Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 70 - I'll Just Win Tonight
Chapter 70 – I’ll Just Win Tonight
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Master Jeong-hwa slowly opened her eyes that had been quietly closed in the hermitage atop Emei Mountain’s Golden Summit Peak.
As she finished her energy circulation, a sacred Buddha-light burst from her eyes.
Her face was covered in wrinkles, but from her freely loosened white hair and carelessly draped kasaya emanated an air of freedom along with a majestic aura.
‘…My body feels light.’
She rose with joy in her heart.
Wasn’t this the body that, just months ago, could barely move and was merely waiting for nirvana?
Nirvana sounded nice, but in truth, it meant her lifespan ending before she reached the highest realm, falling back into the wheel of reincarnation.
To be fair, no matter what miraculous feat she performed, she knew she couldn’t ascend to heaven like the immortals or venerable monks of old tales.
The reason she clung to this humble life was none other than the people she would leave behind.
From the next sect leader to the five hundred disciples of the Emei Sect… they weighed on her heart, and no matter how she tried to shed her attachment and depart unencumbered, it wouldn’t go as her heart wished.
She loathed her worn-out body and wanted to leave immediately, but holding on and enduring led to this fortune in her twilight years.
“Master, have you risen?”
“Yes, Hye-jeong.”
Hye-jeong was her chief disciple, already designated as the next sect leader.
Even her disciple’s face was now beginning to show scattered wrinkles, and uncharacteristically for herself, Jeong-hwa felt a pang in her heart.
She quietly shifted her gaze to look toward the direction where Qingcheng Mountain would be rising in the distance.
“…Do those people still believe we’re the villains who stole their elixir?”
“Yes, Sect Leader. They’re truly no different from ruffians. How can they corner people like this without any evidence?”
At Hye-jeong’s somewhat angry tone, Jeong-hwa also nodded slightly.
“Indeed…”
“I’m sorry. Since I obtained that elixir, Master has been slandered…”
Jeong-hwa narrowed her brow slightly and waved her hand in dismissal.
When she narrowed her brow, it looked quite natural… evidence that she had spent her lifetime with furrowed brows.
“Enough. How can you say such things? Are you saying it was wrong for you to restore me with that elixir? Nonsense. It was merely an unfortunate coincidence of timing… A trick of fate, nothing more or less.”
Hye-jeong bowed deeply before stepping back.
Her master had lived over a hundred years, yet her fierce spirit remained unchanged.
Unlike the many masters who adorned themselves with frivolous titles like King or Emperor, her master’s nickname had been only one since her youth.
Blade of Extinguishing Evil.
It was certainly unusual that she had risen to the pinnacle of the martial world yet continued using a nickname that second-rate heroes might bear.
Like her own nickname, she had devoted her entire life to exterminating evil and punishing evildoers.
Though they had long bickered, the current situation of bloodshed with the Qingcheng Sect… fellow standard-bearers of the orthodox path… was nothing but unpleasant.
It was then.
“Master Hye-jeong! Sect Leader!”
A first-generation disciple was seen scrambling up toward the hermitage.
Hye-jeong assumed a deliberately stern expression and rebuked her.
“Beop-hye, what manner is this, running up so gracelessly to the hermitage where the Sect Leader resides?”
But the first-generation disciple called Beop-hye looked too frantic to even apologize, crying out with a distraught face.
“That young prodigy of the Qingcheng Sect…”
Hye-jeong tilted her head quizzically.
“What about that child? Did he fully master the Azure Wind Sword Art or something?”
Beop-hye shook her head frantically, tears in her eyes.
“That child was murdered last night! The wounds on the corpse clearly bore traces of Emei Sect martial arts…! The Qingcheng Sect is rising up, clamoring to wage all-out war against us immediately!”
The news was so shocking that the room fell silent.
No one here was foolish enough to think their rival faction’s prodigy dying was a blessing for Emei, nor was anyone so vicious.
Even when the abbot of Golden Summit Temple, an Emei lay school, was assassinated, it hadn’t truly been a matter for the main mountain elders to mobilize.
Coldly speaking, there was no evidence that a Qingcheng lay school had killed him.
They had merely sent disciples down because the lay schools had begun drawing blood in earnest, to protect their respective lay factions.
But now that the child… evaluated as someone who would carry the next hundred years of Qingcheng… had been murdered…
Master Jeong-hwa spoke with narrowed eyes.
“Surely someone is trying to drive a wedge between Qingcheng and Emei.”
“That’s right. Perhaps the one who assassinated the Golden Summit Temple abbot was the same person.”
“The problem is that this truth is plainly visible to our eyes, but not from the Qingcheng Sect’s perspective…”
What Qingcheng Sect could see was only that their prodigy had died with sword marks from Emei techniques on his body.
