Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 116 - A Beggar Who Knows How to Have Fun
Chapter 116 – A Beggar Who Knows How to Have Fun
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Ju-seong murmured quietly.
“That Moist Slashing Practice guy also swung a blade about that long, didn’t he?”
He recalled the Night Guest of the Assassination Curtain he’d met at Li Bai’s Sword Mound.
From the moment he heard that bizarre alias meaning ‘practicing a smooth slash,’ the fellow had been utterly strange.
“…That blade is about one chi longer. But the handle is only half as long.”
“What are you muttering about?”
Red Beggar, who hadn’t been present at the time, tilted his head and asked.
“Nothing. Look… that blade is meant to be wielded with one hand, despite its length. Can you see?”
“…You’re right.”
“Look at the Martial Alliance Leader’s arm length. It reaches down to his knees. Now imagine him swinging that insane weapon with those long arms.”
“…”
Red Beggar clamped his mouth shut. Wasn’t it a horrifying image just to contemplate?
In a large-scale battle, how many heads would fly with a single swing?
Ten? Twenty?
If blade energy were to billow from that weapon like roiling waves, the road to the netherworld would be packed with souls that very day.
“Anyway… right, I’ve marveled enough. You’re in the first bracket, I see. I’ll cheer you on from here.”
At Ju-seong’s words, Red Beggar grinned cockily.
“Save that cheering for the main competition, brother. I’m not the Red Beggar of old… that’s what I’m saying. Did I ever tell you how I got this fourth knot…?”
“Don’t care. Get lost.”
Ju-seong shoved Red Beggar’s back, pushing him into a corner.
So he could sit quietly and calm his nerves.
The waiting room, which had been buzzing after the Martial Alliance Leader’s appearance, was gradually settling down.
Through the window frame, the murmur of spectators and the warm sunlight streamed in together.
Ju-seong gazed at the blue dueling stage covered in blue jade stone. Wasn’t it the stage every martial artist dreamed of?
-Deudeut, deu-deudeut.
When he rubbed his thumb and index finger together with the Heavenly Silkworm gauntlets on, a strange friction sound arose.
It calmed his heart.
-Seuk.
Someone came and stood beside him.
“It’s been a while, Young Hero Ju. Have you been sleeping well?”
Ju-seong had already sensed Cho Yu-gyeong approaching and replied without even turning his head.
“Thanks to the assassins you sent, I slept well surrounded by the scent of blood.”
Though in truth his brothers had handled the assassins.
“…Assassins?”
When Cho Yu-gyeong asked with a puzzled look, Ju-seong raised one eyebrow and glanced sideways at him, muttering.
“This son of a…”
Cho Yu-gyeong seemed to have a temper of his own; he narrowed his eyes and retorted.
“Did you just curse at me?”
Ju-seong couldn’t hold back and spat like a dialect outburst.
“What a funny bastard. Why pretend you don’t know? Are you some five-year-old brat pretending he didn’t eat the candy? Even villains have standards. A real top-tier villain commits evil and then brazenly owns it. You third-rate villain punk.”
Ju-seong’s verbal barrage crashed down like a landslide over the neatly spread composure of Cho Yu-gyeong’s mind.
For an instant, Cho Yu-gyeong’s patience snapped… then he felt the two severed ends of his patience scrambling to reach each other and reconnect.
He fought desperately to manage his expression as he spoke.
“…It would be good to learn some manners. I’ve been hearing talk around Anqing’s streets about some ‘Mad Dragon from Sichuan.'”
“That was your word first, you dog. Look at yourself.”
“I’m curious why you think I sent assassins.”
“Every one of them spoke with a thick Guangdong accent, you bastard. Besides you and your lackeys in the Jiangnan Coalition or whatever-the-hell Coalition, who else is there?”
Ju-seong himself had spoken with a southern accent just a few years ago. Of course, he’d since become a fine Sichuan man.
At Ju-seong’s words, Cho Yu-gyeong’s face stiffened slightly as though he was thinking about something, then he waved his hand to end the conversation.
“…I’ll take my leave. If your skill matches your mouth, we’ll meet in the main competition eventually. Let’s see then.”
Cho Yu-gyeong turned on his heel and said coldly.
