Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 123 - What Are You Going to Do About It
Chapter 123 – What Are You Going to Do About It
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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A secluded riverside thick with reeds.
The chirping of insects drifted along with the clouds reflected on the water’s surface.
Red Beggar sighed and switched hands holding the lantern.
“Elder Brother, do you even know your Round of 32 opponent is a Peng family son while you’re doing this nonsense here?”
“Don’t talk to me, bastard.”
“Ah, you go out catching bugs in the middle of the night, of course I’m going to follow! The match is in two weeks and you’re out here catching bugs!”
“That Peng kid didn’t even get an invitation. He’s small fry. I already watched all his matches and analyzed everything.”
Red Beggar was annoyed that Ju-seong had managed to do his homework despite all this and pestered him again.
“What about me? My opponent seems pretty strong too, you know?”
“That friend from Gansu who uses the zhanma saber? Rough estimate, if you use that what’s-it-called… the really powerful palm technique… you’ll easily win thanks to type advantage.”
“It’s not ‘really powerful palm technique,’ it’s Drunken Dragon Eighteen Palms. It’s my precious martial art.”
“Drunk-this or resist-that… Ah, this one’s solid.”
Ju-seong grinned and plucked a plump cricket from the grass.
-Chirrrp! Chirrrrrp!
The creature chirped noisily, vibrating its belly.
“It’s solid by wild standards, but compared to that old man’s Dae-woong, it looks like a total weakling.”
Ju-seong lifted the chirping cricket by one leg and curled his lips upward.
“It’s going to grow.”
“…You know just feeding it more doesn’t make it bigger, right? No matter how much you feed a fully grown cricket…”
“Quiet! This beggar bastard has been saying nothing but discouraging things. I have a plan.”
Back at the inn, Ju-seong trapped the creature in a small wooden box and began tending to it with the utmost care.
Every evening, Ju-seong combed the riverside like a lowlife beggar, catching plenty of earthworms. He crushed the earthworms with black beans, mixed them with water, and made feed.
Watching from the side, Red Beggar gagged and exploded in frustration.
“Aigu, I really can’t stand to watch this!”
Bai Li also observed Ju-seong’s antics from the doorway, but feeling queasy, quickly left.
Better the sight of a person bleeding… crushing earthworms had its own special kind of disgust.
Ju-seong was used to brewing medicine from earthworms and centipedes and such, so he had built up a tolerance. He replied calmly.
“This is the love I’m pouring into my baby. Don’t curse in front of Geo-geun. You’ll jinx him.”
“Its name is Geo-geun? What a lowbrow name…”
“I named it hoping it’ll grow strong muscles. Any problem with that, you beggar bastard?”
“Haah… Whether it’s Geo-geun or Yuk-bong… What’s that white powder? Some kind of medicinal ingredient?”
“Ah… this?”
Ju-seong carefully tapped out white powder from a small ceramic bottle.
“Miracle powder.”
“…”
If one were to compare crickets to martial artists…
Dae-woong was no different from a Shaolin warrior monk. They’d picked a promising one from birth, fed it well, and made it fight countless times to cultivate its ferocity.
Like the Seven Sects and Three Families’ martial artists who only accepted talented children with superior constitution, growing through countless sparring matches.
They ate the best food, and occasionally elders of the sect would bestow spirit pills and the like.
On the other hand, the cricket Ju-seong had found was common as dirt.
Like a wandering jianghu vagabond.
And this powder was akin to a secret manual hidden in a cliff cave, a thousand-year-old ginseng growing in a mountain valley, or lessons from a reclusive master.
In other words, this cricket had just encountered its jianghu fortune.
“If it eats food with this powder, this little one will… Red Beggar, you’re going to be stunned.”
“What is that stuff?”
“Moth powder.”
“…What?”
Back at Lake Dongting, when treating the Zhuge family bodyguard Murong Yeon…
Ju-seong’s moth, White Pig, had suddenly displayed its power.
When the powder on its wings fell onto a wound, the wound healed rapidly.
Those who witnessed it had promised silence. After all, no miraculous healing salve in jianghu could treat external wounds that fast.
Since then, Ju-seong had been collecting powder from White Pig a little at a time and storing it.
‘It’s an unknown substance, so I couldn’t ingest it myself, but this works out well.’
Ju-seong adjusted the dosage extremely conservatively while mixing the powder into the cricket’s feed.
After all, the powder from the Heavenly Silkworm moths he’d seen in Yunnan was originally toxic.
This powder might also cause terrible results if consumed incorrectly.
Fortunately, unlike his worries, Geo-geun grew at an alarming rate. In fact, it was almost excessive.
* * *
Two weeks later.
Ju-seong and Red Beggar’s Round of 32 matches arrived.
Red Beggar put on a good fight against the martial artist from Gansu and won handily.
“Gallant Beggar, another great match today!”
“Let’s go all the way!”
“Even that shabby attire looks like the mark of a true hero!”
Positive reactions from the audience.
