Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 156 - Give It Up

Chapter 156 – Give It Up

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Chapter 156 – Give It Up

Weiji Baek set out from the courtyard early at dawn. He was going to buy groceries and daily necessities.

Mount Jiulong was particularly thick with fog that day, and the sky was overcast as was typical for Sichuan. Following the winding mountain path down, the familiar road somehow felt like he was walking it for the first time.

“My, my… How eerie.”

Weiji Baek stroked his beard and looked around. The gloomy, damp atmosphere made it feel as if ghosts were floating about the area.

Weiji Baek felt awkward and could only stroke his beard. It was like getting the feeling that someone had snuck into the house when he came back and shouting at an empty house. At that moment… “My, my… Even at that age, the young hero is still the same.”

Who called the aged Weiji Baek “young hero”? He barely managed to recall the person who had addressed him by that title long ago.

“Has the Maoshan Taoist come personally to guide my spirit as my time to die approaches?”

Weiji Baek asked the fog in a more measured tone.

-Jingle, jingle, jingle.

A shabby cart pulled by a donkey appeared, parting the fog. A five-foot-tall old man in a bamboo hat sat hunched atop it.

His wrinkles were too numerous to count, making his skin appear dark, and his body’s outline revealed through his clothes was so withered that it was a wonder he was alive.

Weiji Baek gazed at the old man with near-reverent eyes and said.

“That tenacious life of yours is truly something.”

The Maoshan Taoist grabbed the reins to stop the donkeys, then shook the bronze bell in his hand and spoke quietly.

“My life won’t last much longer either. This is my final journey of exorcism.”

Weiji Baek glanced at the items carelessly loaded in the cart. A wooden sword made from peach wood, various ritual vessels, an ancient turtle shell, and the like. All items for driving away ghosts.

“Have you come to exorcise ghosts?”

When Weiji Baek smiled slightly and spoke, the Maoshan Taoist chuckled and shook his head.

“Your energy is too strong for ghosts to cling to. I’ve come to repay the debt for saving my life decades ago.”

“Didn’t I consider that debt settled when you gave me a considerable amount of gold?”

The Maoshan Taoist smacked his lips and shook his head.

“I’m sorry to say, young hero, but that gold was actually haunted. I gave it to you thinking your strong energy would drive the ghost away. Since I was essentially disposing of a nuisance, I can’t say I repaid my debt.”

Weiji Baek stared at the old man with sullen eyes. There was nothing much to be upset about now… that gold had already been well spent on expensive medicinal ingredients.

The Maoshan Taoist hemmed and hawed before speaking.

“Now that I face you, young hero, I see your face is still straight as bamboo, and the energy of heaven surrounds your descendants auspiciously. For this fortune to end, at least two dynasties must rise and fall.”

Weiji Baek’s gaze grew even colder. He had no descendants, so what nonsense was this?

“For reference, descendants mean those who will maintain your spirit tablet after you pass.”

“Hmm.”

If that rascal Ju-seong established a martial sect, he wouldn’t be the type not to enshrine Weiji Baek’s tablet in the ancestral hall.

The worry was that the brat might inscribe some embarrassing title like “Greatest Divine Physician of All Time” and enshrine it. But he was the type to properly perform memorial rites.

So this meant his disciple and those who followed would prosper for a long time… nothing bad about that.

“If you came to deliver good news, I’ve happily received it, so let’s consider the debt settled.”

The divine physician smiled and spoke, but the Maoshan Taoist’s words weren’t finished.

“Since you, young hero, let me live out my natural lifespan, I too should reveal some heavenly secrets to balance the account. Listen here, young hero. Your descendants will be greatly auspicious, but your own fate is greatly inauspicious. You’d best put your affairs in order.”

Weiji Baek’s expression didn’t change. He nodded calmly and said.

“Safe travels, Taoist.”

“Next time we meet, it’ll be in the underworld. I have no one to give me travel money, so I’ll have to borrow a few coins from you, young hero, to pay the ferryman.”

The aged Taoist jerked the reins and urged the donkeys past Weiji Baek. The sound of him chanting the Jade Pivot Scripture faded into the autumn fog.

