Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 112 - Hey, It's Your Brother
Chapter 112 – Hey, It’s Your Brother
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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 beggars made a ruckus as they marched down the main road.
“Ugh, get away from me!”
“What a stench.”
“Here, have something to eat.”
Passing martial artists pinched their noses or tossed iron coins toward them.
The beggar troop marched in a line along one side of the main road.
They seemed to be heading for their lodging.
Even beggars needed somewhere to shelter from sudden rain.
And in the middle of them, one particularly filthy beggar walked along with a vacant grin.
“He’s got one more knot now.”
Ju-seong murmured as he eyed Red Beggar’s waist.
The fellow had a habit of tying a knot at his waist whenever he killed an utterly villainous person.
When Ju-seong had first heard this, he’d raised a question.
With so many demonic villains in the world, if he tied a knot for each one, wouldn’t he be wrapped head to toe eventually?
So Red Beggar explained that he only tied a new knot when he killed someone at least as strong as the last, or stronger.
They’d parted only about a year ago, and he already had a new knot.
Chun-mong scratched his head and said.
“My goodness… It really is Red Beggar, Brother. That stain on his neck from the last time I saw him is still there. Has water simply not touched his body this whole time? At this point, isn’t he more cat than man?”
“That bastard never washes.”
Ju-seong smirked and shouted, infusing his voice with internal energy.
“Hey! You drunkard beggar bastard! Traveling around with your little lackeys now, life must be cushy!”
Shouting with internal energy on the main road was quite the nuisance.
Hwangbo Ok grimaced and poked Ju-seong’s side.
“What are you doing, startling people? And why poke that leader over there on purpose? Not all Beggars’ Sect members are the same. Some regional Beggars’ Sect divisions are practically semi-official martial artists.”
“Wait and see.”
The moment Red Beggar heard Ju-seong’s voice, he spun around and immediately lit up with joy.
He shouted back in his natural voice, without a drop of internal energy.
“Elder Brother!! How long has it been, damn it!!”
His booming voice rang down the main road.
Hwangbo Ok stared blankly, flicking a finger against his ear.
“Something’s wrong with my ears.”
Ju-seong approached Red Beggar, about to give him a big hug, but the stench wafting off his little brother changed his mind… he settled for a cupped-fist salute instead.
“Ah, elder brother! A cupped-fist salute to your little brother!”
“Please stay back, brother. Let’s maintain some formality.”
“Anyway, you haven’t changed… Chun-mong, long time no see. Was the journey pleasant?”
“Yes. Ju-seong elder brother is so entertaining.”
“Hmm… Right. Elder Brother, you received my letter, didn’t you? The Ascending Dragon Assembly will be held soon.”
Ju-seong nodded.
“I know. A martial tournament for the orthodox faction’s rising stars?”
“Well, strictly speaking, there’s no rule that only orthodox rising stars can participate. But there’s no reason for demonic faction folks to send their precious seeds into orthodox territory… So you’re basically right.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“I’m planning to stay at the shantytown by the riverbank. The local Beggars’ Sect division chief and I have exchanged letters.”
“Oh… You learned to read and now you’re exchanging letters. This punk, shouldn’t you be taking the civil service exam?”
Red Beggar chuckled, then tapped his waist.
“This new knot. Aren’t you going to ask how I got it? Or how I got the alias ‘Beggar King’?”
Ju-seong narrowed his brow slightly.
“Hey, that alias… you should keep it just among beggars. You should earn a new alias at this tournament.”
“Ah, right. Even when I tell them not to, those damned beggars…”
The beggars had stopped at a distance, waiting for their leader.
They looked like a ragtag mob, but on closer inspection, they were solidly muscled and sturdy fellows.
“Are those your men?”
“Ah, yes. My disciples… if you could call them that. I’m not yet a mature master who can teach others.”
“That… Drunken Dragon Eighteen Palms, was it?”
“Ayu, that’s a secret art, so no. The tier below… Drunken Immortal Palm, Drunken Immortal Step, Beggar Staff Technique, things like that.”
