Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 67 - Moved, Only Moved

Chapter 67 – Moved, Only Moved

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“You brat, I told you to bring them nicely, and you went and swallowed them!”

“Ow!”

The Divine Physician was carefully performing pressure point pursuit on Ju-seong, selecting vital points one by one and pouring love for his troublemaking disciple into every strike.

“Master! I told you, there were circumstances!”

“What circumstances, you punk! Do you know how many years I suffered to complete this pill!”

“You said you originally gave up but decided to make it again because of me and Lady Wol-hyang! Why are you acting like it was your life’s work…”

“So, you punk! I’m not making the pill for my own sake! Am I making it because it’s good for me? I had you gather ingredients to feed you!”

“What was I supposed to do when that bastard suddenly shoved a poison needle into my side and injected the poison sac!”

“…What did you say?”

The Divine Physician twitched his eyebrow.

It had already been half a shichen since he started beating his disciple who had come home late at night. When he asked where the poison sacs were, the brat grinned and pointed to his own belly, so he had started pummeling him then and there.

What made it even more absurd was that the little punk had somehow reached the peak realm.

So his irritation led him to administer the Five Medicines Tang Clan’s secret pressure point pursuit… but it turned out it had been an unavoidable situation.

The Divine Physician immediately lifted Ju-seong’s clothes.

“Master?”

“My, you’ve scarred. At least there’s no infection. Well, scars are the mark of a martial artist. If you don’t have at least a span of decent scars as a martial artist, you’ll be looked down upon.”

“Well… thank you for your concern.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“Yes. But is Lady Wol-hyang asleep?”

“Yes, she’s sleeping. These days it’s gotten much better… she only sleeps about five double-hours a day.”

“Ah, yes.”

The Divine Physician stared at Ju-seong for a moment, then spoke.

“…Even if the poison sacs are in your dantian, it’s not impossible to manage if we take certain measures with the incomplete Three Talents Five Elements Pill,” the Divine Physician said.

The Divine Physician narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly, with uncertainty.

“Among my sect’s secret arts, as you know, there’s a technique for creating incomplete pills and later completing them. The incomplete Three Talents Five Elements Pill I have is in exactly that state.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So, hmm… There’s also a technique for making separate incomplete pills and combining them into one. Thinking about it, the ‘dan’ in a person’s dantian is written with the same character as the ‘dan’ in pill, right?”

“Hmm… So you’re saying a person’s dantian can also be viewed as a kind of pill?”

The Divine Physician stroked his beard and spoke slowly.

“I don’t particularly like the stuffy talk of Taoists, but originally, ‘dan’ referred to the essence of life. So what is a ‘pill’? It is the essence of life existing as an external substance… in other words, a pill outside the body. A ‘true pill’ refers to an elixir of immortality, though of course, such a thing doesn’t exist.”

“So the Grand Rejuvenation Pill of Shaolin or the Purple Revival Pill of Mount Hua are all not ‘real pills.’ Since eating them doesn’t make you ascend.”

“Correct. Once they realized it was impossible to create an external pill, they started creating internal pills by imitating spiritual creatures and divine beasts. That was the origin of dantian energy cultivation.”

“In other words… The ‘dantian’ of martial artists was created in imitation of the ‘true pill’ that exists only in imagination. Therefore, in essence, the two are the same…”

“Right, so if we treat your dantian as an incomplete pill and you then consume the incomplete Three Talents Five Elements Pill I made, we could synthesize them within the body.”

The Divine Physician, who had been explaining with fervor, suddenly stared blankly into the distance.

“Is something there?”

Ju-seong kept looking toward where the Divine Physician was gazing blankly, but there was nothing there.

Just the sky of Sichuan, clear tonight as far as he could see…

“Damn it.”

The Divine Physician murmured dazedly.

“Pardon? Master?”

“Come to think of it, a person is essentially a pill. That’s how the Five Medicines Tang Clan’s secret arts were being used…”

“Master?”

Ju-seong blinked as he called to his master. His master was now mentioning the name of his former sect.

Ju-seong had never told him that he had learned of the Divine Physician’s past.

