Chapter 218. Making Someone Like Me the Mad Demon

I glared into the White-Clad Scholar’s eyes. His gaze lingered for a moment on Giseongja’s name, then dropped lower.

“I Jaha, Gate Master of Haomun.”

The White-Clad Scholar rose and watched me with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Let’s be honest. I’m not boasting. I know fairly well how things move in the jianghu. But you…”

The White-Clad Scholar laughed the instant he sensed my killing intent.

“I’m not asking for a fight. Don’t be tense. Fine. Let’s keep our distance. I’m not only asking the truth from you. It’s time for us both to be honest.”

I nodded.

“Of course. One should be honest in all things.”

The White-Clad Scholar’s expression changed to one of satisfaction as he said,

“Good. Your gaze stopped on the Geumgu Soyogong created by Giseongja. According to my disciples, you have also mastered an extreme yang martial art. That was why you learned the Wolyeong Mujeonggong I passed on in one breath, and later even created a consummate technique combining extreme yang and extreme yin. To be honest, even that much was shocking. However, I could not accurately guess what extreme yang martial art you had mastered first, but your expression tells me. No wonder I’m surprised. To think it was the Geumgu Soyogong…”

This bastard was clever.

There must have been many reasons he brought me here. But one thing was certain: it seemed the Geumgu Soyogong was among them.

The White-Clad Scholar pointed at me with a finger and spoke as though warning me.

“I’ll be honest first. I have not yet distributed the Geumgu Soyogong throughout the jianghu, so why have you mastered it?”

I answered with a laugh.

“Distributed?”

Distributed, he says. Absolutely ridiculous.

The White-Clad Scholar said with a hardened expression,

“Don’t you dare tell me something like you’re actually Giseongja’s successor. Even Elder Lord Iryong’s faction learned Guiguzi’s mechanism formations because of the books we passed to them long ago.”

A slight chill ran down my spine.

“Is that so?”

In other words, this point in time was before the White-Clad Scholar had distributed the Geumgu Soyogong throughout the jianghu. It was not the time when I had obtained the Geumgu Soyogong in my previous life.

The White-Clad Scholar found that strange.

If so, that meant the chance encounter through which I obtained the Geumgu Soyogong manual in my previous life had been arranged by the White-Clad Scholar. In my previous life, I had found the Geumgu Soyogong in an old tomb after obtaining a treasure map and undoing the mechanism formation explained on it.

I slowly looked the White-Clad Scholar up and down.

In the end, I had only now realized that it was because of this bastard that I had obtained the martial arts that led me to be called the Mad Demon, and the chill kept running down my back.

Moreover, my martial prowess back then would not have been all that great, so even if the White-Clad Scholar had been watching me, I would not have noticed. In other words, my sorry state in my previous life had not been much different from the Butcher I had killed.

I, too, had been a test subject like the Butcher.

And so, as though fate had connected us, I had happened to meet the Demon Gentleman.

And I must have joined the Kwaedang as well.

At this point, I even began to think that perhaps all the bastards in the Kwaedang were either being manipulated by the White-Clad Scholar or fell within the category of disciples he had in mind. In other words, had they not been test subjects and disciples, ranked just slightly higher than slaves?

The White-Clad Scholar said with a smile,

“Good. It seems there’s a story behind it. Judging from how long you’ve been racking your brains… But you’d best not think of lying in front of me.”

With my hands clasped behind my back, I continued looking around at the densely arranged books. The White-Clad Scholar was glaring at me from behind, but by my nature, I did not particularly care.

“These are… incredible books. I suppose the martial learning of the righteous path, the black path, the heretical path, and the demonic path all originally existed among the Hundred Schools. Am I right?”

When I started talking about something else, the White-Clad Scholar replied in a bitter tone.

“Don’t talk nonsense. You know full well how hard it is to find something new beneath the heavens. In any case, there’s no way that disciple of mine stole the book. Your movements are far too simple as well. If you lie to me, I’ll go to Ilyang County, first seize everyone who knows you, cut off their arms and legs, and learn your movements in a little more detail.”

A sigh escaped me on its own.

“What a pathetic bastard. So that’s the sort of way you think.”

The White-Clad Scholar also began walking slowly as he said,

“Do you know what surprised me while I investigated your movements? They said you were an inn waiter. I could hardly believe it. The inn burned down, didn’t it? So, in truth, at an appropriate time, I had intended to gift you a martial art specialized in Samadhi True Fire. What do you think that was?”

