Why the Male Lead Must Be Saved
With no inner energy left to draw on, his qinggong sent him pitching and swaying like silver grass in a hard wind. Kang Chu-mi shoved her shoulder under his at once and took his weight.
"Seriously! What is this?! Look at the state of you!"
Blood began streaming from Seo Joo-cheon's nose, and she cried out again.
"Don't shout. It's ringing in my skull."
Kang Chu-mi's voice broke as if she were about to weep.
"Second Brother!"
Ham Cheon-yeong, who had been pulling away at speed with Sang Ryo, came running back. Something in Kang Chu-mi's cry told him this was no small matter, and his face went hard.
"Big Brother. Get on my back."
"I'll take you up on that."
Seo Joo-cheon climbed onto Ham Cheon-yeong's back, and Ham Cheon-yeong ran faster than he ever had in his life.
From far behind them, a roar of pure rage tore through the air.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
It was the Undying Demon, Hyeok Chung, howling because Seo Joo-cheon's party had slipped through his fingers.
"The Undying Demon seems furious over the death of his subordinate."
At Sang Ryo's words, Seo Joo-cheon muttered inwardly, That isn't it. He isn't angry because a subordinate died. He's angry because the experiment he was running through that man has just been cut off.
The thought sat heavy in his chest.
"I'll remember this! The next time we meet, I will kill you!"
The Undying Demon poured true qi into the shout, and the sky itself seemed to boom like thunder.
"This Seat will hunt you down and kill every last one of you!"
Seo Joo-cheon spoke up.
"Hold on a moment."
Walking away after hearing that was simply too galling. He spoke to Ham Cheon-yeong.
"Cheon-yeong. Pass me a little true qi."
Ham Cheon-yeong was the least wrecked of them, and he sent true qi into Seo Joo-cheon's back without hesitation. The Shaanxi Four Evils had been sharing true qi in dribs and drabs since long ago, whenever they stood at the brink of life and death, and so each of them felt little rejection toward the others' energy. After exchanging it countless times, their true qi had grown familiar inside one another's bodies.
The moment a thin current began to turn, Seo Joo-cheon shouted.
"Hey! Little brother! How dare you speak to your elder brother that way! The whole world will now know that the Undying Demon is my little brother! This elder brother will be going on ahead!"
Ham Cheon-yeong and Kang Chu-mi's mouths fell open. Their Big Brother, who ought to have been using that true qi to treat his internal injuries, was spending it on a taunt instead.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
The Undying Demon bellowed as if something inside him had snapped. Being called a little brother drove his rage past anything he could contain.
"Ahahaha. That felt good. That felt so good."
He laughed, and the blood still running from his nose reversed course and slid down into his mouth.
"Khack! Khack!"
"Big Brother, are you all right?"
Kang Chu-mi asked it through tears, and Seo Joo-cheon smiled. The trouble was that the smile looked forced, which only made him look more like a man in pain.
"I'm fine. Don't worry. I just found that too funny."
"Honestly! Wasting your inner energy on something so pointless. Anyway, next time I see that Undying Demon bastard, I'm going to tear him apart."
Watching Kang Chu-mi seethe, he played along.
"The Undying Demon's in real trouble now. He's been marked by our youngest. Still, you might end up with a little brother, so go easy on him."
Kang Chu-mi shook her head at a Big Brother who would joke to the bitter end.
"Second, I'm going to sleep for a bit. Don't drop me."
"Yes, Big Brother. Sleep well. I'll carry you as comfortably as I can."
Ham Cheon-yeong bit down hard on his lip as he answered.
"Big Brother, you're all right, aren't you?"
Kang Chu-mi asked it as they ran, and Ham Cheon-yeong scolded her.
"Youngest. Don't talk to him. Let Big Brother rest."
"Okay."
Afraid he might slip from Ham Cheon-yeong's back if she fell too far behind, Kang Chu-mi stuck close on their heels.
