the same thing.
Ning Chen understood at once who the old man must be: the previous sect master of the Ghost-Shadow Sect.
Zisu stared at the old man, her fine eyes flickering slightly, though there was no telling what she was thinking.
The old sect master came up in front of them, looked Ning Chen over, and a smile came out on his deeply lined face. He gave a slight nod and said:
“A hero out of a young man indeed. Made a marquis at sixteen. That may fairly be called the first such man from antiquity down to now.”
Ning Chen looked at him and said nothing.
The old man said with a smile, “Tao Qizhi was my son, my only son. You may call me grandmaster… or you may call me by my name, Tao Xiuwu.”
Ning Chen’s heart gave a start. He had supposed Tao Qizhi was this man’s disciple, the same as Gu Su… He had not expected that kind of tie between them.
“Ning Chen, the Ghost-Shadow Sect has disappointed you.”
Ning Chen’s expression was calm. “It does not matter. There is still a difference between stepping in dog shit by accident and going out of your way to step in it.”
“This time I will call it accidentally stepping in dog shit. From now on I will keep further away from the Ghost-Shadow Sect. If I go out of my way to step in dog shit, then the fault is mine.”
The faces of everyone there twitched. It was a savage thing to say.
Tao Xiuwu shook his head helplessly, turned to Wen Kangsheng, and his expression darkened all at once. “Apologize to Ning Chen.”
Wen Kangsheng was plainly unwilling. “Grandmaster, he raised his hand first—”
Wen Kangsheng had not finished before the walking stick in Tao Xiuwu’s hand suddenly flew out, fast as a gale.
Bang!!!
One end of the stick struck Wen Kangsheng in the chest and knocked him flying several meters backward. He came down hard on the ground, his face gone white on the instant, blood at the corner of his mouth.
The stick, on the force of the rebound, flew back and landed in Tao Xiuwu’s hand.
“He’s strong.”
Feng Qizheng was all astonishment.
Ning Chen’s eyes contracted, and he gave a slight nod.
At the speed the stick had flown out, it could have gone clean through Wen Kangsheng’s body without effort.
But it only knocked Wen Kangsheng flying, and then the stick was thrown back again… which showed that Tao Xiuwu’s command of force was past all knowing.
“Wen Kangsheng. Defying your superiors. Where do you find the nerve?”
Wen Kangsheng’s face was white. He scrambled up in disarray and knelt. “Grandmaster, do not be angry. I know I was wrong.”
Tao Xiuwu said in a low voice, “It is Ning Chen you should apologize to.”
This time Wen Kangsheng did not dare argue. He looked at Ning Chen and said hurriedly, “I am sorry. I was wrong. Young Master Ning, bear with me, and please forgive this rashness in master and disciple both.”
Ning Chen laughed coldly. “There’s no need. You pretend to apologize, I pretend to forgive. Acting is tiring work, and we can do without the courtesies and the false feeling.”
With that he looked at Tao Xiuwu and bowed with his fist in his palm. “If there is nothing else, Ning here will take his leave.”
Tao Xiuwu said, “You cannot go yet.”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes. “You mean to keep me here by force?”
His right hand had hooked the ring of the hand grenade.
Tao Xiuwu sighed. “A thing that ought to have been a happy one, and it has been turned as unpleasant as this.”
“Wen Kangsheng. Take Bao Qing away and see to his injuries… For a while yet, neither of you is to show his face, so that Ning Chen is not sickened by the sight of you.”
Wen Kangsheng said hurriedly, “Yes.”
“Wait.”
Ning Chen spoke suddenly.
Wen Kangsheng looked at him.
Ning Chen said coolly, “Give me back my dagger.”
His dagger was still buried in Bao Qing’s belly.
Wen Kangsheng’s face went cold and grim. He yanked the dagger out of Bao Qing’s belly.
As the dagger came out, the blood came pouring from the wound.
Bao Qing let out a scream, one hand clamped hard over the wound.
Wen Kangsheng was about to toss the dagger to Ning Chen when he heard Ning Chen say, “Bring it to me.”
Wen Kangsheng’s face was black, but he did not dare drag it out either, because with the dagger out the blood was coming too fast, and any more delay and Bao Qing would be past saving.
He walked quickly up in front of Ning Chen and held the dagger out.
Ning Chen did not put out a hand to take the dagger. He said flatly, “Wipe it clean.”
Having already offended this master and disciple, there was no need to be politely false about it.
These two were assassins — one an elder of the Ghost-Shadow Sect, the other the Ghost-Shadow Sect’s Second Brother — and what they were capable of by way of assassination could be imagined.
His plan was to leave the Ghost-Shadow Sect first and then send word to the Inspectorate and have every one of the Ghost-Shadow Sect wiped out.
Once you have offended an assassins’ organization, if you do not cut the grass and pull the root with it, the trouble after will never end.
Wen Kangsheng’s eyes were cold and grim. He lifted the hem of his robe, wiped the blood off the dagger and held it out in front of Ning Chen.
Ning Chen glanced at Bao Qing. With that much blood lost, there was probably no saving him.
Only then did he put out a hand and take the dagger.
Wen Kangsheng gave Ning Chen one cold look, then bowed low toward Tao Xiuwu and Gu Su, and only then went quickly over, gathered Bao Qing up and left at a fast walk.
Tao Xiuwu looked at Ning Chen. “Has the anger passed?”
Ning Chen had no wish to be tangled in it any further. He would send word to Geng Jing later and have men brought to wipe out the Ghost-Shadow Sect, and that would be the end of it.
He inclined his head slightly. “My thanks to the venerable Tao for seeing justice done. I will take my leave.”
“Ning Chen, stay.”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes at him.
Tao Xiuwu sighed and said, “This old man only wants to talk with you about Qizhi. There is nothing else in it… You said yourself that Qizhi gave you the gift of the art. For the sake of the gift of the art, talk with this old man a while.”
Ning Chen said coolly, “I struck the Ghost-Shadow Sect off the Inspectorate’s list of men to run down. That has paid the gift of the art back in full.”
Tao Xiuwu said, “If you were able to strike it off, then naturally you can put it back on again.”
Ning Chen: “???”
Gu Su came forward and entreated him. “Ning Chen, I swear it — the Ghost-Shadow Sect means you no ill will… And the Ghost-Shadow Sect is not all of it made up of goods like those.”
“My master is old. He only wants to know a little about my younger brother in the school.”
Ning Chen frowned. He did not want to stay at the Ghost-Shadow Sect a moment longer.
He was still thinking how to get out of it when Zisu said quietly behind him, “Ning Chen, ask him whether he knows my master.”
(End of Chapter 391)