Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 38 - I Will Permit You Nothing

Chapter 38 – I Will Permit You Nothing

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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A stranger entered Jiulong County. Assassins usually disguised themselves as peddlers or travelers. They did not usually disguise themselves as beggars. Beggars were very sensitive to unfamiliar colleagues.

But right now, Myeong-il was not disguised as a peddler or traveler. He had no strong intention of carrying out an assassination in the first place.

He openly wore a sword at his waist and entered an inn with the rather arrogant name of Ilmi Inn. How well did this backwater inn cook to call itself Ilmi, meaning “Best Taste”?

He ordered a bottle of baijiu without any side dishes and sat quietly, observing the atmosphere of the town.

Having carried out assassinations since the age of fourteen across Huguang, Sichuan, and Guizhou, he was skilled at reading moods.

The people were relaxed, their gestures and expressions showing no worry. There were some pathetic men brawling in the streets, but that was unavoidable in Sichuan.

In summary, it was a town where no dark path, evil path, or hypocritical orthodox faction that collected forced “donations” existed.

In short, a region somewhat removed from the martial world.

Myeong-il was watching people flow by like a river. Everyone seemed to have a daily goal and was heading somewhere, unlike himself… he was a duckweed stagnant and rotting in a bend of the river.

But Myeong-il was an excellent assassin, so he quickly cut off his thoughts and called the waiter over.

“Yes, guest. How may I help you?”

“Have you seen this person? I believe he is somewhere around here.”

“Ah, um. He is someone I have never seen. Scary-looking old man?”

“I see.”

Myeong-il nodded and tucked the wanted poster back in.

The waiter Hwang-gu had good instincts and was a good actor. The instant he was asked, he had stiffened for just a moment. But Myeong-il, being seasoned, caught that momentary hesitation.

‘…Should I kill him?’

Myeong-il thought that casually, then shook his head. Unnecessary killing was the biggest reason an assassin shortened his own life.

There was no reason to take a life just because someone had lied. However, Myeong-il quietly rose, placed some coins on the table, and said.

“If you use your head against a martial world person, someday that body of yours will lose its head. Be careful.”

“Ah…”

Hwang-gu did not know what to say and just shut his mouth, but just as the atmosphere was sinking, an elderly voice rang out in the hall.

“Why are you intimidating an innocent waiter?”

Myeong-il turned around, and there standing at the inn’s door was the very person he had been looking for: the mysterious master who had crippled all the assassins of the April Pavilion. The man’s white hair was full, and his equally white beard stuck out every which way. If Zhang Fei from the late Han Dynasty had not died in middle age and grown old, he might have looked like that.

Myeong-il tilted his head crookedly and sat back down. Leaning back in his chair, he said.

“I was looking for you, Elder. Pleased to meet you. You are the one who ruined my sect…”

“Some young bastard sits and speaks informally?”

“…Huh?”

There was one thing Myeong-il had not anticipated.

The Divine Physician was a man with many excellent qualities. Martial arts, medical skills… He had an exceptional eye for people, and his insight into the world could rival most scholars. Such was the old master.

But the Divine Physician was not particularly patient.

“Respect your elders.”

Saying something strange, the Divine Physician flew in like a street brawler.

-THWACK!

He kicked the sitting Myeong-il right away. The attack was sloppy but came from a super-peak master, so Myeong-il could not even react properly and just took the hit.

-CRASH BANG!

The assassin tumbled across the inn floor.

Fortunately, the recently replaced chair was sturdy and did not break.

The Divine Physician stood upright in that spot and spoke as if nothing had happened.

“Hwang-gu, you are a man of great loyalty. To try to protect this old man.”

“You are the benefactor’s master of our village, sir. If I did not, I would be a beast.”

“But from now on, you do not need to do that. If someone comes looking for me, just tell them where I am and send them on their way. If someone gets hurt trying to protect me, that would rather make me feel bad. If you died out of loyalty to me, how sad would your parents be?”

“I will bear it in mind, Elder.”

“But you are better than that worthless fellow over there. He briefly harbored killing intent toward you, a mere waiter, and sat insolently in his chair speaking informally to someone twice his age.”

Hwang-gu’s voice trembled slightly.

“I have done nothing wrong, so why would he harbor killing intent toward me…”

“And that is why this is the martial world. Sadly, the world of commoners and the world of martial artists overlap, and this is the result. Now, go about your work. I must take that fellow with me.”

“Yes, Elder. Please take care. Here, as a token of gratitude, a bottle of the baijiu you like.”

“Mm, heh heh. Well, I am not usually one to just accept such things…”

* * *

The Divine Physician grabbed one of the unconscious assassin’s legs and dragged him home. The assassin’s body was dragged along the winding mountain path, repeatedly colliding and breaking and tearing against rocks.

The Divine Physician thought nothing of it. A fellow who easily harbored killing intent should live prepared to be harmed just as easily.

He only pondered what to do with this man.

Shatter his dantian, break his limbs. Those beyond reform he had sometimes used as teaching materials for testing medicines and poisons.

He had done that to several martial world masters, and the character “demon” got added to his alias. Of course, that was more than twenty years ago, so it would have been mostly forgotten by now.

He had lived so long.

‘Let me see.’

First, he had taught Seo-baek. From that point on, the Divine Physician had stopped his human experiments on evildoers.

He had been full of hatred for martial artists but was generally a normal person. A man who had grown up without any troubles under proper parents.

The next disciple he had taken was Ju-seong. This one had been fierce from birth, having been born under an inauspicious star.

Constant chatter, cursing, annoyingly funny jokes. A man with a foul temper, narrow-minded, hot-blooded, and who went too far when provoked.

