Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Green Forest
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Spacious room like a plaza.
The floor was laid with stone slabs carved from rocks said to come from the Dali Kingdom, and the ceiling was embedded with luminous pearls that were said to be worth as much as their weight in gold.
In the center of this enormous chamber, which could rival the banquet halls of the imperial palace, sat a lone man in the lotus position.
Behind the man's head, which had hair grown long enough to touch the floor, nine black swords orbited like a halo.
It was a sight even more fantastical than the tales in the jianghu of three flowers blooming atop the head during deep meditation or the five energies gathering at the apex.
"Ha."
With a short chuckle, the man opened his closed eyes.
"Surface Shadow."
[Yes, Heavenly Lord.]
A response came from the shadows at his call.
The voice of a slender young woman, sharp and disciplined.
She was a transcendent master who had cultivated the secret arts of hiding within shadows using the upper dantian. The term "shadow guard" suited her perfectly.
Surface Shadow, who had been by his side for a long time, sensed an unusual excitement from her lord. It was a rare occurrence.
She asked cautiously.
[Have you... read the heavenly secrets?]
"Indeed. The results were quite vague, yet intriguing."
It was publicly known that her lord could divine the heavenly secrets.
Unlike mere fortune-tellers who read fates from the I Ching or scriptures,
at times, he would grope toward the future using an innate intuition beyond learned knowledge.
This was due to his abnormally developed upper dantian intuition reaching the mysteries of heaven.
While other transcendent masters could predict a move or two ahead using the senses of their opened upper dantian, his premonitions bordered on true prophecy.
The man spoke in a strange, humming rhythm.
"Can't tell if it's an old man or a child, an immortal on the clouds or a street ruffian. Not even sure if all four limbs are intact. I've never seen it this blurry before."
[Is that what you found amusing?]
"Of course not. Fog obscuring a scenic view only brings irritation, not delight. What truly piques my interest is..."
Trailing off, he let out a small laugh before continuing in a voice laced with amusement.
"This one will kill me?"
[Pardon?]
At that moment, the man's shadow rippled violently.
His inner energy and intent wavered in response to the turmoil in Surface Shadow's mind.
The man paid it no mind and closed one eye again.
"My explanation must have been lacking. I did say it was extremely vague. Whether this one actually picks up a blade and guts me, I can't say. It's merely that its form and the concept of death surfaced together in my mind."
[Shall I kill it?]
The immediate reply was faithful to her role as guard.
Coming from one of the top assassins of the black path alongside the Killer Gate Leader, it carried no lightness.
Yet the man shook his head.
"Surface Shadow. Can you kill the one fated to kill me? Don't prove your loyalty by discussing the impossible. Anyway... it's been quite a long time since something like this. Even when I fought Sword Venerable old man, I never felt death this assuredly."
Unlike before, the shadow didn't even twitch, but the man sensed her strong dissatisfaction brewing within.
His upper dantian senses, amplified to read the heavens, pierced through human hearts with ease.
To anyone else, the man dying was unimaginable, even to her. As his guard, she couldn't tolerate even a sliver of possibility for any threat.
However, the man had no intention of letting this rare amusement end in a corpse.
"Surface Shadow. Relay this to Mountain King: in a month or two, one who seems like an old man or a child, dressed like a Daoist, will pass through the Ten Myriad Great Mountains."
A thick smile crept across the man's lips.
"Bring him before me. Alive, of course."
[...Understood.]
With a curt reply, the man's shadow stretched long like the twilight dusk, merging with the darkness beyond the luminous pearls' glow.
Soon, his shadow returned to its circular form. Surface Shadow was no longer within.
In the silent room, the man murmured as if humming.
"I die, huh."
Ambiguous age, Daoist robes, Taiji... He chewed over the clues that had floated in his mind.
"Is it Jang Sam-bong, risen from ascension, come back to life?"
Even if so,
"Doesn't seem like I'll die."
He spoke lightly of the world's best swordsman from two hundred years ago, one of history's top grandmasters.
The man was someone who could do that.
The reason lay not in his positions.
Not because he was the head of the Dugu Family, one of the black path's two great clans, lord of Nine Dragons Fortress uniting the nine major powers of the unorthodox, or even the sky over all black paths, the Demonic Heaven Lord.
It was simply because he was Black Mysterious Sword Emperor Dugu Yujin.
The current supreme sword of the demonic path, the world's best swordsman, and the top of the demonic path.
The very reason escort agencies exist is to transport goods.
