Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Tie Linglong was no fool. She might have fallen for it but she wouldn’t be moved by just a good word or two. “Why would you want to teach me the secret arts? I am a ‘failure’ of the Waning Moon Hall.”
The expression of any man, even the Dragon King who had a strong endurance, would change if the chain piercing through their ankles was pulled, but Han Wuxian’s did not. Although she fell to the ground, she seemed to not have felt any pain and continued to wear a smile that looked even tender than before. “I don’t know how long I can live, so I’m always thinking of a way to pass down the most advanced secret arts of the Waning Moon Hall.”
“Even so, it’s not my place to learn them. I’ve only joined the Waning Moon Hall for over a year and now I’m trying to escape. Where’re the guards? They must all be qualified disciples.”
“They are too qualified to defy Lotus in any way, and even without that, they are afraid of my Psychotic Divine Drain and dare not to approach me.”
Tie Linglong vigilantly circled around Han Wuxian and also didn’t want to walk closer to this Hall Leader. “Lotus hasn’t been a part of the Waning Moon Hall for too many years, has she? Why do all your disciples all listen to her instead of you?”
Han Wuxian tried to stand up but failed so she simply sat on the ground and supported herself with her right hand, her hair touching the ground. “These guards are all new disciples. They used to be semi-finished products and wouldn’t have qualified to graduate. More than half of them should have been eliminated but Lotus said that they were valuable people. Not only did she let them keep their lives, but she also taught them the higher level secret arts. So they all treat Lotus as a savior and naturally all listen to her.”
Tie Linglong frowned. According to her standards, Lotus was right to do so anyway. “You are a bad person,” she said.
“What is a bad person?”
Tie Linglong was stunned. She had never carefully thought about this question. “Bad people are bad people. They kill the innocent for no reason, rob other people’s things, and bully the weak.”
“What’s bad about being a bad person?”
“Uh, no one should be a bad person either way. If everyone becomes a bad guy, then the world will go to chaos.”
“A lot of things that shouldn’t have happened happened. You are an orphan, aren’t you? Your parents shouldn’t have died but they died; you should have avenged them but you couldn’t. And not everyone is qualified to be a bad person. With your current kung fu skills, I’m afraid you can’t even do so if you want to kill people wantonly.” Han Wuxian had sharp eyes, and she had quickly figured out the general situation of the little girl.
Tie Linglong took several steps back, “I can’t win in an argument against you, but I won’t learn your secret techniques.”
“Once you master this set of secret arts, you will be invincible and can kill whoever you want. It’ll be as easy as winking for you to seek revenge.”
“Hee, do you think I’m still a young kid? If it is really so formidable, how were you defeated and imprisoned by Lotus?”
“The secret arts are like kung fu skills. Learning them doesn’t mean that you can automatically make use of them after you master it. I am powerful and so is she. It depends on who can seize the moment and strike first. I was careless and Lotus seized the chance, and that was all. But if you are not powerful enough, it will be useless even if I give you the chance, isn’t it?”
Tie Linglong suddenly found herself being led by the nose again. “Lotus is very kind to me, so why would I sneak attack her?”
“She’s kind to you now but that doesn’t mean that she will be kind to you forever. What’s the harm in mastering a secret technique? After all, It’s up to you to use it or not.”
Tie Linglong was convinced. Perhaps she had been tempted from the very beginning but it felt a bit strange to her that a good thing would suddenly fall on her head. “I can not save you and I do not want to save you.”
“It’s not a swap. I’ll teach you the secret arts of my own accord.”
“All right.” Tie Linglong revealed a childlike smile, seeing no danger in this at all.
If the Dragon King were here, he would tell her that a lot of martial arts could do harm if slightly changed; for example, a modified internal energy manual. Tie Linglong didn’t know about the old scores of the Dragon King and Lotus so she naturally knew nothing about the possible pitfalls.
“I only have one small request.” Han Wuxian was well versed in the art of negotiation and had thus patiently waited for the other side’s consent before offering terms.
