The Little Demon King (2)
Yu Seojin had never once thought of herself as talkative.
She simply had very few chances to speak.
And the reason for that was that she was the Wudang Sect Leader’s direct disciple.
The Sect Leader was already well past sixty and edging ever closer to seventy. Naturally, his direct disciples beneath him were not remotely close to Yu Seojin’s age; they were old enough to be her parents.
That said, it was not as if Yu Seojin had been slighted or treated unfairly.
No fool had the nerve to mistreat a disciple personally brought to Wudang by the Sect Leader himself, and besides, though Yu Seojin did not know it, the purity and innocence she carried stirred the Wudang Daoists’ protective instincts.
The fact that women made up only one-tenth of the Wudang Sect’s total numbers only added fuel to that overprotectiveness.
Her senior brothers and sisters never spared teaching or affection, treating the young junior sister as though she were their own daughter, and the male disciples her age often addressed her with the strange, affectionate title of “Little Madam” while quietly nursing feelings of admiration.
But speaking with the Daoists of the same mountain school was a different matter entirely from merely receiving their affection.
Yu Seojin never dared approach her senior brothers and sisters carelessly.
She knew that, though they were of the same generation as her, they still deserved the same respect due to masters and elders.
Likewise, the male disciples did not dare come too close to Yu Seojin.
If they made a move on a junior sister who was counted in the same generation as their own masters for no reason at all, their teachers would come down on them like thunder.
As for her conversation partners, there were only her own master, who vanished into seclusion whenever one could least predict, and Jegal Yeona, who would occasionally drop by, stir up all manner of mischief, and then run off.
And yet something strange had happened.
Walking alongside this mute hero, Wolyeon, she felt as if some chatterbox spirit deep in her belly had begun to stir and crawl upward through her dantian.
“Hero, did you know? Wudang Mountain is wrapped in morning mist every dawn, and if you take a deep breath, it feels wonderfully clean, as though your whole body has been purified. The immortal qi there is said to settle deep in the lungs. My master calls it the sky and earth’s nasal breath, but I think that sounds kind of dirty, so I just call it tasting the clouds.”
Walking close beside Wolyeon, Yu Seojin chattered away.
Wolyeon gave no answer. He could not answer.
But Yu Seojin did not care in the slightest.
“And another thing, Hero. Do you know how awful Wudang’s food is? They hardly use any salt or soy sauce because strong flavors interfere with training. It all just tastes like grass, grass! Would they really have disciples climbing over the wall at mealtimes just to sneak off and eat meat at the market if it weren’t that bad? Even Buddhism probably isn’t this strict about forbidding ingredients!”
Still no reply.
Only the sound of footsteps on the path and the rustle of leaves shifting in the wind reached her ears.
Ordinarily, anyone would have grown weary of such silence and fallen quiet, or else become embarrassed and looked away.
But Yu Seojin only grew more excited and talked even faster.
He’s listening.
Yu Seojin could tell.
Though her eyes could not see, she possessed a special sense that let her perceive what others could not. Her master, Baekhyeon, called it the sixth sense.
Wolyeon’s energy was calm.
Like a mountain spring in the depths of the forest, it quietly received her endless chatter.
There was no heavy, annoyed qi, no sharp current of dismissal.
He was an extraordinarily attentive listener.
Now and then he would nod.
Now and then he would shake his head.
And very occasionally he would let out a tiny huff through his nose, as if in disbelief.
That was all, yet Yu Seojin found a strange comfort in that silence.
Those small reactions were more than enough of a reply for her.
“Hero, hero! Do you see those flowers over there? They look very pretty, but they’re actually poisonous herbs. If you grind them up and drink the juice, you’ll have diarrhea for three straight days. When I was little, I fell for Yeona’s coaxing and put some into rice water, and then—”
Yu Seojin’s mouth never stopped moving.
Wolyeon’s silence was not indifference.
It was like a mountain spring in the forest, quietly receiving her flood of words.
Was it because there was a cup that alcohol could be poured into?
Or was it because the wine existed that a cup could hold it?
The mute swordsman before her seemed to stand at the boundary of Daoist profundity itself.
Empty, and therefore useful; because of that emptiness, capable of embracing every last drop of Yu Seojin’s waterfall of chatter.
He’s truly a strange person.
Yu Seojin turned her head and studied Wolyeon’s figure.
The world in her sight was made of multicolored currents of qi.
Everyone possessed a unique aura.
A person with a fiery temperament carried red qi.
A cold, rational person gave off blue qi.
An utterly depraved villain was wrapped in a chilling killing intent.
But Wolyeon’s qi was unlike anything she had ever seen.
Coiling around the eight extraordinary meridians connected to his dantian was a flame.
A bright, crystalline blue yang energy.
Like a fire so intense it had burned past red and turned blue, Wolyeon’s yang qi burned so pure and clear it was almost painful to look at.
Ordinarily, someone with such overwhelming yang energy would either have a fierce, irascible temperament or be on the verge of qi deviation from an overly domineering martial path.
But the flow that served as the foundation of blood and inner force—the energy circulating through the twelve standard channels—was the complete opposite.
