I Obtained Guan Yu's Martial Arts - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Obtained Guan Yu’s Martial Art 015
Rootless Cultivation (5)
“……Could it be that he’s actually imitating me?”
Guan Hui blinked rapidly, caught off guard by the unexpected turn.
“Surely not?”
For Guan Shi, his tone was rather coarse.
More like a martial artist of the Black Path than the White Path, one might say.
“From any angle, it appears he’s mimicking the Master.”
“Steward…….”
Guan Namcheon, the Guan Family Estate’s steward, approached Guan Hui quietly after returning from his duties.
“That’s supposed to be me?”
Guan Hui scratched his chin with a dissatisfied expression.
Do I really speak that roughly?
As the saying goes, near ink becomes black.
If one spends time near the Black Path, one inevitably comes to resemble it.
Guan Hui, who had maintained close ties with the Black Path for so long in pursuit of money, had cultivated a mouth that ranked among the coarsest in the Black Path itself.
His body belonged to the White Path, but his mouth to the Black Path, as it were.
“Hearing it from another’s lips, it does feel strange.”
When he spoke that way himself, it seemed fine enough—but coming from someone else, it looked oddly off.
Well, wasn’t that just how people were?
“In any case, I’ve heard the situation explained.”
The steward, who had learned the circumstances from the household servants in the meantime, bowed his head deeply.
“I apologize sincerely, Master. It was my negligence.”
“No, no. There’s nothing to be done about it. They were simply the best we had available at that time.”
Guan Hui bore no grudge against the servants who had recruited Im Ildo.
Each of them had done their best in their respective positions—there was no fault in that.
“I merely think that our circumstances have improved so considerably since then.”
“Thank you for such understanding words, Master.”
Guan Namcheon bowed even more respectfully.
Even in circumstances that would warrant anger, he first considered and showed consideration for his subordinate’s position.
This was an innate virtue of a true master of a household.
Most people never acquired it, even after living past seventy.
“But do you think it will be all right? Can that boy defeat Im’s younger brother? He seems to be an instructor of some renown as well.”
“Don’t worry.”
Guan Hui thumped his chest as if to say he alone should be trusted.
“Fraudulent instructors like that can’t throw a proper stance when facing real skill.”

* * *
“I’ll break you to pieces, you punk!”
Dae Ryong, properly enraged by Guan Shi’s provocation, charged forward like a wild boar.
‘You’ve walked right into it.’
A sinister smile spread across Dae Ryong’s already fearsome face.
‘I’ll smash you to bits to work off my anger.’
He had no shortage of reasons to be furious with the Master of the Guan Family.
Whether at the inn or here at the estate.
How much had that arrogant brute made him seethe?
Since he couldn’t unleash that rage on the hulking bastard himself, this was his perfect opportunity to work it out on his underling.
It was natural for sparring matches to produce injuries, large and small.
Dae Ryong had decided to cripple Guan Shi entirely.
“Die!”
Whoosh!—
Dae Ryong’s wooden staff drew a great horizontal arc toward Guan Shi’s waist.
A blow aimed at the Belt Meridian, the only horizontal meridian that encircles the waist.
He was targeting one of the body’s vital points—strike it cleanly and the victim would never walk again.
Clack!—
Yet Dae Ryong’s staff was blocked far too easily.
As if in a trance, Guan Shi simply reached out and caught the wooden staff barehanded.
“……!?”
Dae Ryong’s pupils trembled violently in shock.
It was nothing but a wooden staff, yes—but he had delivered that blow infused with genuine Internal Energy.
How on earth is that greenhorn managing this?!
“This… this is actually working?”
Guan Shi found himself equally taken aback.
His hand had reached out instinctively, but he’d never expected the staff to be seized so effortlessly.
‘Was he not serious?’
Guan Shi tilted his head in bewilderment.
Dae Ryong’s frame was easily double Guan Shi’s own.
And he was a martial instructor who’d reached the second-rate level.
Guan Shi, who had only spent some two months properly studying martial arts, was hardly in a position to contend with him.
“Surely you were just fooling around, weren’t you?”
Guan Shi posed the question, certain the opponent couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Are you mocking me? This is a sparring match—you should be giving it your all.”
“You little bastard…!”
