Chapter 126
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Demon Subduing Hall (2)
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Should I call this fortunate?
Flying Tiger didn't think so.
Hoping not to run into the enemy on the battlefield, just so your own hands stay clean of blood—what a contradictory wish.
But today wasn't that day, so the postponement itself wasn't so bad.
Late afternoon.
Flying Tiger reluctantly shuffled out of his lodging.
It was because the Shandong old man had his underling hound him relentlessly. Messages like, "Has a ghost who died sleepless possessed you?" "Get out here already. You'll sleep plenty when you're dead." "Should I come kill you myself?" kept coming.
"Come on in. I've prepared something."
"Where's the medicine?"
The Shandong old man was irked—not just that Flying Tiger had finally crawled out after all the prodding, but that he skipped greetings and went straight for the medicine. Still, since he was the one asking a favor, he swallowed his annoyance and handed over a small blue porcelain bottle.
But even the container was no ordinary thing, and when Flying Tiger cracked open the stopper for a sniff, a thick, fermented aroma stabbed at his nose.
"Whoa~ this smell packs a punch."
"It's called Subroot Pill."
"What's that? Even if I don't know much, you're giving me something this premium."
"Hmph. Did you think this old man would grab just anything and water it down? I put some care in since it's the first day."
"Huh? Well... I'll make good use of it anyway."
"Ahem."
Flying Tiger had no idea, but Subroot Pill was the star product of Huemanwon, one of Chang'an City's top apothecaries.
This medicine, whose name meant "linking the roots," fortified muscles and bones, purged impurities, and was even renowned for boosting internal energy. It rightly cost fifty taels of silver per bottle—and even that wasn't enough to buy one; markups were the norm, and they still flew off the shelves.
The old man's attitude had shifted overnight, leading to this lavish gift.
Well, truth be told, he'd strong-armed Jang Geum into coughing up two bottles and pocketed one himself—but the gesture still counted for something.
So the giver and receiver were all smiles in a warm, jovial mood. But they soon ran into the next snag.
All three swords the old man had brought were pristine, without a single nick. For Flying Tiger to use Crushing Strike, their durability needed to be near zero.
When he pointed this out, the old man blinked in mild panic and shot back.
"So how did you practice that technique? And use it in real fights?"
"For practice, I'd ask a skilled blacksmith to wreck ten swords at a go. They know their blades and have the tools. But in combat... too cumbersome to carry around, too finicky for the right moment. Never made it a go-to move."
"Sounds pretty useless."
"On the flip side, no one's ever survived getting hit by it. Except you, old timer."
"Heh heh. Must've only tangled with trash."
"You're a rare powerhouse. Out of all the riffraff crawling the jianghu, folks like you are a handful at best."
"Ahem."
The old man cleared his throat awkwardly before asking what to do.
Ye Mountain surely had blacksmiths if he looked, but he couldn't go traipsing around in his state. What if word got back to Zhao Family Manor about suspicious warriors lurking nearby?
At that, Flying Tiger fixed the old man he'd been hyping up with a deadpan stare.
...
Clang~ clang~ clang~ crack?
Another sword snapped clean in two.
This made four already.
The old man had wrecked the initial three, fetched three more, and sweated buckets hammering away diligently.
Here's what happened: at Flying Tiger's prodding, the old man took on the job of lowering the swords' durability.
Flying Tiger had said one solid swing from you shatters even perfect blades—so just dial back the power to right before that point. He'd slathered on the flattery too, gushing about such a priceless talent.
Shoulders squared, the old man jumped in eagerly.
But it wasn't as simple as it sounded. Sure, outright destruction was easy—just whale on it with more force than its durability allowed. The trick was precision: first gauging each blade's unique toughness before fine-tuning the power.
This brute of an old man excelled at smashing things willy-nilly, but he had zero knack for delicately reading cues and easing into it.
And there was Flying Tiger, eyes sparkling with eager anticipation, watching his every move.
A feeling of being revered, perhaps?
Eager to live up to it, the old man gave it a shot. The result? Four snapped swords.
"Ooh~ you've finally got the hang of it. This one's a sure success. Hang in there, old timer."
"......"
He had indeed grasped the knack by now.
But the issue was how half-heartedly Flying Tiger was cheering up the dejected old man.
