Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 81 - Chongqing Forest

Chapter 81 – Chongqing Forest

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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At Ju-seong’s declaration, the two nuns wore truly dumbfounded expressions.

They wondered what on earth this man was up to, yet at the same time thought perhaps he was trying to repay them for saving his life.

Ok-wol slowly chose her words before speaking.

“…That you want to help us is… I suppose I can understand it as repaying a favor. However, we don’t know who you are or what you do, so we cannot trust you easily.”

Yang So-so interjected. She was a rather thoughtless woman in many ways. This must have been her first time venturing into the jianghu.

“But Martial Aunt, he seems like a good person! He told us frankly about how he ended up here.”

“How can we believe what this man says without reservation? Ah, I apologize, Young Hero Ju. But as we’ve only just met, please understand that we must be cautious.”

“Of course. But if you see what I can do, your thoughts will change.”

“…What can you do?”

“You had a simple breakfast with fasting pills this morning. For lunch, you had tofu and vegetables… However, since Young Lady Yang is still at an age where her muscles and bones haven’t fully developed, she ate chicken.”

“…That’s accurate.”

Ok-wol nodded, looking slightly surprised. Yang So-so also nodded eagerly beside her, eyes wide.

“That’s truly amazing!”

Ju-seong tapped his nose and continued.

“Judging from the smell of ash powder and soap nut fruit on your clothes, you bathe and do laundry at least once every two days. You probably couldn’t today because of me.”

“That’s right! That’s why I’ve felt a bit grimy all along. But what can you do? We must accumulate good deeds to reach nirvana.”

“Haah… So-so.”

Just as Ok-wol, exasperated by her overly straightforward martial niece, was about to say something, Ju-seong spoke again.

“In any case… As you can see, I have a keen nose. Far superior to ordinary people, and probably no worse than hunting dogs or mountain beasts.”

“Indeed so… How is it you reveal all your assets to us strangers? Are you perhaps also venturing into the jianghu for the first time?”

Ok-wol asked with a peculiar expression. Ju-seong’s manner of speech and behavior seemed like a well-traveled vagrant warrior, yet he appeared somewhat naive in this respect.

Ju-seong shook his head.

“If you are people who would save a stranger’s life by pulling them from the water, and masters of the Emei Sect no less, I thought I could set aside the wariness of the jianghu for a moment. Wouldn’t you agree, Young Lady Yang?”

When Ju-seong smiled good-naturedly and looked at Yang So-so, she sparkled with innocent eyes and nodded.

“Of course! You can trust us since we’re from Emei!”

Ok-wol fell into thought for a moment. Could she trust this man? Ok-wol herself wasn’t particularly experienced in the jianghu either.

However, considering the frankness she sensed in his speech, the way he had revealed his background in detail, and that he had disclosed information that could put him at a disadvantage… continuing to doubt him didn’t seem like the wisest choice either.

“Very well. Let us continue the pursuit together, Young Hero. If we succeed in tracking down the assassin and proving Emei Sect’s innocence, the sect will give you a substantial reward.”

A reward from Emei Sect, no less… one of the ten pillars supporting the orthodox martial world, the Seven Sects and Three Houses.

Ju-seong felt his mouth water as he nodded.

“Just leave it to me!”

* * *

‘Why did I say that?’

Ju-seong was rowing with a hollow expression. Beside him, Yang So-so was holding the other oar, matching his rhythm.

“Young Hero, you’re too slow! The boat is drifting to the right!”

“Ah, my apologies…”

Ju-seong mumbled listlessly and straightened the oar.

To get straight to the point, Ju-seong’s Celestial Hearing was utterly useless in this situation.

His keen nose was only useful when at least somewhat close to his target. And more importantly, shouldn’t he know what scent he was pursuing before he could track it?

-Do you have any traces or clues of the assassin, or items he used?

-We do not.

-What about blood from the murdered escort?

-Wouldn’t Qingcheng Sect have collected all of that? It was a murder that occurred in Qingcheng’s territory to begin with. There’s no way we could obtain items from the scene.

