I. Do You Know the Herb of Immortality? (3)
The old man nodded at the traveler's question.
"Of course there is! I saw her with my own two eyes when I was a boy!"
The people around them exchanged knowing snickers at that, and most of them clearly didn't believe a word of the old man's story.
"Oh? Is that really true?"
But the traveler, paying no mind to their reactions, widened his eyes and pressed the old man further, and the old man went on with growing pride.
"That's right. Her hair was white as an elder's, and both her eyes were blue. Her skin was pale as snow, her figure beautiful, and her manner gentle...!"
At the old man's boastful telling, one of the villagers shouted out.
"Oh, come now, elder! When exactly is this immortal supposed to come down, then? You're the only soul in our village who claims to have laid eyes on her!"
Sensing the thick scent of mockery, the old man grew agitated and raised his cane.
"I said I saw her! Back when I was young, there were plenty of folk besides me who glimpsed the immortal from not so far off!"
"And now you're the only one left, aren't you! Honestly, would you please stop telling the children that story? They keep running off up the mountain trying to become immortals..."
"Becoming an immortal is a fine thing. You wanted to be one yourself when you were young!"
"What century of a story are you even telling...!"
Amid the bickering between the old man and the villagers, the traveler abruptly thrust his head between them.
With both their gazes fixed on him, he asked with perfect shamelessness.
"So then — this immortal who dwells on Mount Nanhua. Whereabouts, exactly?"
At that question, color bloomed across the old man's face once more, while the villager let out a long, deep sigh.
A short while later, having heard the old man's answer, the traveler set off up Mount Nanhua.
The mountain was low and gentle in form, easy enough to climb, and so he ascended at his leisure, taking in his surroundings as he went.
Thick vegetation crowded the mountainside, and among it, the trees that caught his eye were peach trees, while the undergrowth was rich with mugwort and lambsquarters.
"Oho. The flora that grows here is no ordinary thing."
Peach, mugwort, lambsquarters — every one of them a plant tied to spiritual power and long life. Having noted this, the traveler stroked his chin.
Through his mind drifted what the old man of the village had told him.
"When I was young, I stumbled upon a hut quite by chance while out digging herbs. I saw her there, and she was the very picture of a fairy. It was decades ago now, and yet still I cannot forget her figure..."
The old man's eyes, glittering with a fond and distant recollection, lingered in his memory.
"A fairy, is it..."
Rolling the word around once in his mouth, the traveler reached a hand into his robes. A soft texture brushed his fingertips.
Tucked within his breast was a single folded bolt of silk — pristine, with nothing written upon it at all.
...
He stared hard at the silk for a long moment, then shook his head and quickened his pace.
Before long, he arrived at the hut the old man had described.
The hut where an immortal had once lived was already a ruin, worn down by the long passage of years, its walls furred with clinging lambsquarters — an ugly sight to behold.
The door had been half torn away, and beasts had evidently come and gone through it; as the traveler drew near, wild animals burst startled from within and fled outside.
With a rustle, they scattered.
The traveler stepped aside to let them pass, then set his footsteps toward the ruin's interior.
Inside was exactly as he had imagined. The beasts had dug the place over thoroughly — the floor was torn up from end to end, and the heavy musk of animals hung in the air.
Clicking his tongue softly, the traveler murmured.
"There are traces of human habitation, but far too old."
Lambsquarters climbed the walls, and the place had been abandoned so long that the beasts had set up housekeeping in it. Common sense said it had received no care whatsoever.
And yet, thinking so, he still found himself looking around with a small sound of admiration.
"Whoever built it, to stand this long without collapsing — that is truly remarkable craftsmanship."
Any ordinary house would have crumbled long ago; this ruin was sturdy enough that the beasts had claimed it for their own home.
"How did such a house come to be left empty, I wonder..."
The traveler stood where he was and fell into quiet contemplation. And in the midst of it, he noticed something.
"There's no furniture at all. And for beasts to have wrecked it, there isn't a single trace of breakage left behind."
Then where had the vanished furnishings gone?
pondering this, the traveler looked out the window. Low and gentle though it was, the vast, boundless landscape of Mount Nanhua stretched before his eyes.
