Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 127 - Sealed Lips

Chapter 127 – Sealed Lips

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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 morning of the Round of 16 dawned.

From this point on, being a match of higher-ranked participants, a considerable number of people had gathered in Anqing.

Thanks to that, the spectator seats surrounding the Blue Stage were twice as crowded as usual.

The arena itself, designed to accommodate such a crowd, was an impressive piece of architecture.

One spectator asked the person seated next to him, “Excuse me, friend. Do you know who’s in the first match?”

“Mad Dragon’s match.”

“Ah, that Mad Dragon? His reputation has spread all the way to Zhejiang Province where I live. They say his matches are absolutely splendid.”

“Splendid… He’s a damned fellow you just can’t take your eyes off of.”

“Who’s Mad Dragon fighting against?”

“The Peng family’s eldest son, Peng Hyeok.”

“What’s he like?”

“In the north, he’s known by the fancy alias ‘Unyielding Tyrant Blade’… but it smells like an alias the Peng family manufactured and spread themselves.”

The Unyielding Tyrant’s Blade.

Usually such aliases were given after a martial artist’s life journey became known to jianghu folk.

It was hardly fitting for a young talent who’d been in jianghu for less than five years.

“Anyway, the fact that the Peng family cares enough to craft an alias for him already proves he’s a great expert in the making.”

“So the Mad Dragon of Sichuan fights the Blade Dragon of Hebei! How exciting.”

When the two participants approached the Blue Stage, the two men exchanged startled glances.

It wasn’t just them… the entire spectator section buzzed with confusion.

“Mad Dragon, he…”

“One arm…”

One of Ju-seong’s trademarks was his green robe.

One of its sleeves hung empty.

* * *

Ju-seong looked around, gauging the reaction, then grinned and tossed off his robe.

The spectators all sighed in relief.

“Aigo, that bastard…!”

“Thought he’d lost an arm… nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Isn’t it still a big problem, though…?”

They’d feared his left arm had been completely severed… at least it was in a splint.

Of course, a participant entering a match with one arm out of commission was no ordinary issue, so the crowd’s unease hadn’t entirely subsided.

Ju-seong stood straight and drew a deep breath.

“…There’s a musk scent.”

Ju-seong murmured lowly.

The Peng family brute across from him reeked of musk.

And the smell of perfumed oil.

Ju-seong muttered softly.

“That woman’s scent is still on you. What a crazy couple you two make.”

The Peng family fellow’s brows furrowed as if he understood what Ju-seong meant, glaring at him.

Ju-seong already knew who that woman was.

[What the… elder brother, why is there a spiral on your shoulder?!]

[I went for a walk and some crazy woman hit my shoulder as she passed.]

[How pathetic can you be, getting hit in the street! Damn it… I’ll have the boys look into it, so just tell me her description.]

The moment Red Beggar saw Ju-seong’s shoulder in a bizarre state, he’d gone crazy and sent his beggars to gather information.

Hwangbo Yeong, second daughter of an elder of the Hwangbo family.

‘And the one known to be her lover and fiancé is this Peng Hyeok bastard.’

The Peng family and Hwangbo family were located in adjacent provinces, so intermarriages occurred every few generations.

Surprisingly, Hwangbo Yeong hadn’t participated in this Assembly.

Despite her formidable hidden force skills, it seemed she’d only trained in that specialty.

Hidden force was inherently a shadowy and sinister technique… not something a prestigious family would want to flaunt.

So she was essentially an assassin raised by the Hwangbo family.

Ju-seong had already half-suspected the culprits the moment he saw Peng Hyeok as his next opponent from the bracket.

‘The scent of that woman is still on him even though a famous house’s eldest son should bathe almost daily… Does that mean they’ve been getting intimate every night out of anxiety about being caught?’

When a man has plenty of vigor but lacks a real warrior’s composure, he tends to seek a woman’s embrace whenever anxiety strikes.

While Ju-seong was thinking and drawing conclusions, the commotion settled.

Looking around, the Martial Alliance Leader himself had risen from his seat to calm the crowd.

Lowering his raised hand, he gazed straight at Ju-seong and asked.

“Will you fight?”

The Martial Alliance Leader, who had barely uttered a word since the Assembly began.

His voice rumbled low like a bear lurking in a cave.