That question became a provocation instead, igniting fury in Dae Ryong’s chest.
“Fine. I’ll just kill you then. You brat!”
Dae Ryong, his rage boiling over, poured all his strength into both arms.
He meant to wrench the wooden staff from the boy’s grip and drive it down onto his skull.
But.
“Nngh!”
No matter how hard he pulled, the staff wouldn’t budge from those hands.
It was like trying to dislodge a blade buried deep in stone.
“…?!”
“Arrgh!”
“Are you still toying with me?”
Guan Shi blinked in confusion at the man’s absurd display.
“Of course.”
Guan Hui, arms crossed, let out a derisive snort.
“By honing External Cultivation through relentless training, he’s pushed his body to its absolute limit—an empty shell like that isn’t even worth his time.”
Many martial artists across the Central Plains neglected External Cultivation and devoted themselves solely to building Internal Energy.
But that was the wrong approach.
Accepting Internal Energy, wielding weapons with martial arts—all of it begins with the body.
Without a body to support it, everything is worthless.
Why do Daoists speak of Essence, Energy, and Spirit—cultivating body, breath, and mind as one?
“Essence is the foundation of the body. If you don’t properly hone your Essence, you cannot master anything else.”
“Indeed…!”
“Show me. What External Cultivation does the Guan Family possess?”
“Yes!”
Guan Shi answered crisply and deployed the Red Transformation Radiant Martial Art.
As he accelerated the flow of his blood to amplify his body’s abilities severalfold, his skin began to shift to a deep reddish-brown hue.
Crackle—
With the sheer force of his refined body, Guan Shi overwhelmed Dae Ryong and stamped his feet, vanishing from the man’s sight.
Tap—
Not true Light Footwork, not genuine Movement Method—merely swift footwork.
Yet a body honed to its limit was fast enough that the enemy’s eyes couldn’t follow.
So swift was he that all five instructors save Im Ildo lost sight of Guan Shi.
Whoosh!—
Each stamp of his feet stirred rough gusts of wind.
“Ha!”
With a sharp cry, he brought the staff down vertically.
“…! There!”
Dae Ryong, pinpointing his location by that shout, hastily raised his blade—
“…!”
But there were too many.
The barrage of staff strikes came like a tempest, already filling his entire field of vision.
“Damn…!”
Dae Ryong managed to block only one of the dozens of blows, his face twisting like crumpled paper.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack—!
Dozens of staff strikes rained down like a downpour upon his head.
“Khh-urgh!”
Battered across his entire frame, blood streaming from his nose, Dae Ryong stumbled and collapsed in a sprawl, losing consciousness.
“Woooaaaah!”
“We won! We actually won!”
The cheers of the jubilant Guan Family servants filled the Sparring Arena.
‘I… I actually defeated a martial arts instructor!?’
Guan Shi, still struggling to accept his own victory, stared down at his hands with a dazed expression.
Those two fists of his, rough and calloused, resembled stones worked smooth by countless hours of labor.
To Guan Shi, they felt like a reward granted in recognition of all the effort he had poured into his training.
“Uuuaaaah!”
Guan Shi let out the roar he had been holding back all this time.
“Woooaaaah!”
“Guan Shi! This bastard!”
“We never saw it coming! What a remarkable fellow!”
Unable to contain their elation, the servants scrambled onto the Sparring Arena, pounding Guan Shi on the back, ruffling his hair, and showering him with praise.
“…Let’s go. We need to leave quickly.”
In the midst of the cheering, Im Ildo—whose presence had been momentarily forgotten—began quietly surveying those around him before discreetly withdrawing.
It was his strategy to escape before losing every last coin he possessed.
“This is our only chance.”
“But… what about Dae Ryong?”
“Do you want to get beaten like that too? Stop talking and come with me.”
Im Ildo led his younger brothers carefully yet swiftly away from the Guan Family Estate.
……
And someone followed quietly behind him.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
His fists clenched so hard they seemed ready to crack, it was none other than Guan Hui, the patriarch of the Guan Family Estate, who pursued him.
“If you’re going to leave, the least you can do is settle your severance.”

* * *
“…I can’t move.”
A street in broad daylight.
Im Ildo lay sprawled on the pavement like a man who had drunk himself senseless the night before, unable to move so much as a finger.