Black as pitch.
A deep, lightless darkness lay over it like a silent night sky or a bottomless lake.
Extreme yang and extreme yin.
Two forces that should never coexist.
Just as fire and water could not be held in the same bowl, common sense said that if those two existed in one body, it would either burst apart or go mad.
And yet, within Wolyeon’s body, a miracle was unfolding.
The blue flame flowed as if sliding across the surface of the black lake, while the black lake embraced the blue fire like a mother holding her child.
Rather than clashing, they complemented one another, achieving perfect harmony like a taijitu.
Still, something about it was strange.
His internal energy was undeniably profound, and its depth and purity were nothing ordinary.
Especially that black qi.
It was vast, as though it could embrace everything, yet it never once invaded the territory of his yang energy.
Such power could be glimpsed not in junior disciples like herself, but in masters and elders.
And yet, if one asked whether his realm was truly high, the answer was no.
On the contrary, Yu Seojin judged that despite that bottomless inner force, his overall cultivation level was roughly on par with her own.
His internal energy far surpassed hers, but his outer body and martial attainment seemed unable to keep up.
Is that even possible?
Curiosity rose to Yu Seojin’s throat.
She wanted to ask Wolyeon right then and there, “Hero, just what on earth is your internal energy made of?”
But she swallowed the question.
However clueless or foolish others might call her, Yu Seojin at least understood courtesy as a martial artist.
Asking after another person’s inner energy method was rudeness of the highest order.
Besides, did she not already owe him her life?
In the end, she gave up on the question, grinned to herself, and started chattering again.
“Hero, did you know? There’s a legend in Hubei that once, a celestial maiden came down to bathe and—”
She could feel Wolyeon giving a small shake of his head.
That probably meant the story was too clichéd. Yu Seojin immediately changed the subject and launched into a new tale.
Rather than ask questions, she decided simply to enjoy the mysterious vibrations he gave off while standing beside this mute hero.
Being near him made her heart settle.
Like meeting a sturdy rock in the middle of a stormy sea.
***
“We’re here! This is Yichang!”
Yu Seojin called out as she adjusted her bamboo hat.
At the same moment, a clamor struck her ears.
People murmuring, merchants hawking their wares, cart wheels rolling over the road, the rich scent of oil and food wafting from somewhere nearby.
This was Yichang.
A gate city on the Yangtze, a vital crossroads where goods and people flowed through by the thousands.
After spending so long camping in the quiet forest, seeing such a dense, bustling mass of people made Yu Seojin’s head swim.
It felt as though countless currents of qi were crowding her vision and buffeting her from every direction.
She glanced this way and that, watching the people, then turned back to Wolyeon and touched the brim of her hat with her fingertips.
“Um, Hero Wolyeon. Then this is where we part ways.”
Where there is a meeting, there must also be a farewell.
Wolyeon’s goal had been to reach Yichang; Yu Seojin’s was to ask after Jegal Yeona here in the city.
She could have shamelessly begged him to stay and help her, but she did not want to pile more burdens onto someone she had already leaned on many times for kindness.
Regret welled up in her chest.
Though their journey together had been short, and though their conversation had been one-sided, she found herself wondering whether she would ever meet such a mysterious, strange person again.
Wolyeon stopped before her.
Then he folded his hands and bowed politely.
A concise, plain farewell.
“Ah… Hero.”
Yu Seojin fidgeted with her fingers, hesitating.
“I, um… I really am grateful. Thanks to you, I was able to come here without being bored, and safely too.”
Yu Seojin hesitated again.
She hated to let him go like this.
And more than anything, there was one thing she wanted to confirm.
“Before you leave… may I be so bold as to ask one favor?”
A faint ripple of question moved through Wolyeon’s qi.
“I… am blind, as you know. So when I remember people, I usually remember them by their voices or their energy. But you can’t speak, so I can’t hear your voice, and your qi is so wondrous that I can’t quite hold it fully in my head.”
Gathering her courage, Yu Seojin lifted a hand.
“Could I… touch your face just once? I’d like to remember your features with my fingertips, so that if we ever meet again out there in the jianghu, I can recognize you and greet you properly.”
A brief silence fell.
“Ah! I don’t mean anything strange by it! I just don’t want to be rude and make the mistake of remembering my benefactor wrongly—like Blind Man Feeling an Elephant! Would that be all right?”
Yu Seojin fumbled for the old tale her master had once taught her, using it as a clumsy excuse as she clasped both hands together.
Perhaps because she looked so pitiful, Wolyeon let out a soundless sigh and stepped closer.
Then he took her hand and brought it to his face.
“Ah! Thank you, Hero!”
With trembling fingertips, Yu Seojin began to trace his features carefully.
His forehead.
Moderately broad and solid.
A smooth curve, neither jutting nor sunken.
His eyebrows.
Thick and neatly arranged.
Full, yet finely textured.
His eyes.
The lids over them were thin.
His lashes were long enough to tickle her fingertips.
The shape of his eyes seemed rather sharp, yet the outer ends sloped downward, so he probably did not look all that severe.
