The Little Demon King (3)
The gate of Yichang stood majestic and imposing.
Unlike the deep mountains of Zhangjiajie, the air here carried the mingled scents of human warmth and the damp river wind, brushing faintly against the tip of my nose.
Along with it came the endless stream of people entering and leaving the city gate.
How should I put it? It felt a little like watching students spill in and out of a university campus at lunch hour, a writhing, roiling mass that made you think of cockroaches.
Enough to make a person feel panic even without having panic disorder.
Not exactly a feeling I wanted to remember.
I straightened my sore back.
Then I glanced at Yu Seojin, who was standing beside me, looking around with obvious curiosity at the people passing by.
"We’ve arrived! This is Yichang!"
A little over two days of sleeping rough and traveling together in awkward silence.
To be honest, the journey with Yu Seojin hadn’t been that bad.
It had been nearly two weeks since I left Zhangjiajie.
And for ten of those days, I had run forward without the slightest room in my heart to breathe.
I hadn’t had the leisure to laugh, nor the energy to chatter.
My mind had been filled with nothing but the obsession that I had to wake my master again.
Like a horse unleashed from the starting line, I had charged toward Anhui with all my wits scattered to the wind.
Every night I missed the days I’d spent with my master in Zhangjiajie, and every dawn I woke with wet eyes.
As though some inner demon had seized me.
Inner demon.
So this was what he meant, then.
'So this is your inner demon, you blockhead of a disciple. Such a peaceful, familiar inner demon, too—how many people in all the martial world do you think have one like yours?'
My master’s voice rang sharply in my head.
Maybe he really was right. Maybe I had fallen under some kind of inner demon after all.
Maybe that was why I was craving the smell of people this badly.
Maybe that was also why I had quietly listened to Yu Seojin’s pointless chatter all this time.
Her voice wasn’t irritating.
On the contrary, her endless stream of noise had a strange way of soothing me.
Like turning on a TV or some music in an empty room for no reason at all.
Was I actually that lonely?
The thought crossed my mind all at once.
A strange world, a strange body,
and the fate of the master I had left behind—no different from a life hanging by a thread.
Losing the one person who had been family to me in this world had apparently been far lonelier than I’d realized.
So perhaps I had been finding comfort in the babbling of this kindhearted, oblivious blind daoist after all.
But even that time had now come to an end.
In the end, where there is meeting, there is also parting.
"Um, Wolyeon Daehyeop. Then I suppose this is goodbye."
It seemed Yu Seojin had been thinking along the same lines.
She fiddled with the brim of her bamboo hat, hesitating and unable to easily take a step away.
Had she grown attached in the span of a day or two?
Still, our paths were different, so parting here was for the best.
I would be heading to Anhui before long,
and Yu Seojin had to go south in search of Jegal Yeona.
When two people were headed in different directions, forcing the road to stay joined would only burden us both.
I took two steps forward and stood before Yu Seojin.
Then I folded my hands in a respectful fist-and-palm salute.
A brief, concise farewell.
This is where we part.
Yu Seojin looked at my greeting and moved her lips as though she had something to say.
"Um…… Daehyeop."
She hesitated, fidgeting with her hands.
"I, I really am grateful. Thanks to you, I was able to come this far without being bored, and safely too."
Then, after another awkward pause.
Yu Seojin kept worrying her lower lip as if she were trying to choose her words, opening and closing her mouth again and again.
It didn’t seem like the kind of mood where I could simply turn and leave, so I stood still and waited for her to finish.
"Before you leave…… may I, despite my rudeness, ask one favor?"
A favor?
Was she serious?
For an instant, a chill ran down my spine.
She couldn’t possibly be asking me to help her find Jegal Yeona, could she?
If it were a matter of Jegal Yeona’s life being on the line, I might have rolled up my sleeves and helped, but from what I’d heard, hadn’t Jegal Yeona simply run away from home?
I had no particular desire to get tangled up with her.
I had a long road ahead of me and an endless list of things to do. I had no interest in letting that little troublemaker drag me down.
Given the pranks she’d played on me over so many rounds, and the vivid stories Yu Seojin had told me, just imagining what it would be like to experience her tricks firsthand was enough to make my blood rise.
At the very least, I knew I couldn’t handle it.
And yet I couldn’t simply turn my back and leave either, because it felt far too cruel to be this harsh toward such an innocent daoist. Pathetically, I found myself unable to take another step.
Since when had I become so soft?
I gave a tiny self-mocking snort in my heart.
Then Yu Seojin continued.
"I…… am blind, you see. So when I remember people, I usually remember their voices or their energy. But because Daehyeop cannot speak, I can’t hear your voice, and your energy is so mysterious that it’s difficult for my foolish head to remember it completely."
So?
"Could I…… touch your face just once? I’d like to remember your honorable face with my fingertips, if only a little, so that when we meet again on the Jianghu someday, I may recognize you and offer my greeting properly."
What.
For a moment, I felt as if a gigantic question mark had risen in my mind.
In an age where men and women were supposed to keep their distance, she wanted to touch the face of an unrelated man?
Was this some Wudang thing? Because they followed Daoism instead of Confucian scholarship, did that mean they had no scruples about this sort of thing?
