Great Merchant - Dao Ming (Chapter 11 - Disciple of Parvati, Disciple of Bhaisajyaguru 6)

Er... yeah... about EC. Sorry, I wanted to read more dao ming and I didn't have the brain/creativity to do the rewrite properly for the EC chapter (it was cringeworthy, it's my first solo chapter contribution, I'd slap my past self if I could =.=) Enjoy dao ming, didn't expect the sudden jump, but now I just want more >.>

Also, Happy Canada's Day for those that had sunshine! (We had rain here, the BBQ... T.T)

Just going to slap this here and see how shameless some of these fuckers are, whoever copy and paste this on another site. It was stolen from ecwebnovel.blogspot.ca which is the sole location authorized by the copyright holders, so bugger off.


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4 years later

Jade Wing Sect, Dueling Grounds

“Go, Chunye! Kick his ass!” An energetic, blossoming young lady cheers from the front rows of the stands. A few of the disciples guarding the perimeter of the arena sneak peeks at her youthful, alluring form. The leading members of the sect smile softly as they sip their tea, watching the fight unfolding on the stage.

““Ha!”” ““Ha!”” A handsome youth, dressed in a green uniform embroidered with a hawk, lunges towards another youth, dressed in a similar outfit save for the blue colour and the cloud-like embroidery.

The initial right-hand lunge fist gets parried to the side with a sweeping motion with the defending youth’s leading hand, pushing it away from slightly behind the wrist. Before he can counterattack with his trailing hand, the attacking youth lowers his body by crossing his legs unexpectedly and flowing with the force of the block and the momentum of his lunge.

DUP

Like a compressed spring, the attacking youth’s lowered body bounces upward sharply from the unnaturally close distance, striking the other youth’s collarbone with an elbow. Unwilling to just receive the attack one-sidedly, the defending youth sends out a low kick against the other’s back leg. As though expecting it, the arm with the elbow strike extends outward and grasps the youth’s face with an inverted backhand, with his middle finger firmly in the ear.

FWOOSH

The low kick lands solidly, but with the sudden shift in weight forward, the attacking youth’s back leg had no resistance to the kick, dissipating most of the damage. With the defending youth’s precarious balance, the attacking youth forcefully pushes down with his right hand while stepping forward with his kicked leg, smashing down with his winded up left hand, causing the defending youth to fall backward with a THUD, facing towards the sky.

The face of the laid out youth stiffens as the sunlight is blocked by a leg that’s rapidly descending towards his head.

KLUNG

The foot lands next to the youth’s head, creating large cracks in the thick stone tiles that make up the stage. The youth on the floor continues to stare at the leg with wide eyes, obviously a little shaken.

“The winner, Young Master Chunye of the Jade Wing Sect!” A middle-age man announces loudly as he walks onto the stage, enthusiastic applause pouring down from 3 sides of the square stage. A few elders of the Jade Wing Sect clap slowly, with a displeased look on their face.

“Thanks for the pointers, big brother!” Chunye pulls the downed youth up with one hand, showing a big smile.

“Ah, um, yes, thank you.” The other youth stutters out a reply before quickly running down the stage with his head down and a cramped face.

As the youth proceeds back to the section where his sect is seated at during this Youth Pointer Exchange Gathering… “Che! Senior-brother, how can you lose to some cripple? Do you have any face left?” Another youth sneers as soon as he gets within ear shot, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear as the applause dies down, causing everyone’s attention to fall onto him.

“What?! This Young Master is saying the truth and you all know it! That damn kid is a cripple, so what if he can swing his fists and legs a little better now! If it wasn’t for his underhanded techniques, how would disciples from our righteous Blue Cloud sect lose to him?!”

“Little Lam(南 - south), you are going too far. Apologize.” The dignified man sitting next to the youth admonishes without force, merely paying lip service while shrewdly endorsing the youth’s words.

The youth twists his lips and rolls his eyes while making a sloppy salute with a cupped fist. “This Young Master’s words might have been offensive, please forgive my straight forwardness.”

“Forgive your granddad! You call that an apology?!” Chunlai jumps forward from her seat, putting a hand on her hip while pointing at the youth with the other. “Young Master, Young Master, what Young Master? All I see is a horse-faced, triangle-eyed, hippo-eared, fish-lipped, elephant-nosed, damned-monkey spirit, not a part of you looks human, let alone the semblance of a Young Master!”

A sect elder nearby sprays out the mouthful of tea that he was drinking, her father covers his face with one hand, the other elders turn away in embarrassment or try to suppress their laughter, as their torsos shake visibly. The rest of the audience aren’t as reserved as they hold their stomach in laughter, causing their respective sect elders to try and calm them down half-heartedly.

