Wudang Sacred Scriptures

Chapter 193

Kwak Yeon could leave Youhyeon County with his mind somewhat unburdened.

Not of everything, but it felt as though he had shed a portion of the load on his heart.

It was thanks to having met Gong Sugae, Beggar Clan Branch Master of Youhyeon County.

True to his epithet Empty-Handed Beggar, he was a man without greed.

Is that why he’s content with the life of a beggar?

Of course, not every Beggar Clan vagrant is free of desire.

Even Sub-Branch Master Chwi Dugae is peculiar in his attachment to drink and food—especially that wretched yellow dog.

Once, Hyeonhae Taoist said that when the thirst born of lack piles up, it turns into desire.

“Do not try to erase desire by force. Sublimate its root—lack—into good, and that is the path to the Way.”

Naturally, he added, that applies to Taoists in cultivation, and in the secular world there are many other ways by which people cultivate the Way.

Kwak Yeon wondered if the Beggar Clan’s way—taking mendicancy as a vocation—was part of that.

With that line of thought, Chwi Dugae’s attachment to yellow dogs flashed, unbidden, across his mind.

He had even taken Gwaa as a disciple because of a yellow dog.

What sort of life has Brother Chwi Dugae lived? Was he savaged by a yellow cur as a child or something?

With a faint snort, Kwak Yeon decided that, when the chance arose, he must ask at least once.

In any case, he knew that people carry one or two desires of their own. In truth, that is what makes one human.

As Hyeonhae Taoist taught, so long as such desires do not warp excessively, they can even aid one’s growth.

Yet when it came to his own desire, nothing in particular rose to mind.

His only hunger now was for the Boundless Realm.

“You really do look like an old man in a youth’s skin the more I see you.”

That was Seokjangsan exploding in exasperation after Kwak Yeon had pondered far too long over the question, What do you like?

Back then he did have one thing he liked.

Sitting beside Steward Jang Gusam at the kitchen and watching the firewood blaze in the hearth.

That ease washed a hard day at the training hall clean away.

If he had given that as an answer, he feared he would be told to stop at once and go sleep more, so he could not bring himself to say it.

With Seokjangsan’s stubborn temper, he might have barred the dormitory door.

Kwak Yeon realized, all at once, that he had been lonely.

I longed for human warmth. That was my thirst.

Even as he was scolded for meddling beyond his place and suffering losses for it, that was, in the end, the reason he stuck his neck out.

The assistants and instructors at the training hall—or the elders on Mount Wudang—would have found it contemptible.

Moreover, though the training hall’s directives had shifted from what the Supreme Patriarch had established at the beginning, they were still directives in force.

No wonder they took a dislike to me.

Having come out into the rivers and lakes, he found the common notions of the martial world not so different from the altered directives of the hall. No—the hall’s were mild by comparison.

The strong decided and steered the affairs of the martial world.

He was fated to be a jagged stone in that world.

But even in the martial world, what forbids one from longing for human warmth?

If he compromised and settled, life would be easy.

Had he closed his eyes and left the Hidden Dragon Command as its lord proposed that day, there would have been no enmity with the Jegal Family.

He would not have needed to fight the Alliance of the Demonic Path to the bitter end, nor would he have been marked by the dark hand behind the Hao Sect’s coup, nor become a thorn in the eye of various other sects.

The elders of Mount Wudang, hearing of such things, would all the more have found him intolerable.

From their standpoint, a disciple who had left secularized without their leave was roaming the rivers and lakes stirring up trouble.

But Unseon Taoist told me to become not Wudang’s sword, but the world’s sword.

So he had him set aside his robe and leave the temple.

Could it be that Unseon Taoist, knowing I meddle, allowed me to gain Wudang’s True Realm?

To a mere temple boy with nothing special, he even passed down the virtuous energy he had amassed over a lifetime.

Kwak Yeon recalled the first and last time he had combed Unseon Taoist’s hair, and his chest tightened. It had been thanks to Hyeonhae Taoist, the head disciple, yielding the honor.

He had offered to be called master, but Kwak Yeon could never bring himself to use that title.

The word alone was far too small to contain that grace.

Above all, for one so lacking as himself to call him “master” felt like dragging one who had reached the threshold of return-to-sainthood down into the dusty world.

Only after he so much as touched the foot of the realm Hyeonhae Taoist had reached could he bring himself to use that address.

Once I have the qualifications so my heart need not be ashamed, I will call him Master openly.

A sword of the immortals that sweeps away the world’s baleful qi!

Remembering Unseon Taoist’s last charge, Kwak Yeon felt his chest grow heavy.

As for the baleful qi pervading the world, it was still vague to him.

He had not expected to confront it the moment he entered the rivers and lakes. He had also foreseen that baleful qi would not show itself easily.

Even so, he thought he would seize a clue or two. Once, through a Hao Sect sub-branch lord, he felt he had glimpsed a tail. But whether that tail belonged to baleful qi remained uncertain.

The hand behind the curtain might be the Demonic Eight Divisions, said to be rebuilding in the dark, or the Blood Sect, which has hidden itself for a hundred years—or yet another organization in shadow.

Until now, aside from the Hao Sect’s coup, there had been nothing that clearly stank of baleful qi.

The rivers and lakes were “peaceful.”

