Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 57 - A Human Heart

Chapter 57 – A Human Heart

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The story began forty years ago. The Five Poisons Valley and the Five Medicines Tang Clan were factions wielding great influence in Yunnan.

Strictly speaking, the Five Medicines Tang Clan was not a martial faction, but their wealth and connections within Yunnan Province were unmatched.

Furthermore, having the Five Poisons Valley, notorious for their ruthless methods, as a sibling faction meant they couldn’t be underestimated for their lack of martial power.

The Valley Master of the Five Poisons Valley at that time still had the use of his legs and was a handsome man worthy of being called jade-faced.

With a smile that could stir the hearts of countless women, he greeted the person before him.

“Have you been well? It’s been a while since we’ve met, Young Hero Weiji.”

The person receiving the greeting was a strapping man with thick eyebrows and a large build.

Depending on perspective he might seem fierce, but with features drawn in thick, open lines, he was also a man who could fairly be called handsome.

“It has been a while, Young Master Yeo.”

An uninformed observer would think Young Master Yeo was a scholar who had never trained a stroke of martial arts, while the strapping man called Young Hero Weiji looked like a master.

But this Young Hero Weiji, the young Weiji Baek, was someone who had only trained health-preserving exercises. No, at this point, that’s what everyone thought.

The young Valley Master, Young Master Yeo, said.

“I wonder what ingenious method you’ll use to counter my poison this time.”

“Haha… Ingenious is too much praise.”

“You’ve beaten the Tang clan’s direct descendants with your skill and come as their representative for three years straight. To call you ingenious is no exaggeration.”

“And you, who are always picked as the best among all the Yeo clan’s sons and come as representative, are hardly one to talk.”

“Haha, we both know each other as formidable rivals, so let’s stop gilding each other. Let’s begin.”

Weiji Baek nodded and asked.

“So, what’s this Five Elements Assembly’s offering?”

The competition took place during the Five Elements Assembly. Once a year, the Five Poisons Valley and Five Medicines Tang Clan held a meeting, threw a festival, and encouraged meetings between the members of each faction.

Though they had branched into different directions of medicine and poison, they shared the common root of the Wu Xing School.

And at each Five Elements Assembly, the two factions competed, naturally not by martial arts.

Young Master Yeo stepped back slightly.

Behind him, a man tied to a chair with cloth over his head came into view.

“The leader of a gang that rode the ridgelines around Yongchu Mountain, evading the government forces while skewering innocent merchants, raping women, attacking slash-and-burn farmer villages to kill people and steal their meager possessions. A man who committed all manner of atrocities.”

“I see…”

The Five Poisons Valley would bring in evildoers, and against them, the Five Poisons Valley would administer poison while the Five Medicines Tang Clan would create antidotes.

Of course, even if the Five Medicines Tang Clan successfully created an antidote, the criminal wouldn’t be spared. Still, being cured and then cleanly beheaded was better than dying painfully from poison.

“What are the ingredients?”

When Weiji Baek asked, Young Master Yeo answered.

“I will base it on the poison of the Red-Spotted Snake, using the water and metal energy in its poison. Additionally, I’ll add centipede and sand scorpion poison as supplements.”

They informed of the ingredients in advance since one couldn’t start making an antidote only after seeing the poison.

“Very well. Let us have a good match.”

The time limit for Weiji Baek to prepare his antidote was half a si-chen. After half a si-chen, they removed the cloth, and the bound man went wild.

“Damn it all! You dog bastards, playing with me like a toy! And you two call yourselves orthodox factions of Yunnan! I’m a human being too!”

Who was he to scold whom? He raved about the wickedness of the two factions.

“Please… Send me to the government office, yes? I’ll pay for my crimes properly there.”

Young Master Yeo shook his head while stroking his chin.

“My… It’s already been arranged with the government office. Right now, one of your subordinates has been beheaded under your name and displayed. Since all of you were sentenced to death anyway, there’s no problem.”

“These fucking…!”