“It must have been the Geumgu Soyogong.”

“That’s right. After hearing about your fiery temperament and the stories of when you killed the Great Rakshasa and Elder Lord Iryong, I thought I should give you flame. It’s absurd. To think you had already mastered it.”

The White-Clad Scholar wagged his finger from side to side as he said,

“But there can be no secrets in front of me. Tell me everything in detail. I never had any intention of killing you in the first place. Rather, I intend to help you train in martial arts. If you tell me the truth, I will give you what I consider the strongest divine art.”

I avoided the White-Clad Scholar, who was slowly following me in a circle, and moved as though drawing a circle with him. In the meantime, I read the titles of the books and the names of the unknown heads of the Hundred Schools.

“So most sects came from there. How fascinating.”

I suddenly realized that the White-Clad Scholar’s tone had changed slightly.

At first, he had spoken while forcibly suppressing his killing intent, but now there was impatience mixed in. The White-Clad Scholar was a man who knew more secrets than anyone else in the jianghu. Yet I guessed that one fact this bastard could never discover was what made him impatient.

Of course, I had not the slightest intention of kindly telling him.

Unless I lied instead…

The problem was that the White-Clad Scholar was one of the cleverest men in all the jianghu, so an obvious lie would not deceive him.

However, cleverness is not the pinnacle of thought.

Because psychological warfare is not decided by cleverness alone, but by how well one reads a person’s emotions. Like a man playing baduk, I combined several possible lies, then opened my mouth. In other words, this was a kind of overplay and a setup.

“What will you do if there is someone preventing me from telling you the truth, even though I want to?”

The White-Clad Scholar answered as he followed me.

“Are you saying there’s someone who told you not to speak?”

“If not, would there be any reason for me not to reveal how I learned my martial arts?”

“Do you mean you cannot betray your sect? What an astonishingly brazen lie. You have no master. You were born in Ilyang County and never went anywhere else until the inn burned down. You lived like a quiet, kind young man from the neighborhood.”

“You speak as if you watched my upbringing from beside me. What an absurd bastard.”

The White-Clad Scholar’s threat continued from behind.

“Gate Master, tell me the proper story while your limbs are still intact. I am reaching the limits of my patience.”

I stopped walking and turned around.

“Scholar.”

“What?”

“Don’t you know my temper? If you’re dying of curiosity, I don’t care if I die here and now. Let’s fight. You may be able to kill me, but you’ll never know how I learned the Geumgu Soyogong. Even if your crippled disciples search the entire world, they won’t be able to find out. Though I’m sure you’ve already checked.”

“……”

“There’s no chance you’ll figure it out before I tell you.”

I looked at the White-Clad Scholar with a broad grin.

The moment I saw the White-Clad Scholar raise his right hand, I wrapped the Flame Realm around my own.

“Scholar, are you trying to turn me into a tyrant? I may not be able to bury scholars alive, but burning books is well within my ability.”

The White-Clad Scholar lowered the hand he had raised, then pointed at me several times with his finger.

“You fool. Look around you. One fire and this place is done for. Do you think we would fall victim to book burning again? There isn’t only one book repository.”

“Oh.”

“Even a rabbit digs three burrows. Do you think we, who suffered from the burning of books, would repeat such a mistake? If you’re bored, go ahead and set a fire. What a pathetic jianghu man, with no respect for records. That is why I treat the likes of you as insects. Tsk, tsk, tsk……”

After the White-Clad Scholar sat back down at the table, he looked at me.

“Listen, Hao Munju. I spoke harshly because I found it strange. But in truth, it is no great matter, so why be so stubborn? How did you obtain the Golden Turtle Carefree Art? I am curious. Even if I told you a divine art superior to the Golden Turtle Carefree Art, do you still intend to keep silent?”

I answered with consistent nonsense.

“Perhaps your predecessor was the one who distributed it first?”

“Do not bark up the wrong tree. We are meticulous with records. We manage everything. Who learned which martial art, and what the results were. Based on that, we study the martial arts anew. I was not joking when I said you may burn what is here. Martial arts with severe side effects, martial arts that ruin one’s character, martial arts that allow rapid achievement…… We record all of it through experimentation. Do you understand what I mean?”

I suddenly found myself laughing.

