Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 66
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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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Chapter 66.
Yalü Hee and Yalü Hyeon.
Upon the roof of a hall shrouded in darkness.
Two pairs of eyes watched in secret the duel between the Guang Feng Yalü Family’s brother and sister.
They were Chuk Mu Gwang and Chui Geom Yi Mok.
A swordsman intoxicated by blood and a blade master drunk on wine.
An peculiar combination.
“Did you teach her? The Yalü Family must be quite bitter, casting aside such talent.”
As Yi Mok tilted his wine bottle and spoke softly, a thick smile bloomed across Chuk Mu Gwang’s lips.
“She surpassed what I taught her by far, advancing on her own. I never imagined she could fuse the Wind God’s Dance like that….”
“Hmm… the Wind God’s Dance and the Guangfeng Thirteen Blades combined…? The sect will experience a most extraordinary wind indeed.”
While the two masters indulged in pleasant reminiscence.
Yalü Hyeon, who had suffered defeat to his sister in a single exchange and fallen into shock, turned his steps toward Yun Cheon, the Black Dragon Gang Master.
“I am Yalü Hyeon, younger brother of Yalü Hee, the Dao Method instructor of the Black Dragon Gang.”
Yun Cheon, having seen off the departing guests and turned back, received Yalü Hyeon’s respectful fist salute.
“What brings you?”
“I have a request for the Black Dragon Gang Master.”
“Speak.”
“Like my sister, I wish to remain here as a guest for some time, and I desire to witness with my own eyes the rise of the Black Dragon Gang and my sister.”
Concern for his sister.
Curiosity about this peculiar faction.
And reverence toward the abyssal man before him.
Multiple emotions mingled in Yalü Hyeon’s gaze.
Yun Cheon’s cool eyes quietly pierced through Yalü Hyeon’s rigid shoulders and defiant expression.
Though he released no overwhelming presence, Yalü Hyeon felt as though an icy chill were strangling his throat, and he swallowed hard.
Soon, Yun Cheon set down his cup and answered plainly.
“Remain as long as you wish.”
The moment color returned to Yalü Hyeon’s face, Yun Cheon’s words continued.
“However, so long as you remain as a guest of this faction, you must forget the ‘Guangfeng’ in your name. Everyone without exception participates in training, so come to the Training Ground at dawn tomorrow.”
Treatment utterly devoid of the deference afforded to a young master of the Twelve Orthodox Families.
‘…So I am to be evaluated as a single martial artist, not as a member of my family?’
Yet Yalü Hyeon found himself pleased by the Black Dragon Gang Master’s treatment.
“I shall remember!”
Looking down at Yalü Hyeon as he bowed, Yun Cheon murmured inwardly with satisfaction.
‘The younger brother of Yalü Hee… a useful vessel has walked in of its own accord.’
* * *
The dawn after the banquet that stretched into the early hours had cooled.
A biting wind from the Kunlun Mountain Range swept sharply across the Training Ground.
Yalü Hyeon emerged onto the Training Ground in pristine martial robes, his spirit keen and eager.
There he encountered a man drenched in sweat and the stench of blood, his face wrapped tightly in bandages.
Kang Hui, ranked 90th on the Feng Yun Ranking and the first to join as a guest disciple of the Black Dragon Gang. The Scarlet Wolf.
The discord was palpable—as if a delicate hothouse flower had collided with a stray dog raised in the gutters of back alleys.
Kang Hui’s eyes swept over Yalü Hyeon from head to toe.
“Who are you? A newcomer? So the youngest finally arrived.”
At his arrogant tone, Yalü Hyeon’s finely drawn brows furrowed sharply.
“…I’m a guest disciple, not a member. Who are you to assert territorial dominance?”
“Ha! You’re a guest disciple? So am I.”
“…A guest disciple with that appearance?”