Running beside them, Sang Ryo felt a strange warmth he could not quite name. Gatherings of Unorthodox martial artists were, as a rule, alliances of convenience — people who came together and scattered again the moment it suited them. In all his years he had never seen Unorthodox fighters who stepped outside that pattern. He had met the occasional band that spoke of loyalty, but in all his decades wandering the Jianghu, the number of groups whose loyalty actually held when things turned desperate could be counted on one hand.
These people prize a brother's life above their own. And it isn't a performance — it's genuine. Looking at them, I haven't felt my chest go warm like this in a long time. Truly peculiar Unorthodox martial artists.
Sang Ryo himself was counted among the Unorthodox, and even so he found them remarkable. When the Shaanxi Four Evils had first walked into the Namcheon Inn, he had written them off as the most ordinary sort of Unorthodox ruffians and paid them no mind. Yet they had turned out to possess a chivalrous spirit stronger than most of the Orthodox, and they were far stronger than the rumors claimed. He had been startled when they killed the Three Evils of Luoyang. To his eye the Shaanxi Four Evils were martial artists of a firmly Second-Rate level — and those same people had slain the Three Evils of Luoyang, who stood near the First-Rate. He had assumed until then that they were simply scraping by in the martial world through luck. That was why, when the fight with the Three Evils of Luoyang broke out at the inn, he had stayed to the end and watched it through.
Seo Joo-cheon had his eyes closed, but he was not asleep. He was turning a single problem over and over in his mind.
This may be a world I created, but everything in it is already moving as a living, interlocking whole. That is why situations I never intended keep happening. I have to accept that now.
He was the one who had created hundreds of characters for the novel The Invincible Lay Disciple. What he understood now was that those people had come to occupy their own corners of this world by their own strength.
Still, the fact that Character Search works even on characters I never created is a mercy I can't ignore. If I hadn't been the author, would I have been given an ability like that?
The question rose unbidden. The Undying Demon was a character he had created — but the two warrior-bodyguards at the man's side were people Seo Joo-cheon had never touched. They had arisen from the Undying Demon's own karma and ties, and so even Seo Joo-cheon had been unable to foresee them.
The Undying Demon had injected Jangdokhwe-go into one of those bodyguards and was testing something. Watching that man run straight through fire, he must have been trying to patch the parasite's weakness to flame. And he was nearly finished. If the Undying Demon ever closes that gap…
That, in itself, would be a nightmare. The Undying Demon would become a true immortal and then some.
When Seo Joo-cheon had created the character, he had given him the legendary king of all Gu — the Jangdokhwe-go — and then planted a fatal weakness so the man could never become a genuine undying god. He had set the Undying Demon to die at Jang Hyeon-nam's hands in the mid-story. For that to work, there had to be a gap that was easy to exploit, a weakness that could not be overcome.
And yet the Undying Demon was already working to overcome it. No — that's on me. I overlooked the most ordinary human truth: if you have a fatal weakness, you will do whatever it takes to close it.
This was a world he had made, but everything in it had become real as it bound itself together through karma and affinity, and that reality was already beginning to drift, little by little, from Seo Joo-cheon's original settings.
When I think about it, of course it would. If everything moved exactly according to my settings, this wouldn't be reality. It would be a game.
Seen that way, even the Shaanxi Four Evils moving in ways he had never intended was not so hard to understand.
One fact, though, does not change. The parts I set down at the beginning are still intact. Because the characters and the world were created according to my settings, that much, at least, has not been damaged. I can be grateful for that.
Seo Joo-cheon reached his conclusion.
This place is no longer my novel. It is reality. I cannot know how these characters' karma and ties will shift. All I have is the advantage of sitting an exam with more of the expected questions already in hand than anyone else. From now on, I need to start taking care of this body.
The more he thought about it, the more reckless he realized he had been, and a shudder ran through him. Ham Cheon-yeong took the tremor for a spasm and tightened his hold.
