WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
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◈ I Became the Mad Demon in a Novel ◈
Chapter 28: Nine Yin White Bone Claw
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Title: Bros T_T pls tell me how to escape being a Demonic Cult slave T_T
I'm not making this up. Somehow I've ended up as a slave in the Demonic Cult. Is there any way out? T_T
One wrong move and I could lose my martial arts and everything...
I thought I'd adapted pretty well, but now I feel so fucking helpless overnight T_T
I'm seriously losing it... T_-
└Who are you, and who are you up against?
└I can't say that in the gallery...
└We need at least a rough idea before we can give you any advice. First, how good are your martial arts?
└I barely got past Luminous Transformation, Soul-Entering Blade about a month ago...
└Wait, holy shit, bro?? You're a fucking master who can keep condensing sword qi into solid force??? How'd you end up as a Demonic Cult slave?
└Because the other person is a Venerable of the Demonic Cult... I mean, one of the Seven Seats...
└What, the Seven Seats? Lmaoooo, for real?
└If that's true, aren't you screwed?
└Completely fucking screwed lmaoooo
└Go snitch to the Nine Exalted lol
Inside the rattling carriage, I stared at the Pale Enchantress Fairy, who was still avoiding my eyes.
No matter how I looked at it, this gallery post...
It really seemed like that bastard had written it.
└Which of the Seven Seats? Can't you at least tell us that?
└They said Demonic Cult. Five of the Seven Seats are in the Demonic Cult and two are in the underworld, so excluding the Heavenly Demon, it's one of the other four.
└That's a little... It could lead to my identity getting exposed later...
└Jesus fucking Christ, bro. Then don't post in the gallery. Figure it out yourself, okay?
└One thing's for sure lol. If it's the Mad Demon, I recommend just ending it lol
└True, true lol. That bastard's so nuts that neither money nor women work on him lol. He's got internal energy impotence, so you can't tempt him with martial arts either lol
The comments stopped around then.
Had something suddenly made the bastard curious too?
Why would the Mad Demon want the Pale Enchantress Sect's sword art when he didn't even have internal energy?
'Hmm.'
Those eyes kept darting through empty space. Was the bastard searching for the Mad Demon after all?
Shit, that would bring up my post immortalized among the Top Posts too.
Of course, nobody would blindly believe some shitpost without proof...
Still, it bothered me.
Deleting it now would only look stranger, so I'd have to make sure I deleted it later.
Rattle, rattle.
A strange tension ran through the shaking carriage.
It was a truly bizarre sight, each of us moving our eyes across a transparent gallery window the other couldn't see.
The Pale Enchantress Fairy was desperately trying to hide their identity, while I enjoyed that despair from the front row.
Ah, so this was what it felt like?
Now that I was the one secretly watching someone else, how should I put it...
The refreshing thrill and the rush of dopamine were no joke.
I finally understood why that Swordwood Lord bastard had kept snickering.
“Junior Sister.”
“...Yes?”
I smiled kindly at the trembling reply.
“Do you know anything about the Divine Physician of Life and Death?”
“Th-the Divine Physician of Life and Death?”
The Fragrant Immortal's younger half sibling by a different mother.
The person who would later heal the Fist Saint's dantian.
Those were the only two things I knew, both of which I'd heard from the Divine Maiden.
“Are we... going to the Shangguan Clan right now?”
“Why not?”
“Y-you're insane!”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy's shoulders suddenly shook.
“The Shangguan Clan persecuted our Pale Enchantress Sect worse than anyone! The Solitary Pine-Wind Sword, Shangguan Su! Don't you know Shangguan Su is the deputy leader of the River North Alliance?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“But... you're the Mad Demon!”
“Does anyone in River North know my face? I killed every orthodox bastard who ever so much as met my eyes.”
I twisted my lips into a strange smile at the bastard sitting there in a daze.
“They could hold my wrist and examine my pulse for seven days and nights and still learn nothing. This body contains no demonic qi arts.”
“Even so, there's no way the Divine Physician of Life and Death would treat a disciple of the Pale Enchantress Sect...”
I glanced toward the bundle and smirked.
