Book 2 Chapter 21

The talent to make two into one

A week after the visit to Hoa Giang! Sunfeng Sanbui Nahuai kept his promise.

Three days after meeting the later sun,

So, two days after a peaceful(?), friendly(?) visit to Hoa Giang.

A messenger has come from the Martial Arts Center.

His response was that he would accept any and all conditions. Of course, this was something he had been waiting for, so he readily accepted the offer, and things calmed down to the point where, on the day of his induction into the academy, he agreed to join the academy as a bushido. He was to be given the best accommodations and the best treatment. At least everything had gone smoothly. Although Yidou's mood was still uncomfortable these days, it did not affect the negotiations. The messengers departed with the utmost courtesy, just as they had come.

After the messenger from the Heavenly Pavilion returned, Bi Ryuyeon sat quietly in her room, turning an object over and over in front of the setting sun through the window. It was the famous Ascending Dragon Plaque, embossed with a dragon ascending on a single sword within a rectangular green jade border with golden threads. The Ascending Dragon Plaque, the recommended plaque for entering the Heavenly Pavilion, was obtained by destroying an entire sect!

How many people had shed tears of blood for him to get this, but the dog had bitten all the seriousness out of him. In his memory, the tears of the Hoa Zhang servants had long since become a distant remnant of the past. As usual, he didn't realize the seriousness of it.

"Is this such a big deal?

After making such a big fuss, Bi Ryuyeon twirled the plaque around as if it were a toy, playing with it. It wasn't that she had anything in mind, she just did it out of boredom. It was the same as always.

The Ascension Festival began the day after Hoa Zhang's visit and lasted for a week. During this long and short period of time, countless gateways were set up and destroyed to determine the finalists, and then the jade stones named as the finalists were chosen through a series of martial arts dances that followed the logic and flow of the martial arts.

A week after the Ascension Festival, one of the biggest and most anticipated events of the year, the eagerly awaited day of candidate announcement had finally arrived. It was the moment when the attention of all the warriors in the Guizhou River Lake was focused.

On this day, the scene at the recruitment center was the same as it had been in previous years: extremely crowded. A sea of jet-black hair. Crowds so tightly packed you couldn't see through them. A dizzying amount of chatter. A palpable, humanizing heat that dominated the entire room. It's hard for anyone in this room not to feel the excitement and heat. However, the buzz that had made people turn around tapered off as the candidate announcements began, and the room fell into a stunned silence that could have been detected by a needle in a haystack.

The announcement of the candidates was made by the Shaman Sect's Master of Ceremonies, Okho Jinin. As one of the twin carriages of the Nine Great Sects, he announced the names and origins of the inductees to the Heavenly Martial Academy in a clear, unadorned tone so that they could hear him clearly, even in the midst of a large crowd.

As one candidate after another was announced, a stellar cast of characters emerged: some laughing, some crying, some laughing with joy, some laughing in disbelief, some crying with excitement, some crying in frustration, some being thrown into the air, and some throwing down the sword of life. I thought it would be a great place to comprehensively observe all the different types of human beings and conduct a comparative analysis of their behavior.

There was also a group of people who were always present on this day every year: those who wanted to complain about being rejected, and those who were so angry about being rejected that they went to the Tianmu Hall to protest. It was not uncommon for people to draw swords or make fists as a means of protest. However, such people were often beaten to a pulp at the gate before they could even poke their big toe into the building.

If they tried to protest the wrongfulness of the judgment, or the injustice of it, or the meaningless slashing of the sword, but were unable to do so because of their lack of skill, who were they to protest? It was only a gesture that would be extinguished like a momentary vapor. They should be grateful that they had not been killed, that they had escaped with their lives. I should be a hundredfold grateful to the officials of the Academy of Heaven and Earth for restraint, for not wanting to see blood on such a fine day.

In spite of the strict discipline of the armed protesters, who are fatally deficient in the ability to think and learn rationally, year after year after year, there is always a dedicated riot squad stationed at the main gate on the day of the announcement to quell the unruly crowd. And then there are the pathetic ones who know they shouldn't be there, who know they shouldn't be there, who come in like hypnotized people and draw their swords like a wart in front of an oncoming wagon. The most troublesome tribes are the ones who come in hordes, leading their friends, priests of their sect, or even hired warriors of their family. These are the most troublesome, and they are not recognized by the Academy of Heaven and Earth. These groups must be dealt with by example, or they will not be able to wake up the rest of us to the harsh realities of life.

Once some of these fools are severely disciplined, and they witness the horrific sight of one of their limbs being broken in a spectacular fashion, or being dragged by their colleagues to the council chambers, people's foggy heads clear a bit and they come to grips with reality. After that, the dust settles considerably. The members of the riot police are all senior members of the Heavenly Martial Arts Academy, composed of the highest ranking martial artists, the kind of people you can't find in the lower and middle ranks, no matter how much you wash your eyes and look for them. And they are led by a single bushido himself. It's absurd, then, to think that rampage and mischief would work against such masters.

Since the establishment of the Tianmu Academy, no one has ever broken through the gates of the Academy by force of arms, and the fact that they do so after drinking makes me wonder if humans are truly pathetic animals. God, if you put a head and a stone next to each other, you couldn't tell the difference. A man who can't even control himself can't properly train martial artists. It's like pouring water on poison. …….

