Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 122 - That Damn Cricket

Chapter 122 – That Damn Cricket

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Cricket fighting!”

Sighing Branch’s eyes flashed, and a goofy smile spread across his face. Ju-seong realized this seasoned gambler was truly harboring a demon inside him.

This demon was one its host had long since lost control of. How long had this man been like this? Twenty years? Thirty?

There was no way to know how long it had been, but in any case, it seemed he’d survived all this time thanks to that terrifying blade skill.

That’s what happens to people obsessed with gambling… whether they are martial arts masters or commoners, they all end up like that.

“Heh, how do you plan to get a cricket? Our Azure Sky Tower’s Dae-woong is so strong you won’t find his equal in Anqing… no, in all of Southern Zhili.”

The surrounding gamblers snickered in agreement.

“The cricket from Suzhou called Geum-don is said to be pretty tough… But he’s still no match for Dae-woong. That thing’s huge.”

Ju-seong smiled and shook his head.

“Ha, you people really don’t know anything. Does a fight depend only on size? You’re all so naive and ignorant of the world… how do you even survive?”

Coming from anyone else, such words might be overlooked, but calling gamblers ‘naive’ was a grave insult.

One gambler, apparently angered, shouted.

“Hey, brat! This is Azure Sky Tower’s Dae-woong!”

He pointed to a cage where a plump cricket chirped away.

It was so incredibly huge from being well-fed that it was absurd.

Actually, what was more striking than the cricket’s size was the fact that its cage was woven from pure silver.

“…What kind of bug lives in such luxury?”

When Ju-seong muttered in disbelief, Sighing Branch, who had been lounging with arms crossed, let out a chuckle.

“Hehe, seems like the young man knows even less about the world? Do you know how much that bug is worth?”

“How much?”

“Fifty nyang of gold.”

“I mean, damn… That insect might be worth more than me.”

A quick calculation showed it was worth about five hundred nyang of silver. That thing shouldn’t be called a cricket… it should be called a gold-bug.

Sighing Branch grinned and laced his fingers behind his head.

“The last prime minister of the Southern Song was so obsessed with cricket fights that he emptied the national treasury, wasn’t he? Crickets are, how should I put it, historically significant insects. To think an insect pushed a nation to ruin. Didn’t the cricket gnaw at the very foundation of the country?”

“A harmful insect, then.”

“Why harmful? It makes me money.”

“Is that cricket yours, Elder?”

Sighing Branch nodded.

“I raised that baby myself with the finest food. So if you want to beat me at cricket fighting, you’ll need to bring an extraordinary one.”

Ju-seong cast a sidelong glance at the pompous cricket sprawled arrogantly in its silver cage like a king of insects.

‘Is that a pig or a cricket…?’

“So, want to change the game? I’m confident in anything. You can even cheat.”

“Cheating is allowed?”

“But if you’re caught, I’ll cut off your wrist.”

Ju-seong scratched the back of his head and answered.

“Nah, forget it. Let’s stick with cricket fighting.”

Sighing Branch rubbed his hands together and laughed.

“The young man has spirit. That’s how a man should be!”

He cackled for a while, then leaned forward as if suddenly remembering something.

“But if you’re betting your entire fortune and a wrist, what should I wager? My wrist and my fortune too? Do you even know how much my fortune is?”

Ju-seong shrugged calmly and replied.

“I don’t need your wealth, Elder. There’s just one thing I’d like to receive.”

“As long as it’s not my back hole, speak up. I’ll consider it.”

Sighing Branch’s crude manner somehow gave Ju-seong a nostalgic feeling, as if he’d returned to the streets of his childhood.

“…Celestial Eye.”

At Ju-seong’s single phrase, Sighing Branch’s expression changed completely. His guffawing face froze in place. His fixed pupils watched Ju-seong like a lizard’s.

A knife slid out of his sleeve soundlessly and pointed straight at Ju-seong.

“What are you?”

Sighing Branch’s smile deepened. The air around them grew heavy.

A flash…

A golden reflection glinting out and stabbing at his eyes. Ju-seong could see Sighing Branch’s gold tooth, slightly revealed by his smile.