“When you lose to me then, let’s see if you can still make excuses about assassins.”
The waiting room was vast, using the entire space beneath the spectator stands.
Ju-seong glared at Cho Yu-gyeong’s receding back and muttered.
“…Does he have memory problems?”
It was common for those who trained in the bizarre martial arts of demonic sects to lose their mental soundness.
Perhaps he’d gone off his head at a young age and couldn’t remember sending his own assassins.
* * *
Cho Yu-gyeong’s face was eerily rigid as he turned and walked back toward where the Jiangnan Coalition warriors waited.
A red tongue-tip briefly licked his lips and then disappeared.
‘Those damned old men attached a tail to me.’
Uncontrollable killing intent roiled in Cho Yu-gyeong’s pupils.
* * *
Ju-seong watched as the first team battle began.
The waiting room door opened, and fifteen warriors encircled the dueling stage.
-Dung, dung, dung…
When the drum beat three times, the warriors all moved together, stepping onto the stairs.
The dueling stage was circular, with fifteen staircases arranged around it.
Each warrior chose one staircase and climbed onto the stage.
-Dung, dung-dung…
Three more drum beats.
The warriors chose their positions and assumed their starting stances or battle-ready postures.
-Deeeeng… !
A deep gong sounded, enough to make one’s legs tingle… and the battle began.
Ju-seong followed Red Beggar with his eyes.
The fellow didn’t even have the wine he loved so much.
Ju-seong stroked his chin and murmured worriedly.
“Is he not using that technique?”
Iron Staff Becomes Dragon.
Meaning: the iron staff transforms into a dragon… a secret art Red Beggar used.
A technique that allowed Red Beggar, who was only first-rate, to drink wine and borrow its alcoholic energy to display martial prowess on the level of a peak expert.
Yet he’d entered this match without wine?
Was it because the Alliance might consider it cheating or sorcery?
Or did he not want to reveal that technique before the main competition?
Before long, Ju-seong understood the reason.
-Peong!
A thunderous sound shook the dueling stage, and nine milky-white serpentine energies erupted violently.
Internal energy projected from the long bamboo staff Red Beggar was swinging.
Projecting internal energy to strike an opponent through the air was the hallmark of a peak-level expert.
-Teoteteong!
Three warriors tried to block Red Beggar’s energy and were blown straight back.
Out-of-bounds defeat.
One who fell from the sacred Blue Stage could not climb back up.
That was their last chance.
The Ascending Dragon Assembly was held once every twelve years. Participants had to be between fifteen and twenty years of age.
In other words, most could only participate once in their lifetime.
Those people would never again set foot on the round Blue Stage of the Martial Alliance.
Ju-seong quietly murmured toward the eliminated fighters.
“Don’t be discouraged. The world is far larger than a fifteen-zhang stage.”
Come to think of it, the diameter of the round Blue Stage was a full fifteen zhang.
‘Lightness skill and movement technique will be extremely important.’
As Ju-seong was doing various calculations, a new contender emerged.
“Oho.”
A man who resembled a weasel.
With nimble movements, he avoided direct confrontation with Red Beggar as much as possible while hunting other participants.
-Hwirik, peok!
His fists were fierce yet treacherous, slipping into blind spots.
Three or four participants clutched their sides and staggered.
‘He injects power into the ribs and contracts them to the extreme. Since this is a sparring match, he didn’t cause internal injuries, but in a real fight that’d be terrifying.’
Red Beggar seemed annoyed by the man’s tactics; he charged at him openly.
The other warriors scrambled to get out of their way.
Ju-seong lightly rubbed the back of his neck and lamented.
“You idiot… falling for that bait.”
The weasel guy deliberately skulked around like a fly, attacking warriors.
Seeing Red Beggar look like an unsophisticated brute, he’d deliberately provoked him with irritating behavior.
Red Beggar advanced with a drunkenly staggering gait… but at great speed.
And then a left palm thrust out.
But the weasel-like man seemed to read his trajectory, and delivered a punch precisely where Red Beggar’s palm strike would land.
At this rate, Red Beggar’s palm… which he’d intended as a light probing palm force… would take that sinister internal-energy-injection technique dead center.