Who doesn’t love drama? Especially when it involves other sects? Everyone not involved knows they are in for a good show, who doesn’t know the firecracker heir of the Jade Wing sect? The last time the Bright Snow sect tried to matchmake her with their heir-apparent, she nearly crushed the boy’s family jewels for slapping one of her sect’s disciple for not bringing the tea fast enough. And now you want to pick on her brother?! You are seeking death! Even your ancestors wouldn’t want to deal with this tigress!

“Wh-what did you just call me?” The youth stutters as he brings his hands to feel his own facial features. His father, the sect leader, scowls with a dark face, disappointed at his son’s lack of rebuttal.

“Not looking like human, not looking like spirit, might as well call you a freak!”

[T/N: 人不像人，妖不像妖，只能稱呼你為人妖! - translates as “human not looking like human, spirit not looking like spirit, (we) can only call you a “freak”!, the freak here also has a connotation of being androgynous, so yeah, she’s saying he’s not a man… nor a woman, and with the physical descriptions, not really human either, www]

The laughter only gets louder as the disciples of the Blue Cloud sect look at each other anxiously.

“Hmm! So the cripple has to hide behind a woman now?” One of the wittier elders cuts in to try and save some face.

“Cripple this, cripple that. What do you call your fellow disciple that lost to him, then?” A heavily tanned youth strolls out from the crowd that’s next to the Blue Cloud’s section.

“Damn kid, which sect are you from? Didn’t your elders teach you any manners?”

“Exchange Disciple of the Jade Wing Sect, Li Hou Tong.”

“Che, what exchange disciple? Only a half-baked sect will have such a half-baked rank! You dare to interrupt me?!”

Tong was originally a bully; it was just that he realized his errors and reformed after spending time with Ming. Incidentally, having to deal with the entitled brat that’s Chunlai all these years, his true nature surfaced again, albeit within bounds of civility this time around.

“Wow! Your sect still has the face to say that?! I sincerely apologize that your sect’s Young Master is a freak and one of your elders has gone senile.” He makes an exaggerated, effeminate curtsy sarcastically, silencing the crowd for a moment before they react festively again. He drops his joking demeanor and returns to a neutral expression. “My masters and I already completely cured Chunye, are you trying to say we are incompetent?”

The elder’s face darkens as he shifts his eyes, trying to recall all the famous physicians in the region.

“Speaking of manners, since you want to talk manners, I do believe you’d still have to address me as ‘Mister’, no?” Tong didn’t let up before looking up at the sun and squinting, bringing out a fan to cool himself.

“Hmph! Just cause you say you are a physician, we should believe you?!” The elder doesn’t recall a physician this young, thus determining that the youth is bluffing.

“Aiyah, is your dementia kicking in again? You can just ask Chunye you know.” Tong dismissively taps his temple before pointing towards the Jade Wing section. “Haaa, you know what, I don’t want to argue with someone senile, it just isn’t right. Let me talk with your freak, err… I mean your Young Master Ham… I mean umm… Lam?” He does the exaggerated curtsy once more, causing the entirety of the Blue Cloud sect to stare at him with daggers in their eyes. The rest of the onlookers are grinning, with some that had close relationship with the Jade Wing sect shaking their heads.

“Hmph! Damn feeble scholars, all you can do is mouth off! Yeah! I’m calling you incompetent, your master is incompetent, and your master’s master is incompetent! Pei! If you have the nerve, get on the stage with me!”

Tong makes a show of being scared, playing up the crowd. “Well, if you insist.” He shrugs his shoulders, closes his fan and walks up to the stage, making a proper salute to the referees before settling on a spot.

“““PFFT!””” The inner disciples and the brother-sister pair has to control themselves, causing all but a few of the sect elders to look at them with harsh eyes.

The already fuming Young Master storms up the stage with a rage, his red face burning. “I’m going to make you regret this!”

“Sorry, but I don’t swing that way.”

Even the audience is starting to feel sorry for the Young Master at this point.

“You better be a good physician, because you are going to be crippled by the time I’m done with you.”

“Ah, wait, wait.” He waves at one of the referees to come over to them.

“It’s too late for you to back out now.” The Young Master answers with a scowl.

“Oh, no, no, I’m just making sure, you said Little Ye used underhanded tricks right?”

“So what?”

“So, I’m asking, what is considered underhanded.” He directs a hand to the referee to indicate he should listen in.

The question momentarily confuses the youth as even he knows Chunye didn’t do anything wrong. As a last resort, he just blurts out. “The face grab!”