For him to speak the name of a sect he had so desperately hidden meant the mental shock the Divine Physician was experiencing right now was considerable.

Short thoughts scattered in segments through his mind. Having regained his senses, the Divine Physician said something incomprehensible.

“Somewhere in the martial world, another Three Talents Five Elements Pill must be being made. One from elixirs, poisons, and all sorts of medicinal ingredients… and the other from people.”

The Divine Physician couldn’t continue. But Ju-seong had an exceptionally sharp mind, so he could roughly connect the dots.

The Five Medicines Tang Clan, attacked and annihilated decades ago. The Three Talents Five Elements Pill, their secret art. And the secret technique of combining incomplete pills into a single pill.

‘A person’s dantian is essentially the same as a pill…’

And the Blood Sword Sect warriors who had stuffed his sisters and many other women like cargo into carts and transported them.

Having recalled this much, Ju-seong slowly asked.

“…I know that Master punished the Blood Sword Sect’s Young Master. I also know that Master is the last survivor of the Five Medicines Tang Clan, a successor of the ancient Yinyang School. This disciple learned much during his first martial journey.”

The Divine Physician narrowed his eyes and glared at Ju-seong.

“This punk didn’t do his martial journey properly and only dug into his master’s past.”

“If my thinking is correct, Master… The annihilation of the Five Medicines Tang Clan wasn’t only the doing of the Yunnan factions at the time? There must have been someone behind it.”

“…”

“And that veiled group stole the Five Medicines Tang Clan’s secrets, and to complete those secrets, they seduced the Blood Sword Sect’s Young Master into… ‘harvesting’ people.”

“Your head spins quickly…”

The Divine Physician muttered as if at a loss.

“But Master, why did they gather commoners as material? There should be martial artists too.”

The Divine Physician sighed and answered.

“They must have killed many martial artists and collected them too. But since the foundation of the Three Talents Five Elements Pill is enormous life force… Much essence blood from commoners would be needed.”

“Then the Three Talents Five Elements Pill you’re making, Master… how do you supply that life force?”

“I don’t.”

“Pardon?”

The Divine Physician folded his arms and shook his head.

“The name ‘Three Talents Five Elements Pill’ was something I made up on my own. The original name of this secret technique is Golden Pill Synthesis Dissolution. In other words, it’s a technique for becoming an immortal by creating an external pill. A secret for making the elixir of immortality. Would one or two lives be enough for such a preposterous thing?”

“So… you said it was impossible to make the true pill.”

The Divine Physician nodded.

“Why do you think Emperor Qin Shi Huang conducted the Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars? Simply to bury clever scholars and strong martial artists?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“That’s part of it, but that bastard also did it trying to make that damned pill. Fortunately it ended in failure. After that, Qin Shi Huang did absurd things like inhaling mercury and eventually keeled over.”

“What a troublesome predecessor.”

“He was a complete wretch because he grew up unloved, but on top of that he was immensely capable and was the most powerful ruler under heaven, so it must have been maddening. You must not become such a person. You may have had no parents, but you grew up receiving much love.”

“Ah, yes.”

The Divine Physician nodded and looked Ju-seong up and down, then spoke as if remembering something.

“I didn’t expect you to reach the peak realm already. Now that you’ve reached the Flame Crow stage… Have you started the Samadhi Body Refinement?”

“Not yet.”

“Right. Better to receive help from someone who’s done it before than to do it alone. This is really incredibly painful…”

The Divine Physician chuckled as he looked at Ju-seong.

“Haah…”

Samadhi Body Refinement.

Full name: Red Crow Samadhi Body Refinement.

A refinement method that transforms the body with Samadhi True Fire upon reaching the Red Crow stage.

A technique of tempering the human body like metal using Samadhi True Fire.

Samadhi True Fire was not ordinary fire, but it possessed all the properties of fire.

That meant the pain was absolutely unbearable.

Producing Samadhi True Fire consumed considerable concentration.

Since Samadhi True Fire consumed true energy, overdoing it endangered one’s life.

Circulating the ignited true energy through all the body’s fine meridians and then expelling it through the eighty-four thousand pores required immense mental effort.