Even if it wasn’t the Emei main mountain’s will, they would surely be calculating the possibility that one of the lay schools had acted unilaterally.
Master Jeong-hwa glanced down at her own hands.
Her wrinkled hands were trembling faintly.
‘…Never mind nirvana… I might not even be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation, being born as a beast instead.’
Now in her twilight years, the thought kept returning of how many times throughout her life she had opened the killing precept and stained her hands with blood without hesitation.
Her joints creaked, and controlling her bodily functions had become so difficult that her aged body made her spirit weak along with it.
Even though the elixir had restored her body to health, the regrets of old age hadn’t faded.
Now she had to fight desperately against enemies who weren’t even evildoers… longtime neighbors of Sichuan Province… and stain her hands with innocent blood.
‘In this battle, let this old nun bear as much blood as possible, shouldering all the sin alone.’
Even if she could never return to the human realm and suffered eternally in hell…
She raised her head to look at Hye-jeong before her, and the first-generation disciple beside her.
She couldn’t possibly burden even her children, born of her heart, with sin.
“…Prepare for all-out war. Meanwhile, have all disciples below the second generation refrain from combat entirely and instead search for the culprit who killed the Qingcheng prodigy.”
The most innocent were the young disciples. She would remove them from this filthy battle and give them other work.
Besides, the strength of a prestigious great sect was mostly concentrated among disciples of the first generation and above.
That was due to the nature of orthodox martial arts, which grew powerful over long cultivation.
Also, if by some chance the second- and third-generation disciples succeeded in finding the culprit, the overheated conflict could be ended.
“Hye-jeong, have you still not found the Taoist who sold that elixir?”
Master Jeong-hwa asked, and Hye-jeong flinched before shaking her head.
“Yes, Master. That person has vanished as if into the earth or sky… completely untraceable.”
“Haah… If even a small fragment of that elixir remained, we could send it to Physician Seo-baek for appraisal and prove our innocence…”
The Emei Sect had also submitted a request to the All-Living Clinic’s Physician Seo-baek to prove they hadn’t stolen the Heavenly Bone Fruit Wine.
They had provided detailed descriptions of the color and fragrance of the elixir Master Jeong-hwa had consumed, but the answer that came back was that he had never heard of it.
Master Jeong-hwa let out a small sigh, then picked up her sword and slightly drew it from its sheath to look.
‘Throughout sixty years of entering the martial world until I secluded myself back on Emei Mountain…’
A sword that had tasted the blood of countless evildoers.
There was a separate sword passed down to the sect leader, but she had kept it enshrined and only used this one.
She had sent it to the smithy countless times to sharpen the blade and make repairs.
Her entire life was in this single sword.
That was why this sword was named Extinguishing Evil.
But now, blood of those who weren’t evildoers would also stain this blade…
The sixty-years-unchanged upright blade seemed to reproach her.
Extinguishing Evil reflected her face on its pristine white blade, and indeed, she felt deeply ashamed.
‘Just once, just once more, let us fight together, my dear friend.’
With an apologetic heart, Master Jeong-hwa whispered so to her sword.
* * *
Ju-seong was currently wandering the main roads of Chengdu, carrying an unidentified bundle and looking wild-eyed.
Even the famously spirited young men of Sichuan were quick to avert their gazes when Ju-seong passed by.
Of course, this fierce man could suppress his presence to blend in like an ordinary person if he wished.
But right now, he was not doing so.
Because he was currently quite excited, having gained justification to thrash some dark path thugs after a long while.
This was for the purpose of finding the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s Sichuan Province headquarters.
Ju-seong recalled his conversation with Cheong-rang from a few days ago.
-Nothing has come down to us at all. Perhaps the Sichuan Province headquarters chief might know something… Anyway, matters concerning your master are handled at higher levels, Young Master.
-Do you know the location?
-If I knew where the higher-ups were, it wouldn’t be a point organization, would it, Young Master? Doesn’t seem like you’re a Zhuge descendant.
-Why are you being sarcastic? Such speech habits are not good.
-Ah, ow! Sorry! Ear! My ear!
“In the end, I have to target the dark path vermin lurking in Chengdu’s back alleys.”
Of course, he didn’t think those people would know the exact location of the headquarters. They were just small fry.
In Sichuan Province, there were no large evil factions. Qingcheng and Emei had long since amicably divided the interests between themselves.
At best, Qingcheng and Emei, being Taoist and Buddhist factions, couldn’t touch taverns and pleasure houses for appearances’ sake, but even those were gradually nibbled away by their lay schools.
