The Card Apprentice

As soon as he got back to the Chichi Trading Firm, Chen Mu bluntly said, “Anyone is forbidden to enter without my permission.” He then plunged into the training room. After so many days, Ah Sang was rather used to that routine and didn’t seem surprised. She also had a lot to do. With the violent death of the patriarch of the Miao family, the Southern Star Firm would undoubtedly fall into chaos.

For the Chichi Trading Firm, not only would it resolve the immediate danger, but it would be a wonderful opportunity to expand. However, Ah Sang was intelligent enough to understand that the death of the Miao family patriarch would be the fuse for all of Zargan to descend into chaos. The Chichi Trading Firm would have to find some way to not only survive the whirlpool in the midst of the chaos but to use it to move up.

Her heart started to race, but what she needed to do at the time was to calmly assess the situation. Almost any power in the whirlpool would be bigger than her, and any one of them could easily crush her to pieces with their little finger.

When Chen Mu entered the training room, Wei-ah was already waiting for him along with a small boy at his side. Seeing Wei-ah, Chen Mu said with a smile, “It was a good thing you were there. It would have been disastrous otherwise.” After saying that, he casually put Sang Hanshui on the floor.

Wei-ah’s expression didn’t change, such things being normal as far as he was concerned.

Chen Mu wasn’t counting on Wei-ah making any response either, his gaze mostly falling onto the boy at Wei-ah’s side. He was about 12 or 13 and had dark skin and a round, shining, hairless head. His thick black eyebrows looked like they had been painted on with ink, and he wore a conscientious expression, looking a lot like Wei-ah. He stood silently by Wei-ah’s side, though his eyes showed a lot of curiosity toward Chen Mu.

“This is the apprentice you spoke of last time?” Chen Mu asked with some curiosity.

“Mmmm.” The expression on Wei-ah’s face was as unchanging as it had eternally been. “He’s called Bu Mo.”

Chen Mu felt extremely interested. With Wei-ah and Bu Mo standing together, one big and one small, the two looked very much alike. Whether in their movements or looks, it seemed as though they had come from the same mold.

Wei-ah suddenly tilted his head and said to Bu Mo, “Hit him.”

Without saying anything, Bu Mo came briskly forward. He was like a cheetah pouncing with great strength. Since he was still growing, he was only about a meter and a half tall, though his stocky frame made Chen Mu feel the strength of his muscles.

Chen Mu wanted to see what Bu Mo’s abilities were like. Even though Wei-ah was normally silent, he clearly had a lot of insight. During their year in the Moqi Clan, Wei-ah had never thought of taking on an apprentice. Apart from Chen Mu himself, Bu Mo was the only other person who made Wei-ah feel anything.

Bu Mo’s style of fighting was the same as Wei-ah’s—full of power, speed, and precision—except for being just a few levels lower in all aspects. Chen Mu had never specialized in the cardless sects, but Wei-ah had consistently been diligent in teaching them. He had always studied meticulously, which had given his body a solid foundation.

The two of them punched and kicked, and their bodies went through various transformations as they came together and split up like two shooting figures on the field. Chen Mu barely won by a notch, but that was plenty to fill him with praise. Wei-ah really did have a lot of insight!

Bu Mo was limited by his age; his body hadn’t matured, so he still didn’t have quite enough strength. On top of that, he had been studying with Wei-ah for too short a time. He only had to go through some more systematic training. Chen Mu believed it would then become difficult to fight against him relying only on the cardless sect skills.

Bu Mo was stoic. The pain from the kicks and punches made even Chen Mu bare his teeth, but Bu Mo remained completely indifferent. Even though he was always at a disadvantage, he never flailed around in the least but remained strangely calm. As the sparring went on for a while, he displayed powerful adaptability and started to gradually adjust to Chen Mu’s rhythm of attack, retreating and advancing in sync.

Chen Mu’s appreciation deepened. He really didn’t understand how Wei-ah could see such stuff as talent. No matter how you looked at him, Bu Mo wasn’t a child who would get your attention. Apart from being a little bit husky, he wasn’t very different from any other child.

“Stop.” Just as Wei-ah’s voice fell, Bu Mo retreated back to his side, his chest heaving. He was obviously as indifferent as Wei-ah in his powerful self-control.

“Great! Really great! A lot better than I was at your age!” Chen Mu kept praising him.

Wei-ah was rubbing Bu Mo’s bare head and said to him, “His name is Chen Mu, and you have to do what he says.”

“Mmmm.” Although Bu Mo didn’t quite get it, he still tapped himself on his shiny little head.

Wei-ah turned his head to face Chen Mu and said, “Now, do it by yourself.” After saying that, he led Bu Mo into a corner of the training room. That was the Chichi Trading Firm’s best training room. It was well-equipped with all kinds of facilities related to physical training, which card artisans also had to do a lot of. Wei-ah and Chen Mu had been hanging out together for a while, so they were familiar with those facilities and devices and could guide Bu Mo’s training.

Bu Mo was curious about the devices he had never seen before, which only increased his enthusiasm for the training.

