Faraway Wanderers Novel (English Translation)

The Past

Chapter 51.

“Back then, Rong Xuan and I, and a few others, were still in our youth and thought ourselves to be rather capable. As birds of a seedy feather, we often drank together and exchanged techniques. Rong Xuan was the most skilled among us, with the most instinctive sense of comprehension. One day, after drinking, Rong Xuan suddenly started to philosophise: if men who lived on this earth did not accomplish anything great and simply lived a quiet and obscure life, wasn’t it a regrettable loss?”

Long Que was still speaking at an extremely slow pace. On top of that, for every bit he spoke, he had to pause for a while; he might have been too weak, or those events might have been too distant in the past and required detailed recollection. Ye Baiyi’s face revealed nothing, but Wen Kexing quietened down and, for once, was listening with rapt attention.

“Rong Xuan said that the world of martial techniques was vast and profound, and that each of the supreme techniques of the various great sects in the jianghu had their strengths and shortcomings. Every few decades or centuries, a genius would appear in the pugilist world, and they would become a grandmaster of their time and start their own clan. Huashan, Kunshan, Cangshan, and the rest had all been the same. Yet, their successors were often weak, and did no more than woodenly imitate the teachings of their forebears. As each successive generation grows less capable than the one before, there will be a decline of the sect, and there will be a death of the sect. Yet, each great sect treasures their useless broomstick simply because it’s their own--they squirrel their bit of gongfu at the bottom of the chest, away from the eyes of others. After ages of doing so, innumerable divine skills and supreme techniques have been lost to time. Rong Xuan felt that it was foolish to have these ‘sects’…”

At this, Ye Baiyi could not hold back his frosty “hmph”. “These words were originally mine--that rascal did no more than repeat them word-for-word. Without looking at them, you can tell that all those who introduce themselves to be from sects and think themselves rather capable are definitely useless. They learn only what others teach them, and can master only what they’ve learnt. How are they any different from the monkeys trained by street performers? As for a supreme martial technique, isn’t it still devised by a human being? To have your skull cracked in the struggle for a secret manual that someone else wrote; not only are you plagiarising someone else’s words entirely, you’re also worshipping it as wisdom. Do you think that someone else has two brains, or do you feel that you didn’t grow one?” 

Zhou Zishu could not hold back a small laugh. Immediately, Ye Baiyi glared at him and said, “What are you laughing at? You were led astray by Qin Huaizhang, that useless thing.”

Hearing this, Long Que was silent for a long while, then said, “Senior is an extraordinary person beyond mortal thinking, indeed.”

Then, he continued, “He conceived a plan. Discussing in secret, the few of us agreed to steal the martial techniques of our respective clans and put them together to create a store of them. We’d integrate these techniques, and invent a supreme one that combined the fortes of the clans. I crafted the mechanism for the martial store, which was the whole, complete Lapis Armour in those legends. After it was opened, a key was still required. The Lapis Armour was separately entrusted to each of us for safekeeping, while Madam Rong was responsible for the key…”  

Ye Baiyi interrupted him again. “Combine the fortes of the clans? In this world, strengths and weaknesses are interdependent. Nothing can be solely advantageous without its disadvantages--what he said is bullshit. Can the Vajra Palmstrike and E’Mei Barb be fused together? Can a burly and thickset man squeeze into a petite girl’s skirts? This is a logic that even children understand--if you can genuinely understand the true philosophy of martial arts, you can even glean insights from the falling leaves and flowers, or the rise and fall of waves. If you can't, even if you steal all the classic manuals under the sky, you're no more than one who copies from books."