Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 20 - What Is Your Name

Chapter 20 – What Is Your Name

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Ju-seong grimaced.

‘I thought I would not kill, but things are not going as I please.’

Before he could even think, the Three Yang Fist techniques were being reinterpreted as killing techniques and flowing out.

The Three Yang Fist originally had high freedom and no clear framework, so modifications were easy. But the fundamental problem was Ju-seong’s willpower.

He was originally a man of strong will, but by relying on the Stillness-Bright Incantation to suppress his killing intent, he had been forgetting how to restrain himself on his own.

Since he could not recite the Stillness-Bright Incantation in the middle of a fight, it was a troublesome matter.

‘Anyway, this is the middle of a fight right now. I will think after it is over.’

Thinking so, he threw fist and palm at the two dark path men attacking from behind and beside.

Ju-seong’s palm lightly pushed aside the flat of the blade, twisting its trajectory. Then he dodged the scythe swinging at the back of his head by twisting his shoulder.

In an instant, Ju-seong’s leg shot up, shattering the wrist holding the scythe. The rising leg did not simply come back down.

The foot that had struck the axe-wielding man, who had been unable to retrieve his weapon, caught his face flush.

The man, his face caved in, flew off. Ju-seong spun and lowered his posture like a top, driving an elbow into the ribs of the man who had been holding the scythe.

He charged at those who were starting to wriggle free from the net.

He grabbed one side of the net and yanked hard to topple them. The fallen men became obstacles, blocking the other dark path men’s approach.

As Ju-seong was about to throw chopsticks from his pocket, he heard a whistling sound.

-Ssyuaak!

The Black Dragon Gang master, who had joined in at some point, was swinging a whip. Ju-seong’s time slowed down.

Carp Striking the Boat.

The name meant a carp flopping on a fishing boat; it was a technique for evading an opponent’s attack.

Ju-seong arched his back like a healthy carp and braced both hands on the ground.

-…Taang!

The whip struck the air where Ju-seong’s upper body had been with a chilling crack. The instant the whip was withdrawn, Ju-seong pushed off the ground again with both hands and leaped up.

From the outset, the Black Dragon Gang master was roughly at the tail end of second-rate, so his training was deeper than Ju-seong’s. But fighting was not done with level alone.

“So you only jumped in after losing some subordinates. You are of higher level than me, yet why were you so scared to waste your underlings?”

“Should a leader be light on his feet? When things look too tough for the subordinates, stepping in like this is how you maintain your authority.”

“Pretending to have style when you are just a shabby dark path gang leader. Look here, gentlemen. This is the true nature of the one you serve.”

Ju-seong attempted to sow discord. He pointed a finger and shouted.

“This man is absolutely acting true to his looks. A sneak who was scared and just watched until his underlings got hurt. If he went to the imperial kitchen, he would have measured seasonings so perfectly that His Majesty would have adored him.”

Anyone saying this much, even a gentleman, could not help but be angry. The Black Dragon Gang master was far from being a gentleman.

However, he did not grimace but opened his eyes wide like a startled cat, making all-white eyes.

It seemed that was the expression this man made when angry, and to Ju-seong it looked quite eerie.

The gang master swung the whip again.

Ju-seong employed movement technique.

White Phoenix Nine Heavens Movement Technique. Despite the name, Ju-seong could not move sublimely like a white phoenix occupying the nine heavens at the moment.

He merely imitated a ten-thousandth of its principle.

Ju-seong moved like a sparrow busily flying around to peck at nine grains, but to the gang master’s eyes it looked sufficiently wondrous.

Nine Heavens was Nine Heavens.

Nine Heavens meant the nine stars surrounding the world.

These stars continuously revolved along their orbits, and the White Phoenix Nine Heavens Movement Technique, resembling that principle, allowed freedom in where to place one’s feet.

Because there is nothing strange about a star being anywhere within its own orbit.

Therefore, Ju-seong also stepped wherever he pleased, not like a phoenix traversing the stars, but like a sparrow hopping between grains.

-Sswaek! Tang!

“Oops.”

He adjusted the position of the grains to avoid where the whip struck, and Ju-seong’s feet without fail stepped upon them.

