Chapter 120

The air that Dan Ryeong-gyeong had been sucking in created a wall in front of Jin Ja-gang.

“Urgh!”

Jin Ja-gang’s speed, which had met the wall of wind, slowed down markedly. Rather, he was pushed backward. Jin Ja-gang almost rolled down below the rock. Going forward was beyond his wildest dreams.

Jin Ja-gang simply came down from the rock.

Whiiiing!

The trees behind Jin Ja-gang trembled busily in the strong wind.

Surprise attack failed.

Jin Ja-gang didn’t rashly charge in but looked for an opportunity. He prepared internal energy again so he could rush in at any time.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong took a breath and extended her right hand with palm facing up. She gathered the poison energy she had inhaled along with the air into her palm center.

Her hand turned bright red and flames faintly flickered from her palm center.

Samadhi True Fire!

A technique possible only with advanced internal energy!

Hissss!

The poison energy burned away and rose like steam, futilely scattered by the wind.

Then Dan Ryeong-gyeong struck the rock while sitting.

Bang!

The tea water on the wet rock rose in droplets. Dan Ryeong-gyeong extended her arm forward and flicked her middle finger.

Snap!

She struck a water droplet with her fingertip, but it made the sound of hitting a nail with a hammer.

At the same time, the pottery shard Jin Ja-gang held in his hand shattered. From that impact, his right arm was simultaneously bent backward.

“Kuk!”

Jin Ja-gang dropped the pottery shard. His fingers throbbed as if struck on the joints with a club. If Dan Ryeong-gyeong had aimed the water droplet at Jin Ja-gang’s head instead of the pottery shard he was holding, Jin Ja-gang would have had a hole in his head.

Though she hadn’t shown proper martial arts, Dan Ryeong-gyeong demonstrated techniques close to those of an immortal with just her internal energy.

It wasn’t a level Jin Ja-gang could challenge with petty tricks.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong quietly watched Jin Ja-gang glaring at her, then said:

“The reason I don’t kill you is simply because you’re useful. It’s the same reason those who are using you keep you alive. I’m only looking at the single possibility of a tiny crack bringing down a great dike.”

A tiny crack bringing down a great dike refers to how a single ant hole can collapse a massive embankment.

She was treating Jin Ja-gang as nothing more than an ant.

Jin Ja-gang wasn’t discouraged.

“Let’s stop this.”

“What?”

“I don’t care about your people’s possibilities. I take revenge as a member of the Medicine Sect. If you want to interfere with that, do as you please. But whether orthodox or evil faction, if anyone tries to drag me in, I’ll push them too into the hell I came from.”

“Insolent b*st*rd… Good!”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong said decisively.

“I haven’t seen someone as properly insane as you recently! So today I’ll give up. But if an adult retreats like this, the friends of the martial world will look down on me.”

Jin Ja-gang regulated his breathing while listening to Dan Ryeong-gyeong’s words. Dan Ryeong-gyeong spoke curtly in a tone that would absolutely not allow objection.

“I must make you owe me three personal debts today. And you must repay those three debts by promising me one thing. This doesn’t mean keeping loyalty to the dark path, so you cannot refuse, and there’s no choice. If you refuse, I’ll just…”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong bared her teeth.

“Kill you right here.”

Jin Ja-gang didn’t answer.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong took that as acceptance and said:

“By not accepting my proposal earlier, you’ve already suffered equivalent losses. So even if you owe me debts, the losses you’ve already suffered can’t be helped.”

“I’ll bear it.”

“First. I know why you’re going to the village now, but your method is wrong. You bought Purple Gold Pills and stole menstrual cloth in Yunhua Village.”

“How did you know?”

“Countless eyes and ears are spread below there. Did you think they wouldn’t notice when a limping man carelessly scattered killing intent?”

It seemed Jin Ja-gang’s accidental display of killing intent had eventually been caught and exposed.

Well, he had caused quite a commotion at the pharmacy too.

But there had been no other method then. Jin Ja-gang had to acknowledge that his conduct was inappropriate.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong asked:

“What you wanted was a prescription for horse poison sores, right?”