“Ah, okay, so strikes only.” Tong looks at the referee, who nods to affirm that he heard it.

“Okay, ready when you are, freak.”

“BASTARD!” The Young Master screams as he launches a flurry of attacks, which Tong parries with ease by slapping them down.

After a while, he starts singing in tune with the parries. “Hit the fly, hit the fly, kill the freaking annoying fly.”

Huff Huff

The initial burst of energy Lam showed has already died down, with him taking deep breaths.

“Oh, you are done? Guess it’s my turn.” Tong flicks his hands as he rolls his shoulder, causing Lam to look at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“A slap to the left, a slap to the right, a slap down the forehead to set the dumb kid straight.”
“A punch to the left, a punch to the right, give the bastard a pair of panda eyes.”
“A palm to the left, a palm to the right, let’s see if we can turn you into an elephant.”

[T/N: The last line is a pun, palm and elephant sounds the same. Yeah, I tried to keep the rhyme, it doesn’t sound as smooth in english though… T.T]

As soon as Tong stops attacking, the Young Master stumbles forward, leaning on his shoulders. “Aiyah! I accidentally called you salt(Ham), you don’t have to give me salted pork feet (Ham Ji Sao - perverted hands).” Tong gestures the referee on the stage who seems to be in a daze. After snapping out of it, he quickly rushes forward to support the barely recognizable youth.

“The winner is Mister Li, Li Hou Tong!” The referee announces the result right away, gesturing for the competition physician to come up. The armrests that were on the chairs the leaders of the Blue Cloud sect are seated in are crushed to dust with a pluff, their eyes glaring at Tong.

“Here, use this.” Tong lightly tosses a small porcelain bottle with a yellow feather stopper to the physician who’s rushing up to the stage. “Don’t worry, he’s just swollen and dizzy, he will be fine. Just consider this beating his medical fee.”

The physician immediately pulls open the stopper to inspect the medicine, since he can’t easily trust the medication that is not made by himself. The heavy, pungent smell assaults his nostrils, a thick emulsion of some sort sticks to the bottom of the stopper where a stem extend deep into the bottle. “Seohong Oinment?”

Tong nods as he casually walks towards the Blue Cloud’s section of stage. “Is this good enough for you? What did you say about righteousness and underhandedness again?” He mocks the elder that was mouthing off earlier, causing his ears to go red.

“Little brat, don’t go too far, at least give your elders some face.” The sect leader warns with a cold expression.

“Going too far? Face is something others give you, dignity is something you lose yourself. Who said Chunye is still a cripple? Who here didn’t think we physicians are incompetent?” Tong sweeps his eyes at the elders and disciples, forcing them to evade eye contact. The elder who overestimated his own wittiness can only stare at the tiles. “Don’t say I am not doing my job, here.” The tanned youth tosses a small satchel towards Chunye’s previous opponent while maintaining his eye contact with the sect master. “Boil this with some salt water and gargle your mouth for the next week or so, same with your drinking partner. You two should stop going to the brothels so much, at least wait until the disease clears up.”

[T/N: The drinking partner should be pretty obvious...]

The disciple’s face turn pale as the Blue Cloud sect master snaps his head in his direction, with his eyes wide, he slowly shifts his eyes to some of the elders, who lower their heads in shame.

Satisfied, Tong walks towards the Jade Wing section, fanning himself as he squints at the blazing sun once more.

“Big Brother Tong, that was way too stylish!” Chunye was the first one to welcome Tong, jumping right onto his back. “What was that earlier? You just swept back and forth, even the strike.”

“That was the Goshawk strike sequence.”

“Isn’t that just a basic form… it can be used like that?” The inner disciples that overheard, question each other as though they must have heard it wrong.

“Little Tong.” Sect Master Hong says with a stern voice. “Apologize to Blue Cloud sect master, you went a little too far.” The burly man gives him a wink to express his true feelings, making it clear that he’s doing the admonishment just for appearances. The Righteous sects had always made fun of Jade Wing for having a cripple as one of the heirs, now that ‘the carp has leapt through the dragon’s gate’, it’s his turn to rub it in their face.

Tong spreads his hands wide, almost into the position of a curtsy, making the audience hold their breath. After a moment’s delay, he instead cups his fist and salutes towards the Blue Cloud section. “This weak, humble apprentice got a little hotheaded, I ask that you elders will overlook any transgressions.”

The Blue Cloud sect leader storms off forcefully, shattering the already broken chair.

“Hmph, taking advantage of my brother? Not in this life!” Chunlai declares while tilting her head back, her nose up, looking down upon the Blue Cloud personnel.