More than any hunger for revenge against the Undying Demon, Hyeok Chung, what swelled in Ham Cheon-yeong was resentment — toward Jang Hyeon-nam, and toward the Mount Hua Sect, for dragging Big Brother into this. That, too, was a result of causal law Seo Joo-cheon had never intended.
Seo Joo-cheon had not meant to sleep, but he slipped under all the same. He felt someone laying him onto a bed, and opened his eyes.
"Ah? Big Brother. You're awake?"
"Where is this?"
"An inn."
Ham Cheon-yeong answered with a face sheathed in sweat.
"The youngest?"
"I'm right here."
Dokgo Ho-in was there as well. Seo Joo-cheon looked at him and asked,
"Third, are you all right?"
Dokgo Ho-in opened his mouth with an angry face.
"Is this the time to be worrying about me? Big Brother looks like a man about to die."
Worry, given enough room, always turned into temper. Seo Joo-cheon smiled at him.
"If you've got the strength to snap at me, you'll live. That's a relief."
He caught sight of Kang Chu-mi's cheeks puffed out like balloons and let out a quiet laugh. That look was proof she had something to say and was barely holding it in. Po Un used to tease her for it, calling it her pufferfish face.
"Why is our youngest making pufferfish cheeks?"
That did it. Seo Joo-cheon broke the dam.
"Big Brother, are you actually trying to get yourself killed? Why are you suddenly playing the chivalrous hero when you've never done it before? We're not the Shaanxi Four Heroes — we're the Four Evils. The Four Evils! Let's live like Unorthodox people, all right? Every time you do this, it feels like my chest is caving in."
Seo Joo-cheon answered her.
"Youngest. We only lived like Unorthodox martial artists because we didn't have the strength. If we'd had power, my little brothers and sister would have lived as heroes of the Jianghu."
He knew these three well. Unorthodox-born or not, they pitied the weak and could not abide injustice. Just as there were Orthodox martial artists who behaved like demons, there were Unorthodox martial artists who behaved like the righteous.
"So you're saying you're going to live like a hero now and get yourself killed? We're only strong enough to live like Unorthodox people. If you'd gone at the Undying Demon head-on, do you really think you would have won?"
"I wasn't the one who fought him."
"You went there knowing he was there."
At this rate he and Kang Chu-mi were going to argue for a full two hours. He changed the subject.
"How is Young Hero Jang doing now?"
"Big Brother, this is not the time to be worrying about some Wudang Daoist."
Ham Cheon-yeong finally spoke as if he were angry. Seo Joo-cheon could not tell them the truth, and the frustration of it sat thick in his throat. To them, his concern for Jang Hyeon-nam must have looked bizarre.
"You'll understand when the time comes. For now, can you follow me without argument?"
Ham Cheon-yeong let out a sound like a man in pain. When Big Brother put it that way, there was truly nothing left to say. And it was always in moments like this that Big Brother had something genuinely important underway.
"Haa. All right. If that's how you put it, Big Brother, we'll follow."
Ham Cheon-yeong turned his head and looked at Dokgo Ho-in and Kang Chu-mi.
"You two as well. Don't pick at Big Brother's words. Behave yourselves for a while and do as he says. If you don't, you'll answer to me."
The two of them knew exactly how frightening that promise was. They nodded with the faces of people swallowing a great deal they still wanted to say.
"Fine. But only for a while."
Once the two of them had answered meekly, Ham Cheon-yeong turned back to Seo Joo-cheon.
"Young Hero Jang has been left with a physician to try to purge the poison, but it doesn't seem to be going well. They say today will be the critical point."
"If they can't purge the poison, he'll die before the day is out."
Seo Joo-cheon had been tapping his chin. He stopped and looked at Kang Chu-mi.
"Youngest. You brought what I asked for?"
"Yes."
"Give it here."
Kang Chu-mi hesitated, then opened the leather pouch at her waist and drew out a golden case.
