Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 107 - The Sword of the Middle Way
Chapter 107 – The Sword of the Middle Way
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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The distance between Ju-seong and Forget-Sorrow Arrow was a mere five zhang.
At this close range, if a steel bow launched a steel arrow… how devastating would its power be?
Ju-seong lowered his body and extended both hands slightly forward.
His lead hand faced out with palm showing, stretched straight ahead; his rear hand covered his face with the back of the hand.
“Shoot, you bastard.”
“…”
“If you can’t kill me with that one shot, you’re the one who dies.”
Fights between martial artists rarely ended in a single exchange. It only happened when one side was overwhelmingly stronger, or when both agreed to stake everything on a single clash.
But in the wild, what happened?
A hunter pounced in an instant, clamping jaws on the prey’s throat… a single scream shook the forest, and then it was over.
This was just like that.
A single exchange.
Who would become the hunter, and who the prey?
Ju-seong couldn’t move rashly.
The moment he stepped into a movement pattern, the arrow would fly. At this range, even movement technique couldn’t easily evade an arrow.
Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s right hand, drawing the bowstring.
He gripped it with his index, middle finger, and thumb. The tips of these three fingers blazed red from internal energy.
He was injecting so much internal energy that his fingertips were beginning to burn.
The smell of searing flesh rose, and the sound of skin sizzling came through.
“Crazy bastard…”
Ju-seong muttered, twisting his lips.
“Hoo…”
Forget-Sorrow Arrow only exhaled, not replying. He released thirty percent of his breath, held seventy in his lungs.
-Taaang…
The keen arrowhead sliced through the air.
Ju-seong’s palms traced crimson trajectories, dancing.
Extreme focus.
In the instant the arrow closed in, Ju-seong instinctively knew… with his current internal energy, the Red Lotus Palm could not stop that arrow.
Originally, principles like ‘four taels uprooting a thousand catties’ or ‘softness subduing hardness’ only revealed their power when backed by sufficient internal energy.
Those who didn’t know might think that since a small force could overcome a large one, the amount of internal energy didn’t matter.
The Divine Physician had dismissed this outright.
[Nonsense from the ignorant.]
‘To have a thousand catties, only then can you control a thousand catties with just four taels’… that was the true meaning.
[Think of it like lifting a boulder with a fulcrum and lever.]
Place the fulcrum close to the boulder and move the lever… even a heavy boulder can be pried up.
The closer the fulcrum is to the boulder, the easier it becomes to move the stone.
[But consider this: the less force you exert, the farther you must move.]
To budge the boulder once, the person holding the lever’s end must raise and lower their arm significantly.
In the end, the principle of ‘four taels uprooting a thousand catties’ was first about wisely choosing the fulcrum, and…
[Second, it is about subduing the opponent through a continuous, unbroken application of energy… which naturally requires sufficient internal energy.]
Ju-seong had asked then.
[Then what do I do when facing an attack too strong for even the Red Lotus Palm?]
[Rather, pour everything you have and match strength against strength. As if setting a backfire… The Flame Crow Six Stage Art is, at its core, a qi-based art focused on explosive power and destruction. Sometimes you need not be bound by the Three Yang Fist.]
In this moment, Ju-seong forgot the Three Yang Fist.
The Three Yang Fist helped him regulate the Flame Crow energy at will for efficient combat.
But sometimes, one had to empty the mind and release all control over oneself.
The arrow closed to within one zhang.
Ju-seong’s pupils blazed alight… and then…
-Kwaaaang… !
Crimson internal energy erupted madly, and an explosion of sound burst forth.
The noise was so tremendous that even those fighting in the valley below paused and looked up.
-Tadak, tadak…
Sparks flew everywhere; innocent shrubs and grasses shriveled and blanched.
The steel arrow lay on the ground, its tip melted and mangled, cooling its heated body in the chill night air.
“…Have you become the Red Boy incarnate?”
The Red Boy was a demon from Journey to the West who wielded the Samadhi True Fire and nearly killed Sun Wukong.