Watching Bu Mo concentrate, Chen Mu felt comfortable. He actually felt a little guilty about not choosing to go along the same route as Wei-ah. Of course, Wei-ah never said anything to him about it, the two of them then being a lot closer than ordinary brothers. Chen Mu would dare to assert that if he ever encountered any difficulty, Wei-ah would certainly be one of the first to rush in.

Chen Mu felt happy watching Bu Mo so concentrated on learning everything Wei-ah knew. Wei-ah was among the few Chen Mu really cared about.

Now that he felt better, the haze in Chen Mu’s mind cleared. As he had developed, he was no longer the type to be taken advantage of. As long as he still had a powerful person like Wei-ah behind him, what did he even have to be afraid of? Chen Mu suddenly felt full of confidence about their trip!

Sang Hanshui was still unconscious, but Chen Mu didn’t have the patience to wait for him to come around on his own. He simply splashed a pan of water onto his face.

Sang Hanshui opened his eyes in confusion. When he saw who was in front of him, he abruptly quivered. By the time he discovered that he had been tied up and that the apparatus had been removed from his wrist, his face turned ashen. He couldn’t even move a finger.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Sang Hanshui’s voice was gravelly and deep.

Chen Mu said blandly, “I still had some questions for you.”

“Ha ha! I never thought I might still have some value.” His face showed that he was mocking himself. He then looked at Chen Mu. “Are you done asking them?”

Chen Mu hadn’t thought Sang Hanshui would ask in that way. After thinking about it, he said honestly, “I can try to ease your pain.” Beneath what he said was the implication that he would still kill him, but he would do it a little more quickly when he did.

“Ha ha. I never thought you would actually be honest.” Sang Hanshui laughed, and his expression returned to normal. “If you had just said you were going to give me a way out, I would have looked down on you. There’s nothing I can tell you. But go ahead and ask whatever you want.”

At that point, Chen Mu had so many questions in mind that he didn’t know where to start. After a while, he finally opened his mouth. “You know how to use the Golden Word Shackle?”

“Only a little,” Sang Hanshui replied without thinking. “Unless you can find its legacy, who could crack the right way to use it? I looked at some notes about the Golden Word Shackle in a single biography where it said that there were 12 single-syllable and 36 double-syllable words. The double-syllable words were composed of two of the single-syllable words, but they couldn’t be just any two syllables. Among the 12 single-syllable words, there were six recorded on the front: bam, bind, save, glass, thorn, stab, and hoop. I don’t know the other six. The double-syllable words weren’t recorded on the front.”

“Glass!” Chen Mu muttered. He sank into thought, which lasted ten minutes. Afterward, he suddenly raised his head, and there was a bout of energy fluctuation. Chen Mu emitted the golden energy chain, which gave off a fascinating luster. Even Sang Hanshui couldn’t help but look entranced by it.

Chen Mu’s eyes were ferocious as he shouted in a low tone, “Glass!”

The rippling energy chain bounced up at either end as though shocked. In the blink of an eye, a round energy body about the height of Chen Mu appeared in front of him. It looked like a round mirror made of dark gold, and it was smooth enough to clearly reflect everything in front of it. The energy chain was the frame of the energy mirror, which actually had a classical, artistic appeal.

Transfixed and tongue-tied, Sang Hanshui glared at the dark golden energy mirror in front of Chen Mu. He didn’t know how much energy he had expended collecting information related to the Golden Word Shackle for those past few years. He had a pretty good understanding of the card he’d never encountered.

The word was very important; it was like a key. It wasn’t enough to have the word alone, however, since there wasn’t just one key and one lock. Apart from the word, one still had to find the corresponding lock. It sounded easy, but it was difficult to do. Energy compositions were constantly changing, and who knew which one someone might need to look for?

But he wouldn’t say anything more. That Qiao Yuan did it so easily, after all! Could that guy really be among those so-called geniuses? His gaze fell onto Chen Mu’s incredibly ugly face and felt the designation of genius was really too far off from that face. Qiao Yuan also didn’t look young, so it wouldn’t be quite right to call him a genius.

Or, was the power of his perception beyond what he had imagined? That was probably the only way he could so easily find the knack for it! The more he thought about it, the more frightened Sang Hanshui was. He suddenly remembered his own capture, still not knowing how he’d been knocked out. What had really happened in that instant?

That also seemed to confirm his own conjecture. Could Qiao Yuan be hiding his own power? Thinking of that, he couldn’t help but shudder inwardly. Given the power Qiao Yuan was currently demonstrating, if he were still hiding some, his power would really be terrifying! The more he thought about it, the more likely that seemed to Sang Hanshui. He felt his mouth go a little dry, scaring himself with his thinking.

Chen Mu wasn’t paying attention to anything strange about Sang Hanshui, all of his attention on the energy mirror in front of him. He had been groping around with the Golden Word Shackle for some time already and was pretty familiar with it. If anyone else were to find out the specific word, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to use it very quickly. For him, though, as long as he knew the word, what followed was simple. He would only need to push backward and convert “glass” into whatever symbol the syllable represented to be able to quickly find the corresponding energy composition.

Still, although he was good at finding the corresponding energy composition, that didn’t quite mean he would be completely familiar with it. He had to carefully refine and ponder to find the nature of the energy composition.