The Dark Horse

In the sixth year of Yongtai, there lived a nineteen-year-old youth named Shen Youran. Back then, he was utterly unknown. Hardly anyone knew who he was, where he came from, or under whom he had studied martial arts. The very first time people came to know and remember him was at that year's Mid-Autumn Youth Heroes Assembly. The person who had invited him was Gu Qizong, the leader of the Tianqi Gang, who had been in charge of organizing the gathering at the time. Without a doubt, Gang Leader Gu had likewise made use of that privilege—extending a special invitation at the organizer's personal discretion—to bring Shen Youran into the assembly. Unlike Sect Leader Shen today, however, Gang Leader Gu possessed no bitter adversaries like the Water Transport Gang. He enjoyed extraordinary popularity. Across both the orthodox and unorthodox paths, in officialdom and the jianghu alike, Gu Qizong was universally praised as an embodiment of soaring gallantry and righteous heroism. Forget his friends; even his enemies held him in high esteem. Hence, no one questioned in the slightest why Gu Qizong would invite such an obscure lad to attend, and Gu Qizong himself never offered an explanation to anyone. As it turned out, Shen Youran became the greatest dark horse of that year's assembly. Accomplished in both letters and arms, he effortlessly seized the championship with overwhelming dominance. Just when everyone assumed this unaffiliated Young Hero Shen would seize the momentum to join the Tianqi Gang, which was in its heyday back then, he chose instead to enter the Luoyang Justice Sect—a sect that was still quite weak at the time. As the saying goes, thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river; times change. In the blink of an eye, twelve years had passed. Today, Shen Youran was the youngest sect leader in the history of the Justice Sect, renowned throughout the jianghu. Under his leadership, the Justice Sect, which had once been the frailest among the Four Sects and Three Gangs, had risen with astonishing speed. Yet the Tianqi Gang had already vanished from the martial world... As for the reason behind its disappearance, it was hardly a secret, for it involved a monumental event that had sent shockwaves through the entire martial world. In the seventh year of Yongtai, thirteen martial sects led by the Tianqi Gang marched under Gu Qizong's command to wipe out the main altar of the Five Spirits Cult, the paramount cult of the unorthodox path. In that campaign, several thousand cult members of the Five Spirits Cult were practically wiped out. Seeing that all was lost, Cult Leader Yi Shixiong set fire to the altar, intending to perish together with those figures of the thirteen martial sects. The Five Spirits Cult's main altar was hidden deep inside a mountain cavern, built upon natural caves and expanded with vast amounts of timber and brick. Once the fire started, the entire cavern was inundated with dense smoke and rapidly began collapsing. Anyone who remained inside faced certain death. In the end, setting aside the casualties sustained during the prior fighting, fewer than thirty percent of the men from those thirteen sects managed to escape the flames. Fortunately, the leaders of those sects all made it out safely. Yet... Gu Qizong alone did not emerge. When the fire broke out, Gu Qizong had been locked in a duel against Yi Shixiong. The two were fighting tooth and nail, evenly matched, leaving Gu Qizong entirely unable to disengage. Thus, a peerless hero of his generation perished alongside the demonic cult leader, buried in a sea of flames beneath the ruins of the collapsed cavern, his remains lost forever. After Gu Qizong died, the Tianqi Gang fell into steady decline. They had already suffered the heaviest losses in the battle against the Five Spirits Cult, to say nothing of the colossal blow dealt by the loss of their gang leader. Three years later, the Tianqi Gang could no longer sustain itself; with no other choice, the monkeys scattered when the tree fell. Such was the way of the world: peak prosperity inevitably led to decline, and going to extremes bred ruin. Precisely because Gu Qizong's martial prowess and personal charisma were unrivaled under heaven, all of the Tianqi Gang's cohesion had derived from him alone. Once he was gone, all the problems previously masked by his brilliance surged to the surface, ultimately swallowing the foundation he had built. When Gu Qizong died, he was only thirty-one years old, the exact same age Shen Youran was now. Because he practiced the Innate Boy's Art, he had never married, let alone left behind any descendants. Today, although many still remembered him, his name was rarely mentioned anymore... The jianghu was just such a place. No matter what standing and accomplishments you once attained, once you died, people would forget you within ten years. In your wake, ambitious, domineering new generations would forever arise to seize the limelight. No one could rule the jianghu forever, across a thousand generations. Of course, there were some things that would not fade into oblivion as life slipped away. On the contrary, like fine wine, they grew only more potent with the passage of time. Hatred, for instance. Shen Youran bore hatred. Bound by a certain tie of fate, he had sworn to avenge Gu Qizong, and the target of his vengeance was... the entire martial world. This Youth Heroes Assembly was the first step of his grand scheme of retribution. Though complex to execute, he had already accomplished seventy percent of it; one could say it was proceeding rather smoothly. As for who would ultimately claim first place in the martial exam, Shen Youran had long ceased to pay attention or care. And among the two youths about to take the stage in the next quarterfinal match, there was also one who did not care in the least about the outcome of the fight. His Buddhist Dharma name was Chun Kong. Though Chun Kong was only just past sixteen years old, his seniority and prestige in the Shaolin Temple were anything but low. As mentioned