Even the interests that fell below the dignity of Qingcheng and Emei’s lay schools…
Red-light districts with courtesans, gambling dens, loansharking to the poor…
Only in such limited areas could small dark path gangs scrape by, growing like mushrooms in the damp shade.
No matter how tightly the great orthodox factions held the interests of Sichuan Province, such people still emerged.
And in Ju-seong’s estimation, those dark path types couldn’t be completely unconnected to the Ten Thousand Ears Gang.
The Ten Thousand Ears Gang would obviously gather information through them, and occasionally spread rumors.
Things in the shadows were inherently connected in some way.
“Let’s go clean up the Chengdu streets today.”
A man who couldn’t be swayed by persuasion, bribes, or threats, and was slightly weak to honey traps but had such high standards that he was hard to seduce, had appeared in Chengdu’s slums.
Ramshackle, moldy houses huddled together, shoulders touching in a cramped mass.
“I feel some watchful eyes.”
Ju-seong muttered, slowly acclimating his nose to the stench of the back alleys. He suddenly looked up at the sky and murmured.
“Today’s weather… can’t see it.”
Clotheslines were strewn everywhere like jungle vines.
Walking through the alley and looking up, the sky was almost invisible.
This meant a lot of people were living in a relatively small space.
And at a junction where alleys tangled together, there was a small clearing that could pass for a plaza.
Around it, decrepit two- and three-story buildings stood like a screen, and dimmed red lanterns drooped gloomily like an old courtesan’s hair.
People in shabby clothes stood in a line, each clutching a grimy coin purse in their grimy hands.
What was the line for? It was a line to pay interest on King of Hell’s Debts (loan-sharking).
Paying off the principal was obviously out of the question. Just keeping up with the mounting interest was a burden beyond bearing for the slum dwellers.
Ju-seong hid in the shadow of an eave and observed what the dark path men were doing.
A shifty-looking young man sat behind a table, counting coins as he asked.
“Old Wang, was this month tough? Why is the interest so low?”
“When you’re old, your bones ache so much you can’t work properly… All I do is odd jobs in central Chengdu for a pittance… Tightening my belt and saving that much was all I could manage.”
“Ah, really? How unfortunate. Just don’t work and rest properly, Old Wang. When you’re old, you should rest.”
“Hey, Dong-sam…”
-CRACK!
The man next to him swung a wooden club and shattered Old Wang’s shin.
“One shin is worth one nyang of silver… How about it? If both shins get smashed, that’s full principal repayment.”
Ju-seong’s eye twitched, and he was about to step forward when Old Wang extended his other leg and mumbled.
“Guh… Alright, since one’s already busted, break the other one too.”
Ju-seong’s eyes widened at his reaction. Good heavens, the dark path thugs were smashing his legs, and he was offering the other one too?
The young man asked with a snicker.
“Wait, if both your legs get crippled, you’re not going to work, are you, Old Wang?”
The elderly man who had been speaking politely before now matched his snicker and retorted.
“Ah, damn. I’ll just win tonight. If I hit it big tonight, I can loaf around for four months… why would I work?”
The young man cackled and spoke to the man beside him.
“If both his legs get smashed, he’ll have to crawl to our gambling den from here, so break his left arm instead.”
The large man swung the club again.
-CRACK!
“Gaaaah! You damn bastards! That hurts like bloody hell!”
The young man lifted one corner of his mouth and spoke.
“No money for interest, but there was money for gambling. Damn old geezer, really… If you win tonight, throw some of your winnings my way.”
“Ask your mother for that.”
“Haha, when my mom was alive, Old Wang had his fun too, didn’t he? Arguably, I might be your son.”
“Bullshit. I never had a mongrel like you for a son.”
“Ah… Such language from an old man. Anyway, if you lose at gambling again and can’t pay, this time I’ll really kill you. Got it?”
Old Wang staggered to his feet and, instead of answering, spat on the ground. Then he dragged his broken leg and left the clearing.
No one batted an eye at the entire spectacle. Ju-seong let out a hollow laugh.
‘Haha…’
Though Ju-seong had spent many years rolling around the streets, he didn’t have much experience with bottom-of-the-bottom slums like this.
The troupe’s trade was showing performances, selling cheap medicine, and telling stories for money.
Slum people would never open their wallets, so the troupe’s main stage was the glittering downtown areas.
There, dirty desires might exist, but such bleak poverty did not.
‘I thought poverty was merely rags…’
Poverty wasn’t tattered clothes one could shed at any time.
Rags couldn’t corrupt the wearer’s essence, but look how poverty seeped into the bones and gnawed at the soul.
Ju-seong let out a deep sigh and moved on. Whether his heart was dark or not, he had work to do.
“Hey there, Mister Rat. Let’s have a word.”