Extermination of the Sect

Gu Shenwei pinched his thigh hard, driving away the sleepiness that kept nipping at his heels. He had been galloping on horseback for nearly the entire night. Exhausted, weary, and dizzy, he finally understood just how grueling riding a horse could be. Back when he had traveled the long, arduous journey from the Central Plains to the Western Regions, he had spent the entire trip curled up in the arms of his family, barely feeling the harshness of the Gobi Desert.

He reined in his horse. Before him lay two paths: one leading north, the other south. Master Yang had only said to keep heading west, but he hadn't specified which way to choose.

Fortunately, there were travelers on the road now. Unfortunately, the first few groups he encountered did not speak the language of the Central Plains.

Gu Shenwei took the task Master Yang Zheng had entrusted to him very seriously. Unable to bear waiting idly on the road, he simply chose the northern path at random. After riding for a while, he finally encountered a group of herdsmen. One of them actually spoke fluent Central Plains language. He told Gu Shenwei that he was on the wrong path, and when he heard the youth wanted to find "Marshal Yang," he couldn't help but burst into laughter.

"There is no Marshal Yang in the capital, nor is there a Marshal Yang in the entire Shule Kingdom."

"If Master Yang said there is, then there must be," Gu Shenwei said with absolute certainty. A herdsman had likely never seen a high-ranking official or a noble in his life.

"Haha, your master is quite the storyteller. We don't have marshals in Shule Kingdom, only Generals and Captains. Even if there were a marshal, why would they use a Central Plains man surnamed Yang?"

The herdsmen rode off, laughing, leaving Gu Shenwei alone in the middle of the road.

Gu Shenwei was no fool; he was merely a bit naive. Having never been deceived, and with the greatest setback in his life being nothing more than a bit of bullying from his two older brothers, he found it easy to believe and accept everything his father and master told him. Once he began to ponder it carefully, however, he immediately realized that the entire affair was unusual from start to finish.

A sense of foreboding welled up in the youth's heart.

Gu Shenwei turned his horse around and galloped back the way he came, his face taut. He felt terrible knowing he had been excluded from family affairs, and he desperately wanted to know how his father and Yang Zheng would explain all of this when they met again.

By noon, Gu Shenwei still hadn't encountered his sister or the other three. A caravan came from the east, everyone looking flustered, as if they had just been robbed. One of them, perhaps out of kindness, shouted to the youth galloping alone on horseback:

"Turn back! Turn back!"

Gu Shenwei ignored the well-intentioned warning. His heart tightened even further. The horse beneath him was already foaming at the mouth, yet he still used his horse whip to urge it to run faster.

Half an hour later, he saw from a distance a long spear standing straight up by the side of the road, swaying slightly like a flagpole stripped of its banner.

An impaled human head sat atop the spear, its white hair fluttering in disarray.

As he drew closer, Gu Shenwei recognized that it was indeed his master, the old servant of the Gu family, Yang Zheng. His eyes were wide open, as if he were deeply unreconciled with his own death.

He had once used a long spear to take on three men at once. Yet, after only a single night, he had ended up decapitated. The person who killed him must have done so to make a show of force, placing his head on the spear to display it to passing travelers.

Next, Gu Shenwei saw the corpses lying on the ground—there was more than one.

Yang Zheng's body lay near the long spear. There wasn't a single wound on his body; his killer had been clean and efficient, taking his head in a single strike. Gu Shenwei could not imagine just how high such a person's martial arts level must be.

Nearby were three other corpses. One was the maid, Juxiang. Her chest and face were covered in crisscrossing knife wounds, her clothes soaked in blood. She knew no martial arts at all, yet the killer had used many extra strikes, seemingly just to torture her.

Another was the little book boy, Mingxiang. He was still wearing the young master's clothes; Gu Shenwei could only identify the body by the attire, because Mingxiang's head was missing. It wasn't on the spear, nor was it lying nearby.

