Chapter 472: Seeking One’s Own Path

Chapter 472: Seeking One's Own Path

“This is a fifth‑grade talisman from Longhu Mountain, produced by the Celestial Master’s Court, hand‑carved by the master of sigils from the Zhang lineage; cast once, it can level a radius of five zhang.”

Chen Qisheng swung his arm, thumping it on the table, his face twisted into a snarl as he shouted, “It can at least cover fifty thousand gold notes!”

“Who are you trying to bluff?” he retorted. “Where is the Celestial Master’s emblem on this? At best, I’ll give you ten thousand.”

Zou Si‑jiu pursed his lips.

“Zou, you sorcerer, do you even know your stuff? At least forty thousand, no less!”

Zou Si‑jiu rolled his eyes and said, “Twenty thousand.”

“Fine, twenty thousand it is!”

Chen Qisheng’s eyes reddened; from between his teeth he spat out, “Deal the cards! I will recover every penny, profit and all, from this round!”

“All set? Then I’ll deal.”

The figure of the Master Chi, no different from an ordinary man, glanced at Zou Si‑jiu without a trace, shook his wrist, and the paper cards that had traveled from the Western Yi fell from his palm in a soft flutter.

Zou Si‑jiu glanced at the cards in his hand, his brows tightening. “I won’t play this hand.”

“I won’t play either,” the Master Chi replied, his tone heavy with regret.

“Seems you all lack firepower this round? Hahaha, the wheel of fortune turns, and at last it lands on my house…”

Chen Qisheng’s eyes glittered; he reached toward the three concealed cards at the center of the table.

“Kick.”

“Follow the kick.”

Chen Qisheng was about to lift the concealed cards when his hand halted abruptly; suspicion flickered between the two men.

“Why are you standing there? Are you still going to play?”

Chen Qisheng glanced at Fan Wujiao, who stood behind Zou Si‑jiu, shoulders squared, and nodded without flinching; with silent lips, he uttered a single word: “Go!”

A surge of bravado rushed through Chen Qisheng; he no longer hesitated, reaching out to snatch the concealed cards.

“You’re kicking me? Watch how I’ll take care of both of you, Master Dao!”

Chen Qisheng let out a grim laugh, thrusting a card between his fingers and hurling it hard onto the table.

“Three hits the head; no need to worry!”

“I can’t take it, pass.”

Zou Si‑jiu, expressionless, squeezed the cards, lifted his hand, and struck the table.

“Even a single three is too much; you sorcerer, what cards are you playing? This hand will surely doom you.”

“Boom!”

A low shout burst forth; Chen Qisheng stared at the Master Chi in disbelief, trembling as he asked, “Three? You even blew it?”

“No way?”

The Master Chi swaggered, “I’m playing a bluff with enough momentum; don’t worry about how I play, just ask if you’ll take it.”

“You play! I doubt you can beat me in an instant!”

Chen Qisheng hesitated repeatedly, yet ultimately chose to pass.

“Three with one.”

Chen Qisheng raised an eyebrow: “I’ll handle it.”

He clarified, “Take a good look; this is a three‑to‑three with one.”

The Master Chi had almost played all his cards, leaving only the last one clenched in his hand, flickering before Chen Qisheng’s pallid face.

“I’ve placed my bet.”

“I.”

Chen Qisheng immediately regretted his earlier choice, but before he could catch his breath, he heard Zou Si‑jiu smile and utter a single word.

“Boom!”

“I’ve never shouted that before; why are you panicking?”

Zou Si‑jiu squinted, raised his hand in a polite gesture, and laughed, “Alright, then you play. The biggest boom is in my hand; at worst, you’ll just add a little more.”

Chen Qisheng lowered his gaze inch by inch, staring blankly at the cards in his hand.

He could indeed take the Master Chi’s cards, but if he did, Zou Si‑jiu would intercept on the counter‑attack.

“You can’t take it? Seems the wheel of fortune still hasn’t turned for you this time.”

Zou Si‑jiu calmly tossed a boom card, then drew a “three” and placed it on the table.

“Four.”

The Master Chi exhaled with relief, exclaiming, “What a narrow victory!”

“We won!”

Fan Wujiao raised both hands and clapped with Zou Si‑jiu.

“Little Black, tell Emperor Ma that he shouldn’t keep his injury. Today, our Master Chen is generous; he’s letting us go to Baidi and mingle with the crowd!”

“Alright!”

Bang!

