The Decline of a Legendary House
On the hill overlooking the plains, with scant rations and a couple of hammers for tools, the disciples of the Gyerim Sword Sect and the Jangsan sect had camped out in front of the government office. They cut down every unorthodox martial artist who emerged, one after another. Some might call it cowardly. Yet the official position of both sects was simple: We went there intending to settle the blood debt fairly and squarely. If they refuse to come out all at once and only trickle forth in dribs and drabs, what exactly are we supposed to do about it? Were we meant to wait at the site of our disciples' vengeance until the enemy had fully assembled and formed their battle lines? That wouldn't be fair and square—that would be the act of a complete simpleton.
One could also question their suspiciously cozy relationship with the authorities. But the official stance remained the same: Have you never heard of the principle of non-interference between the government and the martial world? The officials must have had their reasons for sending the prisoners out separately rather than all at once. After all, those troublemakers had caused an incident by gathering in a big mob; the authorities probably didn't want them assembling again. Or are you suggesting that mere martial arts instructors possess the influence to manipulate the government itself? The fact that Kang Su-yang, leader of the Gyerim Sword Sect, had received a decree from Prince Susi was known to only a very small number of people.
The true hand pulling the strings in the background belonged to Prince Jayu, and it was true that the Gyerim Sword Sect itself had done almost nothing. When a prince offers to bestow his grace, we common folk can only express our gratitude. And so, over the past several days, the unorthodox operations across Guangxi Province had begun shrinking rapidly. The leading righteous sects in every city had suddenly gone berserk, declaring that now was the moment and that it was time to expand their territory, then launched full-scale offensives.
Having witnessed the Sadoryeon's combat forces get utterly crushed, and knowing that the Murim Alliance's own combat units were en route to provide support, there wasn't a single unorthodox faction left unaware of the situation. On top of that, the officials who had gorged themselves on bribes suddenly changed their tunes and began acting with strict severity. Even the administrators who had been somewhat emotionally close—or whose weaknesses had been exploited—could at least drop a quiet hint.
Those exalted ones, the truly exalted ones, were backing the righteous path. Now was the time to lie low and ride out the storm. Or perhaps it was better to abandon the unorthodox path altogether and quietly shift into the ambiguous gray area between righteous and unorthodox. With the atmosphere like this, when word came in early February that Cheong planned to visit the Gwangdong Jin Family in Guangdong Province, Kang Su-yang nodded with genuine willingness—though his expression carried considerable regret.
“Even though I have yet to properly repay our sect’s benefactor, you are leaving already?”
“Come on, playing host to an honored guest only feels special for a day or two. If this drags on, it’ll start feeling completely ordinary. Who knows, I might even start pointing fingers and throwing a tantrum, demanding to know how they dare offer such shabby treatment to the Cheonhwa-geom.”
Kang Su-yang, who had grown thoroughly familiar with Cheong’s casual demeanor—to the point where it went beyond casual and approached something almost beggar-like—simply let out a warm chuckle. She really does have a silver tongue, he thought.
“Sect Leader! This girl U Na-ram has something to—!”
“Denied.”
The first disciple, Do Dal-jeon, cut her off at once.
“Huk! This small disciple still hasn’t—!”
“You were about to say you want to follow the Cheonhwa-geom, weren’t you?”
“As expected! You see straight through your disciple’s heart like it’s nothing!”
“Sigh. Any other time, perhaps. But isn’t this exactly when those unorthodox bastards are looking for any excuse to cause trouble? For a Gyerim disciple—especially the eldest senior sister—to head off to Guangdong right now would be extremely unwise.”
“Yes……”
U Na-ram’s shoulders drooped.
“Bro! Next time for sure! For sure! You absolutely have to come back!”
Cutting off U Na-ram’s outburst, Do Dal-jeon bowed deeply.
“Lady Seomun. We are deeply indebted to you. As soon as the Alliance’s support unit arrives, I will send them straight to the Gwangdong Jin Family. The Jin Family Estate is not currently under any direct physical threat, but the schemes of those unorthodox curs can be truly vicious. Please take good care of yourself.”
Cheong had stopped by the finest guest hall in the Gyerim Sword Sect. It was time for farewells.
“Hm? You’re leaving?”
