Sikong Gu turned around and returned to the small room, let the door open, leaned down and lightly pressed the bead of the unicorn foot on the leg of the stone table. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 As soon as info pressed it, the stone table slowly moved backwards, revealing a stone slab. Sikong Gu stepped lightly on the stone slab again, and the stone slab parted to the sides, revealing a small wooden door.

The call just now came from under this wooden door, and after a few barriers, the sound of "young master" was still like an ear sound, which showed how strong the inner strength of the owner was. Sikong Gu opened the wooden door, and the moment the faint light in the room penetrated the dark hole, Sikong Gu turned around and closed the door.

This is the agreed code, if the light does not penetrate into it, then the person who opens the door is not a solitary one, otherwise, there is gunpowder hidden on both sides of this passage, and the person in the dark room can pull the mechanism to seal this secret passage, so that the secret will not be leaked. After all, this secret room is what this remote room wants to hide, and everything in it cannot be known to outsiders like Zhang Wenwen.

In Sikong Gu's view, Zhang Wenwen is an old man in a sense, but he is by no means "his own person".

This secret passage is about three zhang long, Sikong Gu doesn't know how many times he has walked it, they are all similar scenes, and the two people in the deepest part of the underground have been waiting for him for a long time.

This is one of the few safe places in Mingyue Tower, but it is by no means the safest place.

Following the ladder, Sikong Gu entered the underground dark room, and when he landed, the oil lamp in the dark room was lit. The oil lamp swayed slowly because of the breeze brought by Sikong Gu when he landed, and in the faintest corner of the fire, Sikong Gu saw the two people.

Both men were hiding by the lamp, and they stood in an extremely symmetrical position, with only half of their faces exposed in the light. A man with thick long eyebrows, a beaded chain on his head, a short knife around his waist, and a pride in his eyes. The other has short eyebrows, which are extremely thin, but the face is no different from ordinary people, and the fine lines caused by thinness can be seen on the neck. Although the fire is lit and extinguished, Sikong Gu's six senses are sensitive, so he can naturally take a general look.

This one with long eyebrows is named Jia San, and the one with short eyebrows is named Guo Si. Sikong Gu knows very well that the age of the two must not be judged by their appearance, both of them take some kind of medicine to maintain this face of about twenty or thirty years old, in fact, Guo Si is thirty-four years old, Jia San is even more terrifying, he claims to be sixty or seventy years old, for Jia San's age, it is also the only place where Sikong Gu suspects Jia San.

They were all servants of the old man, and after the old man died, the few servants who were still alive were left to Sikong Gu. There were seven of these servants, but they were called "Eight Wonders". In Sikong Gu's eyes, the only thing strange about them is that their assassination skills are superb, and almost every one of them has different degrees of disability, so Sikong Gu often slanders them as "remnant soldiers". That old man is naturally a "defeated general".

Although Sikong Gu didn't know much about the relationship between these servants and the old man, he was extremely assured of their loyalty. It's a pity that after the old man's death, Pang Laoliu and Zhuge Qi both died together, plus Yuan Da and Xun Er died early, and now the "Eight Odds" are only Jia San, Guo Si, and Friday.

Sikong stood under the oil lamp and said to the two deliberately mysterious people: "He is gone, and his back looks a little lonely. ”

At this time, Sikong Gu's eyes were dull, the corners of his mouth rose slightly, and his hands naturally hung down. But Jia San and Guo Si didn't feel strange at all, because they had seen this face for nearly ten years.

Jia Sanyi raised his thick eyebrows and said, "The son of the Liu family has arrived, and the plan is ...... Execution?"

Sikong took a long breath and nodded: "After the rearrangement, it will still come as planned." ”

Guo Si's throat seemed to have a piece of iron in his throat, and his voice was extremely hoarse: "As soon as that Nangong Jun returned to the Cao Gang, he began to order people to ask around about the young master. It is said that Uncle Nangong has a hot temper, but I think he is as careful as a hair. The cats and dogs under his command were asking around for news of the young master, and the yellow shopkeeper was all dug out by him. ”

"People who mix in the rivers and lakes must have some capital hidden under their hands, which is the same as businessmen, they all pay attention to wealth (talent) and do not expose it. However, compared to other Jianghu people, he can indeed be called a 'thunderbolt', and today he actually shot so heavily that we had to change someone to choose ......"

Sikong Gu glanced at the short eyebrows that suddenly coughed, "Guo Si, hemoptysis again?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Guo Si coughed violently, he didn't cover it with a hand towel, causing blood to flow out of his fingers, and in the dim and stuffy dark room, there was another fishy smell. Sikong Gu understands that Guo Si is now hanging on to his life every day with medicine, and he really doesn't know how that old man bought people's hearts, and he was willing to let people die to such a point.