The Master Chi’s fists collided, his tone solemn: “It seems another lesson is about to begin…”

Buzz.

A flying sword slammed into the abyss behind Chen Qisheng, slowly surfacing, its blade trembling, tail flame blazing.

The paper cards were crushed into fine powder, scattering from the master’s fingers. Chen Qisheng’s eye twitched, and he said, “You’re cheating me?”

“You can’t afford to lose, can you?!”

Zou Si‑jiu moved like a rabbit, darting behind the Master Chi, only half a head poking out.

“You dare to claim the account of the third‑grade ink armor, Chen Qisheng? Think carefully!”

Chen Qisheng bowed, rose, grasped his sword, eyes fixed on Zou Si‑jiu: “Master Chi, step aside; I’ll give you every cent. But Zou Si‑jiu, that bastard, must lose a few pounds today!”

“Before class, mind your appearance; don’t carry a blood‑stained aura, or it will affect

Amidst a chorus of shouting and clamor, a weak and helpless voice slowly drifted out.

"I mean, is this really how you guys play cards in a patient's room?"

The seventh day of the fifth month, the twelfth year of Jiaqi.

Five days after the conclusion of the Osaka Castle Incident, in the medical bay of the Inuyama Castle Hundred-Household Station, Li Jun finally woke up.

Li Jun grinned, looking toward Chen Qisheng and saying, "Don't just stand there dazed, cut them down first. It's the perfect time for me to see some blood, we can count it as a charm to ward off bad luck."

"Die!!!!"

A moment later, peace was finally restored to the medical bay, leaving only Li Jun and Lord Chi behind.

"I didn't expect you to have been holding the fort in Osaka Castle all this time, Lord Chi. If I had known that earlier, I wouldn't have risked my life against Arase Retsu."

Li Jun leaned against the headboard, his pale complexion still tinged with a faint, dull yellow, while the dark circles beneath his eyes made his expression look exceptionally haggard.

"If you hadn't risked your life against him, then I would have only been able to collect your corpse, and at most slaughter him afterward to avenge you."

Lord Chi spoke indifferently, "Su Ce may think highly of you, but the people you are meant to kill must still be killed by your own hand. I shouldn't need to explain the reasoning behind this for you to understand."

Despite the connection provided by Su Ce, Li Jun and Lord Chi were not actually close; in fact, this very moment was the first official meeting between the man and the armor.

"Understood."

Li Jun did not mind Lord Chi's slightly cold attitude, offering sincere thanks, "But no matter what, thank you this time, Lord Chi."

Lord Chi waved his hand, "No need to thank me, if anything I should thank you. If not for you, I wouldn't have crossed paths with that benefactor."

A benefactor?

The newly awakened Li Jun listened in complete bewilderment, but Lord Chi offered no further explanation, turning around and walking toward the door.

"The matters of your Martial Order are best discussed among yourselves."

Standing by the door, Lord Chi raised his hand and snapped his fingers, then closed the door and departed.

The light inside the room suddenly dimmed, and a jagged cliffside rose from the floor.

In the projection, Su Ce sat alone by the edge of the cliff, holding a metal fishing rod as thick as a wrist in his hand, with a churning expanse of waves beneath his feet.

"Awake?"

Su Ce casually thrust the horrifyingly thick fishing rod into the cliff rock, speaking with a hint of envy in his tone, "A day earlier than I anticipated. It seems the genes of the Solo Martial Order are indeed significantly more formidable than those of the Sect Martial Orders. Back then, when this old man was beaten as wretchedly as you, I remained unconscious for a full half-month before waking up."

"Arase Retsu is dead."

Li Jun's statement lacked context, but Su Ce understood his meaning perfectly.

"Are you wondering why, after killing Arase Retsu, you still haven't advanced to Martial Rank Four?"

Li Jun said heavily, "Yes."

Arase Retsu, a Rank Four of a Sect Martial Order, was the advancement ritual Su Ce had prepared for Li Jun.

Although Su Ce had never explicitly stated this from beginning to end, Li Jun was no fool and had understood it long ago.

Yet when he killed Arase Retsu, apart from gaining a staggering two hundred and seventy proficiency points, he received no other harvest.

This had little to do with the final Fifth-Rank movement technique that Li Jun was missing.

Having all injected techniques reach the Great Perfection realm of the current rank was merely the optimal condition for advancement, not a mandatory one.

At the exact moment Arase Retsu's breath cut off, Li Jun had clearly felt the genes within his body boil to an absolute peak, yet he remained a hair's breadth away from completely shattering the invisible gates that bound the rest of his dormant genes.

