The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, becoming a disciple of Yue Buqun

Page 3

Chapter 5: With the heart of a Bodhisattva, yet with thunderous methods

"Okay, get up."

Finally, it was Ning Zhongze who spoke.

“Ning’er is right. Justice delayed is justice denied. You should remember this from now on.”

"Yes, thank you, Master's wife, thank you, junior brother."

Lu Dayou, Gao Genming, Shi Daizi, and the others then stood up one after another to bow to Ning Zhongze, and finally thanked Jiang Ning, their faces showing shame.

"Humph."

Yue Buqun snorted again, but this time it wasn't as strong as before. Since Ning Zhongze had told them to get up, he would let it go.

"By the way, after you went to Yunmeng County, what kind of people were those martial arts practitioners?"

Yue Buqun seemed to remember something and asked Jiang Ning.

Jiang Ning smiled upon hearing this and said, "They're just a bunch of people who only know how to use their fists and feet. None of them are particularly skilled. Dealing with them is no big deal."

Yue Buqun nodded, but then frowned and said, "If that's the case, why did it take so many days to return to the mountain?"

“On my way back, I passed through Anyang County and found that there was a thief there. The Anyang County government had issued a reward. Thinking that the sect was in dire financial straits and that we were always being supported by Master, I felt bad about it. So I spent some time catching the thief to lighten Master’s burden.”

As Jiang Ning spoke, he took out a silver ingot from his sleeve and handed it over with both hands; it weighed a full ten taels.

Although ten taels of silver may not sound like much, it has considerable purchasing power. One tael of silver can buy two shi of rice, and one shi of rice weighs approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty jin.

Yue Buqun remained silent.

After a while.

Yue Buqun waved his hand and said, "Since this is what you caught, you can keep it. Don't worry about the livelihood of the sect. I will find a way to solve it. Just focus on practicing your skills."

"Yes."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Ning took the silver back and put it back into his sleeve.

Since Yue Buqun has already said so, continuing to insist would only embarrass Yue Buqun.

"Alright, we just got back today. You can go and prepare dinner first. We'll be paying respects to our ancestor later."

Pay homage to the patriarch?

Jiang Ning raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

Generally, the ceremony is only held when Yue Buqun accepts a disciple or on an important occasion of the Huashan Sect; it is not done on ordinary days.

Today is not a special day, yet Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze have just returned and are already paying homage to their ancestor. Have they taken on new disciples?

"Yes."

Jiang Ning didn't ask any further questions, just responded and prepared to go back to his room, but was stopped by Yue Buqun.

"By the way, Ning'er."

Yue Buqun asked Jiang Ning, "What did you do with the steward and those dozen or so people afterward?"

Upon hearing his master's question, Jiang Ning did not hesitate.

"killed."

The voice was very soft, as if it were about something trivial.

Yue Buqun was taken aback.

"Kill them all?"

Jiang Ning nodded, his expression calm.

"Yes."

Lu Dayou, Gao Genming, Shi Daizi and the others were all stunned and looked at each other in disbelief.

Lu Dayou, Gao Genming, and others joined the Huashan Sect at different times. Most of them joined later than Jiang Ning and knew nothing about him. They only occasionally heard their senior brother say that Jiang Ning was brought back from outside by their master twelve years ago when he was only three years old. He is only fifteen years old now.

Since they met, they had never seen their junior brother descend the mountain. Except for one time when Yue Buqun felt that Jiang Ning was too much of a homebody and insisted on organizing a sect spring outing, forcing Jiang Ning to go on a budget trip to Shaanxi. Apart from that, Jiang Ning had never left the mountain.

Even though his master took some of his disciples to visit other Five Mountains Sword Sects a few times to make them known and familiar to others, Jiang Ning never went. He stayed at Mount Hua instead. As a result, although he was a disciple of Mount Hua, none of his fellow disciples from the other Five Mountains Sword Sects had ever seen him; they only knew that he existed.

In their impression, Jiang Ning usually did nothing but practice martial arts and read books, and had no other entertainment activities. Even his junior sister Ling Shan said that he was very boring. The last time he went down the mountain with Wang Yuan to Yunmeng County was his first time going down the mountain, but they did not expect that he would kill people on this trip alone, and kill so many people.

