You Must Be Moyong Bi
I had a dream.
I never knew what kind of dream it was each time, but I had a worthless dog of a dream.
A dream so empty it needed no interpretation at all.
…
Cold sweat.
Ragged breathing.
A filthy, clammy feeling clinging to my skin.
It was not the languid haze of waking from deep sleep. It was the sharp, blade-edge clarity of someone who had merely closed their eyes for a moment while clutching the blanket. I opened my eyes curled up in the basement cell.
—Rustle.
I pulled the edge of the blanket covering me closer. An unfamiliar landscape of moss filled my vision, yet I stayed curled in on myself for a long while, arms wrapped around the moldy bedding.
I had thought that if I built up my martial arts, if the real me improved, things like this would disappear.
They had not.
What kind of worthless dream had I been having, anyway?
I hugged Mumyeong’s mold-smelling blanket tighter and curled my body into a ball.
What kind of dream could make me like this?
I thought it through calmly. Tried to recall the scent. Tried to retrace the dream memories that were already scattering, hazy and fast.
Contrasting with my ragged breath, a warmth lingered on one edge of memory.
A soft smell.
A cool touch.
—Well done. My son.
Someone’s voice.
—So then, our son’s name is…
I felt the chill of early dawn air. Squinting through sticky, sleep-crusted eyes, I breathed out a white puff of vapor and muttered,
“…What a filthy dream.”
—Step. Step.
Footsteps approached.
—Clank.
A door of blue river jade swung open with the sunlight. Bright light flooded the dark cell. Men carrying torches stood there—guards in the attire of the North Sea Ice Palace.
“….”
I watched them without changing my curled posture. The one who looked like their leader stepped forward and spoke to me.
“Come out. The Ice Jade Empress has granted you an audience.”
“Oh? Look at this.”
A woman sat on a towering chair. White eyes, white hair cascading down to her waist. She looked down at me with arrogant eyes as the guards dragged me forward.
“Two days locked under the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow, and you look like you just woke up from a cozy nap.”
“….”
I frowned against the bright light and looked up at the impossibly high dais. Flowing silk robes hugged her slender waist and fell all the way to her ankles. Beneath the white fabric, one elegantly crossed leg stretched out, pale and slender down to the ankle. Her cold eyes slowly examined me—stripped to the waist, completely unarmed.
“….”
I met her gaze without flinching.
The Ice Jade Empress tilted her head.
“Hmm? Did something happen in the meantime? You feel like a completely different person from when I first saw you. Did any of you do something to him without my orders?”
The officers who had dragged me in scrambled to answer.
“No, not at all.”
Host.
Mumyeong whispered. I closed my eyes. Took a small breath. Let the dream go and focused on the reality in front of me. Then I opened them again.
That was when it happened.
“Kneel. You stand before the Ice Jade Empress.”
One of the guards who had brought me kicked the back of my knee.
—…
I did not budge.
“Uh… uhh?”
The guard who had boldly kicked me froze in confusion.
“D-Did I miss?”
He set his foot properly this time and kicked the back of my knee again with the edge of his boot.
—…
My knee remained as unmoving as a steel pillar. I turned my head. The guard carefully lifted his gaze to look up at me. I spoke.
“Don’t kick me.”
I let out a short sigh.
“I’ll listen if you just talk. As I’ve said repeatedly, I have no intention of fighting, so if you make a reasonable request I’ll cooperate.”
“…What?”
Fire flared in the guard’s eyes.
“Has this bastard lost his mind? Forgetting his place—”
I lowered my head and put my mouth next to his ear. In a dry whisper I said,
“…If you don’t want your legs ripped off so you can kneel for eternity, don’t kick me.”
—Creeeak.
A strange metallic groan cut between us.
“…Creeeak?”
The guard slowly looked down. My arms were still bound behind my back. He stared at the finger shackles—each the thickness of a thumb, clamping every finger separately. They were already twisted nearly to the breaking point by my grip strength alone. The guard’s face went pure white. Without realizing it he stammered in a tiny voice,
“P-Please kneel.”
The guard opposite him stared as if the man had gone mad. But the one who had heard my whisper was pouring out bean-sized cold sweat, face deathly pale.
“….”
—Thud.
I knelt on the ice-reflecting floor. The Ice Jade Empress, who had watched everything, propped her chin on white fingers and tapped her cheek with an intrigued expression.
“Children.”
—Snap.
