Chapter 531
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 531
Chapter Title: You Saw It Right
From the first form to the twenty-fourth.
Wi Su-yeon moved her sword with true diligence and utmost sincerity.
Among all the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Techniques she had ever demonstrated, this performance was undoubtedly the most refined.
It had no choice but to be.
Wi Su-yeon was concentrating that intensely.
Solemn yet splendid.
Two seemingly incompatible qualities blended in perfect harmony.
Of course, awkward and disjointed sections persisted midway through the incomprehensible sword paths.
She ignored them, pressing on with her own interpretation.
And so she completed every form.
"Haa... haa."
She lowered her sword, gasping for breath.
In truth, she had no idea how she had executed it.
She only remembered channeling all her focus; the specifics were a complete blank.
How could this happen?
Wi Su-yeon's trance-like state attested to the Plum Blossom Sword Sage's towering prestige in Huashan.
"Splendid."
A brief commendation.
Yet Wi Su-yeon's face lit up as if she owned the world.
Praise from the Plum Blossom Sword Sage himself.
Affirmation that her swordsmanship was superb.
"And you truly are a prodigy."
Admiration followed for Wi Su-yeon's innate talent.
She stood speechless before the Sword Sage's words.
She hadn't yet grasped their full import.
"I asked you to demonstrate in case your talent fell short, leaving you blind to the Plum Blossom Sword Technique's essence and thus perceiving awkwardness. To claim you sensed what I did would be too presumptuous otherwise."
He realized this while recounting his own experience to her.
Watching her swordplay confirmed it.
This child felt exactly as I did.
"What you sensed was correct. Those sections are awkward."
A smile bloomed across Wi Su-yeon's face at the Sword Sage's firm declaration.
Huashan's foremost swordmaster validated her instincts. How could she not rejoice?
"Then why do those flaws remain?"
"As the Plum Blossom Sword Technique passed down through generations, its essence warped and mutated."
Wi Su-yeon's eyes widened in shock.
The Sword Sage laid the blame squarely on the ancestors with unabashed candor.
Denigrating forebears was virtually taboo.
Yet Huashan's most venerable elder dismissed it casually.
"Why that look? Wrong is wrong, be it from ancestors or their grandfathers."
Wi Su-yeon barely stifled a laugh at the absurd "ancestor grandfather" quip.
"Why did it warp?"
She ventured the question delicately.
The distortion birthed the awkwardness, after all.
The answer to her quandary lay there.
"You saw it right."
Wi Su-yeon cocked her head at the Sword Sage's reply.
What had she seen right?
"The Plum Blossom Sword Technique's renown blinded Huashan's swordsmen. Obsessed with plum blossoms—rare even in Huashan—they introduced flaws into the blade."
Wi Su-yeon's mouth parted slightly.
Huashan lacks plum trees, so why Plum Blossom Sword Technique?
She harbored that doubt, but the forebears differed.
They refined it to be more plum-like.
Altering it bit by bit.
Not refinement—distortion.
True improvement would elevate it; instead, misalignments emerged.
"What essence did you sense in the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique?"
"Solemn splendor."
Contradictory qualities intertwined.
Wi Su-yeon thus revered Huashan's Plum Blossom sword arts, delving ever deeper.
Reaching the technique's flaws was her sole regret.
"A prodigy indeed. You perceived it rightly and tread the true path."
The Plum Blossom Sword Sage smiled faintly.
"Then what went awry, creating the misalignment?"
"I didn't know at first. But reflecting on your words, Sword Sage, the splendor seems the culprit."
"What led you there?"
"You said they warped it to make it more Plum Blossom-like..."
The Sword Sage nodded.
"Plum blossoms bloom solitary and proud atop winter's snowfields. First harbingers of winter's end and spring's dawn—that's their solemnity. And beautiful they are; thence splendor."
Wi Su-yeon nodded faintly.
The flower embracing contradiction: the plum blossom.
Thus the sword art too, embodying both.
Wi Su-yeon marveled at manifesting those traits in sword forms.
"Did you think likewise?"
The Sword Sage inquired, noting her nod.
"Yes."
Her own view echoed from the master's lips; confidence laced her curt reply.
"You too err."
Wi Su-yeon's expression froze at the verdict.
