Mortal Saint

Chapter 66: Chapter 65: The World Oppresses People? No, People Oppress People! If You Don’t Want to Be Bullied, You Must Smash the World Clear with a Single Fist

Old Street, at the Zhang Family’s mourning tent.

"Aqing, listen to me. I... I had no choice. Ayuan was just too stubborn. If she’d just been a little more yielding, things wouldn’t have come to this..."

The weather was freezing, and inside the simple, drafty mourning tent, a brazier sputtered with specks of hot ash.

Zhang Qing’s foot was planted on the chest of the plainly dressed man he used to call ’brother-in-law’. With a blade pressed to the man’s throat, his eyes were bloodshot, his teeth clenched, and his glare was terrifying.

Finally, the man, trembling uncontrollably, confessed the truth.

He listened as the man revealed how his own sister had been ’sold’ by her husband to Yang Yan, the Young Head of the Tiger and Leopard Hall, to cover a gambling debt. Unable to bear the humiliation, she had hanged herself.

His eyelids twitched. He bit down hard, tightened his grip on the knife, and with a sharp SLICE followed by a scream, the lean young man roared coldly:

"Let’s see you try to gamble after this!"

With that, he turned and walked away, pulling his collar tight against the cold wind, the bloody blade in his hand.

Zhang the Sixth’s father, Zhang Laosuan, along with his other daughters and relatives, trembled as they came forward.

"Little Sixth... you..."

"That’s the Tiger and Leopard Hall! Even Master Ji from next door is a far cry from their Young Head. You can’t..."

From Ji Xiu to Master Ji.

Even though he was long gone and his fenced yard was covered in dust, his ever-growing reputation meant that the old neighbors of the street still wouldn’t dare show any disrespect, even without him being present.

Zhang Qing lowered his brow, then forced a smile.

"Don’t worry, Dad."

"I know my place, and I know theirs."

"They’re a high-class family, powerful and ruthless. We can’t afford to provoke them..."

"It’s just that I have work waiting for me at the Medicine Hall. I’m too busy to get away."

"I’ll burn paper money for my sister when I get back later."

He sniffled, then strode across the hard, cracked, yellow earth. The autumn wind whistled mournfully. His lonely, gaunt figure walking away, combined with the sight of the man lying on the ground, twitching and unconscious as blood gushed from his wound...

It made all those kneeling, prostrating, and standing around the mourning tent shudder as they watched his departing silhouette.

These common folk of the old street couldn’t help but feel an illusion.

It was as if... they saw a hint of that black-robed Hall Master in his retreating form.

You really do become like the company you keep.

...

Zhang Qing gripped his knife, his rough face expressionless. On closer inspection, his entire body was coiled tight, like a Cangying hawk in mid-air, about to dive for the kill.

Just as he was about to turn the corner and leave the old street, a black-robed, hooded figure who seemed to have been waiting for some time silently stopped in front of him.

"Going like this is suicide."

The man spoke suddenly, pulling back his hood to reveal a young man’s face, his expression complicated.

"Yang Yan is the Young Head of the Tiger and Leopard Hall. His Force has penetrated his marrow, and he’s begun Tempering Iron Bone. You’ve only just achieved Entering the Realm and are still at the stage of Blood Nourishing and Muscle Forging. You have some talent, grasping the secret of ’Entering the Realm’ in just a month or so, but..."

Zhang Qing stopped. His face was taut as he listened, but then a pleading look suddenly appeared.

"Then, Master Han, can you help me?"

The young man called ’Master Han’ fell silent for a moment.

"Yang Daohan... is one of us, in a manner of speaking. Yang Yan is his legitimate son. If I were to kill him, his father would surely go berserk. The consequences..."

"But that was my sister! Did he give a damn about my family?"

Zhang Qing violently flung his sleeve and took two steps back.

"Master Han, you’re always talking about how the world crushes people, how it’s hard for the poor to practice martial arts, and how you want to give us mud-legged commoners a Heaven-Reaching Road."

