Reunion at the Capital
“Whoa, isn’t that Jegal and Nan-a? What brings you two here? Ah, everyone was bound to gather anyway.”
“Have you been well, Senior Sister?”
“Cheong-ah!”
“No need to go that far. Come here, you two.”
Dang Nan-a came running with the brightest smile in the world. Cheong snorted, then changed her mind and spread her arms wide. Dang Nan-a attempted a full-body headbutt. The effect was minimal. After all, force is determined by speed and mass (barring the cosmic mystery that is true qi), and Cheong’s body was hardly so frail that it couldn’t withstand the charge of one light girl.
When Cheong planted her feet and braced to receive her properly, Dang Nan-a leapt forward and threw her arms around her neck. In that instant, a warm, milky, savory scent washed over her.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? If you’ve got a fever or anything, don’t hide it—tell me. We can’t have wounds getting infected. Let’s go up later and take a look. I heard you were stuck in jail. Those bastards didn’t give you any trouble, did they?”
“They did try to throw their weight around……”
Of course, Cheong had been the perpetrator. The women locked up with her had tried to act tough, so she’d taught them some manners. She’d considered confiscating their meals out of hunger, but even she thought stealing food was going too far, so she let them eat.
“What happened to that old man’s son?”
“Grandson, Senior Sister.”
“Nineteen’s close enough to son or grandson. He’s grown either way.”
“True enough. The grown child has returned to his elderly grandfather, so you needn’t worry. Lady Gyeon said she’d take him to the Seol Clan Merchant Group and find him a place. Do you know of it?”
“Right, running a business in Jumadian would’ve been difficult. Good for him. It’s a small shop run by a friend of mine. Ah, I’m starving. Have you eaten? Hey, waiter!”
They moved to a private room. Cheong vented the resentment of a wasted day and a half on the innocent food.
“Senior Sister, do you even taste what you’re eating?”
“Yeah. It’s good. Oh, right. Jegal, have you heard of the Shadowless Divine Hand?”
“The Shadowless Divine Hand! You mean the exclusive art of the Shadowless Divine Thief! Indeed. I first learned of that fascinating thief when I was eleven, on the eighth day of the seventh month, while studying military strategy under Scholar Jang—”
“You really do talk too much…… Feels like you’ve gotten even worse. Is it because Nan-a won’t listen to you?”
“Well, Lady Dang doesn’t listen to anyone’s words, does she? Ah, but she listens well to Senior Sister Seomun. How curious.”
“W-who said I listen well?”
“What, you’re not going to listen to me? Nan-a, I’m truly disappointed.”
“No, I’ll listen. I will listen, but……”
“Where was I? Ah, the Divine Thief……”
To summarize Jegal Ihyeon’s lengthy explanation: the Shadowless Divine Thief was a mysterious figure who passed down his legacy to a single successor each generation—a lineage of thieves. They typically robbed wealthy merchants, government offices, and occasionally rich members of the unorthodox sects, then distributed the money among the common people. They didn’t specifically target wicked rich men, but the wealthy had a very high probability of being bastards anyway. Robbing bastards and spreading the wealth was a good deed, and even if they happened to rob one decent rich man out of a hundred, the money would still end up with the people, so there was no real problem. Thanks to this, they were sometimes called righteous thieves. But fundamentally, they remained ambiguous figures straddling the line between orthodox and unorthodox.
“Hmm. No wonder their reputation isn’t great.”
“A thief’s spawn is still a thief’s spawn. My calligraphy teacher, Scholar Jang, said they were petty thieves who skimmed the profits first and only spread what was left while taking all the credit—mongrels even among dogs.”
“So what about the Shadowless Divine Hand? Wait, when did we switch to talking about thieves again?”
The Shadowless Divine Hand, or Shadowless Divine Snatch, was a capturing technique. Geum (擒) meant to seize, and na (拿) meant to grasp. In other words, it wasn’t about striking or hitting, but about pushing, pulling, locking joints, or disrupting balance to subdue an opponent. While ordinary fist techniques, palm methods, and claw arts focused on powerful, direct strikes, the capturing arts chose the principle of using softness to overcome hardness. However, the Shadowless Divine Hand specialized in a different aspect. Its movements were so stealthy that not even a shadow remained, allowing the user to strip away a woman’s undergarments without her noticing—a technique said to be the greatest pickpocketing method in the world.
