The Night Without a Culprit
And so, roughly one gak had passed. The handless villain who had been pinned down hung limp. Gyeon Po-hui wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve. Her face gleamed with a fresh, radiant sheen after finishing the job. She had also pocketed the nameplate from what had until moments ago been a private residence, and her expression was the picture of innocence. She beamed with a bright, sunny smile.
Gyeon Po-hui scooped Seomun Cheong up in her arms and went skipping down the corridor, humming a cheerful tune.
“Thanks to you, I got to feast properly for the first time in ages. Ah! Have I introduced myself? I’m Gyeon Po-hui. Call me sa-mae.”
“Oing. I’m not your sa-mae, though.”
“……? Isn’t Seomun Cheong my sa-mae?”
“I am Seomun Cheong, yes.”
“Then why aren’t you my sa-mae……?”
“Why would I be your sa-mae……?”
The two of them stared at each other blankly. Cheong’s thoughts drifted elsewhere.
One hundred fifty became one hundred forty? My good karma didn’t go up either. Is it because I half-killed them and she finished them off? Come to think of it, even villains can rack up good karma. But does that make a villain a good person? If someone’s done bad things, don’t they still need heavenly punishment? Then again, she doesn’t seem like a bad kid. Wait, she’s not a bad kid, but she sucks the life out of villains? This was a difficult question. Can evil deeds be offset by good ones? Then shouldn’t villains who’ve accumulated good karma still be treated as non-humans? But how am I supposed to know that?
So Cheong gave up thinking. There were already more than enough visible villains overflowing in the world. No need to worry about laundered ones too.
“I distinctly heard that sa-mae joined the Hwanhuigung yesterday.”
Cheong’s expression turned serious, the playfulness gone from her tone.
“What nonsense is that? Who do you think my master is, that she’d let me join some Demonic Cult lackey group? That’s a dangerous thing to say.”
“Who’s sa-mae’s master?”
“Someone whose surname is Seomun, first character Su, second character Rin.”
“……? Was there such an elder in our palace?”
Cheong was dumbfounded. Of course there wasn’t. Why would her master be here when she was at the Sinnyeo Sect?
“Obviously not. Why would you even ask that?”
“……?”
Gyeon Po-hui looked completely lost. But Cheong roughly understood. That Jijon fellow had said it himself—bring Seomun Cheong into the Hwanhuigung and treat her with all sorts of martial arts and elixirs without holding back. That expressionless, dim-witted brat must have misunderstood the order and caused this whole mess.
Well, she might as well play along for now. At the very least, she could get her hands on some martial arts and elixirs.
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll be your sa-mae, then.”
“I knew it! Seo sa-mae. You can just call me Gyeon sa-jeo.”
No! How dare she casually change someone else’s surname! Was there really someone in the world ignorant enough not to know the Seomun clan!? Mun-cheong was horrified by such ignorance. She’d been thinking it for a while—was this kid a bit slow? Still, the kid was kind of nice…… no, not really. Slow and also a bad kid? Cheong drastically lowered her evaluation of Gyeon Po-hui.
Sa-jeo, you’re more suited to be my footstool than a sa-jeo. Cheong decided to treat her as roughly the second footstool. But where had footstool number one gone? She had so many questions to ask him.
——
In truth, Cheong couldn’t understand why people rejected demonic arts. All demonic arts supposedly awakened wicked hearts, her master had said. That was why some cruel techniques remained classified as orthodox arts while others that weren’t particularly cruel were labeled demonic. Yet having already mastered several demonic arts under the peerless Sosu Magong, Cheong felt…… well. It was true that Sosu Magong and Heuksal Magong had a particularly satisfying feel to them. It was also true that whenever she saw a villain, she felt an urge to dig her fingers into their flesh rather than kill them cleanly, to strike with palm techniques that tore through muscle and crushed bone. But wasn’t cutting down villains already a pleasant and wholesome hobby? If you were going to kill them anyway, what was wrong with playing with them a little? It was fun, and the villains would deeply regret their sins. Yet they claimed it made one’s heart wicked? Where exactly did it become wicked, really?
