Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 640 Mission Completed
Meanwhile, looking back at the training ground, the three assassins from Yuxiu Manor were finally about to meet their end.

Now, Master Jiren, after exchanging only a few moves, recognized the burly man with the bushy beard before him.

This man's surname is Hao, and his given name is Dazhu. Many years ago, he was a disciple of a prestigious sect, and he was considered to have great potential as a disciple with exceptional martial arts talent.

So Hao Dazhu, who was still a handsome young man back then, had already become a familiar face at various martial arts gatherings by following the sect's higher-ups.

But then, from some unknown year, Hao Dazhu suddenly disappeared from the sight of his comrades, as if he had never existed.

This isn't unusual, after all, many young people emerge in the entertainment industry every year, but how many of them actually make a name for themselves and are remembered? Most people spend a lot of time trying to become familiar to others, but in the end, they just fade into obscurity.
As for the reasons why these people ultimately failed to rise to prominence, they are nothing more than a few...

One of the most common reasons is that one's martial arts skills have reached a bottleneck.

There are countless examples of this. For instance, a person might consistently outperform their fellow disciples of the same generation in martial arts until the age of twenty or even twenty-five. However, upon reaching a certain age or stage in their martial arts training, they might suddenly lose this advantage and gradually be caught up with or even surpassed by their peers.

In situations like this, the elders within the sect surely understand that the person's talent ceiling has been tested. It's not that his martial arts skills can't improve further, but generally speaking... it will be difficult.

So what can be foreseen next is that this person will soon be deemed "not worth further development," and all the preferential treatment and resources he previously received as a "top student" will vanish.

If it were just a matter of things disappearing into thin air, that would be fine, but those things would inevitably become a kind of pressure in the end... Even if his fellow disciples were all kind people who cared about his feelings, he himself might not be able to bear such a gap; not to mention, the relationship between fellow disciples in most sects is not very good, and there are many cases of people calling each other brothers on the surface but stabbing each other in the back.

That's why those prestigious sects, apart from those with hereditary succession, are so cautious and procrastinate in choosing their next leader.

If you are too hasty and choose a seemingly talented young disciple to succeed you too early, you will find that his skills have reached their limit when he is middle-aged, and things will often turn out very badly afterward.

Then, besides "hitting a bottleneck in martial arts skills", another common reason for the disappearance of those young people is that they get into trouble.

The so-called "things" are varied and do not necessarily mean that the person has actually done something heinous. In most cases, these "things" are just extensions of internal sect struggles or interpersonal relationships.

To put it simply, among those associated with Sun Huang, such as Lin Yuancheng, Tang Weizhi, and Qin Feng, who were originally "star disciples" of prestigious sects, it's not that they lacked martial arts talent, but they just "got into trouble."

Even someone of Wu Mingzi's master's caliber could stumble over such things, let alone the younger generation.

Therefore, the success of many "young talents" from major sects is not solely due to their high martial arts skills; interpersonal relationships and even luck are also indispensable.

Of course, if you say your martial arts talent is truly exceptional, then you can indeed disregard other factors, just like Lin Yuancheng, who was destined to become famous. But how many people have this kind of talent?

So, what's the deal with Hao Dazhu?

The answer is both laughable and pathetic—he was unlucky.

Hao Dazhu did not encounter any bottlenecks in his training, nor did he make any major mistakes. In fact, when he was young, he was a firm believer in chivalry and was full of ambition, always thinking that he would make some contributions to the martial arts world in the future.

However, during those most idealistic and promising years of his life, his sect happened to produce a "Jiang Shouzheng" leader. As soon as this person took office, his sect immediately became dominated by a group of sycophants from top to bottom. A group of immoral, incompetent, selfish and self-serving people thrived by flattering superiors and bullying subordinates, while those disciples like Hao Dazhu who were down-to-earth did the most work and suffered the most... In the end, all the credit was taken by those sycophants, and they had to take the blame for these sycophants from time to time.

As we all know, in this kind of workplace environment, people generally only have three choices: go along with the crowd, lie down and accept it, or turn to the dark side.

Hao Dazhu chose the third option, so when he reappeared many years later, he had become a bodyguard of Yuxiu Manor.

The smiling woman and the gaunt man who are currently fighting alongside Hao Dazhu have similar past experiences.

The reason they are suicide squad members is that they are different from people like Cheng Yongkun; they still have beliefs. They believe that Yuxiu Manor, or rather, the young master, can ultimately change the world. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for these things they now firmly believe in.

"Amitabha..." Master Jiren, who recognized Hao Dazhu, stopped his attack and spoke to him earnestly, "Benefactor Hao, it's been many years, and things have changed... I almost didn't recognize you."

Master Jiren was telling the truth, because Hao Dazhu's current rough and rugged appearance was so different from his handsome young man appearance back then that if it weren't for his martial arts skills, Master Jiren would never have guessed that it was the same person.

But Hao Dazhu definitely knows Ji Ren.

How could he forget that many years ago, he and several fellow disciples were surrounded in an incident, and it was Master Jiren of Shaolin who arrived in time to save them, fighting alongside them until he himself was on the verge of death, thus preventing them from being completely wiped out.

But now, in what capacity and from what position can he acknowledge his benefactor?

As he watched the Wudang disciples and martial arts practitioners surrounding him, Hao Dazhu hesitated and wavered for a moment... But the lingering warmth from his blood-stained hands seemed to remind him that he had no right to waver.

At that moment, he understood that he had come to the end of his life's journey, and there was no turning back.

"Hmph! This master must be old and blind, mistaking me for someone else!" Hao Dazhu sneered the next second. "How could someone like me have the fortune to be an old acquaintance with a highly accomplished monk like you? If I were, I'd have to wait until the next life!"

Though his words were cold, his eyes revealed a genuine sense of helplessness and sorrow.

"Wait a moment, benefactor!" Master Jiren immediately understood the other party's next intention and hurriedly spoke up to stop him.

But Hao Dazhu had already bitten down on the poison in his mouth, and with his last breath shouted, "I alone am Hunyuan! I reign supreme in the martial world!"

Before he could finish shouting, the smiling woman and the gaunt man, who had been captured not long ago, followed suit, biting open the poison pills hidden in their mouths just like him, and shouting out these eight words before they died.

"Amitabha……"

Seeing the three people die from the poison at an extremely fast pace, the three senior monks of the Ji generation who were closest to them put their hands together and chanted Buddhist mantras with sighs.

The surrounding crowd fell silent upon witnessing this scene.

However, it must be admitted that these three assassins completed their mission perfectly—they not only silenced the key figure, Park Dae-ryung, but also further demonized the image of the Hunyuan Star Gate before their deaths.

Thus, we are one step closer to the event of the "six major sects besieging Wawu Mountain".

(End of this chapter)