At the time, Flying Tiger lounged against a big tree, slurping away at the Huemanwon Subroot Pill like candy, spectating. Lick it slow to savor the flavor, lets the medicine absorb better, he'd blathered—acting all childish and gross about it.
'Damn punk.'
Clang~ clang~ clang~
Clang~ clang~ clang~
Moments later, at the old man's "polite" request(?), they each gripped one of the remaining two swords and hammered away together.
To nail the exact cracking point, they struck with fine, even taps, losing all track of time. Throats parched, they chatted idly.
"So how'd you figure it out?"
"Figure what?"
"That the woman you tortured was one of ours. Word is it was a trade secret—no one saw you at work."
"Psh, locked the door, spooked her, and she sang like a bird. Must've been a pushover. Dumb luck."
"Luck? Get real. Heard she was trained as a spy."
"Ahem."
"She had fake intel prepped to leak after some 'moderate' torture. But for whatever reason, she spilled her real details instead—botched the whole test. And she was rambling like she didn't even know what hit her, they griped."
"Well... truth is."
The woman Jang Geum had "kidnapped" was actually a covert agent on their side. Calling her Jin Gayong's maid was a lie.
Her mission: suss out Flying Tiger's true loyalties.
If he was with Zhao Family Manor, his handling of her would tip it off, right? Even if he steeled himself and ignored the signs to press the torture, he'd cover for her if she leaked something damningly fake.
But there was a cruel edge to it. She could genuinely break under torture. Sure, they'd planned safeguards, but these ops never go perfectly. They'd steeled for the worst case.
Anyway, she had been genuinely drugged. Though she'd played it otherwise...
She'd just picked the wrong mark.
Flying Tiger was seasoned and sharp in this arena. The assassin group that raised him treated drugs like lollipops or health supps—everyone hooked on them.
It was a mix: paralytics to numb pain, hallucinogens to loosen the mind.
Nothing tailored for confessions.
And that was the giveaway.
It planted the seed of doubt: maybe the woman tied to that warehouse pillar wasn't Zhao-side after all.
Letting him work with a clear conscience—and so easily he barely dirtied his hands.
First, Flying Tiger sealed her acupoints to massively amplify the drug's effects. It dulled her body's pain to a mere rasping sensation even if he sawed off limbs, while rattling her mind into delirious chaos.
Then he bound her limbs behind her, craned her neck back and secured it, forcing her to unfurl wings of nightmarish imagination.
No real brutality involved.
Not his style.
But what in the world rivals the human imagination for sheer horror and terror?
"(Truth is.) Trade secret."
"What?"
Before the old man could glare daggers, Flying Tiger barreled on.
"In martial terms, it's like my ultimate move. And you know ultimates only shine if no one else knows them."
"Hmph."
The old man couldn't press when Flying Tiger dug in, insisting he'd die before spilling his secret sauce. Fair point, really. But it still chafed.
As he grumbled, Flying Tiger gauged the mood, let out heavy sighs, then confessed in a somber tone.
"Old man, cards on the table. How to put it... I hate showing it off to others. Yeah, I learned it to put food on the table, but... it's so shameful it fills me with self-loathing."
"......"
Flying Tiger sounded so downcast the old man couldn't even nitpick the title slip from "old timer" to plain "old man."
Quibbling over that when someone's baring their soul? Petty.
So the newly demoted old man listened intently to what followed.
"Face it, no sane person does this crap. Sure, some psychos strut it like epic heroics, but I'm not that far gone. I do it, but at least I know it's shameful."
"...I see."
"Aw, hell. Talking out my ass. Just tune it out."
Clang~ clang~ clang~
Embarrassed, Flying Tiger grabbed his stone and hammered at the sword before him with renewed vigor. He muttered half to himself—something about his grandfather back in the day, too quiet to catch fully.
The old man stared blankly for a beat, then silently resumed hammering his own sword.
Clang~ clang~ clang~
Clang~ clang~ clang~
Their offbeat hammering sounds subtly synced up, starting to mirror each other.
Human Felling—a wildly unique technique—demanded four tedious preparatory steps before unleashing.
Contact.
Assimilation.
Resonance.
Rupture.
And now they were pushing past assimilation into the resonance phase.