Gallant Beggar’s matches were always passionate and fast-paced. That meant plenty to watch.
From the perspective of ordinary spectators…
The more visible internal energy crisscrossed, the more thunder and dust exploded, the more spectacular the match seemed.
But at the same time, Red Beggar never lost his orthodox courtesy.
Because of that, despite his shabby appearance, he was properly treated as a hero by the spectators.
What about Ju-seong’s match, which came next?
“Who’s next?”
“Mad Dragon, probably.”
“Woooo! Let’s go, Mad Dragon!”
“You crazy bastard! I’ve been betting on your opponent the whole time, and this time I really bet everything on you! If you lose this time, I’m seriously gonna kill you!”
“Get up there already! Get up and fight, you madman!”
“Waaaah! Mad Dragon! Mad Dragon! Mad Dragon!”
True to his alias, he was a participant who drew madness in his wake.
“Why are all my supporters insane like this?”
Actually, he knew. What could he do about being the kind of man who drove both men and women crazy?
Truth be told, as the Ascending Dragon Assembly progressed, female supporters had been dropping off while male supporters kept increasing.
‘Well, I didn’t come here to get married.’
Ju-seong picked at his ear and stepped onto the Blue Stage. His relaxed attitude made his opponent, Peng Jin-gang, narrow his eyes.
‘I must not get agitated by that attitude.’
His soft blue robe dropped to the ground with a thud. A martial uniform that tastefully hugged his near-perfect physique. The spectators let out admiring gasps.
Ju-seong stepped onto the Blue Stage with a languid, swaggering manner. An attitude that couldn’t help but stand out… for better or worse… among the young masters of the Seven Sects and Three Families who minded their manners for their reputations.
Was it a provocative tactic? Or showmanship to elicit audience reactions?
Either way, this guy was simply born for it. Born with the gift for attracting attention and making watchers go wild.
Those who hated him would keep coming to matches just to watch him get wrecked.
Those people would go to taverns at night and lecture passionately, veins bulging in their necks, about how utterly worthless and rootless Ju-seong was.
And those who loved Ju-seong would raise their voices in rebuttal and engage in verbal warfare.
‘…And yet it’s not like he’s purely playing the clown.’
The decisive factor that made Ju-seong special was that his martial arts were real, despite all that.
“A pleasure. I’m Ju-seong, some drifter who rolled in from Sichuan.”
At Ju-seong’s greeting, Peng Jin-gang cupped his fist and replied.
“…Third son of the Peng family, Peng Jin-gang.”
The Peng family was a noted house of saber arts. Located in Hebei, it was clearly a family of military origin.
Though it had been a while since they transformed into a jianghu force, they no longer wielded the massive glaives like the generals who once roamed the battlefield.
But the domineering spirit unique to generals’ martial arts was still fully imbued in their saber techniques.
“Huuu…”
Peng Jin-gang exhaled deeply and took his stance, grip steady.
His willow-leaf saber was positioned high to the side, emitting a hazy blade aura.
Ju-seong lowered his stance. He no longer took a specific opening stance. The more real combat experience he accumulated, the less need he felt for an opening stance. He simply assumed a preparatory posture suited to his opponent.
Three Yang Fist was inherently a martial art with shallow roots. Less than a single generation old… that’s how young it was.
The more he trained, the more he felt it wasn’t even a complete art.
‘I’ll complete it myself.’
A sluggish tension built and built in the back of Ju-seong’s thighs and the soles of his feet. His tendons felt so tight they might snap.
‘Until now, I’ve only shown close, thrilling matches that looked like I might lose.’
That was why spectators went wild for Ju-seong.
His matches had a story. He’d push aggressively at first, then barely block his opponent’s finishing move, wobble around, then dramatically turn the tables and snatch an extremely close victory.
Gamblers couldn’t help but sweat bullets and stay on edge watching his matches, no matter who they’d bet on.
Spectators never had a dull moment with the match swinging back and forth.
‘But showing an overwhelming victory once might be good too.’
If he kept winning by the skin of his teeth every time, the deliberateness would become obvious.
This match, he’d win overwhelmingly.
How?
Ju-seong had one more weapon that none of the other participants had.
Hidden weapon techniques.
‘Let me show you the fighting style of a street performer scum.’
The corner of Ju-seong’s lips curled up.
Before the gong’s three rings even finished…
-Taak!
Ju-seong’s form shot forward like a swallow skimming the water. Peng Jin-gang, as if expecting it, swept his saber horizontally and low. A simple attack and a simple response.
Their opening probes.
Ju-seong would clash hard with Peng Jin-gang’s horizontal slash.
Then exchange a few rough blows until the opponent, losing the initiative, pulled out a finishing move…
The audience expected that flow.
Ju-seong’s matches were entertaining, but there was an aspect where the flow was becoming predictable.
But Ju-seong was the kind who shattered expectations.
-Chwuhaaaak!
Maintaining his launching speed, Ju-seong slid on his knees.