His nose bridge.
Smooth and upright.
So sharp that her fingers nearly slipped along its line.
And his skin.
His skin is really beautiful.
Even though he must have endured rough travel and wind-battered hardship, his skin was as smooth as silk.
Not a single pore seemed out of place; his flesh was taut and finely polished, like touching expertly fired white porcelain.
Her hand slid down his cheek and came to his jawline.
It was narrow. For a man’s jaw, the line was too slender and too soft.
A graceful curve with not a single hard angle.
And then—
He doesn’t have any facial hair?
None.
Not even the slightest roughness of stubble.
No matter how cleanly one shaved, a man should still have some trace of fine hair under the chin.
But Wolyeon’s jaw was smooth. Perfectly smooth.
He looks about my age, though.
Could he perhaps be one of those people whose beards simply never grew?
She had sometimes seen senior brothers who were mocked for having too little facial hair and wondered if it troubled them.
Would Hero Wolyeon ever worry about such a thing too?
Her hand moved down to his throat.
The Adam’s apple. The mark of a man.
...There isn’t one.
A smooth neck line with not even the slightest bulge.
It was actually slender and long, so delicate that it stirred her protective instincts.
Huh?
A question circled in Yu Seojin’s head.
Didn’t a man close to twenty years of age naturally have an Adam’s apple?
But there was no trace of one on Wolyeon’s throat.
Yu Seojin’s brow furrowed as a sense of cognitive dissonance tugged at her, and at the same time, complicated calculations whirled through her mind.
And the instant those calculations ended—
Lightning struck in Yu Seojin’s head.
Small hands.
Beautiful skin.
A beardless chin.
A throat without an Adam’s apple.
And…
Internal energy carrying the aura of extreme yin.
Yu Seojin’s mouth fell open.
Her hand froze on Wolyeon’s cheek.
Could it be… a woman?!
It couldn’t be.
He was taller than she was, walked with a man’s stride, and carried extreme yang qi—so of course she had assumed he was a man!
Yu Seojin silently lamented her narrow vision and her prejudice.
The benefactor she had thought was a hero was, in fact, a heroine!
No, that was still wrong.
Yu Seojin immediately scolded her own assumptions again.
Was there some reason a heroine could not be a hero?
That would be an insult to the Emei and Putuo schools.
In any case, all the riddles had been solved.
Why he, no, she had not spoken.
She concealed her voice so no one would discover she’s a woman!
Why her hands were so small and delicate.
Because she’s a daughter of a noble house!
Why she carried such astonishing yin energy.
Because she was born in a woman’s body and naturally possessed pure yin qi!
Yu Seojin was swept up in shock, astonishment, and a strange sense of awe.
A crossdressing woman.
So this was one of those methods sometimes used by wandering martial heroines who wished to conceal their identities.
And to think she had hidden it this perfectly, even going so far as to practice silence in order to keep her true identity secret.
Ah… just how many hardships must she have gone through?
Now it made sense. Her nimble movements when she struck down the tiger had been no ordinary thing.
That graceful thrust, like a dancer’s step, had been a woman’s technique all along.
And the delicate care she had shown when looking after me.
That had been sympathy from one woman to another.
The memory of all the times she had called Wolyeon “Hero” and treated her like a senior brother flashed through Yu Seojin’s mind like a passing montage.
How funny must it have seemed? No, how nervous must she have been?
I have to pretend I don’t know.
This was a secret.
There had to be some deep, unspeakable reason why Hero Wolyeon—no, Lady Wolyeon—had not revealed her identity.
Perhaps she was avoiding an enemy’s eyes, or perhaps she had hidden her name while seeking revenge for her family.
Thinking herself quick-witted, Yu Seojin decided not to commit the foolish sin of pretending to know.
Protecting her secret.
Wasn’t that what a true friend should do, and what one should do without shaming the teachings of their sect?
Yu Seojin slowly withdrew her hand.
Then, with a smile far softer and more secretive than before, she looked up at Wolyeon.
“...I’ve confirmed it.”
There was a meaningful weight in her voice.
“I’ll never forget your… lovely features, Hero. And the charm you carry—I’ll bury that deep in my heart alone.”
Wolyeon tilted his head slightly to one side.
He seemed to understand nothing of what Yu Seojin was talking about.
But Yu Seojin only nodded to herself, satisfied.
Rest easy. I’m a woman of tight lips.
She stepped back and gave him a respectful salute.
“Then I shall take my leave. Wolyeon Da… ahem, Hero. May your path ahead be filled only with flower roads.”
She gave Wolyeon a quick wink with one eye.
Then she turned and vanished into the crowd without looking back.
Her humming footsteps were as light as feathers.
Leaving behind the meeting with this mysterious heroine, she planned to exchange the draft note she had received from Jegal Seon for cash and fill her hungry stomach first thing.
And in her mind, there was only one delightful thought: Next time I see her, I absolutely have to call her big sister.
Was it because she was too giddy with imagination—or rather delusion?
Yu Seojin never once noticed the stealthy hand that reached toward her waist and snatched away the money pouch holding her draft note.