“Huh? That metaphor’s a bit much, isn’t it? And… that’s kind of weird. Having your undergarments stolen would feel pretty empty and exposed.”
“This comes from a wild tale recorded about a bet between the Mucheon Great Emperor and the Divine Thief. The bet was whether the Divine Thief could steal a woman’s undergarments without her noticing, and supposedly the Divine Thief won.”
Afterward, the Divine Thief apologized and returned the undergarments, only to receive a resounding slap. At that moment, the Mucheon Great Emperor claimed responsibility, apologized in his stead, and then disappeared with the woman. The Mucheon Great Emperor had also been famous for his handsome looks. The Divine Thief, despite winning the bet, had no choice but to return home filled with a sense of defeat—or so the story went.
“Mmm. Sounds like something that would earn you a slap. Yeah, that tracks.”
“That’s completely the behavior of a lecher! How could someone like that even exist? Did he smear some paralyzing powder on his hands? Creepy. Ah, um……”
Cheong’s superhuman hearing caught the words Dang Nan-a muttered under her breath like a sigh. Paralyzing powder, huh…… Then Dang Nan-a placed a piece of fried, boiled pork rib on Cheong’s plate and said,
“Cheong-ah, we’re just friends tonight, right?”
“Hey. What paralyzing powder? I didn’t even use any when my chest was split open—I just stitched it up raw, remember? That’s what’s creepy.”
“Eek. I-I have no idea what you’re talking about. And what, what! Yeah, so what! We’re both women. It’s not like anything’s going to wear off!”
“Now you’re being bold about it?”
Cheong’s eyes narrowed. Dang Nan-a boldly met her gaze and put strength into her eyes. Of course, her pupils were trembling and her face was pale—she looked frozen stiff—but that single display of courage was worth acknowledging. Actually, what courage? That thought brought something else to mind.
“Huh? Come to think of it, what did you do about lodging? I heard every inn was fully booked.”
“The Meng Clan has provided guest houses. Ah, that’s right, Senior Sister. Would you like to stop by the clan’s guest house? Hyang-i is making quite a fuss demanding we bring you. I didn’t expect you two to become so close in such a short time.”
“Kids just like me. That Murong brat was calling me ‘big sis’ nonstop too.”
“It’s probably because you match their wavelength so well. Your mental ages are perfectly aligned, after all—ack!”
Thwack! With the sound of a small bell ringing, Jegal Ihyeon clutched his head.
“Don’t get comfortable just because you’re far away. My honey-fists don’t care about distance. You’re getting more and more insolent by the day. You only call me ‘Senior Sister’ with your mouth.”
“Just where in this world does someone use the Buddha’s Palm to deliver honey-fists……”
Paeng Daesan’s eyebrows twitched at the sight. Jegal Ihyeon had always been sociable and polite, treating everyone with respect and calling even those a year older “big brother” or “big sister.” But that very politeness also created distance; even though he was friendly with all the younger generation of the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, he had no one he was particularly close to. He got along well with Hwangbo Uncheok, but that was only because they were cousins.
Furthermore—
“Wait. Did you say Buddha’s Palm?”
“You didn’t know, Brother Paeng? Senior Sister is the successor of the Buddha’s Palm.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“That’s because I never told you?”
At that, Paeng Daesan’s eyebrows twitched again.
“What? Why are you wiggling your eyebrows? There’s no custom among friends to report every martial art they’ve learned. I don’t know what you’ve been studying either, do I?”
“That’s…… true……”
“Wait! What did you just say! ‘San’? Are you two like that? No! This is invalid! I don’t acknowledge it! I won’t allow it!”
Dang Nan-a butted in again. Paeng Daesan flinched and looked at her, wearing his signature expression of disgust whenever he saw a woman. Come to think of it, this woman had been here the whole time. The Tang Clan’s Poison Flower. An arrogant woman who thought she was the best and looked down on everyone. A selfish woman who believed the entire world revolved around her and should continue to do so. He’d seen her twice during an event in Sichuan. In just two meetings, she’d made him sick of her—a truly dreadful woman. He’d wondered why she hadn’t acknowledged him yesterday or today, and why he’d forgotten about her entirely since he hadn’t been bothered by women lately.
