Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 32 - Introduction to Sexual Predator Studies
Chapter 32 – Introduction to Sexual Predator Studies
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Ever since bizarre venomous creatures overran the southern jungles of Yunnan, trade between Yunnan Province and the Southern Barbarian lands has been cut off.
The martial world of Yunnan Province, divided between the Southern Commerce Association and the Green Wood Lotus, had only continued their enmity. But now they were in a temporary non-aggression pact.
Though not joining forces, they had agreed not to oppose each other until the sexual predator who had entered Yunnan Province was captured.
This was because the number of martial artists the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer had slain was approaching nearly one hundred.
Starting with the Holyeon Escort Agency of the Green Wood Lotus, factions like the Flying Swallow Pavilion and Blue Dragon Martial School of the Southern Commerce Association had lost numerous martial artists.
In addition, numerous wandering dark pathers who had originally been hired for the conflict between the two groups also lost their lives at the sexual predator’s hands.
But it was not without results.
They had inflicted various wounds, and discovered that the man used palm techniques of a yin-hidden nature and claw techniques that harbored miasmic poison.
Miasmic poison referred to poison obtained from rotting corpses or fallen leaves. In short, the man used a technique that accumulated miasmic poison in his nails and then released it along with energy.
Therefore, his heading south was likely also for the purpose of achieving mastery of his claw art in the humid, hot climate of the Southern Barbarians.
Ju-seong and Red Beggar also heard the news and began heading south. The prey had fallen into the trap they had set, and the hunters had surrounded it.
It was time for them to lend a hand as well.
Among the experts who were active in Yunnan Province, there was no martial artist who had reached a realm beyond peak level.
There were not even a hundred masters in the world who had reached the supreme realm called super-peak by the common people.
More than half of them belonged to the great factions of the orthodox sects, and the rest held high positions in large evil path factions.
Of course, this count did not include hidden experts in organizations like the military, the Eastern Depot, or the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Yunnan Province was so remote that the very highest masters of the martial world were hard to find there.
Therefore, the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer could be considered the greatest master in Yunnan Province at present. By some unknown method, he had raised his realm to the edge of peak level.
Thus, the two who together could do the work of about one peak-level master would be meaningfully helpful.
As they walked side by side, Red Beggar suddenly spoke.
“Brother, did you know this?”
“Know what.”
“Sexual predators of the first-rate usually do not use weapons. Especially conspicuous ones like swords or sabers.”
“What is this, an introduction to sexual predator studies? Go on, explain.”
“Sexual predators are often enjoying carnal pleasures in the bedchamber, so they could be attacked while doing that, could they not?”
“That is right.”
“So they mainly train bare-hand martial arts so they can respond immediately from the bed. That is my theory.”
“That makes sense. This fellow also uses palm techniques and claw techniques.”
“I wonder if that fellow knows. The further south he goes, the more he is in a dead end.”
“Perhaps he still does not know that the poisonous creature lurks in the southern jungle. Or even if he knows, he is confident in his skills and thinks such vermin are nothing.”
The Green Wood Lotus and Southern Commerce Association were, as if by mutual agreement, driving the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer south.
This was because the southern jungle was currently a dead end.
Ju-seong and Red Beggar, even as they headed south, visited the Beggars’ Sect in each region and replaced the branch heads.
Those that functioned properly were left alone, while those who tormented the people around them were mercilessly punished.
Many wondered about their movements of only visiting beggars and changing the leaders, but there were too many problems piled up in Yunnan Province for such things to draw attention.
* * *
In the dense forest at the southernmost tip of Yunnan Province, in a valley gouged deep as if by the fingernails of the ancient god Pangu, countless wooden buildings were hidden. Their architectural style was quite different from that of the Central Plains, appearing more like something from the Southern Barbarian lands.
But the language flowing from within was clearly that of the Central Plains.
At the deepest part of the valley stood a small pavilion, and before the old man sitting inside enjoying tea, a man was making a report.
“All of Yunnan Province is consumed by madness, Valley Master.”
“Is the conflict between the Southern Commerce Association and the Green Wood Lotus intensifying?”
“No. Rather, the conflict between those two groups is in a lull. Yunnan Province is in disorder for a different reason.”
“What is that?”
“It is said that a sexual predator who made a name for infamy in the Central Plains has entered Yunnan Province. The Southern Commerce Association and Green Wood Lotus have publicly declared they will vie to capture him as if in a hunting competition, but it seems the man’s martial arts are more formidable than expected, and many have died.”