On the day of the announcement of the successful applicants to the Tianmu Academy, it was not only the most noisy day in Nanchang City, but also the most profitable day for the entire Nanchang City entertainment district. It was the day that I would make all the money I needed to make in a month in one day. What's more, the festivities would continue for at least a week. Whether you passed or failed, you had to drink alcohol. If you passed, you drank to celebrate, and if you failed, you drank and drank and drank all night to forget everything. Those who fail the test continue to drink until their brains are paralyzed by alcohol to forget their miserable situation. It's a kind of compensatory psychology.

And if that wasn't enough, you could always find a girl and get down and dirty with her. How could the sales of the brothels not go up? If you were to name the biggest night of the year, the owners of all the jurus and giru belonging to the brothel associations in Nanchang would not hesitate to name it with their first hand. This is the day when the night in Namchang is filled with drunkenness…….

However, there was one person who was silently watching all the commotion as if it had nothing to do with her. It was Bi Ryuyeon. Right now, despite the fact that she had gotten her hands on the Seungryong Pill, she was very uncomfortable,

Ten days after the visit to Hoa Zhang. Yeomdo still hadn't gotten over the shock of meeting Kwan Chulsoo. She kept her mouth shut and leaned on the sailboat named Silence as she floated down the river named Silence. With his mouth and tongue closed, he was in a state of protest and distress. This dreary scene frustrated Bi Ryuyeon, who was watching from the side. This behavior was extremely uncharacteristic of Yi Yun, who was known to eliminate the source of his frustration before it became a problem.

It was frustrating and unpleasant to watch. How frustrating it must have been for the viewer to see the man who usually acted so aggressively without thinking, but whose contemplative activities were accompanied by an uncharacteristic silence. He had been holding back the urge to kill him, but his patience was now at its limit. It seemed that he was running out of days to make a decision.

It was the ice sword that left an indelible scar on his heart, not to mention the fact that it was always in the back of his mind. In the Hall of Heavenly Martial Arts, a place where only those with the greatest strength, the greatest skill, and the greatest spirit can enter, an alumnus, his nemesis, teaches his students. And now he is about to enter it himself. As a samurai of the same rank and position as him! No, he's a master, so he's beneath him……? That's something I don't like to think about.

"Master!

You suddenly remember your dead master. A master who still wondered if he would be a match even if he and his ice sword attacked at once. He was a martial artist who was best described as the best in the world, whose studies and discipline were so outstanding that he and Chu Shu were unable to inherit all that he had, and had to receive a martial art that was split in half. How he had lamented then. To this day, I can't forget his terrible disappointment, which is clearly etched deep in my heart. The refinement and development of just those two halves was enough to earn them a place in the top five heavenly martial artists and top five heavenly swordsmen, respectively.

Who would have thought that death would come to such a master, who was not ashamed of the name of the greatest man in the world. I thought he was alive longer than I was……. Although he was wounded by someone-I still can't believe that he was slandered by the hands of another- his death was not really a death. The Master's face was strangely serene, even as blood oozed from the wounds all over his body, and he sat upright as he had done on other days, drank a cup of dragon-juice tea, and then quietly passed away. He left this world of his own volition. His last words to me were to find a Taijiquan talent to unite the two, but I was unable to fulfill them. Furthermore, there was no possibility of it being fulfilled in the future. Perhaps it will never be fulfilled.

As I sat quietly for the first time in a long time, lost in thought, I suddenly remembered my master's words. I hadn't thought of him recently……. Eventually, she came to mind as well. I really didn't want to think about her. I wanted to bury it in the back of my mind, but it came to me out of nowhere. Suddenly, his heart ached as if it had been punished, and a terrible sense of loss and loneliness visited him.

Forget, forget, forget, a thousand more times before she was able to eradicate the image. Her master's death was the most ideal death for an unattended person, but even so, she couldn't help but grieve. Her jade face had been filled with crystal-clear tears, and she had been drowning her sorrows in them. But… But……. My heart sank again. Damn it, it was a warning that if I thought about it anymore, I'd hurt myself even more. A cruel heartbreak. It is said that the wounds of the heart cannot be erased even after death. She had left a terrible scar that she would carry with her to the afterlife. She was tormented by a pain that could not be healed, and her fiery personality was often attributed to this.

The most precious thing hidden in the deepest recesses of his heart had been hurt. She'd left behind an indelible mark of pain, like a burn on his heart, and he didn't want to suffer from her residue anymore. Absolutely not.

I wanted to be free of the ice sword, free of him.

"I'm Guo Yingxi, one of the Five Greatest Thieves of the Heavens, the Fire Spirit Flame Heavenly Demon Sword. I am Guan Xuexuan of the Frozen Ice Blue Falling Sword, and I will have a final battle with him sooner or later. I will no longer allow his ghost to hold my ankles and torment my heart, wounding me without rest.''

At last he decided on a course of action, a decision as hard and unyielding as diamond, and he swept aside all the bundles of thoughts he had been struggling with. Never again, never again would there be any hesitation or reluctance in his presence.