Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Undercover
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The sails, billowing with the blowing wind, pulled the boxy boat along, while foam surged up from the blunt prow slicing through the current.
Shwaaak-! Paa!
Foam scattered in the spray.
A fairly brisk speed. Was it because of the fierce wind?
This flat-bottomed vessel, designed to navigate safely even in shallow waters, sent vibrations rumbling all the way up to the deck.
It was a quivering sensation from the soles of her feet all the way to her calves.
Yes.
Wi Sowol and Hwangbo Yun were currently riding a boat.
"So this is what a boat feels like!"
Hwangbo Yun, who was riding a proper boat for the first time in her life, found everything novel.
Wi Sowol watched quietly from the stern as she dashed back and forth across the deck, chattering impressions like it's cramped! small! rocky!
"Sit still, will you? It's shaky enough without you making it worse."
Her head was that of a pup, yet her build was like some wild colt.
The boat Wi Sowol was on wasn't a large passenger vessel like a houseboat but a smaller sandboat. Sandboats could be built big, of course, but those plying the Han River waterways tended to be on the smaller side.
To ride big ships, you'd have to head out to the Yangtze.
"What, seasick?"
Hwangbo Yun approached Wi Sowol with a teasing grin.
"......"
"Eh...? For real?"
A martial arts master, seasick?
"It's not that."
"Your face says otherwise."
Hwangbo Yun plopped down beside Wi Sowol.
She then slapped her plump thigh with a smack.
"Wanna lie down?"
"No thanks."
Wi Sowol was feeling queasy, it was true.
Not full-blown seasickness, but the effects weren't entirely absent.
Hwangbo Yun, born with the Heavenly King's Physique, wouldn't get motion sickness even on a cockleshell in a raging storm on the open sea—but Wi Sowol's body was the frail, frail Nine Yin Absolute Meridian.
If not for her perfect sense of balance and bodily control, she'd have long been clutching the gunwale railing and heaving her guts out.
Still, she had no real trouble keeping her composure, even if it didn't mean she felt perfectly fine.
Wi Sowol's mood was currently quite uncomfortable.
"His trail's gone cold. Useless bunch."
Not even the Haomen knew where the subordinate branch leader of the Dismantling Sword was.
It couldn't be helped.
In truth, when a martial arts master was truly determined to vanish, tracking them was no easy task.
They'd mastered lightness skills to race across mountains like flat plains, moved with blinding speed, and predicting their next appearance bordered on impossible.
They'd naturally conceal any signature weapons or techniques as well.
Even with a portrait, you'd need exceptional eyesight to spot them.
And if they used human-skin masks or disguise arts? Forget it.
Unless you assembled a blatant tracking team like the Beggars' Sect.
Haomen wasn't the sort of group fixated on pinning down every individual's personal details.
"But hey, Sowol."
Wi Sowol, arms crossed and grumbling about Haomen's incompetence, turned back.
"Yeah?"
"Weren't you heading straight back before because of that beef between the Pledge Sword Association and the Dominion Sect? If that Gye Won Eight Swords or whatever are the Pledge Sword Association's core experts, you cool picking a fight?"
She sounded concerned, but her eyes gleamed with subtle anticipation.
The look of someone itching for a scrap with the infamous Pledge Sword Association.
Wi Sowol uncrossed her arms and began writing characters on the deck with the splashed water.
"The Dominion Sect, yeah."
She drew mun (門, gate/sect) on the deck, then followed with hoe (會, association).
Sect and association.
The difference wasn't just in the characters—their very natures were worlds apart.
Unlike sects, where shared martial arts fostered bonds beyond mere affiliation, associations were mere gatherings driven by individual needs.
"The Pledge Sword Association's different."
"Loose-knit?"
"Exactly. Unless the association's very survival is at stake, they don't act as a group. Personal grudges? Handle 'em yourself."
A faction-against-faction clash.
p>For instance, in a massive conflict like the Orthodox Alliance versus the Radiant Strife Cult in Shaanxi Province, the Pledge Sword Association would surely cooperate.
But otherwise, they didn't meddle in others' vendettas just because they shared an association banner.
"Sure, close allies might team up. But it won't be many."
Wi Sowol figured two or three at most.
Sword maniacs like those in the Pledge Sword Association weren't likely to waste their own time on someone else's beef.
No matter how many loose screws filled the Pledge Sword Association, there couldn't be many with the twisted taste to befriend a lunatic scribbling his own name among the patients.
"You know everything, Sowol. I barely knew about the Pledge Sword Association."
"Uh, wellll..."
Wi Sowol awkwardly mumbled past it.
Know it well?
Of course she did.
The Pledge Sword Association was a place she'd once belonged to, after all.
In her past life, when she was called Wi Soil.
It had been brief, but after miraculously regaining his sanity amid the Nine Yang Absolute Meridian's rampage, Wi Soil—hunted by the orthodox martial world—had taken refuge there.
Not by choice.
It started from a misunderstanding, but somehow he'd ended up as a member.
'Come to think of it, wasn't the leader from Mount Hua?'
She'd never met him personally, but she recalled hearing as much.
Even among Pledge Sword Association members, he was a rare decent case.
Unlike the others, he hadn't burned down his sect or slain his master with his own hands.
"Anyway, I won't feel right till I see that bastard's face."
"He pissed me off too. I'll help—just say the word!"
"...You serious?"
It wasn't visible behind the mask.