“Then you must also know very well which martial arts often lead to qi deviation.”

The White-Clad Scholar answered with a smile.

“Why would we not? In truth, the fact that you created a supreme technique combining yin and yang is nothing short of a miracle. Unless, of course, you truly are a genius of martial studies.”

I stared into the White-Clad Scholar’s eyes.

“Why? Because the latter half of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art has many sections where one might fall into qi deviation?”

All of a sudden, the White-Clad Scholar wrapped both arms around his upper body and laughed, his shoulders trembling.

“How chilling. You have already confirmed that much? I shall revise my evaluation of you. It is as you say. According to Giseongja, aside from himself, there would be no one who could conquer the realm of the Golden Turtle. Qi deviation would come in one form or another.”

The book of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art I had seen contained no such words. In other words, when the text was transferred from bamboo slips to books, the White-Clad Scholar had arbitrarily added and removed even that sort of content. At this point, it was no different from mocking the entire jianghu.

Just what martial art had this bastard learned?

When I was curious about something, I asked right away.

“What martial art have you learned? I envy you. You must have looked through all the martial arts manuals here, learned and practiced them, then chosen the most outstanding one and delved deeply into it. Have you perhaps also learned the Golden Turtle Carefree Art?”

The White-Clad Scholar laughed.

“As if. The Golden Turtle Carefree Art has the drawback that even if one trains in it for a lifetime, it is difficult to achieve great completion. If you do not wish to become a cripple, it would be better for you to conquer only about the Fighting Rooster stage. In any case, Munju, do you intend to keep this up until the end? How about I run to Ilyang County right now, beat everyone to death, and then we continue our conversation? Choose. If you dislike Ilyang County, then the Black Cat Gang or the Southern Ming Society…… Ah, how about the Murong Medical House? It would be a bit of a shame about Master Murong, but I cannot help it either. If I start by slaughtering everyone there, do you think you might feel a little more inclined to talk? If I leap off that cliff, you will have to follow me with all your might. Your lightness skill is worse than I expected, you see.”

“Is it that bad?”

“It is on the bad side.”

I answered with a slightly regretful expression.

“……Ah, then I suppose I can’t enter the Swift Hall?”

The White-Clad Scholar’s eyes widened, and he straightened his head as he stared blankly at me.

“…….”

The White-Clad Scholar’s brow narrowed, and his eyebrows shot upward at both ends. As I watched him look surprised, I felt a strange emotion.

This bastard was a man afflicted with a bizarre curse.

Perhaps he was so intelligent that whenever there was something he did not know, he was shocked by it.

He had been so intelligent that he had become a freshly original kind of mad bastard.

Since things had come to this, I simply pushed on according to my own temper.

“You crippled bastard, getting all shocked……”

With my back turned to him, I looked over the books again.

“Wow, there were a lot of demonic paths in the past too. The Yin-Yang Divine Art was also a martial art that already existed. Even the name Sun-Moon Divine Art existed long ago. They say there is nothing new under heaven, and it seems many things existed during the Hundred Schools of Thought. In that case, there must have been many formidable masters among Qin Shi Huang’s close aides too, right? That must be why they slaughtered the jianghu men of that time along with the Confucian scholars. The greatest under heaven at that time must have been in Qin Shi Huang’s camp. Wasn’t he? Or perhaps there was a traitor of the jianghu who cooperated with the emperor.”

While looking through the old demonic path martial arts manuals, I turned to the White-Clad Scholar.

“Which side are you descended from?”

“…….”

“Are you the descendant of the greatest under heaven who clung to the First Emperor? Or the descendant of a clan that betrayed the entire jianghu? If it is the latter, why don’t you go over to that cliff and just throw yourself off? That is not it, is it?”

I looked at the White-Clad Scholar as he pondered whether or not to kill me, then skimmed through the books again.

“I hope it isn’t. But at this level, you people could simply create a Demon Cult if you wanted. Impressive bastards, you are.”

I applauded sincerely.

These bastards were true monsters. Because, depending on the time, they could create a demonic force, and depending on the time, they could also turn an ordinary human into a chivalrous hero.

And…….

They were also bastards who could make someone like me, who had thrown himself into the jianghu belatedly, come to be called the Mad Demon.

If the White-Clad Scholar had not existed in my previous life, would I have lived as a less insane man?

That, I could not know.