* * *

Ju-seong’s feeding wasn’t a one-time affair.

Every three days, he visited the Human-Faced Spider’s lair to give them metal poison.

About ten days passed in this manner.

“Let’s go together today, young hero.”

Several Crimson Spider Sect members accompanied Ju-seong to the cave. They carried a massive wild boar carcass on poles… meat to feed the mother Human-Faced Spider.

The sect members set down the boar in the Human-Faced Spider’s cavern and fled in haste.

“Honestly. Their sect’s name is Crimson Spider, yet they’re this scared of their own sect’s symbol…”

Ju-seong clicked his tongue and stepped into the now-familiar cavern.

-Chwit, chwit.

The giant spider’s cry somehow sounded welcoming… was it just his imagination?

It was only natural for a mother whose milk wouldn’t come to welcome the wet nurse. Ju-seong settled into a cross-legged position with the mindset of a mother dog nursing her puppies and aired the Poison Releasing Technique. “Sigh… This isn’t why I learned poison arts.”

The baby spiders were so accustomed by now that they climbed onto Ju-seong’s body and sucked directly on his fingers.

After finishing the feeding, the mother Human-Faced Spider sank her fangs into the boar and injected her venom.

The flesh beneath the boar’s hide turned mushy and became liquid. At the mother’s calling sound, the babies immediately detached from Ju-seong.

They rushed to the boar carcass, plunged in their fangs, and drank the liquefied corpse for nourishment.

“Horrifyingly powerful poison.”

Ju-seong murmured quietly. Along with it, his desire for the Human-Faced Spider’s poison deepened.

‘And the Blood Flower Crone isn’t accompanying me right now.’

The Blood Flower Crone wasn’t young either. And being a martial artist who’d neglected physical training and focused exclusively on internal energy cultivation, she couldn’t accompany him to this distant cave every time.

Female masters were generally like that. They were inherently weaker than men in pure physical strength.

However, they tended to gather energy in the lower abdomen more easily than men, giving them a slight advantage in energy accumulation.

If one sought to reach the pinnacle, it was faster to focus on strengths rather than try to make up for weaknesses.

Thus, female masters of jianghu were generally more inclined toward internal energy arts than external martial arts.

‘Even so, the Blood Flower Crone is extreme…’

Still, thanks to that, Ju-seong could be alone now.

He approached the mother Human-Faced Spider, who was contentedly watching her babies eat.

And spoke as if demanding something left in her care.

“Hey. Give me a poison core.”

-Chwit?

The Human-Faced Spider blinked its eight radiant eyes at Ju-seong.

Spiders had no eyelids, but when the Human-Faced Spider was flustered, it apparently blinked its radiance instead.

“I said give me a poison core. What are you doing not giving it? Can’t take a hint?”

-Chwiit!

Whether it understood Ju-seong’s words or not, the creature desperately pretended not to notice and turned its head away.

“This little…?”

Fearlessly, Ju-seong poked its belly with his finger.

“Hey. Hand it over. I saved your babies.”

-Chwi, chwii…

As the creature continued to hesitate, Ju-seong sighed and said.

“I’m not asking for much. Give me the small one.”

Only then did the Human-Faced Spider work its jaw and disgorge a red bead onto Ju-seong’s hand. It was about a quarter the size of the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison core he’d seen… very small.

‘Human-Faced Spiders have two poison cores.’

These creatures were quite unusual among poison creatures in having both a backup poison core and a primary one. The equivalent of having two dantians for a martial artist.

Of course, the backup was absurdly small, virtually existing in name only.

Literally an organ that existed in case the primary was destroyed. What the Human-Faced Spider gave Ju-seong was precisely that backup poison core.

“Stingy thing…”

Ju-seong muttered with a peeved expression. Then again, the one who would inherit the primary poison core after the creature died would be these baby spiders.

It couldn’t just hand over what belonged to its children to someone else. Even if that someone was the savior of its children… that would be putting the cart before the horse.

Ju-seong was slightly disappointed but had no major complaints.

As long as he had the poison core, he could increase the amount of poison stored there through accumulation.

