Training Together
The distance from Shaanxi to Qinghai was by no means short. Yet Jin Seongun and Chae Seoryeong had chosen lightfoot movement over a carriage.
The reason was simple: their lightfoot skill was already beyond the reach of any ordinary martial artist. If they ever truly grew tired, they could always hop onto a carriage midway or rest at an inn along the way.
That, at least, was how Chae Seoryeong had thought when they first set out.
"W-wait, just a moment…!"
Chae Seoryeong cried out, halting in desperation.
Jin Seongun had just leapt clear across the gaping chasm between two towering cliffs in a single bound.
Jin Seongun looked back at her, wearing his trademark blank expression and unreadable eyes.
"……"
Something stirred deep within Chae Seoryeong's chest. Indignation and competitive pride.
Only days ago, she had been absolutely certain that no martial artist her age could outrun her. She had, after all, robbed every kind of sect and government office under the sun. Martial artists who could fly and burrow through the earth had either failed to catch her or never even noticed she existed.
That confidence had shattered to pieces ever since their visit to Yichang. And since leaving Nakhwajeong, it had been ground down into fine powder.
"This is way too far, seriously."
Chae Seoryeong glanced once at the distant far side, then down at the dizzying drop spreading beneath the cliff. Her knees went weak on their own.
Falling from here would be the end. If she was lucky, instant death; if unlucky, maybe a few seconds of agony first.
"Come."
Jin Seongun said it in a matter-of-fact tone. Somehow, that flat delivery stung. Even so, she had no intention of complaining or giving up. It would feel like turning back into a helpless child.
Chae Seoryeong quickly backed away a good distance. Then, without warning, she hardened her eyes and fixed them solely on Jin Seongun.
"Hoo."
Letting out a short breath, she broke into a run.
She hurtled toward the cliff edge at terrifying speed. Reaching the very lip, she kicked off hard with the tips of her toes, her running momentum slamming into her back like a hand shoving her forward.
Crack—!
Time seemed to slow.
A faint flicker of unease seized her. She could not convince herself she would actually reach the other side.
"Uwaaaagh!"
Chae Seoryeong screamed a long scream and squeezed her eyes shut. No matter how firmly you steeled your heart, the fear of death was simply like that.
Just as she felt half her heart drop out of her chest—
Tap.
Her toes grazed the far cliff, barely, narrowly. In the same instant, her body instinctively found its balance.
Chae Seoryeong opened her eyes. She had landed safely on the other side, without the slightest help from anyone.
"……So it actually works."
She murmured it quietly. She felt as though she had tasted the very utmost limit of her limits.
And that feeling continued the entire way to Qinghai. Though certainly not by her own choice.
She climbed cliffs, crossed lakes, and leapt over gorges — every single one a brush with death. And yet she was still alive after the long journey.
Naturally so.
Because Jin Seongun was beside her. Whenever she fell, he caught her; whenever she sank, he pulled her out.
As this repeated over and over, she stopped being afraid to challenge the edge of her own limits.
And so, when they finally arrived in Qinghai—
Tak!
She sailed cleanly across the gap between two cliffs. Not a trace of fear, not a flicker of hesitation in her movement.
She cleared it with ease. She even had a little to spare.
The gap she had just crossed was easily thirty percent wider than the very cliff she had first jumped.
"Waaah!"
She threw both hands in the air and bounced up and down.
Because even by her own reckoning, her skill was improving at an astonishing rate.
Watching her, Jin Seongun gave a small nod. There had been a reason he had insisted on all this ruckus in the first place.
He didn't know exactly how dangerous the Qinghai Iron Pavilion was, but it was a place where even his master, Divine Thief, had come up short. He had nonetheless promised Chae Gahwi he would bring Chae Seoryeong back alive — and the stronger Chae Seoryeong became, the easier that promise would be to keep.
"By the way, we're already at Qinghai."
Already was a stretch, considering how much time had been spent on the road. But to her, the journey had been so packed, without a single empty moment, that the time seemed to have flown by in an instant.
Jin Seongun nodded in reply.
"Best if we steal only the Nakhwa and get out. That seems our wisest course."
It was the conclusion he had reached after long deliberation.
Chae Seoryeong agreed at once.
"Right, the Qinghai Iron Pavilion is the greatest forge under heaven in this era. There's nowhere that doesn't use their swords."
