Plum Blossom Swordsman, Have You Heard? (1)
Namchang, Jiangxi Province.
Namchang, the city that represented Jiangxi, was not especially large when compared to the cities that stood as the faces of other provinces.
Compared to Wuhan in Hubei to the north, or Hangzhou in Zhejiang and Hefei in Anhui to the east, Namchang’s fame was a little ambiguous at best.
Even so, a provincial capital was still a provincial capital. Even today, the city’s bustling streets were crowded with people moving shoulder to shoulder, with barely a gap between them.
The same went for White Crane House, the largest tavern in Namchang.
Those filling the top floor of White Crane House were thoroughly drunk, talking loudly and endlessly about one thing or another. Though it lay far from Henan, the center of the Central Plains, the subject on everyone’s lips here was undeniably the Heavenly Alliance.
“So!”
A man with a flushed face was spraying spit as he explained something.
“And then Mount Hua comes walking in from the inside, like this! Hah—honestly, it was something else!”
“Oh!”
“What was it like?”
The people seated around him listened with bright, eager eyes.
The man now speaking before them was someone who had gone all the way to distant Shaanxi and witnessed the founding ceremony of the Heavenly Alliance with his own eyes. Every word he spoke was bound to draw interest.
“Maybe it’s because I’m a man from the Central Plains, but there was definitely something different about them. How should I put it? They had a kind of dignity to them.”
“Bah, you fool! Mount Hua may be having its day lately, but can it possibly compare to the North Sea Ice Palace or the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, both of them among the Five Outer Palaces? And I heard the Sichuan Tang Family was there too!”
“Tsk, tsk! Were you there yourself?”
“...No, I wasn’t.”
“If you didn’t see it with your own eyes, then don’t talk nonsense! Before I went there, was I someone who even paid attention to Mount Hua?”
No.
The man in front of them—Chen Ping—had always been one to look down on Mount Hua. Hadn’t he habitually said that no matter how hard Mount Hua tried to soar, it would ultimately never make it into the Nine Great Sects and would remain just another middling school, doomed to collapse in the end?
“You don’t know until you’ve seen it with your own eyes, I tell you—your own eyes!”
“How impressive could it have been...?”
“The rumors roaming the martial world don’t even begin to capture Mount Hua! Think about it, you lot. Like you said, are the Sichuan Tang Family, the North Sea Ice Palace, and the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace ordinary sects?”
“No, they aren’t.”
“Would sects like that simply and obediently hand over the alliance leader’s seat and recognize Mount Hua as the Heavenly Alliance’s seat of honor?”
“Mm. When you put it that way...”
The man, who had been raising his voice and speaking with great fervor, snatched up his cup and drained it in one go.
“Hah! My throat’s parched.”
Then he reached for the wine jar in a hurry. But it was already empty. He frowned a little, embarrassed.
Before he could say anything, someone nearby quickly called for more wine.
“Waiter! Hey, waiter! What are you doing? Bring more wine here, quickly! The good stuff! And bring a proper cold dish too!”
“Yes, yes! Coming right away!”
Only after the fresh wine arrived did the man fill his cup with a satisfied look and continue.
“Anyway, if you’d seen Mount Hua with your own eyes in Shaanxi, you’d all agree with me. It was a much greater sect than I’d imagined. Granted, they may be a little lacking in numbers, but if that had truly been a problem, Mount Hua’s fame wouldn’t have pierced the heavens the way it does now.”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
“Mount Hua can already be called the hegemon of Shaanxi, but in my eyes, it won’t stop there. Mark my words. Alongside the Heavenly Alliance, Mount Hua will grow wings! The day isn’t far off when Mount Hua will be spoken of as a sect greater than those Nine Great Sects.”
“Oh... that much?”
“Besides, if you listen to the rumors, that doesn’t sound so far-fetched. Didn’t even Jang Il-so of Maninbang come in person to keep Mount Hua in check?”
“Incredible. Jang Il-so, of all people...”
The people at the surrounding tables were now all listening in on the conversation.
Some merely pricked up their ears to save face, while others openly turned their chairs to show their interest.
“Excuse me.”
Then one of the listeners, who had been quietly taking it all in, spoke up casually.
“There must have been guests from the Nine Great Sects there too. How were they?”
“How were they? What do you mean?”
“Did they perhaps seem displeased?”
“Ah.”
Chen Ping gave a sly laugh, as if he understood the question.
“As far as I could tell, they didn’t show any such signs.”
“Ah... is that so?”
The man who had asked the question tilted his head, sounding surprised.
“From the Nine Great Sects’ point of view, that Heavenly Alliance couldn’t have been very welcome.”
“You’re asking because you don’t know. Even if that were true, it wouldn’t have been easy to show it there. That’s how overwhelming the Heavenly Alliance’s momentum was.”
“I see.”
Chen Ping grinned.
“I may be wrong, but I think the day will come soon when even the Nine Great Sects will have to watch the Heavenly Alliance’s face.”
“Come on. That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
“Hahaha. Thinking that way is only natural. But think about it. When you first heard the name Mount Hua, who would have imagined it would force Zhongnan to close its gates and become the hegemon of Shaanxi?”
“...Well.”
That shut everyone up.
Indeed, there was no arguing with that. No one had imagined that Zhongnan, a sect with considerable fame even among the Nine Great Sects, would be humiliated by Mount Hua—driven to the brink of destruction—until it had no choice but to enter seclusion.
Of course, the reality was tangled with complicated circumstances, but none of them knew those details, nor did they need to.
“If even Zhongnan ended up like that, then there’s no law saying the Nine Great Sects won’t too. By now, Zhongnan itself is probably too afraid to even lift its seclusion. Hah-hah!”
And then, at that very moment—
Bang!
