Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 21 - Ask Once More

Chapter 21 – Ask Once More

===================

Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

Ju-seong brought the woman he had found at the Black Dragon Gang headquarters with him, giving her clothes to wear before they left. As they walked, neither spoke.

-Tok, tok.

Droplets started falling one by one. Raising his head to check, the clouds looked heavy with moisture. Rain was falling on his way back from killing a man.

Ju-seong bought a length of oiled cloth from a fabric shop. He cut it in two, covering the A-frame with one piece to prevent the provisions from getting wet, and placed the other piece on the woman’s back.

“It is alright.”

“If you have been through hardship and your qi is depleted, getting rained on and having your yang energy weaken could lead to death.”

Coming from a man who had learned some medicine, the words carried weight.

“Then why are you not covering yourself, Benefactor?”

“I need to cool my head a bit, so this is better for me.”

The short conversation ended there.

Walking through the marketplace, he stopped by the Ilmi Inn to pay for the chopsticks he had taken.

“No, guest. These are just a few coins, you really do not have to pay for them…”

The waiter Hwang-gu tried to refuse with a flustered expression, but Ju-seong insisted on pressing the copper coins into his hand.

It was literally pocket change, something he could have let slide. But in Ju-seong’s view, things like this going properly was what made for a righteous martial world.

It was also an issue he had to mind even more precisely because he was a hero of the small world.

As he continued walking, they left the marketplace behind and arrived at a quiet neighborhood where common folk lived.

“That is my home.”

The woman’s eyes were complicated as she spoke. Ju-seong also examined her house with complicated eyes. It was a wooden structure with a roof woven from tree bark. Behind it, rice was being cultivated in terraces along the hillside.

Given the size of the house, it seemed like a fairly large family lived there.

The woman seemed slightly embarrassed by her humble home, but Ju-seong had never had a home to begin with, so he had no such feelings.

When the woman knocked on the door, a thin middle-aged man came out to open it.

“What, Hye-a!”

Father and daughter embraced and shared their reunion. Ju-seong watched the scene from the rain. The falling rain was like a curtain, dimly obscuring his figure.

“But who is this…?”

The woman called Hye-a explained.

“He is the one who destroyed the Black Dragon Gang and saved me.”

The farmer studied Ju-seong’s face. It was a face he had seen before. He was an herb gatherer who had been coming and going from the village for nearly a year, a man who occasionally came down to buy provisions.

He had a good build and a handsome face, so the village maidens had been curious about him, but the elders had simply regarded him as a layabout who spent his time in the mountains singing to the wind and moon, and did not think well of him.

But to think this man was a martial artist.

The middle-aged man bowed his head repeatedly to express his gratitude. He suggested Ju-seong come in to get out of the rain, but Ju-seong shook his head.

“I must return quickly.”

“Ah, I see… But still… This will not do. Let me prepare something for you. You live in the mountains, so you must miss various seasonings, and I have dried fish from Guangxi that I was saving for ancestral rites…”

The man hurriedly moved his legs and disappeared into the house. Ju-seong gazed at the woman left by the door for a moment, then turned and walked away.

The woman watched the man’s retreating figure grow smaller, then quietly bowed in the direction he had disappeared.

* * *

“…And that is what happened.”

The Divine Physician quietly regarded his disciple who knelt before him. Being a man who had mastered the Celestial Nose, the stench of blood wafting into his nostrils was severe.

Harming lives during a fight was unavoidable. In urgent situations, an inferior like Ju-seong had no choice but to use killing techniques.

But taking the life of the Black Dragon Gang master who had already been subdued was a different matter. That was murder by his own will.

The Divine Physician thought for a moment before speaking.

“Disciple.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Do you remember that I said I would beat you half to death if you killed someone?”

“Yes.”

The Divine Physician concentrated crimson internal energy in his right palm and beckoned to Ju-seong.

“Come here.”

Ju-seong went and stood before the Divine Physician without a word. A promise was a promise. If a man of the Divine Physician’s caliber beat him in earnest, he might actually die, so he steeled his heart.

The Divine Physician raised his hand. Ju-seong closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

‘Ju-seong, youngest of a clown troupe from the streets of Fujian Province. Slapped by Master and died…’

But contrary to Ju-seong’s brief epitaph, the Divine Physician did not strike him. Instead, he simply placed his raised hand on Ju-seong’s wounded chest.

The Divine Physician infused energy into his disciple’s wound.

The poison-destroying energy contained in the Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s healing formula drove away any risk of infection.

Then, with control of energy pushed to the extreme, he sealed the wound. Only after learning martial arts could Ju-seong appreciate how refined a technique this was.

“…Master?”

Ju-seong asked in a bewildered voice. His master was a man who followed through on his words. Had he ever gone back on what he said like this?

“Disciple. What do you think is the reason I am not beating you?”

“…I am not sure. Perhaps because that Black Dragon Gang master deserved to die?”

“That is not wrong. But if you had merely harmed a life just because the sinner deserved death, I would have given you a severe beating.”

“Then why?”

“Because you asked before you killed him.”

“You mean when I asked that woman?”

The Divine Physician nodded slowly. Before Ju-seong killed the gang master, he had turned to look at the woman and asked if he should truly kill this man.

The fact that he had thought once more before taking a life.

“That is enough to satisfy me. A man born under the Heavenly Killing Star hesitated to kill. He asked once more before acting. Continue to do so. Ask once more before you act.”

