Chapter 31
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Sharp Edge - 3
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In the quiet thatched hut, only the scratching of brushes on paper filled the air. Among the refugees, there were few who knew how to read and write, and they had all gathered here, copying a book alongside Zhang Ping.
Then, a faint scream echoed from somewhere.
It was nothing out of the ordinary. In this neighborhood, people dying was as common as breathing. No one paid it much mind. They kept copying their books.
But Zhang Ping set down his brush.
The scream felt off somehow. Strange. It wasn't one of the refugees' usual cries. Then whose was it?
A distant wail piercing through the chill wind of steel blades hung heavy in the air. The low groan rippling across the ground faded into the ether. A cold instinct shook his mind.
He didn't need to see it or calculate the variables to know. The shiver racing through his eight extraordinary meridians told him everything.
Since meeting the Girl, he had realized one truth: the world held things beyond calculation and odds of victory.
"So it's today."
Earlier than expected, but it didn't matter. Whatever came, he would face it head-on. With a swish, Zhang Ping rose from his seat. The eyes of those frantically wielding their brushes turned to him. Whispers rippled through the group.
"What's going on?"
"Has the Dragon Star Clan caught on to us?"
Panting breaths came from outside the door. Footsteps hurried closer. It was the young boy who had volunteered as a messenger at the gatherings.
"You have to run! Right now!"
"What happened?"
"The Dragon Star Clan... those thug bastards have gone mad! They're swarming in like a black tide! They're coming here too!"
He sat the heaving boy down. Stepping out of the hut, he found the area packed with people running and hiding.
He thought it over. Whose handiwork was this? Was it deliberate?
The Dragon Star Clan had gone all-in with this desperate gamble. Instead of cowering from the loss of their elite Penal Corps, they had pressed forward aggressively.
Man-gui Su-jae Ha Ryeong. Zhang Ping had heard the name before. A quick-witted schemer renowned in Mount Bul-san's underworld.
In an instant, thousands of possibilities spun through Zhang Ping's mind and converged. He eliminated the impossibilities and sifted the rest.
They had chosen a lightning raid over a pitched battle. Targeting the enemy's weak point.
While a few held their ground, overwhelm the rest with numbers and crush any chance of recovery—that was the vicious nature of the underworld packs. So how should he counter it? What cards did they hold?
A scant handful versed in martial arts and bottomless rage. Even in his eyes, the enemy's plan was solid.
But then, a sly grin twisted Zhang Ping's lips.
Before him lay the hellscape of dusk. Amid the fading sunlight, blood and groans filled the air. Hooded figures wielding kitchen knives swept through the alleys. Curses and shouts shook the earth, filling the slums as screams multiplied one by one.
"You thought this was a board you could predict?"
Wrong.
Humans couldn't predict hell. Precise calculations crumbled under the slightest variable. No plan was perfect. If the board was set against them, shatter it.
Look farther. Strike at the enemy's complacency. If no odds of victory, then madness. If madness wasn't enough, a miracle!
"Stop! Don't run!"
The panicked crowd scrambling every which way froze. The shouter was the Saintess's right-hand man, his voice familiar from the gatherings. All eyes turned to the one-legged man.
"Why are you just leaning on her?"
"Are you going to live your whole lives taking it lying down? Is our existence just to bow when pushed, surrender what's taken, and take every blow without fighting back?"
"Will you cower and tremble pathetically until the Saintess appears? Or will you stand for others like she does? Is there truly not a single soul here willing to stand with her?"
"Those who swore blood oaths to the Saintess at the gatherings, step forward!"
His sharp command halted even the fleeing feet. Trapped between advance and retreat, their eyes fixed on Zhang Ping while their bodies faced backward. They hesitated, unsure which way to go.
"Step forward! I'll show you a miracle!"
At those words, a young man mustered his courage and stepped up first.
One sparked the next, then another. Courage spread like contagion. Those with chests tight from fear emerged one by one to join the front line.
Ha Il, the third-rate swordsman; Go Kyung, the former ronin; Dae Gwang, the burly giant. Zhang Ping remembered them all. They had been there when the Girl crushed the scarred thugs, recipients of her grace at the gatherings.
Each gritted their teeth, eyes blazing. They were forcing their fear into resolve.
"We're with you. We'll guard the rear!"
"Good!"