She flicked her fingers. Her subordinates pulled the cloth off something covered to one side. Pointing at it, the Ice Jade Empress said,
“I’ll believe what you said.”
“You’ll believe me?”
She nodded with a white-eyed smile.
“That you didn’t come here to start a fight. And that barely believable story about a Central Plains outsider traveling all this way for one measly third-rate martial art. That much, at least.”
“…At least?”
She looked at the pile beside me.
“The fact that someone carrying all that surrendered so quietly already told me you wanted talk more than a fight.”
Under the cloth lay every piece of my armor and weapons. Martial robes reinforced with iron plates, the jade-hued mountain-ring, a crude sword, a steel three-section staff, short blades, iron spikes.
The Ice Jade Empress spoke as if she could hardly believe it.
“This lady has met every kind of person—vicious heretical masters, Blood Cultists who’ve abandoned human form, demonic practitioners who trust only in strength, and righteous sect types drunk on money and lust—but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
She rose from her seat. She descended as if walking on empty air.
“Huk, Young Mistress Seol Ye-rin…!”
Her subordinates flinched in shock at the sudden movement and slammed their heads down, not daring to meet her eyes.
If someone carved a person out of ice, it would feel like this.
There was no killing intent from the woman now standing right in front of me. Even so, the cold she radiated was enough to feel like it could flay flesh from bone. The Ice Jade Empress, Seol Ye-rin, stroked each of my displayed weapons one by one.
“I always thought only crude barbarians who can’t use martial arts at all would carry things like these… That was prejudice, it seems.”
She approached me. Her fingers touched my bare upper body as I knelt. She slowly traced the scars and muscle ridging my torso. Cold qi followed her fingertips, stroking my skin before vanishing.
“To think a man this angry and rough, like a wild horse, still remains in the Central Plains…”
Strength entered Seol Ye-rin’s fingertips. Her nails dug into my skin. Blood welled. It ran down my ribs, gathered at my solar plexus, then dripped in beads onto the floor.
“….”
I looked at Seol Ye-rin with unshaken eyes. She snorted and withdrew her hand. Walking back up the dais she said,
“So that’s why that bitch sent such an insolent letter. I wondered who could make that lofty woman act like this.”
“…A letter?”
Seol Ye-rin’s feet stopped. She looked back at me.
“I assumed you already knew.”
The North Sea Ice Palace subordinates arrayed on either side of her spoke up.
“Ice Jade Empress, he is still a man from the Central Plains. If the Palace Master learns you took such unilateral action without any report—”
“It could become a future problem. Would it not be better to dispose of him at once?”
Seol Ye-rin frowned.
“Stop bringing up Mother, who’s in closed-door training. I have my own thoughts. Before she entered seclusion she clearly entrusted full authority to me.”
I looked up at her quietly, then said,
“You are not the Palace Master of the North Sea Ice Palace?”
“Insolence!”
The retainers to her left and right frothed at the mouth as if stung.
“How dare you open your arrogant mouth before the Young Palace Master?”
“I don’t care where in the Central Plains you crawled from, if you truly wish to die—”
Seol Ye-rin raised her hand. That single gesture cut off the uproar as if she had stirred a hornet’s nest and then silenced it. She looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“I, the Ice Jade Empress, am currently handling every affair of the North Sea Ice Palace in place of my mother, the Palace Master. To answer your question: yes. The Palace Master you speak of is not present.”
“….”
Hearing the rare title of female palace master in the martial world, I had simply assumed the woman before me was that master without a shred of doubt. She was clearly young, yet I had figured there must be some reason—bone-washing rebirth or something I didn’t know. I studied Seol Ye-rin, the Ice Jade Empress, once more. White eyes, snow-white hair falling to her waist, and the black eyebrows standing out sharply between them—that alien appearance had somewhat clouded my judgment.
Seol Ye-rin tilted her head.
“Separate from that, is the title Ice Jade Empress something you’ve never heard? Through my title alone what I just said wasn’t even a secret. Even a Central Plains outsider should have been able to guess easily enough.”
“I’m rather ignorant when it comes to affairs of the martial world. If I offended you unintentionally, I apologize.”
Seol Ye-rin’s eyes narrowed.
“In other words, the Specter of the Battlefield—that woman—sent you here without a single word about me? Does that make any sense?”
“The Specter of the Battlefield?”
The Specter of the Battlefield was clearly another epithet for Eun Seollyeong. My brow furrowed. My voice sharpened, almost imperceptibly.
“…What is that supposed to mean all of a sudden?”