His upper body tilted back like an iron bridge technique, nearly horizontal to the ground.
-Hwuwoong!
Peng Jin-gang’s willow-leaf saber, swept low enough, passed right over Ju-seong’s nose, cutting only air.
Ju-seong slid right past Peng Jin-gang.
Simultaneously, he twisted his body and hurled two throwing knives at terrifying speed.
Throwing knives of Crimson Iron that Bai Li had made for him. This was almost their first use.
In truth, throwing needles might have been better, but to make them visible to the audience, these were more effective.
-Kakang!
Peng Jin-gang gasped and deflected both throwing knives.
‘Is this crazy bastard serious?!’
The Ascending Dragon Assembly was a gateway for orthodox young martial artists. Using hidden weapon techniques in such a setting!
He was already from an unknown sect… did he want to be treated as evil path?
Of course, from Ju-seong’s perspective, this was calculated.
His reputation in Anqing, his chivalrous deeds in Yunnan. His friendship with the Emei Sect, the Wudang and Zhuge families who could vouch for him.
Especially Zhuge Xian… though Ju-seong hadn’t personally greeted him yet… was one of the Assembly participants. Despite coming as a participant, he was constantly visiting the Military Affairs Division.
Anyway, more than a few people could vouch for his identity, and the Anqing locals liked him too, so the Martial Alliance couldn’t very well kick him out.
Even if he used ‘wicked arts’ like hidden weapons.
“You… !”
Peng Jin-gang shouted and charged, but Ju-seong simply used the spring in his toes to bounce up with a grin.
Peng Jin-gang noticed where Ju-seong’s gaze was directed and whipped his head around in horror.
-Shwaaak!
A throwing knife he hadn’t even seen thrown was hurtling toward the back of his head.
Ju-seong was impressed.
‘The Crimson Iron throwing knives really are easy to handle, just as I thought.’
Crimson Iron was a rare metal from the southern lands said to be a notch below Cold Iron.
But its property of holding yang energy well, and being relatively light and hard, made it ideal for crafting hidden weapons for Ju-seong.
Just now, he’d thrown another knife almost silently to startle the back of Peng Jin-gang’s head.
While Peng Jin-gang turned to knock away the knife, another blade shot toward his front.
-Kkaang!
Peng Jin-gang gritted his teeth, turned back around, and swung his willow-leaf saber to knock away the incoming knife.
Or rather, he knocked it away but didn’t.
A needle that had followed silently right behind the throwing knife embedded itself in his exposed chest.
Mother-Child Dart.
A technique Ju-seong had honed through countless training sessions and real combat unfolded.
“Urk…!”
There was no poison on the needle. Using poison would make it no longer a sparring match.
But a single needle piercing the flesh of a vital area was enough.
A momentary hesitation.
For a martial artist, an instant was when everything changed.
-Kwaaang!
Ju-seong’s palm technique slammed into Peng Jin-gang’s solar plexus. The sound was dramatic and Peng Jin-gang’s red martial uniform burst apart and scattered… but…
“Krrrgh…”
The actual blow wasn’t that hard. Ju-seong had measured his force to give him just enough to be knocked out of bounds.
“…I won’t complain about the hidden weapons. It was a good fight.”
“Mm. I learned a lot.”
A cupped-fist salute from Peng Jin-gang, who had barely managed to steady himself beneath the Blue Stage. Ju-seong returned the gesture and concluded things amicably.
But the atmosphere in the spectator seats was anything but amicable.
About ninety percent of the audience was on fire with blazing fervor.
“Damn! I believed in you, you madman!”
“I bet five nyang that it’d take less than one quarter-hour… thanks, Mad Dragon! Keep going all the way!”
“Now it’s hidden weapons! Cut off his balls!”
“So what if it’s hidden weapons! Win and that’s all that matters! Next time use gunpowder, you crazy Mad Dragon bastard!”
“Mad Dragon my ass… you sneaky bastard… You’re Crafty Dragon now!”
Meanwhile, one corner of the spectator seats was ice-cold.
The section where the orthodox sects’ elders sat.
The Martial Alliance Leader and his Chief Strategist beside him looked amused, but the elders of the Seven Sects and Three Families wore expressions as if they’d chewed on shit.
‘At least the Wudang and Shaolin elders seem fine.’
They probably didn’t care much. North Shaolin, South Wudang… from the perspective of those at the summit…
Whether some small fry like Ju-seong muddied the lower waters or not, the upper stream flowed on, untroubled.
But the remaining Five Sects and Three Families…
‘Right, the Emei Sect isn’t participating in this Assembly because of internal restructuring.’
Four Sects and Three Families. That is, the elders of Qingcheng, Kunlun, Mount Hua, Zhongnan, the Peng family, the Hwangbo family, and the Zhuge family all looked quite displeased.
Ju-seong smiled faintly and cupped his fist toward them too.
Then he muttered under his breath.
‘I used hidden weapon techniques… what are you going to do about it?’