“Well, if even this can't change the Divine Physician's mind, I'll have to acknowledge that stubbornness.”
“Don't tell me you're planning to offer them gold ingots from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult?”
“I'll exchange them for the River North Alliance's gold ingots.”
“Huh...?”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy had realized what their first task would be upon finally arriving in River North.
“It's obvious people will start calling me a Demonic Cult spy!”
“You said you'd do anything if I spared your life. This is why you should never take in a black-haired beast.”
“No, Mad... I mean, Venerable One. This is a very real problem. If I'm branded a Demonic Cult spy, do you think you'll be able to move freely with me as your junior sister?”
I folded my arms.
“You're the famous Pale Enchantress Fairy, aren't you? Are you saying you have no connections at all among the River North Alliance's higher-ups? You must know at least one rich bastard.”
The bastard's expression twisted strangely at my question.
It was a distinctly modern look, a harsh reality check mixed with resentment and self-loathing.
“Listen, Venerable One. The Pale Enchantress Sect fell because people suspected us of being evil heretics due to the demonic nature of our sword art. I... can't exchange that money.”
“That was just an excuse. Who doesn't know the Pale Enchantress Sect branched off from the Ancient Tomb Sect?”
I met that gaze with a lazy smile.
“You must have done something else to piss off those old bastards in River North. Am I wrong?”
“...”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy fell silent again.
Their gaze dropped to the floor, and their eyebrows trembled faintly.
'It's probably not just about protecting the original plot. That bastard must hate the marriage itself.'
The reason the Pale Enchantress Sect had fallen in the original story was that this Pale Enchantress Fairy had rejected a marriage proposal from the Tang Clan.
The Sichuan Tang Clan held enormous influence within the River North Alliance.
Their pride had been dragged through the mud.
That foolish choice had brought ruin to both the Pale Enchantress Fairy and the sect.
Tang Igo, the most rotten person in the orthodox faction.
That character, who had made countless readers' blood boil, had turned the rejected proposal into the Tang Clan's unique brand of revenge.
That was the story of the bastard before me, who was destined to die from Soul-Annihilating Poison one day.
“Why not just grit your teeth and accept the proposal?”
“H-how do you know about that...?”
Heh.
“You think you're the only ones with moles on the other side?”
Plenty of the River North Alliance's spies were active within the Demonic Cult.
Naturally, our Demonic Cult did the same.
The Secret Demons' activities reached far and wide, even into the Outer Regions beyond the central lands.
“It'd be better than dying from poison, wouldn't it? Even our cult finds the Tang Clan a burden when they go berserk. They aren't people you and the Pale Enchantress Sect can handle.”
Stealing in orthodox territory would have been too risky.
So the bastard had probably used a little brainpower and drifted into demonic territory instead.
But rather than collecting enough silver to buy an antidote, accepting the proposal would have solved everything.
No matter how petty Tang Igo was, they would have had no excuse to keep up the persecution.
“That's... not something I can do.”
Fair enough.
Deep down, that soul probably still thought of itself as a hairy-ass man.
Sharing a bed with Tang Igo in that state?
It was easy to say, but could I really make that choice myself?
Even knowing perfectly well that my life was at stake, it wouldn't be an easy decision.
'How am I supposed to soothe a Tang Clan bastard who's gotten that vicious? Hmm.'
The knowledge of an obsessive reader began gathering in my head.
I knew the ultimate wish the Sichuan Tang Clan had held for hundreds of years.
I also knew all about their subtle rivalry with the other great clans.
Why they lived so ruthlessly, crying, “The Tang Clan Never Forgets Favors or Grudges.”
Why they had no choice but to fixate on poison and hidden weapons rather than martial arts.
I was both an obsessive reader and a hardcore wuxia nerd.
“...The Poison Barrier?”
At my quiet mutter, the bastard perked up and listened closely.
“The Poison Barrier?”
That would explain it.
The Tang Clan had been far too persistent for this to be nothing more than ruining the Pale Enchantress Sect over a marriage.
Perhaps they didn't want the sect's name, but something that remained within it.
And when I brought together everything I knew about the setting of Mad Heaven Records...
There was only one answer.
