Chapter 91 - The Dragontail
The Golden Tong, Dragon Turtle Palace…
Gu Hai was sitting before a desk, standing before him were the four captains.
"My Lord, the outsiders are ready to make trouble! It seems they have organized themselves, and from their recent movements, they are about to get into action!" Chen Tianshan reported, furrowing his brow.
"Oh? Who is behind it?" Gu Hai asked in a deep voice.
"From the news I have bought, it"s organized by two brothers. One is named Jin Jiao and the other, Yin Jiao. From what I have heard, they have stepped into the Nascent Soul Stage not too long ago!" Chen Tianshan reported in a serious voice.
"Recently entered the Nascent Soul Stage? Might as well!" Gu Hai nodded.
"But, my Lord, why are we waiting for them to attack, and not to mention, when it’s an organized attack?" Chen Tianshan asked, utterly confused.
"I want to kill the chickens to scare the monkeys!" Gu Hai stated in a cold voice.
"Oh?" Chen Tianshan was slightly taken aback.
Gao Xianzhi, who was standing beside him, explained patiently, "Currently, the Nine-Five Island is full of people who are looking to cause us trouble. This time, my Lord wants to hit them hard, hit them until they are crippled. My Lord wants to use this opportunity to tell the people on Nine-Five Island that they should not let their imaginations run wild!"
"But, its two Nascent Soul Stage cultivators, this subordinate is a bit worried...!" Chen Tianshan continued, still concerned.
"Just some recently entered Nascent Soul Stage cultivators, that"s all! The array I have arranged is stronger than the one I used using everyone"s power with a few days ago. Since I dared to arrange it, I am capable of blocking them!" Gu Hai replied calmly.
"Yes, my Lord!"
"How is the Colosseum operating?"
"The Golden Tong disciples aren"t cooperating at all, all they are doing is shouting and crying continuously. My subordinates became impatient and killed half of them!" Chen Tianshan said bitterly.
Half of about a thousand Golden Tong disciples were dead in just a day. How were they going to gamble?
"They kicked the bucket for good!" the nearby Scar confirmed in a cold voice.
Shangguan Hen nodded his acknowledgment and said, "It may not have been that bad. My Lord has opened the Colosseum once more all in order for us to vent our grievances. Regardless of the result, as long as our grievances are eliminated, it"s all good and better. Otherwise, it will be detrimental for our future cultivation!"
"Tomorrow, when you are exiting the array, hang a sign at the exit!" Gu Hai ordered calmly.
"Oh?"
“Whoever breaches the array without permission will be killed!’" Gu Hai stated grimly.
"Yes, my Lord!" Chen Tianshan obliged respectfully.
Turning his head, Gu Hai turned his gaze to Gao Xianzhi, Shangguan Hen, and Scar. "How did your search pan out?"
"We have already dug three feet into the ground but we didn"t find anything strange!" Gao Xianzhi answered, a complex look on his face.
"Agreed, my Lord, we simply didn"t find any clues, none at all." Scar also shook his head.
Gu Hai turned his gaze at Shangguan Hen, who in turn also shook his head.
"Are you sure you have searched every nook and corner?" Gu Hai asked in a deep voice.
"We believe we have!" Gao Xianzhi replied in a confident manner.
Taking a deep breath, Gu Hai said in a heavy voice, "The places you have searched are the ones where the Golden Tong disciples have been living for a couple decades. If there was something, would it not have been found already? I want you to search the places where the Golden Tong disciples don"t usually go!"
"Oh? But there sure ain"t any place like that!" Scar answered as a frown crept up on his brow.
Gao Xianzhi and Shangguan Hen were taken aback for a moment. On the other hand, it seemed they had thought of something.
"I have been going through the records and found that most of the places in the inner section have someone residing in them. However, there is one place where few ever go. Everyone even avoids talking about it. You also know about it. Have you searched the Garbage Valley?" Gu Hai asked calmly, with no change in his expression whatsoever.
"Ah?" The three captains" expression flickered upon hearing it.
Gu Hai glanced at the trio with a darkened look on his face. "Did you avoid it because you found it loathsome? You better keep in mind to never have this kind of mentality anymore, ever. The more disgusting it is, the more it holds the weaknesses of humans. Look at the matter and try to conquer your own subjective emotions!"