“You like novels? Even scum like you reads?”
Ju-seong grumbled in disbelief as he threw off his silk robe.
The green robe was already charred and riddled with holes.
Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s fingertips had turned black from burns. He had poured excessive internal energy into the arrow and suffered for it.
More than that, his eye-enhancing technique had pushed his eyeballs to the verge of melting.
Ju-seong quietly regarded Forget-Sorrow Arrow… arms dangling, weeping blood-tears.
“Last time, you said you liked seeing fear and pain, so you hunted people. You couldn’t fully savor the suffering of mere beasts.”
There were people in the world who felt nothing of others’ pain.
Often, they became cruel murderers or wielded power over hundreds of thousands of soldiers like chess pieces.
In that sense, this man was truly peculiar.
He could feel others’ pain… but instead of recoiling, he relished it.
When someone else’s agony and fear were transmitted to him, he savored and swirled them… his greatest joy.
Forget-Sorrow Arrow looked at Ju-seong with hollow eyes. By now, he likely couldn’t even see straight.
“…Why was I born?”
Forget-Sorrow Arrow asked.
At his words, Ju-seong’s expression contorted instantly, and he charged.
“Don’t spew that crap. Just die quietly.”
“Damn… !”
Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s last ploy to draw even a moment of carelessness was foiled.
He had not expected Ju-seong to charge without even responding.
But Ju-seong, despite his heroic behavior thus far, was unexpectedly ruthless.
-Puk.
Ju-seong’s index and middle fingers pierced straight through Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s brow. His pupils dilated endlessly as his vision washed white.
At the same time, the memories that had so agonizingly clawed at his mind were swept away all at once.
Only after his brow was pierced and his brain turned to mush did he finally attain true forgetfulness of sorrow.
* * *
Ju-seong withdrew his fingers from Forget-Sorrow Arrow’s brow, then closed the man’s ghastly melted eyes, not wanting to see them.
Then he pressed his palm to the forehead and pushed, laying the body on its back.
-Thud.
The body, freed of its sin-laden soul, settled into the grass as simple, lifeless flesh.
“Tsk… Useless yapping.”
Having killed again, Ju-seong braced for the usual outburst of killing intent.
“Urgh… Huh? That’s odd.”
Ju-seong frowned, pressing his eyelids, puzzled.
A splitting headache assailed him, yet strangely, the urge to rush out and kill someone was absent.
Ju-seong quickly closed his eyes and sank into his subconscious. He should hurry to help the fight below, but he now had some skill in meditation.
He could adjust to briefly observe his inner self.
In Ju-seong’s mental landscape, his upper dantian was visualized as a churning mass of dark storm clouds.
And something lodged in the center of that black cloud caught his attention.
“…A sword?”
A puzzled voice slipped from Ju-seong’s closed-eyed lips.
* * *
Zhuge Xian’s opponent was anything but easy.
From what he could see, the soft sword and palm technique the man had first employed seemed recently taught by someone.
Before that, he must have spent his entire life wielding that beast-like martial art.
Moreover, the daggers in each hand traced trajectories so irregular and asymmetrical they seemed wielded by two different people.
This was thanks to the Split-Mind Art taught to high-ranking cadres of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang. Zhuge Xian quickly discerned this.
‘But the Split-Mind Art is just supplementary… the real threat is that beast-like movement.’
Clearly not systematically learned martial arts. Even his internal energy was turbid and rough.
In short, it felt as though he’d started with a low-grade cultivation method and then piled higher-grade methods on top as he gained power and status.
That was dangerous, of course. Different cultivation methods sought different natures… pile them haphazardly and the risk of qi deviation soared.
But this man had surely learned them knowing the risk.
A truly desperate life.
‘The knife-work of pure survival of the fittest.’
A life where choice was never an option.
And now, having gained power and status as leader of the beasts, he was driving far more people into the same situation he’d once known.