Someone slammed a hand down hard on the table.
The loud sound startled the boisterous crowd into silence, and every head in the room turned at once toward the source.
A rough-looking middle-aged man, who had been sitting quietly in the corner and drinking alone, was glaring at Chen Ping with eyes wide open.
“Listen to yourself...! Your mouth is open, so you just keep spouting nonsense!”
Chen Ping flinched at the murderous aura and clamped his mouth shut like a shell.
Wh-who...?
His eyes darted about, inspecting the man’s clothing. On the shoulder of his practical martial robe was an insignia that looked oddly familiar. Then Chen Ping’s face began to drain of color.
Z-Zhongnan...
Of course, Zhongnan had already been in seclusion for a long time.
Because it had entered seclusion, it was impossible for a Zhongnan disciple to be wandering the martial world. But the seclusion applied only to the main sect. Zhongnan’s lay disciples continued to travel freely through Jianghu, unaffected by the headquarters’ closure.
As proof of Zhongnan’s lofty status, its lay disciples were numerous as well. Unfortunately for Chen Ping, he had just run into one of them.
“You say Shaanxi’s hegemon is who?”
The man asked in a grim voice.
Even though the people gathered on the top floor of White Crane House were reasonably confident in their own skills, none of them could say a word before that vicious pressure. They only swallowed hard.
“I was going to let it pass, but then you go on and say Zhongnan’s too afraid of Mount Hua to lift its seclusion? Say that again while looking me in the eye.”
“N-no, great hero, that isn’t what I meant...”
Chen Ping broke out in a cold sweat and hurriedly tried to explain himself, but the man’s expression did not soften in the slightest. Then one of his companions spoke.
“Eldest Brother, calm down. Why are you getting so angry over something said by a man who doesn’t know any better?”
“Then you expect me to just leave that insolent mouth alone?”
“That isn’t what I mean, of course. Words, once spoken, can’t be taken back. Naturally, there has to be a price.”
But even the men who had seemed likely to restrain him slowly rose to their feet.
At last, those who recognized them cried out with pale faces.
“...It’s the Three Swords of Taihang!”
“W-why are they here?”
Three Swords of Taihang.
They were swordsmen who operated mainly around Mount Taihang. They were lay disciples of Zhongnan, men who did not bother to form a new lay branch sect and instead wandered Jianghu on their own.
It was said they took great pride in being lay disciples of Zhongnan, so it was only natural that they would not be able to endure hearing such things said to their faces.
The man standing beside the one who had first grown angry spoke to Chen Ping. His expression was cold and severe.
“Did you say Zhongnan fears Mount Hua?”
“N-no, what I meant was not—”
“If not, then why would you say such a thing?”
“...”
The man clicked his tongue as though pitying him.
“You seem to have forgotten that if you talk recklessly in Jianghu about things you can’t take responsibility for, you won’t have a leg to stand on even if your neck gets cut off. What will it be? Will you hand over that insolent tongue of yours? Or your wrist?”
“G-great heroes! I spoke nonsense because I lost my mind for a moment. P-please...”
Chen Ping, now as white as paper, pleaded for mercy, but the faces of the three men remained ice-cold.
“If you spoke nonsense, then you pay the price.”
As the three men slowly approached, Chen Ping shut his eyes tight in despair.
Th-this is it.
The Three Swords of Taihang could not exactly be called great masters, but they were certainly not people Chen Ping could dare to face.
And saying they were not great masters was only in comparison to Zhongnan’s true experts. To ordinary martial world travelers, weren’t they no different from grim reapers?
With them pressing forward in such fury, it was already impressive that he had not wet himself on the spot.
“P-please spare me...”
Just as Chen Ping was about to throw himself flat on the floor and beg for forgiveness—
“...That doesn’t sound entirely wrong, so is there really any need to bully the man like this?”
Flinch.
The three men advancing on Chen Ping stopped in their tracks. In unison, they turned their heads toward the speaker.
A man in a white robe sat by the window, drinking alone from his cup.
One of the Three Swords of Taihang stiffened and asked in a low voice,
“You say it isn’t wrong?”
“It was a bit excessive, yes. But if you seal a man’s mouth so tightly that he can’t even say that much, then what exactly can he say?”
“...”
“Only the shameless are the ones who clamp down on other people’s mouths and police them. Isn’t that why you’re threatening this man now?”
The faces of the Three Swords of Taihang chilled all at once.
“Who are you?”
“Just an unnamed nobody, really. I don’t have much of a title to boast about.”
“And a nameless upstart dares spout that kind of nonsense?”
“Ha.”
With a short laugh, the man rose slowly to his feet.
“Having a reputation doesn’t make the wrongful right, and lacking a reputation is no reason to stay silent in the face of injustice. At the very least, anyone who wields a plum blossom sword ought to know that much.”
“Plum blossom sword?”
A cold light settled over the faces of the Three Swords of Taihang.
Only then did they notice the floral pattern embroidered over the man’s chest.
Of course, they were lay disciples and had been away from Zhongnan for a long time, so they had never seen Mount Hua’s plum blossom emblem with their own eyes. But what other sect in the world now used a flower as its symbol?
“You... you bastard! You’re from Mount Hua?”
A smile bloomed at the corners of the man’s mouth.
“Why does that matter? What matters is that I have no intention of simply sitting by and ignoring your wrongdoing. Step back now. If you don’t, then you’ll see just how sharp my sword can be.”
“You bastard!”
Clang! Clang-clang!
The Three Swords of Taihang drew their swords in unison.
The man shook his head as though he had no choice.
“Don’t blame my sword for being merciless.”
Shrrk.
A sword slowly slid free from his waist.
In an instant, the tavern was filled with taut, electric tension.