"Yes, my Lord!" A respectful look took over everyone"s faces immediately.
"Let"s go, let"s go and take a look at that Garbage Valley together. Let"s see how messy it is for you to actually avoid it altogether!" Gu Hai said in a deep voice.
"Yes, my Lord!"
---
Everyone slowly followed Gu Hai out of the Dragon Turtle Palace, making their way towards the Garbage Valley together.
The five were closely followed by numerous men. Very soon everyone arrived at the Garbage Valley. A nauseating smell came to them even from far away, a.s.sailing their nostrils. A disgusted look showed up on the criminals" faces at the stench.
Gu Hai, on the other hand, acted as if he didn"t smell anything. Step by step, he made his way to the peak of a mountain, overlooking the valley below him.
The mountain valley was filled with trash. There were countless rats scurrying around the valley. Apart from the rats, there were heaps of bones littering the valley, along with ma.s.ses of corpses from the Colosseum. The rats in the valley multiplied by gnawing on these very corpses.
"My Lord, did the rats we ate come from here?" Scar asked, resisting his nausea.
The same was true for rest of the men. All of them were feeling nauseating by the sight of these rats.
Gazing at the valley for a while, Gu Hai narrowed his eyes and ordered, "Clean this valley!"
"Ah?" The men exclaimed in surprise.
"I want everything in the valley below cleaned up completely, s.h.i.+ft the garbage in the valley to the next one!" Gu Hai issued a baffling order.
The congregation of criminals somehow resisted their nausea as they finally nodded their compliance.
Since they had eaten the rats, how could they even care about such nausea? Earlier, they just weren"t able to adapt momentarily.
---
Having received their orders, the men jumped into the valley before grabbing flagstones, and begin clearing out the valley.
As they began to dig, a dense nauseating smell a.s.sailed their noses. The stench seemed to have fermented for a couple decades. It was extremely horrifying.
Enduring the horrible stench, everyone dug up the trash and threw it into the next mountain valley as fast as possible.
Everyone worked together, and at a fast pace to boot. One by one, rats scurried away in panic.
The garbage inside the valleys was piled up like mountains.
The digging left everyone completely dumbfounded. None had expected the mountain valley to be so deep.
"Something isn"t right, my Lord. This mountain valley is too deep. It"s like a giant abyss. How much are we going to dig? We have already filled four valleys with trash already, and we still can"t see the bottom at all!?" Gao Xianzhi wondered aloud.
"Keep on digging!" Gu Hai ordered in a calm manner.
"Yes, my Lord!"
More and more horrifying stench a.s.sailed everyone"s noses as the crowd of men kept on clearing away the trash in the valley. But they resisted their nausea and kept on digging deeper and deeper. Slowly, the men at the bottom of the valley disappeared. All one could hear was loud bangs, indicating the men still working below.
Gu Hai and the four captains stood at the mountain peak. Their gazes were always focused on the valley.
The pitch black abyss grew deeper and deeper. Suddenly, a flicker of golden light flashed amid this jet black abyss, like there was a flickering candle burning at the bottom.
"We have arrived at the bottom, there is something here, there is something!" a pleasantly surprised cry escaped from the valley.
"Keep on digging, faster!"
Momentarily startled, the men started to work faster.
The light source grew from one to two, then three, four, five...The flickers kept on increasing, s.h.i.+ning more and more brightly.
The illumination from the bottom of the valley lit up the whole jet-back valley completely.
The group of men clearing away the trash at the bottom could also be seen clearly.
Once the entire trash had been moved away, a huge energy s.h.i.+eld was revealed. It appeared to be s.h.i.+elding the mouth of a volcano.
"My Lord, there is someone below!" suddenly, a loud shout came from the workers.
Gu Hai, followed by the four captains, quickly jumped into the abyss.
Soon, everyone was standing at the bottom area covered by the energy s.h.i.+eld.
It was definitely a volcanic crater. However, this crater was too bright. It was so dazzling that one was simply unable to see the bottom clearly. One could vaguely make out a golden dragon"s tail floating in the lava. However, only an outline could be made out.
"This is an earth dragon vein!? How is it possible for the dragon vein"s tail to be here?" Shangguan Hen"s eyes immediately went wide in shock.
