Death Sutra

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The intelligence reports sent over had doubled during the past few days, and almost all of them were related to the kung fu competition that would elect the Lord of Jade City. Zhong Heng, who had finished negotiating, was staying in the Dragon King’s tent and helping him check and approve documents.

“They’re worthless.” Zhong Heng stared at the stack of papers three or four feet high on the table and rubbed his temples, wondering how he had managed to read them all. “All of these messages are merely speculations. The Dragon King has really startled Jade City.”

In fact, Zhong Heng had heard the news merely six hours earlier than others did, so he was just as startled and had been hoping to be given an explanation. But the Dragon King had remained silent during the last few days and just asked him to read through the stacks of intelligence reports.

“What do the residents think of Long Fanyun?” asked Gu Shenwei.

“They think highly of him.” Zhong Heng knew that the Dragon King was finally going to talk about his true intentions. “Over the past month, his performance in the Department of Guards has been given a high appraisal. A lot of people actually think that he is the best man to be the Lord of Jade City.”

“How did Pang Jing react?”

“He was very angry, but he seemed to be even angrier about the Dragon King’s disclosure of your real name. He tried to hide it, but it was still very obvious. Everybody was curious about the Dragon King’s real name, but he pretended that he didn’t care about it at all. Heh-heh. The day when the registration started, Pang Jing did make a mistake.”

“So he has long since known about my parentage.”

Zhong Heng nodded. He would rather stay out of the Dragon King’s plan for revenge than raise specific objections to it like Fang Wenshi did, or encourage him like his killers did. “I think so. Pang Jing used to be a fence-sitter for many years, but eventually, he still chose to side with his elder brother and ally with the faction led by the Empress Dowager.”

“This is the only strange thing. The General-in-chief, Pang Jing, and the Middle Assistant Minister, Yan Qin, are supposed to to be on the same side. However, Pang Jing’s recent actions don’t seem to be in accord with eunuch Zhang You’s deeds.”

“Um. Nominally, Zhang You is merely an attendant of the envoy of the Central Plains. Now, both the envoy and the vice envoy are dead, but he is still in the military camp of the Central Plains. After Pang Jing was inaugurated, they have never met each other. It’s as if they have been carrying out their own plans. Is Zhang You by any chance keeping anything back from the Dragon King?”

Recalling that cowardly eunuch, Gu Shenwei said, “I don’t think so. He’s merely waiting for further instructions.”

The conversation seemed to drift further away from the topic of the Lord of Jade City, but Zhong Heng didn’t get anxious. Instead, he liked conversations of this exploratory kind of style. “Whatever the reason is, Zhang You, or Yan Qin, had intentions to co-opt the Dragon King, even if the cost was offending Golden Roc Castle. What is Pang Jing’s purpose? Did his acceptance of the Unique King’s bribe mean that he had ultimately decided to be an enemy of the Dragon King?”

“Pang Jing is our enemy.” Gu Shenwei was absolutely certain about this. “But he didn’t decide to make an enemy of me after taking the bribe. Instead, he made that decision long ago. The Meng family’s fortune was merely a symbol that would solidify the relationship between them.”

“Since the Dragon King has never met him before that, there’s no doubt that his grudges against you originated from some matters that are related to the last generation.” Zhong Heng had naturally come to this conclusion. He began to worry about whether the Dragon King had gone too far.

Gu Shenwei could tell what the Prime Minister was thinking about, so he said, “The Imperial Court of the Central Plains has assigned a task to Pang Jing, which restricts him and also imposes certain rules on Jade City. I’ll follow these rules. At least these rules have been more favorable for the Dragon Army so far.”

“Is Pang Jing giving the position of the Lord of Jade City to the Unique King?” Somewhat urgently, Zhong Heng steered the conversation back to the topic of the Lord of Jade City.

“I don’t think so. First, there is no sign that Prince Xiao is going to lose his power in the Central Plains, which means there probably won’t be any major changes to his Western-Regions strategy any time soon. Second, it seems unnecessary for the Unique King to pay such a high price for merely the position of Lord of Jade City. With the Meng family’s fortune, he can definitely make much greater profits.”

