Chapter 249

Not Counting Defeat means acknowledging one’s own loss without calculating territory.

One displays defeat through various methods such as placing the opponent’s already captured stones on one’s own turn, or placing one’s own stones where they shouldn’t be placed. This is commonly referred to as “throwing stones.”

What Jin Ja-gang had just done, placing a stone not on the Go board’s intersection but in some random place outside the board, had the same meaning.

Venerable Woo-am had expressed his intention to concede defeat through Jin Ja-gang.

“After waiting ten years, what I received was Not Counting Defeat…”

The old man looked down at the Go board silently for a while. He showed a somewhat dejected expression at first, then pondered the meaning deeply as if some thought had occurred to him.

The prisoner who had been noisily interrupting from outside interjected again.

“Mok Ho. Look at that. I told you this fellow was strange. Acting all high and mighty, and all he does is Not Counting Defeat. Does that make sense? Just pull out his shinbone as usual…”

The old man didn’t even touch a stone but extended his finger.

With a sound like a mouse squeaking, finger wind shot out. If Jin Ja-gang had been highly knowledgeable in martial arts, he would have recognized it as Precise Thunder Halberd Finger, a finger wind technique of the Yellow Sect’s advanced martial arts, but naturally he couldn’t know.

At the same time, an urgent groan rang out.

“Ugh!”

Ting!

The sound of finger wind hitting something and bouncing off could be heard. It seemed he had indeed shot finger wind toward the left eye as he had said.

The old man ground his teeth and shouted toward outside the bars.

“If you intended to harm others, I told you to stake something yourself!”

“Sorry, sorry! Please spare my one remaining eye…”

“Have you ever seen me make empty threats? Pull it out yourself.”

“Mok Ho! I was wrong.”

Jin Ja-gang intervened.

“My shinbone is still intact, so please hold off for now.”

“How can you guarantee your shinbone will remain intact?”

However, even after saying those words, the old man’s face became bitter again as he looked down at the Go board.

“Fine. Leave the eye alone.”

“Thank you, Mok Ho!”

The old man fingered the red agate stone.

“This is undoubtedly that friend’s handiwork, no matter what anyone says. I believe you were sent by that friend.”

The old man was lost in regret for a moment, then asked Jin Ja-gang.

“But why did you bow to me?”

“Venerable Woo-am didn’t tell me directly, but he seemed to think of me as a messenger. So I naturally showed proper courtesy as someone representing Venerable Woo-am.”

The old man chuckled.

“Even though your head could roll because of that? The moment word spreads in the Orthodox Path that you know me, you die.”

“…”

Jin Ja-gang didn’t answer since he didn’t understand the meaning.

“You’re truly a strange fellow. You must be curious about who I am and what relationship I have with Woo-am, yet you keep your mouth firmly shut. I like that.”

“You also didn’t ask who I am or what kind of person I am.”

“I don’t need to know who you are and I’m not particularly curious. A fellow sent by Woo-am. That alone is enough for me to trust you.”

When Jin Ja-gang remained quiet, the old man asked back.

“Why don’t you say thank you?”

“Whether you trust or distrust me is your decision, so it’s not something I should be grateful for.”

“Heh heh heh, you’re strangely interesting. Regardless, I like you so I’ll give you one opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?”

“If you want to establish yourself and live in the martial world, leave this place quietly right now. As if nothing happened. And don’t tell anyone that you met me. Until you die.”

Jin Ja-gang answered immediately.

“Though I don’t know who you are, I came here to avoid dying, so if I just return, it would be no different from already being dead. Even if meeting a Mok Ho of the Yellow Sect makes me a public enemy of the martial world, it seems nothing could be worse than now.”

The old man laughed.

“Did you think I told you to go or stay for such trivial reasons? Well. Good anyway. You must have come seeking the Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Demon Subduing Art too, right?”

“That’s correct.”

The old man looked at Jin Ja-gang briefly, then asked.

