Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 109 - A Letter from an Old Poet
Chapter 109 – A Letter from an Old Poet
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Inside the silver chest were a single letter, three volumes of texts, and a round object wrapped in paper.
“Be careful… it might crumble.”
The paper was so aged that one had to handle it with just thumb and forefinger.
“This seems to be an elixir…”
Ju-seong gently peeled back the wrapping, and immediately, a foul stench wafted out.
“Ugh…”
“Ugh…! What is that smell!”
Zhuge Xian covered his nose with his sleeve, and Song-un immediately clasped his nose and sat back.
Ju-seong smirked as he rolled the pill in his palm.
“The ingredients have all rotted and degraded. Originally, it might have been a remarkable elixir. Pill-making is inherently difficult. Without supreme mastery, one cannot produce pills that don’t decay.”
Ju-seong’s head was throbbing from the rising stench, but as someone who studied poisons and medicines, he had to examine it.
‘It might be useful to Master.’
“Let me study this properly later.”
“Can’t we just throw it away? The smell is awful…”
“Heavens! How can a jianghu man show such disrespect to a revered senior! I absolutely must research this later, so please hold your nose, Taoist!”
After delivering a stern rebuke to the complaining Song-un, Ju-seong turned his attention to the letter.
“First, let’s open this and read it.”
It was a curious spectacle: three men from different schools were amicably unpacking an ancient master’s legacy.
Zhuge Xian owed Ju-seong two debts, so he couldn’t readily show greed. Song-un was someone who already had so much that he had nothing to covet.
Ju-seong, for his part, was greedy… but at least he knew how to share if sharing was possible.
Carefully unsealing the letter’s binding, they found a message penned in bold, sweeping strokes addressed to someone.
“The brushwork exudes both a swordsman’s ferocity and a poet’s elegance.”
Zhuge Xian stroked his chin and nodded.
Though inexperienced in calligraphy, Ju-seong pretended to appreciate it, nodding along.
“Truly magnificent.”
The more candid Song-un interjected impatiently.
“Enough… let’s just read it. Let’s see… ‘To Yaolo.’ A letter to Soreung Yaolo… Master Du Fu.”
Li Bai was eleven years Du Fu’s senior, yet they instantly became friends, captivated by each other’s writing.
‘If I were even one year older, I’d want to be treated as ‘brother.”
Ju-seong reflected on how broad the heart of this ancient poet must have been.
The contents of the letter were as follows:
「To Yaolo,
It has been a long time since I last visited Jingzhou… the fields are still golden and the fish are fat.
When I was young, I spent years chasing the trail of immortals with the wandering swordsmen.
Jingzhou was a pleasant place to live, so I remained here ten years as the son-in-law of a respectable family. Yet it seems I was born under a restless star.」
“Hmm, the flow of the writing is relaxed and rhythmic. In martial terms, the footwork itself is different. This is certainly Master Li Bai’s hand.”
While Zhuge Xian gave his impression, Ju-seong nodded solemnly as if he understood too.
“Indeed. Let us read on.”
「You have always shunned wandering swordsmen and kept your distance from jianghu all your life. You refused even to hear talk of immortals and ghosts and strange things.
Being the upright scholar devoted to Confucian teachings that you are, I understand.
That being the case, no matter how much I urged you to learn swordsmanship from me, you would not listen.
The sword arts I learned from the Taoist path possess the power of exorcism… I told you it could drive off the ghosts that plague your life.
Yet you stubbornly pretended the supernatural beings you’d seen since childhood simply did not exist.」
“Wandering swordsmen?”
When Ju-seong tilted his head, Zhuge Xian explained.
“It combines yusi… meaning vagabond… with ‘swordsmen.’ These days it’s rarely used because it sounds derogatory toward martial artists.”
“Hmm… Yet it seems an apt term for jianghu folk.”
People incapable of any productive work, lost in their own sense of justice and causing nothing but trouble… weren’t most jianghu people like that?
Rulers could find no greater eyesore.
“By the way, Master Du Fu saw ghosts from childhood?”
