Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 105 - If You Don't Believe in Yourself

Chapter 105 – If You Don’t Believe in Yourself

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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A signaling arrow… a ‘whistling arrow’… was used on the battlefield to signal a night attack.

The party flinched in surprise and looked around.

Meanwhile, Ju-seong had already spotted a figure high on the cliff, looking down at them.

“Forget-Sorrow Arrow, you son of a bitch! What do you think you’ll gain by crawling in here again! Do you even know who these people are!”

The figure answered in an amused voice.

“You’re still as rude as ever. If only I could put an arrow in that mouth of yours, I’d have no more wishes.”

A black-painted arrow streaked toward him, carrying a chilling aura, silent as death.

But the loss of sound meant a loss of power, and Ju-seong caught it easily with his hand gloved in combat gauntlets.

-Thwack!

“Starting off with annoying tricks from the get-go… you bastard.”

“Young Hero, who is that?”

Zhuge Xian, having recovered his composure, asked while fanning himself with his iron fan.

“An assassin from the Assassination Curtain. He attacked me on the Yangtze and ran off like a cripple after failing.”

Sharp-eared as he was, Forget-Sorrow Arrow heard Ju-seong from atop the cliff and retorted.

“Who calls it running when a hunter releases his prey? Look. Right now, you’ve fallen into a trap.”

True to his words, when Ju-seong strained his Celestial Hearing, he heard multiple footsteps approaching from beyond the cliff’s entrance.

They must have heard Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s signaling arrow.

A voice laden with internal energy came from beyond the entrance. A blunt tone.

“Forget-Sorrow Arrow, are you there?”

Called out, Forget-Sorrow Arrow likewise amplified his voice with internal energy to reply.

“Moist Slashing Practice, come on in. It’s hard to find by sight alone… use energy sense to locate the entrance.”

Moist Slashing Practice.

The meaning: practicing a smooth slash.

If a slash is smooth, that’s that… but naming oneself after ‘practicing smooth slashing’?

As expected, it was a bizarre alias suggesting he was a Night Guest.

Soon, the man called Moist Slashing Practice entered the valley, leading dozens of warriors.

He was a gaunt, slender blade-wielder with a desolate countenance.

His voice was as blunt as it had sounded… his lips were pressed tight.

Meanwhile, the man beside him seemed quite lively and talkative.

“As I thought, leaking information to the Wudang Sect was the right move. Everyone who got pulled into that dream either lost their minds or became vegetables…”

Ju-seong studied him closely.

At first glance, he looked like a cheerful young man around thirty, but…

‘There’s a subtle disconnect between the movements of his left and right sides.’

Ju-seong knew someone like that.

“So you’re the Huguang Province General Branch Chief of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.”

“Oh my, you immediately recognized that I’ve practiced Split-Mind Art, Young Hero Ju-seong. A pleasure. I’m the owner of the Yunmeng Arena… a gambling hall and fighting pit.”

“A fighting pit? Not a pleasure house or brothel?”

“Haha, I’m devoted to darker enterprises. Gambling, fighting exhibitions, death-row matches, and so on… Huguang Province is prosperous, isn’t it? Call me a dream merchant.”

“Selling dreams to take the lives of children and stake the straw-like hopes of society’s dregs.”

“How astute.”

“Branch Chief, shut up. You talk too much.”

“Oops, sealing my lips, Senior Moist Slashing Practice!”

The Yunmeng Arena Master made a show of compliance and slipped back. Ju-seong surveyed the scene with somber eyes.

Among the warriors surrounding the party, he spotted quite a few with the look of men who had gone as far as one could go.

‘Warriors in debt to the Yunmeng Arena, then.’

They had probably been promised total debt forgiveness in exchange for coming here.

In other words, they were retainers of the Yunmeng Arena.

While noble families and great sects gathered retainers through generous treatment and wealth, the Yunmeng Arena’s retainers were shackled by gambling debts.

‘And mixed among them must be assassins from the Assassination Curtain.’

A troublesome opponent in many ways.

Ju-seong looked around briefly, then spoke.