The internal energy of the Flame Crow Six Stage Art stirred within his body, rising and falling along with the movement technique.

Before he knew it, the gang master and Ju-seong had gotten quite close, and the master unhesitantly let go of the whip.

Then two daggers slid from his sleeves, and he immediately charged at Ju-seong.

But close-quarters combat was Ju-seong’s specialty. The gang master’s silk robe happened to have uselessly wide sleeves.

Ju-seong extended his left hand and tugged at the gang master’s right sleeve.

With one hand blocked, Ju-seong’s right hand deployed grasping hand with a peculiar technique.

A battle between a dagger trying to slice his hand and a bare hand trying to bypass the dagger to attack proper.

The victor of the siege was the bare hand. The moment Ju-seong’s thumb lightly touched the inside of the wrist…

“Ah!”

“Please excuse me.”

Ju-seong’s entire hand slid in like a sly snake, wrapping around the gang master’s arm.

Then, as if the flopping snake suddenly became a stiff iron plate, Ju-seong’s arm tensed and bent the Black Dragon Gang master’s left arm backwards.

“Eu, euaak! You damn…!”

The gang master shrieked in his glib voice. Then he puffed up his cheeks and blew out something forcefully.

It was a tiny tube small enough to hide in his mouth, and from it a short needle shot out, aiming precisely at Ju-seong’s eye.

Ju-seong hastily turned his head and dodged the needle, but could not prevent his ear from being pierced.

The gang master laughed, even though one sleeve was captured by Ju-seong and one arm was broken.

“Do you know what poison is on that needle? Ever heard of Seven Step Death? It is said that after being bitten, you die after taking seven steps…”

“Is that so? Then if I do not move a single step from now on, I should be fine.”

Ju-seong retorted absurdly while calmly delivering a headbutt.

With both arms blocked, the gang master had no choice but to take the hit. Besides, even in a fight between second-rate martial artists, headbutting was not a common technique, so responding was also difficult.

“Kahak…!”

Having taken the headbutt, the gang master squeezed his eyes shut, which Ju-seong thought was something one should never do in a fight.

It made him fail to see the palm strike that followed.

-Peoeong!

A palm technique laden with the hot internal energy of the Flame Crow Six Stage Art struck the gang master’s shoulder squarely. His shoulder completely shattered, and having also suffered internal injuries, he collapsed, vomiting blood.

Ju-seong turned around and asked the dark path men who had been surrounding him.

“Want to continue?”

The gang master had been subdued. The man before them was quite the master, but if all the gang members attacked together, could they not subdue him?

Weighing, gauging gazes crossed. Ju-seong felt quite unpleasant. If he were as strong as his master, he would not have been subjected to such looks.

In the end, the thought was that he must become stronger.

Ju-seong bared his teeth fiercely and picked up the gang master’s whip to swing.

-Sswaek! Tang!

The technique of the Yellow Crow Golden Whip Fist was an application of the whip’s movement. Therefore, Ju-seong also found the weapon called the whip somewhat familiar.

One dark path man struck by the tip of the whip screamed and toppled. A long wound had formed across his face.

Ju-seong struck two or three more with the whip, then threw chopsticks to subdue two by pressing their pressure points.

Then he concentrated the hot internal energy of the Flame Crow Six Stage Art in both hands and charged out like a madman.

He wielded fists, palms, and fingers as if possessed.

Heat haze shimmered along the trajectory of the techniques, and bits of the gang members’ clothing became sparks scattered about.

Blood and flesh flew, and the sound of bones breaking mingled with screams to assault the ears.

A quarter hour passed, and Ju-seong was the only one standing on two legs in the compound. Some were dead, some were not.

He had tried to control the killing, but in urgent situations, he could not control killing techniques from slipping out.

Ju-seong sat down on the spot with a thud, crossed his legs, and began reciting the Stillness-Bright Incantation. While he was at it, he also ran the Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s healing formula to expel the poison energy that had accumulated in his body.

It was uncertain whether it really was not the Seven Step Death poison, or whether the application method was wrong and the toxicity did not come out properly.