“Often such people become deeply immersed in Taoism or Buddhism… or they reject all strange things and plunge into the teachings of Confucius. It seems Master Du Fu was the latter.”
Ju-seong read on.
「Last night, I read the celestial signs, and your star was trembling helplessly.
I blew the dust off my long-unused divination box and cast the sticks… confirming that my master’s ghost has attached itself to you.
He was one who had half-stepped into the realm of the immortals, so this is no ordinary ghost. That being is after your Void Spirit Constitution.」
“Void Spirit Constitution? What is that?”
At Ju-seong’s question, Zhuge Xian pressed his brow and tilted his head.
“It’s… hmm… one of the constitutions one can have when learning martial arts. I’m not sure either. It’s rarely mentioned in documents.”
Then Song-un spoke in a quiet voice.
“Void Spirit Constitution. A constitution where the upper dantian is open and in communion with the energy of heaven and earth. Energy sensitivity is extremely refined, making the accumulation of internal energy and martial training exceptionally easy… but one sees things one shouldn’t.”
Ju-seong nodded.
“So Master Du Fu had such a constitution… That’s why he saw ghosts.”
Zhuge Xian glanced at Ju-seong, who was engrossed in the letter again, and let out a small sigh.
“Hm? Why the sudden sigh?”
“Oh, nothing. Please continue reading.”
“Understood.”
「Thus I sent you the map of Yunmeng Marsh, the jade inkstone, and the Spirit-Eating Ring.
When you recited the incantation at Yunmeng Marsh, the sorcery I hid in the inkstone activated and drew you into the illusion dream.
The Spirit-Eating Ring is a ring that traps stray ghosts. That ring should have contained all the wandering spirits that circled around you, bringing misfortune.
The sword intent I left in the illusion dream should have slain the ghosts inside the ring.」
“Sword intent…?”
Before Ju-seong could voice his puzzlement, Zhuge Xian answered.
“It sounds like the legendary realm of heart-sword.”
“Truly an impressive senior in many ways.”
「I have also planted a strand of sword energy within the illusion dream. That sword energy contains the exorcising power to repel baleful energy. Thus, it should have skewered and slain my master’s ghost that had invaded your body.」
“Repelling baleful energy…”
Ju-seong finally felt the pieces click together in his mind.
“In my view… the Ten Thousand Ears Gang used us.”
Zhuge Xian began, gnawing on his thumbnail.
“What makes you say so?”
“They would have tried too. Whatever Li Bai’s legacy is… They likely gathered the three clues… inkstone, wooden slip, and ring… fastest. But the illusion dream Master Li Bai arranged was meant only for Du Fu.”
“So they couldn’t enter the dream at all, or went in and came out as cripples.”
“The latter seems more likely. Anyway… that’s why they targeted Taoist Song-un, who has the same constitution as Du Fu of old. If all three clues went to Wudang, suspicions would be raised, so they deliberately fed some to the Zhuge Family.”
Come to think of it, all the clues leading to Master Li Bai’s legacy had flowed to Wudang and Zhuge through black-market auctions.
Black-market merchants were closely linked to the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.
“Hmm… So none of this was coincidence.”
The reason they had felt no dissonance until now was that the black market was a well-known source for all sorts of martial manuals and artifacts.
Nine parts out of ten of suspicious items came through them.
“No wonder they’re called the Fourth Great Merchant Guild.”
Among the merchant groups across the Central Plains, the three greatest were called the Three Great Merchant Guilds.
Groups that had been trading for centuries… some for over a millennium.
The Jin merchants of Shanxi, the Hui merchants trading along the Hui River, and the Chao merchants of Guangdong engaged in overseas trade.
Adding to these, the black-market merchants who dealt in dangerous trades in the martial world were considered the fourth.
Such was the scale of the underworld merchants’ operations.
In any case, the Ten Thousand Ears Gang had fed clues to Zhuge and Wudang through the black market.
The wooden slip… the final clue… was probably meant to be delivered last.
Or perhaps Ju-seong killing those assassins and seizing the wooden slip had itself been part of the Gang’s scheme.