Wrong?
Moments ago, he praised her path as true.
Now her insight false?
How to reconcile this?
Chaos swirled in her mind.
"The ancestors likely shared your view. They fixated on the splendor. The technique's fame stems more from flash than solemnity. Awed by plum shadows in the paramount Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique, entranced by its fragrance, they forged the Sword Fragrance realm besides..."
Sword Fragrance.
A realm she knew well.
Every Huashan disciple coveted it.
This Sword Sage attained it at thirty, the youngest ever.
"All futile."
"Gasp."
She gasped aloud this time.
Denying even Sword Fragrance.
"The path deviated from the outset—for ancestors, you, and me."
Self-deprecation curled the Sword Sage's lips.
"Turbulence eased, so I secluded to unravel your very doubt. Recently, answers dawned. Thus, I contemplate returning to the sect."
His gaze drifted to Yeonhwa Peak.
"Wi Su-yeon, correct? Your query was the koan to the truth I uncovered. Why dub plum-less Huashan blades 'Plum Blossom'? 'Huashan Sword Technique' might suffice."
Wi Su-yeon nodded at the wry jest.
Yet that her koan?
"Splendor's addition bred misalignment by omitting its equal."
Sound logic.
"Not solemnity—what then?"
Wi Su-yeon pondered her sensations tracing those paths.
The awkwardness' root.
Mulling deeply...
"Stifling?"
The word escaped unbidden.
The Sword Sage smiled anew at her whisper.
"Prodigy."
Self-answering—how deny it?
"Precisely. Freedom vanished. Most glaring in the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique. Basics escaped much tampering. But Huashan's famed ultimate art? Heavily revised."
"Th-then, seek the origin? The manual..."
"You checked the manuals?"
"Ah...!"
A soft exclamation escaped.
Huashan's remnants: solely warped editions.
"No trace of the original Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique in Huashan. Not even Patriarch Hall. All altered."
Regret tinged the lament.
Madness seemed afoot.
Alter and erase priors? Inexplicable.
"Why... ever?"
Wi Su-yeon murmured mournfully.
"Mystery. Thus, ancestors erred."
The query 'Plum-less yet Plum Blossom?' escalated to ancestral fault.
"Found your answer, Sword Sage?"
She asked timidly, curiosity burning.
"No certainty of truth, but a compelling hypothesis."
Wi Su-yeon's eyes gleamed.
"What caught your eye before?"
"Huashan's woods?"
He shook his head.
"There."
The rock where she lay.
Pre-Sword Sage, she gazed skyward from it.
Languid, unbound drift across azure expanse...
"Clouds?"
It blurted forth.
"Yes. Clouds."
Wi Su-yeon pondered, head tilted.
Vast blue firmament: solemn.
Drifting within: free.
Splendor?
Absent, seemingly...
Doubt stirred.
"Timely passage. Gaze heavenward."
He indicated a cloud; her eyes followed.
The form: a lavish peony.
Flower-king, splendor incarnate.
Manifest in cloud.
"Ah!"
Exclamation burst.
There.
Splendor.
Undeniably.
"Huashan's patriarch likely glimpsed a plum cloud, birthing instant insight for the technique. My hypothesis."
Wi Su-yeon nodded instinctively.
Utterly convincing.
"Thus, sect-bound to probe. Climbed hoping for plum clouds here; found you instead."
Her lingering doubts dissolved.
"Fate. Huashan hides such genius—now known to me. Departing soon; accompany me."
"Yes."
Descending Yeonmi Peak, they headed for Yeonhwa Peak.
Crimson Blossom Tower.
A pleasure house at Sangnam's heart.
Not paramount, but top five by scale.
Yu Gwi-gwang sought it.
Entrance guards: Black Face Hall thugs, likely.
Black dao scum's dealings were predictable.
Backing brothels, skimming coin—a prime revenue stream.
With Black Face Hall quartered here, deeper entanglement.
"Third-rate street rabble."
Yu Gwi-gwang sized up the pair effortlessly.
First-rate attainment let him spot third-raters easily.
Energy sense like pinnacle masters beyond would scan the house's presences handily.
That prowess eluded him still.
Thus, he entered as patron.
First time gracing such a den.