Ghost Eye’s Golden Smile Means Blood.

Everyone in Anqing’s underworld, every thug and gambler, knew this phrase.

When Ghost Eye flashes a golden smile, blood will surely flow.

Like a man who had wandered all of jianghu, Sighing Branch sported a gold tooth in the custom of the fallen Dali Kingdom.

When his killing intent deepened, so did his smile… and when his smile widened enough to show his gold tooth, blood was guaranteed.

Ju-seong felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up for the first time in a long while as he answered.

“Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m Ju-seong. I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Master Weiji’s table.”

“…”

Sighing Branch’s smile vanished at once, and the dagger slipped back into his sleeve.

He swept his gaze around and spoke.

“If you don’t want your eyeballs plucked out and crawling on the floor like dogs, turn your heads and mind your own business.”

At his single word, the gamblers swiftly turned away and focused on their games.

Ju-seong was certain they wouldn’t pay any attention to the conversation here even if their ears were still attached.

“…So Weiji Baek, that old friend, has taken a new disciple.”

Sighing Branch tapped the table and spoke.

“Then let’s drop the wrist wager. Let’s bet your entire fortune against my divine ability. Winner takes all.”

Ju-seong grinned.

“Winner takes all. I like it.”

Sighing Branch jerked his chin and said.

“I wonder if you can find a cricket even close to Dae-woong’s size. I’ll give you one month.”

Ju-seong cast a sidelong glance at the pig-like cricket and replied.

“I’ll bring one more robust and powerful than him.”

-Chirr, chirrrrp…

Dae-woong chirped in his cage as if displeased.

* * *

Having escaped the gambling hall, Chun-mong wiped the sweat from his brow as if utterly drained. Red Beggar also looked slightly frazzled.

“What’s wrong with you two? Did you get hit or something?”

When Ju-seong asked, Chun-mong glanced at him in disbelief and replied.

“There’s absolutely no one in Anqing who’d talk to that man the way you did, elder brother.”

Red Beggar chimed in with agreement.

“He was scary, that old man. Wait… is he even old? He looked too young.”

Ju-seong stroked his chin and said.

“He’s a friend of my master, so he must be old… Does gambling obsession slow down aging?”

“If you always win, you’d age slower. Right? Those who always lose would go gray overnight.”

“You’ve got a point. Now… it’s time to deal with Chun-mong’s issue.”

“Huh? Me? I don’t have any issues.”

At Chun-mong’s evasion, Red Beggar took a lightning-quick step forward and smacked the back of his head.

“Shut up, you fake beggar. We let you worm your way in, and now it turns out you grew up in this fancy pleasure house? You well-off bastard.”

“Normally you wouldn’t call someone who grew up in a pleasure house ‘well-off’…”

“It’s different when it’s this Azure Sky Tower. You probably ate and slept better than some ordinary household’s kids.”

“The person who raised you is the owner here, right? Azure Sky Tower Master. What’s your relationship?”

“A distant relative.”

“A relative. And what about your parents?”

Ju-seong dug into Chun-mong’s personal affairs without the slightest hesitation.

In his view, Chun-mong was mentally bound to the Tower Master.

This was none other than a sense of debt.

Ju-seong had intended not to bring this up unless Chun-mong opened his mouth first, but now was a good time.

Given the atmosphere, if he couldn’t pry out his past now, it would take considerable time before another opportunity arose.

Chun-mong slowly spoke.

“It’s obvious, but my parents have passed away. Originally, the Namgung Manor was quite a famous martial family in Southern Zhili. Originally, we were a military family.”

Ju-seong nodded.

“If you’re a Namgung, you’re of ancient imperial blood. I learned they’ve been active in the military on occasion since then.”

“That’s right. We entered jianghu in my great-great-grandfather’s generation.”

“That generation would roughly coincide with the founding of this country?”

“Yes.”

“You narrowly escaped the Purges.”

Taizu had conducted truly incomprehensible levels of purges in the early days of the founding.

The cruelty was unspeakable.

The White Lotus Blood Affair of a few decades ago? The casualty numbers might be similar, but the brutality of the process was incomparable.

