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"You promised me a kingdom, Master Guo. You are still obligated to deliver on that promise. I'm no a fool. I know you will never give up on your word even on your dying breath. I know. I have seen you do your doings when you worked under my grandfather at the imperial court. You were like a slave on your knees, only for your master. You have never failed my grandfather. You will never fail me. Why would you start to tarnish such a perfect reputation?"

"Your highness, I am an old man. What I could do in my past is no longer possible. I am a corpse with plucked out eyes. I am useless. Do you think you are the first who has come to see what has become of an old warrior? Why you have not found my skeleton sitting in this cave? Did it not occur to you? I am too old to belong to the world in the living. But here I am. The truth of my fate is that I am so idle that no one wants to bother to kill me. I do no harm and I do no good. I am a skeleton in all but being fully decayed. I'd like to think that the animals have not eaten me out fully yet. But you know every day I grow closer to where I will go."

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Ning Zhuo? Yan Sha froze in her tracks. That was the man who had tried to kill Ning Ren. He was the crown prince of Cai Wong, why would he be asking Master Guo for help. She looked around her, this compound was in various stages of decay, it was the house of someone who was beyond his prime.

Master Guo continued. "There is nothing for you here but my last batch of student. I recently acquired a new one. I finally thought that this will be the last student I will ever teach. One who does not know she is more important to us all than she knows. A flower to choke the life out of the steel that you wield. A wonder is that which is a woman. You should come back the way you came, your highness, do not bring the problems of the world to me. I am not longer of this world."

She wondered for a moment if she was his last student? It was strange to her that this would be a place where someone from the imperial court would come. Ning Zhuo was renowned for cunning and killing. A shiver ran through her as she wondered if she had heard enough. But, she was still curious. . . was he trained at this cultivation school?

Ning Zhuo's harsh voice echoed in the space. "My grandfather was no mad man. He was a genius. He was just ahead of his time. No one understood him. You will serve me or I will make sure you are the only survivor of my blood lust."

"Blood lust? You think you can turn my own technique against me? No, the children who are brought here are more precious than you know. Blood lust cannot harm them. It will harm you. I dissolved all of my promises before coming here. I have nothing left to offer you, my dear prince. There is nothing here for which you will find value, unless my death will bring you solace."

"You have assassins, you have resources. I know there are things here which will be of value -- techniques, poison, tools for me to use."

"If I had those things, wouldn't I be a wealthy man instead of an old beggar? No, I do not. All the ones who are trained belong to others. There are no books here from which we teach, we speak and they know. That is how it has been for thousands of years in the martial realm. If it is written, it can be stolen. A mind cannot be stolen. But, enough of riddles. You may stay, if you tell your men to close the opening from which you came and leave back to Caiwong. I need the order. I cannot allow them to live, but I can allow them to forget and be forgotten. The choice is yours. I do not say who is to die and who gets to live. To think the same little boy who is scared of snakes, wants to start his own pit of snakes? Preposterous Have you learned nothing? You need to be cleaned."

"It is I who shall clean this pit of snakes."