The Two Killer Precepts

Killing had to be swift and clean. Under no circumstances could one drag things out. If you could strike while the other was off guard, then strike while he was off guard; if you could take the initiative, then take the initiative; if you could kill the enemy with one move, then kill him with one move; if you could wipe them out to the last, then wipe them out to the last. As for white robes whiter than snow, duels atop Jue Peak, martial-arts rules, and jianghu legends—they were all utter bullshit. Assassins weren't actors. Who were they putting on these tricks and chasing these empty reputations for?

There was only one standard for a top assassin: survive, and survive for a long time.

Every generation of Unrivaled Kings had taught their successors this way. Now, Shangguan Fa was teaching his sons the same lesson.

The First Killer Precept: Avoid the light. Strike only when you were sure of success, and seize every possible advantage of time and terrain. Hiding in the dark was the greatest advantage of all.

Even if your target was a half-paralyzed beggar, you had to treat him as a Peerless Master—approach in silence and kill him with a single knife thrust from behind.

You thought that was disgraceful, didn't you? Exactly. The beggar wasn't the one being disgraced. He was already dead—and there was still a one-percent chance he really was a Peerless Master disguised as a beggar, luring you into a trap.

As the saying went, "In war, nothing was too deceitful." A general who won battles was a good general; who cared what methods he used? His soldiers in particular ought to thank their commander for stopping at nothing. It was only through those schemes and stratagems that they remained alive and had the chance to enjoy the fruits of victory.

A great general always attacked from the enemy's rear and flanks. Only an arrogant fool babbled all day about fighting to the death.

An assassin wasn't a general, so he had to be even more crafty, sinister, and ruthless than one.

There had once been a certain master, born into a prestigious family and peerless in martial arts. From his youth, he had rarely met an opponent. Those who came to seek his instruction even had to make appointments in advance. After every bout, they had all been convinced, admitting that he was the "Number One Master Under Heaven." He had practically needed only to hang out the plaque.

What became of that master in the end? He died. He hadn't even reached thirty. He lay in a ditch for over ten days before anyone found him, and his corpse had rotted beyond recognition. The people who collected it couldn't bear to let his parents see him.

Why had he died? Because he had made one mistake: he had left home to roam the jianghu.

Those who came to seek his instruction had to follow the rules. The two men faced each other, surrounded by renowned martial artists. At the shout of "Begin," they competed to see who could strike fastest, steadiest, and most accurately. No one had the face to use low-down tricks, and the slightest distortion in a move would draw ridicule.

A master accustomed to "fair contests" became utterly helpless the moment he left home and entered the jianghu. No one knew who had killed him, and no one knew how he had been killed. They knew only that his fatal wound was on his back.

Everyone pitied the master's early death and scorned that sneaky assassin aloud, but in private they whispered that the master hadn't truly been a master. What kind of master couldn't guard against a sneak attack from behind?

Even those who had once been defeated by the master's sword gradually changed their tune. They claimed they had lost back then because they hadn't had the advantage of terrain or popular support. If they had met on a narrow path, who would have won and who would have lost remained uncertain.

What could the master do? He was dead, reduced to a pile of white bones, unable to offer a single word in his defense.

In the end, that mysterious assassin became a hero. Everyone passed his deeds along, everyone claimed to have witnessed him strike with their own eyes, and some even claimed to be the man himself.

This was the true face of jianghu legend. No matter what methods you used to climb to the heights, your admirers would naturally weave you a bright, righteous life full of wind and storm. People saw only you standing above them. Who cared what methods you had used, or how many corpses with wounds in their backs you had trampled beneath your feet?

The Second Killer Precept: Avoid softness. Strike viciously, and be sure to uproot the weeds completely. Killing wasn't merely to silence witnesses—it was also to erase "reputation."

There had once been another master who had diligently trained for ten years to avenge his father. The moment he entered the world, he swept across every direction. Once he was completely confident, he found his enemy and slaughtered the family until scarcely a chicken or dog remained. But when he came to a lone mother and her orphaned child, his heart softened. He wanted to be a great hero; he wanted the good name of "never harming women or children." With that single thought, he left himself a fatal danger.

Could the orphan and his mother take revenge? Of course not. The orphan had poor aptitude; even after a hundred years of training, he couldn't have matched a single finger of the master. The widow didn't know martial arts, and her looks were ordinary. Even selling herself to survive would have been difficult, let alone seducing someone into avenging her.

But the master's enemy had originally been very wealthy, and naturally the master had seized that entire fortune. The mother and son, however, didn't see it that way. The woman spread the word: whoever avenged her could have half the family fortune that rightfully belonged to her.

This powerless woman offered a painted cake as payment, but could you imagine how many people that promise moved? Too many to count. From then on, the master's doorstep was never quiet. He had to sleep with one eye open. In the end, he was still killed—and his killer was a nameless nobody.

Did the widow and orphan get their money back? Of course not. The nameless nobody symbolically gave the mother and son a small plot of land, then ignored them completely and took the fortune worth millions for himself.

The outcome of the widow and orphan didn't matter. What mattered was "reputation." Without those two orphans, no one had the right to demand the master's fortune. With those two puppets, everyone under heaven could kill the master—and do so with perfect justification.

That was "reputation."

"Reputation" was the most illusory and harmful thing in the world. A true assassin never sought "reputation," and never gave his opponent a chance to leave behind a righteous "name."