Red Beggar’s close followers numbered about twenty, and following their leader’s example, every one of them had a championship-level stench.
Ju-seong could see pride and confidence in Red Beggar as he led his men.
When leading a pack, Red Beggar truly looked powerful.
But it was different from the arrogance of riffraff who relied on numbers.
Typically, Beggars’ Sect members were like a pack of rats scurrying to hide from the light.
But with Red Beggar as leader, the pack of rats looked as threatening as a pack of fierce wolves.
Red Beggar at their head resembled a young, ambitious wolf.
‘He smells like a wolf too… that musky scent.’
Ju-seong slapped Red Beggar on the back and said.
“I’ll pay, so let’s rent an inn and stay together. All your men too. And tonight, you little punk… I’m definitely making you bathe.”
“A beggar has his pride, how could I…”
“If you don’t want to be turned away at the Martial Alliance entrance, at least do something about the smell.”
* * *
After entering the inn and forcibly scrubbing Red Beggar clean, then summoning the waiter to swap out his rags for new clothes, Ju-seong nodded in satisfaction.
“Truly a fine young jianghu man now.”
“Aaah…”
Red Beggar looked dejected.
Ju-seong smacked his little brother on the head and asked.
“What’s the exact date? For the Ascending Dragon Assembly team battle.”
“Hmm, before the team battle there’s a qualification test. It’s basically a street strongman show, only slightly more refined…”
“What, breaking bricks and such?”
Red Beggar nodded.
“Something like that. The qualification test is being held at the Martial Alliance right now. You have to pass to enter the team battle. The team battle is in seven days.”
Rising stars not affiliated with the Seven Sects and Three Families had to advance through the team battle.
Because there were simply too many people.
To prevent alliances forming between same-sect members or those from adjacent regions, the Alliance arranged the brackets itself.
But even so, a team battle couldn’t purely evaluate individual skill.
“The Martial Alliance really does revolve around the Seven Sects and Three Families.”
Red Beggar lowered his lip corners in frustration and nodded.
“That’s right. They don’t give a damn about small and mid-sized sects, and lone wanderers or one-man sects are even more disregarded.”
He seemed to have built up grievances, because he vented one after another.
“More than that, whenever local martial halls or sects bully us, if we report it to the Alliance branch, instead of mediation they just turn a blind eye.”
Ju-seong listened quietly, then spoke.
“Does that piss you off? Then work hard and get inside.”
If a talentless, fortune-less wanderer scraping by had vented like Red Beggar, Ju-seong would have offered at least token sympathy.
But the Red Beggar Ju-seong knew was not such an unlucky man.
Rather, he was like a serpent grasping overflowing talent and ability in both hands like magical pearls.
His little brother suited challenging the structure head-on and standing at the peak, not complaining about it.
Red Beggar grinned and replied.
“Then it’d be ‘Seven Sects, One Gang, and Three Families.’ Doesn’t roll off the tongue at all.”
Ju-seong smirked.
“Hey, why leave me out? I’m going to found a sect too.”
“Elder Brother, orthodox types are so stuffy… if you’re not Buddhist or Taoist, they won’t even let you in.”
“Then I’ll found a family. Plant a proper clan right in Sichuan…”
“You don’t even have a woman you’re seeing, so what family?”
“This little punk, pushing it now.”
Ju-seong immediately grabbed Red Beggar’s hair and yanked. Thanks to the washing, the grease was gone, so it didn’t slip from his grip.
“Ow! Ow! My hair! I’m sorry. Ah, a man of elder brother’s caliber could win over any woman if he set his mind to it. Let’s find someone at the Ascending Dragon Assembly.”
“Shut it. I’m a man with pure feelings. If you keep mocking my sincerity, I’ll become a real thug.”
“Ha, really… Which tune am I supposed to dance to? But this is so like you, elder brother.”
With Red Beggar’s griping at the joyful reunion, the night deepened.