Or was this woman simply lacking common sense?
When I froze up and failed to react, Yu Seojin only grew more restless and hurried to explain.
"Ah! I don’t mean anything strange by it! I only want to avoid the rudeness of *the blind man feeling an elephant* and misremembering my benefactor’s face!"
Then she clasped both hands tightly together.
"Would that be all right?"
She looked over here with those sightless eyes of hers shining strangely bright.
I narrowed my own eyes and tried to ignore that gaze with all my might.
But—
Ah.
My heart wasn’t cold enough to ignore a look like that, like some wet stray dog begging to be taken in.
In the end, I took one of Yu Seojin’s hands and brought it to my face.
"Ah! Thank you, Daehyeop!"
She answered brightly and then began to feel my face carefully.
First my forehead, then my brows and eyes, then my nose, cheeks, chin, and the line of my neck.
But then—
What is this?
Yu Seojin’s reaction was strange.
At first she had been quietly exploring my features, taking me in piece by piece, but then she tilted her head to one side all by herself, her eyes growing round.
Then she became fidgety, and after that she suddenly smiled, as though she’d found something deeply meaningful.
Why?
That expression irritated me for some reason.
Yu Seojin’s eyes held a confident, secretive smile, as if she had discovered something I’d been hiding all along.
Did I hide something from Yu Seojin?
No, not particularly.
And yet what was that look supposed to mean?
Almost feels insulting.
It was strangely annoying to receive a look like that from Yu Seojin of all people.
"……I’ve confirmed it."
For some reason, Yu Seojin’s voice had gained a certain weight.
"I won’t forget your…… honorable face. And that charm you carry, Daehyeop—I’ll keep it buried only in my own heart."
Charm?
Before I could even finish forming the question, Yu Seojin folded her hands in salute and stole the farewell first.
"Then I’ll take my leave now. Wolyeon Da…… ahem, Daehyeop. May your road ahead be filled only with flower petals."
With that, she gave me a wink and slipped back into the crowd.
I watched her departing figure, bewildered.
……What was that?
It had been a perfectly ordinary farewell, and yet for some reason I felt strangely uneasy, irritated in a way I couldn’t explain.
I couldn’t make sense of it, so I just stood there and watched her recede into the distance.
Then—
Suddenly, a hand appeared and snatched the purse tied at her waist.
I moved my Mind’s Eye quietly.
A man in shabby clothes.
Blending into the crowd, he approached Yu Seojin from behind in secret.
His footsteps were anything but ordinary.
The way he suppressed his presence and erased the sound of his steps made it obvious this wasn’t the first time he’d done this.
A pickpocket.
The kind of small-time crook you found everywhere in a busy district.
Normally, he wouldn’t have been worth my attention.
But the problem was that his target was Yu Seojin, the woman known as the "walking piggy bank of the Beggars' Sect."
I rolled my eyes quickly.
The man who had stolen the purse was already melting into the crowd, trying to vanish completely.
Meanwhile, Yu Seojin, unaware of everything, was walking forward with her attention fixed only ahead, humming to herself as if she were enjoying the day immensely.
She had no idea.
She didn’t even dream that her entire fortune had just been stolen.
Tch.
I clicked my tongue softly.
Then I quickly headed in the direction the man had disappeared.
Whatever Yu Seojin’s purpose was, whoever she was searching for, the one teaching that had been carved into my mind made my feet move on their own.
Enrich what is under heaven; remove what harms what is under heaven.
Bring benefit to all beneath heaven, and eliminate all harm beneath it.
***
The man quickly succeeded in slipping out of the alley and into a secluded place.
In front of him, an old beggar tilted his chin toward the purse in the man’s hand and asked,
"Did you succeed?"
"I did."
The man handed over the purse with great confidence.
The beggar placed it on his own dirty, dried-up hand, then frowned at how light it felt.
"Did you steal a sachet instead of a purse? Why the hell is this thing so light?"
"Come on, no way! You have no idea how pretty she was. And the sword at her waist, and the robes she was wearing—at a glance, she was clearly some rich Wudang broad."
"If she was some rich Wudang broad, that purse should’ve been heavy. This thing feels lighter than a feather."
"Hey, these days people carry a lot of silver notes, don’t they? How do you know there aren’t a thousand taels’ worth stuffed in there?"
The old beggar had five empty purses hanging from his waist.
The young thief had one purse.
They were beggars from the Beggars' Sect.
The Beggars' Sect was a school of martial arts formed by beggars who banded together to survive, and also one of the orthodox pillars of the martial world.
Although the Beggars' Sect’s chief, elders, and branch leaders were all righteous heroes bound tightly by loyalty, clear water at the top couldn’t guarantee clear water below.
The problem with the Beggars' Sect was simply that it had too many people.
The more people there were, the more varieties of human scum gathered, and among them, there were always trash who merely borrowed the Beggars' Sect’s name for their own purposes.
The saying that the strong are evil and the weak are good still required a healthy environment and proper education.
Much less when it came to beggars, who received no proper education at all and were instead the target of contempt and hatred—how could one expect anything else?