Ju-seong looked back one last time at the happy spider family and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. He felt he should offer a word of well-wishing, but he doubted the babies… being both animal and young… would understand.

Ju-seong smacked his lips, then inevitably spouted nonsense.

“Grow up big and strong, kids. And only eat jianghu martial artists, not commoners. Martial artists will have better meat quality. They just eat and train all day.”

They dissolved everything before eating anyway, so he wondered if it even mattered.

* * *

That night, Ju-seong returned to his lodgings and sat cross-legged. He’d already chased Won-gong outside.

[Can I at least know why, benefactor?]

[Get lost, baldy.]

[Baldy isn’t the same as shaved! And you’re shaved-headed right now too!]

There was a minor disturbance, but Won-gong displayed a Buddhist’s patience and yielded, departing.

Right now, he was probably preaching Buddhist teachings to the Zhuang and Miao tribe members of the Crimson Spider Sect.

Of course, since they worshipped ancestral spirits, he probably wouldn’t be well-received. It would be fortunate if he got back with just a tongue-lashing instead of curses.

For now, Won-gong was Won-gong, and Ju-seong had things to do.

“Now… the third poison core. Shall we try eating it?”

Currently, Ju-seong’s dantian had no poison to control water-poison. Wood conquers water, so normally he needed an earth-attributed poison to subdue it.

But among the five poison creatures, the one with earth-poison was none other than the Zhen’s poison, which Ju-seong couldn’t obtain right now.

But he wasn’t worried.

“I gratefully accept.”

Ju-seong murmured reverently and swallowed the tiny poison core.

Thanks to his Samadhi Body Refinement training, all of Ju-seong’s internal organs were tempered. Even the Human-Faced Spider’s flesh-dissolving poison couldn’t instantly destroy his esophagus and stomach.

Of course, he couldn’t endure forever. Ju-seong felt a burning sensation in his gut and chanted the Poison Accumulation Technique.

Internal energy flowed along a path similar to the Lesser Heavenly Cycle, moment by moment transferring the poison energy seeping into his organs to his dantian.

Here came the first reason Ju-seong wasn’t worried.

‘Now… useless thing, let’s get to work.’

Ju-seong slapped and roused the green energy in his dantian.

The Heavenly Silkworm Moth’s wood-poison. A poison that caused swelling, induced sleep, and caused hallucinations. Less convenient and practical than the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison for cleanup and utility, it was a poison he rarely used in combat.

Wood-poison wasn’t the natural enemy that suppressed water-poison, but since water generates wood, it could reduce the absolute amount of water-poison. Until the Human-Faced Spider’s poison core stabilized within his dantian, the wood-poison would work.

Then what if the Human-Faced Spider’s water-poison consumed the Purple Gold Centipede’s metal-poison to grow?

Ju-seong had already anticipated that, wrapping the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison core with the Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s fire energy to suppress it.

‘From now on, I won’t be able to use the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison for a while. Can’t be helped.’

He could have carried the Human-Faced Spider’s poison core around instead of swallowing it, but Ju-seong was immediately greedy for its poison.

‘A poison that dissolves flesh… Invaluable for intimidation against large numbers.’

The Purple Gold Centipede’s poison was also gruesome and powerful. But enemies who merely collapsed stiffly with their bodies intact weren’t sufficiently terrifying.

With a battle in Guangxi ahead.

The demonic bastards must have scraped together every wandering dark path cutthroat they could find to devour the Green Forest.

So Ju-seong made his decision. He’d give up the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison for now and use the Human-Faced Spider’s poison as his main.

Until when? Probably until Ju-seong completed all five elemental poisons within his body.

And the second reason Ju-seong wasn’t worried was that the poison core was extremely small to begin with.

“Whew…”

As Ju-seong finished circulating his energy, red poison fumes characteristic of the Human-Faced Spider flowed from his mouth.

“Hmm, fishy smell.”

Ju-seong smacked his lips and murmured. He had now become an unprecedented poison master harboring three of jianghu’s five deadliest poisons in his dantian.

“Chwit, chwit.”

Ju-seong quietly imitated a spider’s sound.