“The Absolute Poison Being. The supreme state that only someone who has passed the Poison Barrier can attain. Not one member of the Tang Clan has crossed that barrier in the past two hundred years.”
“I know that too. But what does that have to do with...?”
“Haha! Nine Yin White Bone Claw!”
A lost claw art of the Ancient Tomb Sect flashed through my mind.
Vast amounts of corpse poison, accumulated through piles of bare bones.
The Tang Clan might be searching that terrible yin energy for a clue to overcoming the Poison Barrier.
Tang Igo, huh.
I'd thought they were nothing but a rotten idiot, but now that I looked again, they were quite the crafty little bastard.
“What do you mean, Nine Yin White Bone Claw?”
“Think about it. It doesn't make sense. The Sichuan Tang Clan has plenty of good marriage prospects, so why look for a woman in the crumbling Pale Enchantress Sect? They'd be getting the worse end of the deal.”
“What are you...?”
I pointed at the Pale Enchantress Fairy.
“It means marrying you isn't their real goal. A claw art perfected with corpse poison by breaking open hundreds of skulls. They want to find a clue to the Poison Barrier in it.”
“That's too...”
It was an evil claw art of the Ancient Tomb Sect of old, cultivated by taking human lives.
The Tang Clan still wore the outward face of an orthodox clan.
The bastard had trouble accepting that people like them would take an interest in a lost demonic art.
Meanwhile, a chill ran up my spine.
To give even a passing minor character such a detailed story!
The author of Mad Heaven Records was definitely insane.
“I'm sure of it. Tang Igo is trying to recover the lost Nine Yin White Bone Claw from you. In other words, if you hand it over, you should have more than enough leverage to make that marriage proposal disappear.”
“But...”
I cut the bastard off with another smile.
“Right, there's no way a horrible demonic art like that would still exist in the Pale Enchantress Sect. But the Pale Enchantress Art still has some traces of the Ancient Tomb Sect's Nine Yin Manual, doesn't it? Mix a few things together and make one.”
“Y-you're crazy! Are you telling me to create a fake martial art?”
“Why? What's stopping you? Just make it good enough to waste two or three years of their time before they realize it's a dead end. Everything will be over by then anyway. What, would you rather get poisoned and die?”
“That's completely absurd...”
Showing the way was all I could do.
The choice belonged to the Pale Enchantress Fairy, after all.
“But they're still members of the orthodox faction... Would they really try to learn a demonic art cultivated by sacrificing countless lives?”
“Yeah. The Tang Clan would.”
People who remained in the orthodox faction despite throwing poison and hidden weapons around.
Those vicious monsters from Sichuan were more than capable of doing such a thing.
I knew all too well how much the Poison Barrier meant to them.
“Well? Can you do it?”
“But once enough time passes...”
“If I fully restore my dantian, and you make a sufficient contribution to that, I'll protect you myself.”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy's eyes went wide.
“Really?”
“To be blunt, if we trace your roots properly, the Pale Enchantress Sect is closer to the unorthodox paths anyway. Our cult would have every reason to protect you.”
“Haa...”
The Pale Enchantress Fairy sighed, a mix of emotions in that breath.
Was that what a brain working at full power looked like?
With dark shadows beneath those sunken eyes, the bastard already looked ten years older.
“I'll do it.”
Oh?
“Good. You've made the right choice.”
“But how and where am I supposed to get proof that the martial art I create is Nine Yin White Bone Claw?”
I sank into thought for a moment, then raised my head and looked over.
“Do you happen to know Yeowol?”
“Of course. The Swordwood Lord. The leader of that enormous sect responsible for the southern part of the River North Alliance's territory, right?”
“That bastard will vouch for it.”
The bastard before me immediately went blank with shock.
“Wh-what does that mean? Please explain it so I can understand...”
I grinned.
“That bastard's going to spread the word about the Nine Yin White Bone Claw you create.”
Footnotes:
The Ancient Tomb Sect, Nine Yin Manual, and Nine Yin White Bone Claw reference Jin Yong's Condor Heroes novels.
“Never take in a black-haired beast” is a Korean saying warning that a person you help may repay you with ingratitude.
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