These people weren't inexperienced in killing; they would often intervene when they saw injustice on their way down the mountain. But none of them could be as calm as Jiang Ning after killing someone, as if he had killed pigs or dogs instead of humans.

This attitude sent chills down the spines of all his fellow disciples.

In the past, they thought that Jiang Ning's usual indifferent demeanor was just his personality, but at this moment they felt that it was more like indifference.

Yue Buqun then frowned and asked again, "What about that county magistrate? Did you kill him too?"

A barely perceptible hint of nervousness lingered in his expression as he was questioned.

Jiang Ning shook his head and said, "No, I just asked him to return Wang Yuan's assets and then I left."

Upon hearing this, Yue Buqun nodded, no longer showing any of the tension he had felt before.

Jiang Ning remained calm and composed.

He did not kill the county magistrate, but the magistrate suddenly died five days later, the cause of death unknown.

"Alright, Ning'er, you must have had a long and tiring journey. Go down and rest. I'll have Denuo call you when it's time to eat."

"Yes."

Jiang Ning nodded and turned to leave.

Watching his departing figure, Ning Zhongze, who had remained silent the whole time, couldn't help but speak up.

"Senior brother, Ning'er, he..."

His tone carried a hint of worry.

Jiang Ning's ruthless and indifferent attitude towards killing made her fear that she might go astray in the future.

"fine."

Yue Buqun knew what his wife was thinking and shook his head.

“Ning’er is young, but he has his own ideas, so we don’t need to worry.”

Seeing her husband say this, Ning Zhongze had no choice but to nod.

……

After returning to his room, Jiang Ning placed the sword at his waist on the table.

The room was very simple. Apart from a bed, a table and chairs, there was only a wardrobe for storing clothes. The only eye-catching thing was the thick pile of books on the table.

squeak~

Jiang Ning went to the window and opened it to let the air out of the room. As soon as he opened the window, he saw the distant, continuous green mountains. The clouds covered the mountaintops, and the peaks appeared and disappeared. The wooden house was covered with ivy, and it was full of spring.

After opening the window, Jiang Ning sat down at the table by the window, gazing intently out the window.

He has been in this world for twelve years.

Twelve years ago, he transmigrated into the body of a three-year-old child in a village. At that time, bandits entered the village and massacred the entire village. His birth mother hid him in a secret place, but he was eventually found by the bandits when they were searching for survivors. At that time, he was the only survivor left in the village.

Just as the bandits were about to kill him, Yue Buqun happened to be passing by the village and rescued him.

Jiang Ning will always remember the face reflected on the snow-white blade.

Yue Buqun killed the bandits and then took him back to Mount Hua, where he remains to this day.

Chapter 6: Realm Division

Before going up Mount Hua, Jiang Ning had no idea what kind of world this was. It was only after learning the names of Yue Buqun, Ning Zhongze, Yue Lingshan, and Linghu Chong that he realized this was the world of Swordsman.

He hadn't read much of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, so he didn't have a deep impression of it. He wasn't interested in these kinds of stories, only knowing some general facts, including the death of Yue Buqun and the controversies surrounding Yue Buqun himself.

Was Yue Buqun a hypocrite?

Some say he was a treacherous and ambitious man who plotted to dominate the martial arts world and did not hesitate to persecute his wife and daughters and his disciples in order to obtain the Evil-Slaying Sword Manual.

Some say he was forced into a corner and took a risky move, even castrating himself to promote the Huashan School.

he does not know.

Since he came to Mount Hua, Yue Buqun had been teaching him to be chivalrous, to help the weak and punish the strong, and not to bully the weak, and had raised him to adulthood.

He didn't know if Yue Buqun was the hypocrite others described, but at least in his opinion, he had never seen Yue Buqun's hypocritical side in the past twelve years.

Does Yue Buqun want to dominate the martial arts world?

Jiang Ning didn't know.

At least over the past ten years, Jiang Ning had not seen any ambition in Yue Buqun. Although he never talked to his disciples about the difficulties of the sect, Jiang Ning could sometimes catch a trace of weariness in his eyes, and the candlelight that never went out in the deep night at the You Suo Bu Wei Xuan whenever Huashan was short of money.