But for some reason, Hwangbo Yun could picture her expression beyond it.
'Ah... did I mess up?'
§
"Entering Zhang Lake! We'll hit Gangneung County in about one shichen—get ready to disembark!"
Riding a boat downstream was undeniably convenient.
Just sit there all day, and you'd covered serious ground.
This must be what the Phantom Shift felt like.
A gangplank was laid out to the dock.
Passengers disembarked, filling the deck with bustle.
"You know the plan, right? Let's nail it."
"Ughh...!"
Wi Sowol patted Hwangbo Yun's back while she scowled with a crumpled face.
Brows furrowed, lips pulled up, wrinkles creasing her chin.
Coming from such a stunning beauty, it was quite the sight.
"Lighten up. It's not like you're dying or anything."
"...You do it then, Sowol."
"I won fair and square."
Wi Sowol avoided malicious acts as much as possible.
She certainly never coerced anyone.
She simply exercised the rights of a rightful victor.
In their little game—dubbed "hand-snatching," "acupoint-pressing," or "making the still guy even stiller" by some—the golden hand duel where Wi Sowol emerged victorious, and Hwangbo Yun the loser.
Thus, Wi Sowol had rightfully claimed authority over Hwangbo Yun.
And Hwangbo Yun could hardly protest.
She'd seen through Wi Sowol's lack of any real golden hand techniques and picked the event herself.
"You cheated again, didn't you?"
"Nope. Didn't need to."
"Liar! Total lie!"
Wi Sowol vented the pent-up frustration from the trip watching Hwangbo Yun tremble in outrage.
But even after disembarking, her sourpuss expression lingered, prompting Wi Sowol's curious probe.
"That hung up on it? You're a girl anyway."
"...Then you do it, Sowol."
"Absolutely not. Kill me first. And I wouldn't have ditched the mask if that was the plan."
How could a proud man don women's garb?
That was for the pampered sons of the Jiangnan elites.
To make a man forsake his manhood.
How terrifying was vanity.
Hwangbo Yun let out an exasperated whine at Wi Sowol's extreme reaction.
"Pfft... knew you'd say that."
"We're different."
I'd been a man, still thought like one, so I wore men's clothes.
Hwangbo Yun was a pure woman just preferring the comfort of men's attire.
Hwangbo Yun grumbled at Wi Sowol's sophistry, but what could she do?
A bet was a bet.
And so, upon reaching Jingzhou, their first stop was a clothing shop.
When the pair emerged.
The youth-and-boy duo was gone, replaced by one woman and one boy.
"Ughhh... I hate this so much..."
"Why? It suits you perfectly."
Wi Sowol chuckled with genuine praise, no flattery.
Properly attired in feminine inner robes, Hwangbo Yun was a rare beauty.
Sure to draw men's eyes, but for women who disguised as men for convenience, she'd inspire feverish adoration.
"Bear with it."
Wi Sowol's smile deepened at the sight of her.
The bait was set.
§
Jingzhou wasn't a specific city or village—it was a prefecture's name.
The current administrative divisions ran province, prefecture, commandery, county.
In the founding era, provinces existed informally until Emperor Honghua's reforms legitimized them.
There were smaller units like township, village, household, but they weren't crucial.
Wi Sowol's old village had been somewhere between township and village. Point was, those formed counties.
Anyway, Wi Sowol and Hwangbo Yun had arrived in Jingzhou Prefecture—specifically, its heart, Gangneung County.
Long story short, this Gangneung County held a uniquely strategic position.
Gangneung County had long been a Yangtze waterway hub, one of the river trade's vital points.
In any era, it served as the region's center and military stronghold.
Naturally, the stakes over its control were high.
Yet Jingzhou Prefecture seemed a step removed from major martial influences.
The Pledge Sword Association in southern Wuling County.
The Dominion Sect in eastern Wuchang County.
Equidistant from both powerhouses, it had become their tacit neutral ground.
How could petty sects covet turf against such behemoths?
No madman would gamble thus—and Gangneung County blossomed into a peaceful, commerce-thriving haven, akin to a free city in the Western Regions.
Recently, a rumor swept this Gangneung County.
About a certain courtesan.
Though her build was robustly unladylike, it housed womanly curves sharper than any other's, a vibrant beauty overflowing with hibiscus vitality, and a voice of crystalline clarity. From her debut, the county's pleasure houses buzzed.
But the most shocking rumor was this:
Unlike typical blue-house girls vying with poetry, calligraphy, painting, and music, she won men's admiration by casually tossing them aside with raw strength.
No wonder military exam grads were fired up—it was only natural.
Those young scholar-swordsmen, forced to watch helplessly as courtesans swooned over rivals' looks, flair, and wit due to their own deficient polish.
Now was their chance to wash away that humiliation!
They charged in with gusto—and all fell.
Atop the pile of sprawled martial examinees, the woman raised her arm in triumphant victory.
One man, pride shattered more by defeat's shock, demanded:
How could a woman be so strong?
The courtesan replied:
—As a child, I was frail and sickly, but after treatment from a physician named Ma Yu Seung, I grew this strong.
The rumor spread at an astonishing speed.
Through courtesans, coachmen, errand boys—like a heavenly steed it raced.
Drawn by that whisper, chasing that name.
One man entered Gangneung County.
"Finally."
Seated at a guest inn's pavilion overlooking the county, Wi Sowol tore up the portrait on the table.
No longer needed.
Time to move.