The Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts
I spoke with casual ease, but I was more tense than anyone else in the room.
Watching a Guardian’s martial power up close had left me with a side effect that was not quite a side effect. Whenever I ran into someone who carried a certain reputation in the jianghu, my body locked up hard with tension.
His only weapon is the single sword at his left hip.
With Mumyeong’s words as a backdrop, I studied the man.
Cheongunryong of the Kunlun Sect.
Rumors about him followed wherever you went. A handsome young master whose head was stuffed with nothing but obsession for the martial arts—that was the definition the world had settled on for him. He poured every waking hour into training, took not a single coin of financial support from Kunlun, and covered even his living expenses by hunting down wanted men.
A direct disciple of one of the Nine Great Sects, yet he scraped by on the capital’s streets doing the rough work of facing vicious criminals. Of course the public’s attention clung to him. Whatever he truly sought, his popularity among ordinary people was enormous.
The unspoken rule was that martial artists kept to the martial world and stayed out of the affairs of the jianghu beyond it as much as possible. So the sight of a man who belonged to the Nine Great Sects—not some rootless wanderer—making his living by dragging in wanted criminals was strange enough to be fascinating.
Cheongunryong spoke to me in a stiff, even voice.
“Did you take every last wanted poster in this place?”
There was no need for words. I simply gripped the thick sheaf of posters for vicious criminals in both hands and shook them.
“…”
Cheongunryong gestured to the women trailing after him. They obeyed as meekly as puppies. Then he came toward me alone. His eyes, cold and utterly still, settled on my face.
“Did you truly believe that if you asked for a talk, I would simply sit down and converse with you?”
“I didn’t think you would. But.”
I plucked the poster with the highest bounty from the stack and waved it in the air.
“Wouldn’t it be fine to hear me out once and then take all these posters? No need to make unnecessary trouble. I don’t care to start off rude with a stranger either.”
“If you are a man who understands courtesy and knows how to discuss rudeness—”
Cheongunryong tapped his own chin lightly.
“—then how about lowering that mask covering the lower half of your face first?”
I already had the answer ready.
“I have a large burn around my mouth.”
“A burn?”
“And I am sorry as well that I cannot show my bare face.”
Cheongunryong’s expression grew complicated. Buried somewhere in it was genuine apology. I was impressed. This man truly had the disposition of an orthodox martial artist among orthodox martial artists.
I said, “If you still insist I remove it even knowing that, I’ll take it off willingly. I have my own sense of shame.”
What mattered was the force behind the words—that a single word from him and I would strip it off without hesitation. People, without realizing it, let a great deal in conversation be decided by the other person’s momentum. If I hesitated even a little, his unconscious mind would catch it. So I believed it myself first: one word from him and I really would take it off.
At the same time I had something to lean on. The background in which he had grown up since childhood was Kunlun—the most orthodox of the orthodox sects.
“We’ll let it pass.”
He sat down across from me.
“A drink? I have bamboo-leaf wine.”
At my question Cheongunryong let out a short laugh.
“How am I supposed to take it when you offer wine you yourself are not drinking?”
In front of me sat a bottle of bamboo-leaf wine whose seal had not even been broken.
“I,” I said, pointing at the cup before me, “don’t care for liquor.”
It was filled with milk.
Cheongunryong muttered, “Never mind that. You must have a reason for calling me. You didn’t come at this hour, monopolize the wanted posters, just to push drinks on me.”
“Of course not. I didn’t come to fight. Consider this proof of that.”
I tossed the bundle of posters onto the table in front of him. Cheongunryong snatched it up like lightning.
“You’re from Kunlun, yet your sect gives you no support at all? I don’t understand it. Looking at how obsessed you are with these posters, it doesn’t seem to be purely for some grand cause the way the world believes.”
Cheongunryong flipped through the posters, sorting them—highest sums first, smaller ones behind. He looked exactly like a man counting money.
“In this world,” Cheongunryong said, “there are a great many cases of people who know nothing about a man yet embroider dreams onto him and call it interpretation.”
“I did think there was something that didn’t add up about the rumors—that a man who claims to focus only on honing his martial arts would settle in one place and devote himself to catching wanted criminals like some common wanderer.”
I looked straight at him.
“So it is money after all?”
“…”
Cheongunryong’s hands stopped. He looked at me. At the edge of that gaze, killing intent gathered.
“I am not some piece of trash who frets over money. Although…”
“Although?”
At the question, Cheongunryong’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
“I have clearly felt how terrifying money can be.”
“…”
I simply watched him. Taking my silence for something else, Cheongunryong added,
“If you want to sneer at how pathetic I am, then sneer. You look like a martial man yourself, so of course you will. But only those who have never tasted real life in this world ever overlook how frightening money is.”
“…”
I took a sip of milk.
“I’ll speak plainly about what I need. Cheongunryong.”
I let my voice out slowly through the mask.
“I want your fall—”
“Cheongunryong! Where are you!”
Someone was climbing the stairs in a rough rush.
“…!”
Cheongunryong’s face hardened.
His pulse keeps climbing. An extremely sensitive reaction. Feels like something that would explode if pressed.
Mumyeong whispered from the dark.
But this is strange.
What followed was unexpected.
The other party is not a martial artist.
“Cheongunryong!”
There were several of them—all hulking servants. At their head strode a small young master from a wealthy house.
“Why so many people! Get out of here!”
At the shout from the freckled, hollow-cheeked youth with long black hair, the servants surged forward.
“Our young master says he’s uncomfortable!”
“Kyaaak!”
The women crowded on the second floor screamed.
“It’s Ju Aseong!”
“Th-those damned bastards who deserve heaven’s punishment…!”