“I’ll handle the archer up on the cliff. Young Master Zhuge is probably well-matched against the Arena Master. Taoist Song-un, please take on the man called Moist Slashing Practice.”

Ju-seong had a rough idea who this Moist Slashing Practice might be.

‘He must be the one who killed all the prisoners in Chongqing and vanished.’

In Chongqing, Ju-seong’s group had captured several assassins including a Night Guest and kept them confined.

But those prisoners had all been found with slit throats in the blink of an eye.

The cross-sections of their wounds were so eerily smooth that it seemed bizarre… and now, hearing the man’s alias, it clicked.

He’d judged him to be a madman with an obsessive focus on horizontal slashing…

‘Wudang’s signature technique is said to be well suited to dealing with simple, powerful attacks, so Taoist Song-un should be the best match.’

Ju-seong looked back and said.

“Chun-mong, Warrior Murong Yeon, and Taoist Song-jin… please fight the remaining warriors.”

Chun-mong nodded. The other two glanced at their respective master and senior brother.

“Do as he says.”

“Young Hero Ju-seong’s plan makes sense, junior brother.”

With approval given, the party took their positions and shifted into combat mode.

The warriors closed in slowly.

The breath I exhale becomes their breath; my breath enters their lungs.

In the narrow gorge, breathing the same air, the combatants gauged each other’s emotions.

Does this exhalation reaching my nose carry fear? Or hostility eager for battle?

Do you fear me as I fear you?

The moonlight glinting off your blade makes my heart flutter. Does your heart race when you see mine…?

Like laundry lines strung across the narrow valley, gazes crisscrossed.

A scent of blood seemed to burrow into his nostrils.

* * *

Those standing before Ju-seong had stiff expressions.

A stout warrior wielding a broadsword trembled briefly, his red nose twitching.

‘This bastard… he reeks of blood.’

Ju-seong was a fighter. The moment he stepped into jianghu, he fought for his life. That was him.

Though he always tried to restrain himself from killing, fights had been so frequent that he might well have killed the most among his companions.

Ju-seong spoke with a cold smile on his lips.

“Mind if I pass through?”

-Bwooong… !

What broke the ice was Ju-seong’s fierce palm strike.

With a gratifying sound, a crimson palm shadow burst forth.

Three men went flying, bodies charred.

-Hwaruck…!

A kick followed seamlessly.

His long, thick leg traced a sweeping arc.

-Thwack!

A red afterimage lingered where his foot passed, and the warrior caught within dropped his flail as he tumbled.

Just then, an arrow aimed at Ju-seong.

Ju-seong gently extended his palm, cupping the underside of the arrowhead flying toward him.

Then, with a dancer’s graceful motion, he twisted its trajectory… instantly deflecting it into another warrior.

“Hurgh… aaahhh!”

The redirected arrow punched through the man’s thigh, pinning both legs together.

It was the instant the Red Lotus Palm’s principle of ‘grafting a flower onto another tree’ grew ever more refined.

The Three Yang Fist was originally Ju-seong’s master… the Divine Physician… compiling the martial arts he had witnessed throughout the world.

There were moves that mimicked animals, or borrowed the motions of weapons.

Some were inspired by cotton drifting through the air, and some even by falling flower petals.

Among them, the Red Lotus Palm was modeled after Wudang Sect techniques.

The principle of subduing hardness with softness… returning or deflecting an opponent’s force.

Seeing this, Song-un nodded as if intrigued before charging into the fray.

‘Was that approval just now?’

Ju-seong felt a surge of pride at having his grafting technique recognized by a Wudang Taoist, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

-Shwik! Shuk!

Two arrows curved toward him at once.

This time Ju-seong dashed toward the arrow coming from his left.

The deflected arrow collided with the other, neutralizing it mid-air.

He then shattered the ribs of a man trying to strike his back of the head with a spinning back kick.

Ju-seong applied his light-body technique as he began scaling the cliff.

Ju-seong recalled his fight on the rigging of the ship on the Yangtze.

He recalled the principles of the White Phoenix Nine Heavens Movement Technique.

