The Flowering Ceremony
“Is this enough for the deposit?”
I hesitated with the contract in hand before finally managing to force the words out.
“J-just a little more.”
So Yeomgyo snatched the contract away.
Her speed was lightning-fast, like a snake snatching a mouse.
“Nope.”
We signed the contract.
She was the leader of the Blood Death Sect, the strongest assassin group in the jianghu.
Assassins are sensitive to information.
Even though she had never laid eyes on me before, she had my movements thoroughly mapped out.
A rash lie against someone like her would bring extremely dangerous consequences.
I was not particularly good at lying either.
Of nine parts truth, simply omitting facts that did not need to be spoken made up the remaining one.
I claimed I had finished the trials of Ha-mu-gwan at Cheonsubaekryeonsa, felt stifled about returning straight away, wandered the area for a while, and was on my way back.
I completely hid the fact that I needed the hair of the Emei Sect Guardian’s successor.
“Perfect. I was just regretting not bringing one more person along. Want to try being my attendant for a short while? I’ll cover your travel expenses.”
She asked me to help guard the Emei Sect Guardian’s successor for a bit.
“You’ve grown quite a bit at Cheonsubaekryeonsa, haven’t you? Your presence feels different. You won’t hold me back.”
Even Jin Muje had sensed the change in my atmosphere.
She still did not know my exact skill, but a transcendent master like her would never miss such a subtle shift in me.
“What makes you trust me enough to hire me? As you know, we didn’t exactly start off on good terms.”
“Ah, so you’re saying I should be careful because you might betray me?”
“No, not necessarily that.”
So Yeomgyo laughed.
“Traitors are always the ones who only got half-assed beatings. But a guy who already died by my hand turning around and betraying me?”
“You won’t stiff me on the pay, right?”
At my words, So Yeomgyo burst into laughter as if the idea were absurd.
“Pahaha, I’ll hand over your pay ‘with my own hands’ once the job is done. Feel better now? Honestly.”
And so I entered a three-day contract with her.
She handed me a strip of red cloth and pointed at my mouth.
“And wear this. If anyone recognizes you as a young master of the Moyong Family, it’ll become a hassle. At least cover your lower face.”
I pulled up the lower-face mask she had given me and pressed it up over my nose.
“As expected, the true color is the flame of the red lotus! Red!”
So Yeomgyo had a clear preference for the color red.
Thinking back, every dish she had eaten had been red and spicy, Sichuan-style fare.
Looking up at me—she was shorter than I was—So Yeomgyo said,
“Covered up, you’re pretty handsome, huh?”
It was the first time in my life that receiving a compliment made me feel worse.
“Yeah, right.”
“If you don’t fix that expression, I’ll dock your pay.”
“My true color is red, of course.”
All preparations complete.
The two of us climbed into the cargo bed of a carriage heading up toward the mid-slope of Geumjeong Peak on Mount Emei.
So Yeomgyo, her back flickering like a red shadow, sat at the edge of the carriage, swinging her feet and brushing the wildflowers as we passed.
“Three days until the Flowering Ceremony ends. Just hold out for three days. What could possibly happen in that time?”
“What’s a Flowering Ceremony?”
“I expected as much, but our young master really knows nothing.”
Pfft.
With a flick of her hand, a white wildflower blooming by the roadside was severed and snatched up.
So Yeomgyo hummed as she trimmed it with her fingertips.
“A Guardian is a one-person succession existence who inherits a form called a ‘gem’—a dantian that continuously accumulates the inner energy and experience passed down from the distant ancestors of the sect. The Flowering Ceremony is the ritual of passing that ‘gem’ on to the next generation’s young Guardian.”
“Ah.”
I touched the area near my solar plexus.
Mumyeong had definitely called that black bead a gem.
I had clearly crushed and swallowed the thing known as the Heavenly Demon Jade with my teeth.
“The dantian takes the form of a gem?”
“I’ve never seen one myself, but not just Guardians—once you reach a certain level of mastery, it becomes like that. Similar to the sarira that appear when you cremate an old monk who has accumulated virtue in Buddhism.”
Since entering the jianghu, I had only encountered Guardians twice.
Once was Eun Seollyeong, the Mount Hua Guardian who had saved me, and the other was the Sichuan Tang Family Guardian I had seen at the Moyong Family.
Beings who were human yet not human.
I wish I could just die already, or something like that.
When we had warmed ourselves by the campfire, Eun Seollyeong had muttered those words while staring blankly at the night sky.
Clunk.
The carriage stopped, jolting me from my thoughts.
We had arrived at the main compound of the Emei Sect.
There was no special welcome.
So Yeomgyo, as if she had come and gone from Emei countless times before, found everything with practiced ease and requested what was needed from the maids who served inside the sect.
We were assigned lodgings and stayed as if we were guests who had come to play—eating and lingering.
The Emei Sect was extremely bleak.
Perhaps because of the massive ceremony ahead, I did not even catch a glimpse of any important figures.
