Book 12 Chapter 18

Call me Plum Blossom Noodles!

As the two signposts snarled across the boulevard, the remaining boulevard of the three-way intersection came to a roaring halt.

"Looks like it's a bit of a raucous day here and there."

The cause of the commotion was quickly realized. Several villagers were shouting, "Volcano wave! The volcanic wave is here!" in a whale-whistle shout.

I thought, "What's all the fuss about?" but the procession was worth the fuss, because it was within reach of the volcanic waves, and if you were a student there, you could see it every day, so it wasn't rare.

"That's a lot of power. A faction is on the move."

The skeptical old man gave his honest impression. They walked in a straight line from the northern boulevard. The twelve elders of the Hua Shan Sect and the thirty Guan Daoists who accompanied them walked through the path. Dressed in plum blossom-embroidered robes, the thirty disciples of the Volcano Sect all exuded spear-like auras, as if they were disciples of a great sect. Among them were Yi Yun and Master Suo.

Twelve elders for the sake of a learned man, it was as if the entire Volcano Sect had moved. The gray-haired old man at the head of the line had infinite years in the furrows of his face, a waist that hadn't succumbed to the weight of time, and a noble bearing that wafted from his entire body like the scent of plum blossoms.

The old man, dressed in a purple robe like the dusk on the horizon, with a single longsword on his belt, was the current head of the Volcano Sect, Feng Mae Sword Yang Yuzhong.

Yun Junho was stunned by the sight of the master, and was about to run to greet him, but Bi Ryuyeon grabbed his shoulder and stopped him. She meant to wait and see. No matter how he tried, he couldn't shake off Bi Ryuyeon's grip on his shoulder, so he had no choice but to do as he was told.

Upon hearing the news, the gates of the Plum Blossom Pavilion opened, and a delegation from the Heavenly Martial Academy, including Ice Sword and Yin Dao, walked out. The people of the Zhongyang and Zhongyuan Clans, all of whom were riding horses, knew that Elder Huashan had come in person. It wasn't as if Elder Huashan's status was such that he could be greeted by sitting arrogantly on his horse. With the utmost courtesy, they bowed and made way for him.

The Volcano Sect stopped, and only Yang Yuzhong, the longest of the group, stepped forward, followed by Ice Sword and Saltwater.

"Hehehe, long time no see. Guan Nao!"

It was the Volcano Sect's Zhang Mingyin who smiled and greeted us first.

"It's been a while, Yang Zhang, how have you been?"

In response to the greeting, Zhang Ming's gaze shifted to Yidao.

"It's been a long time, Kwok Nosa. Has it been five years?"

With a shudder, Yeomdo replied.

"It's been a while, longtime reader. How are you?"

"Heh, heh, heh, what's the big deal with an old man who's holed up in a gatehouse looking for something to do?"

Yang Yuzhong responded with a friendly smile, and Bing Gum chuckled lightly.

"Hahaha, you are too modest; the responsibilities of the head of the Nine Sects, the Elder of the Huashan Sect, are by no means small and light; how can they be called small when you carry the Hundred Swords on your shoulders, and yet you have come here with a difficult task?"

"I am curious to hear of the arrival of the men who will carry the future of the Hundred Cities, but I must restrain myself, so I have come to see you."

He didn't say anything about wanting to sample Bing's sword energy right now; that was a conversation for another time.

"Hahaha, I see, good to see you're here, let's go inside."

Bing'er no longer felt it was polite to leave the Volcanic Sect's Zhang Menghui standing on the street, so she invited him inside. Zhang Wenyin was just about to say yes!

"Wait, I still want to see something."

With a sudden shout, a gust of wind blew through the air, sending up a cloud of dust and disrupting the clock. When the dust cleared, a young man appeared in the marketplace with his back to the Volcanic Faction. Naturally, everyone's eyes were drawn to him.

Enraged at the appearance of this rude intruder who dared to stand in the way of the Volcano Sect's master, Yi Yun let out an angry cry.

"Rude! How dare you talk to a midwife……."

Yi Yun was about to shout, "You dare to stand in the way of a master! Apologize with your life!" but was stopped by the sword master's severe restraint.

"Woo-eup…, Woo-eup……."