Grain, precious metals, even people. The items carried by the escorts vary widely, but their job boils down to running errands.
So why do these errand boys strap swords to their waists and train in martial arts that kill? Why not just be fast on their feet?
The answer lies in a chronic issue plaguing this vast Central Plains continent.
Ming Dynasty population is so dense that in a village of a hundred souls, if just one promising rogue skips farm work for banditry, the whole nation ends up with a million thieves.
And these bandit hordes mostly rampage in the southern Central Plains. Consider where the righteous great powers—the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans—are mostly located, and the reason becomes clear.
Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei... all northern Central Plains regions.
Even sects proclaiming the righteous path can't plunder commoners' wealth while calling themselves 'black path' in the teeming north beyond the Yangtze without getting crushed to dust.
Conversely, the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans of the Righteous Heaven Alliance hold little sway south of the Yangtze because the Yangtze River Waterways Eighteen Bunkers and the black path alliance Demonic Heaven dominate the south as absolute overlords.
Similarly, the Righteous Heaven Alliance is a coalition of hundreds of righteous sects, represented by its ten strongest sects and five clans.
The nine major powers representing the Demonic Heaven, rampaging south of the Yangtze, are collectively called Nine Dragons Fortress.
The Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds, a nationwide bandit coalition, was one of them.
On decent-sized, well-trafficked mountains, they'd build a fortified lair and rob passersby for their main income.
But mindless killing and looting would bring imperial suppression troops to torch their entire mountain.
Questioning why martial artists trained in gungfu would lose to soldiers only proves one's intellect is below a monkey's. What makes bandits think the imperial army can't learn the same arts?
The notion of officials not touching martial clans stemmed from privileges gained when the Moon Demon Sect sealed itself.
No reason for the court not to strike back if clans strike first.
Thus, professional high-end bandit groups like the Green Forest observed limits: they took only a certain percentage, periodically culled mountain yokai, cleared paths—productive activities for bandits—that earned imperial tolerance.
They bowed their heads quick before provoking the throne to annihilation. Bandits needed sharp wits to survive.
Hence, Green Forest bandits had particularly keen eyes among thieves.
A bandit chief unable to distinguish marks worth robbing couldn't survive the miraculous 1-in-a-million competition rate. They'd all be dead.
Among countless roadside bandits encountered on the carriage journey, those from the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds backed off apologetically upon seeing the Pine Pattern Ancient Sword, claiming ignorance of the master. Ignorant mobs who didn't know it demanded money over blades.
And those sorts would never walk on two legs again.
In my youth wandering as a ronin near Jinan or Qinghai estuary, hanging traitorous informants' heads outside inns after black wind squads or ghost annihilation troops from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult came calling at night was routine. I felt my temperament had mellowed considerably now.
Including such minor skirmishes, after a full month and a half, I entered the foothills of the Ten Myriad Great Mountains piercing Guangdong and Guangxi.
The Ten Myriad Great Mountains weren't a single peak but a range spanning hundreds of li.
Naturally, ranges have many mountains. Many mountains mean proportionally many bandits.
Moreover, exotic goods from foreign ports in Guangdong must cross this range inland, making bandits inevitable.
'Thirty in the northeast at a hundred zhang. Forty from the south at a hundred fifty zhang. More peak experts northeast. Rest are first-rate or second-rate... They've picked elites, it seems.'
Closing my eyes to focus on footsteps, I suddenly remarked.
"Even so, isn't this too many?"
"Pardon?"
"It's nothing. I'll get off here, so please head back the way you came."
"But Guangzhou is still far off."
"It's fine. It seems..."
Since entering the Ten Myriad Great Mountains, bandit presences had stirred, now closing in to encircle the carriage.
I'd even instructed the coachman midway to change routes just in case, but this massive human net moved organically, tailing us.
It was a human formation where people formed part of the array, like the One Hundred Eight Arhats or Plum Blossom Sword Formation, spread over a vast area.
In other words, an inescapable net of bandits. First time since the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult in Jinan.
But escape like then seemed unlikely.
My senses didn't reach as far, so detection was late, and too much time had passed since entering the formation.
"I think friends have come to fetch me."
I said with a smirk.
Right then, I kicked open the carriage door and leaped out.
To soften the landing, I emitted light force waves through my body's acupoints for a fall technique. Fools who fell for it mockingly called it Lazy Donkey Roll.
Rolling on the ground a few times, I faced bandits staring at me with eyes screaming, "What madman is this?"