“Ehh, you just said it wasn’t a swap.”
“I’ll pass the secret arts to you regardless if you agree to this or not.”
“Well … Go ahead.”
“Tell me more about — the Dragon King.”
When the name had first reached her ears, Han Wuxian was a bit confused but after a little thinking, she realized that this ‘Dragon King’ must have an unusual relationship with Lotus.
This was a request that Tie Linglong could accept. So she spent more than two hours retelling the deeds of the Dragon King, some of which she had been personally involved in and some of which was hearsay. She was elated at first but gradually became full of resentment as she talked. But she knew little about the relationship between the Dragon King and Lotus, so she could not speak anymore on it.
Han Wuxian learned more from her talking than just the information Tie Linglong had provided. “No wonder,” she said. “Lotus is particularly interested in records of Qi deviation because she’s not just collecting the information for herself. Unfortunately, the Waning Moon Hall has little experience in this area.” Han Wuxian wore a faint smile even when she was lost in thought.
“But Lotus is with the Dragon King again. But to tell you the truth, I think that Sister Ru and the Dragon King are a bit more compatible …”
“Is the Dragon King a womanizer?”
“Of course not…” Tie Linglong let out a long sigh that did not match her age. “But there’s still some things he can’t decide for himself, like marrying the princess of the Stone Kingdom.”
“Once you’ve learned my secret arts, you will be as powerful as Lotus, or even better than her. Then the Dragon King will accept you and listen to your advice.”
Tie Linglong nodded in earnest.
“You’ve heard of the Manual of Seven Secret Techniques, haven’t you?”
“Of course, this is the most profound secret manual of the Waning Moon Hall. The Master Trainer has learned one of these techniques and always shows it off in front of us.”
“She learned the Seven Magical Tones, the weakest and the most useless of them all.”
“The Seven Rotations skill is the most powerful, isn’t it?”
“It is very powerful but I didn’t practice it and I’m guessing you also don’t want to practice it.”
There was no need for any other reason except that Tie Linglong would never want to practice a secret art that Han Wuxian hadn’t practiced.
“What do you want to teach me?”
“There are actually more than a dozen secret techniques in the Manual of Seven Secret Techniques. Only the top disciples of the Waning Moon Hall are qualified to learn one or two of them. Of course, that was before. Now that Lotus is in charge, I’m afraid more people are learning them now.”
“Then teach me one that no one else knows.” Tie Linglong became interested but she still stayed vigilant and didn’t approach Han Wuxian at all.
“I’ll teach you a set of Jueyin Finger Technique.”
“Jueyin Finger Technique? This is the most common finger technique in the Waning Moon Hall, and I’ve already learned it.” Tie Linglong couldn’t help but be disappointed.
“Then give me a poke and let me have a look.”
“Heehee, I’m not falling for it.”
“There’s nothing I can do about you as long as you’re holding onto the chain in the ground.”
Tie Linglong slowly approached and carefully grabbed the chain on the ground, trying not to have it affect Han Wuxian’s ankle before she quickly poked the other side.
Han Wuxian’s smile grew bigger. “You’ve only achieved the first level and you said that you’ve learned it?”
Tie Linglong was surprised and said, “No one told me there was a higher level of the Jueyin Finger Technique.”
“Of course there is. There are nine levels of the Jueyin Finger Technique, and it’s already quite impressive if someone can reach the fifth level. This is because it can restrain most kung fu skills in the world and is especially effective for those who practice the Manual of Seven Secret Techniques.”
“Which level are you at now?”
“The seventh level.”
Although not yet aware of the power of this set of finger technique, Tie Linglong was still awed.
“Jueyin means extreme yin. Forming a small amount of frosty Qi and making people itchy is only the most elementary stage. After the first three levels, you will be able to control the internal energy and secretly plant it in any acupoint of the enemy, even the most inconspicuous acupoints. And at the fifth level, you can control the onset of the internal Qi, and the types of the internal Qi increases to ten after you reach the seventh level. You can then make your enemy feel painful, itchy, mad, dizzy or nauseous.”