It was clear that the twelve elders, including Elder Swordsmith, were deeply perplexed by this turn of events. However, their expressions were more of bewilderment, disbelief, and bitterness than anger. The eldest, Yang Yuzhong, looked at the masked man and made a grunting sound, then patted his forehead in an 'Oops Duya!

Standing with his bare back to a group of Volcanoes, the gutsy (if not insane?) masked man wore a faded purple robe and an antique longsword sheathed at his waist that looked like it had been around for ages, but the mask was obviously hastily made.

He was now using his trembling ice sword and salt sword, but he wasn't wielding them in front of the Volcanic Sect's leader. Moreover, the atmosphere in the Volcanic Sect's camp was very strange.

"Who are you, and since you're alone, I assume you have some urgent business to attend to?"

"My name is……."

He didn't answer quickly and stammered.

"Right?"

More gazes converged. The masked man paused for a moment, wondering if something was bothering him or if he had forgotten his own name, but then he puffed out his chest and shouted proudly.

"…I am the Plum Blossom Mask (梅花假面)!"

"Kaboom!"

At that moment, Feng Mae Sword Yang Yuzhong, a longtime member of the Volcanic Sect, clutched his stomach as if he had been struck by a penetrator and let out a sound that seemed to squeeze his lungs.

If it's a plum!

It's a hasty tee, and it's the worst kind of naming.

"Cilantro! "

"You're a master!"

Bi Ryuyeon and the old man, who said the same thing at the same time, looked at each other and chuckled.

"Is that…, is that cilantro…, is that…?"

Cautiously, the Namgungsang returned, only to be met with the Descent of Heaven.

Voila!

"This just made things more interesting, huh!"

A look of excitement appeared on Bi Ryuyeon's face, as if she were an invalid. The ashen-haired old man never lost.

"How dare you!"

Angered by the disrespect of the masked stranger's unannounced arrival, he stalked over to the old man, intent on showing him the error of his ways. But his feet didn't budge, as if they were nails in the ground.

"Huh?

It was only then that Yin Dao realized that the masked man was indeed a master of unimaginable sword prowess. He was so powerful that his body could detect danger and send him a stop sign. Looking at him, Yin Dao saw that the hands of a fellow swordsman, Naboorang, were nervous. As a fellow swordsman, he had already read his opponent's chi.

"So what's the point?"

"There is a strong swordsman here, so as a fellow swordsman, I have come to sample his swordsmanship once!"

The voice was strong and powerful, like it was coming directly from a power outage.

"I…, in such a radical way……."

The old man's voice was somber.

"It's not too late to stop them, right?"

"But maybe this is a good opportunity."

"But no matter what, this is……."

Among the twelve elders, there was a small murmur of disagreement.

"Who is that strong swordsman? Depending on the circumstances, I may be able to deal with him."

Binggum naturally assumed it was him. He wasn't wrong. Besides, Bing'er herself had been itching to cross swords with this ridiculously named masked swordsman. Her frozen blood as a swordswoman had been thawed by the Thunderbolt Blade in Lightning Valley, and now it was about to boil over again by this masked man.

He still felt that he needed to improve his skills after facing Thunderbolt, and he couldn't think of a better opponent than this masked man.

But the masked man's answer shattered his expectations.

"I'd love to go toe-to-toe with that kid."

The masked man's hand pointed to one side, where Bi Ryuyeon was standing.

"Eh, me?"

Bi Ryuyeon pointed a finger at her face, and Plum Blossom shook her head.

"And me? "

Following suit, Namgungsang pointed to himself.

"No, not you, next to him! "

"You mean that?"

Mo Yonghui asked again. This time, he shook his head.

"No, you're great, but next to him. The one there, a little shorter, with brown hair."

After a moment of hesitation, Yun Junho cautiously moved his finger to point at himself. He had decided that the sky was the limit and that the famous swordsman could not be him. But his conclusion was wrong, as the masked man's head nodded vigorously.

"That's right. It is you. It is you, and no one else, with whom I wish to mix swords!"

"Heeheehee!"

An exclamation of horror burst from Yun's mouth.

'Since when did Yoon Joon-ho become a renowned strong swordsman?

The first news of the day! This was the thought that reigned in everyone's minds. It was clear from the distressed expression on Bing'er's face that this was a very unexpected and humiliating event for him as well.