Among beggars raised on hatred and disdain, it was truly rare for such pure character to bloom.
Of course, in the Beggars' Sect, there were far more branches of the school that turned to petty crime just to survive day to day than there were branches that truly upheld righteousness and chivalry.
That was why the celebrated heroes of the Beggars' Sect were respected and praised, and why small-time criminals made up more than half of the sect’s members.
The young beggar grinned and plopped down beside the old beggar.
Then he clicked his tongue and wore a lewd expression.
"But, old man, money aside, that woman’s figure was something else…… ahhh."
"Her figure? She was hidden under a robe. How could you even see it?"
"Come on, old man, you know how it is. You can tell at a glance. I was right behind her when I went in to steal the purse, and her ass was just……"
The young beggar formed a round shape in the air with both hands, then clenched them to mime grabbing tight.
"Firm. Really firm. She was carrying two peaches on her hips, I swear. I should’ve cut the purse cord, but before I knew it, I almost snatched her ass instead of the purse and ran. Heh heh."
"You’re insane. You were practically begging to get yourself cut down."
"No, seriously! That jiggly thing, the way it swayed with every step…… man, oh man."
The young beggar smacked his lips audibly.
"The purse was so light I almost thought it must’ve been that heavy ass trying to keep the balance."
"Hah hah hah! You’ve completely lost your mind. All you can see is women’s asses, isn’t it?"
The old beggar didn’t seem to mind the talk much either, and chuckled along.
"If that’s true, we could feed her some dream-rot later and sell her off to a pleasure house. A pretty little thing like that would fetch a very handsome price."
"Oh! Then could we try her out once ourselves?"
"Not a chance, you bastard. Since when do you get to covet the goods? We’ll just use the gold she earns us to grease our bellies."
The two beggars’ filthy banter filled the cramped shack.
"Now then, let’s see just how impressive that heavy ass is, shall we?"
The old beggar snickered as he untied the purse.
With eyes full of anticipation, he opened the pouch and dumped its contents into his palm.
Thud.
What fell out was not silver, nor gold.
It was a neatly folded sheet of paper and a small jade plaque.
"What the hell is this? A scrap of paper and…… a rock?"
The old beggar’s disappointment was obvious.
The young beggar also widened his eyes and craned his neck closer.
"Huh? Is it really a silver note? Hurry up and unfold it, old man!"
"Hold on. I need to be able to read in the first place."
The old beggar grumbled and opened the paper.
It was filled with inked writing on fine silk paper.
And at the bottom, a vivid red seal was stamped clearly.
Even if you were illiterate, the seal’s design was distinct enough to recognize at a glance.
A folding fan layered over the shape of the eight trigrams.
And in the center, the character stamped there.
Jegal.
"Huk!"
The old beggar’s face instantly turned the color of dirt.
As though he had been handed a death warrant, he began to tremble violently with the paper in his hand.
"W-why? What is it? Is there some huge sum written on it?"
The clueless young beggar swallowed and asked.
Instead of answering, the old beggar brought his hand down hard on the back of his head.
"Agh! Why are you hitting me!"
"You crazy bastard! Do you even know whose thing you just stole!? Huh!?"
"Whose could it be? Just some Wudang broad who happened to pass by!"
"You idiot! Do you know what this is before you start running your mouth!? This is the emblem of the Jegal Clan! The Jegal Clan!"
Only then did the young beggar’s expression go stupid.
"T-the Jegal Clan?"
The old beggar, trembling, picked up the jade plaque.
"Good grief, and this is an IOU! An IOU! You idiot, of all the things to steal, you picked an IOU from the Jegal Clan that won’t even be worth a single coin!?"
"N-no, I didn’t know! And an IOU from the Jegal Clan should still be worth something if we hand it to any pawnshop in Hubei……"
"You ignorant bastard! Even if we took this in, what idiot of a pawnshop would accept an IOU from beggars like us? Especially one stamped with the Jegal Clan’s seal!?"
The old beggar looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
The young beggar beside him was no different.
"Th-then what do we do? Return it?"
"Return it my ass! If we go back and get caught showing our faces, that’s the road to the netherworld right there! Just burn it! Burn it and bury it! Nothing happened, understand!?"
"Y-yes! Understood!"
The young beggar hurriedly started looking for tinder.
But before he could find any and strike a spark—
Whoosh!
Along with the sound of slicing wind, a roof tile flew in and smashed precisely into the tinder box in front of the young beggar.
"Aaagh!"
The young beggar screamed and toppled backward.
As the tinder box burst, sparks scattered everywhere.
"W-who’s there!"
The old beggar jolted in terror and looked wildly around.
Instinctively, he clutched the wooden club beside him—barely worthy of being called a beggar’s staff.
A black figure leapt lightly down from the roof toward them.
Without the slightest sound, as though a feather had settled to the ground, he landed in the middle of the shack.
Not a speck of dust rose.
In the dark interior, a single shaft of light slipping through the hole in the ceiling illuminated his back.
Seen against that light, he looked as ominous as a reapert of death appearing in broad daylight.
From head to toe he was swallowed in darkness, and within that shadow, only his icy blue eyes burned with a fierce light.