Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 65 - Checkmate
Chapter 65 – Checkmate
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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The first clue that allowed Ju-seong to identify the tea house’s true nature was the killing intent the proprietor had subtly revealed.
A faint killing intent that not only ordinary people but most martial artists couldn’t detect.
Ju-seong harbored tremendous killing intent, so he was very familiar with the thing itself.
Killing intent stemmed from murderous intent… the desire to kill someone, condensed in the upper dantian.
If murderous intent could be compared to sword energy, killing intent could be compared to sword qi.
Therefore, unless one was a martial artist with exceptional concentration and immersion, or an assassin who had mastered the act of killing, one couldn’t skillfully handle killing intent.
Ju-seong’s case was a peculiar one.
Yet the proprietor before him was using a technique of releasing killing intent in very, very faint amounts.
Why had he suddenly radiated killing intent at an entering customer?
Absurdly, it was to drive the customer away.
Ju-seong furrowed his brow at the irritation suddenly welling up.
“Truly ridiculous. It’s the first time in my life I’ve seen a bastard who radiates killing intent just to chase away customers. If you don’t want to do business, close up shop, you bastard.”
“…”
He gave no answer. “Are you an assassin, too? What a lunatic.”
The proprietor glared silently at Ju-seong, twitching his fingers.
There was probably a dagger or hidden weapon inside his sleeve.
-Rattle… rattle…
The swaying of the curtain gradually slowed.
When the thin line of sunlight streaming in fixed precisely on Ju-seong’s eyes.
-Swish!
The man drew a throwing knife from his sleeve at terrifying speed and hurled it. The knife was painted pitch-black, so if thrown under cover of night, it would be nearly impossible to react.
However.
-BOOM!
Ju-seong’s crimson palm force split the darkness of the tea house. In an instant, the dim interior filled with red light, and the outlines of tables and chairs became distinctly visible in crimson.
The knife was deflected and sent flying, and the table and counter were utterly destroyed.
The man lay sprawled behind the counter with his clothes all torn up and crimson burns visible on the flesh beneath.
“Ugh!”
He seemed to have suffered internal injuries, coughing up blood from behind the counter.
Even so, he deftly pulled the handle of a drawer behind him and swung it at Ju-seong, who was slowly approaching.
Something silvery and snake-like came trailing out.
It turned out to be the hilt of a soft sword disguised as a drawer handle.
-CLANG!
“You do all sorts of things.”
Ju-seong instantly wrapped internal energy around his hand to block the soft sword.
Perhaps because it had been honed thin and sharp for a single strike, the soft sword wavered and shattered upon hitting Ju-seong’s hand.
Ju-seong firmly stepped on the man’s chest and spoke.
“You try to chase away entering customers with killing intent, and trade with the Central Plains hasn’t even resumed, yet you have Yunnan tea? Do you have no intention of hiding at all?”
The man was quite flustered.
When he radiated killing intent and responded curtly, nine out of ten ordinary people would turn around and leave, spooked by the eerie atmosphere.
Martial artists were no different. Even if they spat on the ground and cursed the proprietor for lacking manners, they’d leave without causing trouble, feeling somehow unsettled.
An instinctive sense of danger ingrained in their instincts that awakened them.
But Ju-seong had sat down without any sign of noticing even after being exposed to killing intent from the moment he entered.
Then he observed the surroundings and figured out what this place truly was… a branch of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang disguised as an ordinary tea house.
“Let’s see. There’s something in the basement?”
Ju-seong tapped the floor with his toes, just from that alone discerning that a large cavity existed beneath the tea house.
Roughly, the space was angular, and the objects within were also angular, so it was clearly a man-made space.
Ju-seong grabbed the man by the scruff and cajoled him.
“Now, how do I get down there? I’m actually excited because this is my first time meeting actual evil faction bastards.”
In the current martial world, the term evil faction, or evil path, was used by the large dark path factions to distinguish themselves from ordinary street thugs.
Evil originally meant deviant and improper, so it was peculiar that they used this name to distinguish themselves from others.
“Crazy bastard…”
“The crazy one is you for throwing axes at customers. You got caught because you can’t do your job properly, why are you shifting blame to me? That attitude, that blame-others attitude, is not good.”
At Ju-seong’s words, the proprietor turned his head slightly.
“Customer?”
“Yes. Did you think I barged in to attack you out of nowhere?”
The man’s face twisted in disbelief.
“…I thought you were an orthodox faction figure.”