"What is that?"
Dokgo Ho-in asked, and a pang of guilt went through Seo Joo-cheon. I originally had this prepared for Dokgo Ho-in. He had sent Kang Chu-mi to fetch a Purple Lesser Pill so that inner power might fill the hollow left by a lost arm.
Ham Cheon-yeong saw the characters written on the golden case and nearly choked.
"Isn't that a Purple Lesser Pill?"
"I have a use for it."
"Don't tell me you're planning to give that to Young Hero Jang."
Kang Chu-mi had caught the scent of it, and her face twisted.
"Big Brother and Third Brother need that. The two of you are the ones with internal injuries. Why would you give it to some—"
"He's a dying man."
At that, all three of them lost their words. Since when had the Shaanxi Four Evils ever concerned themselves with a dying martial artist of the Orthodox path? That question sat in their eyes as they stared at Seo Joo-cheon. They only kept silent because Big Brother had already spoken.
Looking at them, Seo Joo-cheon smiled faintly.
"You three are more precious to me than anyone. I'd give you everything I have. But right now, Young Hero Jang must be saved. Trust your Big Brother."
The three of them let out a long breath together.
"Ah — is Great Hero Sang all right?"
The sword wound across Sang Ryo's back had been nagging at him. Through the split in the man's clothes the raw flesh had shown so plainly it looked serious, but in the middle of a fight there had been no room to attend to it.
"He's receiving treatment and has fallen asleep. Great Hero Sang was worrying about you, Big Brother, right up until he drifted off."
A character he was fond of really was different. Hearing that the man was asleep, Seo Joo-cheon felt himself ease.
"I need to go see Young Hero Jang."
"I don't suppose there's any point in telling you that you ought to be circulating your energy right now."
At Dokgo Ho-in's words, Seo Joo-cheon laughed.
"He's dying as we speak. There is no time to sit and circulate energy. We deal with that first, and then."
He started to rise and go, then turned back as if to tidy his clothes. First things first: he slipped the bodyguard's finger from his pocket into the pouch that held his copper coins. If he wandered around and happened to drop it, disaster would follow. He meant to tuck it into the golden case for safekeeping once the Purple Lesser Pill had been used.
"This is a bit much."
After the savage fight, his clothes were slashed to ribbons and stained with blood, and he had nothing decent to change into. The fabric had been opened in so many places by sword-cuts that his bare thigh showed through, which was mortifying.
"I can live with the rest, but I have to change these pants."
"Big Brother, wear mine."
Dokgo Ho-in held out a pair.
"We'll wait outside."
Ham Cheon-yeong took the two younger siblings out with him, and Seo Joo-cheon changed. Dokgo Ho-in had a lean build, so the pants were a little tight, but not so tight that moving became a problem.
He lifted his upper garment to tie the waist cord — and his hands stopped.
"What is this."
The hands that had frozen began to tremble, little by little. It was not a setting that had ever appeared in the novel, and not a possibility he had ever considered. It took time for his thoughts to start turning properly again.
"How am I supposed to interpret this?"
His voice came out unsteady. Still muttering to himself, Seo Joo-cheon lifted the garment a little higher.
A faint light was welling from the center of his chest. From the side where the heart sat.
Only one thought rose in him.
This isn't appearing because Jang Hyeon-nam is dying, is it? If he dies, this thing isn't going to explode — or erase me from existence — is it?
It was a phenomenon he could not classify, a setting that had never appeared even among his antagonists.
Treat Jang Hyeon-nam first and see. If the light vanishes once the poison is purged from him, I'll know what this is.
He thought it through for a long time, and that was the conclusion he reached.
"Hah. A thing like this can make it all feel unreal — and then the reality that lands on you is always a live blade."
From beyond the door came Kang Chu-mi's grumbling — "What's taking so long just to change a pair of pants?" — and Seo Joo-cheon gathered himself.