“Hmph. And you look like a delicate hothouse flower. Even if you call yourself a guest disciple, if you have no skills, you’re no different from a mere member. Here, only strength matters.”
A wolf raised in the back alleys, fed on blood, and a proud young master of the Twelve Orthodox Families.
The gazes of these two youths, born of different worlds, clashed with sparks in the empty air.
In that instant.
Two pairs of dark iron weights crashed down like lightning beneath their feet.
Crash!
The stone floor shattered like a spider’s web, and dust erupted skyward.
“Who’s making noise during training time! Kang Hui, is it you again?!”
It was So Ryong.
He had emerged before the two of them, and the scorching heat radiating from his body met the dawn breeze, exhaling steam.
“In our Black Dragon Gang, when you have excess strength, you run with your legs, not your mouth. So your name is Yalü Hyeon? Here, a welcome gift for joining the gang. Both of you, strap these weights on and run to the Mountain Peak!”
They were training weights specially commissioned from the blacksmith Gong Ya Pae—not quite matching the heavy iron chains that Yun Cheon wore, but formidable nonetheless.
Kang Hui and Yalü Hyeon gritted their teeth and fastened the weights to their limbs.
“So Ryong, you bastard… you want us to run with these scrap metal lumps?”
“Ugh… it’s heavier than it looks…”
“The gang leader wears training weights twice as heavy as these, so stop your whining! If you don’t wear them, you’ll be cast out!”
If even the gang leader wore them, there was no choice but to comply.
The two reluctantly fastened the iron weights and began to run.
“Huff… huff…”
“This madness… you do this every dawn…?”
A weight like a thousand pounds.
With each step, their thigh muscles screamed as if tearing apart.
Soon, rough breathing and the clang of metal echoed through the darkened mountainside.
As the two struggled upward under the burden.
“I’ll pass ahead.”
Whoosh.
A movement so silent that not even the wind stirred.
It was Yun Cheon, draped entirely in heavy iron chains many times heavier than what adorned Kang Hui and Yalü Hyeon’s limbs.
With a serene face unmarred by a single bead of sweat, Yun Cheon lightly overtook the two as if taking a leisurely stroll across flat ground, heading toward the Mountain Peak.
Yet beneath his calm exterior, the solid rocks of the mountain path he trod upon crumbled and fractured, leaving deep footprints in his wake.
‘He flies through the air while bearing that weight?!’
Astonishment flickered in both their eyes.
In the next instant, the instructors of the Black Dragon Gang swept past the two gaping youths like a whirlwind.
Jin So Wol bearing an enormous halberd, and Chui Geom Yi Mok clutching a wine gourd, staggering yet advancing with the grace of one employing the Shrinking Ground technique.
And finally.
“Hyeon, isn’t your mastery of the Wind Soul Step still lacking? At this rate, you’ll be treated like a snail.”
Yalü Hee delivered a cutting remark as she swept past them.
Though she too wore training rings on all four limbs, her form moved with the fluidity and lightness of one riding mountain winds in flight.
“S-Sister, how are you moving with such a light step while wearing something so heavy…!”
Yalü Hyeon’s eyes flooded with despair and shock.
The main family could never have imagined such brutal training methods.
Yet that very brutality had forged an overwhelming gap now laid bare before his eyes.
But that was not the end.
Now the ordinary gang members of the Black Dragon Gang began filing past one after another in their wake.
Former street thugs drenched in sweat, breathing heavily, passed lightly beside the two youths with mocking grins.
“Oh my, are these the new recruits?”
“Your feet are still heavy! We’ll go on ahead!”
A prodigy from a prestigious family and the ninety-ranked member of the Feng Yun Ranking—both utterly humiliated as ordinary gang members overtook them.
“Damn…!”
“I can’t shake them off…!”
Kang Hui and Yalü Hyeon clenched their teeth, yet could not narrow the distance between them.
At last, the Mountain Peak.
A pain as if their lungs were tearing apart.