Ju-seong felt an involuntary tickle in the backs of his knees.

‘You’re asking if I’ll fight?’

The corner of Ju-seong’s lips curled crookedly. He swiveled his head to survey the spectator stands.

“Hup.”

A deep inhale.

And a powerful exhale of spirit.

“I will fight!”

Ju-seong’s voice, infused with internal energy, rang loud and clear through the arena.

Immediately, the crowd’s cheers pounded against the Blue Stage.

“Waaaaaah… !”

“Mad Dragon! Mad Dragon! Mad Dragon!”

Yelu Cho, the seated Martial Alliance Leader, rubbed his temple and muttered.

“I will fight? Did that guy just talk down to me?”

“Probably he was addressing the crowd, Martial Alliance Leader. Please don’t be angry.”

“So he didn’t answer me?”

“…He’s a rootless fellow. Pay it no mind.”

“It’s not like I’m some fussy old man. I don’t mind.”

Yelu Cho propped his chin on his hand with a face that clearly minded. His expression said, ‘Let’s see if you fight as well as you shout.’

* * *

Ju-seong’s left arm was in a splint and slung from his neck.

A measure to prevent further shoulder damage from the arm dangling.

Peng Hyeok smiled triumphantly inside.

‘It worked perfectly.’

This had been tacitly approved by his father and the elder of the Hwangbo family.

They couldn’t just stand by and watch that vulgar clown take the spotlight, could they?

Peng Hyeok drew the thick-backed saber from his waist.

A weapon suited to the Peng family’s saber art that pursued strength.

Ju-seong stood wordlessly with his right arm hanging loose, watching Peng Hyeok. Peng Hyeok took a careful stance and opened his mouth.

“I’ll yield the first… ”

In the instant his words disrupted his breathing, Ju-seong leaped straight in, folding the space between them.

And in that split second, a needle-sharp killing intent. Peng Hyeok felt his vision narrow.

His breath caught. His head wouldn’t turn properly because of the killing intent Ju-seong had unleashed.

In such a moment, most people defended first. Unless one had the instincts of a true beast.

Peng Hyeok hurriedly braced the blade’s flat with his palm to block Ju-seong’s right palm.

Wrong choice.

-Teoeoeoong!

Peng Hyeok was powerful enough to block Ju-seong’s force-laden palm technique… but…

-Kwadeuk!

Ju-seong’s right foot was stomping on Peng Hyeok’s left foot.

‘Damn! He read me!’

A disaster.

Participants could watch and analyze their opponents’ prior matches in advance.

While Ju-seong had always shown unpredictable and eccentric fights…

Only unpredictability and overflowing madness was all anyone could glean from his bouts.

On top of that, at his matches, even the spectators went berserk, screaming wildly. Getting lost in that atmosphere made meticulous analysis difficult.

But Ju-seong had already analyzed Peng Hyeok’s fights in detail. On top of that, his Round of 32 opponent had been Peng Jin-gang of the same family.

He knew how Peng Hyeok braced his lower body to withstand a strong finishing move.

-Kkudeudeuk.

His foot was firmly pinned. But in a deadlock, Peng Hyeok, who had both arms free, had the advantage.

Just as Peng Hyeok tried to thrust out a left palm to shake Ju-seong off…

Ju-seong’s splinted left-hand fingers twitched.

‘What the… !’

Peng Hyeok’s eyes widened. According to Hwangbo Yeong, she’d thoroughly wrecked his shoulder.

The vicious energy of hidden force should have seeped into his bones, rendering his left arm unable to move even a finger…

-Ting…

A tiny silver needle flicked from his left hand and embedded itself right in Peng Hyeok’s outstretched palm heart.

“Kuk!”

While Peng Hyeok grimaced and pulled back his arm from the strike to his palm…

A prickling sensation dug into the back of his left thigh.

‘Damn it, when did he… !’

Everything was happening too fast. Needles had embedded in both his palm and the back of his thigh.

His palm was pierced, distorting the internal energy flow in his left arm.

At that moment, the pressure on his foot from Ju-seong’s foot eased.

‘Now!’

Peng Hyeok’s face brightened as he deployed his footwork to retreat.

Or rather, he tried to.

