A Refreshing Misunderstanding on the Road to Wudang
Change course to north-northwest.
In the distant past, a Taoist priest surnamed Zhang reached the Purple Bamboo Peak of Mount Taihe and built a small temple there. One day, this man named Zhang dreamed of an immortal bearing a sword and begged for instruction. When he awoke and meditated for ten full months, he opened his eyes to find he had already reached the realm where the sword moved of its own accord. Zhang built a shrine and hung a plaque that read “Wudang.” From then on, people called Mount Taihe by another name. Because it was the main headquarters of the Wudang Sect, they called it Wudang Mountain.
And here, on the road leading to that very sect, a certain group of people was traveling.
“Master, must you really keep clinging to me like this?”
“Yes. This is just right.”
“Then……”
“Aigo, the sorrows of old age. My one and only disciple thinks of nothing but tossing his master aside like yesterday’s garbage. Aigo, Original Heavenly Venerable!”
“Master, what are you even saying? You are someone who will live forever. Please know that your disciple prays for exactly that every single day.”
“Yes, yes. But what joy is there in immortality if I am alone? I, too, pray every day for my disciple’s smooth path to immortality.”
The Taoists following beside them burst into laughter. After all, it was said that being cursed led to a long life.
“By the way, Master. Why are you clinging instead of riding on my back?”
“Riding on your back was tiring, so I decided to cling instead.”
“The Heavenly Emperor is truly heartless. To leave a living embodiment of the immortal path abandoned on the ground like this. Why does he not call you up to the heavens at once?”
“If I were about to ascend and take my place at the edge of the immortal realm, would there be any reason to prepare so diligently?”
“I have found a reason. Since the way of immortals does not accept earthly ties, does that not mean the order is first-come, first-served?”
“Heh heh. Please, for your master’s sake, at least try.”
The young man carrying the old man on his back—Hwan-yuk—ground his teeth and let out a long sigh.
“My fate is truly wretched! I heard that Changbin of Mount Hua serves his master so well that he eats spiritual medicine like rice and is already eyeing the Transcendent realm. Yet some people cannot even catch a glimpse of the dregs of a Jaso-dan. They say karma is the fortune of three lifetimes, so why am I so terribly unlucky!”
“Indeed, well said. If only my disciple were Changbin, I could feed him spiritual pills like rice. How truly regrettable.”
“Master! Are you not being a bit too much?”
Hwan-yuk looked genuinely hurt. The Wudang Taiji was so soft in deflecting attacks that, compared to his master, Hwan-yuk was still a mere novice. These were Wudang Sect Taoists on their way back to the mountain. A month earlier they had attended the birthday celebration of the Supreme Elder of the Hengshan Sect. On the way back, they had taken the scenic route around Dongting Lake to cultivate their Tao.
The master, the Taoist priest Seung-su, soothed his sulking disciple.
“You foolish boy. Are you upset? Though I may not have looked after you as well as I did Jeong-hu, I gave you something far more precious, did I not?”
“From you, Master? This unworthy disciple has no memory of receiving anything, so what is this nonsense?”
“You idiot. What does good standing in the sect mean? Transcendent realm or not, he is still your junior. What is there to envy?”
“Now that I think about it, Master’s words are truly like jade. Is clinging like this not tiring? This unworthy disciple dares to place his hands on his heaven-like master’s buttocks, mm?”
Hwan-yuk’s expression turned serious.
“Did you hear that?”
It was a human scream. Faint, yet so wretched that simply hearing it filled the listener with horror.
A rat-faced man with a wretched appearance was crawling across the ground. Suddenly a shadow fell over him. When he looked up, Cheong was squatting down, staring at him.
“S-Save……”
“Me? How? Do I look like a doctor to you?”
“Please save me, I beg you……”
“That’s not my area of expertise.”
Suddenly an old scene floated up in her mind. A crowd of friends gathered in front of a flowerbed. Someone shouting for her to come quickly. An earthworm crawling across the concrete. And a magnifying glass in her friend’s hand. Everyone arguing over whose turn it was, wanting to try, focusing sunlight to burn it. She could not clearly remember any of her friends’ faces or names from that time. Yet the desperate writhing of that earthworm, the way its body swelled and cooked under a lens no bigger than a child’s palm, remained vividly clear.
It had been a memory from some childhood summer.
“That’s right.”
“Save……”
“Did the earthworm squirm more than this?”
“Please, just kill me, please……”
“But doesn’t it hurt? Wouldn’t it be easier to just die? Why not ask me to kill you instead?”
Cheong tilted her head as if she genuinely could not understand.
The rat-faced man looked up at Cheong. And their eyes met.
In the shadow cast by the sun behind her, her pupils shimmered with an eerie, iridescent light. At first glance purple, yet blood-red, veined with blue like capillaries, and burning with the yellow flame of the sun. Entirely black, sometimes white, yet transparent all the same. It was a color that simply did not exist anywhere else in the world.
When the killing aura of the Heavenly Killing Star soaked into the marrow, it illuminated the world with an ominous starlight.
“Monster! You are a monster!”
The moment he jerked his head up, a young swordsman charged straight at her with his blade raised. Cheong lifted her own sword to swing, but the young man stepped on the air, soared upward, and dodged. One of the unspoken rules of the martial world was that after witnessing the wondrous footwork of a direct disciple of Wudang, one must always express admiration. Any cultured martial artist would have immediately cried out, “Truly, the Cloud Steps!”
But Cheong had no such refinement. She was simply too busy dealing with an aerial maneuver she had never even imagined, frantically parrying the incoming attacks.