Shangguan Fa, Lord of Golden Peng Fortress and the Seventh Generation Unrivaled King, was not truly a king. He had no territory, yet he could go anywhere in the Thirty-Six Nations of the Western Regions. He had no subjects, yet from kings, princes, and ministers down to peddlers and porters, everyone paled at the mention of his name.

He was the King of Assassins of the Western Regions.

No one could say for sure how high the Unrivaled King's skill ran. He never took part in public contests. Those who sought him out and those he sought out alike died without a trace.

The Unrivaled King had almost no enemies, either. Anyone he killed died so thoroughly that even the dogs at his side were beheaded.

Shangguan Fa had always observed the Two Killer Precepts without fail. To him, these two principles were more precious than life itself. So when he learned that his Eighth Son had failed to uproot the weeds completely, it was easy to imagine the fury in his heart.

The Seventh Generation Unrivaled King had endured for more than a hundred years. He had killed countless people, and destroyed enough clans to form a small country in the Western Regions. Never before had such a blunder occurred: he had actually killed the wrong person!

Several heads were arranged in a row atop a long table. The foreign guests identifying the corpses sensed the Lord of Golden Peng Fortress's full-blown fury and wisely retreated into the shadows to one side.

Shangguan Fa picked up one of the heads and hurled it at the Eighth Son, whose face shifted between green and white. It was that head that had made him lose face before the foreign guests. No price could ever restore that dignity.

"Are you my son? Are you really my son?"

Shangguan Fa had a long, thin face, slightly dark skin, and deep-set eyes. The Shangguan Family had lived in the Western Regions for generations, and inevitably some Hu Bloodline had entered their veins. When he was angry, his gaze was as cold and ruthless as Gobi Snow Mountain.

His question required no answer. The Eighth Son had been carved from the same mold as his father, though younger. His face had flushed red, like two iron plates glowing in a furnace.

There was only one way to extinguish the Unrivaled King's fury: kill. He would not show mercy even to his own son. Father slaughtering son and brothers killing brothers happened often in the Shangguan Family. There was only one throne.

But Shangguan Fa hesitated. He remembered the Eighth Son's Mother. That woman had once brought him much joy: her sly, shallow smile and perfect body remained vivid even after all these years. She had died of an unknown terminal illness. Like all women in this world, no matter how much effort they had spent on a man, their final wish was always tied to their own flesh and blood.

The illness had struck quickly, so even on her deathbed she had retained seventy or eighty percent of her beauty. Her sorrowful, beautiful face made her plea difficult to refuse and impossible to forget.

"Let Nu'er grow into a man like you."

Shangguan Fa believed he had kept his promise. He had given the Eighth Son, who had lost his mother in childhood, the most comfortable life, the strictest training, and the greatest degree of trust.

Women are a plague. Shangguan Fa's anger eased slightly, but he still resembled a ferocious beast in a cage—restless and frantic, searching for an outlet. So he drew the single-edged blade from Shangguan Nu's waist.

Shangguan Fa had to do something. Rules were rules; they could never be compromised for anyone or anything. He forcibly held back his urge to kill and swung his blade, severing the Eighth Son's right hand—the hand that held the knife.

The sorrowful, beautiful face gradually receded from Shangguan Fa's mind.

"Seven days. Bring back the right head."

Who was that pitiful worm who had slipped through the net? What was his name? Shangguan Fa had only a vague impression. That person would inevitably die beneath Golden Peng Fortress's blades. Having made the Unrivaled King sever his own son's hand, he had already died with sufficient value.

Shangguan Nu shoved away the subordinates who rushed to support him and staggered out of the main hall. Like his father, he was burning with rage. The bleeding from his severed hand had taken a large packet of Golden Wound Medicine to stop, but no medicine could staunch the hatred in his heart.

He hated his father for refusing to give him a chance to explain. Based solely on one denial from the foreign guest, his father had decided that he was at fault. This had been his first independent mission. It should have marked the moment when he became equal to his elder brothers and could establish his own household. Now he had lost his right hand, ruining more than half his martial arts, and his dignity had been swept away completely.

He also hated the useless fools under his command. They had all been careless, causing him to make a mistake and destroying his brilliant future.

Most of all, he hated that young man who had slipped through the net. The man should have died, yet he insisted on clinging to life for these few days. Even killing him a hundred times would not make up for the loss of his right hand.

Shangguan Nu's fury had to be vented. He could only bury his hatred for his father deep in his heart, not even daring to voice a defense. The young man who had slipped through the net was not before him at this moment. The only targets available for his anger were the several dozen assassins and bladesmen under his command.

The assassins were Golden Peng Fortress's elite; the bladesmen were its hired soldiers. Before the Young Master, they had all sworn publicly never to betray him.

Shangguan Nu drew his blade with his left hand, somewhat clumsily. This only added to his fury.

The assassins and bladesmen had already heard what had happened in the main hall. Now they watched in panic as the Young Master, his face pale, charged into the room like lambs awaiting slaughter.

Blade up, blade down; blade down, blade up. There was nowhere to dodge, and no one dared dodge. One palm after another fell with a rustle like leaves in frost. Not one person made a sound. The moment these men had been assigned to Shangguan Nu, they had been fated to offer him everything—including their lives.

Shangguan Nu no longer knew whose wrist he had severed. At last, his mind settled. They were all his subordinates. Ruining their martial arts would only weaken his own strength further.

"Go kill! Go kill for me right now, you motherfucking bastards! Leave nothing but the heads—don't leave behind a single intact corpse!"