“Those who tried to capture him died, so their fellow disciples, masters, students, and sect brothers must have risen up en masse to declare vengeance. That is the martial world.”
“Correct. Now the initial atmosphere of trying to claim credit by capturing him has faded, and those who want to avenge the fallen martial artists are in the majority.”
“Hmm, a martial world public enemy should be hiding to the extent it is not enough, yet he spills blood everywhere he goes… Given the nature of yin-harvesting sexual arts, he must be on the verge of qi deviation, his mind unstable.”
“I agree with the Valley Master’s judgment. He was someone who had not distinguished himself in the martial world until a few months ago when he began committing atrocities. It seems that problems with his cultivation method began to manifest, and he started committing such acts indiscriminately, unable to restrain himself.”
The old man slowly nodded.
At first glance, he was a frail old man with not many days left to live, but this man was the sect master of a sect in his own right.
He uncapped a small porcelain bottle on the tea table and dropped the dark liquid inside onto his tea.
-Hiss…
A faint burning sound, and acrid green smoke rose from the tea.
“Ahem, hem.”
When the man making the report coughed lightly at the smoke, the old man raised one eyebrow in displeasure.
“You cough at this level of poison smoke? Even if your work is mainly external activities, how can your achievement be so lacking?”
“I apologize, Valley Master.”
“For the time being, Hong-yeon will handle external activities, so you focus on training within the valley.”
“Thank you for your consideration, Valley Master.”
Though the old man called Valley Master seemed to chide him displeasedly, the poison he was drinking in his tea was actually not so easy to handle.
After all, it was a poison notoriously vicious, passed down as his sect’s secret legacy.
The man known as the grandmaster of poison arts in Yunnan quietly savored the tea’s fragrance.
* * *
The Danmok Sword School of southeastern Yunnan Province was a martial faction that wielded mighty influence over two or three nearby counties.
Yu So-cheong, the school master of the Danmok Sword School, also known as the Sandalwood Full Sword, never dreamed he would tremble in fear like this here in Yunnan.
The grotesque man before him jerked his head violently several times even in the brief moment.
It was truly a nerve-racking habit.
But knowing how powerful the man’s martial prowess was, even that strange behavior felt like a cursed gesture pressing down on one’s spirit.
“All sorts of garbage-like things are chasing me. These dog-like bastards. I should slaughter them all. Trash who do not know their place…”
The man muttered as if he had lost his mind. He had the body of a sturdy man, but his voice was thin like a woman’s, and the disparity was quite horrifying.
Yu So-cheong clenched his molars and shouted.
“Swordsmen of the Danmok Sword School! Do not fear the evildoer! If we just buy time, the martial artists of Nine-Tail Mountain Manor will join us!”
Nine-Tail Mountain Manor was a martial force belonging to the Green Wood Lotus, unlike the Danmok Sword School, but they were in a state of unspoken cooperation.
Yu So-cheong had sent a messenger to Nine-Tail Mountain Manor as soon as he located the sexual predator, and they were surely rushing here at maximum speed. This was not a situation where factions like Green Wood Lotus and Southern Commerce Association mattered.
The entire Yunnan martial world was being toyed with by a mere sexual predator; it was a matter of the Yunnan martial world’s pride.
“Swarming in packs must be the habit of vermin-like trash.”
The man sneered while jerking his head violently, then stepped forward, hands turning black.
The swordsmen of the Danmok Sword School formed a sword formation and pressed him, but only a twisted sneer bloomed on the man’s smooth face.
-Shaaak!
Palm force of yin energy was released and disrupted the flow of the sword formation. Originally, the key to a sword formation was for multiple swordsmen who had trained in the same sword art to exchange the flow of internal energy and amplify their power.
They exchanged energy as their sword trajectories brought their swords closer, then farther apart.
That flow was pitifully shattered by a single recklessly thrown palm force.
“Kyahaha! Try harder! What a pathetic sword formation, you Yunnan country bumpkins!”
-THWACK!
Another palm force struck the chest of one swordsman.
“Guuuurgh…!”
Cold energy bored into his chest, blocking the flow of true energy, then seeped into his heart and lungs, impairing their function.
Even as his vision darkened, the swordsman watched the sexual predator slaughter his fellow disciples while bursting into shrill mad laughter.