* * *
The next day, Ju-seong and Red Beggar headed straight for the Martial Alliance.
The Martial Alliance was located on a large island sitting smack in the middle of the Yangtze.
The bridge leading to the Alliance, capped with blue jade tiles, stretched grandly across the Yangtze to the island.
The bridge arched five times, resembling a series of skipping stones, and atop it ran a broad road nearly five zhang wide.
On the plaque above the bridge entrance, in bold strokes, were written:
Tianxia Wulinmeng… Martial Alliance of All Under Heaven.
In other words, this bridge served as the main gate to the Martial Alliance.
Red Beggar gaped in admiration.
“Wow, look at that presence. I might actually piss myself. Is this… the Martial Alliance?”
Ju-seong promptly smacked Red Beggar upside the head.
“‘Is this… the Martial Alliance?’ Stop acting like a country bumpkin. Hurry up and go in.”
“You’re the bumpkin… I’m from Henan…”
With Red Beggar’s grumbling as background music, Ju-seong and Red Beggar crossed the bridge.
Hwangbo Ok had said his farewells and gone his own way.
He now had to join his family members and participate in the Ascending Dragon Assembly.
Meanwhile, Chun-mong hadn’t come along either… he’d disappeared somewhere. According to him, there was someone he absolutely had to visit and pay respects to.
Anyway, since he’d said he would participate in the Assembly, he just needed to take the test within the week.
“Right, let’s go.”
Crossing the bridge, the Martial Alliance was truly another world.
The notion that the Alliance was run solely by the Seven Sects and Three Families was a misconception.
Well, they did steer the major affairs, but the body of the Alliance was made up of countless warriors from small and mid-sized sects.
“Every unremarkable man from every corner is gathered here.”
Ju-seong muttered with a wry laugh.
Though it claimed to be orthodox, the Martial Alliance was the head of all jianghu, so it at least tolerated gray-zone sects.
Unless they ran blatantly illegal operations, extorted excessive protection fees from merchants and commoners, or used morally objectionable methods to build their martial power…
If not, most were members of the Martial Alliance.
Warriors wearing martial robes embroidered with the character ‘Meng’ (盟) bellowed as they sorted the martial artists.
“Gather! Those from Northern Zhili, Henan, and Shandong, proceed to Training Ground A! Those from Shaanxi, Gansu, and Shanxi, proceed to Training Ground B! Sichuan, Guizhou…”
“Looks like I go to Training Ground C. See you later, brother.”
“Just don’t pick a fight and start brawling.”
“Do I look like you?”
Ju-seong and Red Beggar split up and headed in opposite directions.
Two Alliance warriors, looking dead tired, guided the martial artists from Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.
Ju-seong scanned them and muttered to himself.
‘Overall, this bunch is somewhat…’
Sichuan? Aside from Qingcheng and Emei, Sichuan’s martial world was fundamentally weak. Those two giant sects and their affiliate families had divided up most of Sichuan’s interests.
Guizhou? That was demonic territory dominated by the Crimson Spider Sect. Anyone from there was either paying lip service to the Crimson Spiders or had some arrangement with them.
In other words, if they were truly upright orthodox sects, they would’ve been wiped out or left Guizhou long ago… staying meant they were somewhat suspect.
True to that, the Guizhou contingent all had sinister or violent vibes.
Yunnan? Needless to say. That was a martial wasteland. It had been Dali Kingdom territory, and when Dali fell, its experts all moved to the Southern Barbarian lands.
‘And it’s not as if the backbone sects of the Central Plains relocated there… the location isn’t great.’
Several decades ago, ‘someone’ had caused a massive bloodbath in Yunnan.
As a result, some fairly strong sects vanished into history along with their martial arts.
‘Who the hell did that? What a violent person… Though those folks deserved it.’
Among the Yunnan martial artists, some recognized Ju-seong’s face and whispered among themselves.
Ju-seong casually nodded in acknowledgment.
“Hey, it’s your brother.”