Li Jun knew very well that this tiny gap was not something the meager genes carried by a Fifth-Rank movement technique could bridge.

The real issue still lay within the ritual.

In other words, defeating Arase Retsu across ranks was not the ritual for his advancement to Rank Four of the Solo Martial Order; it had not truly pushed his genes to the limit of 'excitement'!

"I was the one who miscalculated," Su Ce lamented with a sigh. "I originally thought that increasing the difficulty by one level beyond a Sect Martial Rank Five advancement ritual should be enough to satisfy the requirements of your sequence. But now it seems I still underestimated the sheer power of the Solo Martial Order, and underestimated the resentment and fear in the hearts of those predecessors."

"Predecessors..."

Li Jun furrowed his brows, asking in confusion, "What do they have to do with my advancement?"

"You kid didn't think the branch of the Solo Martial Order appeared out of thin air, did you? Everything in this world leaves a trail. Just because you don't know it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

Su Ce smiled and said, "The Daoists say the deities reside three feet above one's head, the Buddhists insist the Buddha sits right within one's heart, and the scholars place Confucius upon a sacred altar—all of these behaviors, to put it plainly, are attempts to find a footing, a source for their respective sequences."

"As the sequence with the longest inheritance, the Martial Order possesses a history that no other sequence can even hope to emulate. The traces of the Martial Order's existence can be traced back to the very end of the Ming history, even including those myths and legends whose authenticity cannot be verified. Therefore, we have absolutely no need to believe in any gods; we believe in ourselves. But within ourselves, what is the source?"

At this point, Su Ce deliberately paused, giving Li Jun enough time to digest the information.

During the prolonged silence, the surging waves continued to crash against the reefs beneath the cliff, the shattered crests of the waves blooming into white froth as the roaring sound echoed in Li Jun's ears.

"It's instinct."

Li Jun finally spoke, offering his own answer.

"Exactly, it's instinct."

Su Ce smiled with satisfaction, "When a human comes into this world, the first thing they do is not cry, but clench their fists, prepared to fight against everything unknown. Even those inhuman ghosts of the Huangliang Dream, after possessing a human body, prepare themselves for a life-and-death struggle the very first instant they open their eyes."

"Other sequences merely repeat past history. Only we face the unknown that lies beyond history. This sentence might sound like the enigmatic Zen riddles spoken by religious fanatics to mystify people, but one day when you reach my stage, you will understand its meaning."

Li Jun strained to keep his thoughts clear and asked, "Then what is the connection between instinct and our predecessors?"

"To be born with it is the 'instinct', but the 'capability' is the accumulation and transition of generations, the martial arts refined by them swinging fists and unsheathing swords day and night; it is the method of the Martial Order."

Su Ce answered, "When you inject martial arts, you inherit the 'capability' of those who came before you. Having received their grace, you naturally inherit their grievances, hatreds, and wild ambitions as well. Recall your previous rituals, and you should understand."

Countless images flashed through Li Jun's mind like a revolving lantern.

It was the cold corpse of Wave Blade on the blood-gold arena of Nine Dragons Street.

It was the silent streets of Matsupan Garrison, and the collapsing Buddhist realm of Mutso.

It was the ferocious, solitary tyrant who drank the blood of Daoists and chewed the bones of Buddhas; it was the slaughtering to stop wars within the blazing Golden Pavilion.

"If you were like me, part of a Sect Martial Order, injecting martial arts passed down through a single lineage, then the barrier you face wouldn't be too difficult. Because no matter how prosperous a sect is, how many people could it possibly have, and how many of them are qualified to leave behind their genes? Pathetically few."

"However, that old-fashioned method of cultivation has long since vanished into history. Even if you wanted to train by yourself, there are no secret manuals left for you to learn from. Using an injector is equivalent to taking the grace of others. While it saves you the slow, grinding labor of boring through stone with water droplets, you naturally have to face the trials they left for you."

"The Solo Martial Order has no restrictions on the martial arts injected, which means taking thousands of people as teachers, and naturally facing the tribulations of thousands of people!"

Su Ce's voice grew deep: "Or rather, facing their fear and resentment."

Having reached this point, Li Jun did not ask further about what the fear and resentment actually were, because the answer was already blindingly obvious.

The Solo Martial Order appeared after the 'Division of Martial Arts Under Heaven', so the fear of the predecessors naturally originated from the enemies of that era, and their resentment was their sheer helplessness regarding the decline of the Martial Order.

