The Most Expensive Weeds Under Heaven
The next morning, Ouyang Qiangang came to Heo Il-bi's study carrying the secret manual he had just compiled. As it happened, Heo Cho-ryeong was there as well.
"Uncle," he said, handing the freshly bound manual over, "this is my own study and arrangement of the sword art you showed me last night."
Heo Il-bi accepted it with a puzzled frown. "In a single night... you did what?"
"Exactly as I said."
Half in doubt, Heo Il-bi turned the first page. By the time he reached the second, his face had hardened into stone. His fingers began, quite without his knowing, to trace sword trajectories in the empty air. The slow, deliberate movement of his hand grew swifter and fiercer with every page he turned, his eyes stretched wide in disbelief, a groan of mingled awe and shock spilling from his lips.
"Th-this passage... it alters the flow of qi in this manner? Impossible... and yet... if you do it this way, the blocked portion... the transitions between forms become this seamless! There is no wasted force at all......"
Watching from the side, Heo Cho-ryeong at first could not make sense of it. But she soon grasped why her father was behaving this way, and could not suppress her astonishment.
When he closed the final page, Heo Il-bi stood for a long while simply staring at Ouyang Qiangang, the manual trembling in his grip. In his eyes, alongside the reverence of a man confronting something beyond comprehension, there lingered even a faint flicker of fear.
"Gang... who... who are you......?" he asked, his voice unsteady.
"Your sworn nephew, Ouyang Qiangang."
"Haah... this is not something human talent can accomplish. You have not merely doubled the power of my sword art — you flung open, in a single night, the gate to Shingeom Habil, the Divine-Sword Unity, that has stood sealed before me my entire life......"
Ouyang Qiangang answered with an awkward expression. "Your sword art was simply too magnificent. I merely added a little of the logic I happen to possess. I only hope it proves useful in the coming duel."
His humility only made his extraordinariness seem stranger, and more overwhelming still.
Clutching the manual to his chest like a treasure, Heo Il-bi turned to his daughter. "Ryeong-ah!"
"Yes, Father."
"Drop everything and follow me to the training hall at once. This new Twenty-Eight Forms of the Bamboo Sword and the Flying Swallow Sword Art shall become the very foundation of Bamboo Forest Manor from this day forward. You must be the first to master them completely."
His voice carried a resolve that brooked not a moment's delay. Flustered, Heo Cho-ryeong looked back and forth between her father and Ouyang Qiangang.
"Father......"
But whether she spoke or not, Heo Il-bi exchanged a glance with Ouyang Qiangang, seized his daughter's hand, and hurried out of the study in a rush — for all the world as if he would die unless he mastered this new sword art within the very hour. Ouyang Qiangang watched them vanish through the door and smiled.
Hope it helps.
Three days later, Dong Tae-gu came calling at Bamboo Forest Manor again. Reluctantly dragged from the training hall, Heo Il-bi received him in the main hall.
"Our master proposes a formal duel between Hwa Clan Manor and Bamboo Forest Manor," the steward announced. "He says: 'A child's sins are a father's to answer for. If I lose this duel, I shall leave the young master's punishment entirely to Master Heo.' Furthermore, he pledges to hand over every herb he has stockpiled, down to the last one."
At those words, a gleam stirred deep in Heo Il-bi's eyes — a light so calm, so profoundly assured, that it bore no comparison to the man he had been before.
"Very well. Steward Dong, tell your master that I accept his duel."
Meanwhile, Hwang Nodae, returned from his errand, reported to Ouyang Qiangang that the herbs the Hwa Clan had hoarded were being stored in the Myriad Treasure Hall warehouse in downtown Nanchang.
Then came the night before the duel. A blackness without moonlight swallowed the city whole. Standing on the roof of a mansion near the herb market, Ouyang Qiangang gazed at the three-story pavilion of the Myriad Treasure Hall rising in the distance. He had arrived a full shijin earlier.