But having been raised under the care of a humane group, he knew the duty of a human. That was why he had taught him martial arts.

“Hmm…”

The Divine Physician looked down at the assassin being dragged along.

Now there was this fellow.

Of course, he had no intention of taking this man as a disciple, not even the size of a flea’s piss. It was just ironic how the man had slid into his life like a next in line as soon as Ju-seong had left.

‘This one is rotten from the roots to the stems.’

The Divine Physician muttered to himself. He excelled at distinguishing people’s natures.

This man had lived his entire life without a self, killing people and indulging in base pleasures.

“In short, you are a man without worries. Must be nice having no worries. Kill as ordered, do what needs doing, then eat delicious food and scatter your seed wherever. An empty-headed fellow. What good is powerful martial arts?”

The Divine Physician spoke aloud because he knew the assassin had awakened.

The moment the assassin heard the Divine Physician’s words, he immediately sat up and drew his sword.

But the Divine Physician ruthlessly grabbed the leg he was holding and slammed the assassin onto the ground.

After a couple of slams, the assassin dropped his sword and quieted down.

“…Now, what do I do with this trash?”

He felt absurd at himself for dragging him all this way. Literally, the man had no use whatsoever.

It was too late to guide him onto a proper path, yet it was also awkwardly too early to say reform was impossible.

He had intimidated the waiter but also paid for his drink. He had come with a sword but not with the heart of an assassin.

“Let us find your use.”

On returning home, the Divine Physician first went in front of the room where Wol-hyang stayed, confirming that she was sleeping well with steady breathing.

While he was gone, her symptoms might flare up and she might be caught between life and death, so the two master and disciple had frequently checked her breathing.

When Ju-seong was there, he could make the disciple do it under the pretense of practicing the Celestial Hearing, but now that he was gone, it was entirely the Divine Physician’s task.

It struck him anew that this assassin could not be kept in the quadrangle courtyard. There were not enough rooms in the first place, and he could not keep such an ominous fellow near a sick woman.

“Child, wake up now.”

The Divine Physician spoke gently to the sprawled assassin.

When the assassin still lay there unconscious, this time he extended an energy needle from his fingertip and pricked a pressure point.

“Kkwek!”

With a pig-slaughtering scream, the assassin awoke. The Divine Physician looked at him and spoke.

“What is your name… No, there is no reason for us to exchange names. You are from the destroyed April Pavilion? The nature of your internal energy is slightly different, but I can tell you have learned a similar sword technique. So I shall call you April.”

“…If you are going to kill me… kill me.”

The Divine Physician’s veins bulged on his forehead. The idiot-like assassin, and what had he done to even remotely try to make use of the man?

Without killing him, without breaking his limbs, without shattering his dantian, he had laboriously dragged him all the way up this mountainside.

And the first thing out of his mouth was “if you are going to kill me, kill me.”

The Divine Physician gripped the crown of April’s head. By the Divine Physician’s internal energy, all of April’s blood vessels were completely suppressed.

A man who might be a doctor or a fiend. And a man who might be a martial world assassin or a pathetic youth. They locked eyes.

“April. You seem to be under a misconception, but you are not some honorable surrendered general. Your life and death are entirely in my hands.”

“…”

“Looking at you, you do not seem to harbor deep killing intent toward me. You had no attachment to your previous sect in the first place. Yet you accepted the commission and came all the way here. That is typical of people who live without purpose, without worry.”

“…”

“Is it because your opponent is right that you have no answer? But when someone speaks truth, a normal person would either acknowledge it or fire back. You…”

The Divine Physician looked straight into April’s eyes and said.

“You are empty inside. From the moment you learned to walk, life has been only martial arts and killing. You have learned nothing else.”

“What exactly do you want to say?”

“If one were to write a person’s life as a story, it would be interesting. Everyone has a narrative. But your story would be boring. If this conversation of ours were recorded and someone read it, it too would be dull beyond measure. Because I am the only one talking.”

As he said that, the Divine Physician pulled a dark pill from his robes.

“Since your insides are filled only with the killing martial world, I must empty that out before there is room for a human being to sit.”

“Elder, what are you doing…”

The Divine Physician instantly pressed April’s numbness point, tilted his head back, pulled down his jaw to open it.

Then he popped the pill into his mouth, held his tongue with his thumb, and tapped his throat to make him swallow.

“My, he swallows well…”

Muttering that, the Divine Physician suddenly wondered if he had always been this talkative. Come to think of it, having received his disciple’s chatter all day must have made him this way.

While the Divine Physician chuckled thinking of his disciple, April was experiencing hell.

The feeling of all his body’s power scattering. The jar called dantian remained, but all the water inside seemed to be draining away.

And that jar was now tightly sealed, so even trying to pour in new water would not work.

“…!”

April widened his eyes and glared at the Divine Physician. He wanted to scream, but with both his numbness and mute points pressed, he could not.

“Uuugh… Uwooo…”

A bizarre moan squeezed out of his open mouth. He was like a beast with its fangs and claws stripped, whimpering. Finally, tears flowed from April’s eyes, making him look more like a grieving animal than a man.

“A person who is nothing without a sword is not a properly upright human being… But lecturing you like this would not work on you. A beastly fellow. If I cut off your limbs and hung you in the market, I would feel a bit better.”

The Divine Physician reached out and grabbed April’s chin, smiling.

“Did you come seeking death? Or hoping to find meaning in life by avenging a sect you had no attachment to? Whatever you came hoping for, child.”

The Demon Physician spoke for the first time in a long time. He gazed at the assassin with sinisterly burning eyes.

“I will permit you nothing.”