The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 27

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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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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (27)
They’re here!
Darkness lay thick over Tang Clan.
Staring at the swaying paper lantern, a figure rubbed his palms together and muttered.
“Late. They’re so late.”
The room was austere, but the single ink-wash painting hanging on the wall was nothing short of extravagant, as the occupant paced about, unable to hide his agitation.
It depicted a Flying Celestial Maiden dancing as though she might take flight from atop a sheer cliff, her robes fluttering in splendor. The painting, Flying Celestial Maiden Painting.
It was rendered in the green and blue pigments of the blue-green landscape style, and the maiden’s hand gesture within the scene was anything but ordinary.
Her fingers flicked outward as if pulling something in and then casting it away, a strange motion.
Indeed. Flying Celestial Maiden Painting did not merely depict an ascent to heaven; it reproduced an advanced hidden-weapon art.
Yet the room’s master, wholly out of keeping with the painting’s divine subtlety and depth, kept rubbing his hands together like a fly.
“Late, I said, damn it.”
Just as a string of coarse curses burst from his mouth, darkness gathered upon darkness, forming a single point that soon became a line, then spread into a plane, until finally the space warped and shaped itself into a figure.
A footwork so swift it could make a ghost wail twice!
As if…
“Why have you only come now?”
The one who had been waiting greeted him with a mix of relief and irritation, but the figure wrapped in darkness said nothing at all.
He merely nodded, and that served as his reply.
From this, it seemed the two of them had been colluding for quite some time.
“What exactly are you doing with this job?”
The informant opened with a jittery question.
“You couldn’t even handle Bukjin Gwangpung’s young disciples properly, and now you’ve gone and stirred up the Woomun Family for no reason, only adding to the chaos. There’s nothing you’ve done cleanly, not one thing…”
Mid-rant, the informant suddenly felt a chill and shrank into himself, neck drawn in like a turtle’s.
He had talked too much.
Who did he think he was, to speak so freely?
Startled, the informant clapped a hand over his mouth, but Amyeongja, the shadow himself, paid his reaction no mind.
“I hear the youngest disciple of Bukjin Gwangpung has appeared?”
“Eh? Yes! Yes!”
The informant poured out everything he knew about Jin Muok to Amyeongja, every last detail.
“I heard there was some sort of minor clash between him and the Clan Head.”
“I didn’t foresee it at all!”
The informant sketched roughly how Jin Muok and Dang Cheon had come to meet and how their fight had unfolded. His account was oddly precise in places and oddly sloppy in others, a strange mix that made Amyeongja’s eyes gleam as he listened.
Swish—.
“So the youngest disciple of Bukjin Gwangpung provoked the Old Clan Head in that short span of time? Or did the disciple happen to call just as the Old Clan Head’s Maebyeong was worsening?”
“That, I’m not quite sure…”
Apparently uninterested in whatever the Tang Clan informant had to say, Amyeongja continued as if speaking to himself.
“Even if he’s suffering from senility, Dang Cheon, with Blood Phoenix in hand, is easily on par with the Five Emperors. For a ten-year-old boy to face him and end it with only minor injuries… does that mean the child is that remarkable?”
“The Old Clan Head must have gone easy on him!”
“Tch.”
Amyeongja clicked his tongue lightly, cutting the informant off.
“Your work is meticulous yet sloppy, and sharp yet loose. That combination is bound to ruin a great undertaking.”
On the surface it sounded like praise, but it was, in truth, a rebuke.
“I did not take the youngest disciple of Bukjin Gwangpung lightly! That boy is formidable enough to have felled the eldest son of the Namgung Family and a good number of the 3rd Mobile Squad members!”
“If he’s so formidable, why do you suppose the Old Clan Head held back?”
Amyeongja’s question caught the informant off guard. For a moment he fell silent, blinking rapidly.
“Th-that’s… in the end, he’s just a ten-year-old brat. If the Old Clan Head had gone all out, the boy wouldn’t have lasted!”
“Tch, tch.”
Amyeongja clicked his tongue once more.
“That’s why your work is meticulous yet sloppy. You still can’t part ways with the old remnants of Tang Clan.”
The old remnant of Tang Clan could only refer to Dang Cheon.
“What if that boy is a monster who transcends his age?”
