Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 99 - Tranquil as a Lake

Chapter 99 – Tranquil as a Lake

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Ju-seong sat quietly, gazing at the assassin who thrashed in pain.

The man wore strange skin-tight clothing and was bleeding profusely from his severed leg.

“They call that a water-fish skin?”

Chun-mong nodded.

“I believe it’s made from shark or stingray hide, with special treatment. Assassins who specialize in water attacks often use it.”

Ju-seong shook his head and said.

“Good thing I scattered Heavenly Silkworm Silk across the bottom when I went swimming earlier. If I’d wandered to the waterside carelessly to take a piss, I might never have gotten married.”

“Terrifying.”

“These assassin bastards… That one’s clearly trained as a Night Guest too. His eyes are different. Hey! Stop screaming, bastard. Look at you bleeding just enough not to die. Sneaky piece of work.”

The moment Ju-seong finished speaking, the assassin abruptly stopped screaming and pressed his own thigh’s pressure point to stop the bleeding.

He’d stopped the bleeding, sure, but his body was still tangled in Heavenly Silkworm Silk, which was connected to Ju-seong’s gauntlet.

The man’s life or death was under Ju-seong’s control.

“…”

Having failed to catch Ju-seong off-guard with his fake screaming, the assassin promptly knelt properly… despite having one leg severed… and silently bowed his head.

“These guys are honestly insane, wow…”

Ju-seong shook his head with a dumbfounded laugh.

If he showed even a hint of softness or carelessness toward that meekly-kneeling assassin…

‘I get my throat slit.’

Among assassins, those captured who beg for their lives with tears are third-rate.

Those who bite a poison capsule and die the moment things go wrong are second-rate.

And those who again beg for their lives or scream like third-rates are the first-rate.

Not because they’re trying to preserve their own lives.

They’re just looking for one more chance. That’s the only purpose.

“What on earth makes you so blindly devoted…?”

Ju-seong sighed quietly, then went over to the paralyzed saber wielder and inhaled deeply through his nose.

“Snnnfff…”

His closed eyes opened, and ghostly fire blazed in his pupils.

“This bastard too… I was hoping I was wrong when I got a whiff earlier. Why do you smell of children’s blood?”

Ju-seong’s hands moved swiftly to strike pressure points across the saber wielder’s chest.

-Tok! Tok! Tuduk!

Ju-seong’s pressure-point technique was now near-miraculous. He’d undone the mute point in a body completely frozen by paralysis poison using only pressure-point strikes.

The moment his tongue was freed, words poured from the saber wielder like rapid fire.

“Krgh… Spare me! I have a treasure map on me! Right now, all the major factions in Huguang are clinging to this thing…!”

-Tadak!

The assassin who’d been tied up in the Heavenly Silkworm Silk suddenly lunged at the saber wielder.

His skill as he pushed off the ground with one leg and sliced through the air was exceptional.

A dagger was even being drawn from his waist.

Ju-seong’s brow furrowed reflexively.

“Ah… Damn it.”

He swallowed his curse and yanked his left hand. The Heavenly Silkworm Silk constricted.

-Splooosh!

A vivid blood-flower bloomed in the black night sky.

The pieces of the charging body, unable to control their momentum, flew over the campfire. The onlookers saw the scattered body parts in slow motion.

Blood splattered onto the campfire, which dimmed briefly, and the area fell into an eerie silence.

“…”

Soon the campfire flared again, and the clearing where the three had been sitting was now a complete mess.

Worse, the paralyzed saber wielder was now splattered with blood and flesh, trembling uncontrollably.

“What a mess.”

Ju-seong muttered quietly. He hid his trembling left hand.

Ju-seong’s gaze turned toward the lake.

‘A heart tranquil as a lake.’

Ju-seong repeated desperately.

He wanted to kill the saber wielder right now, kill Chun-mong too, chase after Forget-Sorrow Arrow who’d fled without firing a single arrow and kill him, wipe out all the groups with “Black Dragon” in their name from the Black Dragon Gang to the Black Dragon Hall, and eradicate the Ten Thousand Ears Gang, the Assassination Curtain, the Martial Alliance, the evil sects… all jianghu people without exception…

“Ah, heavens.”

Ju-seong lamented as he shot up, flung off his robe, and dove into the lake.

-Gurglegrurgle…

Ju-seong tried to redirect his thoughts. Trying to empty his mind and think of nothing wasn’t working.