“What happened to the Qingcheng sect?”

“They left Qingcheng Mountain.”

Though said without context, the old man seemed to understand to some degree.

“Did Woo-am pass away peacefully?”

“He remained alone on Qingcheng Mountain. He hadn’t ascended by the time I left, but may I ask why you spoke that way?”

“As you guessed, I am a follower of the Yellow Sect. What would be the reason for sending you to me when our relationship might be revealed to the world? It must mean the situation has become one where it doesn’t matter if it’s revealed.”

“I see.”

“And this Go game of ours… he ended the Go game that continued for forty years. Actually, I was at a disadvantage by about one and a half points… but doesn’t that mean Woo-am can no longer play Go?”

The old man continued in a somewhat melancholy tone.

“Woo-am threw stones to avoid leaving regret for me. If I had acknowledged my defeat earlier, such things wouldn’t have happened…”

Only then did Jin Ja-gang clearly understand.

Venerable Woo-am had remained on Qingcheng Mountain with the intention of dying.

However, that was entirely Venerable Woo-am’s choice.

It was a decision as the Qingcheng sect leader that no one could or should stop.

Knowing this, the old man felt melancholy. Yet at the same time, he harbored killing intent.

“I’ve lost a Go friend of forty years. Though I feel like doing nothing today, if Woo-am has decided to die, those bastards will soon come rushing here too. I should give you what you need and leave.”

The mention of leaving sounded strange.

It seemed to mean the old man wasn’t imprisoned but was staying of his own will.

Come to think of it, though he was in prison, there was no lock, and the old man’s martial arts weren’t sealed either.

Jin Ja-gang couldn’t help but become curious about what circumstances these were.

The old man said to Jin Ja-gang.

“I’ll give you what you want. In return, you must kill one person for Woo-am. However, if you don’t become strong enough, you can give up. How about it?”

The old man’s killing intent intensified. However, it wasn’t killing intent directed at Jin Ja-gang. But Jin Ja-gang didn’t immediately agree.

“I’ll decide after hearing.”

Those words gave the old man even more trust in Jin Ja-gang. The old man spoke the name of his enemy.

“It’s a fellow called Baek Li-jung.”

The moment he heard the name, Jin Ja-gang was shaken.

“Baek Li-jung. The one called Indestructible Heavenly Sword. If Woo-am dies, it will probably involve that bastard, or be because of him…”

Jin Ja-gang could answer immediately.

“I’ll kill him. Without fail.”

The old man smiled with murderous intent.

“It seems you know him, so that works out well. Those who earn much resentment have turbulent final years, heh heh heh.”

The laughing old man reached behind him. He selected one from what was piled there.

“Since I received a promise, I should give what I must give too.”

The old man extended his hand. In it was a bone. A human shinbone that had been material for Go stones.

“Try grabbing the end.”

Jin Ja-gang was about to casually grasp the bone, but he didn’t think the old man would carelessly extend the bone without thought.

Indeed, looking carefully, the bone was vibrating extremely minutely. It couldn’t just be grabbed. Though he didn’t know how it was done, the old man’s internal energy was contained within it. This was a kind of test.

Jin Ja-gang took a deep breath and grasped the bone.

Crack!

The moment his fingers touched the bone, his fingers twisted and coiled. His wrist, elbow, shoulder, and even his head and waist.

The twisting that started from his fingers moved throughout Jin Ja-gang’s entire body. Jin Ja-gang’s muscles and bones twisted throughout his body like wringing out laundry. He convulsed and shook his whole body like someone suffering from epilepsy.

‘Incredible vortex!’

Jin Ja-gang’s body had been swept up in the vortex created by the Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Demon Subduing Art.

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth in pain.

It felt like his joints would dislocate any moment and bones would burst through joints and flesh.