"Haah. Right, then. Seeking an immortal is no easy task, is it. Not easy at all..."
Sighing, the traveler emerged from the ruin. He would be searching Mount Nanhua for a long while yet — perhaps for many seasons to come.
Three months had slipped by since the traveler first came to Mount Nanhua.
As an outsider, the attention he had received gradually thinned, until now the only person who still spoke to him was the old man he had met on his very first day.
And today, as always, the old man asked with an expression full of curiosity.
"So then — did you see the immortal?"
"I did not. I've been circling Mount Nanhua, but I could not find her no matter how I looked."
"If the likes of you could find her so easily, she'd hardly deserve to be called an immortal, now would she!"
At the old man's booming laughter, the traveler was tempted to teach the codger a lesson — but the man was so advanced in years he could scarcely walk.
One misplaced blow and he'd topple over on the spot, and the traveler would be a murderer before sundown. So he resolved, instead, to keep grumbling.
"Please don't tease me. Isn't there anything else you remember? I've already stayed three months as it is — I can't linger much longer."
When the traveler fixed him with a serious look, the old man stopped laughing.
"Hmmm... It was decades ago, and I only laid eyes on her the once, so my memory is a poor thing..."
But no proper answer came to mind either, so the old man trailed off, stroking the cane he had planted in the ground.
Just as the traveler was about to sink into discouragement, his gaze happened to fall upon the old man's cane.
It had a rounded grip and a gnarled, unevenly textured shaft — and its shape struck him as remarkably familiar.
As the traveler studied the cane intently, the old man asked.
"What is it?"
"...It's only that the shape of your staff looks familiar to me somehow. That cane — where did it come from?"
Startled by the sudden question, the old man nevertheless lifted the staff as he answered.
"A Green Goosefoot Staff I made in my youth. My greatest treasure, it is."
"Treasure, you say?"
At his echo of the word, the old man nodded and let his pride show plainly.
"That I did. I made it from the lambsquarters I dug up near the hut on the very day I beheld the immortal. You might say it's thanks to this staff that I'm still hale and breathing today."
"No — if you possessed such a thing, you should have said so from the start..."
Hearing the answer, the traveler stared at the staff for a moment, utterly dumbfounded — but he soon let out a long sigh and swallowed the rest of his words.
Then, after a silence, he asked the old man with great courtesy.
"...Elder. Might I borrow this Green Goosefoot Staff for a little while?"
A short while later.
With the staff in one hand and the silk cloth in the other, the traveler began once more to climb Mount Nanhua.
Socheong, practicing the Basic Breath Circulation method in a sun-dappled valley, lifted her head.
Far in the distance, she sensed the stir of a human presence passing the mountain's entrance.
It was thanks to the sense that lay beyond her five senses — the awareness she had gained after feeling the heavens tremble that last time. The sixth sense that Socheong called Consciousness.
And that consciousness delivered a more detailed report still: the presence now approaching was closing in upon her, and her alone.
Rustle...
Socheong halted her breath circulation and opened her eyes. As her blue gaze met the world, she began to think.
If the one drawing near was a fangshi sent by the Emperor, how was she to respond?
In the days when she had known nothing, she had simply resolved to hide herself away. Even now that resolve had not changed much, and yet...
'...The problem is that they're coming straight for me.'
By what her consciousness told her, the person had been making toward her from a great distance off.
Socheong herself did not know the full workings of this consciousness, but the information it gave her had never once been false — and so she sank into deep deliberation.
'Should I flee?'
She soon shook her head.
Her pursuer already knew her location. Even if she concealed herself now, there was no guarantee they would not simply come looking again.
Above all...
'The real question is how they found me in the first place.'
To be closing in on her with such precision from so far away meant that whoever they were, they possessed no ordinary means.
"......Hoo."
After her long deliberation, Socheong finally made her decision. She rose from where she sat, let her reflection show in the valley stream, and smoothed her hair and her robes.
Before long, a mystical, snow-white fairy was mirrored in the limpid water.
"...All right. Let's see what you're made of."
A fangshi who had come in search of an immortal would hardly set upon her and try to kill her the moment they met.
Socheong intended, this time, to meet the fangshi face to face — and to learn just what manner of person he was, and what methods he would bring.