He’d been confident in meditation, yet right now it was impossible.

‘Let’s see… what the saber wielder said.’

Ju-seong worked his mind while submerged in the water.

‘He’s also an assassin… a Night Guest. The treasure map and all that was not just to save his own life. He was trying to lower my guard. But from the way the fish assassin charged in, it seems to be real internal information.’

In short, the two hadn’t been in sync.

The saber wielder had likely mixed truth and lies to induce Ju-seong’s carelessness.

But the fish assassin must have had the intelligence of a fish, failing to grasp the saber wielder’s deeper intent and immediately moving to execute a traitor.

In truth, it was hard to expect someone with one leg cut off to be cool and rational.

Night Guests were people in the end.

And Ju-seong had killed another person.

‘A heart tranquil as a lake.’

He tried to calm himself by thinking about how many innocent lives those men must have taken.

But the smell of children’s blood on the saber wielder’s clothes came back to him, and his rage grew.

‘Ah, this isn’t the right direction.’

The path of hatred was no good. With the mindset of an Immovable Wisdom King punishing evildoers, he could never wash away the killing intent.

Instead, Ju-seong recalled names: Old Master Hwang of the troupe, the older sisters, Master, Lady Wol-hyang, Physician Seo-baek, Red Beggar, the Five Poisons Valley Master, and various others.

By thinking of them, he could know that the world was not only lonely and harsh.

The ruthless jianghu was not actually so ruthless… and perhaps that cold moon was truly the heart of a Buddha, looking after the night that the sun had turned its back on, as far as its light could reach?

“Puha!”

Ju-seong shot up above the water.

He emerged like a fledgling bird born with soaked feathers, or like iron pulled from the oil bath of a forge.

“Ah, Brother.”

Chun-mong had apparently hurried after him; he was wading knee-deep in the water.

Chun-mong stood in the middle of the lake with an awkward expression. He must have been torn between whether to pull Ju-seong out or leave him be.

Qi deviation was not something others could carelessly interfere with.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Ju-seong patted Chun-mong’s shoulder as he passed.

“Whew… I’m feeling calmer now.”

Ju-seong brushed back his wet hair and plopped down in front of the saber wielder.

“Let’s have a chat, Saber Wielder. Or should I call you something else? Night Guests call each other by nicknames, right? I know a thing or two. What’s yours?”

“…Smiling-Face Master.”

“A master with a smiling face… Ah, I’d rather not know why. So you mostly raised young assassins in the Assassination Curtain? I suppose they need that kind of role too.”

Smiling-Face Master nodded slightly.

“I’d rather not hear more about that part. You don’t want me to crush your skull into cattle feed with one palm strike, do you? Tell me about that treasure map from earlier.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“What… because your plan to lower my guard fell through?”

“…”

Ju-seong scoffed and reached into Smiling-Face Master’s robes, extracting a long wooden slip.

It was clearly an old item; the wood was intact, but the cord had been replaced many times.

“My, my. How old is this thing? It’s so blackened I can barely see anything.”

On closer inspection, it was a map showing a lake.

Judging from the size of the drawn mountains, it was no ordinary lake.

“Is there a lake this big anywhere under heaven?”

Ju-seong murmured and glanced at Smiling-Face Master, but the man had his mouth shut and eyes closed.

“And what’s with the writing? It’s not Sanskrit or anything… looks like worms crawling.”

Chun-mong examined the slip and said.

“Hmm… The script at least looks like Persian. And the lake drawn here looks like Lake Dongting.”

“Is Dongting this big? I heard it wasn’t quite this large.”

“This is an old map. In the old days, Dongting was called Yunmeng Marsh.”

Yunmeng Marsh. Cloud-Dream Lake… the name was truly poetic.

“All the lakes scattered around present-day Dongting used to be one huge lake. It was supposedly enormous. Now it’s split into many, and Dongting is just the largest of them.”

“You little… ”

Ju-seong grabbed Chun-mong by the collar and pressed him.

“Why are you so smart, you bastard? Are you a Hanlin Academy scholar? Did you top the civil service exam? You useful, handy piece of work. You’re ten times better than Red Beggar.”

“Thank you.”

Ju-seong turned back to Smiling-Face Master and said.

“There’s something in or around ancient Yunmeng Marsh… present-day Dongting. It’s in a western script I can’t read… Are you really going to keep your mouth shut?”

“You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?”

“Who knows? Maybe we’d like to plant a spy inside the Assassination Curtain.”