After all, the Yunmeng Arena retainers dragged here were all bound to him by debt.
-Shwikak!
The right dagger surged from below like a predator’s lower jaw on a diagonal upswing.
At the same time, the left dagger… held in a reverse grip… slashed wide across the front.
The right aimed to stab the chin, tracing a point; the left drew a line with its long sweep.
This unpredictability was pushing Zhuge Xian back.
Zhuge Xian stepped precisely along the cardinal directions, drawing the exact measure of the Zhuge family’s refined internal energy and loading it into his sword.
His movements were efficient; his defense solid.
But man’s history was merely thousands of years, while the wild’s spanned eons.
This flawless human sword was slowly being overwhelmed by a beast’s claws.
-Kkagagak!
In a deadlock, the Arena Master deliberately twisted his dagger to produce a spine-chilling screech.
The instant Zhuge Xian’s composure cracked and his brow narrowed…
-Shwik!
The dagger forgotten in the rear hand shot out like a viper.
Of course, Zhuge Xian had kept it firmly in mind, and he raised his left hand to block… only to realize…
“Damn!”
The dagger wasn’t being thrust; it was being thrown.
The dagger hurled at point-blank range hurtled toward Zhuge Xian’s face.
Zhuge Xian made a cool-headed decision. He’d tilt his head as far as possible to minimize damage, then immediately press the attack with his sword.
Having sacrificed one dagger, the man’s combat strength would be reduced.
A gruesome scar on one side of his face was unavoidable.
A jianghu man had no cause to cling to a handsome face.
Just then…
-Kkang!
Something silver flashed in and deflected the dagger.
No… not deflected.
“…A needle?”
A long acupuncture needle was lodged in the dagger’s blade, tumbling along with it.
To embed a needle into a dagger required the throwing skill of a grandmaster.
From far above, Ju-seong’s voice called out.
“Apologies for butting into your fight, Young Master Zhuge. Your hand looked stiff, so I tried to give you some acupuncture and… well.”
“Thank you.”
Without even looking back, Zhuge Xian immediately pressed the Arena Master.
-Kang! Kkaang! Kagagak…!
The fight thereafter was far smoother.
Despite being the General Branch Chief of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang for all of Huguang Province, branch chiefs in orthodox-faction territory were never top-tier figures.
The Arena Master kept glancing at Ju-seong, who was launching hidden weapons from high above.
Whenever moonlight glinting off the brawling warriors’ weapons stung his eyes, he flinched and faltered.
The Arena Master was the type who unleashed instinct-driven moves founded on beastly ferocity.
The more distractions he had, the more human calculation crept into his strikes.
His dagger-work grew steadily more predictable, and he fell into formulaic responses.
Zhuge Xian’s sword swept in a 之-shaped pattern; the Arena Master could only block up, step back, then block low.
Earlier, he would have ignored defense entirely and cut in during the second stroke of the 之, breaking the technique’s rhythm.
Then he’d have lunged and swiped like a beast, leaving no opening.
But now, the mad gleam had faded from his eyes, and he had lost the flow of battle… swept along by it instead.
And Zhuge Xian advanced like a Go player, stepping into the cardinal directions one by one and expanding his domain.
-Kaang!
The final move was a clean diagonal slash.
The dagger was knocked away, and Zhuge Xian gave no quarter… he immediately executed the next strike.
Straight and true, a single flash piercing the centerline.
Not fast, not strong, not soft, not heavy… but…
…in his sword was a chillingly refined Middle Way.
“Ka-hah…”
The Arena Master coughed a mist of blood, heart pierced dead-center.
Zhuge Xian surveyed the scene, read the mood, and bellowed.
“Slaves of the Yunmeng Arena, hear me! The Arena Master is dead! If you don’t want your clans exterminated, kneel where you stand… !”
The authority of the great clan that ruled Wuhan resonated in his voice.
The Arena retainers, hearing his words, began lowering their weapons one by one, watching each other.
The heat of battle was cooling all at once.