earlier, when Sun and Huang first saw Chun Kong, they had observed that he was "clad in monk's robes, with ordination scars atop his head, possessing delicate features, fair teeth, and red lips." There was a detail here... generally speaking, according to the rules of the Shaolin Temple in this universe, a novice monk of sixteen or seventeen was typically not qualified to bear ordination scars on his head. One had to achieve notable progress in spiritual practice and attain a certain level of recognition in Buddhist Dharma before earning the right to have a master burn ordination scars upon their crown. Why, then, was Chun Kong different from the others? This matter required going back in time... Sixteen years ago, on a night of raging wind and snow, Master Jichen of the Shaolin Temple found an abandoned infant in a ruined temple. When Jichen discovered the child, the baby's breath was already as faint as gossamer, lying motionless, with frozen tear streaks frosted across his face. It was evident that the child had been abandoned in the temple for at least an hour or two; he had wept continuously in the freezing cold and starvation, until at last he did not even have the strength left to make a sound. At the time, Jichen had been undertaking an ascetic pilgrimage, relying on alms and lodging along the way for sustenance and shelter. That night, he himself had gone hungry for two days and a night, managing with great difficulty to beg half a bowl of plain congee. Braving the wind and snow, he had reached the ruined temple, intending to light a fire to warm the congee before drinking it, only to encounter such a sight. Monks were guided by compassion, all the more so for an eminent monk like Jichen. Seeing that the child still possessed a sliver of breath, he hurriedly unfastened his robes, tucked the baby against his chest, and used his own body heat to warm the infant. He quickly built a fire, gently blew on the heated congee until it was mild and lukewarm, and patiently fed it to the child mouthful by mouthful. In the end, he himself had not eaten a single bite. That was how Chun Kong had miraculously survived. Later, Jichen brought him back to Shaolin, but gave him no formal name, calling him simply "Child." From infancy, Chun Kong possessed a natural affinity with the Buddha. Immersed in the teachings day after day, as soon as he learned to speak, he was able to chant Buddhist sutras, displaying firmly rooted wisdom and a lucid, tranquil nature. By the time he turned five, Jichen finally accepted him as an official disciple, bestowing upon him the Dharma name "Chun Kong." That year, Master Jichen was already fifty-three years old. The disciples of the next generation—the "Chun" generation, which shared seniority with Chun Kong—were almost thirty even at their youngest. Therefore, the forty-year-old pillars of the Shaolin Temple today were actually peers of the same generation as Chun Kong. The eminent monks in their sixties and seventies were his masters and martial uncles, while those in their twenties and thirties had to address him as "Little Martial Uncle." In terms of Buddhist Dharma, Chun Kong was practically the Golden Cicada reborn. When fellow disciples of his generation discussed Buddhist scriptures with him, they spoke of "seeking guidance." With his level of spiritual cultivation, it would be no problem at all for him to lecture on the sutras and teach the abbot of some local temple. As for martial arts, Shaolin had a rule that many were likely aware of: the more profound the martial art, the more corresponding Buddhist Dharma was needed to neutralize its hostility. In other words, only when one's Buddhist Dharma reached a certain depth could one learn martial arts of an equivalent level. Consequently, from an early age, Chun Kong had studied one of the supreme inner energy cultivation methods of the Chan Sect: the Lankavatara Cultivation Method, whose full name was the "Lankavatara Ratna Cultivation Method." Just how formidable was this inner energy? Put it this way... it belonged to the same tier as "Reversing Heaven and Earth." Provided one practiced it conscientiously for ten years, their internal force alone would unquestionably rank among the level of sect-leader-grade masters of first-rate sects. Chun Kong had begun practicing martial arts at the age of nine, meaning he had trained for seven years up to the present. Because his inner energy foundation was solid, he learned techniques exceptionally fast. When it came to combat techniques, his master had merely "casually taught him a few moves." Master Jichen himself specialized in palm techniques, so he passed down to Chun Kong a set of the Weituo Palm and a set of the Great Compassion Thousand Leaf Hands, laying the groundwork for the Prajna Palm along the way. In summary, while outsiders knew little of Chun Kong's true strength, according to his master's estimation, he was already capable of trading blows on equal terms with the monks who studied advanced martial arts in the Bodhidharma Hall. One could say that Chun Kong was the true, greatest dark horse of this Youth Heroes Assembly. Yet he himself possessed not the slightest competitive desire... Earlier, during the literary exam, Chun Kong had written and submitted a vast treatise on Chan philosophy, leaving the proctor in charge, the Iron-Faced Scholar Qiao Chengshu, thoroughly flabbergasted. Qiao had promptly awarded him first place in the literary exam. And the person who claimed first place in the literary exam was the only one granted a bye through the first four rounds, advancing straight into the top eight. Which meant that Chun Kong, appearing in this first match of the quarterfinals, had not fought a single match in the martial exam prior to this, having yet to display his formidable prowess. Who, then, was the unfortunate fellow slated to fight Chun Kong in this upcoming duel? Recall, if you will: who was the person who had fought his way up from the very first match of the first round—the branch at the bottom-left corner of the bracket? Indeed... it was Lei Buji.