“Now, say ‘ah.’ Ah…”

As Young Master Yeo said this, he pinched the man’s nose and struck his Adam’s apple to open his mouth. A poison pill dropped down his throat.

Soon the poison took effect, and Weiji Baek stepped forward to administer the antidote.

If the antidote succeeded, after half a si-chen they would prepare and administer fresh poison. If the antidote failed, they would supplement and readminister the antidote.

Thus the competition proceeded at half-si-chen intervals for two si-chen, much like martial artists testing each other’s techniques in a spar.

After two si-chen, the winner was determined by whether the subject lived or died.

Young Master Yeo looked at the man, drenched in cold sweat and exhausted, with an expression of dissatisfaction.

“Mm… Young Hero Wi ji has won again.”

“It was close.”

“My… I was quite confident that my understanding of poison had reached a certain level…”

“Originally, our sect is a medicine family in name, but we’re also well-versed in poison. Since your faction focuses more on martial arts, wasn’t this an unfair competition from the start? Even our sect elders don’t consider the outcome of this competition very important.”

“Anyway, I’ve learned much. Indeed, the man who will inherit the Five Medicines Tang Clan is different.”

“Ah… Haha, who told you that?”

Seeing Weiji Baek’s flustered look, Young Master Yeo teased him.

“Why, I heard you’ve become close with Young Lady Tang, and it’s only a matter of time before you marry in. Did I hear wrong? If so, I also have interest in Young Lady Tang, so perhaps I could say a word…”

“Ah, no! Actually, Lady Tang and I have indeed promised our futures.”

“Hahaha, you’re always a delight to tease. Your exterior is like Zhang Fei of the late Han, but your heart is a white blank sheet.”

“Ahem, ahem… You do tease me so.”

The prospective Valley Master of the Five Poisons Valley and the designated next head of the Five Medicines Tang Clan.

The two men discussed the future, shared each other’s achievements, and concluded the Five Elements Assembly. They parted with their respective sect elders and returned to their sects.

“Until the next Five Elements Assembly then. Safe travels, Young Master Yeo.”

“You too, Young Hero Wi ji, take care.”

At that time, Young Master Yeo had no idea what would happen to Weiji Baek and his sect.

A month later, the Five Medicines Tang Clan was reduced to ashes, and the Five Poisons Valley was also attacked and greatly weakened.

It was the work of the four other major factions of Yunnan Province, excluding the two sibling factions, joining forces.

Two were dark path factions, one was a martial hall. The remaining one was a delivery guild whose reputation had always been dirty.

There was no reason, no motive. It simply happened one day.

The current Valley Master was also wounded in the back defending against the attack and became bedridden. Had all his brothers not died, he would never have become Valley Master.

Their complacent belief that the gourd-shaped terrain made them safe from invasion had magnified the Five Poisons Valley’s losses.

Only after losing many did the Five Poisons Valley invest time and resources into security with almost obsessive thoroughness.

But there were those who didn’t even get that chance.

The Five Medicines Tang Clan had vanished without leaving a single survivor.

No, there was one survivor left. Though not a man with Tang clan blood.

Six months after the attack. The Five Poisons Valley couldn’t even think of revenge and had to pour all its capabilities into stabilizing internally.

Fortunately, the Four Factions had also suffered great losses from the Five Poisons Valley’s fierce resistance, so Yunnan Province fell into a lull.

On a night when rain fell in torrents, an unexpected visitor came to Young Master Yeo, who was half-dazed watching the rain from beneath a pavilion. It was Young Hero Weiji.

The moment Young Master Yeo saw the other’s eyes, he knew the man before him was not the person he had known.

Behind the rain-soaked giant’s pupils, he could see flames.

But they were not flames burning fiercely.

They were the dying embers of a dawn campfire, faintly flickering in a heap of white ash.

His heart had burned entirely to ashes, and only pitiful sparks flared up as the last reasons for living… and that reason for living was, of course, revenge.

Young Master Yeo said to the man.