Recent memories flashed through his mind — Hwa Do-reung's vile trap, and the venomous cruelty of the Yin Wind Ghost Demon, who had tortured him with every intent to kill. Since arriving in this world, he had striven to meet every situation with reason and restraint. What he had received in return were merciless storms and an unending threat of death.
The laws here are not Earth's. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. To survive in this place, I may have to forget how I lived on Earth.
It felt as though something were breaking apart inside him — the last lingering sentimentality of a scientist who had spent his whole life in a laboratory. To protect himself and the people he cherished, he needed a readiness to fight his enemies by their own methods, gladly and without hesitation.
A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. What you gave me, I will gladly return in full.
He opened his eyes. "Akasha, what's the security situation at the target site?"
Two guards are yawning at the main gate, and the patrol makes its rounds once every half-shijin. Security grade: F. I would call it nearly a public space, Doctor.
A cold smile curved Ouyang Qiangang's lips. "Then it's the perfect playground for us."
As he had observed from afar, the defenses of the Myriad Treasure Hall warehouse were anything but airtight. The reason was simple: Heo Il-bi, a man of scrupulous honor, would never stoop to stealing herbs. They could not even imagine how shocking the consequences of that arrogant faith were about to be.
Ouyang Qiangang unleashed the Heavenly Meteor Movement Art he had newly mastered. His silhouette melted into the darkness like a falling star, running across the rooftops as light as the wind. With every stride he crossed more than three meters as though he weighed nothing at all — and even he was astonished by the art's speed and the efficiency of its internal energy use. Given the sheer volume of power he possessed, the technique's economy was nothing short of miraculous.
So it was no exaggeration, that it was designed to cover vast distances on minimal qi.
Reaching the roof of the Myriad Treasure Hall, he silently pried loose the tiles and slipped inside like a ghost. The warehouse was thick with the potent medicinal fragrance pouring off herbs piled in great mountains. The sheer quantity the Hwa Clan had scraped together — throwing Nanchang's entire herb market into chaos to do it — was truly staggering.
Well, well. What a feast. The Hwa Clan has laid out a banquet just for us. I feel like a man walking into a buffet — where should we start, Akasha?
A trace of mischief colored Akasha's voice as well.
I recommend starting with the highest energy efficiency — the Jahacho at your three o'clock has the purest qi. It should make a suitable appetizer.
"Excellent choice," Ouyang Qiangang murmured, a smile touching his lips. He activated the Absorption Meridian Art of the Transcendent Formless Divine Art and began drawing in the qi of the warehouse's stores. Every time his hand touched an herb, its energy swirled up and was sucked into his body.
But this time, unlike before, he did not instantly convert it into his own internal power.
Gorge yourself all at once and you'll only get sick. Trying to digest this massive torrent of alien qi in one sitting would be a fool's errand.
He compressed the enormous mass of unrefined medicinal qi into one corner of his dantian and sealed it there with care. Like a man carrying a time bomb that might go off at any moment, his dantian churned — heavy, unstable, restless.
Doctor, the influx of unrefined alien qi is approaching critical threshold. Pressure inside the isolated chamber of your dantian is rising. It is no longer safe to continue.
"Understood. Let's stop here."
At her word, Ouyang Qiangang halted the absorption at once. Nine-tenths of the towering mountains of herbs had lost their light and their fragrance. Outwardly unchanged, the plants had all been reduced to ordinary heaps of weeds, their potency utterly erased.
Absorption rate of active compounds: 93 percent. Tomorrow morning, the Hwa Clan will awaken to discover the most expensive pile of weeds under heaven.
Ouyang Qiangang answered with a grin. "We put such loving effort into making them weeds — I'm sure they'll find good use as kindling."
Leaving not a single trace behind, he finished the work, slipped out of the warehouse, and returned to Bamboo Forest Manor. Entering his room in the detached quarters, he immediately folded himself into a lotus position and closed his eyes. From the vast reservoir of medicinal qi sealed in one side of his dantian, he carefully drew out a single thread of energy — fine as silk — and fed it into the crucible of the Transcendent Formless Divine Art, beginning the slow work of purifying it into pure energy.