‘No…’
His lungs had already died, so he could not even utter words.
-Scrape!
The sexual predator’s nails extended to three inches, and from their tips, turbid yellow smoke rose.
“Miasmic poison! Fall back!”
Miasmic poison harboring the energy of decay. It was said that if one was even grazed by those nails, even if not killed immediately, the wound would fester severely and one would die within seven days.
Those who had withered away from that technique and passed from this world were not one or two.
-Screeee!
Yu So-cheong stepped forward, black beard fluttering, and blocked the sexual predator’s nails, but along the blade his sword’s teeth were all stripped away.
On the blade now jagged from missing teeth, acrid smoke of miasmic poison was rising.
“Damn, how is this possible…”
“You thought to stop me with such pathetic skill, are you trying to make me laugh?”
The sexual predator laughed mockingly to his heart’s content and wildly slashed with his nails.
Originally, techniques that accumulated poison in the hands could not recover spent poison energy through breath cultivation alone. Because poison did not spring from the body.
Therefore, claw techniques combined with poison should normally be saved as killing moves while fighting mainly with one’s original palm techniques.
But the sexual predator before him did not seem to care about such things at all and kept slashing with his nails. The power was truly fierce and terrifying, and before long, both of Yu So-cheong’s swords had become jagged like saws.
‘So it comes to this…’
The Danmok Sword School was one of the many schools that had split off from Qingmu Sword Gate, an old famous sect of Yunnan.
As its school master, his life had had its pride, but no shining glory.
He had just lived on, guarding his surroundings and involving himself in various interests as a small martial faction in the borderlands.
Not evil path or dark path, but not quite righteous path either. The serialized martial arts tales in the streets never mentioned such factions.
Because they were, so to speak, livelihood-type martial artists, neither bad nor good.
Then what cause had brought him all the way here? With his school’s disciples, no less.
Because Yunnan was their land. The martial artists of the Danmok Sword School were also martial artists of Yunnan. Yunnan was their territory and home.
Yu So-cheong held up his toothless sword before him and spoke.
“…Cough! Every martial artist in Yunnan will be after you. There is nowhere to run, sexual predator. You came here and dared to slaughter Yunnan’s martial artists and violate Yunnan’s women…”
“Heehee, so what if they come? Huh? Old man. I will just kill them all!”
“Men like me will cling to your trouser legs at the cost of our lives. That is our pride…”
Blue light rose in Yu So-cheong’s eyes, and his aura swelled momentarily without limit.
“That is my Jianghu!”
A technique of mutual destruction, drawing out prenatal true energy.
But its end was futile. The sword Yu So-cheong brought down was stopped directly by the sexual predator’s palm, and the sword was broken in two.
Yu So-cheong let go of the hilt and coughed blood, and the sexual predator’s nails sank deep into his chest.
The sexual predator whispered with red lips.
“Then watch your little Jianghu crumble, weakling.”
Yu So-cheong’s pupils loosened emptily, and the sexual predator threw his corpse to the ground like garbage.
He adjusted his clothing and picked up the bamboo hat that had fallen to the ground, placing it on his head. Around him, there were still swordsmen twitching with breath still in them, but he paid them no mind at all.
Having been struck by his claw technique, they were all dead anyway.
“Cough! Ptui! Damn it.”
The sexual predator spat out dark blood and chewed out curses.
Blocking the attack of one who had drawn out prenatal true energy, he too had suffered some internal injuries. The more fights accumulated, the more savage and extreme the tactics the Yunnan martial artists used.
Their martial prowess was not on his level, but they used dirty tricks to somehow wound him.
Hallucinations visible only to him flickered across the sexual predator’s eyes.
The martial artists who had died at his hands, the women who had become sacrificial offerings to momentary pleasure and died screaming…
They were smiling with mouths torn open, hanging from trees, standing in the darkness, behind rocks, among bushes.
The sexual predator giggled along with them.
“Heeheehee, what are you looking at? Come to watch? Yes, let us stay together forever! You must not disappear! Cling to me until the end and watch! I will make you more friends soon! Eeheeheehee!”
The sexual predator laughed at the empty air like a madman and pointed fingers.
Then in an instant, his face settled calmly, and the laughter drained coldly away.
-Tsut!
His head jerked violently as if in spasm.
The sexual predator’s robes disappeared into the darkness.