Traces
When Cheongwol appeared after dressing, Seomun Hwi found himself staring at her in dazed silence.
On the surface, she was breathtakingly beautiful, but at heart she was a man—and his precious friend.
So to harbor any foolish thoughts would be unforgivable.
He kept telling himself as much, trying to calm down, but it was useless.
The clothes laid bare every curve of a woman’s body so openly that he could scarcely bear to look.
Why had they dressed her in something that seemed fit only for a woman of the Unorthodox sects?
It suited her terribly well, but he simply could not keep looking.
With no other choice, he turned his head away and hid his expression, focusing only on forcing the wild beat of his heart into submission.
He never once considered that his reaction might leave Cheongwol with a deep wound of her own.
If she did not receive help while the injury was still fresh, she would spend the rest of her life reopening the same wound again and again.
That was why Seomun Hwi was now saying things that even he found unbearably embarrassing to hear.
"I made such a pitiful fool of myself, unable even to look at you, much less speak to you."
Still tucked beneath the blanket, Cheongwol’s face had gone faintly red as she mulled over what he had said.
...He thought I was beautiful? Not disgusting?
She was still a man, so it was not as though those words filled her with pure delight, but for some reason the corners of her mouth kept trying to rise.
"I know you still intend to live as a man. I respect that. But today I realized it is not as simple as words make it sound."
Seomun Hwi’s hand came to rest lightly on the blanket.
"Cheongwol. If you deny the woman you’ve become, you may spend your whole life in misery."
"..."
"So do not try to divide yourself so neatly into one side or the other. And even if others treat you as a woman, or you wear a woman’s clothes, that does not mean you are denying your true self."
Her heart, which had just begun to settle, plummeted back into the mud.
She understood what he was trying to say.
It was a question she had turned over countless times at Kongdong Sect as well.
And at the end of that train of thought, there had always been only one conclusion.
"...I’m afraid."
Cheongwol’s voice slipped thinly out from beneath the blanket.
"If I accept being a woman and keep living like this. If I slowly get used to that life. I’m afraid the original me will disappear."
As Seomun Hwi had said, there was no need to choose only one side and cling to it forever, but was it not possible that her heart would eventually lean toward the life she grew accustomed to?
If that happened, the man she had once been would vanish forever.
Just as Cheongwol was about to bury her face in the bedding, Seomun Hwi suddenly yanked the blanket away.
"...!"
Startled, she tried to snatch it back, but when her eyes met his grave gaze, no words would come.
"Do you think time will ever come when you forget your grandfather?"
How could she possibly forget the grandfather who had been as much a teacher as a parent?
"...Of course not."
As she lowered her head, thinking of his face, a faint smile touched Seomun Hwi’s lips.
"This is no different. So long as you remember, it will never disappear. More than that, your master and Daoist Unhak know the you from before, do they not?"
A large, dependable hand—big and steady in the way of a true man—settled on Cheongwol’s shoulder.
"Even if they all forget, I alone will remember to the end. That you were a man."
"Hwi..."
Cheongwol laid her own hand gently over the back of the hand resting on her shoulder.
It was obvious the man before her had a talent for saying only the things she most wanted to hear.
"Truly... no matter what happens, you’ll keep treating me as a man until the end?"
He had only said he would remember; he did not think he had actually said he would treat her as one.
Though a little flustered, he let the atmosphere carry him and nodded slowly.
"Of course. So never again speak of yourself as if you are disgusting."
He did not know that the words he had uttered because he thought it was the only way would end up making him suffer so much later on.
Only the disciples who knew every rule and branch of the Beggar Sect, and who possessed keen judgment and high intelligence, were allowed to wear six knots.
They roamed the jianghu, dispensing mercy with upright hearts, and the Beggar Sect called them the Law Enforcers.
One of those Law Enforcers.
Hong Chilsong appeared in front of the inn at Ohwahae.
He glanced around the bleak surroundings, then bent down and picked up a pebble split cleanly by a sharp sword force.
Compared to the Qingcheng Sect’s martial arts, something about this is off. I was too hasty.
The Qingcheng Sect’s techniques stirred the wind, but because their power was too rough, they did not leave such a clean cross-section.
Then had someone deliberately tried to deceive him?
Frowning, Hong Chilsong replayed in his mind the massacre that had unfolded here at Ohwahae two days earlier.