As if swatting flies, the servants swept them downstairs in an instant. Only Cheongunryong and I, still seated at the table, remained on the floor.
“Cheongunryong, you must have heard me looking for you. Aren’t you going to answer?”
Ju Aseong barked sharply toward us at the table. I was thoroughly taken aback. Anyone could see he was an ordinary civilian. Civilians did not often behave this rudely toward martial artists.
Cheongunryong opened his mouth.
“…Young Master Ju Aseong. I was checking the wanted notices and failed to answer you in time.”
That the words “I am sorry” never left his lips even as empty courtesy, and that he did not bow his head, seemed to be the last scrap of Cheongunryong’s pride. Yet his tone still clearly carried the flavor of apology.
At Cheongunryong’s words, Ju Aseong wore a thin smile.
“Hmph. Still struggling away, I see. So you still have no intention of accepting my proposal?”
“…”
Cheongunryong bit his lip and kept silent. Ju Aseong shrugged.
“I’ll give you that much. The bounties on vicious criminals are high, and the speed at which you’re paying back what you owe my father is decently fast. But.”
He clicked his tongue and looked at Cheongunryong with open contempt.
“At that rate, when do you think you’ll ever finish paying it all? Stop that and come to the pleasure houses with me instead. Every time we go I’ll shove more money at you than you can even compare. The courtesans these days aren’t easy to win over, but if I bring you along they’ll definitely—”
“Young Master.”
Cheongunryong spoke in a low voice.
“The reason I am still sitting quietly right now—”
“…Huh?”
Ju Aseong froze.
“—is not because I am a martial artist who does not know what insult is, or who has no pride. It is because I take pride in being from an orthodox sect that values duty and justice.”
“W-wait. Cheongunryong.”
“If I happened to be some heretical martial artist with no respect for each station in society, or some villainous background like the Heavenly Demon Cult or the Blood Cult—”
Cheongunryong’s eyes flashed between strands of deep blue-black hair.
“—your head would already be rolling on the ground, Young Master!”
With that he shoved back his chair and stood.
“Hic.”
Under that razor-edged momentum, Ju Aseong froze in terror. Cheongunryong roughly shouldered past the servants blocking his path and went downstairs.
“Y-you bastard! A debtor dares speak to me like that!”
Only after Cheongunryong had gone did the frozen Ju Aseong belatedly fill with rage and shout.
“…”
I blinked. I stared at the empty chair left sitting forlornly in front of me. The bundle of wanted posters I had used as bait to pin Cheongunryong in place was gone as well. Even in the middle of his fury, Cheongunryong had thriftily carried off every last sheet without leaving a single one behind.
“Like a dog that chased chickens.”
I poured milk into the empty cup on the table. I clenched my teeth. The milk trembled faintly as it poured. I had been about to speak when some unknown bastard cut me off and drove away the man I meant to negotiate with. No one could stay calm after nearly half a day spent since early morning turned into pure waste in a single stroke.
Outside the second-floor window, a farmer was unloading rice straw from a horse’s back and stacking it in the street.
“You dog of a bastard! I’ll tell Father to raise the interest rate! We lent him a fortune out of pity for his wretched circumstances, and he dares—!”
Ju Aseong, seething, overturned nearby chairs and tables and kicked them. In the violence even the flowerpots against the wall shook; several tipped and spilled dirt. Through it all I sipped my milk.
“I even treated him with some respect because he was from Kunlun…. You! The strange one in the mask!”
Ju Aseong pointed at me.
“What are you? Did you fill Cheongunryong’s head with more worthless nonsense?”
I set the cup down.
“Nothing of the sort.”
“Lies! And that face of yours is covered, and your attitude is thoroughly insolent. Take off the mask at once, kneel, and confess!”
I answered immediately, spitting the words.
“That would be difficult.”
Ju Aseong’s expression changed.
“You dare talk back to me, Ju Aseong, inside this capital?”
The servants closed in. I had seen this countless times while crawling through the capital’s underbelly in search of learning—the rich taking out their temper on commoners.
“You there, young master I’ve never met. I don’t know who you are, and I’m no local—”
I adjusted my mask as I spoke.
“—but if you pick fights and look for excuses with random people just because you’re in a foul mood, and a dispute breaks out, you do know both sides get dragged to the yamen and sit in jail, yes?”
“Oho, ohahaha!!”
Ju Aseong clutched his belly and laughed.
Something twisted inside me. He almost certainly did not mean it that way. But the laugh that rich young master produced was identical to the laugh of a certain man I hated with every fiber of my being.
“Hahaha! That country bumpkin! He’s digging his own grave!”
“Good heavens, to think there’s actually someone who talks like that to Young Master Ju Aseong!”
The servants also held their foreheads and laughed as if they could not believe it.
“Sure, I’ll go to jail. But you know—”
Ju Aseong spoke through mad, roaring laughter.
“—my father runs this entire district. If I go to jail, do you think I’d even last a day? I figure it wouldn’t take a single shichen.”
At Ju Aseong’s gesture the servants ringed me. Snickering, they flicked the brim of my bamboo hat upward with their palms. They grabbed the edge of my mask and tugged, mocking me.
I spoke calmly.
“Is that so?”
“That’s so, you bumpkin!”
Ju Aseong seized the cup and dumped the milk over my head. White milk ran down along my chin. I looked at him.
“Then I know a place where you could stay at least a month. Want an introduction?”
“Keh-heh-heh! Putting on airs! Where is it, then? Where’s this place that dares hold me, Ju Aseong, for a whole month at minimum!”
I caught the empty ceramic cup he threw.
“A place called a clinic.”