Chapter 33
Chapter 33
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 33
Chapter Title: Killing Two Birds with One Stone (5)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Clang! Clang!
After the man left, Ouyang Jue, carrying hundreds of nails on his back, began hammering them one by one into the middle of the rocky mountain.
When he had driven in enough to make some progress, he would pause his hammering and climb up using the nails as footholds.
This repeated once, twice, until the count became difficult to track, yet Ouyang Jue continued his ascent without rest.
Already, the ground below had become a distant blur.
The rocky mountain itself was daunting enough to dismay even masters of movement arts, but the oil flowing over its surface made it seem like the very gates of hell.
‘One slip, and I'm dead.’
Yet, despite this thought, Ouyang Jue absolutely refused to use his internal energy.
Relying solely on the strength of the human body, he climbed in silence, like the Buddha in his mortal life who willingly undertook ascetic practices.
Though every muscle screamed in protest, Ouyang Jue did nothing to alleviate the pain.
Even when his foot slipped on the oil midway.
“...Hk.”
Ouyang Jue instinctively grabbed onto a nail he had hammered in.
Rrrrip!
Blood streamed from his palm, scraped by the sharp edge of the nail.
“Damn, that stings.”
A piece of flesh was torn and hanging loose, so Ouyang Jue reflexively tore a strip from a clean cloth and tied it tightly around the wound.
Although it too was stained with oil and far from sterile, it was better than letting the wound bleed freely.
After struggling all day, he had advanced less than thirty paces.
Glancing down, Ouyang Jue let out a deep sigh.
“This is so damn hard, I was tempted to just skip it.”
He was, after all, on his way to negotiate with the Shaanxi branch of the Black Dragon Gang—with their Incense Master.
Moreover, after what happened with Ha Jin-ak, acting rashly without preparation was just asking for trouble.
“I have to take every card I can play. No regrets.”
Crunch.
Ouyang Jue shoved the dry rations and jerky he had prepared into his mouth.
He had no appetite, but he had to eat.
‘There's still a long way to go.’
His only option was to conserve as much strength as possible and keep moving upward.
If he gave up halfway, the endless flow of oil from above would only send him tumbling down the cliff.
If that happened, even someone like Ouyang Jue would surely die.
Tonight, the only things he could rely on for sleep were the few nails hammered in beneath his feet.
If he tossed and turned even slightly, he would instantly smash his head open and go down in history as the foolish Mount Hua Sect Taoist who died a stupid death.
“...I'd rather not.”
Ouyang Jue had no desire for such a meaningless death.
With deft hands, Ouyang Jue took out a climbing tool with a ring, tied a rope, and secured himself firmly to the nails on either side of his body.
This way, at least he wouldn't die from the oil or a minor shift in his sleep.
Tap, tap.
After checking the knots with a few taps of his hand, Ouyang Jue drifted off to sleep.
A phrase that had tormented him all day escaped his lips like a sleep-talk.
“It's hot... damn it.”
A late summer, the heat not yet faded.
It was a day when autumn was just beginning to make its presence known.
* * *
How many days had passed like this?
Ouyang Jue was down to a single-digit number of nails, and his food supply was pitifully low.
He had been forced to discard much of it.
Some was thickly coated with oil while he slept, while the rest had spoiled in the skin-searing heat, swarming with flies, leaving him no choice but to throw it away.
“I thought the stinging had gotten a little better.”
Ouyang Jue glanced irritably at his palm, which was beginning to fester.
The wound from his first day's mistake was rapidly worsening due to the hot summer weather.
It hadn't even been a full week since he started climbing.
A dry laugh escaped Ouyang Jue's lips.
‘Just as you'd expect from a place named by baldies. You won't welcome anyone who isn't bald, is that it?’
Damn bald bastards.
Muttering this, Ouyang Jue positioned the next nail.
He didn't bother looking up. No, there was no need.
At most, ten or twenty feet.
He just had to hammer in the remaining nails and climb.
That should have been it….
“Damn it, fuck.”
With a look of dismay, Ouyang Jue searched all over his clothes.
“There are none?”
Like a Shaolin monk's hair, not a single nail remained.
Pulling out the nails he had already hammered in to reuse them was nearly impossible.
He had used them as efficiently as possible on his way up, so there were no nails left within reach.
Only then did Ouyang Jue realize his miscalculation.
“...Was I twenty-one back then?”
Three years ago.
It was only natural for a man to have grown taller in that time.
Ouyang Jue scowled, calculating the remaining distance to the top.
“No wonder things felt a little different.”
Sighing deeply, Ouyang Jue had no choice but to draw Severing Manifestation.
It wasn't a famed sword he had acquired for this kind of situation, but under the circumstances, he had no other option.
Whoosh, thud!
Whoosh, thud!
Seeing Severing Manifestation become caked with grease was inwardly agonizing, but Ouyang Jue forced himself to look away.
If Severing Manifestation was a famed sword with a wickedly sharp edge, what lay above was an artifact possessing a special spiritual energy.
It possessed the power to vanquish evil, making it especially potent against unorthodox factions like the Black Dragon Gang.
Whump, thunk!
Sensing the sound of the strike suddenly turn dull, Ouyang Jue immediately used Severing Manifestation as a pivot and leaped upward.
There, he found an enigmatic seated Buddha statue and two handprints pressed side-by-side.
A pleasant smile spread across Ouyang Jue's face. It was a feeling of liberation, or perhaps, accomplishment.
“It's been almost twelve years.”
Thwip.