“It’s connected to Li Bai, the Recluse of the Blue Lotus. If you want to know more, cure the poison first.”

“Poison?”

“Yes, the poison you fed me! It feels like my body is slowly turning to stone from the fingertips… damn! And it’s agonizing beyond belief! Just give me an antidote. I’ll talk once I’m cured.”

Ju-seong glanced at Chun-mong and gave him a look.

Understanding the signal, Chun-mong drew his sword and stepped forward.

Only then did Smiling-Face Master’s expression crumble.

“I want to be a spy. Spare me. After all I’ve been through to survive. I don’t want to die like this.”

“What have you been through?”

“I was originally the eldest son set to inherit a sizable martial arts school. But I was framed for doing something vile to a boy who attended the school and was thrown out. It was my younger brother’s scheme. After that, I did any job that paid with my martial arts, and drifted into the Assassination Curtain.”

“And you used your aptitude to teach kids in the Assassination Curtain?”

Smiling-Face Master nodded.

Ju-seong sighed and shook his head.

“You weren’t framed from the start. Just look at how you’re not teaching kids in the Assassination Curtain anymore… you’re on a different mission. Obviously you killed too many of them, right?”

“What? Who are you to speak so carelessly?”

Whether the saber wielder was indignant or not, Chun-mong raised his sword immediately. This was a man not worth a single more word.

Ju-seong spoke quietly from behind Chun-mong, staring straight at Smiling-Face Master.

“Give us one smile before you go. Like before.”

“Haha, really, young friend. I was wrongly acc… ”

Smiling-Face Master smiled his good-natured smile. Blue steel flashed in the air. His head fell and rolled away at once.

“…What a bastard. To the very end.”

Chun-mong muttered and flicked the blood off his blade.

Normally a swordsman of Chun-mong’s caliber didn’t get his blade dirty easily.

With just one slash, blood was already on the blade. That one strike had lacked composure.

“I feel bad for killing him so easily, Brother. It’s unsatisfying.”

“Useless talk.”

At Ju-seong’s cold rebuke, Chun-mong sighed.

“Haah…”

“You’ll sink the earth. Let’s move.”

When Ju-seong spoke in a flat voice and kicked the campfire out, Chun-mong tilted his head.

“Huh? We’re not burying the bodies?”

“Do I have to bury those too? How can I show human respect to those who chose the path of demons?”

“Then wasn’t giving them a painless end showing human respect?”

Ju-seong turned to look Chun-mong in the eye and said.

“That was respect for our own souls… for those of us who are still human. Not for them.”

Ju-seong carefully dusted off his fallen silk robe and put it back on. It was frayed here and there, but still wearable.

Ju-seong grinned and spun around once.

“Green suits me pretty well, don’t you think?”

“Yes. It suits you.”

“Red doesn’t look good on me, though.”

Ju-seong tucked the moth fluttering down just then into his robe.

‘This one gets whiter and whiter.’

It had been white from the start, but now it was so bright he almost thought it was glowing.

The two set up a new campsite without much thought on the opposite side of the lake.

On the other shore, two corpses lay sprawled.

From a human perspective, it was evidence of carnage… but for many-legged crawlers or winged fliers, it was a lavish meal.

Blue eyes of wolves that had come running at the scent of blood flickered like will-o’-wisps.

Ju-seong carelessly stoked the campfire and spoke.

“What did that guy say again? Li Bai, the Recluse of the Blue Lotus? Who’s that? The greatest under heaven of the previous generation, something like that?”

“Brother, with all due respect, please read some nourishing books for your soul instead of just marketplace adventure stories and erotica. You don’t know who Li Bai is?”

Ju-seong showed a rare moment of flustered denial.

“I don’t read erotica, you bastard.”

“Really? I do. You’re weirdly embarrassed. Nothing wrong with it.”

“…Could you please tell me who Li Bai is? Before I knock out all those rice-grain teeth of yours.”

“He’s a poet. The one who supposedly drowned trying to grab the moon floating on the water.”

Ju-seong finally recalled the name.

One eyebrow shot up as he asked in disbelief.

“The Poet Immortal? He wasn’t even a jianghu person.”

If the martial world had a Sword Immortal… a deity of the sword… then the world of ink and inkstone had an immortal of poetry.

His epithet was the Recluse of the Blue Lotus, and his name was Li Bai.

The treasure the map pointed to was connected to that great literary figure of old.