Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 113 - Duality (1)

Chapter 113 – Duality (1)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Going back and forth between Hubei and Jiangsu brought a considerable amount of fatigue. In fact, I heard that Myeong-yeop and the others had nearly collapsed in bed.

If one had to be precise, it was mental fatigue. Riding in a carriage for months when it was your first time doing so was not merely boring but enough to make you sick.

Of course, I was full of energy. Maybe because it had been a while since I’d done trade, I was practically invigorated.

“But you only just got back. What are you preparing again already?”

“Hm? Ah, didn’t I tell you?”

I scratched my head and smiled.

“I think I’ll be making a brief trip to Gansu.”

“Gansu? The place where Lanzhou is?”

“Yes. Is there some other Gansu in the Central Plains?”

Cheong-hwa rushed in at great speed. I could see the clenched fist aimed at my head. Considering that before I wouldn’t even have seen it, it was tremendous progress. My eyesight had definitely improved now that my internal energy had grown.

Bang!

Of course, that doesn’t mean I said I could dodge it. I clutched my head. Judging by the wavering in front of my eyes, it looked like tears had even formed.

“Ah, what was that for?”

“Do you have no intention of serving your master at the main mountain? Why do you keep running around outside?”

“Come on, I’m a Company Lord, aren’t I? I stand on a battlefield where if you don’t move forward, you fall behind.”

“Do you think the martial world is any different?”

“I’m cultivating my martial arts too.”

“Honestly. How much could you possibly have cultivated while conducting trade?”

“Would you like me to show you?”

“Fine. Come here. It’s been a while, so let’s spar.”

It couldn’t really be called a spar. Cheong-hwa was obviously going to go easy on me. This was better described as an instructional bout.

Coming to the yard behind the Hall of Exhausting the Way again after so long made me feel at ease, as though I had come home.

“It’s nice. Being with you like this, Master.”

“Don’t just say that. Sit your roots down properly for once.”

“If a dandelion seed can’t fly, where is it supposed to bloom?”

“How is it that your tongue always flows so smoothly?”

Cheong-hwa lifted his scabbard. There was no reason for him to draw a real sword against me. By contrast, I fully drew my sword.

“Your focus settles immediately. Good. If you’re a martial artist, that’s how it should be.”

Cheong-hwa threw that line out with a pleased expression.

“I’m coming.”

“Come.”

I charged in at once and unleashed Flowing Cloud Without Color from the Flowing Cloud Sword Art. It had originally been a mist faint enough that the opponent could still be seen, but now it had grown so dense that one could not see even an inch ahead.

That was because the two spiritual medicines had been fully absorbed into my body while I was away on the trading journey.

“Hah!”

Cheong-hwa, startled, stepped back one pace and swung his scabbard. His scabbard collided with my Ancient Pine-Pattern Sword. The shockwave from sword against scabbard shoved the mist outward all at once.

Of course, that was the end of my attack. Cheong-hwa folded one hand behind his back and lazily swung the scabbard, and I was busy just blocking.

“Shortening the path of your strokes is your habit, but you need to leave more room. That is especially true in Wudang’s martial arts.”

Cheong-hwa cut horizontally with the form Sweeping Heaven Across the Vast. At my current level, it was such an absurdly simple move. There was no variation at all. He simply slashed across.

But why was that? I simply couldn’t advance and block it, so all I could do was pull my body far back and let it slide past. We had only exchanged a few moves, yet sweat was already pouring down me.

“Because you keep trying to advance without thinking about what lies behind you, you get cornered like that. I’m not pressing you. You’re pressing yourself. Learn that well.”

Cheong-hwa gave his advice while slowly swinging his scabbard. There was plenty else worth listening to as well, like when he said my waist opened up when I used Flowing Clouds Fill Ten Thousand Sheets.

Once the instructional bout ended, I immediately flopped spread-eagle onto the yard. Cheong-hwa had relentlessly stabbed only at the places where I really didn’t want to be hit, so naturally I had no choice but to grow exhausted.

“You’ve improved astonishingly.”

“Right?”

I shrugged. The last time Cheong-hwa saw me had been before I absorbed the two spiritual medicines. Now they had settled well, and the force of my sword had become much stronger.

“Yes. Off with you, then.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“But take Myeong-il with you.”

That single remark from the master I hadn’t seen in a long while was what poured cold water over my pride.

“Pardon?”

“Myeong-il came out of the Cave of Repentance.”

“Ah, has that much time already passed? But what does that have to do with me?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask. What exactly did you do to Myeong-il while you were both in the Cave of Repentance?”

For a moment, I turned it over in my head.

“I only discussed swords with him a little.”

“Whether I know it or not, it seems Myeong-il was quite impressed by you. He kept asking everyone when you would be back.”

“Really?”

My eyes widened. That taciturn child had been looking for me? It was hard to imagine.

“And in our view, Myeong-il has been too shut in. If he’d had experience in the jianghu, he wouldn’t have fallen so cleanly for the Zhuge Clan child’s strategy of provocation.”

“But why do I have to play nanny?”

“Because there’s no one who roams the jianghu as much as you do, and because other than the Sect Leader, Myeong-il has never followed anyone as much as he follows you.”

What did that have to do with my will? Just as I was about to ask that, Cheong-hwa spoke in a serious voice.

“Myeong-il is a child with many wounds. A child who grew thorns before flowers. That’s something we’ve always worried about. I want you to help resolve that. When it comes to handling people, you’re better than we are.”

“When you say it like that, it gets hard to refuse.”

I clicked my tongue. I knew Myeong-il’s circumstances well enough in broad outline. He spoke as if it didn’t matter, but there was no way that was true. He had simply covered over residue he couldn’t clear away with indifference. In other words, it was pretending not to see.