Like a craftsman cutting and polishing a rough stone into a radiant gem, he poured his whole mind into the delicate, perilous process. When this long labor of cleansing and absorption was done, he would hold in his hands a power far greater than any he had now.
How much time had passed? Ouyang Qiangang opened his eyes as his breathing exercise drew to a close.
Doctor, alongside your total internal energy surpassing the fifteen-year mark, fifty percent of the yin qi accumulated in the first major acupoint of your Nine Yin Severed Meridians has been successfully dissolved into the Transcendent Formless Divine Art. We have taken a firm first step toward your cure. My sincere congratulations.
"Thank you."
Ouyang Qiangang turned his head toward the window. The eastern sky was lightening by degrees. Dawn had broken.
So today is the day of the duel.
By the time the sun stood at its zenith, thousands of spectators had already gathered like clouds before the main gate of the Yu Estate in eastern Nanchang. Martial artists of the Jiangxi murim, sharp-eyed merchants, and common folk simply out hunting for a spectacle mingled together into a magnificent throng.
Before the gate stood an enormous dueling platform — one jang high, ten jang on every side. It was the middle of the noon hour, when the sunlight beat down most fiercely, and beneath the right-hand canopy sat Heo Il-bi, master of Bamboo Forest Manor, his daughter Heo Cho-ryeong, Ouyang Qiangang, Hwang Nodae, and a dozen or so others. Heo Il-bi's expression was calm; confidence shone from Heo Cho-ryeong's face.
A murmur rippled through the crowd at the sight of them.
"So Master Heo really has come out himself."
"His daughter was humiliated. How could he sit still?"
"Still, hasn't he been far too quiet until now?"
"With Hwa Clan Manor as the opponent, I'd say he was simply being careful."
"The woman beside the master — that must be the Snow-Blossom Flying Swallow, Lady Heo Cho-ryeong? Truly a beauty worthy of being called the finest in all Nanchang."
Before long, figures appeared beneath the left canopy as well: Hwa Seok-dae, master of Hwa Clan Manor; his son Hwa Do-reung; the steward Dong Tae-gu; and Jin Mun, the Half-Dragon Saber Guest, a great saber strapped across his back.
Once both sides had taken their places, Yu Han-saeng of the Manwol Trading House, the sponsor of the duel, ascended the platform. A man in his mid-fifties, he was a martial artist respected throughout Nanchang's murim for his fair and upright character — which was precisely why the Hwa Clan and Bamboo Forest Manor had entrusted him with overseeing the contest. Yu Han-saeng briefly explained the circumstances that had given rise to the day's duel, then addressed the heads of both parties.
"Let me confirm once more, before you both, what the victor of this duel stands to gain."
He swallowed and continued. "Should Hwa Clan Manor triumph, Lady Heo Cho-ryeong shall wed Young Master Hwa Do-reung, and Bamboo Forest Manor shall guarantee Hwa Clan Manor's participation in the production of the elixir pills it has lately begun to manufacture. Master Heo, do you consent?"
"I consent."
Yu Han-saeng then turned to Hwa Seok-dae. "Should Bamboo Forest Manor triumph, Hwa Clan Manor shall immediately withdraw its proposal of marriage and, together with a formal apology, pay compensation of ten thousand nyang in silver. Master Hwa, do you consent?"
"I consent!"
Hearing both answers, Yu Han-saeng raised his voice in a great cry. "By the demand of Hwa Clan Manor and the consent of Bamboo Forest Manor, today's duel shall be fought over two rounds! The first match shall be a contest between the parties to this affair themselves — Lady Heo Cho-ryeong of Bamboo Forest Manor and Young Master Hwa Do-reung of Hwa Clan Manor!"
His qi-laden voice rang out so clearly that it reached the ears of even the spectator standing farthest from the platform.