“Correct.”

“If that’s because of Hundred Fragrances’ poison, you guessed wrong. Hundred Fragrances conceals various poisons with all kinds of fragrances and uses horse poison strongly to confuse opponents. But the actual poison isn’t horse poison. It’s a poison that acts on the heart and spleen, making people die from blood depletion. A poison unique to Hundred Fragrances that isn’t even known by name in the martial world.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong threw a bundle wrapped in paper to Jin Ja-gang.

“It’s Water Drop Powder. Mix it in alcohol and drink it, and the condition will improve.”

Jin Ja-gang received the Water Drop Powder.

“I wondered why it wouldn’t heal even after treating the horse poison, so there was such a reason.”

“You’re from the Medicine Sect but not a physician, right? And you’re not a martial world person either. If you roll around in the martial world for a long time, even low-level martial artists come to have their own secret methods.”

Jin Ja-gang couldn’t refuse the Water Drop Powder. If it were his own matter it might be different, but to save Mr. Jang, it was absolutely necessary.

“Won’t you even say thank you?”

At Dan Ryeong-gyeong’s words, Jin Ja-gang stared directly at her.

“Is gratitude necessary in a personal transaction?”

“Annoying fellow.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong snorted and continued speaking.

“Second, just as I came looking for you, others have also learned of your existence. Some are already… no, by now they’ll be at the place where you reside.”

So his expectation was correct when he kept finding traces around. Jin Ja-gang tried not to reveal his inner thoughts, but his eyebrows trembled.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong said:

“Unfortunately, there’s one of very poor quality mixed in there right now. No matter how much you’re called a snake and scorpion, even you would find it difficult to handle that woman this time.”

That woman? So it’s a female?

“She treats seducing men as routine, is skilled in petty tricks, and even her martial arts are extraordinary. Perhaps you might collapse here today.”

Jin Ja-gang thought briefly. He had never particularly distinguished between men and women until now, but almost all those he had killed were men.

He wouldn’t fear facing a woman, but the methods of using poison would need to change due to gender differences, which would be somewhat troublesome.

Realizing Jin Ja-gang’s thoughts, Dan Ryeong-gyeong said:

“It’s not because that child is a woman. It’s because she’s one of the Three Dragons and Four Phoenix, counted among the top twenty of the martial world’s twenties. That child would have deeper internal energy than even Shadow Bureau’s Goe Song.”

Deeper internal energy than Shadow Bureau’s Goe Song?

Though he had dealt with Goe Song relatively easily by completely catching him off guard, his martial arts were definitely not at a level to be taken lightly.

But to have even deeper internal energy than Goe Song.

Is that what the internal energy of prestigious orthodox factions is like… However, Jin Ja-gang had spread poison in various places before leaving to prepare for intrusion. It was to buy time to protect Mr. Jang until he returned from the village.

Therefore, he wasn’t particularly anxious.

“Then the third.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong moved slightly to the side and stood upright.

“Watch carefully. Since you said you dislike my martial arts, I won’t give you my martial arts. But if you want to survive, it would be good to observe this one move.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong slightly bent her legs and turned diagonally to the side, then lowered her body and made a motion of thrusting her bare hand diagonally from chest level to above the shoulder. It was a strange hand movement that seemed to thrust with the thumb by twisting the wrist, rather than with the index and middle fingers.

“From Yintang to internal energy, through Sanli and Dubi… through Zhongfu and Tianfu to Shaoshang.”

Shaoshang point is the meridian point of the thumb.

What Dan Ryeong-gyeong was reciting were the names of meridian points. Jin Ja-gang realized this was a method of operating internal energy.

“It’s simple, but the order cannot be wrong.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong showed the movement once more. Looking closely, the movements from the foot where internal energy should go, through the knee, waist, shoulder, elbow, to the wrist were flowing smoothly.

“This technique is called Parting Hand Arrow Shot. You might as well know the name.”

Jin Ja-gang couldn’t understand why Dan Ryeong-gyeong was teaching him a completely unrelated technique, but he memorized it thoroughly in his head.