“I lost my legs and my father’s brothers, but you, Young Hero, have lost your human heart. What do you seek from me?”

“I need poison.”

“I will give you as much as you want. Take it all.”

“…Thank you.”

At that time, Young Master Yeo, having inherited all the Five Poisons Valley’s resources as successor to the late Valley Master, gave Weiji Baek all the poisons he wanted from the treasury.

A month later, the Taehui Delivery Guild… one of the four factions that had attacked them… began to be targeted by an unidentified assailant.

Water drawn from the well was infused with foul energy causing stomach troubles, and the blowing wind concealed drowsiness-inducing incense.

Escorts going on deliveries were ambushed and all killed.

Through internal strife, hallucinogenic drug addiction, and escorts’ stomach troubles, the Taehui Delivery Guild was falling apart, and a large shadow loomed over its gates.

That night, the guild compound was filled with screams until dawn.

All except children under the age of seven were slaughtered to the last.

Even those children had been fed poison or medicine that turned them into half-wits who couldn’t remember who they were or what had happened.

Young Master Yeo, who surveyed the scene, realized that he had never even touched the hem of Weiji Baek’s robes when it came to medicine or poison.

Even in martial arts. Though when he had learned was unknown, Weiji Baek had already mastered powerful yang-based arts.

Two years later, the four factions that had caused the bloodshed of the Five Poisons Valley and Five Medicines Tang Clan vanished without a trace into history’s shadows.

Beyond Yunnan, the martial world began to echo with the infamy of the Death-Playing Demonic Physician.

* * *

“So, this is the story I know. Heard from your master’s perspective, it might be different. In truth, we were more acquaintances than close friends. So much time has passed that youthful connections feel hazy enough to call him a friend, but…”

“It’s understandable if you’re surprised that my master took a disciple. What you knew was the forty-year-ago revenge ghost… But now, my master can smile in his own way and even jokes around.”

“My, that is fortunate.”

“Indeed.”

The two fell silent for a moment, looking down at their teacups.

Ju-seong’s mind was troubled after hearing his master’s past, and the Valley Master had also fallen into melancholy reminiscing old times.

The Valley Master slowly spoke.

“You already hold two poisons within your body, and those poisons are among the top supreme poisons in the martial world. That you survived is itself a miracle. At the same time, supreme poisons also mean outstanding weapons. It would be wasteful to just leave them in your dantian without using them, wouldn’t it?”

“…Well, I’m happy just to have survived, but.”

The Valley Master shook his head and continued.

“I will teach you the Poison Accumulation Method and Poison Emission Method.”

The Poison Accumulation Method was a technique to guide poison that entered the body to the dantian, and the Poison Emission Method was a technique to emit accumulated poison from the dantian along with internal energy.

These were among the Five Poisons Valley’s highest secrets.

Along with the superior mental cultivation method and the secret of taming poisonous creatures, they were legacies the Five Poisons Valley absolutely protected.

“The Poison Accumulation and Emission Methods are important, but we have also long benefited from the Five Medicines Tang Clan’s many medicinal arts. Countless people have been saved and elevated by the Five Medicines Tang Clan’s medicines over forty years. But there is no one to receive that gratitude now… Consider that I am repaying the debt owed to your master’s sect to his successor.”

Strictly speaking, Ju-seong was not a successor of the Five Medicines Tang Clan. Rather, Physician Seo-baek should be considered the successor.

The Five Medicines Tang Clan’s secret was deep medicine way. While Ju-seong had learned much about medicine, poison, and healing arts, what he primarily studied was martial arts.

Thus he should be considered the successor of that nameless White Lotus Cult’s Bright Flame Right Envoy rather than the Five Medicines Tang Clan.

But good things are good.

“Thank you, Elder.”

Since his dantian was already filled with poison, there was no way to extract or remove it.

If so, it was better to have the techniques to use them.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve learned new martial arts.’

Ju-seong was confident that this poison art would become his new weapon to cut through the turbulent martial world.