Every one of the Martial Alliance, the Nine Sects and Five Noble Clans, and the Five Great Sects used blades from the Qinghai Iron Pavilion. Every sect and clan of any real renown did the same.
And if they ended up in an all-out confrontation with the Qinghai Iron Pavilion, it would breed no end of trouble.
"If the young lady sets her eyes on the road with those eyes of yours, then I'll go in and bring it out myself. The more I think on it, the more I'm sure that's the best way."
"Can't I come in with you?"
Jin Seongun shook his head firmly.
He understood why she was saying it. The Nakhwa was, after all, the treasure of her own family line. She wanted to be personally, directly involved in settling her clan's long-nursed grievance.
And still, he could not allow it. If Chae Seoryeong were to die, the grief of Chae Gahwi and Chae Ok-hyeon would be immense.
And he suspected that Divine Thief, of all people, would not wish to see Chae Ok-hyeon grieve.
"This was never really a bet to begin with, anyway."
Jin Seongun said it as he began to walk.
It was, in effect, a partnership, wasn't it?
He half suspected the whole framing was a convenient pretext for keeping Divine Thief's promise that he would never order a theft from Nakhwajeong.
Well, it hardly matters either way.
Winning or losing against Nakhwajeong had never concerned Jin Seongun in the first place.
The provincial seat of Qinghai Province — Xining.
Despite a name meaning "the peaceful city of the west," Xining's atmosphere was distinctly uneasy.
Perhaps it was only natural.
This region of Qinghai bordered Xinjiang, where the Demonic Cult held sway.
Demonic cultists caused trouble even in the heart of the Central Plains. There was no telling how many of them were lurking here in Qinghai.
Different from Deyang, this place.
Back then, Deyang had lain under the thumb of the Black Path factions, and the whole town had carried a rough, rowdy edge to it.
Xining was different.
There was something more precarious than the Black Path lingering in people's eyes — a warier, more frayed tension.
Jin Seongun studied a passing pedestrian. The man stared right back at him as he walked by. The bloodshot threads in the man's eyes gave him a strange, unsettling look.
Most people here were like that. They never averted their gaze first when eyes met, yet they bore no real malice either. They simply passed by, staring with eyes blurred of both emotion and focus.
"That guy must be super tired."
"……"
Jin Seongun was giving Chae Seoryeong an exasperated look for her joke when a group of men appeared, and the pedestrians scattered hurriedly in every direction.
Everyone seemed afraid of them.
They were definitely not demonic cultists. These men wore pale gray Taoist robes, with clean, unadorned swords at their waists.
"The Kunlun Sect!"
Chae Seoryeong exclaimed in fascination.
Born and raised in Xi'an, she had often seen martial artists of Mount Hua and Zhongnan. Kunlun was another matter entirely. Among the Nine Sects and Five Noble Clans, they carried the most mysterious air of all — dwelling in lonely isolation here in Qinghai, far from the heart of the Central Plains, and bearing a fierce reputation for charging into battle ahead of anyone else whenever the Demonic Cult stirred.
In truth, the eyes of Kunlun's martial artists were something apart from the Taoists of Wudang or Zhongnan. Lacking the recondite haze typical of the Taoist sects, their keen, honed spirit could be mistaken at a glance for that of an Unorthodox faction swordsman.
Jin Seongun happened to meet the eyes of one of the Kunlun Taoists. Something in the two men's gazes was strangely alike.
If Jin Seongun's dryness was something he was born with, the Kunlun Taoist seemed to have earned that look only after being worn down to the bone by exhaustion.
The Taoists soon strode over, step by heavy step. There was no killing intent, no threat in it, and yet a peculiar pressure settled on Jin Seongun's and Chae Seoryeong's shoulders all the same.
Their eyes were locked, in particular, on Chae Seoryeong's crimson hair. Here in Qinghai, what that red hair signified was all the more unmistakable.
Jin Seongun shifted a half step forward, as if to shield her. At the sight, the Kunlun Taoists' eyebrows twitched.
"Pardon us."
The Taoist at the head spoke in a deep, measured voice. He looked to be in his early-to-mid thirties.
Jin Seongun gave a nod.
"What business have you?"
"You are martial artists, yes?"
"As you can see."
