Chapter 11: The Fifth Grandmaster?
Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio Editor: Nyoi_Bo_Studio
Fei Jie slowly frowned. Because he believed that the blind man was possessed of great power, he never considered ‘the potential problems with Fan Xian’s zhenqi training. And yet today, while checking his pulse, he discovered something unusual.
Seeing his usually obscene teacher being all cautious, Fan Xian realized too that something was wrong. Grinning, he asked: "Is there a problem?"
"Look at you, grinning like that; aren’t you afraid of becoming too obsessed?" Fei Jie stared at him, continuing, "The last time, I only knew the zhenqi you were training with was tremendous, but never did I imagine it to be like this."
Fan Xian scratched his head: "Tremendous? Tremendous how?"
Fei Jie answered seriously: "Quite tremendous."
Fan Xian looked back, also seriously: "Teacher, we’re just talking nonsense here."
...
...
Fei Jie is an expert at poisoning, not a grandmaster of martial arts, so naturally he could not determine what sort of ability Fan Xian’s nameless zhenqi was. He could, however, very much feel the dangerous power of the zhenqi emitting from the child’s body. After some thought, he urged Fan Xian to go find Wu Zhu, but unexpectedly, Fan Xian sighed sadly and said that Uncle Wu Zhu only listened to what his mother said and gave the book to him; he himself had never trained and also refused to say too much on the matter.
Fei Jie raged: "Master Wu is being too unreasonable. You are the Young Master of his house; why did he, instead of instructing you himself, make you learn such a dangerous ability without any guidance?"
For the past year, he had taken this five-year-old as his greatest source of consolation during his later years in life. Even more than that, he hoped Fan Xian would carry his mantle in the future and glorify all he had learned. For those reasons, Fei Jie became angry at the blind Wu Zhu when he heard this.
"Is Uncle Wu Zhu really strong?" Fan Xian squinted as he asked his question, looking like a little fox.
"Of course." Fei Jie leisurely thought of the past. "It’s just that not that many people in this world know of Master Wu’s existence… Have you heard of the Four Great Grandmasters?"
Of course Fan Xian had heard of them. In today’s world, worshipped by the common people like gods, they were the Four Great Grandmasters whose martial arts’ prowess reigned supreme. Counting on one hand, there were two in the Kingdom of Qing, one in the Kingdom of North Qi, and another in Eastern Yi City.
In the current world, Qing had already held an overwhelming advantage, having being led by its emperor. But strangely, after the political bloodshed from the year before, the nation prospered while the emperor became rather quiet and no longer attempted to expand his territory. But that aside, it was only natural for the strongest nation to have two of the strongest people.
"Indeed, we currently have two of the Grandmasters residing here." Fei Jie laughed coolly: "Humans are foolish; they only recognize the strength in fighting. Never would they realize that if one’s skill with poison were to reach otherworldly proficiency, he too could be a grandmaster…"
Fan Xian suddenly cleared his throat to stop his teacher’s gloating.
"… If we exclude the most mysterious temple, Qing has two of the Four Great Grandmasters, one of them being the younger brother of the teacher of the current Jingdu Commander of Defense, Ye Liuyun."
Fan Xian opened his eyes wide, thinking that this was a pretty big reputation. But the defense force was in charge of safety for the entire region, the most important position. That commander’s teacher’s… younger brother, Ye Liuyun or whatever, must have been very strong.
"There’s another strong one, and he supposedly lives in the royal palace, though no one has seen him."
"Hey, teacher, we were talking about Uncle Wu Zhu."
"What’s the hurry?" Fei Jie gave Fan Xian another stare, "the one named Ye Liuyun lived through seventeen duels without losing a single one. But once, when your mother came to the city for the first time, she beat the current Commander of Defense to a pulp. That commander, named Ye Zhong, happens to be Ye Liuyun’s nephew, and for that reason he wanted to stir up trouble for your mother."
Fan Xian was stunned. He had no idea that the mother he never saw was once such an arrogant character.
Fei Jie chuckled: "but something happened later; Ye Liuyun suddenly stopped troubling your mother, and Ye Zhong even went to Taiping Temple to pour tea for her and apologize."
"Huh?"
"No one knows what happened; it’s an absolute mystery. But I’m guessing Ye Liuyun and Master Wu Zhu fought once behind the palace walls. Master Wu is your mother’s servant, so it’s not unusual for him to come out and deal with such things." Fei Jie raised the teacup that was by his hand and took a sip.
"Who won in the end?" Fan Xian’s eyes were full of curiosity. While he knew that Wu Zhu was strong, he did not expect the blind man to have the experience of dueling one of the Four Great Grand Masters, Ye Liuyun.
"No one knows, but it was probably a draw." Fei Jie chuckled.
"Apparently, after he went back to his sword school, he trained his swordsmanship for half a year while blindfolded. After that, he gave up the sword and picked up a series of ancient sanshou, truly becoming a grandmaster. Thinking back, that battle must have brought him much enlightenment.."
Fan Xian propped up his little face, thinking, "Four Great Grandmasters? Does that mean Wu Zhu is the fifth?"
Fan Xian’s eyes sparkled in awe, in awe of the fact that his own blind servant would be so ridiculously strong! When he ventures out into the world someday, who would he have to be afraid of?
Suddenly he had a question. "Teacher, didn’t you say these things are secret? How do you know all this?"
Fei Jie said coolly, "I’m a high-ranking official in the Supervising Department. For us, there are no secrets in this world."
For some reason, Fan Xian had always been interested in the strong people of this world, as if some years later he would run into one of them, which is why he asked, "The other three, Teacher; have you seen them?"
"The other one in Qing only exists in legends; I suspect he is in the royal palace, but no one has actually seen him." Fei Jie said: "as for the Grandmaster of North Qi, that would be their Head Priest, that perverted bald man named Ku He."
"Bald?" Fan Xian assumed that a world without Buddhism wouldn’t have monks..
"A monk; I heard Ku He was once a pilgrim, kneeling on the temple steps for three months, subsisting on the cold and dew. Somehow, he managed to move those in the temple, and thus received divine theology and became a grandmaster." Fei Jie spat out in disgust, appearing to be jealous of the pilgrim named Ku He: "you can tell that baldy is a liar from a glance."
"Temple?"
"Temple; the place is a temple."
"Teacher, you’re talking nonsense again."
"… The temple is the most mysterious existence on the continent; supposedly it was the place where our ancestors worshipped. But unfortunately, other than the extremely fortunate bastards, no one could find exactly where it is, and so no one knows what it is like inside."
"Maybe… this temple doesn’t exist at all?"
Fei Jie hit Fan Xian’s small head hard: "I don’t care if you mess around every day, but how dare you be so disrespectful towards such a holy place!"
Fan Xian held his head and looked at his teacher in shock, first from the fact that his teacher, who kills with poison without blinking, turned out to hold reverence towards a temple, and second, from the fact that he himself accepted what he heard so easily, superstitious things like Four Great Grandmasters and temples.
"Looks like I fit in this world after all."