His pierced left palm. And the muscle in the back of his thigh that had involuntarily spasmed and contracted from the sudden pain.

His entire left side wouldn’t obey.

His footwork was only half-executed; only his right side retreated.

That meant it was now difficult to defend his left side with the saber in his right hand…

Exactly what Ju-seong had wanted.

-Ppeogeok!

Ju-seong’s instep rose like lightning and slammed into Peng Hyeok’s left shoulder.

“Kraak!”

Peng Hyeok kicked off desperately with his right foot, throwing himself backward.

A split second passed and the paralysis in his thigh and palm faded. But his shoulder had already taken a critical blow.

Peng Hyeok murmured in dismay.

“How, how did this…?”

Composure shattered. Pride crumbled.

The illusion that he designed and controlled everything slipped through his fingers.

Could a man be hollowed out so completely in so short a time? It was because what he’d built wasn’t solid from the start.

In Ju-seong’s eyes, Peng Hyeok was no longer a martial artist.

“Waaaaaaah…!”

All that remained was a child throwing a tantrum, unleashing finishing moves.

Five Tiger Gate-Breaking Saber.

The Peng family’s personal martial art, achieved by mastering their five saber techniques.

Five tigers pouncing, severing the essence of their opponent’s martial arts.

Ju-seong narrowed his eyes. Was this man truly a vessel fit to contain the Peng family’s Five Tiger Gate-Breaking Saber?

Five slashes flew in with their own bizarre trajectories. An extremely threatening attack, even unleashed from an unstable mind… but…

-Tututututung!

Three palms and two punches blocked them all.

To sever the essence of an opponent’s martial art, one first had to analyze the opponent.

You didn’t need to know the countermove to each technique. Just the general trend and flow of the opponent’s martial art.

Once analyzed, the Five Tiger Gate-Breaking Saber would open the way.

But Peng Hyeok couldn’t do that.

Ju-seong was already a mystifying opponent… and now he was using his left hand against expectations.

In Peng Hyeok’s mind, Ju-seong was already a single mass of pure chaos.

The five tigers unleashed by the Peng family’s saber became less impressive than five kittens, their momentum utterly drained.

Soon, Ju-seong’s kick technique struck again.

This time, not a sweeping blow but a toe-thrust aimed at the left shoulder.

-Kkudeudeuk!

“Kkeu…!”

Peng Hyeok swung his saber, but his equilibrium was broken from the shoulder pain.

Ju-seong brushed aside the blow easily and delivered another short, snapping punch.

Once again targeting the left shoulder.

-Peok!

A horizontally swung blade was beaten down, followed by an explosive palm technique.

-Kwang!

Again the left shoulder.

Until now, Ju-seong had mostly pushed opponents out of bounds for ring-out victories.

But now he was pouring everything in, landing quick strikes at the same spot to prevent Peng Hyeok’s body from being pushed back.

-Ppeogeok!

Another kick to finish…

Peng Hyeok’s left arm now hung limp, nearly half a span longer than his right, dangling uselessly.

Ju-seong looked straight into Peng Hyeok’s eyes and asked.

“Want to keep going?”

Eyes drained of fighting spirit, yet full of resentment.

“…”

Ju-seong growled low. Audible only to Peng Hyeok standing right before him.

“Want your eyeballs gouged out?”

Peng Hyeok’s gaze dropped.

At that moment, the referee stepped in and shouted.

“Stop! Stop! Judging that the match cannot continue, I end the bout! The winner is Ju-seong!”

Scattered, awkward cheers erupted sporadically.

Until now, Ju-seong had never been this heavy-handed in a match.

Ju-seong wordlessly removed his splint, then tore off the sleeve of his martial uniform.

-Jjijik!

At the sight of his exposed left shoulder, the crowd murmured all at once.

A grotesque spiral, and his left shoulder on the verge of necrosis, turning purplish.

And Ju-seong’s relentlessly targeting of Peng Hyeok’s left shoulder.

Without a word, everyone could infer the circumstances.

But Ju-seong’s lips remained sealed.

He made no accusation, no exposure.

Without a single word, he merely cast a look that said, ‘Judge for yourselves,’ then descended from the Blue Stage.

Of course, those who saw his silence did not keep their mouths shut.

Anqing’s streets becoming a total madhouse was the natural outcome.