Paeng Daesan’s expression turned ice-cold. But only for a moment.
“No matter how much of a young lord Paeng you are, this won’t do. You must’ve sweet-talked our innocent Cheong. Obviously it’s that thing, right? Pretending to be a pure friend while approaching her. That’s right! I was going to bring this up! How could you only book one room! How!!”
Dang Nan-a’s voice grew louder the more she spoke. She seemed to be getting worked up even as she said it.
“Our Cheong-ah is kind, so even if there are two beds, a young lord should go sleep at the Heavenly Martial Academy lodging, shouldn’t he!? What’s with acting like there’s no choice but to share a room, and then later spreading rumors to tie her down!? Hey, this is completely the work of a scoundrel Paeng!!”
Paeng Daesan pointed at his own face with an incredulous expression. Are you seriously saying this to me? his gesture asked.
“What? How petty. Are you showing off just because you’ve got a decent face? You think I’d lose my mind and hand over my liver and gallbladder just because of that face, like some lovesick fool?”
“Hah. How absurd.”
“I’m the one who finds it absurd, you know?”
Dang Nan-a shot back without backing down. Paeng Daesan’s voice dropped an octave.
“Do you not remember what you said to me at the Taesang Family Head’s seventieth birthday celebration?”
“Urgh.”
“You came straight up and said you’d allow me one wife and one concubine, didn’t you? And what else? Since your figure would be ruined, you wanted to have children after five years?”
“Uuurgh.”
“Even back then, you didn’t act like you were offering your liver and gallbladder. You just played the role of the main wife without permission.”
It was the very behavior of a villainess. If this weren’t a martial arts story but some other tale, she’d be the type of villainess who appears in the early chapters and pours a cup of wine on the protagonist. In exchange for moisturizing her skin with fine wine, the standard outcome was the complete annihilation of her entire family, relatives, and clan down to the last member—and in severe cases, even her soul would be trapped, burning in eternal hellfire. Therefore, Dang Nan-a should spend her entire life thanking the heavens that she was born in the Central Plains.
“B-back then! I was young too!”
“Hmm. So does that mean you have no feelings for me now?”
“Hah! Do you think every woman in the world likes you? You’re seriously annoying.”
Paeng Daesan’s face twisted. Sensing things had gone far enough, Cheong stepped in.
“Our Nan-a said it well! That’s right! Exactly!”
“See? I’m the only one on your side, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. But what was that about allowing one wife and one concubine? Did you really say that? And that you wanted to have kids after five years for the sake of managing your figure?”
“And that was our first meeting.”
Paeng Daesan tattled eagerly. Dang Nan-a’s face turned bright red, as if it might burst. Cheong snorted.
“You weren’t any better on our first meeting, you know? What was it you said? ‘This is a new method I’ve never seen before? And your chest is so vulgarly large it deducts a hundred points’?”
“……It wasn’t a hundred points.”
San quietly averted his gaze. One of them looked ready to explode. The other couldn’t lift his head. Naturally, the argument ended there.
“As expected of Senior Sister! After enjoying yourself to the fullest and hearing everything you wanted to hear, you seized both their weaknesses and subdued them at once! This foolish younger brother is deeply moved by that despicable tactic! You are truly magnificent! A divine and wondrous strategy!”
“Right. Jegal. I’ll let it slide this time, so you can put away the glass. And if you’re going to defend yourself, find something other than glass. The shards get in your hair.”
“Yes, Senior Sister. I’ll keep that in mind.”
After the meal ended, as they were naturally sipping the tea they’d ordered, Cheong spoke up.
“Ah, that young lady. Gongson…… Gongson-chan? Huh? Who’s Gongson-chan? It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Ah, are you referring to Gongson-chan? If it’s Gongson-chan, then—”
“Don’t make a fuss. It’s Gongson Yoye. She’s a direct descendant of the Gongson Clan.”
Paeng Daesan cut off Jegal Ihyeon’s chatter. It was a very appropriate measure. Cheong asked again.
“Right. Anyway, since she proudly announced it herself, it must be a famous family, right? Then you know where she is too? Where is that young lady now?”