Perhaps this was a technique for dealing with the female hero of the Three Dragons and Four Phoenix who was said to be here.

“Do you understand?”

Since Jin Ja-gang could only operate half his meridians, even if he memorized it, it was difficult to guarantee he could use it properly.

But there was no need to say such things, so he nodded.

“Now tell me what you want, madam.”

“I…”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong, who had briefly paused, suddenly asked:

“Do you think everything you’ve seen so far is the truth?”

“I don’t understand the intent of the question.”

“Truth is often hidden, and the eight sufferings are not true.”

The eight sufferings refer to the eight kinds of suffering people experience.

In other words, the things Jin Ja-gang had experienced so far.

“Part of the truth is often hidden, and what you’ve experienced isn’t the entirety of truth.”

“Is there something I should know?”

To Jin Ja-gang’s question, Dan Ryeong-gyeong didn’t give a direct answer.

“In the distant future… if you survive until then, even if it’s someone you must kill, if I request it, spare them just once. Can you do that?”

Jin Ja-gang could understand that if he continued his path of revenge as he was, he might someday encounter the person Dan Ryeong-gyeong was targeting.

“Can you do it?”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong pressed again as if demanding.

“Just once?”

“Yes. Just once.”

“I understand.”

“Good that you’re so straightforward.”

Jin Ja-gang thought for a moment and asked:

“May I ask one thing?”

“Are you going to owe me a debt?”

“If you think of it as a debt, you don’t have to answer. It’s just personal curiosity.”

“Uncharming fellow.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong gave permission.

“Ask.”

“It seems the earlier conversation wasn’t finished. Why did you say it’s a problem for the evil faction to be misunderstood? The evil faction has always lived with such misunderstandings, so is there a special reason you can’t tolerate it this time?”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong slightly frowned.

“The dark path factions have lived holding their breath under the orthodox faction’s dominance for a long time. That means they could explode at any time. There seems to be someone constantly inciting that too.”

“I heard that the Wishful Fairy Maiden is called the matriarch of the evil… dark path. Is this something even the Wishful Fairy Maiden cannot stop?”

“My influence doesn’t reach south of Shanxi. Time flows, and young people always crave novelty. Opinions are emerging that rather than being misunderstood for things they didn’t do, they should confront this opportunity.”

“Then…”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong cut off Jin Ja-gang’s words.

“The dark path also has countless people and various groups with their own thoughts. But I didn’t come to stop their actions, nor did I come to help you.”

Jin Ja-gang could understand the words Dan Ryeong-gyeong omitted afterward.

That she wanted to use Jin Ja-gang to pursue her own long-cherished wish.

That was the only reason Dan Ryeong-gyeong had come.

“Let’s end the conversation here.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong adjusted her clothing and gestured to Jin Ja-gang with an undisturbed attitude.

“Well then, I was rude, young hero.”

Dan Ryeong-gyeong had become polite with a completely different attitude from just before.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong whistled.

Whiiiiik!

Then without hesitation, she turned around and left. Soon two subordinates emerged from both sides of the forest, cleaned up and packed the broken dishes and utensils, and followed Dan Ryeong-gyeong.

The subordinates didn’t even make eye contact with Jin Ja-gang, but their movements were also extraordinary.

Jin Ja-gang let out a long breath after Dan Ryeong-gyeong disappeared far away.

“Huuuu!”

He was stunned.

He had met a supreme martial artist who was absolutely beyond challenge. Attacking such a martial artist was very reckless.

However, in exchange for that, he had gained much.

Things he could never have obtained if he had meekly submitted to Dan Ryeong-gyeong’s force.

Will. Conviction.

Jin Ja-gang took a long deep breath and looked up at the mountain.

Having obtained Water Drop Powder, there was no longer any need to go looking for a physician. If Dan Ryeong-gyeong hadn’t lied, this would greatly improve Mr. Jang’s condition.

What remained was to go meet those who were said to be at Mr. Jang’s house.

‘Mountain beyond mountain…’

But he couldn’t avoid it.

As always.

This time too, he would survive by pouring out everything he had.