Ouyang Jue flattened his palms, gathered all the internal energy in his core, and bowed with utmost sincerity.
He had to perform this action a hundred times in total.
It was a ridiculously simple-minded act, but it was a necessary rite to obtain the Diamond Fist-Seal Armor.
This was why other martial artists who had climbed this far returned without ever discovering the secret, and the same was true for the Shaolin.
In his past life, Ouyang Jue had discovered this after dozens of trials and errors, and he had rejoiced greatly.
He had even made a vow here to devote himself to Buddhism once everything was over.
But things were different now.
After finishing one bow, Ouyang Jue met the gaze of the seated Buddha statue and spoke.
“I am now a Taoist of the Mount Hua Sect. Therefore, I can show you my respect, but I cannot serve you.”
Rrrrrrumble….
At his words, the oil that flowed over the surface of the seated Buddha statue stopped.
Click, clank!
Simultaneously, the seated Buddha statue split in two, revealing a single gauntlet.
* * *
Pshhhhhhh—
“Phew....”
Wiping the sweat from the heat radiating off the forge, the man tried to recall how many days had passed since that day.
Yes, it had been a week.
A week since he had failed to rob that naive-looking young bastard who was carrying silver.
During that time, the man had dug a back escape route so he could flee whenever Ouyang Jue might show up.
Was that all?
He had even ordered a little beggar boy with nothing better to do to keep watch on the outskirts of the village.
‘I may have made a bit of a fuss, but it was worth it.’
Seeing as he hasn't shown up after a week, he must have gone somewhere far away.
A sneer appeared on the man's face. It was about time for the merchant caravan planning to pass through here to arrive.
“Well then, it's about time to resume my activities as a righteous hero....”
“What was that?”
At those words, the man's head whipped around. His face reflexively turned pale.
They say a dog that's been beaten once will cower at the mere sight of a fist.
The man's body trembled as he turned to see the face of the one who had spoken.
Ouyang Jue lightly tapped the man's forearm with his loosely clenched fist.
“No, say it again. What was that?”
“Uh, um.”
Suddenly a stutterer, the man gave an awkward laugh and scratched the back of his head.
“After getting thoroughly beaten... no, after receiving a lesson from the great hero, I've decided to walk the path of a true righteous man from now on.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Ouyang Jue's eyes narrowed. He then pointed a finger at the man's hand.
“Then what's that headband in your hand with the words ‘Great Green Forest’ written on it?”
“I was just about to burn it! Haha!”
The man casually tossed the green headband into the forge. When he turned back, he saw Ouyang Jue's condition.
Thick grease was caked under his fingernails.
His palms were a mess of blood and pus, and his hair was so soaked in oil it looked like it would go up in flames in an instant if a spark touched it.
‘Could this be...?’
Thinking this was his chance, the man immediately snatched the hammer he had left on the table.
A cold sneer flashed across Ouyang Jue's face when he saw it.
“I knew it, you piece of trash.”
“Kuhaha! How dare you bluff in such a beggar's state! When you meet King Yama with your head bashed in, tell him you were killed by a successor of the Iron Palm Sect!”
Tsk.
Ouyang Jue looked at the man with pity.
His condition was incurable.
“Crazy bastard.”
The Iron Palm Sect is from a bygone era; how could he claim to be a successor in the age of the Great Ming?
Ouyang Jue's hand shot out, grabbing the man's fingers and twisting them.
Crack!
In terms of speed and strength, the man was far inferior to Ouyang Jue.
He didn't even consciously register that his fingers had been broken; he was merely reacting instinctively to the pain.
“Gaaack...!”
“Shut your mouth, or the hammer goes in.”
Ouyang Jue executed a swift joint-locking technique, using the same hand that had broken the man's fingers to snatch the hammer away.
And then, just as he'd said.
Thwack!
He lightly struck the man's Yintang acupoint.
Although it left no major external wound, just a minor cut, he had struck a vital point precisely. The man would not survive.
Afterward, Ouyang Jue sat down for a moment to catch his breath.
“Phew, I was a fool to hope he might have changed his ways, even a little.”
Ouyang Jue chuckled, thinking it wasn't like him.
‘I'm not the kind of person who gets screwed over like an idiot.’
In fact, the reason Ouyang Jue had let the man live was to create this very situation.
A burning forge.
Medicine for external wounds.
There were even blacksmithing tools, which meant he could clean the oil off Severing Manifestation.
By letting him go alive instead of killing him, he had secured a temporary shelter for himself.
Ouyang Jue looked around, gathering what he needed.
‘It would be nice if there was a house attached... Ah, there is.’
Thump, thump, creeeak….
As Ouyang Jue casually stripped off his clothes and entered the bath, the murmuring sounds from outside began to grow louder.
“Could it be Zhang Ying?”
“No way. He's the best martial artist in our village.”
“His personality is shit, but to us he was so....”
As the conversation continued.
CRASH!
The door of the blacksmith shop was torn completely off its hinges.
CRUNCH!
Ouyang Jue, who had stomped on the hinges with his foot, glanced at the old man pinned beneath the door.
He had meant to strike lightly, but the power was considerable due to the grip-strengthening ability of the Diamond Fist-Seal Armor.
However, he felt no guilt toward the old man.
Instead, Ouyang Jue's lips parted slightly.
“Did you aid and abet, or did you participate?”
At his words, the villagers could not answer.
Their stance was already clear.
Seeing them each holding farming tools or weapons, Ouyang Jue let out a long sigh.
“I'll make it quick.”
The word 'mercy' did not exist in Ouyang Jue's vocabulary.