He leaped seven times in the air, changing direction—right, left, above, in all eight directions. Finally, at some point in empty space, he twisted his body, kicked off an invisible ceiling, and shot downward in an instant. The tip of his sword came rushing in like Mount Tai.
Cheong grit her teeth and slashed diagonally with her blade. The Wolgwang-geom, barely catching the enemy’s hilt near the crossguard, desperately twisted its trajectory. The sword point that had been inches from her eyes slid off to the right.
Relief lasted only a moment. The young man’s empty left hand came into view. A fist spinning from the pinky inward, wrapping tight. Oh no.
Cheong poured her qi into her heels. Thud.
Cheong flew backward and tumbled across the ground. She staggered to her feet, stomach churning, and vomited a bowl of black blood. Unfortunately, Cheong’s chest protruded more than most people’s. The vomited blood poured entirely onto her clothes, soaking them through.
“Hmm……?”
Cheong blinked.
She had taken a hit, so why did she feel refreshed?
In truth, both Wudang’s Seven Star Qi and its Demon-Subduing Fist Technique originally possessed outstanding demon-purifying and cleansing properties. Two powerful purifying energies had combined and created a synergistic effect, striking Cheong with more than three times the normal purifying power.
Fortunately, Cheong was the owner of the Wolnyeo Mind Method. The Wolnyeo Mind Method was also a Daoist martial art. Daoist internal energies had difficulty harming one another. They tended to shout “We are all family!” and slip past each other without causing serious damage.
However, the Wolnyeo Mind Method, which had been struggling alone against the Heavenly Killing Star’s murderous aura, received Wudang’s clear and pure qi and exerted some effort. The killing aura of the Heavenly Killing Star was drawn out from the marrow, mixed into the blood, and the corrupted blood rotted and left the body. It was an unexpected stroke of good fortune.
Of course, it had only postponed the fate of falling under the Heavenly Killing Star’s calamity for a little while.
Still, the feeling was strangely refreshing.
Cheong returned to her usual self and shouted.
“What a cowardly sneak attack from the front!”
“What……?”
“No more questions! On this spot today, filthy perverts will not survive! Die, you pedophile!”
It was the kind of nonsense Cheong spouted whenever she gained absolute confidence in victory. And for good reason. After taking the hit, she realized it was nothing special. She had been a little surprised by the unfamiliar three-dimensional movement, but all she had to do was pin him down so he could not jump anymore.
Jeunjong was a wonder of the martial world, but the Wolnyeo Mountain Walk was a forgotten legend, a myth. It was an anti-gravity footwork even more absurd than aerial maneuvers.
The moment the figure that seemed to float gently suddenly appeared before his eyes and charged, Hwan-yuk panicked and swung his sword to meet it.
“Perverted bastard! Child molester! Horny dog bastard!”
The sword forms that blurred the line between real and illusion were threatening, but the endless stream of curses pouring into his ears was far more horrifying.
“A child who hasn’t even grown yet! Can you even get it up after that? Fucking pathetic, isn’t it! Even beasts don’t mate with their own young! You’re worse than a beast! An insult to beasts! I’m sorry to the beasts for comparing you to them! Cut off your dick! Cut it off!”
“W-Wait, just wait a moment……!”
It was then.
“Stop!”
At the urgent voice and the sound of many rushing footsteps, Cheong hastily created distance. Tsk, why were there so many bastards trying to do something to a little kid? The martial world really was rotten to the core. She would finish it with the Yeorae Shinjang and run.
With that thought, Cheong examined the young man. Suddenly a number entered her vision. 57.
What? Why is it so high?
Soon after, Wudang warriors in indigo robes came rushing in. Their numbers varied, but every single one of them had accumulated good karma. Among them was even a record breaker.
The old man with 183 spoke.
“Young lady, please calm your anger for now. It seems there has been some misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? You’re allowed to hit people over a misunderstanding? Can’t you see this?”
Cheong grabbed the blood-soaked front of her jacket and flapped it. Coughs broke out here and there as gazes wandered toward the distant mountains as if something interesting were happening over there.
“Disciple, what exactly is going on? Why is this young lady hurling such vulgar curses at you?”
“Well, I clearly saw a demonic aura, a killing intent……”
Taoist Seung-su looked into Cheong’s eyes. The Wolnyeo True Qi that had completely suppressed the Heavenly Killing Star’s aura was finally doing its job. The profound aura felt from Cheong’s eyes was sharp and cold for a Daoist, yet it was unmistakably of the Daoist school. Originally, both Daoist and Buddhist internal energy showed in the eyes.
“Heh heh, your eyes must be terribly crossed. No matter how I look at her, this young lady appears to be a Taoist.”
“No, that woman definitely emitted an ominous starlight and tried to kill that man.”
All heads turned toward the rat-faced man. His appearance was so horrific it was a wonder he was still alive. The gazes then turned back to Cheong.
Cheong protested.
“That bastard is a bad guy! He’s a pervert who tried to rape—I mean, assault a little kid!”
Gazes returned to the rat-faced man.
“N-No, that’s not…… I was only going to kidnap her……”
“Look at this bastard. Kidnap? Just a kidnapping? Did you not know what would happen to that child? Huh?”
“That is……”
The rat-faced man could not continue.
Cheong spoke triumphantly, full of vigor.
“See? A pedophile or someone trying to sell one to a pedophile—same trash.”
Taoist Seung-su stroked his beard and said,
“Heh heh. To think there exists such a beast in this world.”