“So what if I’m orthodox? You people sell information to both orthodox and evil factions, I’ve heard. I came here admiring the impartiality and fairness of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang… This is disappointing. You throw axes at anyone who looks orthodox? I’m going to spread the word about your narrow-mindedness and vileness throughout the martial world. I’ll humiliate you.”
“No, what the… This is Sichuan Province, you know? So…”
Ju-seong yanked the collar he was gripping closer.
“So what about Sichuan Province, you bastard? Why are you blaming my innocent homeland?”
He growled quietly and tightened his grip.
“…Don’t insult the ancient capital of Shu, which has a thousand years of history.”
Actually, to call it a thousand-year-old capital, one should specify only Chengdu rather than all of Sichuan Province, but Ju-seong was weak in geography.
The man’s face was getting more and more twisted. An expression of disbelief that such a madman had been his lot.
Just then.
“Honored guest, please stay your hand. What that friend said was merely that, since Sichuan Province has two great orthodox factions, we can’t help but be wary in our activities.”
An unfamiliar man’s voice echoed through the tea house.
When Ju-seong looked up toward the sound, he saw a tube-like device connected to a corner of the wall that transmitted sound.
Ju-seong realized someone underground had been speaking into the tube to transmit their voice.
And that person had been listening to everything that happened until now.
“What a shady bastard…”
Ju-seong muttered quietly. Perhaps not hearing that, the man’s voice rang out again.
“I’ll open the passage, so please come in. You said you’d pay and buy information, so that makes you our customer.”
-Click, cree-cree-ck.
Perhaps some mechanism had been operated, as four or five planks that formed one wall suddenly flipped open to the inside.
Rather than an impressive secret passage, it was simply composed of pulleys and ropes.
Ju-seong left the assassin behind and descended the stairs.
A scholarly-looking man was watching from behind a desk.
“Welcome. I am Cheong-rang, branch chief of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s southwestern Sichuan district.”
Befitting the name Cheong-rang (Blue Wolf), the man suited his blue silk robe.
Ju-seong answered while roughly looking around the room.
“Nice to meet you. Since it’s awkward for both of us, I’ll just do my business and leave.”
“Haha… You’re in a hurry. May I ask your name?”
“Ju-seong.”
“Young Master Ju, I see. Very well. Regarding the destruction of the tea house and the assault on our man, since there were faults on both sides, I’ll let it pass. Now then… You inquired about the power struggle between Qingcheng and Emei in Sichuan, and the price is five nyang of silver.”
Ju-seong narrowed his eyes slightly.
“That’s expensive.”
“Information from the Ten Thousand Ears Gang is almost never wrong, so the price is bound to be high. If you want cheap information, you could go to an inn or the street gossips.”
The man called Cheong-rang showed no sign of fear despite knowing Ju-seong was a master.
Of course, Ju-seong’s hearing and smell detected the sweat beading on his palm, his slightly rougher breathing, and his quickening heartbeat.
But the fact that he didn’t outwardly show fear or tension made him a respectable figure.
“Fine. I’ll listen.”
Ju-seong took out five previously cut pieces of silver from his money pouch and placed them on the table.
Cheong-rang nodded after weighing them.
“You’re precise. You must have done a lot of money dealings.”
“I’ve always had a sensitive touch.”
“Even while wearing hand guards. They look like unusual items… what are they made of?”
“If you ask personal things like that, it’s embarrassing. Should I tear your mouth so that the words you ought to say flow out freely?”
Ju-seong growled quietly.
Somehow, the killing intent in his upper dantian had grown stronger lately, so even when he wasn’t completely enraged, rough words came out sometimes.
Anyway, it was true that the branch chief before him had been trying to probe Ju-seong’s background by deflecting the topic this way and that.
“Well… You don’t have to tear my mouth.”
Recognizing that the dangerous customer before him was no greenhorn, Cheong-rang wiped away his affable smile and began reciting the requested information in a businesslike tone.
“First… I should tell you that this conflict was bound to explode eventually. Qingcheng and Emei have long been engaged in subtle power struggles over hegemony in Chengdu. But the fact that the conflict intensified to the point of brawls is another story.”
Ju-seong tapped the table.
“So set aside the obvious story about how two suns can’t exist in one sky. If two suns are equal in brightness, they can coexist. The two have coexisted like that for over a hundred years, haven’t they? What I’m curious about is why they’re fighting now… the trigger.”