—Keep watch in secret and find out what the Alliance Lord is doing in Sichuan.
He had received the order from the sect, but his target was a martial artist who stood nearest to being the greatest in all the world.
To avoid being noticed by that man’s extraordinary senses, he had no choice but to keep his distance and move only after a day’s delay.
And yet, perhaps because of that very distance.
Hong Chilsong had witnessed something else suspicious.
Eight men in black, and one woman.
And beside the woman, a middle-aged man lying on the ground, bleeding profusely.
He was still breathing, but even the Great Numinous Immortal would have been too late.
Should he abandon the mission and save that woman from the black-clad men?
But if his identity were exposed, not only he but the other Beggar Sect disciples would no longer be able to tail the Alliance Lord, whose vigilance would only sharpen.
As he wavered between the Beggar Sect’s law enforcer and an upright martial artist, the woman suddenly flashed her sword with terrifying killing intent, and one of the black-clad men clutched his split throat and rolled to the ground.
The seven black-clad men who remained were visibly shaken at the sight.
They’re not professional assassins.
If they were, they would not be rattled just because one of their comrades had died.
Sure enough, two of the men lost their composure and shouted as they rushed the woman.
The others hurried to join them, but with the two already flailing wildly, it was difficult to close in cleanly.
In a fight where life and death hung in the balance, to move so emotionally was to lose the advantage of numbers.
The clanging of swords rang fiercely across the lake.
Hah... Haaah...
The woman was bleeding from the head, her breathing ragged and harsh.
She had taken fairly deep cuts to both arms and legs, but two more black-clad men had also lost their heads at the shoulders.
Eight men reduced to five against a single woman—an absurdly unbelievable situation.
The man who appeared to lead the black-clad group no longer tolerated further mistakes.
As the five men unleashed a flawless coordinated assault, deep and shallow cuts bloomed all over the woman’s body.
Ghk!
Not long after, the woman gave a single strangled cry and pitched forward.
The elegance of her forms was remarkable, but time had rusted the edge of her blade.
And yet, even after bringing matters to this point, the apparent leader pressed a point to stop the bleeding and, without finishing her off, hoisted the woman onto his shoulder.
Collect the bodies.
At his words, the other four moved quickly and began tidying the blood-soaked area.
If this had been a matter of a martial artist laying hands on common folk, that would have been one thing, but the fact that the woman had used martial arts made it a dispute among martial artists.
So comforting himself with that thought, Hong Chilsong held his breath until all of the black-clad men had disappeared.
...I can’t keep doing this sort of thing anymore.
He had endured this long on nothing but the pride of walking a righteous path in the name of justice and chivalry, but just as a long, bitter sigh was about to escape at the sudden realization that he was no different from the hypocrites he loathed...
One of the black-clad men he had thought gone reappeared, and he quickly crouched low.
The man loitered for a moment, sweeping the area with his eyes, then began leaving sword marks around the fallen middle-aged man and the surrounding ground.
Was he trying to cause confusion so as to avoid being discovered?
Even if so, there was no reason to insult an already dead man like this.
Once even that man had left, Hong Chilsong stepped out of the brush with a hardened expression.
It’s separate from my mission, but as someone who claims to be of the orthodox path, I can’t just ignore that brutal behavior.
After searching the surroundings thoroughly, Hong Chilsong found something that did not sit right.
There were signs that someone had tried hard to conceal their internal energy, but there were also traces that made identifying them far from difficult.
Not a cutting wound, but a fierce sword path that looked more as though it had clawed its way through.
As far as he knew, the only people in Sichuan who used such techniques were the Qingcheng Sect.
...Was this just a mistake by someone too inexperienced for the job?
There was no way a prestigious sect of the Nine Great Schools would make such a sloppy blunder.
And why would the orthodox Qingcheng Sect don black clothing and hide their identities just to do something like this?
Perhaps someone had set this up to frame the Qingcheng Sect.
But if it truly was not them, then did that mean others had imitated Qingcheng techniques and left these sword traces behind?
Even that seemed unlikely, given how refined the traces of the technique were.
...
As suspicion wound tighter and tighter, Hong Chilsong shook his head.
The enemy had deliberately left the evidence in plain sight as a deception.
If he tried too hard to force out an answer here, he would be stepping straight into their trap.
For now, I’d best continue the mission. I’ll have to find out more about this inn as well.