The two youths collapsed on the ground like cargo, gasping for breath.
Kang Hui, retching beside the sprawled Yalü Hyeon, spat out words.
“Cough… for a young master raised in a greenhouse… you’re fairly capable.”
Yalü Hyeon, his silk robes ruined with sweat and dust, gasped at the sky.
“Haa… shut your mouth… you bastard….”
In that moment, a strange kinship bloomed between two youths who seemed never to have mixed.
Kang Hui and Yalü Hyeon came to a bone-deep realization.
Here in the Black Dragon Gang, they were not honored guests to be treated with deference, but merely the lowest of the low.
* * *
Before the Black Dragon Gang’s newly constructed massive Black Iron Gate.
Where once only sword-wielding vagrants had gathered, a completely different crowd now thronged the entrance.
“Please save me! I beg you to let me see Saengsa Jjon!”
“I’ve brought hundred-year-old ginseng root—please grant me an audience with the Demonic Physician!”
Those who had come seeking treatment from Saengsa Jjon, renowned as the finest physician of the Demonic Cult, were bowing their heads.
Among them were even masters who would normally have scorned the Black Dragon Gang.
“We accept neither gold nor rare medicines!”
“The Medical Chamber of the Black Dragon Gang does not sell its order of treatment for wealth!”
“Those who cause disturbance shall be expelled at once!”
The gang members, having just finished their dawn run, returned drenched in sweat and had to manage the crowds.
“Next patient! Come in!”
The door opened to reveal a martial artist whose arm was grotesquely fractured.
Baek Ri Hyeon, the head librarian dispatched from the Inner Library, swiftly took the man’s pulse and nodded.
“It’s merely a simple fracture with some qi channels slightly twisted. Listen, junior members of the Medical Bureau! Reset this man’s bones and unblock his qi channels!”
“Yes, Senior Baek Ri! We’ll escort him this way!”
The head librarians of the Medical Bureau who had volunteered to study medicine under Saengsa Jjon moved with perfect coordination, taking charge of the patient.
Most ailments were being swiftly resolved at the level of Baek Ri Hyeon and the head librarians.
“Ugh… save me… demonic cultivation backlash…!”
Soon an elderly man was carried in, his face a sickly blue-grey as he coughed up blood.
As Baek Ri Hyeon furrowed his brow and stepped back, Seol Young, the granddaughter of Saengsa Jjon whose illness had completely vanished, approached.
She examined the old man’s pulse with calm, piercing eyes.
“…The reversed blood is about to pierce through to his heart. Young Master Baek Ri, I will infuse my cold qi directly to temporarily freeze his blood vessels.”
“Understood, Miss Seol! I’ll assist!”
As the cool energy emanating from Seol Young’s fingertips enveloped the old man’s chest, the blood vessels that had been thrashing wildly soon calmed.
Seol Young, catching her breath, glanced toward the tightly sealed door inside and spoke.
“A case this severe requires Grandfather’s direct attention.”
“The emergency treatment is complete. Please bring him to Grandfather.”
Baek Ri Hyeon and Seol Young—two rigorous gatekeepers. Only the truly critical patients they filtered through could face Saengsa Jjon within.
Thanks to this system, despite the flood of patients, the Medical Chamber remained perfectly controlled.
“Listen here, gatekeeper! I am the master of the Jin Lin Bang, who controls the waterways of Poyang Lake! I’ll pay any amount! Move my son to the front of the line!”
Even when powerful figures arrived with purses of money attempting to cut in line, the gatekeepers didn’t bat an eye.
Instead, they presented the Black Dragon Gang’s “Three Medical Principles,” proclaimed through agreement between Yun Cheon and Saengsa Jjon.
[First, regardless of status, the urgency of the patient’s condition shall be the highest priority.]
[Second, the illness must be treatable by Saengsa Jjon’s medical arts.]