With the Huguang Province General Branch Chief lying dead, though, there was no one left to ask.
Ju-seong read the rest of the letter.
「If you are reading this letter, I trust your troubles have been resolved.
Then please grant this old friend a favor.
By age twenty-five, I had washed my hands in a golden basin. Having thus left jianghu behind and laid down the sword, decades have passed.
Confucius said that at sixty one knows the Mandate of Heaven, and at seventy one acts according to one’s will without transgressing morality.
I am now past sixty, approaching seventy, yet I do not know my Mandate, and I waver endlessly, swayed by all manner of regrets.
Draw the sword to sever water, and still it flows; lift the cup to wash away sorrow, and still sorrow blooms again.
I once dreamed of becoming an immortal… yet the one I believed an immortal turned out to be a demon. I could not bear jianghu and turned away without a backward glance.
But in old age, I too wish to leave a legacy.
I read the feng shui… the cove enclosed by cliffs is inauspicious land.
Had it been used as burial ground, it would have plagued descendants with misfortune for generations. I use it instead as a burial place for my sword. At the end of a sinful life, at least I do one good deed.
So, dear friend, hear my request.
I leave three volumes of secret manuals. One records Western swordsmanship, one records Taoist swordsmanship, and one records the immortal arts I learned.
Please pass them to worthy inheritors.
The moon is bright. My thoughts of you flow boldly like the Wen River.」
When Ju-seong finished reading aloud…
“Hmm…”
The group sank into a reverent silence, humming thoughtfully.
They had been captivated by the refined fragrance wafting from the old poet’s letter.
Even Ju-seong, the least learned of them, forgot to speak for a moment, lost in sentiment.
Of course, the first to shake off the mood was also Ju-seong.
“Well, fine writing. Very good. Now let’s divide the spoils. Master Li Bai asked Master Du Fu to find suitable heirs, but… since Master Du Fu never came, we can consider the step skipped… it’s come straight to us.”
“…Very well.”
The ever-rational Zhuge Xian was the first to sit down beside Ju-seong.
“Our Zhuge Family needs the Western swordsmanship most. A sword unbound by form is what the Zhuge need.”
Song-un replied.
“I have no attachment to the Western sword. But I’m torn between the Taoist sword and the immortal arts.”
Ju-seong shrugged.
“I don’t really care… Immortal arts do interest me, but Wudang is the proper home for those. The Taoist sword… Well, it’s still martial arts… there should be a use for it.”
Ju-seong glanced over at Chun-mong, then spoke as if he’d just remembered.
“Young Master Zhuge. You said you owed me a debt, didn’t you?”
Catching Ju-seong’s expectant gaze, Zhuge Xian hesitated before nodding.
“I did.”
“Let’s settle it now.”
“Hold on… Young Hero Ju-seong, honestly, allowing you a share of this fortune is already generous. Think about it… you received gold for handing over the map, then eavesdropped on the incantation and followed us into the dream, and now you’re getting a share of the fortune.”
“Hm.”
“I said nothing, but strictly speaking, that’s how it is. If you took gold, you shouldn’t take the fortune too.”
“Is that so? Chun-mong, fetch the gold chest.”
“Yes, Brother.”
Seeing Ju-seong about to return the gold immediately, Zhuge Xian broke into a cold sweat and waved his hands awkwardly.
“Come now. If I take back the gold at this point, what does that make me?”
Ju-seong realized Zhuge Xian’s sense of indebtedness was far greater than expected.
‘As I thought, it’s about that guard…’
Ju-seong watched Zhuge Xian with a knowing gaze, then stepped closer and whispered something.
Zhuge Xian squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them… seeming to weigh something as he gnawed his thumbnail… before finally answering.
“…Very well. Let’s do that.”
“Good for me. A truly fair deal. This is what you call fair trade.”
Ju-seong smiled slyly and raised a cupped-fist salute to Zhuge Xian.
It was the moment when the unscrupulous dealer of the Zhuge Family… who had made unfair trades with Wudang… finally paid the price.