“Yes, yes. You’re right. Now I should explain that. First… You need to know about an elixir called Heavenly Bone Fruit Wine. What kind of elixir is this…”
Ju-seong cut him off again.
“I roughly know what kind of elixir it is, so move on.”
“Oh… You must be versed in medicine too? It’s not a well-known elixir.”
When Ju-seong just glared at Cheong-rang without speaking, he immediately sobered his expression and continued his explanation.
“To put it simply, it started when a young child of exceptional talent from a Qingcheng Sect lay family caught their eye. They took the child into the main mountain, and to supplement the child’s bones, which fell short of his five senses, they tried to bring in Heavenly Bone Fruit Wine. But it’s said that the Qingcheng disciples transporting the item were attacked and the treasure stolen.”
“My, how incompetent of them.”
“The problem is, shortly after that incident, news spread throughout Sichuan that the sect leader of Emei, who had been suffering from old age and immobility, had risen from her sickbed.”
He couldn’t remember the Emei sect leader’s name. He did recall her brutish nickname, Blade of Extinguishing Evil.
A quirk of martial world folk. They might forget people’s names but remembered their nicknames well.
“That… who was it again? A nun with the surname Jeong.”
Stupid words tumbled out of him.
“Strictly speaking, it’s a Buddhist name, so she has no surname… But yes, it’s Master Jeong-hwa.”
Cheong-rang corrected him, and Ju-seong kept a straight face and bluffed.
“It was a joke. To make you laugh.”
“Ah, yes… You joke very well. Anyway, given the nature of Heavenly Bone Fruit Wine, only the elderly and children can fully benefit from it, and both sects happened to have desperate need for that item.”
Ju-seong nodded in agreement.
“I’ve heard that Emei’s immediate martial strength is superior. Master Jeong-hwa holds the title of Sichuan’s Number One, after all. But once the Master passes away, that young prodigy of Qingcheng could lead Sichuan for the next hundred years…”
“And just when Qingcheng had that elixir stolen, the Emei sect leader rose from her sickbed. How suspicious must that look to Qingcheng?”
“I’d suspect it too.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t need to tell me the detailed conflict dynamics… Honestly, the great factions fighting each other is none of my business. Let me ask one more question instead.”
“A request for information?”
“Yes. Here’s the price for the story.”
Ju-seong smirked coldly and nodded, then flicked his sleeve.
-Clatter, clatter… Clang!
A single iron coin rolled across the table and fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
Cheong-rang followed the coin with his eyes, then chuckled hollowly.
“A single iron coin’s worth of information… Do you want to know what I had for lunch? For reference, what I had for breakfast costs two iron coins.”
Ju-seong smiled savagely and asked.
“I heard you people hired vagrant dark path types and told them to find my master?”
“…”
For the first time, the man’s glib mouth clamped shut. It seemed Ju-seong’s description had not yet reached the higher-ups of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.
“You sent some trash from the April Pavilion too. Did you think I came here by chance? Did I seem that thoughtless to you, you half-wit? I’m not as stupid as I look.”
Honestly, half of it was by chance.
But it was true that he had intended to shake down a Ten Thousand Ears Gang branch.
He had already learned from Red Beggar how to distinguish inns and taverns run by the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.
When the direction the store’s entrance faced matched the store’s name, it was suspicious… and generally, a south-facing store like this one should have the character ‘yang’ (陽) in its name.
Wasn’t this tea house called Three Yang Tea House?
Of course, it was common for south-facing, sunny stores to have ‘yang’ in their names, but…
-If you go in and some suspicious bastard gives you lousy service, nine times out of ten it’s one of theirs, Brother. Don’t look down on beggar experience. How many years have I been crawling around the streets, peeking here and there?
-So have I?
-You drift around like duckweed, Brother, so you might not know, but I’m a local fixture. I know where shady characters go in and out, so I’ve picked up how to spot them.
-…Is that so? But why didn’t you tell me about west-facing stores?
-I don’t know how they name west-entrance places either. There weren’t any in Kaifeng.
Anyway, Ju-seong was somewhat surprised himself.
First, that the seemingly shoddy method from Red Beggar had actually worked.
Second, that he hadn’t expected to shake down the southwestern Sichuan district branch itself.
How many lower branches must be below it?
In that sense, Ju-seong could be called quite lucky.
To the southwestern district branch chief, whose expression had already hardened completely, Ju-seong sneered.
“Checkmate, isn’t it?”