“What if there is no one to ask?”

“Ask yourself. Then you yourself will answer.”

“But then my own self will only give me the answer I want. This guy deserves to die, it is right to kill him, and so on. I know myself well enough to know I am that kind of person.”

The Divine Physician gave a short punch to Ju-seong’s solar plexus.

It was the technique called Pushing to Expel Stagnant Blood, meant to release blood stasis that had accumulated due to wounds. Of course, Ju-seong knew this too, but it still hurt like death.

“Keugh… Master.”

“You foolish wretch. If you ask yourself, do you think only you alone will answer? Is there no one in your heart but yourself? I know well that is not the case.”

“…”

“In your heart there is also me, and Old Master Hwang who raised you, and your elder sisters, and Young Lady Wol-hyang too, is there not? See whether they shake their heads or nod. Then decide.”

“…You are right.”

Before he knew it, Ju-seong’s eyes had reddened.

It was because the hands he had expected to strike him instead gave him treatment, and because he was reminded anew that so many people had entered his heart.

Ju-seong felt his chest grow heavy.

The Divine Physician silently watched his disciple.

He had put a straw mat over the A-frame while getting rained on himself. His disciple had returned looking like a drowned rat.

His expression looked sorrowful, and the blood-scent that even the rainwater could not wash away was that of an evildoer.

His disciple had killed, but as for what kind of human the target was, the Divine Physician could tell better.

He must have held back once when he heard the name Black Dragon Gang, the same as the ones who killed his family. He must have held back a second time when he saw they were carrying a description drawing of his master.

When he learned the gang master deserved to die, he held back once more and asked the woman who had been harmed by him again.

His disciple had held back three times today. And having broken his promise to his master, he had walked in the rain with a sorrowful heart.

So his heart was utterly worn out. The Divine Physician felt his own heart grow heavy seeing this.

‘My, I must be getting old.’

The Divine Physician glanced toward the west where the sun was setting and murmured to himself. It was the direction of Yunnan, where his former sect had been.

* * *

Ten Thousand Ears Gang, Sichuan Southwest Branch.

It was the Samyang Tea House.

It was not a pleasure house or a tavern, but a modest little tea house.

A man entered the tea house, and without even ordering tea, walked straight across the shop toward the back door.

Opening the back door and descending the stairs, a large space opened up.

“Branch Manager.”

The man bowed his head, and a scholarly-looking man who had been sorting documents behind a desk loosely nodded to acknowledge the greeting.

“Yes, yes. What is it? First Team Leader.”

“A group of wandering dark pathers who had set up near Jiulong Mountain has been annihilated.”

“That does not seem worth reporting, but if you came here personally, there must be a reason?”

“According to the villagers, it was the work of a young master…”

“Ha, that damned young master, blast it.”

The branch manager expressed irritation and roughly flipped through the documents. Having not had much talent for martial arts, he had become part of the martial world by dealing in information.

But he was not without some envy for the young dragons and phoenixes who chastised the world at a young age.

Since he could not become one himself, his jealousy only grew. At under thirty years of age, he had become one of the nine branch managers in Sichuan.

He should have been satisfied with his own abilities and talents.

But every time he heard talk of “young masters,” irritation welled up. His subordinate was accustomed to such reactions from the branch manager, so he calmly continued.

“Anyway, that man is said to have used a yang-dominant art, and when that old man we are looking for left the All-Living Clinic, a young man also accompanied him.”

“Hmm…”

They were in the process of completing a commission that had come down from above. It might be just one of many commissions, but since they had no idea where it came from, they were handling it with gravity.

If it had simply been received by the Sichuan General Branch Manager, it would be nothing special, but if it came from higher up, they could not dawdle.

They were looking for an old man who had stayed as a guest at the All-Living Clinic and had rendered all assassins from the organization called April Pavilion incapacitated.

It was surprising enough that he subdued the assassins without killing them, but it was also strange that he only asked the sect name and left.

One would expect him to ask about the purpose, who commissioned it, and such things.

Unless he was the April Pavilion Master himself, he would not know such things anyway.

In any case, because of this, the April Pavilion faded into the dustbin of history, and the old man soon left the All-Living Clinic.

They had also thought of sneaking into the All-Living Clinic and pressuring Physician Seo-baek, called the Greatest Physician of Sichuan, to extract information.

But for some reason, the All-Living Clinic was guarded by a fearsome master, making it difficult.

Roughly flipping through the list, he was a swordsman ranked in the mid-to-lower range of the Hundred Greatest Masters Under Heaven. Being within the hundred strongest in the vast Central Plains meant he was beyond what ordinary humans could handle.

‘It disgusts me anew. Our work is this dangerous.’

The branch manager clicked his tongue in irritation and nodded as if he understood.

“Investigate the techniques and traces left on the corpses a bit more. They are people with no family ties anyway, so there will not be any bereaved families asking for the bodies.”

“Yes, Branch Manager.”

“When you get some leads, send it to that guy. Heh.”

The branch manager covered his mouth and laughed without realizing it.

“That pathetic assassin who drinks himself into a stupor every day because he lost his sect. He is working under us for a living, right? Send him. Tell him to go get revenge. That would make for quite a picture.”

“Understood.”

The subordinate quietly bowed his head. The branch manager’s inexplicable hostility toward martial artists was truly unfathomable. He probably disliked even himself deep down.