-Then what exactly have you two been tracking?

-We were just following the Min River downstream, questioning people in villages whenever we saw them to ask if they’d seen anyone suspicious.

-My word… They say Emei Mountain has ign… I mean, steadfast swordswomen.

-What did you just…?

-You must have misheard.

It was a roughshod, ignorant method of inquiry, but it was something only Emei Sect could do.

Emei Sect’s second and third-generation disciples numbered at least a hundred and several dozen.

If they scattered and questioned suspicious people, receiving help from local lay schools to investigate, something would turn up eventually.

The problem was that in such a situation, a keen sense of smell was useless.

Still, having already committed to it, Ju-seong couldn’t just leave immediately.

It was a situation where he urgently needed to return and let those around him know he was alive.

But equally important was exposing the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s hidden side to the orthodox sects.

‘That said, this is such a meaningless waste of time.’

They had drifted downstream for several days, entered the Yangtze River, and were now continuing downstream. They would soon reach Chongqing Prefecture.

Chongqing Prefecture was a place Ju-seong himself hadn’t visited in a long time. He had only stopped by once when he first came to Sichuan Province with the Divine Physician, and this was his first time back since.

Ju-seong casually observed the atmosphere in the boat before speaking.

“If I had to name the most ‘Sichuan-like’ place in Sichuan after Chengdu, I’d say it’s Chongqing Prefecture.”

At Ju-seong’s words, Yang So-so asked curiously.

“Why is that? What do you mean by ‘Sichuan-like’?”

“At the end of the previous dynasty, a martial artist surnamed Ming gathered heroes and raised a rebellion. He even founded a nation, didn’t he? The Xia Kingdom, I believe… You could say there’s Sichuan’s spirit in someone whose temper led them to rebel and build a country.”

Ok-wol, who had been listening quietly nearby, shook her head slightly at Ju-seong’s arbitrary interpretation of history.

“That’s an absurd thing to say. It’s a stretch to label it courage, considering he was just a warlord who rebelled while the nation was in peril.”

Ju-seong asked as if amused.

“The previous dynasty wasn’t Han, was it? What’s wrong with rebelling against a barbarian dynasty?”

Ok-wol stared at the distant mountains for a moment, then turned to Ju-seong with a serious expression and spoke.

“Han or barbarian… Those who live with their lives on the blade’s edge shouldn’t think such things. It’s not a good attitude for a martial artist or a Taoist.”

It was excellent advice for a martial-Taoist.

Ju-seong smiled quietly at her words. Judging people by their origins and background was a chronic ailment of orthodox sects.

When working together, such people would inevitably be tiresome to deal with. After all, Ju-seong himself was from the streets to begin with.

Ju-seong’s rambling about random history had been a test to gauge their character.

Ok-wol had no idea, of course.

In any case, Ju-seong was satisfied. She was truly a splendid swordswoman of the jianghu, wasn’t she?

Yang So-so looked at her martial aunt with admiring eyes and said.

“Martial Aunt, can I write that down?”

“Just stop dozing off during the elders’ sermons, So-so.”

The boat carrying one man and two women drifted along the Yangtze toward Chongqing.

Would they achieve double happiness… “Chong Qing,” as the region’s name suggested… both capturing the assassin and fulfilling Ju-seong’s objective?

Or would they trudge back empty-handed?

Ju-seong had a feeling that this hub of logistics, with countless boats coming and going, contained both fortune and misfortune.

-Flutter!

Something white and fluffy suddenly flew in and landed on Ju-seong’s shoulder.

Ok-wol flinched and startled.

“Young Hero, on your shoulder…”

Ju-seong stroked the Heavenly Silkworm Moth that had landed on his shoulder and said.

“It follows me around, so please don’t mind it.”

‘You useless freeloader…’

Ju-seong put a little more force into the hand stroking the moth. It must have flown out through the gap when the explosives detonated.

Normally, in such a desperate situation, a spirit creature you’ve been raising should dramatically manifest some ability to save you, shouldn’t it?