[Third, payment for treatment shall not be in wealth, but in dedicating one’s own body to serve the Black Dragon Gang after complete recovery.]
Even the powerful had no choice but to close their mouths without complaint.
“…Then… if we wait, we can receive treatment?”
“That is correct. It applies to everyone equally.”
This aligned with the Black Dragon Gang’s principle of impartially teaching martial arts to those who endured the training.
Medical treatment too was dispensed without discrimination according to the urgency of need, and the price was paid by oneself.
‘A brilliant strategy….’
It was a rule that rejected those who flaunted wealth and power, accepting only those whose lives could be saved and who would genuinely dedicate themselves to the Black Dragon Gang.
This method was possible only because Saengsa Jjon, unlike ordinary physicians, was a superhuman who had reached the pinnacle of martial prowess.
‘Among the heterodox sects and the Demonic Cult’s warriors, there are not a few who receive treatment when needed, then murder the physician and flee.’
But… who would dare attempt such a thing against Saengsa Jjon?
In that respect, it was both quintessentially Black Dragon Gang and simultaneously tyrannical in nature.
“If you save my life, I will gladly…!”
“If my body can be healed, I too will dedicate myself to the Black Dragon Gang without reservation!”
The Black Dragon Gang had become the eye of a tempest overnight.
More so than when they had brought in vagrants in great numbers, now martial artists afflicted with demonic cultivation backlash or internal injuries formed endless queues.
Yalü Hyeon and Kang Hui also ceased their ragged breathing, staring blankly at the transformation unfolding before them.
‘Is this… the power that man has built in mere days since taking office?’
‘…To think he could expand his influence so rapidly?!’
The Black Dragon Gang they belonged to was no longer a back-alley den of thugs.
“Form a proper line! No one enters without the Gang Leader’s permission!”
Baek Ri Hyeon raised his voice to maintain order, but—
The warriors standing at the threshold between life and death pressed forward, driven by desperate hope.
It was then.
Clop clop clop—!
The thunderous sound of hoofbeats shook the ground.
Screech, creak!
Wheels ground harshly through the snow, and a crimson carriage came to a halt before the Black Dragon Gang.
Whoosh.
The carriage door opened, and a delicate foot clad in crimson silk slippers descended first onto the white snow.
What followed was a woman whose blood-red hair cascaded down to her waist, dancing in the wind.
A single crimson flower blooming upon the winter snow—a vision of ethereal beauty.
With each flutter of her robes, graceful curves were revealed, and the breath of all present caught in their throats.
A temptation that made one wish to reach out despite knowing the thorns that awaited.
Yet from her emanated a sinister killing intent.
“That… that red hair! Could she belong to the Sura Blood Sect?”
“That oppressive aura and that beauty…! It must be Blood Flower Dan Hong…!”
“If it’s Dan Hong, isn’t she a master ranked in the top fifty of the Feng Yun Ranking…?”
“So the rumor that the Sura Blood Sect backed Maeng Ung of Blood Axe Stronghold was true…?”
The wanderers paled and retreated.
Dan Hong dismissed the Black Dragon Gang members who drew their weapons in caution with a contemptuous glance, then bowed gracefully toward the Inner Hall of the Black Dragon Gang.
“I am Dan Hong of the Sura Blood Sect, and I offer my deepest respects to the Venerable Saengsa Jjon, one of the Five Great Venerables of our sect.”
Her voice carried an alluring quality infused with inner power.
Though she did not appear to have come with goodwill toward the Black Dragon Gang, she displayed a cunning deference reserved solely for Saengsa Jjon, one of the Five Great Venerables.
[…It seems she has no business with me.]
An displeased telepathic message emanated from within the Inner Hall.
Dan Hong lifted her head, her crimson lips curling into a cold smile.
“I am humbled by your insight, Venerable. I have come today merely to see the face of the man who subdued the ‘hunting dog’ that the Sura Blood Sect had raised.”
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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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