Particularly his left knee began to swell severely as it twisted. The shinbone connected to the thighbone was twisted so the cruciate ligaments seemed about to tear. The joint was displaced, the kneecap rotated sideways, and the shinbone was protruding outward. The twisting that started from his fingers wound around his whole body, with maximum load concentrated on his left leg, causing joints and bones to fail to endure.

“Kugh, groan!”

Only then did Jin Ja-gang understand how the old man had pulled out shinbones. At this rate, Jin Ja-gang’s shinbone would also tear through flesh and pop out.

“What are you doing? Activate the Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Demon Subduing Art. Woo-am surely wouldn’t have sent you without teaching you anything.”

Jin Ja-gang urgently raised internal energy with one handful of breath. After activating Mad Blood Heaven Art, he controlled the rampaging internal energy with Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Demon Subduing Art. He sent the tamed internal energy through his energy channels to gradually offset the vortex flowing in from the shinbone.

With his body twisted up, circulating energy through his channels wasn’t easy. He barely managed to offset the vortex in his right arm, shoulder, and neck first and return them to normal.

“It seems you’ve properly learned the Jade Void Nine Lights Five Thunder Demon Subduing Art. Then try to release the rest too.”

But what remained was unfortunately his left leg.

Jin Ja-gang’s left energy channels were blocked so internal energy wouldn’t circulate. Even when he tried to inject internal energy, the left half of his body’s energy channels wouldn’t accept it.

“Kugh! The left side…”

But the old man’s expression was indifferent.

“All the shinbones I have are right ones.”

Jin Ja-gang realized. The old man had deliberately sent the vortex into Jin Ja-gang’s left leg.

“The vortex you created is abnormal. With that degree, I can quickly tell what state your body is in.”

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth.

The area around his knee joint was turning bright red and the shinbone kept rising. This was excessive for a test. If tendons tore and the shinbone popped out, Jin Ja-gang would be unable to use his leg for life.

The old man said.

“You have already reached the Primordial Unity realm. Energy is like the highest good water – turbid currents flowing in from tributaries cannot pollute the great river. Vortexes are part of the great river and cannot stop the great river’s mighty flow. Primordial Unity is the great river and the Great Way. The great river encompasses all kinds of water and the Great Way embraces all ways. That is Primordial Unity.”

The mutual transformation of yin and yang!

The realm where yin ultimately becomes yang and yang becomes yin.

Jin Ja-gang had already experienced such a thing before. However, he hadn’t yet awakened to it. The old man didn’t seem to intend to let him go.

But he couldn’t lose his leg like this!

Jin Ja-gang circulated internal energy in his right half to the maximum and tried to draw out the turbid energy from his left half through Primordial Unity. If he dissolved the turbid energy blocking his energy channels and moved it to his right half, the energy channels would open, and by sending the vortex through those opened channels, he could prevent injury to his left leg.

Pop pop.

As internal energy in his right half circulated to the extreme, energy channels burst and blood flowed out. At the same time, his left half began to respond. He felt the turbid energy dissolving and the hardened energy channels becoming soft.

However, because pure righteous energy and turbid energy were in equilibrium, they wouldn’t transfer to each other. Mutual opposition was greater than mutual transformation, creating complete equilibrium.

To break equilibrium, there were only methods of reducing or increasing it. Since he couldn’t increase it by eating something right now, he had to use the method of reduction.

Jin Ja-gang activated Burning Twin Scale Palm, an extreme yang internal energy ignition method, in his right hand.

He was trying to discharge internal energy somehow to break the equilibrium. In response, the turbid energy in his left half also moved. Turbid energy was discharged through his pores and fingertips.

Part of the turbid energy Jin Ja-gang poured out flowed back through the shinbone to the old man.

“Hmm?”

The old man’s eyes flashed with interest.

The turbid energy flowing from his pores beaded up, then vaporized under the influence of Burning Twin Scale Palm and began to gradually spread throughout the cave.

The prisoner who had kept interrupting from another cell outside the bars shouted in surprise.

“Ugh, what a shock! Which bastard! Which bastard is spreading poison!”