"You said that one day, after we break through the gates of the Martial Dao, we could go to the prefectures and provinces and show those high-class families of the Thirty-Six Professions, those Noble Families, that we too could one day strike them down with a single slash. But what now?"

His rough, honest-looking face twisted with rage, becoming ferocious.

As he spoke of this, the veins on his body bulged and he panted heavily.

"Forget about achieving anything in martial arts! Just look at the situation now! You said I had a talent for martial arts and wanted to recommend me to the Tiger and Leopard Hall. But if I hadn’t followed Brother Ji, if I had actually gone to the Tiger and Leopard Hall..."

"...when Yang Yan drove my sister to her death, would I have had to stand by silently, smiling along? Would I have had to say that son of a bitch did a fine job?"

Master Han’s expression gradually stiffened.

"I used to think that this was all my life would ever amount to."

"But then I met you, Master Han, and I saw Brother Ji after he started practicing martial arts... I finally realized my life could be more."

"And after following Brother Ji... I finally understood, Master Han."

"It’s not the world that crushes people! It’s people who crush people!"

"The Nobles, the great Noble Clans... I don’t know why you harbor such a grudge against them, Master Han."

"But you roam Anning County as you please, and the Three Great Gangs treat you with the utmost respect. The son of the Tiger and Leopard Hall’s Dragon Head kills my family member—is that not him crushing me? Is that not the world crushing me!?"

"But you’re all the same kind of people..."

The smile on Zhang Qing’s face was uglier than tears.

"I’m not Brother Ji. I don’t want to cause trouble for you, Master Han, and I don’t want to cause trouble for him either. I never intended to ask any of you to seek justice for me."

"Everyone has their own path, their own life. You shouldn’t drag others into your problems. Just live your own life as best you can. That’s what my dad taught me."

"And all I have... is this one knife, and this one life."

"I know you’re a man of great strategy, Master Han. You were willing, for no apparent reason, to teach martial arts to us mud-legged commoners, to give us a path to walk."

"But not everyone in this world, after gaining a ’fist’ like yours, remains a good person with a shred of compassion."

"Why does the world crush people? It’s because you’re weak, so those stronger than you crush you. There’s nothing you can do about it from birth!"

"If you want to change things... the only way is to use a pair of Iron Fists to smash the whole world, be called a ’Mortal Martial Saint,’ and make everyone play by your rules! Otherwise, it’s all just empty talk!"

"That’s the principle Brother Ji taught me. And I think... he’s right."

"As for what you taught, Master Han, about spreading martial arts to all under heaven so that everyone can become a dragon..."

Zhang Qing lowered his head, bowed once to the man before him, and then walked away, blade in hand.

"Men become dragons."

"But I am still a worm."

"Under the same roof... if he wants to crush me, what can I do?"

"All that’s left is the fury of a common man, and blood spilled within five paces!"

His figure vanished into the distance, leaving the young man named Han Ying alone. He took out a Central Yellow Taiyi Jade Token, his brow furrowed in silence.

’If everyone here is an ambitious schemer, then what does the so-called ’Divine Being’ sitting on the throne truly want?’

’Is it really to ’sweep away the corruption and bring peace to the world’?’

In truth, ever since running from Jiangyin Prefecture to Anning County—a place five hundred li from the Earth Dragon Cave—the young man’s conviction had already begun to waver.

It was as if no matter which path he took, he was always wrong.

’Master, I stole the List of Immortals Jade Scroll you worked so hard to find, the one you intended to give to that noble personage. I joined the Central Yellow Sect and plotted to have the Spirit Summoning and Saint Manifesting General descend into this world in an Incense Body...’

’Was it truly... the right thing to do?’

Even though they all received the blessings of the Central Yellow Sect’s Incense and Candlelight, why could the Young Head of the Tiger and Leopard Hall kill one of his chosen disciples at will?

And yet he was supposed to consider the bigger picture—the descent of the Outer Dao Divinities—and hesitate to strike the rat for fear of breaking the vase?

Han Ying’s eyes flickered, unable to bear the thought.

Involuntarily... he began to move.