"Dragon vein"s tail?" Gu Hai"s countenance changed upon hearing this.
Is the dragon vein that Ding Rui, Meng Tai, the last Ascendant Hall Lord, and the Song Jia Sect Chief are searching for, here? The dragon vein is in the Golden Tong?
"Look, it seems someone is there!?" Chen Tianshan cried, staring at with eyes wide.
Much to everyone"s surprise, there was indeed an old man just above the energy s.h.i.+eld. He was bound by numerous golden chains, bound to the bones inside his body. The other end of the chains were hanging in the air, unable to move even a bit.
The old man"s eyes had already gone dark, as if he wasn"t breathing.
"Old man!" Scar shouted in a thunderous voice.
However, with the energy s.h.i.+eld between them, his voice was simply unable to carry over. The old man remained completely still.
"How is it possible for the dragon vein"s tail to be here? It should not be here!" Shangguan Hen mumbled as his face frowned deeply.
"Oh?" Gu Hai turned his gaze towards Shangguan Hen in deep interest.
"My Lord, in a normal scenario, an earth dragon"s vein is moving all the time. The dragon"s head is still a bit better, while the dragon"s body is swimming in the earth... but the dragon"s tail is constantly changing location. We don"t know where the dragon"s head of this earth dragon is, but the dragon"s tail is apparently fixed here, it should not be! Who is strong enough to seal the earth dragon vein here?" Shangguan Hen explained, his brow deeply creased.
"Do you still remember Wei Yang"s letter to Li Wei? Isn"t this the Golden Tong"s big secret?" Gao Xianzhi"s expression flickered as he explained.
"The Golden Tong(大丰帮)? Feng(丰)... no, it should be Feng(封), the Feng(封) from the seal(封印). Feng(丰) is only a h.o.m.onym! The sect must have been established here in order to guard this seal!?" Gu Hai deduced as he knit his brow.
"Seal the earth dragon vein? Impossible, who has such skills? Even a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator is unable to block this dragon vein!" Shangguan Hen shouted, his face lined as deeply as his tightly knit brow.
"What if it was Elder Guanqi?" Gu Hai asked in a deep voice.
"Elder Guanqi? That"s right, the person who Wei Yang addressed as Grandmaster in that letter must be Elder Guanqi! The Golden Tong must be a piece left by the Weiqi Empyrean Court here!" Gao Xianzhi"s eyes flickered with quick thoughts.
[Translator’s Note: I double checked the raws corresponding to the letter, and I didn’t find anything, none at all. So, I am as confused as you are.]
Pointing at the fettered old man, Gai Xianzhi asked, "Who is this old man?"
Gu Hai kept on staring at that blind old man for a while in silence before taking a deep breath and voicing out his conjecture, "If I am not mistaken, then this old man must be Wei Yang!"
"Wei Yang, the last Boss of the Golden Tong? Meng Tai and Li Wei"s master?" Chen Tianshan cried out in surprise.
"That"s right! Over these days, I have been going through the Golden Tong records. There is a book in those records depicting Wei Yang"s appearance. It should be him!" Gu Hai said in a heavy voice.
"Wei Yang? Shouldn"t Wei Yang be dead, as Meng Tai brought up his junior brothers and sisters Feng Ling, Li Wei, and Yue Yao alone? If Wei Yang isn"t dead, who trapped him here, and so miserably? He is even blinded!" Chen Tianshan cried out in astonishment, his eyebrows tightly knit.
"It must be Meng Tai!" A tremendous change immediately took place in Gao Xianzhi"s countenance.
"How is that possible? He is Meng Tai"s master, Feng Ling"s father, Meng Tai"s father-in-law, how could Meng Tai do such a thing?" Chen Tianshan voiced out his confusion.
"Captain Chen, you don"t understand, you just don"t understand!" Shangguan Hen took a few deep breaths, and only then was he able to calm the agitation in his heart and speak.
"What do I not understand?"
"You don"t understand how precious an earth dragon vein is. Anyone who can possess the dragon vein can become the hegemon of a region. Back then, Elder Guanqi also had a dragon vein!" Shangguan Hen explained in a deep voice.
"Ah?"
"First, think of some way to break this barrier!" Gu Hai interrupted grimly.