"For such a difficult path to walk, if those stubborn old bastards who refused to admit defeat didn't want to bring ruin upon their own successors, they should have left behind some special instincts for those who walk your path. The reason you were able to rise so quickly probably lies right here."

Su Ce's words made Li Jun's heart tighten, instantly bringing to mind the black characters that materialized before his eyes whenever he killed someone.

Aboard the cliff, Su Ce looked at Li Jun in the projection, who was pursing his lips with a hesitant expression, and burst into loud laughter, "Look at that look on your face, kid. Rest assured, this old man has no interest in the things those bastards left behind. As long as I am not dead for a single day, the Solo path might not necessarily best the Sect path!"

Su Ce's tone shifted, turning solemn, "But in the future, no matter who asks, you must be exactly as you are now, unable to reveal a single word. Today, in the entire Ming Empire, the only living Solo Martial Order I know of is probably just you. The others have either become slices for research or cattle for breeding."

Li Jun nodded heavily, "I will remember!"

"My experience is no longer applicable to you. How you walk your path ahead is for you to decide."

Su Ce sat astride the edge of the cliff, his beard and hair flying in the wind as he faced the boundless surface of the sea, laughing loudly, "But don't walk too slowly, kid. This old man doesn't have that much time to wait for you!"

The projection severed there, the fishing rod driven into the cliff rock suddenly bending downward, emitting a tooth-aching sound of twisting metal.

A fish was hooked!

Su Ce gripped the rod and jerked, the sea surface exploding into towering waves, a vicious shark fully two zhang in length breaching the water, leaping toward the cliff.

*Pfft!*

The long rod, like a spear, effortlessly pierced through the shark's body.

Just then, a lone skiff cut through the waves in the distance, a middle-aged scholar of refined bearing standing at its prow.

The man had not yet arrived, but his voice preceded him.

"Xu Hao of the Huating Xu Clan, pays respects to Senior Su!"

*Bang!*

Su Ce’s hand holding the rod gave a slight shake, the impaled shark corpse instantly bursting into a hazy mist of blood, blown away by the fierce winds atop the cliff until not a trace remained.

Rather than a fishing rod, it was more apt to call it a spear of edgeless steel, rotating lightly between Su Ce’s fingers.

He gripped the shaft at its center and, facing the skiff speeding from the far horizon, casually hurled it.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

The released spear was like a heavy crossbow bolt loosed from a siege engine, tearing out a series of deafening sonic booms, the gale it carried gouging deep trenches into the sea surface.

The middle-aged scholar’s face changed drastically in an instant, no longer caring for decorum, he leapt up in a fluster.

The spear slammed into the skiff like a cannonball, blasting a column of water sky-high.

The steel hull, veneered with imitation antique wood grain, instantly shattered into fragments flying in all directions.

Drenched in seawater, Xu Hao stood upon a larger piece of wreckage, forcibly suppressing the rage in his heart as he gazed distantly at those eyes looking down from the cliff.

"Senior Su, what is the meaning of this?"

Across a hundred zhang of sea, Xu Hao’s voice still rang clearly in Su Ce’s ears.

"This is a greeting gift I give you on behalf of Li Bufei. Satisfied?"

Xu Hao’s hands, hidden in his sleeves, suddenly clenched into fists, his smile strained. "Naturally, satisfied."

"Good that you're satisfied."

Su Ce nodded, his expression cold. "Old man asks you once more: do you understand?"

"Understood. I will certainly treat all the Embroidered Uniform Guards in the Wa District well."

"Keep your eyes peeled, tuck your tail between your legs and ride out this period. Take whatever benefits you're due. But if you dare put on airs before me again, play these games, next time it won't be fishing—it'll be hooking you."

Standing on the sea surface, Xu Hao watched the figure on the cliff depart with hands clasped behind his back, his expression ever respectful.

Only when Su Ce’s figure had vanished completely did his right hand slowly emerge from his sleeve, pinching an electronic dossier between his fingers.

*Crack.*

Xu Hao closed his five fingers, fine spiderweb cracks instantly spreading across the dossier’s screen; amidst the flickering display, a line of text could faintly be seen.

[Decision on the Placement of Su Ce, Qianhu of the Wa District Embroidered Uniform Guards]

"Though I don't understand why you don't want to hear it..."

A smile slowly bloomed on Xu Hao's face. "It suits me just fine."