“W-well, that—!”
Swivel—.
Turning his body, Amyeongja fixed his gaze on the informant, and demonic Qi, dark as a storm cloud, roiled through the room.
Tssss—.
“Hhk—!”
The demonic Qi, rippling like seaweed, crept up from beneath the informant’s feet, seized him by the collar, and shook him. Darkness and despair swallowed the entire space.
“M-mercy! Please, have mercy!”
“Bukjin Gwangpung was a warrior on par with the Five Emperors. No, perhaps he was even beyond them. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Please! Please! Show mercy to this worthless life!”
Gripping his throat, the traitor writhed, but Amyeongja simply carried on with his words.
“A boy who flung open the gate of death, shut tight as eternity, and was raised by Jin Muok. For a child like that, generalities mean nothing.”
“Gah, g-gahk!”
Once his tale was finished, Amyeongja withdrew his Demonic Qi, and the traitor toppled and sank to the floor.
“Hgk! Hah! Hah!”
Without sparing the choking traitor so much as a glance, Amyeongja shook his head.
‘How ironic. Truly ironic. Of all the times for him to show up, it had to be now.’
With his hands clasped behind his back, Amyeongja added, as though pronouncing a verdict:
“If you wish to see your dream of remaking the Tang Clan from top to bottom realized, finish your business quickly. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Indeed. The traitor was hiding behind the Tang Clan’s reform, using it as a banner to justify his treachery.
But Amyeongja could see straight through him.
The greed and jealousy churning in the traitor’s chest were plain as day, and so was the fact that he acted on such poisonous feelings as his driving force.
‘Jealousy, huh.’
In truth, jealousy is not a bad emotion. A measure of inferiority often becomes the engine of progress. That is why those who envy and resent others so often rise further than those content with what they have.
But everything must be kept in moderation. Feelings that rise beyond a certain point lead their bearer down the road to ruin.
Silently fixing his gaze on the traitor, Amyeongja raised his head.
“…!”
“W-what’s wrong?”
“You took the bait.”
Whoosh—.
Melting back into darkness, Amyeongja vanished like morning dew.
“Woomun has turned toward Qingcheng.”
* * *
From Chengdu in Sichuan Province to Dujiangyan was no more than a Shichen or two’s journey, yet the Woomun Family’s warriors squandered a full three days and arrived at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain, at Geonbok Palace.
“Everyone, good work.”
Had they ridden horses or used Lightness Skill, they would have arrived in no time. But they moved at the leisurely pace of idle gentlemen on a mountain outing, which is why it took three days.
The reason the Woomun Family’s warriors shunned convenient means of travel and went on foot was…
“A horde of warriors as huge as bears, using Lightness Skill or galloping on horseback, would inevitably draw eyes. And that would reach the nagging busybodies of the Murim Alliance and the Taoist fools of Qingcheng.”
The Murim Alliance would have tried to halt the Woomun Family under the pretext of preventing clashes between fellow Righteous Path factions, and the Qingcheng Sect would have poured out of the mountain to guard its pristine sanctuary and squared off against them.
That was why the Woomun warriors split into groups of three or four, stopping by the market, admiring the scenery, and sampling the fare at famous inns as they crawled along.
Posing as holiday sightseers.
“It must have been tedious and stifling, but this was the best way to land a blow on those Taoist fools.”
Woomun Jeonggi clenched his fist.
“I ordered you, who are as swift as tigers, to crawl like tortoises. I will atone for this discourtesy later.”
As everyone knows, Woomun Jeonggi is simple. Once he gives his heart, he sees it through to the end; once he’s soured on someone, he never looks their way again. Once he makes a decision, he does not glance back or regret it.
And yet here he was, apologizing.
“Not at all!”
“It’s nothing!”
A stubborn lord, and retainers bound together by sheer tenacity.
Jeonggi’s resolute heart reached them, and they answered his feelings in kind.
“We will certainly make the Taoists of the Qingcheng Sect pay for their crimes!”
Surveying his retainers, Woomun Jeonggi met the eyes of his eldest son, Woomun Hanung, who stood at their head with keen, glittering eyes.
Nod—.
Woomun Hanung’s silent bow spoke for the entire body of retainers, and Woomun Jeonggi opened his mouth, deliberate and heavy.