The palm heart was a secondary vital point for any martial artist who had cultivated internal energy.
If internal energy burrowed through his palm heart and disrupted his qi channels, Red Beggar was finished here.
Possible outcomes unfolded in Ju-seong’s mind.
The best case: Red Beggar quickly cut off his circulation, sacrificing his left arm. That way he could at least prevent his qi channels from being twisted. Better to fight with one arm.
But what Ju-seong had failed to fathom was the depth of the martial art Red Beggar had learned.
The moment the weasel’s fist touched Red Beggar’s palm heart…
“Oh.”
Ju-seong let out a short exclamation.
Red Beggar’s outstretched palm impossibly sank inward and scattered as an afterimage.
In the blind spot… Red Beggar’s right hand, filled with milky palm energy, surged up from below.
“Drunken Dragon in the Wilds!”
As always, Red Beggar’s chronic habit of shouting technique names erupted.
“That punk stays quiet the whole fight and only yells when he does something cool.”
Ju-seong muttered in disbelief.
Drunken Dragon in the Wilds.
Meaning: a drunken dragon in the fields… apparently containing a sublime principle that freely swapped feint and true strike.
It must have been named for its resemblance to a dragon playing hide-and-seek among the tall grasses.
“Or maybe the dragon’s just drunk and bewildered in the middle of nowhere.”
The character ‘eo’ (於) in Drunken Dragon in the Wilds could also mean a sigh.
He imagined a dragon that had drunk too much and was standing lost in the middle of a plain going, “Ohh…”
While Ju-seong was lost in useless thoughts, the match entered a new phase.
The weasel took a heavy blow, but at the last moment blocked Red Beggar’s attack with his forearm.
But his dominant right arm was completely wrecked.
Now the remaining participants openly targeted the weasel.
“That’s what he gets for showing off… Tsk.”
Ju-seong clicked his tongue in pity.
The weasel would now be gang-attacked and eliminated, and the rest would compete over who’d be the first to charge Red Beggar and get destroyed.
But the situation flowed in a direction Ju-seong hadn’t expected.
“Hah, this is fun. Now I see why people flock to watch. Or is it because Red Beggar knows how to have fun, that beggar punk?”
His Majesty the Beggar King Red Beggar was apparently displeased by the sight of many ganging up on one wounded man.
“You… lot… !”
Red Beggar seemed to think many attacking one was shameful, but backstabbing was not.
He unhesitatingly went for the backs of the gang-attackers.
-Tututoong… !
Multiple strands of energy shot out, targeting the attackers’ heels, lower backs, and napes of necks.
All were vital areas, so they had no choice but to desperately defend.
In that brief respite, the weasel leaped up. A spinning kick like a whirlwind. One warrior took a sole to the face and flew off the stage… out-of-bounds defeat.
Then Red Beggar’s merciless Beggar Staff Technique began to punish these lawless mutts.
The flexible bamboo staff’s afterimages split into dozens. To ordinary eyes, only four or five afterimages would be visible.
-Tutoong! Peok! Tututoong!
The warriors either got pummeled into unconsciousness, rolled around wailing, or were sent flying off the stage.
Just as Red Beggar and the weasel were about to rough up a few more, the gong rang loudly and the referee’s voice echoed.
“Five survivors! Match over!”
Red Beggar released the collar of the warrior he’d been gripping, then pointed straight at the weasel.
“Get healed up properly. I have to smash you again in the main competition.”
The weasel grinned and waved.
“Thanks, big guy.”
Then thunderous cheers rained down upon the victors’ shoulders.
No… more accurately, cheers aimed at Red Beggar.
A potential threat in the main competition on the verge of elimination in the team battle.
In a situation where lending a hand would have been generous, instead of just standing by, he helped him?
How could that not be a heroic act?
“Hey, young hero! A true gallant indeed!”
“I’ll say! What’s your name, good sir!”
When spectators in the front rows shouted, Red Beggar answered with a booming voice.
“Red Beggar from Kaifeng, Henan Province! I usually wander with a bunch of brothers at my heels, but when I fight, I prefer to fight fair and alone!”
It was the moment the name of the young wine-loving beggar hero was made known to the world.