"Ah Si can hold on. ”

After a violent cough, Guo Si took the handkerchief handed by Jia San, wiped the blood on his hands, and said: "The revenge of 'Sikong Gu' has not been avenged, and the teacher's entrustment has not been completed, and I can't fall yet." ”

Seeing Guo Si bending over and coughing, Sikong Gu shook his head and said, "Jia San, Guo Si, you go to the hut to rest for a while, you did a good job today." ”

After that, Sikong Gu opened the small door on the east side of the dark room, and left the smelly dark room without looking back, while Jia San, Guo and Si and the two of them gave each other their fists.

"The young master is not the same as the teacher. ”

After Guo Si finished speaking, he coughed violently again.

Jia San shook his head, but he was not denying what Guo Si said, he lowered his voice and said: "I can guess one or two of the master's thoughts, but the young master's thoughts are ......."

Guo Si's face was always pale on weekdays, but now it looked even paler under the light because of the surge of blood. Seeing this scene, Jia San couldn't help but shake his head again, looking at the exit that was gently closed on the top, and his heart was at a loss.

"We must do what the young master commands, and don't forget what our duty is. Jia San...... Don't cross the line, it's time for us to go. ”

With that, the lights went out, and the last glimmer of light finally disappeared from the dark room.

The situation in the rivers and lakes of Yangzhou is a relatively common situation in the martial arts in the south of the Yangtze River today -- the invasion of foreign forces from the north of the Yangtze River has made the local gangs unable to resist it. This is true in Yangzhou, and it is true from Suzhou to Jiangling. This is separated by a large river from Jianghuai in the east to Bashu in the west, and it is a formed two factions.

In Yangzhou itself, the Jiangnan gang is a deep-rooted Cao gang at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Ten years ago, Yangzhou ushered in a strong foreign gang, the Yang Daomen of the Jin family and his wife. At first glance, this Cao Gang sounds like a water business, with smuggled salt, raw pearls, and even smuggled gold and silver from the Japanese people, so it is not surprising that the Cao Gang is engaged in these businesses. But the signboard played by the Yang Daomen is a "martial arts hall", although the Jin family's knife technique is well-known in Jiangbei, it is not surprising to open the door to accept apprentices. However, in the third year of Yangdaomen's settlement in Yangzhou, the Cao Gang found that several of their peers in Yangzhou had actually been swallowed up by Yangdaomen, and the part of their own business routes that had disappeared for some reason turned out to be in the hands of Yangdaomen.

It was only then that the Cao Gang suddenly realized that this foreign sect was not only here to open a museum and teach apprentices, but also to take away people's wealth.

Someone once said: Those who stand in the way of people's wealth are like killing their parents. Sikong Gu also thinks deeply of this market slang, these heroes who take the waterway, most of them are just killing people and selling goods in the face of their peers. And Yangdaomen and Cao are both people in the martial arts, so they have to talk about some face, but there are not many people who really kill people ruthlessly, and they are still mainly based on Yue goods.

But when the Cao Gang reacted and wanted to counterattack Yangdaomen, they found that the income on this waterway, Yangdaomen secretly took two percent from their own hands, plus one and a half percent from the rest of their peers, Yangdaomen already occupied about thirty and a half percent of the smuggled property at the end of Jianghuai. And I don't know when, the new generation of talents in Yangdaomen has doubled, and it is with these new generation of good players that they can overpower the Cao Gang on the waterway. Seeing that the rise of a behemoth was imminent, the Cao Gang also used the silver accumulated over the years to try to compete with Yangdaomen on the waterway, but whether it was negotiation or using all the methods on the business road, everyone in the Cao Gang found it difficult to stop the development of Yangdaomen.

Then, you can only use the methods on the rivers and lakes.

But after another two years, in the second year of Zhidao, that is, five years ago, this Yangdaomen has accounted for more than forty percent of the smuggling in the waterway, and the accumulation of more than ten years of Cao Gang is mainly smashed on the expansion of the business road, and the relationship between the two is completely lost in the end. In desperation, the old gang leader Li Yan had to hand over the power of the Cao Gang to his only son Li Zhou.

Li Zhou has been practicing martial arts in the Kunlun faction since he was a child, and after the crown ceremony, he married Nangong Hui, the only daughter of Nangong Feilong, the former head of the Nangong family. He also learned the art of Yangzhou Nangong family, and became the most proficient one among the descendants of the Nangong family's peerless "Taizheng Thirteen Swords". And Li Zhou is modest, and he has made countless friends in the rivers and lakes, and the current head of the Nangong family even revealed the idea of passing on the position of head of the family to Li Zhou at the family banquet more than once. Even Nangong Jun, the most outstanding among the younger generation of the Nangong family, also admired Li Zhou's personality, and repeatedly declared that "Brother Li is the head of the family, at least better than me."

When Li Zhou took over the power of the Cao Gang, he was only twenty-eight years old, and with the help of Sikong Gu's senior brother Yang Shuo, he actually transformed the Cao Gang from a "big miscellaneous gang" into a sect. Originally, the Cao Gang exclusively collected outlaws and even Jiangyang thieves on the rivers and lakes, and then controlled them after receiving them, but those bandits are difficult to change by nature, and they often do something against morality for the sake of profit. After being transformed by Li Zhou, the gangs who had been stained with the blood of disobedience were all cleaned out of the gang, and turned to recruit the white road heroes who took the waterway and took the boat as their home, and Li Zhou and Yang Shuo also revised the Nangong swordsmanship of the Nangong family to the "Nangong swordsmanship" specializing in waterways.