There were disputes between the Martial Alliance and the Alliance of the Demonic Path, and the Demonic Cult in the Hundred-Thousand Mountains ever watched for a chance to invade the Central Plains—but such things had always existed in the martial world.

The orthodox Martial Alliance, the black-path Alliance of the Demonic Path, and the Demonic Cult of the Hundred-Thousand Mountains were ever the three great pillars of the martial world.

In any case, he would learn the true shape of the world’s baleful qi when he met the Supreme Patriarch.

For he surely communed with Unseon Taoist and then left Mount Wudang.

He would at last carry out the long-standing task of delivering what Steward Jang Gusam had left behind.

To do that, he had to pass by Mount Wuyi with haste and then go on to Hangzhou.

Sorting his thoughts thus as he walked, he soon found, at the end of the official road, ranges of mountains layered one upon another.

Kwak Yeon left the highway and entered a mountain path.

He did so to go straight toward Mount Wuyi.

From that day, he took only mountain paths.

At night he halted his steps and devoted himself to circulation cultivation and sword practice.

The reason he had to spend half of each night on circulation cultivation was to refine the inner true qi he had absorbed from the Four Evils of Heaven.

Their inner true qi, bound by external true energy, had scattered and piled up in the great meridians.

But that inner true qi would suddenly try to slip into the blood pathways and move.

Of course, the inner true qi of his dantian responded at once and suppressed it quickly, so there was no risk of a counterflow scarring the pathways or of falling into Qi Deviation.

Only, whenever it happened, something felt strange. It was as though someone other than himself were present.

He took it to be the demonic taint clinging to the inner true qi of the Four Evils of Heaven.

He could not say exactly what the causation was, but the tale that excessive use of the Essence-Draining Demonic Art drives one mad and turns one into a maniac he now understood readily.

When he circulated ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) the Honwonmusang Technique, sweeping out the demonic taint and casting off the impure energies, the inner true qi left over was but a handful.

It meant that Kwak Yeon’s inner true qi, founded on True Origin energy, was that much the purer.

Because he had no desire from the first to plunder others’ inner true qi, he felt satisfied simply to have refined away and erased the inner true qi of demonic men.

While taking the mountain paths, he would now and then unfold Solitary Moon Illumines the Boundless Skill to check whether there were pursuers.

But from Jinryeong onward, he sensed no sign of pursuit.

The Four Evils of Heaven and the Jegal Family’s Black Hand can’t be all there is...

Thanks to lying low in Sangjeon Village for a time, he thought, other pursuers might have fallen away.

In any case, the quiet around him was no bad thing, so, easier in mind, Kwak Yeon continued straight on through the mountains.

****

Jegal Deok, Elder Council Lord of the Jegal Family, sensed something amiss in the Clan Lord’s Hall.

Uncharacteristically, the Hall of the Coiled Dragon was empty within and without.

It was rare indeed to dismiss even the Clan Master’s personal guards.

“Elder Council Lord, welcome.”

Clan Master Jegal Jin greeted Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok with courtesy as he entered the Hall of the Coiled Dragon.

The Clan Master sat in the center of the hall with a purple sandalwood table before him.

Though displeased that his nephew received his elder—himself—while remaining seated, Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok kept his face smooth; he had been warned of late to be cautious in dealing with the Clan Master.

“Clan Master, you must be busy with the matter of the All-Under-Heaven Heroes Assembly. For what cause has this old man been summoned?”

The martial world was abuzz with news that the Martial Alliance would host a heroes’ assembly.

Thus Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok thought the Clan Master had called him to consult on that matter.

Whenever the family meant to send a large number of people outside, it was the rule to seek the Elder Council’s counsel.

“It seemed we had grown distant, and there are a few things I would ask Elder Council Lord, so I invited you. Please, be seated first.”

At those words, Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok smiled inwardly.

Unexpectedly, the time to repay the earlier slight had come this quickly.

Leisurely, he sat where the Clan Master indicated.

“Elder Council Lord is said to favor Iron Guanyin, so I prepared it.”

As the Clan Master poured, a subtle fragrance of tea rose and filled the hall.

“For one so burdened with public and private affairs to mind even this old man’s taste—I am at a loss.”

Letting a hint of his discomfort show, Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok lifted the cup.

He waited for the Clan Master to drink first, then drank. It had long been his habit to drink last when another poured.

Even before the head of the family, for a mere uncle to do so was plainly insolent.

Even so, the Clan Master’s expression did not change.

Certain now that the Clan Master had something to ask of him, Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok set down his cup.

“Elder Council Lord, how is the tea?”

“Perhaps because the Clan Master himself prepared it—it is superb.”

At his thorned reply, the Clan Master nodded with a flat face.

“I am glad it suits your palate. It was very hard to obtain, and I paid a very dear price.”

“Heh. I had not known the Clan Master held this old man in such regard.”

“But are you not curious what the tea cost?”

As the Clan Master mentioned the price again, Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok felt a prickle of offense.

He wanted to bark at once, Even dear tea—what can it cost, that you make a show of it!

Had it been his nephew in the days as Young Clan Master, he would have. But now he was the unquestioned Clan Master of the Jegal Family—what could he do?

With the earlier unpleasantness between them, he swallowed it and asked:

“Clan Master, then how dear was it, that you speak of it so?”

“Ten thousand gold taels.”

Thud.

Elder Council Lord Jegal Deok heard the sound of his heart dropping in his chest.