“He wants the Central Plains to confer a king’s title onto him,” said Zhong Heng. This was a goal that the Unique King had always been pursuing, which had been temporarily ignored by many people due to the kung fu competition concerning the position of Lord of Jade City. He began to understand the Dragon King’s intentions. “The position of Lord of Jade City is merely a cover-up. While the Dragon King is trying your best to compete for it, the Unique King and Pang Jing will be carrying out another plan. What will it be? Dispatching their armies?”

Gu Shenwei fished out a letter from his front inside pocket and handed it to Zhong Heng. “This is from the counselor.”

Fang Wenshi was in the Norland, so it had taken this letter over a month to be delivered to the Dragon King. He didn’t know about Pang Jing’s arrival when he was writing this letter, but it didn’t make his judgement of the big picture any less accurate.

Zhong Heng read the letter. This letter was done in the typical Fang Wenshi style. The wording was rhetorical and difficult to read, impassioned and indisputable, but the core contents of the letter were explicit.

Back then, Fang Wenshi had heard the news that the two envoy teams of the Central Plains were heading to Shulitu’s military camp and Luoluo’s camp to deliver the Emperor’s favorable offer: the Central Plains was willing to call a truce and confer the titles of ‘East Khan’ and ‘West Khan’ upon them.

Influenced by this news, Fang Wenshi had reminded the Dragon King that the Central Plains’ strategy was to support several forces at the same time and let them have their autonomous territories. This strategy would then be applied to both large countries like the Norland and city-states like Jade City. No matter if Prince Xiao won the competition between the factions within the Imperial Court or not, there was no chance that the Central Plains would solely support the Dragon King.

Fang Wenshi deduced that in order to maintain the balance of power, no matter which one of the Dragon King and the Unique King became the Lord of Jade City, the Central Plains would offer more support to the losing side to prevent Jade City from being thrust under the winning side’s sole control.

Zhong Heng had had an average impression of Fang Wenshi, and felt that he was merely a scholar who was all hot air. But after reading this letter, he couldn’t help but have a completely new appraisal of him. As a Prime Minister, he was able to offer some suggestions to the Dragon King and help him deal with imminent crises and enemies. However, there were also some things that he could neither think about nor have a clear conception of. The military counselor might be overambitious, but he was indeed more far-sighted.

“The Central Plains wants the Dragon King to be the Lord of Jade City and the Unique King to have a king’s title. They want the two of you to partition Jade City, each of you ruling half of it or the two of you ruling it together. They want you to be wary of each other at all times, and if any one of you wants to gain an advantage over the other, then you will have to ask the Central Plains for help. This is their plan to build a balance of power.” Zhong Heng put the letter down. “But why doesn’t the Central Plains just confer two king’s titles? Isn’t that much simpler?”

The letter of the military counselor proved to be very enlightening. Gu Shenwei had a clearer understanding of many things now. “Because I have little connection to the Central Plains. If my title of Dragon King had been acknowledged last year, then I would have been more grateful to the Norland than to the Central Plains. This is why the Central Plains wants to give me the position of Lord of Jade City and make me pay a heavy price during the process of getting it. That way, I’d set great store by this position.”

“One should give the opponent something to dissolve their vigilance in order to take something from them.” Light suddenly dawned on Zhong Heng. “Who formulated this strategy? Pang Jing? Yan Qin? Or Prince Xiao?” Zhong Heng thought for a while and then figured out the answer by himself. He was from the Central Plains. Though he had never been a high-rank official there, he was still very familiar with the rules of the bureaucracy. “None of them did it. There is no need for anybody to keep the overall situation under control, as this has always been the strategy adopted by the Central Plains. The factions within the Imperial Court will naturally extend to the Norland and the Western Regions. In that case, the Emperor will be able to influence areas thousands of miles away by merely controlling the people around him.”

The Emperor himself didn’t even have to know about this. For him, all of this had been formulated by his ancestors. All he had to do was abide by it.

Zhong Heng felt ashamed of himself. He was from the Central Plains, but even a scholar from the Western Regions had a clearer understanding of this than he did. “So the Dragon King gave up on the position of Lord of Jade City to Long Fanyun because you wanted to tell the Central Plains that the balance of power hadn’t been built yet, and that if they wanted to confer a king’s title to the Unique King, that they would have to acknowledge Dragon King’s status as well.”

