Chapter 530 |
The next day, South Imperial City was abuzz with discussion. Naturally, it was because Chui Yim finally took on his first challenge.
However, Yuen Tin was an unknown cultivator, thus the public only perceived him as a naive teen monk with dreams of defeating the seventh teacher of Cloud Palace. Chui Yim’s attack looked mighty, but the public did not care much about it as they were busy sneering at the challenger who let Chui Yim have the first move.
Who does he think he is? Giving the first move to the seventh teacher? Even Yuen Yau, the talented gliphist of Apex Temple, wouldn’t dare make such a move!
Thus, nobody attached value to the fight despite Chui Yim destroying a piece of Apex Temple’s wall.
But Chui Yim and Kam Chin Kee didn’t care either way as they were ready to leave.
The day after, Chui Yim exited his room with the breakfast Lam Ming Sum prepared for him.
It tugged Kan Hang’s heartstrings to have his precious princess treat herself like a maid, but this was nothing much to the teenagers as this was their lifestyle. It was either Lam Ming Sum or Hui Sai Cheong who made them breakfast back at Cloud Palace too.
“Did you find anything interesting?” Chui Yim sat, munching on his fried dough and taking a bite of the porridge. “This tastes so good,” he complimented Lam Ming Sum, to which the other only replied with a smile.
“The Great Wisdom Hung Clan?” Chui Yim took a random one.
Kam Chin Kee nodded. “The Hung Clan is known for their short-range fighting techniques, especially their martial arts skills. They are the best in the South, and other than the Northern Blazing Skies Mountain, nobody dares to claim themselves better than the Hung Clan in this regard.”
The invitation was written with neat and clean sentences, but Chui Yim felt the provocation. Other than being famous for their martial arts, the clan members were also known for their personalities. Hung Ching Sun was a good example; four years ago during the Cloud Palace enrollment, he tried to go against ten other participants alone. This was how proud and confident their clan was.
When the Lam Dynasty was first established, the Hung Clan leader of that generation contributed largely to it. Because of how the clan leader enjoyed freedom compared to staying under the emperor’s rule, the first Emperor Lam understood and allowed him to build and rule a city of his own in the western area of the South, and that was how Great Wisdom City came to be.
The word “Great” in Great Wisdom represented the Hung Clan.
TL note: In Chinese, “Hung” has the meaning of great.
All Hung Clan members had a sense of pride instilled in them, which only strengthened after hundreds of years. To them, immigrants to South Imperial City were all brainless as they believed that South Imperial City was a place where their ancestors were unwilling to stay, thus, they built a city of their own. South Imperial City was just like a piece of meat the Hung Clan ancestors despised in their eyes.
Even so, the Hung Clan’s ability left everyone in awe.
Unlike Suen San Kuk’s problem in Southern Ping, Great Wisdom City was filled with many institutions they called martial arts schools. There were many factions even for martial arts, and the elites of different factions had spars from time to time.
Great Wisdom City was where one could learn the best martial arts techniques, and even Chor Huet Zhin created the Bloody War Strike based on an idea from Hung Zhin.
Such a place was interesting since Chui Yim mainly cultivated martial arts and Kam Chin Kee specialised in weird assassination methods. There was no designated destination for their journey down the mountain; it was all up to them.
The second invitation was from Mok Ching Sau, the current water-casting grandmaster and pioneer of water-casting. Hidden Vanguard City was known as the sacred place of all water casters in the world, and this letter contained admiration, politeness, and interest towards Chui Yim’s weapon refining method.
At the end of the day, Chui Yim was a fire-forger, but he didn’t need to cast like other fire-forgers did, and he created his own faction. In Mok Ching Sau’s letter, he expressed that they both should meet, have tea, and discuss forging.
The third letter was not an invitation per se but a battle letter that every Cloud Palace disciple of every generation would receive. It was not from any clan, organisation, or huge city, but it held greater weight than the previous two invitations mentioned.
It was blood red, just like the Red River mixed with blood and river water. This was a battle letter from the North.
Cloud Palace might stay out of worldly affairs, but being in the South, it was considered a Southern organisation, and the North was unhappy to have a Southern organisation ranked as first in the world, especially for a thousand years in a row.
Since they were unhappy, the North paid a lot of attention to and felt hostility towards Cloud Palace. There was an unspoken rule for Cloud Palace Itinerants – they must accept all challenges that come at them unless it wasn’t the disciple’s area of expertise. Of course, if someone challenged the fire-forger Chui Yim to a rock-paper-scissors battle, it didn’t have any value even if the other party won; they would be ashamed to tell the world that they defeated Cloud Palace in such a manner too.
Thus, Hui Sai Cheong did not only have to accept gliphism challenges when he made the journey down the mountain but all kinds of challenges from other g-chefs, while many great masters in Go competed with Wong Kei and Wat Suen had to face great musicians of the world.
The three teenagers started packing their items. Four years ago, Kam Chin Kee won a pentachromatic divine rock from a bet with Duen Por Do in the Metallic Blood Giant Tower. The rock was sufficient for Chui Yim to make every Cloud Palace member a Divine Bracelet of Five Elements each, other than Hui Sai Cheong who already had one.
Because of the enormous storage space, the trio could pack anything they wanted.
It was nighttime soon, and Chui Yim shut himself in the room. He did not cultivate today like he always did. Instead, he sat on a cushion, staring at the item in his hands with a complicated look.
It was an embroidered pouch. Many years ago, Chui Tin left four pouches for Chui Yim, three red and one black, before he left. The black pouch was meant to save Chui Yim’s life, while there was one last red pouch left.
The first was meant for Chui Yim to open when he decided on his institution. Chui Tin left a Recording Gliph in the pouch with a detailed voice note on suggestions for Southern institutions.
Chui Yim opened the second when he broke through in the Forbidden Forest. Chui Yim didn’t know how, but somehow it allowed Chui Tin to reach him physically and tattoo his gliph for him.
As for the third pouch, Chui Tin instructed in the Recording Gliph for him to open it when he returned from the mountain. This meant that Chui Tin had long known about how Cloud Palace disciples would have to leave the mountain for a journey, and he was reminded of the notes at the end of the books in Cloud Forest…
Who exactly is Chui Tin? Chui Yim opened the pouch after taking a deep breath.