Gu Shenwei fell from his horse and dropped to his knees, unable to stop himself from retching. Only when there was nothing left in his stomach did he force himself to look at the last corpse, for it was a strange one.

To Gu Shenwei's slight relief, this last body was not his sister, but a youth about his own age. Like Juxiang, he was covered in wounds, but his face was a stranger's—he had never seen him before.

Gu Shenwei jumped onto his horse and continued galloping east. He had to know his sister's whereabouts and return home to figure out what on earth was going on.

In his memory, the Gu family had no enemies—not in the Central Plains, and certainly not in the Western Regions.

At dusk, Gu Shenwei returned to the small village at the foot of the manor's mountain. The dozen or so households here were all tenant farmers of the Gu family. At this hour, the scene should have been one of curling kitchen smoke, but today, every door was tightly shut, and not a single wisp of smoke rose.

Looking up toward the mountain, the Gu Family Manor had been reduced to a field of ash.

Gu Shenwei arrived at his front gate, dismounted, and stood there blankly. His heart felt hollow. Staring at the charred ruins, he felt as though he were trapped in a bizarre dream, unable to wake no matter how hard he struggled.

Was his home really gone just like that? Were all those people truly dead?

Gu Shenwei stepped over the still-warm broken tiles and splintered wood, checking room after room, as if the roofs and walls were still standing.

This had been a massacre without resistance. Every corpse remained where it had fallen, burned beyond recognition, yet based on their positions, Gu Shenwei could still roughly identify who each victim was.

His father, Gu Lun, and mother, Madam Xu, lay side by side, both decapitated. Gu Shenwei had to laboriously push aside the covering bricks and wood to reveal their two small skeletons. His father had been a master of martial arts, a magnificent hero in his son's eyes, yet he had been caught completely unaware by the enemy.

His two older brothers also lay in their original spots, likewise decapitated and dead in silence; the skills they had painstakingly practiced for over a decade had been given no chance to be displayed.

The servants and guards remained whole; the killers seemed interested only in the heads of the masters.

However, his sister was nowhere to be found. In her room, there were only the corpses of three maidservants. Although they were burned beyond recognition, Gu Shenwei could still identify that none of them was his sister.

The youth, who had lived a life free of worry and had been doted upon since childhood, suddenly found himself plunged into the tragedy of a ruined home and lost family. His initial feeling was pure terror. His home was gone; who would protect him or guide him from now on?

He had been waiting until after his sister's marriage to officially step into the world of adults. In the blink of an eye, he found himself left all alone in a strange world, his future uncertain, his path shrouded in mist.

Slowly, rage took hold of the youth's heart. He had to find his sister; he had to take revenge. He would kill every last enemy, no matter how many there were or where they came from.

Once the thought of revenge took root, Gu Shenwei regained his composure. He could not go looking for his enemies empty-handed; he needed capital.

The manor had been looted by the killers, and most of the valuables had been swept away, but there would always be things that slipped through the cracks.

Gu Shenwei had never concerned himself with the family's finances, but at this moment, countless details of daily life flashed through his mind, allowing him to deduce a few small secrets.

Under his second brother's bed, he dug out a small pouch of silver. When he pushed aside the corpse above it, he nearly wept, but he forced himself to hold back. What use were tears? When he was a child, such a display might have brought comfort and help, but now, it only signified weakness and shame.

The path of revenge was long, and he didn't even know who his enemies were yet. The most important thing at the moment was how to handle the remains of his family.

The masters of the Gu family hadn't even been left with whole bodies; they had been burned by the fire until only charred skeletons remained, which would snap at the slightest touch. Gu Shenwei carefully carried the remains of his two brothers into his parents' room and laid them side by side with the other two.

Calling it a "room" was a stretch—there was no room left. The roof had collapsed, the walls had toppled, and the ground was covered in ash, bricks, tiles, and scorched wood and metal. Before long, this place would become a desolate grave, the ruins overgrown with weeds.