“I do have one condition.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t take him as a Wudang Daoist.”

“Why not?”

“There are circumstances.”

I said it flatly. This was tangled up with Prince Xian as well. If filthy politics ended up staining Wudang through this matter, I wouldn’t be able to show my face to anyone. No matter how filthy the commercial world was, it wasn’t filthier than the political world.

Cheong-hwa thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Do as you wish. You wouldn’t say such a thing for no reason.”

“Good. And I’ll be taking one more person.”

“Who?”

“A lay disciple.”

Cheong-hwa tilted his head. The sudden mention of a lay disciple had clearly puzzled him. Of course, this wasn’t something that had even been discussed with that lay disciple yet.

* * *

Yeo Hong-yang pointed at himself with a dumbfounded expression.

“I’m going? To Gansu?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Aren’t you curious about the backing behind your rival?”

Yeo Hong-yang smacked his lips. Looking at him, Muk Hui-yeong deliberately frowned.

“You don’t want to take the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company?”

“No, I do.”

“Then why are you acting like that?”

“…Like what?”

“Why are you already acting so listless, like the company has already been handed over?”

Yeo Hong-yang fell silent. He must have felt it himself. That sense of defeat that had settled deep into his bones over several years.

“Honestly, I don’t think I can win. Since I was little, I’ve never beaten my older brothers. I’ve always come in last.”

“In life, you only need to win once when it matters.”

Muk Hui-yeong turned and jerked his chin backward. A small child emerged slowly with an expressionless face. It was Myeong-il.

Yeo Hong-yang looked back at Muk Hui-yeong as if at a loss.

“Why is Daoist Myeong-il here?”

“A companion going with us to Gansu.”

“Ahem. That’s an odd combination.”

It was indeed an odd combination. A lay disciple who was the son of the Merchant King, a Company Lord who stood at the center of Wudang’s current transformation, and the main-mountain disciple who was most prominent among his generation. In a sense, they were Wudang’s two extremes and its center.

“So?”

“The two of you should get close. Gansu will be quite a long journey.”

“What?”

Leaving Yeo Hong-yang behind in his confusion, Muk Hui-yeong stepped away. Myeong-il too looked at Muk Hui-yeong with expressionless eyes, but his pupils were shaking violently.

So Muk Hui-yeong slipped away. Yeo Hong-yang and Myeong-il looked at one another.

Come to think of it, this was a secluded place in Wudang where other people seldom came. Muk Hui-yeong had clearly called the two of them here on purpose.

“…How do you do?”

“…”

Watching Myeong-il fail to answer and not even turn his head, Yeo Hong-yang sensed right from the start that this would not be easy.

* * *

While those two were getting close, I had preparations of my own to make. In any case, I was currently stronger than Myeong-il, and there was no need to even mention Yeo Hong-yang.

So I was the one who had to protect Myeong-il and Yeo Hong-yang. The burden hit me all at once. During the salt trade, Myeong-yeop had been the strongest, so I hadn’t really thought much about it. But now that I had to take responsibility for the two of them, it felt different. Myeong-yeop might have carried a burden like this too.

“So you want to become stronger?”

“That’s right.”

“Heh heh heh.”

Cheong-hwa lowered his head and laughed. I looked at him with worried eyes, thinking my master had gone mad. Cheong-hwa eventually threw his head back and laughed loudly.

“Hahaha!”

“Why are you being so frightening?”

“At last the words I want to become stronger have come out of your mouth.”

Cheong-hwa’s face was full of smiles when he lifted his head. Embarrassed, I deliberately looked away.

“Why is that such a big deal?”

“What do you mean it’s not? A boy who used to insist every day that he was a merchant has finally said he wants to become stronger. How could that not be a big deal?”

Cheong-hwa stood and began rummaging through the bookshelf beside him.

“The more I think about it, the more I feel you did well remaining a lay disciple.”

“Pardon? All of a sudden?”

“Yes. If you were a main-mountain disciple, you’d have to get permission from the mountain whenever you wanted to learn another martial art. But lay disciples have no such rule.”

“Ah. I see.”

That made sense. If you learned a martial art whose nature didn’t suit Wudang’s martial arts, it would amount to toppling a tower you’d built with great effort.

But there was one thing that could be inferred from that.

“Then are you saying you’re going to teach me some martial art that isn’t from Wudang?”

“Yes. Didn’t you say you wanted to become stronger quickly?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s a martial art that must never be taught to a disciple of Wudang, but I think you’ll be able to use it well. You have something domineering in your aura.”

I flinched slightly. Surely he hadn’t sensed the remnants of demonic qi. But judging by his expression, it didn’t seem to be that.

“You make it sound like disposing of leftover food.”

“Ahem. Don’t distort a master’s loving heart.”

Cheong-hwa took out an old book from a corner and dusted it off. There was so much dust on it that I started coughing automatically.

“Ugh. It feels like even the martial art inside has gone stale.”

“Enough nonsense. Take this first.”

Cheong-hwa tossed the book to me. I caught it by reflex. There was no title on the cover.

Looking more closely, it seemed one had originally been there, but someone had scraped it away with a blade.

“It seems someone didn’t want the title to be seen.”

“Yes. I scraped it off.”

The culprit was standing right in front of me.

“Why?”

“Because it’s not the sort of martial art a Wudang Daoist ought to possess. It would be enough to warrant discipline just for it to become known that I have this.”

“Huh. To that extent?”

Clicking my tongue, I opened the book. And the moment I saw the forms and the mnemonic verses, I felt it at once. The sinister aura permeating the entire martial art.

“…What’s the name of this martial art?”

“It’s called the Nine Nether Asura Sword.”

Just hearing the name made it reek of the unorthodox path.

Cheong-hwa, however, was simply smiling to himself, clearly pleased with some thought of his own.