"What are you doing? If you've been nominated, you should get out of here."

To Yoon Joon-ho, whose face looked like all the blood had been sucked out of him, Bi Ryuyeon said nonchalantly.

"Ko…, do I have to leave? Even if I don't……."

She shook her head emphatically.

"It's a terrible thing to be cheated on when your partner is actively courting you like that. Get out!"

With that, he pushed Yun Junho's back. Yun Junho unconsciously broke out of the human fence that had formed and stepped into the scene of the crime. When he looked back, Bi Ryuyeon waved at him to hurry up. Even if he went back, he would be attacked again. Hundreds of gazes were focused on his body. With his back blocked, he could only go forward.

There was an uproar among the disciples of the Volcano Sect as they watched Yun Junhao walk out, hesitating, hesitating, blushing like a girl burning with shame. They knew all too well what a troublemaker Yun Junhao had been at the volcano; his plum blossom hypersensitivity and the incident two years earlier when he had been admitted to the Heavenly Martial Academy were so well known that no one was unaware of them. Among them, Yi Yun and Suo Jing were especially appalled.

The Volcano Sect disciple Yi Yun rubbed his snowball as hard as he could, as if he had seen a vision. Once, twice, three times, four times.

I rubbed my eyes so hard they were raw, but nothing had changed in reality.

'Oh, my God, this is so stupid, how could that crybaby, stupid, stupid, stupid idiot be in there?'

He was beyond stunned, and his eyes still held a gleam of disbelief. But walking out of the crowd meant that he had been chosen as a delegate to the Volcanic Covenant.

Soon, however, he denied his outlandish leap of thinking outright.

"Aah…, no way! That can't be right. He, uh, yeah……. He must have come along as a delegation chamberlain, Cancer, I'm sure. The sky didn't fall, the earth didn't split, the stars didn't fall, it couldn't happen. Hahahahaha……."

The delegates of the Volcanic Society had long since ceased to have servants, but that was none of Yi Yun's business, and it didn't matter. Soyukyung stared at Yunjun in silence, not even bothering to glance at the seemingly frozen death sentence. In her clear black eyes, a glint of desire shot through like a meteor.

With his back to the wall and his path blocked, Yoon had no choice but to step forward, like a general facing the backwaters of a drainage ditch.

"What the heck! What the heck! What the heck!" (How do I do it?)

He wanted to flee, even now, if circumstances permitted; the oath he had made before the rising sun had already been washed away in a wave of oblivion in his mind. But fleeing was not an option, and so he stood before the masked figure, crying and eating mustard.

'Huh?'

From a distance, he looked very scary at first, but when he got closer, he felt very familiar. As Yoon Jun-ho panicked and didn't know what to do, the masked man asked him in a soft voice.

"Has your heart been hardened by the hammer of the forge?"

It was a question like a master asking a pupil. The voice that sounded scary from a distance sounded so sweet when I thought about it.

"I'm not sure yet."

Junho Yoon replied. I didn't find the answer very convincing.

"If you say you don't know…, well, check it out and you'll see."

The masked man said, his voice still soft.

"I feel like I've heard this before.

It was a nostalgic feeling, but the energy emanating from in front of me was too powerful to allow me to reminisce.

"What the heck are you up to?"

Yang Yuzhong, the elder of the Volcano Sect, shook his head in disbelief.

"Well, good luck with that."

Yun Jun-ho held his sword in the center of his body, pointed downward, and bowed respectfully, assuming the pose.

"Mmm!"

Plum Blossom's masked face nodded in a short answer. He then explained how to play.

"Don't be so nervous. I'm just curious about your skills. I'm afraid someone might think I'm trying to eat you. First, I'll give you ten seconds out of seniority. Then I will attack. If you touch the hem of my robe, even with a single sword, you win. If you don't,……."

A sharp flash of light flashed from the hole in his back where a crude plum sigil was embedded in his forehead.

"You're risking your life! "

Sharp, piercing flesh sliced through Yun Jun's entire body. It was a terrifying flesh that could actually kill, and by the sound of it, it was entirely in Yun's favor. But it was also consistent with the story that the masked man was confident in his skills.

Zhang Wenyin, who had been listening, shook his head skeptically.

"There's no way that's possible, he'll never win with his current skill set."

And the bimu began.