Can someone who is struggling with the expenses of their family or sect still have the energy to dominate the martial arts world?

Jiang Ning still didn't know.

Humans are diverse, complex, and changeable.

Each stage of life, each experience brings new perspectives and new choices.

The difference between a gentleman and a hypocrite may be just a matter of a single thought.

Whether Yue Buqun was a gentleman or a hypocrite, Jiang Ning didn't care.

For him, Yue Buqun saved him and raised him, showing him kindness as if he were a second father.

He had to acknowledge Yue Buqun's kindness to him.

Therefore, Jiang Ning didn't care about these things. Since Yue Buqun's lifelong wish was to promote and develop Mount Hua, he would help Yue Buqun fulfill this wish.

Jiang Ning stared intently into the distance, and for some reason, he suddenly thought of a line that Zhuge Liang said to Liu Bei in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

"To fulfill the general's ambition..."

Jiang Ning's eyes glazed over, and he muttered to himself.

After coming back to his senses.

Jiang Ning's thoughts returned to the present.

Since he came up the mountain, he has been practicing his skills diligently. Apart from reading books in his spare time, he has spent all his time practicing.

Lu Dayou, Yue Lingshan, and others did not understand why Jiang Ning practiced so hard. Only Jiang Ning himself knew that the reason he was working so hard was not only to repay Yue Buqun, but also for his own ideals.

Fortunately, he was quite talented, even Yue Buqun praised him. At such a young age, he had reached the strength of a second-rate master, and was ranked among the top in the second-rate masters. This was something that no one in the entire Five Mountains Sword Sect had achieved.

Linghu Chong is now twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and his strength is at the level of a second-rate master. Although the Huashan Sect is now in decline, Linghu Chong is the leading figure among the second-generation disciples of the Five Mountains Sword Sect.

With Linghu Chong as a reference, Jiang Ning was able to achieve a level comparable to him at the age of fifteen, which shows how high Jiang Ning's talent was. Even Yue Lingshan, who was at odds with Jiang Ning, said that Yue Buqun had picked up a treasure.

Although Yue Buqun didn't say it aloud, he would always mention Jiang Ning's name and strength whenever he visited the other Five Mountains Sword Sects, with a nonchalant expression on his face, as if he had plenty of disciples like Jiang Ning under his tutelage.

As a result, although the other members of the Five Mountains Sword Sects had never met Jiang Ning, they had long heard of his great name.

There are no specific classifications of martial arts levels in this world. I don't know if it's because these people in the martial arts world are uncultured and can't come up with one, or if it's just how it is from the beginning.

In the martial arts world, masters are generally categorized as unranked, third-rate, second-rate, and first-rate.

Originally, there was no category for "unordinary". It was mainly to take into account the feelings of those martial arts practitioners who lacked talent, so that they could reluctantly create an "unordinary" category to give them some sense of participation.

Otherwise, if someone traveling the martial arts world finds out that their strength isn't even third-rate, how can they claim to be a martial arts practitioner?

You can't even meet the basic requirements to enter this world, it's really shameful. Just leave the group yourself, don't make us kick you out.

"Unranked" refers to someone who has no internal strength whatsoever and relies entirely on martial arts skills to make a living in the martial arts world. They live on the fringes of the martial arts world, and if they are seriously injured by accident, they will basically die in tears in the martial arts world.

Representative figures: Lin Zhennan and those killed by Jiang Ning.

Third-rate masters are slightly better than no-name masters; they are still at the bottom of the martial arts world, but they are much stronger than no-name masters. For example, among the Four Heroes of Qingcheng Sect, Lin Zhennan is already a middle-aged man in his fifties, but he is no match for young people like Hou Renying and Hong Renxiong in terms of martial arts.

Third-rate martial arts masters have finally cultivated a little bit of internal energy, but their martial arts skills are average. They can only go out in groups and fight side by side. Going out alone will likely result in an accident.

Notable figures include Yue Lingshan, Lu Dayou, Gao Genming, and other second-generation disciples of the Five Mountains Sword Sect.

It was precisely because Yue Lingshan was a third-rate expert that Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze were so nervous after learning that she had secretly run away from the mountain.