The screams grew fiercer from the alley's end. The red-robed thugs charging with the sunset at their backs exuded savage momentum. Drunk on violence, they swung clubs and knives wildly.
Savoring the perch of the strong was exquisite pleasure. Breaking the resistant—that was the underworld's favorite game.
Soon, they spotted new prey. A cluster of refugees huddled in the alley. At their front stood one of the key figures the upper crust had marked.
The one-legged cripple playing soldier for the rebels, stirring up weird conspiracies everywhere.
"There! Zhang Ping the cripple's over there!"
"Grab him and kill him! Skin him alive and hang him upside down!"
"No witch or monster here—don't hesitate!"
Insults and threats rained on Zhang Ping. The morale behind him wavered for a moment.
He ignored it. No need for more words to boost spirits. One action outweighed a thousand speeches.
He stepped forward toward the charging red-robe, one deliberate step at a time. His wooden prosthetic crunched the dirt.
"Go Kyung, you're a local from Mount Bul-san. You know me well. Until a month ago, this Zhang Ping was just a bookish cripple who knew nothing of fighting."
But now, things were different. The prosthetic didn't limp. His back was straight.
Martial knowledge he could only learn from books, the inner energy he had craved so desperately. A mind that never forgot what it saw once now circulated the true qi slumbering in his heart.
Exactly as the Girl had shown him. Precisely. Without error.
"Die!"
The Dragon Star thug leaped over a zhang of distance, smashing down his blood-soaked club with all his might. Aiming straight for Zhang Ping's fearless gaze—his head.
Bam—crack—thud!
Inner energy loaded to its limit. A refined technique delivering force perfectly. Enough to shatter an ordinary skull effortlessly.
The target hadn't even resisted. It struck dead-on. Must be a killing blow, he thought.
But.
"That all you got?"
Zhang Ping didn't die. He didn't fall or stagger back. He stared straight at the thug.
A thin trickle of blood ran from his forehead. At its end, a twisted smile lingered.
Crack. Zhang Ping's arm clamped the club. The thug's panicked eyes darted between it and the hand. It wouldn't budge. Like crushed under a boulder. Like gripped by a titan.
A scrawny scholar? Cripple Zhang Ping? Impossible. He had no choice but to panic.
"D-demonic arts! A monster!"
"No demonic arts, no monster. If there were, the world wouldn't be this chaotic."
In that moment, Zhang Ping drew a dagger from his sleeve.
Neither the daoists who read the heavens nor the living Buddhas borrowing divine might had saved them. While someone sipped golden nectar above the clouds, thousands starved on the ground below.
The world in the Hanlin Academy scrolls was more horrific and cruel than frail human imagination could conjure... yet no heavenly punishment ever came.
"Die! I said die!"
"Die?"
The thug thrashed in desperation. He struck the head, kicked the chest's acupoints. Attacks like these weren't something to shrug off easily.
The heavy impacts made his head ring and vision blur. One blink, and he might black out and collapse.
The Saintess had endured this pain with every blow. But that's exactly why.
I can do it. We can do it.
True qi spun fiercer. Reverse blood qi soothed the poison meridian, hardening the damaged channels. Whoosh—Zhang Ping yanked the thug's head, pulling him into his embrace. Overwhelmed by surging agony, the thug couldn't resist and flew into Zhang Ping's arms.
"Aaaagh!"
Stab! Stab! With chilling screams, blood coated the dagger. The blunt blade tore through back muscles and shredded lungs.
Zhang Ping stabbed until the thug's trembling stopped, then hurled the corpse aside. The sensation of death—the first he'd ever felt—still lingered in his hands.
Only then did the morale behind him surge back to life. They couldn't stop now. They had to keep this momentum going.
"Today, I'll show you the miracle bestowed by the Saintess! All you who received her grace, join me! No more running, no more taking it!"
"Look there! The days of submission are ending!"
He thrust the dagger high. The setting sun reflected off the silver blade, gleaming. Enemy blood trickled down its edge.
"The Dragon Star Clan isn't raiding us! We're the ones—the wretched scum scraping by—who will seize their wealth and kill them!"
Zhang Ping charged first. Behind him, the refugees swarmed like a hornet's nest. Their target: the Azure Flower Pavilion, stronghold of the Dragon Star Clan.
A tower built from money extorted from the poor.