Jin Seongun tapped the hilt of the blade at his waist. The Kunlun Taoists looked back and forth between his sword and his face.
Before long, the lead Taoist spoke.
"From where do you come?"
"Shaanxi."
"And for what purpose?"
Jin Seongun frowned slightly.
"Must I answer even that?"
"Ah, pray don't take offense. Of late, children have been vanishing all across Qinghai, and we have been investigating the matter…"
Then the man blinked, as if remembering something.
"Ah. Travelers from afar wouldn't know. We are Taoists of the Kunlun Sect. I am Seok Kang, second-generation disciple of Kunlun. So then — what brings the two of you to Qinghai?"
"Hmm."
Jin Seongun took a moment to choose his words.
He could hardly say he had come to rob the Qinghai Iron Pavilion. And while he cast about for a decent excuse—
It came to him.
"We are on companion training."
Chae Seoryeong's face flushed pink.
The Kunlun Taoists looked at Jin Seongun with eyes that seemed to say they were genuinely envious.
Companion training.
It referred to martial artists who, immediately after their wedding, wandered the world training together — and "training" was a generous word for what was essentially a honeymoon tour.
"Hoh. Forgive us for intruding on such precious time."
The Kunlun Taoists coughed into their fists, embarrassed.
Kunlun, at its foundation, forbade marriage. They had all aged well past their years, yet they were hopelessly green — and even flustered — in such matters.
The Taoists busied themselves with hurried farewells and vanished. Had it been any other pretext, they would have pressed with question after question. But the words companion training—
—had made the Kunlun Taoists' heads spin in a most peculiar way. From the group as they receded into the distance, a low voice drifted back.
"……The world is a cruel, unjust place."
Having cleared the inspection without incident, Jin Seongun and Chae Seoryeong walked side by side down the main street.
Chae Seoryeong's face was still a little flushed.
"C-companion training is pushing it a bit, don't you think?"
"We traveled together, and we trained. It's not a lie. And you did improve by leaps and bounds."
"……That part's true, but."
People around them kept stealing odd glances their way. Her face growing hotter still, Chae Seoryeong hastily changed the subject.
"Did you see just now? Those Taoists were carrying Qinghai Iron Pavilion swords too."
She was the daughter of a great forge, after all, and had a habit of checking blades before she ever checked faces.
Jin Seongun nodded.
"It would be nice to get a closer look."
But they couldn't very well grab a passing Kunlun Taoist and demand to inspect his sword.
Every martial artist treasured his weapon like a child or a lover — swordsmen most of all.
Chae Seoryeong thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Well, there is one good way."
"……And that would be?"
Jin Seongun felt inexplicably uneasy. Whenever Chae Seoryeong smiled like that — all wide and sweet — nonsense was sure to follow.
Jin Seongun climbed Mount Kunlun wearing an expression of pure, unfiltered reluctance, while Chae Seoryeong giggled beside him.
"Oh, loosen up that face. There's no other way to do this. Am I wrong?"
She had a point. Which was exactly why Jin Seongun was climbing Mount Kunlun with such ill grace.
Soon the Kunlun Sect came into view.
Having seen Zhongnan once before, he didn't feel quite the same thrill as then. He did think, however, that the sea of mist wreathing the whole of the Kunlun Sect had a certain refined beauty to it.
As the two drew near, a young Kunlun Taoist guarding the main gate warily questioned them. This time, too, he seemed deeply wary of Chae Seoryeong's red hair.
"Who goes there, and from where?"
A blunt question. Jin Seongun answered.
"We are traveling the Jianghu, and have come to request a friendly sparring match."
"A sparring match?"
The Taoist's face turned doubtful.
This was, after all, Kunlun of the Nine Sects and Five Noble Clans. A young martial artist barging in out of nowhere to challenge them to a duel was simply not how things were done.
Even so, the Taoist kept his courtesy and asked again.
"Might this humble one know your school, or at least your honored name?"
"No school. My name is Jin Seongun."
"Jin Seongun… Seongun…"
The two Taoists guarding the gate repeated his name over and over, tilting their heads. It was a name they had definitely heard somewhere, but the memory was hazy.
Then Jin Seongun added:
"Of late, they have taken to calling me Guest Dragon."
"G-Guest Dragon!"
The Taoists erupted in a flurry of alarm—
And at the same moment, Jin Seongun's face turned faintly red.