What was the point of raising a spirit creature otherwise?

-Mama! Full tummy!

The creature’s transmitted intent reached his mind. It still couldn’t communicate anything meaningful.

“It’s incredibly cute…”

Yang So-so reached out her hand as if entranced. Ju-seong blocked her hand and shook his head.

“This is actually a venomous creature. Please don’t touch it, just in case.”

“It’s so cute but I can only look!”

Yang So-so immediately looked dejected. Ok-wol turned away from her thoughtless martial niece, shaking her head.

It seemed the creature had sucked quite a lot of sap from trees in the wild, as its belly had become quite round.

It burrowed into Ju-seong’s clothes and soon became still and docile.

Apparently, its resting place absolutely had to be its mother’s bosom.

‘That’s right… Eat a lot and grow big to be of use to me.’

Ju-seong consoled himself that this creature was still immature and therefore useless.

* * *

Weizhong District, the heart of Chongqing.

It was named after the Weizhong Peninsula at the point where the Yangtze and Jialing rivers met.

With the Jialing River flowing down from Shaanxi meeting the Yangtze flowing from Sichuan, it was needless to say a hub of logistics.

The party arrived at Weizhong District in the middle of the night, but the lights of the sleepless city brightly illuminated the dock.

Ju-seong looked at the sea of lights spread behind the dock like a folding screen, with boats of all sizes converging, and murmured.

“This is truly a Chongqing Forest.”

Yang So-so looked bewildered, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked around.

“I don’t see many trees. Where’s the forest?”

“People, buildings, and boats are packed so densely they form a forest, so what else can I call it?”

Ok-wol, sitting upright with her sword held to her chest, surveyed the surroundings and chuckled.

“More romantic than I expected. An amusing expression.”

“Romance is me, and I am romance.”

The party jested as they docked at the pier and decided their next steps.

“Chongqing is vast with many people, so it would be better to split up for questioning. I’ll teach you how to use the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s branches.”

Even if terrible secrets were hidden in the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s upper echelons, there was no reason not to use them as an information organization. Nine-tenths of the Ten Thousand Ears Gang’s members probably didn’t even know what their organization was really about.

Ju-seong delegated the search through Ten Thousand Ears Gang branches to the two women, while he would search inns, stables, and back alleys looking for suspicious people.

The assassin likely harmed or tormented Qingcheng Sect’s young prodigy in some way.

Someone carrying the scent of a child’s blood.

No matter how reckless a life one led, those who smelled of children’s blood were rare.

There was a certain scent of blood that couldn’t come from simply being disciplined at home. Ju-seong had to find that.

“First, I need to establish a base.”

Before he knew it, dawn was breaking. The sky was still a gloomy purple, and the lanterns… red and blue… hung in the marketplace were going out one by one.

The people passing by had eyes either exhausted from life’s hardships or reddened from being consumed by desire.

Ju-seong mixed among them, jostled and bumped like an unremarkable traveling merchant as he made his way through the streets.

It was a melancholy time of day, as neither the nighttime streets where desires squirmed nor the daytime streets bustling with merchants’ calls had yet taken hold.

Walking through the melancholy streets, Ju-seong suddenly realized his body felt excessively heavy.

After drifting from the Jin River and traveling down the Min and Yangtze rivers, he hadn’t slept in a proper bed.

He was accustomed to sleeping rough, but there were limits. A situation where he couldn’t rest after a near-death experience.

Both body and mind resembled the saturated, dawn-gray sky.

Shancha Inn.

That was the name of the inn Ju-seong chose. It was shabby and in a remote location, but it overlooked the street well.

Ju-seong took a room on the highest floor, the third, unpacked his belongings, and settled by the window.

As he observed the gradually brightening street, he began to nod off.

“This won’t do.”

Ju-seong shook his head slightly and dragged his feet to the bed to lie down.

“Come to me, O Demon of Sleep.”

The light faded, and Ju-seong fell into a deep sleep.