His entire body had stopped obeying him from the sheer ferocity of the beating he had received.
“What kind of… monster of a man exists like that?”
A groan escaped from So Ryong, one of Im Ildo’s younger brothers.
His skull, every bone in his body shattered, had been driven through a neighboring wall and stuck out on the other side.
“You madman Im. There were other places to go. Why in hell did you drag us into a household with monsters like that?”
“Exactly! This is all because of you, Im!”
“You deranged instructor! So obsessed with money you can’t tell excrement from miso paste!?”
“…I didn’t know either!”
Im Ildo felt deeply wronged.
It was the first time he had ever laid eyes on the patriarch of the Guan Family Estate.
The patriarch left early in the morning and returned late in the evening to pay off his debts.
How was he supposed to know that the master of the Guan Family Estate was such a monster?
Had he known, he would have fled long ago!
“Damn it… We’ve lost everything. We’re as good as beggars now.”
Guan Hui was a man of meticulous nature.
He not only beat Im Ildo and his brothers to a pulp but also searched through their clothes and stripped them of every last coin they had hidden away.
“Hell. I kept telling you we should keep our money in a money house…”
Most martial artists of the White Path made use of money houses where they could safely deposit their funds.
But Im Ildo and his fraudulent instructors, whose conduct leaned more toward the Black Path, had too many qualms and always carried their money on them.
And this was the result.
Half-crippled frauds robbed of every coin they possessed.
“Brothers. What are we supposed to do now?”
……
No one could easily answer So Ryong’s anxious question.
Only one thought occupied their minds.
‘We’re finished……’

* * *
Peace had returned to the Guan Family Estate.
United by the villain Im Ildo, they were now wrapped in bonds of fellowship deeper than ever before.
“Thank you all.”
Guan Hui composed himself, managing a smile despite the surge of emotion threatening to overwhelm him.
His eyes had reddened, his nose tightening, but he had to hold back.
On a day as fine as this, tears had no place.
What was needed now was a smile, not tears.
“My goal is to see the Guan Family Estate called a Great Family once more.
A Great Family is a household of power and influence.
Usually, a clan possessing the strength and authority to rule an entire province is termed a Great Family.
To become a household of power first is to eventually become a household of legacy.
I wish to make the Guan clan a Great Family again.
As my father, grandfather, and ancestors before them had dreamed.
“We share that wish, Patriarch!”
“We will follow only you!”
“Though we are lacking, please lead us forward.”
At the servants’ heartfelt replies, the smile on Guan Hui’s lips grew deeper still.
“Yes. I will give it my all. So trust in me!”
“Huzzah!”
“We trust only in you, Patriarch!”
“Long live the Guan Clan Great Family! Long live Guan Hui!”
Dozens of servants rushed forward with genuine joy lighting their faces, lifting Guan Hui high into the air and tossing him skyward again and again, catching him each time.
This torrent of five-colored emotion was spilling forth into action.
“Whoa—!”
Guan Hui, experiencing a tossing celebration for the first time in his life, lost his composure for a moment.
But the shock faded quickly. Soon his face was brimming with joy.
Dozens of hands lifted and caught his body in steady rhythm.
Guan Yu recited a line of verse silently in his mind.
So many hands extended, pushing my back and holding me up,
That even if wind and rain crash down, even if the world’s tempests block the way—what have I to fear?
One body is frail, yet our wills have gathered as one.
And the warmth of those who stand behind me sustains me.
Though treacherous peaks and raging torrents may wait at the end of this road, I shall not take a single step back.
“Suddenly?”
Guan Hui scratched the bridge of his nose.
-It is a verse I hold dear. It suits the moment most fittingly, I thought. What do you make of it?
“Hmm.”
It was a question not easily answered.
Guan Hui had never taken any interest in poetry.
-This is precisely what I mean about your generation.
At the tut-tutting in Guan Yu’s voice, Guan Hui tilted his head quizzically.
“From what I can tell, it kind of ruins the mood.”
In fact, tears of emotion had been gathering in Guan Hui’s eyes until the moment he heard the poem—and they vanished at once.
-This is precisely what I mean about your generation.
Guan Yu clicked his tongue in disapproval.
Your generation had no sense of romance whatsoever.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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