Under this continuous restructuring, the Cao Gang gradually changed from a declining situation to a balance of power, and with many years of connections in Yangzhou, it has now occupied more than seventy percent of the goods at the mouth of the Yangtze River, but the Yang Daomen has been suppressed and cannot get two percent. However, even so, on this waterway and in this Yangzhou City, the Cao Gang and Yangdaomen are on the same page after all, and Li Zhou and Yang Shuo have both faced each other with Jin Youde, the master of Yangdaomen.

In fact, the Jianghu forces in Yangzhou have formed a split -- one faction is the local forces in Jiangnan represented by the Cao Gang, and the other is the foreign forces in Jiangbei dominated by Yangdaomen.

Although the situation of the Cao Gang is currently very good, but in the early morning of yesterday, in the alley not far from this Mingyue Building, Li Zhou, the 33-year-old leader of the Cao Gang, was killed. The Cao Gang tried to cover up, but Sikong Gu had already heard the Cao Gang's movements clearly through the intelligence network of Jia San, Guo Si and Mingyuelou.

It's just that the battle between the Cao Gang and Yangdaomen is not so simple, behind this is the Jiangnan League and the Jiangbei Shenmen......

Sikong Gu, who was combing through all the information again, heard a brief knock on the door.

In his cabin, Sikong Gu lay on his side on the couch in the most comfortable position. Although there are many empty pavilions in the Mingyue Building, Sikong Gu's favorite is his current simple cottage, which has a bed covered with an unknown number of heavy silks, a large bookcase, and a delicate and small window when you look up, and of course, a touch of residual sun penetrating through the gap in the slightly open small window.

The room was not big, and Sikong Gu felt very comfortable, holding a book in his hand that he didn't know what he was not reading at all, and was falling into contemplation of the plan, when the knock on the door woke him up.

The people outside the house didn't wait for the people inside to react, they had already pushed open the door and walked towards Sikong Gu.

"Childe. ”

In front of her was a young girl, about twenty-eight years old, dressed in a plain white skirt, her face was like a peach blossom in early spring, and the redness of her cheeks was gratifying. A pair of eyes containing aura were like broken fresh lychees, and the faint pupils were mixed with imperceptible brown, and against the backdrop of the setting sun on her side, Sikong Gu felt as if her eyes were glowing.

The girl saw that Sikong Gu had been staring at herself since she entered the door, and she hung her head down shyly, pointed to the food on the table, and whispered, "The food is going to be cold." ”

"Hmm. Sikong Gu reacted to his rudeness, responded embarrassedly, and immediately turned his head to look at the orange-orange sky outside the window, and at the moment when the girl raised her head, she said, "You go out." ”

"Yes. The girl Shi Shiran withdrew from the door and closed the door gently, and the blush on her face gradually faded, but not long after turning around, she frowned and sighed softly.

Sikong Gu shook his head, Xiaoliu is always like this, neither like a maid nor like his own family. It's no wonder, after all, she has been with herself from that time to the present. In the three years of living in that cottage, this little girl saw herself clearly, although there was a difference between master and servant, but Sikong Gu understood that I am afraid that she was the only one in the world who understood herself best. But so what?

Zhang Wenwen has an unbearable past, so why don't he have it? Zhang Wenwen faced his juniors, thought of his old master, and thought of his own responsibility, he didn't have to do it, but he still chose the morality of the rivers and lakes.

Sikong Gu understands very well that Zhang Wenwen is still staying in Mingyue Tower, and he has already made a choice.

He's been away from the rivers and lakes for ten years, but he's still a Jianghu person!

I'm also a Jianghu person now. Recalling the conflict in the lobby of Mingyue Tower today, Sikong Gu raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

What is my choice? to help the Cao Gang through this crisis? For what? To avenge the Jiangning Sikong family?

The sunset was very beautiful, Sikong Gu looked at the sunset outside the window along the slightest gap, and took a breath of cool air in the slight cold of early spring.

Who am I? He asked himself, but Sikong Gu didn't answer.

I don't know how long it took, when the door was pushed open again, Xiao Yanagi, who entered the door, saw Sikong Gu still sitting on the chair, and the food was placed on the table safely, the same as before. Xiao Liu frowned slightly, but he heard Sikong sigh:

"Koyanagi...... You said...... What should I do?"

One master and one servant were in the room, one was sitting, the other was standing, one did not want to know the answer, the other did not have the desire to answer, one looked at the bright moon on the branches, the other looked at him, the night of early spring, it was getting colder and colder, after the moon was covered by dark clouds, Sikong Gu murmured:

"Koyanagi...... Do you think the moon is rounder now than it was yesterday? ”

After a long time, there was still dead silence in the room.

After a short time, the moon in Yangzhou City was obscured by a dark cloud, which seemed to mean that darkness was coming.