If anything, when it came to side effects, the orthodox Daoist art Sonyeo Hwanhuigong was far more severe. If you felt too good, things could go very wrong. It was fortunate she had a convenient footstool supporting her; in a real fight she might have suddenly rolled on the ground for no reason. She wondered if she’d get used to it eventually. Cheong recalled that moment. Hehe, that felt nice…… Without realizing it, she smiled with a slightly lewd expression before snapping back to her senses.
The real problem was controlling the Sonyeo Hwanhuigong. Why did this thing keep cultivating automatically? She already couldn’t handle it, yet it kept circulating and growing its influence whether she was standing, sitting, eating, or being held by someone. Even the Jajeon Magong that had been lying dormant started acting up. More precisely, the Jajeon Magong would first escape the dantian and race through the meridians, and the Hwanhui True Qi would chase after it. Thanks to that, both cultivation methods were automatically racking up training points, but……
Originally, internal energy cultivation methods were ways to absorb and refine true qi. By accumulating internal energy according to the method’s formulas, one could fill their dantian endlessly as long as their lifespan allowed. Basic methods formed the dantian and meridians. Once one became an official disciple, they would be taught more advanced methods to circulate and grow their true qi. Only when a first-generation disciple or an elder’s named disciple reached a certain level would the sect pass down its hidden high-grade methods. Then the true qi cultivated through lower methods would naturally unify into the higher method’s form. Or, rather than absorbing, the different true qis would coexist without clashing through mutual generation.
But Cheong was different. Her situation was a bizarre mix of the status window and murim. She used true qi to fill training points and raise her achievements. Each time she advanced a stage, the corresponding stats for each martial art increased, and in the case of cultivation methods, her maximum internal energy grew. Upon reaching great completion, it increased significantly and that was the end. Cheong knew she was different, which was why she threw a fit every time she looked at the status window. It felt like the world was telling her she was nothing but a foreign substance in this realm.
Anyway. The Sonyeo Hwanhuigong wasn’t an absorption technique. It was a method that gathered another person’s true qi that had entered the body after absorption and purified it into something pure and refined. It truly lived up to being an orthodox Daoist divine art. If one were to personify true qi, the situation was as follows: To the Hwanhui True Qi, other Daoist true qis were friendly companions that could live together in the same dantian. But the Jajeon Magong was not. It was wicked demonic qi that could not share a table, so it had to be purified and made thoroughly good. Already in a pitiful position, the Jajeon Magong now faced an existential crisis. It kicked off from the dantian and fled. The Hwanhui True Qi chased after it. The Wolnyeo True Qi clapped and egged them on. Being a staunch separatist, the Wolnyeo True Qi would occasionally separate the two whenever it sensed danger to the Jajeon Magong. But since its roots were Daoist, it didn’t bother stopping the Hwanhui True Qi’s bullying of its own family. The result was automatic cultivation.
Cheong naturally couldn’t know the reason. But the sense of crisis was real. Anything in excess became a problem. Except for internal energy. There was also a limit to feeling good. If one reached a state where they couldn’t control their body, that was a serious issue. This was the side effect of a mere one-star Sonyeo Hwanhuigong. If her achievement rose any further, she’d be passing out with every single strike, and that wasn’t a joke. So Cheong thought: since there were techniques that heightened sensitivity, maybe there were also techniques that dulled the senses. Fortunately, there was someone she could ask. The foul-mouthed grandfather who had come looking for her to eat lunch—footstool number one. But why did this grandfather like her? His evil karma was completely that of a great demon lord, yet he was so clingy it was burdensome.
“Grandfather, are there any martial arts that make a person somewhat numb?”
“There are, but.”
“Ooh. So there really is nothing that doesn’t exist. So, what are they?”
“Tsk. Do you not know that learning something like that would make a person completely empty and not even seem human? You only ever show interest in the worst things, you insolent wench.”
“Who asked you that? So what is it?”
“You damned girl, even when someone worries about you, you still act up.”
“Who asked you to worry? Mind your own business.”