All I could see were the maids who attended me and cleaned the surroundings.
Time passed like that.
Before I knew it, it was the final night of the third day.
I finally understood the leisurely attitude So Yeomgyo had maintained the entire time we wrote the contract.
“Of course it’s fine for me, but is it really okay to be this relaxed?”
So Yeomgyo was raking fallen leaves into a pile in a corner of the courtyard.
She lit a fire and began roasting chestnuts.
“Hot, hot, hot. Why? What’s the problem? Want some? If you want to eat, pay up.”
“No money.”
“Just deduct it from your pay.”
“Is the Blood Death Sect having money troubles these days?”
“A person becomes rich by knowing when to save and when to spend. I’m not some spoiled brat.”
I squatted next to her, accepted a chestnut, and roasted it side by side with her.
The sun set.
Stars rose.
As late autumn settled in, the weather grew sharply cold the moment the sun went down.
Especially here at the Emei Sect, midway up Mount Emei—once the sun set and dusk fell, a chilly cold would descend like mist from the north.
“You said you came because of a connection. Who do you have a connection with at the Emei Sect?”
“The Emei military strategist. We had various connections when we were young. Before I was active in the Blood Death Sect, and before that kid became Emei’s strategist. I wonder if she’s fixed that indecisive personality of hers.”
So Yeomgyo poked at the blackened chestnuts amid the sparkling red embers.
White breath flowed from her mouth.
“Isn’t that strategist coming to see you? You said she’s a friend. She hasn’t shown her face once.”
At first I thought it was because I was a man, and with the sect being all women, they treated only me as a non-person.
But the Emei Sect treated not just me but So Yeomgyo the same way.
They did not neglect us, yet they did not treat us as guests either; it was more accurate to say they treated us like nearly invisible shadows.
“As you know, we can’t acknowledge each other. It would cause a huge fuss, right? Emei has its own symbolic status among the orthodox sects, and associating with our Blood Death Sect? Haha.”
It was the attitude of someone who had endured this treatment more than once or twice—someone for whom it no longer even stung.
“If they’re going to treat you like this, why bother calling you?”
“Because among the people the strategist knows, I’m the strongest. The Flowering Ceremony is that important a ritual—one on which the sect’s survival hangs—and also the most vulnerable moment. Ah, come to think of it, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while.”
The campfire brushed past my cheek.
“Honestly, you’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”
“What?”
I was hiding a great deal.
So I felt a twinge of guilt.
But I pretended not to know as thoroughly as I could.
She furrowed her brows.
“Like how you copied martial arts last time. Our Baekho said about you that you might be from the Demonic Cult…”
She stared at me blankly, then sighed.
“Never mind. Looking at that vacant expression of yours, I’m the one losing energy. Well, what does it matter. Everyone lives their own life.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
I spoke while staring into the campfire.
“Of what?”
“That I might betray you. Honestly, even if you told me to do what you do, I don’t think I could.”
I do not trust people.
Normally that would be a strength.
But sometimes—for example when some genuine oddball tries to approach me—it becomes a weakness.
This was an unavoidable shortcoming I had gained from my wretched past, a problem I had to carry with me.
“My father used to say.”
She stood up, dusting off her clothes.
“When people get comfortable, they get a lot of idle thoughts. Taking a rare break, you’re thinking too much?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to tense up, but actually the Flowering Ceremony starting in five shichen is the real final stage. Whether the strategist’s judgment in calling even me was wise foresight or overreaction will be revealed then.”
Shrrrk.
From her thigh, a short sword imbued with blue light and killing intent was drawn.
I had always only seen the soft sword wrapped around her forearm, so seeing another weapon was a first.
Under the blue moonlight, she held two swords in both hands and said,
“I’ll say this in advance. See these two swords? Besides the soft sword I usually use, drawing these two means I’m prepared to die and going all out. The moment you see me draw these, you run.”
“What?”
“There will be no middle ground in this job. Either absurdly nothing happens, or it’s hell. If it comes to it, I’ll abandon you and run. Moyong Bi, think only of yourself. Don’t think about the surroundings. So that question you asked earlier doesn’t even need an answer.”
“…”
I nodded.
I felt around my waist.
The cool sensation of iron weapons reached my fingertips.
I had requested the Emei Sect to supply the necessary weapons.
What I had asked for were two thick swords that boasted solid strength rather than sharpness, five daggers, and gauntlets made by layering hard iron.
With a clank, I tightened the iron gauntlets around my hands.
Please let nothing happen.
And so the day of the Flowering Ceremony dawned.
Wooooong.
A massive horn blast resounded.
“Throughout this job, we won’t get to see the face of the Guardian successor before the Flowering Ceremony. They say it brings bad luck.”
In the distance, a figure hidden behind a wooden screen was being carried in a palanquin.
That person had to be the next Guardian.
I had never seen her face even once.
According to So Yeomgyo, she was a young girl.
Kwakwakwa.
I looked around.
“A natural fortress.”