Detoxification was not very difficult. Ju-seong’s yang-aspected internal energy easily burned and expelled the poison.

His figure, sitting cross-legged and muttering on the blood-drenched floor when not all the enemies were dead, was simply bizarre.

After muttering for a while, Ju-seong then stood and approached the gang master. He grabbed the unconscious gang master’s hair and dragged him into the hall.

“Hmm.”

Ju-seong furrowed his brow the moment he saw the scene inside the hall.

Naked women were sprawled about. The bedding was stained with blood, and the scene was quite gruesome.

Ju-seong woke one of the two women. She seemed barely able to hold herself up, so he gave her a blanket and suggested she sit.

He tried to wake the other one as well, but soon stopped. Her life was already gone.

Whether the living woman or the dead woman, their eyes were equally hollow.

Feeling his jaw clench, he pressed his thumb into one of the Black Dragon Gang master’s eyes.

“Eu, euhaaahak!”

The gang master woke screaming. He had a narrow face with all-white eyes, a flat nose, and a meager mouth.

An ugly man all around. Ugly, and with an unfortunate physiognomy. A person’s face changes based on how they live, and how this man had lived was plainly visible.

Ju-seong wrinkled his nose at the rising stench.

An impulse surged, but for now, there was something he needed to find out.

“This description drawing. Whose commission are you looking for this person on?”

“Kuk, keuk. I will not tell you. You are going to kill me anyway, are you not?”

The Black Dragon Gang master drawling in his glib tone. He was good at asking for a beating. Ju-seong stared silently at the gang master and said in a low voice.

“From old times, to make a taciturn man talkative, a branding iron was best.”

He concentrated his Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s internal energy to maximum in his index finger.

When he put that into the eye socket and stirred it around, soon a shrill scream and a complete confession popped out.

“I, I do not know either, damn it! It was just one of the public commissions put out to wandering dark pathers by the Ten Thousand Ears Gang! These things are not one or two, we just do them because they pay!”

“What is the Ten Thousand Ears Gang?”

“The Ten Thousand Ears Gang, you do not know? It is one of the Twelve Evil Path Sects! In the lower ranks though. It is an intelligence organization, an intelligence organization!”

“Hmm, now that you mention it, I think I have heard of it.”

Having been a clown troupe member, he did not know details.

They were tale-selling storytellers, but an intelligence organization that sneaked around and eavesdropped was not an appealing subject for stories anyway.

Still, he had not completely failed to hear about the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.

Rummaging through his memory, he recalled they belonged to the evil path but were close to neutral between righteous and evil.

They sold information indiscriminately to righteous path people or evil path people.

Anyway, some outsider had commissioned the Ten Thousand Ears Gang, and the Ten Thousand Ears Gang had in turn put out a commission to wandering dark pathers, so tracking it down was a distant matter.

It was also the moment when the Black Dragon Gang master before him had exhausted his usefulness. Ju-seong looked around inside the hall. He saw a woman who had been used as a plaything and died.

Ju-seong turned his head again and met eyes with the other woman trembling in the corner. Her makeup was clumsy and her looks were not outstanding. He guessed she had been an ordinary daughter from an ordinary family.

But she too was Sichuanese, so she did not bother to avoid Ju-seong’s gaze. Sensing this was a man of a different quality than the gang master.

Ju-seong asked as if seeking permission.

“Would killing this man be for the good of the world?”

The woman nodded. Ju-seong then lowered his gaze to look at the Black Dragon Gang master.

“What is your name?”

The gang master replied to Ju-seong’s question with a blank look.

“My name? What was it again? Something like that became unimportant long ago.”

Names only have meaning when calling each other person to person. This man had lived by taking and destroying all his life.

His way of dealing with the world had been simply one-sided.

‘That is why he forgot his own name too.’

Ju-seong drew one more chopstick from his pocket and said.

“Even a street clown has a name… This is enough.”

His face was ugly, and his heart was ugly too. At the same time, he was also a somewhat pitiful man. There must be his own stories and wretched circumstances, but there was no desire to know them.

-Puk!

The chopstick embedded. The murky pupils stretched infinitely.