So surviving that Great Purge wasn’t just a narrow escape… it was surviving ninety-nine deaths for one life.

Chun-mong hesitated before speaking.

“…Actually, at the time, there were people in the military who conspired to commit treason because they felt threatened by the repeated purges. My great-great-grandfather informed on them to Taizu, and thanks to that, he managed to save his neck and transform from a military force into a jianghu power.”

In other words, he sold out his colleagues to find a way to survive. It could be criticized, but you could also say the times forced him to do so.

After all, extermination of nine clans was the baseline… it was truly an era when people died like flies.

“…Then your family’s downfall might be revenge from survivors of those purges?”

Chun-mong let out a small sigh.

“Haah… That’s what Uncle Cheon-u believes.”

“So the Tower Master’s name is Cheon-u?”

Chun-mong nodded.

“Yes. Uncle Namgung Cheon-u. He’s a collateral relative of our family. He’s also the one who found me, a survivor of the massacre, and raised me.”

“He thinks those who survived the purges had destroyed the Namgung family, but you don’t quite agree, do you?”

“Logically speaking… the military officials who conspired to treason back then had their nine clans exterminated, and more importantly, it’s such ancient history, isn’t it? Even if there were people who vowed revenge, by now they’d have crumbled into mere bones.”

“Hmm.”

Ju-seong scratched the back of his head.

Hadn’t they heard that there might still be purge survivors alive in the South Sea Wanderers’ Society Association on Hainan Island?

It might be strange for a human to live over a hundred and fifty years.

‘But if they’re outstanding martial artists, who knows.’

Assuming a peak-level martial artist invested more than eight hours a day solely in cultivation, it wasn’t an entirely impossible lifespan.

Of course, living like that would be no different from being dead.

“Uncle believes the avengers from back then are still searching for Namgung survivors with fire in their eyes. The terror of those days is deeply ingrained in him… That’s why he insists I never display Namgung martial arts in public.”

“That’s why he forbade you from participating in the Ascending Dragon Assembly?”

Chun-mong nodded.

“And when he was young, driven by his determination to rebuild the Namgung family… well, um…”

When Chun-mong hesitated, Red Beggar urged impatiently.

“What is it? Ha, you punk. In the underpass where I grew up, anyone who dragged their words would get their butt beaten right away. Our single-eyed old man hated that the most. It’s taegu stick technique time.”

Ju-seong kicked Red Beggar’s behind and scolded him.

“I’m not interested in the beautiful customs of your underpass, you beggar bastard. The kid’s trying to talk, why are you pressuring him? Let’s listen. I was enjoying this.”

Chun-mong watched his hyungs bickering childishly for a moment, then slowly continued.

“…With the goal of restoring the Namgung family, he established this pleasure house and raised the most beautiful and virtuous women. Those women are now Azure Sky Tower’s famous courtesans.”

“Oh… So that’s the connection.”

Ju-seong recalled a conversation he’d had with Chun-mong before.

‘This brat said he liked women with high martial arts skill. So he could get good offspring… I thought he sounded like an old man, but that thinking was probably instilled by his uncle too.’

Then something clicked.

“The women of Azure Sky Tower must have learned martial arts too?”

“As expected, you guessed it. That’s right. It’s not known to the public, but I’d say fewer than a hundred people in jianghu could break through to the top floor of Azure Sky Tower by force.”

“I’d like to meet him.”

Chun-mong shook his head emphatically.

“As he’s aged, his paranoia has deepened… he almost never comes down from the top floor now. Even his orders are passed down through intermediaries. Just look at how he pushed me into the beggar gang?”

“Hmm…”

Ju-seong pondered.

He wanted to pull his younger brother out into jianghu. The kid’s sword was no ordinary blade. It wasn’t just because it was an illustrious martial art. Chun-mong was born with the potential of a Grand Master.

He deserved to show himself off to the world.

Usually, when such people are suppressed and only age without outlet, they end up causing trouble out of resentment. He might even draw his blade against the uncle who raised him.

Ju-seong smiled slightly and spoke.

“For now, I have to win the cricket fight to make things work out.”

In the end, it all came down to that damn cricket.