“Wind.”
“Swift as the wind,”
(Its speed is like the wind)
And!”
“Forest.”
“Still as the forest,”
(Its pace is like the forest)
While!”
“Fire.”
“Raiding like fire,”
(In attack, it burns like fire)
But!”
“Mountain.”
“Immovable as the mountain,”
(When still, it weighs like a mountain)
Stand firm!”
The Wind Forest Fire Mountain, as the saying goes, drawn from *The Art of War*. But Woomun Jeonggi added two more lines to it, establishing the stance the Woomun Family would take in its battles.
“Hah!”
Suddenly, Woomun Jeonggi raised his voice.
“Be as hidden as the shadow—
(Move in secrecy, like shadows)
and be so!”
“Yes!”
“Strike as the thunderbolt—
(Attack with the fury of thunder)
and strike!”
“Move out!”
Whoosh—!
As Woomun Jeonggi spun on his heel and vanished as if sinking into the earth, some eighty warriors, massive as bears, melted into the darkness.
Truly astonishing concealment!
Hiding themselves with a Lightness Skill that seemed impossible for such hulking frames, the Woomun Family warriors passed through Geonbok Palace at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain and began their deadly climb.
Chi-chi-chi-chi—.
A band of warriors moving on darkness, feeding on darkness itself.
Qingcheng Mountain is famous not for a single sharp, treacherous peak like Huangshan, but for its thirty-six gentle peaks rising one upon another in layers.
For that reason, the mountain’s contours are, on the whole, rounded and lush.
Thirty-six peaks, green and deep, encircling the mountain like city walls—this is what is called Qingcheng.
‘Truly, this is Qingcheng, the most secluded place under heaven.’
The climbing members of the family murmured in admiration at the soft, gentle slopes of Qingcheng.
Profound serenity at its peak!
But there was no leisure to savor such a view. With a battle that might have to be fought, one unlike any before, how could anyone indulge in such idle pleasures?
Before their eyes, the fields of Qingcheng Snow Bud, the famed tea of Qingcheng, stretched out in an endless sea of green, yet the hearts of the family members were heavy and agitated.
Had the circumstances been kinder, they might have given themselves to the quiet mountain air and sipped a cup of that renowned Qingcheng green tea.
Crack—.
No one knew who started it, but when one man clenched his fist loudly, a cracking of knuckles spread here and there.
Zzzt—.
Watching all this, Woomun Jeonggi lifted his head.
—We go straight to Sangcheong Palace.
At his father’s words, Woomun Hanung swallowed hard.
Sangcheong Palace is the heart of the Qingcheng Sect. To break through the main gate and march straight toward it was a declaration of head-on war against the Qingcheng Sect—no different from resolving to see the thing through to its bitter end.
‘So the great clash of the Six Gates and Seven Families is about to begin.’
It might well be the shortest road from the division of the Righteous Path to its ruin. Once the Woomun Family and the Qingcheng Sect came to blows, the remaining families of the Seven Families and the Six Gates of the Nine Sects would inevitably be dragged in.
But this was Riding a Tiger.
Setting aside the family’s grudge and the vengeance owed for their blood, now that they had come this far, the Qingcheng Sect had to answer for what it had done.
Clashes would inevitably follow, but there was no help for it.
That is…
‘Because this is the Woomun Spirit!’
The Woomun Family’s elite stepped forward, resolved.
Sa-sa-sa-sak—.
As the Woomun Family’s men pushed through the tea fields, a strange ripple spread across the green earth.
“Green waves, indeed. Green waves.”
Two men were looking down over the scene. One was tall and lanky, the other short and stunted—truly, Kkeokkuri and Jangdari, just as their names suggested.
The short one watched the green surge raised by the Woomun Family’s warriors, snickering as if it amused him.
Silver Wave refers to a surface glimmering silver-white in the moonlight. The green ripples the Woomun Family’s men raised as they plowed through the Qingcheng Snow Bud fields were, as the short man said, nothing but green waves.
“Any moment now they should come out to meet us on the other side.”
Jangdari said nothing. He only watched the scene with eyes even more sinister than Kkeokkuri’s.
The two had been observing it all with leisurely composure, as if presiding over a board game, when suddenly the short man’s eyes lit up.
“Here they come.”

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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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