The meaning: a white phoenix traversing nine celestial bodies.

Only a few years ago, Ju-seong had felt like a sparrow hopping around in search of nine grains.

‘Now, I’m at least a hawk flying over nine mountains.’

-Tak! Tadadak!

On the cliff face, points where Ju-seong should step seemed to appear like dots.

Ju-seong calmly stepped from point to point.

‘If I watch the incoming arrows while placing my feet properly, his arrows won’t reach me.’

Ju-seong encouraged himself.

The sound of arrows grazing past his ears was exceedingly sharp.

‘But if a grown man, born naked into the world, does not believe in himself… who will he believe?’

Trusting his own steps and the training he had accumulated, even a sheer cliff was but a single bound.

Reaching the top of the cliff, Ju-seong glared at Forget-Sorrow Arrow, who had already fled to the far side of the valley.

“I told you. You’re not the hunter here.”

* * *

Zhuge Xian stood facing the Yunmeng Arena Master, iron fan drawn.

“It’s a great honor to face the renowned Little Divine Mathematician.”

“It’s a great disgrace to face a nameless nobody from the streets of Wuhan.”

“Haha…”

Zhuge Xian had not just delivered a taunt… he spoke as if stating plain fact, fanning himself nonchalantly.

Iron fan.

A fan with ribs of steel.

Naturally, it was not meant to ward off summer heat.

-Bawuung…!

With a bizarre sound, a wind laden with energy swept across Zhuge Xian’s front.

The Arena Master parried the wind with a soft sword in one hand and a palm technique with the other.

Then he advanced with a footwork step and swung his soft sword.

White afterimages blossomed wildly.

-Kakakakak-kang!

Like dozens of vipers lunging all at once. Zhuge Xian deflected every thrust with his dazzling iron fan.

Another gust followed.

-Hwaaaaang!

This time a whirlwind… a massive tornado.

One spiral split into two, then four, spreading outward.

The Arena Master brushed his sleeve at the unimpressive force and frowned.

“Are you playing… ”

But Zhuge Xian’s real aim was elsewhere.

“Gyaaahk!”

“Urgh, damn! Suddenly, what the… !”

Warriors collapsed all around, clutching arms, legs, or abdomens.

The Arena Master spun around and glared at Zhuge Xian.

“Sparring with one as unskilled as you was tedious.”

Several ribs of Zhuge Xian’s iron fan were now missing.

He had sent the sharp steel ribs flying on the whirlwind he’d created.

The Arena Master sneered.

“The young master of the Zhuge Family is skilled in petty tricks.”

“Hmm, it’s not something I trained hard to master… just a pastime I picked up. A trifling skill, yet it seems to be too much for you.”

The Arena Master’s lips curled into a strange smile, and he lowered his stance dramatically.

A posture ready to spring at any moment.

Zhuge Xian asked while elegantly fanning himself with the chipped fan.

“What is that stance? You look like a wild beast.”

“Correct. I was born a stray dog at the bottom. It was my mistake to fight like a human… you thought I was easy. That’s on me.”

“Try to at least make me draw my sword.”

At Zhuge Xian’s words, the Arena Master let out a peculiar laugh and answered.

“Tonight, the Refined Young Master has graced this humble merchant with his presence.”

The Arena Master threw aside his soft sword and drew two short daggers; his eyes began to flush bloodshot.

“Let the clash of blades be music and human blood replace the wine and delicacies! Tonight’s wager is the Young Master’s life… no takebacks, and no escape from this tiger’s back!”

The daggers in each hand now shimmered with an ominous, blood-red glow.

Zhuge Xian sensed the unsettling aura and immediately drew his sword.

“How undignified.”

He clicked his tongue and assumed a starting stance. A neat sword energy rose like a heat haze from his blade.

“Hahaha! Since you’ve drawn your sword, you’ve already lost one point!”

With a theatrical laugh, the Arena Master charged.

-Kakang! Kkigik!

Two daggers and one sword began to dance in a chaotic tangle, like tiles scattered across a gambling table.