Gu Shenwei had seen such villages before, where white bones lay in the grass, becoming nests for vermin and being trampled at will by passing birds and beasts.

He could not let his loved ones suffer such torment after dying in such a mutilated state.

Gu Shenwei suddenly hardened his heart. He found a wall brick, knelt on the ground, and smashed the four skeletons into powder. He struck with such force each time, as if he were dealing with his enemies. He did not know when it started, but he realized his face was already covered in tears.

"Heaven is unjust!"

Gu Shenwei said bitterly, scooping up the ashes and scattering them into the air. The Gu family did not deserve such an end. Although his father, Gu Lun, practiced martial arts, he never involved himself in the grievances of the pugilistic world. In the Imperial Court, he was even more cautious and prudent, never offending anyone and insisting on a path of forbearance—sometimes even to the point of weakness.

Perhaps his father had enemies in the shadows, but the Gu family had traveled thousands of miles to relocate to the Western Regions. What kind of unsolvable grudge could be so deep that it required hunting them down all the way here?

Gu Shenwei could not fathom it. He blamed it all on the heavens, grabbed that piece of wall brick, and hurled it fiercely into the air.

After treating the Gu family with such cruelty, the heavens seemed to want to mock the young master of the Gu family once more. The brick rose only a few feet, traced an ironic arc, and fell outside the "door," striking a flowerpot with a loud clang.

The pomegranate tree inside the pot had already been reduced to a charred stump, and the pot itself had been scorched brittle. With that sound, it shattered into several pieces, collapsing onto the ground.

Gu Shenwei's strength had long been exhausted. After throwing the brick, he involuntarily fell to his knees, bracing himself with his hands, gasping for air. He didn't even have the energy left to curse.

Only a moment later, the mockery of the heavens turned into a display of a miracle. Gu Shenwei looked up and happened to see the clump of soil that still maintained the shape of the flowerpot. He suddenly remembered something.

He then ran outside like a madman, using both hands to forcefully push aside the scorched earth. He tossed the flower roots aside and dug a small oilcloth bundle from the bottom of the pot. He squeezed it gently, confirming that it was a book inside, and finally let out a sigh of relief. He carefully tucked it into his bosom, placing it behind his small pouch of silver to keep it hidden close to his body.

He recalled a scene he had accidentally witnessed one night when they had first moved to the Western Regions: his father hiding something in the flowerpot. At the time, he had been exhausted and only felt puzzled by his father's actions, never giving it any serious thought. In this moment of family destruction and bereavement, a flash of inspiration struck his mind, and he guessed what it was that his father had hidden.

Hidden inside the small oilcloth bundle was the shortcut method for the Hehe Jin.

The Hehe Jin was divided into nine levels of Yang Jin and nine levels of Yin Jin. Even Gu Lun, who had practiced the longest, had only reached the fifth level of both. However, there was a shortcut method that could drastically increase one's internal power in a very short time, though it carried great hidden dangers. Few descendants of the Gu family throughout history had ever practiced it.

The pinnacle of the Hehe Jin would be invincible under heaven. Gu Shenwei believed this firmly. Suddenly, the heavens were no longer the culprit behind the Gu family's disaster; on the contrary, they had pointed out a path of vengeance for Gu Shenwei.

Gu Shenwei had just cursed the heavens, so he preferred to call this miracle "Divine Will." He was only fourteen years old and had always lived under the wings of his father and brothers. He had never imagined that one day he would have to shoulder the heavy burden of revenge. He even faintly wished that it had been him who died; either of his two older brothers would have been more suited to avenge their family than he was.

He needed a "Divine Will" to support his conviction for revenge.

But now, the most critical thing was to find the last remaining relative, his sister Cuilan, who had doted on him the most. She might still be alive, suffering in some unknown place.

The "Divine Will" played another joke at this moment: a sharp whistle suddenly rang out from outside the manor, sounding exceptionally jarring and soul-stirring in the silent, dark night.