This was indeed within Gu Shenwei’s plan, but not all of it. “Both the Central Plains and the Western Regions have their own respective plans. If I am to share Jade City with another force, then by no means will I choose Golden Roc Castle.”

The Dragon King was still an avenger. Zhong Heng cautiously steered the conversation away from this topic by saying, “Then the Dragon King will have to support another competitor. The Waning Moon Hall? I’m afraid that they’re not very trustworthy.”

No matter how ambitious Lotus was, the Waning Moon Hall was currently a weak force. Besides, Gu Shenwei would never rule hand in hand with her. Lotus was no less threatening than the Unique King.

“What do you think of the Shule Kingdom?” asked Gu Shenwei. 𝗳𝙧𝐞𝚎w𝗲𝚋n𝚘𝙫𝑒𝘭.𝑐om

“Emm, territory-wise and population-wise, the Shule Kingdom is strong enough. However, the prince of the Shule Kingdom… I don’t think that he’s suitable for this.”

“Prime Minister misunderstood. I meant your personal opinion. What do you think of the Shule Kingdom?”

Zhong Heng instantly understood, and his eyes went wide with shock. Suddenly, he knelt down on his knees. “Dragon King… I don’t think that I’m competent enough to do it. It’s been a long time since the establishment of the Shule Kingdom, and the royal family’s foundation is very solid… ”

“Compared to Jade City, the Shule Kingdom is too large. Like the Central Plains, I also want to partition this country and appoint another ruler for it. The royal family will have part of it. Do you think you can rule the rest of it, Prime Minister?”

According to his Central Plains habits, Zhong Heng should have declined this offer several times. But currently, he was more like a native of the Western Regions, so he decided to show his ambition. “I won’t fail you, Dragon King.”

Gu Shenwei signaled the Prime Minister to stand up. “Go to the military camp of the Shule Kingdom in the west tomorrow, take command of that army, and get to know the generals of the Shule Kingdom. Once you think the time is ripe, bring some men to the Shule Kingdom. The General of the Right, Shang Liao, should have recruited another batch of soldiers by now. Snatch command of them and you’ll become another King of the Shule Kingdom.

Zhong Heng knew that he himself had earned this opportunity. In order to realize his ambition, he had worked hard, but it was worth it. The reward that the Dragon King had given him was beyond his expectation. “But Jade City… ”

“You don’t have to worry about it. I have a plan. I won’t give up the position of Lord of Jade City. Even if Pang Jing changes his mind, I’ll still snatch it up.”

“Be careful, Dragon King. Golden Roc Castle still has its strength. It’ll have its death struggles if its cornered.”

“Forcing the Unique King to struggle is exactly what I’m going to do,” said Gu Shenwei. A faint flush appeared on his pale face, which only made him look cruel instead of making him seem less ruthless. “Only by making the Central Plains feel that Golden Roc Castle is a hot potato will I be able to destroy it with a righteous cause.”

Zhong Heng asked no further questions. When he left the Department of Guards, he felt as if he was over ten years younger. Walking at an easy pace, he wished that he could fly to the Shule Kingdom that was hundreds of miles away instantly to take a look at that strange land. The Dragon King hadn’t told him how the country would be partitioned, but he had already formulated an idea himself, sketchily creating a plan.

‘There are going to be some earth-shaking changes in Jade City,’ Zhong Heng thought as he secretly sighed. He was actually relieved that he wouldn’t have to play a part in these changes.

Gu Shenwei was still in the room, browsing through the intelligence reports that Zhong Heng had read. It was actually a little risky to dispatch Zhong Heng outside, but in order to concentrate on the kung fu competition, he had to make sure that he was totally prepared for the fight after it.

There were eleven days left before the kung fu competition started. Though he was not among the two who were going to fight on the first day, Gu Shenwei still felt his palms slightly burning in anticipation.

An intelligence report attracted his attention. It seemed insignificant and Zhong Heng had every reason to ignore it, but Gu Shenwei found something interesting within it: a boastful sabersman and a monk were intending to resume their secular life.