“Tsk. Ice arts usually have that effect.”
“Ice arts?”
“Ignorant wench.”
“Aish. Fine, I’m ignorant. So why do you talk so much when I’m just asking an old man for help?”
“Tsk.”
Even while clicking his tongue, Choe-ri-ong explained. There were martial arts that interpreted the principles of yin and yang in their purest form. Yin was cold. Yang was hot. Thus there were ice arts that launched freezing attacks and flame arts that launched fire-attribute attacks. Of course, their efficiency was at an abysmal level. If ice arts and flame arts had been powerful, every murim warrior in the Central Plains would have decided their future based on fire or ice attributes. Still, flame arts were considerably better. Comparing the two, the efficiency gap between ice arts and flame arts was so vast that it would be insulting to the flame arts to even compare them to ice arts. Heat burned you instantly, but cold only required you to say “ah, cold” and pull your hand away. That was why the ice-block fellows of the North Sea Ice Palace were stuck in that freezing land. Only in a land already at the extreme of cold did making it even colder have any effect. So even if a master from the Ice Palace occasionally came down to the Central Plains, they were treated like a walking ice-making merchant association. Still, at least they could save on expensive saltpeter used for making ice, so their treatment wasn’t too bad.
Cheong’s eyes sparkled at this point.
“Ah. Then if I learn that, could I also make cool Yongjeong tea?”
“What!!! Cool Yongjeong tea? What kind of insane nonsense is that? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“No, I could just drink some cool Yongjeong tea.”
“Child…… Please. Come to your senses. Stop it. Hm? This grandfather admits he was wrong. Hm?”
Choe-ri-ong looked at her as if she were the most pitiful creature in the world. Hmm. Is it really that bad? No. Why? Why exactly couldn’t these uncivilized, primitive, table-flipping bastards understand the joy of cool tea? There was cold tea in the Central Plains too. But it was either sweet drinks made by squeezing and boiling fruit or grain teas made from barley, rice, or corn. However, fruit-sugar teas or grain teas only had “tea” in the name; they were just beverages. Real tea was strictly defined as the results of steaming, roasting, or drying tea leaves and steeping them in appropriately warm water.
“I’m perfectly fine. Stop talking nonsense and tell me what the strongest ice art is.”
“That would be the Bingbaek-singong.”
Choe-ri-ong answered without hesitation. In fact, there wasn’t a single martial artist who didn’t know of it.
“Bingbaek-singong?”
“No, even a seven-year-old child knows this, you—”
“Stop calling me ignorant. I’m not putting up with it anymore. I’ll completely destroy you.”
Cheong said this while manipulating the martial arts window. Bingbaek-sinjang, Bingbaek-singong, Bingbaek-singeom. Three purple martial arts floated to the top. That was the downside of purple martial arts. They were always split into multiple parts, so obtaining them separately through good karma exchange was impossible. But if it was only the Bingbaek-singong, then…… hmm. Still, wasn’t it a bit of a waste? According to footstool number one’s explanation, it was only purple on the border and basically just added a refrigerator function. But this was an emergency situation. She had to do something about the Sonyeo Hwanhuigong’s side effects……
While Cheong was pondering, Choe-ri-ong spoke.
“Why, you damned girl. Suddenly want to learn ice arts?”
“Why, do you know any ice arts?”
“Seolgajik learned the Ice Heaven Asura Demonic Art.”
What, another demonic art? Cheong looked at the still-open martial arts window. Ice Heaven Asura Demonic Art. It only had a red border. The name sounded like the greatest demonic art under heaven, yet it was only red? The grade was disappointingly low…… Well, that wasn’t the issue right now.
“If I learn that, will my senses become somewhat dulled?”
“Not just dulled. Ha. Forget it. Stop, you damned girl. Whether you’re a person or a wooden block, you’ll become completely insensate. There’s a reason it’s called a demonic art.”
Then it was perfect! Besides, since it was a demonic art, she’d naturally become a demonic person, right? Cheong’s eyes sparkled as she asked.
“So, where does this Seolgajik fellow live?”