“I’ve sampled pretty much every Guangxi dish there is, so it’s time to go try Guangdong cuisine. They say Guangdong and Hangzhou are the closest things to the greatest cuisine under heaven, right?”
The Five Great Cuisines of the Central Plains were divided by regional characteristics and thus differed somewhat from true gourmet appreciation. If one were asked to name the Four Great Cuisines, Guangdong and Hangzhou would always come up first. Even in the hearts of Central Plains people who stubbornly insisted their own region was superior, once you subtracted the hometown bonus and judged with an honest conscience, the most delicious regional food would still point to one of those two.
“Aigoo, young lady. After finally having some time alone together, where could you possibly be going?”
“It’s not like I moved to Nanning permanently. Besides, Jayu needs to head home too.”
“Khem.”
Even Jayu felt a pang of reluctance. To show up out of nowhere, announce her departure, and immediately offer farewells—it was rather abrupt. He had long known that Cheong treated meetings and partings with remarkable detachment, but he still wished she could have given some prior notice.
“Well then, see you around.”
“Until we meet again.”
After exchanging those simple goodbyes and stepping outside, a figure came barreling toward her like a thunderbolt.
“Aigoo, if you leave now, when will this humble one next behold your wise and radiant countenance? This is but a small token to aid you on your journey—”
But before Cheong could even open the box, Chang Yeo-in had already dragged her away by the arm.
“This guy keeps producing gold and silver from who-knows-where and bribes just keep pouring out.”
“I simply picked it up on the roadside, so please pay it no mind at allllll.”
Gakda-gwi’s voice trailed off into the distance.
When Cheong opened the box, she could only stare. Inside lay a dazzlingly ornate hairpin gleaming with every color of the rainbow, adorned with seven treasures and coral—a masterpiece that would be difficult to obtain even with ample gold and silver. No, where on earth did he keep finding these things? Was there some kind of Divine Thief equivalent or similar shady profession in the Central Plains that let them casually loot other people’s houses?
Cheong snorted lightly and laughed. As if that were possible. Jayu must have entrusted it to him. Handing it over personally must have felt too embarrassing.
“My little bear. See you next time, darling.”
“I doubt we need to.”
“The Sinnyeo Sect isn’t that far from Lanzhou, is it? I’ll report to the elders of my sect first and then return to you. My love.”
“I don’t love you, though.”
Na Yang-gyeol had not participated in the battle solely to protect Cheong. She herself had been one of those harassed by the unorthodox martial artists. Although classified under the White Path, Cheonhwa Jeondang was not an official member of the Murim Alliance. Therefore, for the sake of her own and her sect’s honor, she had been obligated to join the fight. Otherwise, it would amount to receiving one-sided assistance from the Murim Alliance.
By the same logic, following all the way to Guangdong would be difficult. Still, the fact that she had brought a separate unit and volunteered to protect Cheong regardless was either remarkably bold or simply fearless. Volunteering without knowing the strength of the royal palace’s experts could be seen as admirable in its desperate affection.
“Well then, see you later.”
Na Yang-gyeol kissed her own lips and blew a kiss. Cheong responded with a flick of her hand as if batting it away. And with that, the farewells were complete.
“Lady Seomun, please take care of your health!”
“You must visit us again next time!”
“We still need to settle the title of Guangxi’s Greatest Drinker once and for all, don’t we!”
After waving once to the crowd that had poured out to see her off, Cheong turned away without a shred of lingering attachment and kicked off the ground.
----
The Gwangdong Jin Family. While not part of the Five Great Families, this clan ranked among the Ten Great Families of the Central Plains. In terms of pure fame, it fell short of none of the Five Great Families. The reason was simple: the renowned Tai Chi.
The founder of Tai Chi, Patriarch Jin, would generously share the teachings with anyone who knocked on the gates of the Jin Family Estate. It was thanks to this that Zhang Sanfeng, the founding patriarch of Wudang, had gained profound enlightenment from the Jin Family’s Tai Chi and gone on to create the Wudang-exclusive Zhang Family Tai Chi and Tai Chi Sword.
Of course, the Jin family had not transmitted the complete true essence of Tai Chi. The version they taught was closer to health-promoting guiding exercises than practical combat techniques. It was a wondrous practice that drew out the body’s latent potential, cultivated flexibility and strength, and allowed qi to take root within the body through its subtle movements.
