Hidden Dragon Tournament
“Cheong-ah? Where are you going?”
“I left something behind for a moment……”
If someone mentioned the Blood Sect, Cheong might not know the details, but she knew they were very, very bad people. Everyone ground their teeth so hard whenever the name came up that even Cheong found it excessive. So, dragging her exhausted body, she headed back to the bathhouse. Upon entering, she found Cheon Yuhak filling bamboo tubes with the leftover medicinal bathwater from the wooden tub, its efficacy already spent.
“What are you doing? Was that for recycling?”
“As if.”
“Then why are you collecting it separately? There’s quite a lot. Are you planning to pour it all out?”
Bamboo tubes were already lined up all around Cheon Yuhak, enough to fill the wooden tub several times over.
“Mind your own business. Anyway, you must be tired. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“You know that Jamramdan? I looked into it, and they say it’s made from Hyeoljeong. Hyeoljeong, you know, is—”
“You think I don’t know what Hyeoljeong is?”
Cheon Yuhak roughly scratched the back of his head. His gesture was thick with irritation.
“Damn it, this is filthy. That fake Divine Thief sprinkled human pills made from someone’s flesh. Some bastard decided to smear shit on other people’s faces.”
“Couldn’t we just ask the unaffiliated martial artists? Doryeoman seemed cooperative, at least.”
“Go to bed for now. Your tendons haven’t fully set yet, so sleep well and we’ll deal with it tomorrow. I’m so tired I didn’t even notice you coming until just now, so that’s enough talk.”
Indeed, dark circles hung beneath Cheon Yuhak’s eyes, a face steeped in exhaustion. Cheong’s appearance was no different. She wasn’t mentally fatigued, but her body was already in tatters. If not for the medicinal effects she had sucked dry from the medicinal bath, she would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago.
“Still, the matter seems rather serious……”
“Hah. With half the Ten Great Masters gathered here, what kind of big incident could possibly happen? Looks like the Blood Sect just wants to ruin the Murim Alliance’s event and disgrace them. Those damn bastards.”
Cheon Yuhak’s tired expression grew even more crumpled.
“Let’s just sleep. Even if the matter is urgent, we can’t do anything in this state, and it’s not that urgent anyway. Tomorrow… well, the Divine Thief matter should be handled among Divine Thieves. Don’t go around blabbing about it.”
“I’m not a child. Do you think I can’t tell what I should and shouldn’t say? You’re tired too, Master. Get some rest.”
“Fine.”
With that, Cheong returned to Mucheon Pavilion. As she walked, a thought occurred to her. But what were those bamboo tubes for, anyway? She had forgotten to ask while they were talking about the Jamramdan.
----
The unaffiliated martial artists were staying at the Murim Alliance’s Hyeon-gaek-dang, so Cheong had no need to wander all over Kaifeng looking for them.
“Come to think of it, how does Master come and go from the Murim Alliance so freely? Did you come as a guest?”
“Hah. A single set of plain servant’s robes is enough to go anywhere without raising suspicion. If you get yourself a set of maid’s clothes, the entire estate will be your territory.”
The larger the estate, the less anyone suspected servants in uniform. This wasn’t because identity verification in the ancient Central Plains was lax, but because people had a habit of treating anything in certain attire as part of the scenery. Even in Cheong’s homeland, a single reflective vest was enough to wander around without drawing suspicion.
Since the two of them were together, it looked as though Cheong was simply accompanied by a personal servant. That was why no one asked who Cheon Yuhak was.
Thus, they arrived in front of Hyeon-gaek-dang. Since Hyeon-gaek-dang ranked in the middle-to-lower tier among the Alliance’s guest lodgings, it was practically worlds apart from Mucheon Pavilion where Cheong stayed.
“Is Doryeoman So-hyeop inside?”
After asking a servant at the lodging, they were led to a room. It wasn’t a private room but a shared one for two people. The narrow guest room, with beds pushed against opposite walls, was barely a quarter the size of a single room in Mucheon Pavilion.
“Seomun So-jeo? What brings you here?”
“I came to speak with you about yesterday’s matter. This So-hyeop here is the one who used the Jidang Fist……”
“I am Ma Yeongjeon.”
Since it was a shared room, there was another person besides Doryeoman—Ma Yeongjeon, the Jidang Fist practitioner. Ma Yeongjeon gave a peculiar smile as he looked between Cheong and Doryeoman.
“You two have something to discuss. I suppose I should make myself scarce. Doryeoman So-hyeop, you’ve got some unexpected talents, it seems.”
“Ma-hyung, it’s not like that. There’s no need for you to leave. If Seomun So-jeo says it’s about yesterday, she’s probably here to talk about the Jamramdan, right?”
At that, Ma Yeongjeon’s expression hardened.
“Hey, are you just blurting that out? I don’t know anything about this, so I’m leaving.”
He tried to slip away, but Cheong could tell at a glance that he had eaten one too. In fact, since all the unaffiliated martial artists had accumulated evil karma, she had already been nearly certain. Whether they knew the Jamramdan was made from human flesh or not, it didn’t matter. Poison didn’t care if you were ignorant. Just because you didn’t know it was poison didn’t mean it would spare you.
“Would you like to hear this too, Ma So-hyeop? Yesterday, this maiden received a Jamramdan from Doryeoman So-hyeop. I investigated its effects out of curiosity, and it turned out to be a wicked thing made from Hyeoljeong.”
“Hyeoljeong……”
Doryeoman muttered instead of shouting. His face turned pale, looking nauseous.
“I didn’t know. I had no idea it was such a thing.”