“Ha. Truly, these people never fail to amuse this lady.”
Seol Ye-rin’s elegant brows drew together.
“Still denying it? You are the one the Specter of the Battlefield sent.”
I blinked. For a moment my head spun. I took a breath and spoke calmly.
“…I don’t know what misunderstanding there is. The only reason I came here is the business I stated when I first met you.”
I spoke slowly.
“The Three-Lun Heart Method of Liberation. I understand even the North Sea Ice Palace considers it a method of no particular value. If I can obtain only that method, I will leave immediately regardless of anything else, and I have no desire to create any conflict in the process.”
“…No desire to create any conflict. That much I believe. But you see.”
Seol Ye-rin rummaged in her robes. Out came a carrier-pigeon letter whose seal looked freshly broken.
“This document arrived one shichen ago. Read it with your own eyes. See what that bitch dared to write.”
She tossed the letter in front of me. Climbing back onto the dais she added,
“And there’s no more need to keep wearing those meaningless shackles for appearances. I understand well enough that you don’t intend to run wild.”
“…Hm.”
I put strength into my fingers.
—Crunch.
In one motion I crushed the finger shackles and tore them free.
“Th-That…”
The retainers stammered as they stared at the mangled metal scattered at my feet.
“Finger shackles made of Ice-Cold Ironstone… crushed by grip strength alone?”
I brought my freed arms forward, picked up the letter, and unfolded it. The neat, refined handwriting was unmistakably Eun Seollyeong’s.
A man is expected to arrive at that branch before long. Regardless of any reason, I warn you not to harm him. Should so much as a single hair on that man’s head come to any harm, I will most certainly repay that debt.
Seol Ye-rin—furthermore, until I arrive, make certain that man cannot escape. Hold him.
Feeling a headache coming on, I closed my eyes tightly.
As expected of a martial artist. Such a clean and dignified threat.
Mumyeong offered his commentary.
Come to think of it…
When I had briefly parted from Eun Seollyeong, she had said she was heading north to investigate the Blood Cult and to free herself from her restraints. It seemed she had some sort of connection with the Young Palace Master of the North Sea Ice Palace standing before me.
I looked at the letter again.
…And I would stake anything that connection is a bad one.
Eun Seollyeong seemed to have quite the temper of her own as well. The additional line at the very bottom of the letter caught my eye.
I folded the letter and set it in front of me.
“This is a misunderstanding. I swear to the heavens I did not come here under anyone’s orders.”
“….”
“In my opinion, if the two of you have business with each other, it would be best for everyone if you resolve it quickly and part ways. What do you think?”
Seol Ye-rin interlaced her fingers.
“I don’t know how much of what’s written in this letter is true, but I’m not eager to see that specter again either. Of course, if we truly meant to fight a life-and-death duel in these northern lands, I’d have some confidence of my own.”
She reached toward a box prepared beside her and took out a certain book.
“This is the secret manual of the Three-Lun Heart Method of Liberation, one of our North Sea Ice Palace’s internal energy methods—the very thing you first claimed was your only business.”
“…!”
She slowly waved the book in the air.
“Handing over this method of little value—third-rate at best—to you wouldn’t be difficult. Of course, I have no intention of giving it for free.”
The Ice Jade Empress nodded as she looked at me.
“But there’s something I’m far more insanely curious about than this secret manual.”
“…What do you mean?”
“Just what kind of man you are, that the Specter of the Battlefield herself is going to such lengths to come find you and protect you.”
An uneasy feeling welled up inside me.
“I’ve never in my life seen that woman act like this. So the moment I received the letter, I immediately looked into you.”
Seol Ye-rin smiled in a slow circle, as if savoring the subtle discomfort rising on my face.
“And as it happens, something interesting occurred recently. One of the Five Great Families contacted me, asking me to lend my strength to deal with a brother.”
“Don’t tell me—”
As far as I knew, there was only one person in the entire Central Plains who would use any means necessary to win, without any preconceived notions about factions.
Seol Ye-rin’s red lips moved.
“Because of that negotiation, our North Sea Ice Palace has recently strengthened our information network in the Central Plains. Thanks to that, investigating you was easy.”
“….”
“Heh heh. So then.”
—Whoosh.
A wind laced with cold qi blew. Faint ice crystals sparkled and scattered before my eyes. And in the blink of an eye, Seol Ye-rin’s face was right in front of mine. She took hold of my chin. Blinking her black brows, she whispered,
“You’re that famous man—Moyong Bi—aren’t you?”