The garden where the Flowering Ceremony would take place sat on island-like terrain with Mount Emei’s cliffs at its back and the massive Cheonghyang River flanking one side.
It was a garden filled with the unique brilliant red of spindle trees.
She pointed north and south.
“The place we have to block is the Cheongro Bridge—the only one to the north that crosses the Cheonghyang River surrounding this place. If we just hold that, even a hundred thousand troops couldn’t cross the fierce currents of the Cheonghyang River.”
At the entrance to the Cheongro Bridge, not only us but also martial artists of the Emei Sect—bodies covered from head to toe in fluttering light-pink translucent cloth—were standing guard.
Their numbers were pitifully few.
Moreover, their quality looked low, and even ahead of an important ceremony, the level of each martial artist did not seem particularly high.
I didn’t expect it to be this bad.
I could guess why the Emei military strategist, whom I had never even seen, had gone to the trouble of inviting So Yeomgyo despite the face of the orthodox sects.
“Next, not that important, but to the south.”
There was a steep cliff connected to a relatively lower area of Mount Emei.
It was a sheer cliff so steep that an ordinary person could not even stand, without a single joint, as if sliced clean by a blade.
Below it, conspicuously, not a single martial artist stood guard.
“Honestly, that place makes me uneasy for some reason. Of course there won’t be any crazy bastards coming down the cliff, but…”
So Yeomgyo muttered, frowning.
“But I’ve been curious since earlier.”
I said, frowning in turn.
“Who are those guys? Looking at the men, they’re not Emei.”
As if it were no big deal, So Yeomgyo wiped her soft sword with a cloth and said,
“Just flies trying to stick their spoons in the rice bowl. We expected it from Lower Gate tips, and sure enough they came. The Jongnam Sect from Shaanxi Province.”
Men in green martial robes, long swords drawn, were glaring at me and So Yeomgyo.
It was like a pack of jackals wary of those trying to snatch their prey.
So Yeomgyo wrapped the cleaned soft sword around her wrist and said,
“Don’t bother making eye contact with them. If we cause a fuss for no reason, it’s not us who get in trouble but Emei. I understand, though.”
“You understand?”
“The Jongnam Sect recently had their Guardian murdered, so currently among the Nine Sects and One Gang, they’re the only sect without a Guardian. They probably demanded a certain amount of the Guardian’s martial power in exchange for assisting the protection of Emei’s next Guardian this time. They’re such a corrupt sect that I don’t know if they’ll even be of help.”
Wooooong.
The massive horn blast covered So Yeomgyo’s words.
Music sounds faintly spread.
“It’s started.”
In the far distance, surrounded by Emei’s core martial artists, I could not even see what they were doing.
I could only guess that the Flowering Ceremony was proceeding from the faintly heard horn blasts, various instrument sounds, and noise.
“There will be a total of five horn blasts. This is the first. We just need to stand guard until the fifth horn blast sounds.”
So Yeomgyo stood beside me and whispered.
Unbearable silence alone pressed down on the air, with only the soft music from afar spreading out.
So Yeomgyo was silent too.
Along with a few Emei people, the Jongnam people also stood guard without uttering a single word.
So Yeomgyo watched the horizon beyond the Cheongro Bridge on guard, and I stood back-to-back with her, guarding the cliff side.
As the Flowering Ceremony progressed, as it headed toward its end, the tension grew densely thick.
Past noon, the intense autumn sunlight beat down everywhere.
As the sunlight grew strong enough to stab the eyes, the shadows cast on the cliff also deepened in stark yin-yang contrast.
Clatter.
Pebbles rolled down from the cliff.
“Huh?”
I raised my head.
Since when?
A person in black attire was in the shadow of the cliff.
Like a bat hanging upside down, standing vertically on the cliff face.
As if not even breathing, without the slightest movement, staring fixedly only at me.
“…”
Even from a distance, I could tell.
A featureless white mask.
The bloodshot eyes beyond the white mask were looking as if only I existed in this world.
Not looking at Emei.
Not looking at the Guardian successor whose Flowering Ceremony was in full swing, visible at a glance from the cliff.
Not looking at So Yeomgyo either.
Only staring at me, embedding bloodshot eyes of hatred into my every move.
There was only one person in the Heavenly Demon Cult who would send me such a gaze.
I let out a low groan.
“Fuck…”
I carefully tried to tap the shoulder of So Yeomgyo, who had her back to me.
But before that, So Yeomgyo first tapped my shoulder and whispered.
“Moyong Bi, draw your weapons.”
“What?”
“With this, the foresight of Emei’s deputy strategist has been proven wise.”
Dudududu…
Heaven and earth shook.
The ground trembled.
Emei people murmured.
The progress of the Flowering Ceremony was disrupted.
I looked ahead.
“Oh my god.”
Beyond the Cheonghyang River, something was charging, blackening the horizon.
It was a force group wrapped entirely in red martial robes—the worst chaotic evil in the jianghu.
“Th-the Blood Cult too!?”
Wooooong.
And now, only the second horn blast began to resound.