“I’m not blaming you. It’s not something that should be known, so I just want to find out who’s distributing these pills and what their purpose is. Ma So-hyeop, would you hand over what you have? I need to check if it’s the same item.”
“I-I don’t know anything. Jamramdan made from Hyeoljeong? Doryeoman, I didn’t expect this from you. I’m truly disappointed. Yes, disappointed.”
Cheong’s eyes narrowed.
“Should I go around asking all the opponents from yesterday’s matches about their strangely enhanced speed and strength before you hand it over willingly?”
“A martial artist should always keep three parts of their strength hidden—”
“I have a way of knowing everything, so just hand it over.”
Cheong cut Ma Yeongjeon off and extended her hand. Ma Yeongjeon stared at her pale, delicate hand with trembling eyes before swallowing hard and steadying his gaze, as if he had made up his mind.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was going to play dumb after all. Once he took that stance, there wasn’t much Cheong could do to press further. Without clear evidence that he had eaten a Jamramdan, merely suspecting him based on circumstantial evidence—especially when the Jamramdan was a wicked item made from Hyeoljeong—wouldn’t work. There was no way to prove it either. Just like the Murim saying that a martial artist should hide three parts of their strength, he could simply insist it was his own ability. And claiming “I can see people’s karma” like some shaman wouldn’t convince anyone.
Cheong let out a deep sigh. There was no helping it. She had given up on persuasion—only on persuasion.
Cheong sighed deeply, then suddenly straightened her legs from her seated position and sprang up. At the same time—
Crack!!!
A crisp sound like a walnut being split open!
“Aaaagh!”
Ma Yeongjeon clutched his crown and rolled across the floor of the lodging. The Divine Maiden’s nuclear armament was far too powerful, a terrifying violence far too premature for the mortal world beneath the Divine Maiden Peak.
“Why won’t you listen when I speak nicely? Did I look that easy to you? If I act patient and demure, do I look like some sheltered young lady?”
“S-Seomun So-jeo?”
“I told you. I’m from the wandering martial artist background.”
“Ah. Right. I see.”
Doryeoman nodded. Female wandering martial artists were rare, but when they did exist, their mouths were foul. It was inevitable—a basic survival skill in the wandering martial artist world to avoid being looked down on as a woman.
“Ma So-hyeop? Stop with the theatrics and hand it over nicely. Or would you rather get beaten like a dog and spit it out? If you’re going to gulp down pills made from ground-up people, I can act like a dog too, you know?”
“Kugh, what is this madness?”
“Oh? Still not coming to your senses? Why don’t we stake my grandfather’s honor on a life-and-death duel? Want to bet whether we’ll find a bright red Jamramdan when we cut open your corpse?”
Cheong casually drew the Boksinjeok and, for the first time in a while, released her true energy. The true energy, excited by the rare outing, surged forth all at once. Through the sixteen-lane highway of acupoints opened by the Geun-gyeong, it reached the weapon at incredible speed. However, what emerged was the Cheonjageom, which had been standing in for the Boksinjeok. Thanks to that, a crude yet powerful sword Qi extended like lightning from the bluish blade.
“Shall we see what realm you’re in? For reference, even Transcendent masters die if they fall into my hands. If I say a Transcendent dies, then Transcendents die. Do you know the Cannibal Demon Lord? He was acting up in front of me too, so he went ahead to greet the Buddha. Have you ever heard the saying that there’s no order when it comes to dying? Or would you like another Jamramdan before you go—‘the ghost that ate well has a pretty complexion’?”
Her words were threatening enough, but faced with that terrifying display of martial prowess, Ma Yeongjeon shrank back completely. Unlike what he had seen in the tournament, this vicious masked woman was a true master! Not only her martial arts, but she was a master of internal energy techniques who had accumulated deep and profound inner power. Especially before that thick sword Qi, extending like a serpent rather than mere threads, how could he possibly boast?
“I…… will hand it over.”
“You should have done that from the start.”
Cheong put the Boksinjeok away, then felt a slight sting and checked—it was the Cheonjageom. Because it was the Sosu of Sosumagong, even a light graze from the blade stung. If it weren’t for that, it would have been a serious wound that split her to the bone.
“Oh my. There was a dagger here. My Boksinjeok… I wonder when he’ll return it.”
“Ahem.”
Cheon Yuhak, who had been watching Cheong’s outrageous behavior with an incredulous expression, let out an uncomfortable cough. He had completely forgotten about it too. Not the Boksinjeok—he had forgotten about Cheong’s outrageous behavior. Come to think of it, she was the girl who had kicked a man in the groin and sent him flying a full jang high back at the Black Spot. She had the temperament to charge straight at Black Spot merchants in their own territory, but after meeting again, she had acted like a natural-born lady, so he had completely forgotten.
Cheong dusted off her hands and spoke.
“This worked out nicely. I need to ask the other chivalrous heroes in the other rooms to gather as well. Since Ma So-hyeop knows their faces, could you do me the favor?”
“Uh, well, Doryeoman So-hyeop……”
“So you don’t know that if you confess when asked nicely, you might find some light? Our Doryeoman So-hyeop can stay comfortable.”
Doryeoman’s expression grew extremely uncomfortable. He seriously wondered whether this was bullying or not, whether she was giving him a hint or not.
Cheong clenched her fist and gently rubbed the protruding knuckle at the base of her middle finger as she continued.
“Well then. Ma So-hyeop—no, Ma Dae-hyeop? Would you like to go now, or would you prefer to go with a light honey chestnut to the crown and bleeding while you walk?”