Tie Linglong thought it was a really fun secret technique. “Doesn’t it have nine levels? What if you reach the ninth level?”
“The pure yin energy will turn into yang energy. You’ll become invincible but will also burst apart and die.”
“The seventh level is fine.” Tie Linglong was startled.
During the rest of the night, Han Wuxian passed on the second level of the Jueyin Finger Technique to Tie Linglong and attentively instructed her. “You can master it in seven to fifteen days if you do it fast. Come back to me on the last day of the month.”
Tie Linglong cleared the scattered footprints on the ground and hid in the bushes. She saw four disciples of the Waning Moon Hall come in the early morning. Two of them carried a long stick with Han Wuxian sitting in the middle while the other two held the iron chain. Together they escorted the Hall Leader back to the prison, each of them maintaining a distance of at least five steps away from her.
Tie Linglong felt a bit sorry for the Hall Leader and her impression of Lotus fell slightly.
Tie Linglong then found her way back to the headquarter of the Waning Moon Hall. The Master Trainer didn’t reprimand her. Instead, she coldly reminded her, “There’s still half a month left.”
She had come back just to find a place to live, still refusing to undergo the training with her body. In less than ten days, she tried to escape for the second time, but this time she encountered an obstacle.
The Master Trainer had acted herself. “Five days from now, you’ll have to leave your life here.”
Tie Linglong still ran away. She poked the Master Trainer and paralyzed an expert of the Waning Moon Hall for more than one hour with the second level of the Jueyin Finger Technique.
Tie Linglong seized the moment. The Master Trainer had been caught unprepared.
With plenty of water and dried food, Tie Linglong wandered in the desert for several days and completed the appointment with Han Wuxian on the last day of the month. “Please teach me the rest of the levels. I’ll escape from the desert and never come back.”
“Okay.” Han Wuxian was very easygoing. She taught the levels little by little but stopped after teaching the sixth level.
Tie Linglong, however, was already obsessed with it. She bit her lips and said, “I know it, you want something in return. Say it. As long as I can do it, I won’t refuse.”
“I have a daughter.” Han Wuxian’s voice was as sweet as syrup. “If you bring her to me, I’ll teach you the seventh level.”
“Deal.” Tie Linglong readily agreed. This condition was much easier than she had imagined. The most important thing was that it didn’t violate any of her principles. “I’ll bring her here for sure.”
“Her name is Han Xuan and she lives in the Gulping Wind Gorge of Xiaoyao Lake.”
“Do you have any token or something?”
“No, and she doesn’t know about me. I used to send people to see her.”
Tie Linglong felt that Han Wuxian was not like a disciple of the Waning Moon Hall at all. She suddenly felt an urge to save her but held back in the end. Han Wuxian wasn’t an ordinary disciple. Her disappearance would attract crowds of Waning Moon Hall disciples. But Tie Linglong secretly vowed that she would definitely bring Han Xuan here.
“By the way, my name is Tie Linglong.”
“You are a very good little girl.”
The smile on Han Wuxian’s face was like an unrealistic aesthetic fantasy, which haunted Tie Linglong’s mind from then on. Tie Linglong went to the Xiaoyao Lake and found that Han Xuan had already left with the Dragon Army to go to the Norland. So she also went deep into the grassland and wandered around the camp of the Dragon Army. She wasn’t able to find Han Xuan but had been discovered by Chu Nanping.
She didn’t know that Han Wuxian had already been rescued by the Dragon King so she didn’t tell the others anything. During the days she had reunited with the Dragon King, she never mentioned Han Wuxian of the Waning Moon Hall in front of anyone.
Lotus didn’t mind her escaping from headquarters, but Tie Linglong’s feelings towards this sister-like Master Commander had changed. She was in awe of her now, and as soon as the order to kill Chu Nanping came out, she instinctively revealed the steel thorns in her sleeves.