With ordinary concentration, it was impossible, so it wasn’t something to attempt lightly.

The Divine Physician patted Ju-seong’s shoulder and spoke.

“To begin Samadhi Body Refinement, you must compose your mind. First, wash and sleep tonight while meditating. For a while, don’t do energy accumulation or energy circulation… only meditate. Fall into thoughtless selflessness and contemplate only yourself.”

“Understood.”

Ju-seong washed and, instead of meditating in his bedroom, climbed to the peak of Jiulong Mountain and sat in meditation.

He meditated with both eyes open, since he had no intention of circulating his energy anyway.

It was a moonless night, so only starlight twinkled.

The surroundings were enclosed in inky darkness that felt like primordial chaos.

‘In the beginning, there was chaos…’

Ju-seong murmured inwardly.

With heaven and earth mixed together, no up or down, that was chaos. It could be said to be disorder itself.

The pitch-dark surroundings had no earth and no sky.

It was hard to distinguish the fireflies glinting among the grass from the stars fixed and shining in the sky above.

Only white specks of paint scattered on a black background filled his vision entirely.

Ju-seong looked upon the chaos and tried not to think of martial arts. He thought this meditation had nothing to do with fighting or getting stronger.

Nor was he trying to become a better person or to attain enlightenment.

Only contemplation.

People of ancient times found all answers by contemplating heaven and earth.

Ju-seong was merely following in their footsteps.

An eternity passed, and the sky began to fade to deep blue. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the horizon was faintly drawn.

At last, earth and sky were distinguished… the hot above, the cold below. Then dawn broke. On the eastern horizon as he sat in meditation, a swelling, sprouting ball of fire appeared.

As the sun illuminated heaven and earth, all things finally regained their outlines and colors.

Trees and grass. The soil where they took root, the flowing stream, the rocky mountains standing like giants, and the metals sleeping within them.

Thus the night, which had seemed endless, returned the five elements to the world.

-Clap clap clap.

Applause came naturally. Lost in the magnificent spectacle, he had long since abandoned meditation.

“Moved, only moved…”

Ju-seong fussed and pretended to wipe his eyes.

Was not this great harmony of heaven and earth reenacting the birth of creation every morning?

Could this be heaven’s wish for all people to attain enlightenment and become one with heaven and earth?

Lest foolish people forget, for eons of ages, not missing a single day, it was giving the same teaching.

Having witnessed this principle for the first time, Ju-seong couldn’t help but feel moved.

Until a disgruntled voice came.

“…Young Master, what are you doing there alone?”

“Ah, Lady Wol-hyang.”

Ju-seong composed his expression and posture, springing to his feet.

“You might not know what you saw, but that was a misunderstanding. I was meditating quietly.”

Mo Wol-hyang covered her mouth with her pale hand and smiled softly.

“You’re still eccentric.”

“And you’re still… Hmm.”

Ju-seong was about to say beautiful, but quickly shut his mouth. Wol-hyang tilted her head and asked.

“Still what?”

“You’re still wearing only one outfit. Don’t you have other clothes?”

“Ah…!”

Caught off guard, Wol-hyang burst out laughing at Ju-seong’s nonsense.

Ju-seong reproached himself for saying something stupid, but seeing Wol-hyang laughing so hard that tears came out, he couldn’t help but smile along with her.

“What’s so funny?”

“Young Master is laughing too.”

“That’s true.”

“I have several similar outfits. When I fled, I packed three in my bundle.”

“I apologize for misunderstanding.”

“Let’s just watch the sunrise. I wondered why I woke up so early today, and this is why.”

“To watch the sunrise?”

“To watch it with you, Young Master.”

Wol-hyang said this while looking straight at Ju-seong.

“It’s been a while, Young Master.”

Ju-seong looked into her jet-black eyes for a moment, then hurriedly turned his gaze toward the rising sun.

‘Hmm, the harmony of creation… Yin-yang and the five elements…’

He wanted to return to the Taoist mindset from before, but it wasn’t easy at all.

“…It’s been a while for me too, Lady.”