Naturally, the effects were so modest that one needed roughly ten years of consistent training to see any meaningful results. Yet because it had spread so widely, even commoners would practice the forms morning and evening for their health.
So when people heard “Gwangdong Jin Family,” the response was immediate: Ah, that Jin Family—the one with Jin Family Tai Chi? In this way, it was a household name known to every soul across the world.
But if one asked why such a universally famous family had failed to enter the ranks of the Five Great Families, the answer lay in the limitations of martial artists.
When it came to the limits of individual martial artists, those dim-witted monkeys who couldn’t even wield tools would always trot out Shaolin or the Great Masters of Martial Learning. Hadn’t they reached the pinnacle of the world through martial combat? Such claims could be proven nonsense on scientific, logical, philosophical, and even mathematical grounds. High-level experts might spout such things, but martial artists rarely produced true high-level masters to begin with. And even supposing one had surpassed the Life and Death Realm, there would be no need to ask whether a formless fist or formless sword would hurt more. Would one need to sever their own arm just to use energy projection techniques?
Yet the true weakness of martial artists was none of these things—not the one-sided disadvantage when clashing against an opponent’s weapon, not the need to dodge because they could not parry, not even the fact that the distance was so short they would eventually exhaust themselves through constant evasion and collapse on their own.
It was that they were incompetent alone, but became even more incompetent when gathered together.
The dynamic between a single martial artist and a swordsman differed vastly from that of multiple martial artists against a swordsman. In individual combat, one could still win through skillful distance management, well-timed dodges, closing the gap, and landing strikes. But in group battles, the true nature of martial artists revealed itself. When clustered together, they hindered one another’s dodges and ate sword strikes. If they scattered? In group fights, scattering usually meant death.
Therefore, regardless of the individual martial prowess of the Gwangdong Jin Family’s experts, it was difficult to give their combat units a favorable evaluation. Adding the wide, sweeping steps of Tai Chi footwork only turned the whole affair into an utter mess.
Strangely enough, the fact that they had still managed to enter the Ten Great Families despite such a fatal flaw could be credited to the full benefits of their fame.
But even that fame would not last much longer.
When the Jin Family delegation returned from the Murim Competition, they found only a deeply decayed estate waiting for them. A residence loses its vitality with shocking speed when left uninhabited. It would have been one thing if it were simply empty, but the presence of human corpses only accelerated the decay. Entangled with the Blood Sect, even petty thieves avoided the place, leaving the abandoned estate looking no different from a haunted ruin.
Yet the Jin Family had not collapsed. The trip to the Central Plains had been a rare major event, so all direct-line members had mobilized. The deaths were tragic, but they believed they could overcome it. They could renovate the sagging estate, accept disciples on a wide scale—even if it meant operating more like a martial hall than a traditional family sect—and restore their former glory.
Then the Sadoryeon stepped in.
No matter how unorthodox they were, attacking a family that had already suffered tragedy at the hands of the Blood Sect was impossible. Not out of some final scrap of conscience or human sympathy, but because the righteous Murim world would never allow it.
So the unorthodox took a different approach.
It began when the laborers hired to restore the estate started turning up as corpses, one after another. One day. Two days. Three days… The deaths continued until the restoration work was halted, at which point the tragedies vanished as if they had never occurred. The moment work resumed, the laborers began dying again as though on cue.
No matter how much gold and silver was offered, few people wanted to step forward to a place of certain death. Even the Jin Family Estate, now cut off from its income, could not afford to pay enough to make someone risk their life on mere construction work.
And so the restoration was abandoned. The Jin Family Estate remained half-ruined.
Who would want to become a disciple at a half-collapsed martial hall?
Of course, some still sought entry due to the fame of Jin Family Tai Chi. But then the unorthodox factions would simultaneously begin recruiting, offering generous incentives like “join now and receive one-plus-one divine arts and spiritual medicine free of charge.”
They could not restore the estate. They could not replenish their manpower. Despite occupying the finest location in the heart of Gwangju, they could not escape the appearance of a haunted house. People clicked their tongues and whispered that the Jin Family had fallen. The same commoners who once dared not even casually utter the name “Jin” now spoke of them openly.
Thus, the once-mighty reputation of the Jin Family faded. The golden signboard tilted. Everyone clicked their tongues at the sight.
Now that the Jin Family had become the butt of jokes across the world, a woman was crossing Guangdong.