The Blue Sand Society (2)
"W... what in the..."
"However wretched and contemptible an unorthodox thug might be, if he carries even a shred of pride in calling himself a warrior, would he truly threaten ordinary folk who have never learned a single martial art?"
At a glance, the whelp's words were pure orthodoxy, preached straight from the manual. Sa Gwang-jin, whose skin crawled at such talk by nature, ground his teeth and roared.
"Spare me that by-the-book nonsense! Everyone, cut them down!"
"Die!!!"
"Uraaaagh!"
With the Society's leader and his second-in-command at their head, gleaming blades raised high, every last member of the Blue Sand Society drew their weapons as one and surged at Cho Ja-un like a black tide. The din of dozens of blades crashing together rang out across the square.
The man's mouth worked well enough, at least. Yet there stood Cho Ja-un, frozen as if carved from ice, offering no response whatsoever even as Sa Gwang-jin's blade closed to within a hand's breadth — and at the sight, a frigid smile curled across Sa Gwang-jin's lips.
"Real combat and training are two different things, boy."
"Quite right. Well said."
The next instant, Cho Ja-un's figure seemed to melt away like smoke — only to reappear, without warning, at the very heart of the onrushing storm of blades.
By any measure it was a footwork akin to flinging himself onto the waiting steel, an act of suicide — and yet not one member of the Blue Sand Society could so much as trace the arc of his movement.
Goddamn it all. This man is a master beyond all reason.
From that footwork alone, Sa Gwang-jin already knew Cho Ja-un stood on a plane far above his own — but retreat was no longer possible. If any chance remained, it was now, with the man having plunged into the center of their formation. The first opening, and the last.
"Kill hiiiiim!!!"
The moment Sa Gwang-jin's cry — desperate to the point of anguish — tore across Blue Stone County, a single breath faster, the sword of Cho Ja-un, standing amid the Blue Sand Society's ranks, swept through the air. The motion was as natural as flowing water, but what beaded at its tip was the dew of death.
First Form: Dancing Clouds, Surging Mist
As the blade cleaved the empty air, a mist-like haze glimmering with brilliant silver-white light writhed like a living creature and spread in every direction in the blink of an eye.
"Huh?"
Gwan Ju-ham, youngest of the Blue Sand Seven Steeds, had been standing well toward the rear — and now he stared, entranced, at the wondrous haze that had somehow wrapped itself softly around him.
It was the last thing he would ever say.
SHRAAAAK—!!!
The instant Cho Ja-un's sword swung — soft above all else, and faster than anything — the gentle haze that had been dancing along with it turned, as though it had never been gentle at all, into razor-edged sword qi that bored through Gwan Ju-ham's entire body.
SPLURTCH—
"Gah... ghhk..."
Clutching his throat as he crumpled, Gwan Ju-ham spent the last of his strength raising his eyes ahead — but not a single member of the Blue Sand Society was still standing soundly on two legs.
All thirty-two of them, Sa Gwang-jin included, had been cut down with a single technique.
"W... what..."
Even as the sword qi carved his body apart and death closed in, Sa Gwang-jin vented his fury at Cho Ja-un's merciless handiwork — nothing about it befitted a man of the orthodox path.
"How... how could a master of your caliber... appear in a village like this and slaughter every last one of us? What reason do you have!"
"Reason? A warrior who draws a sword stakes his life on it. Was that not the whole point of taking up the blade?"
"Y... you don't even have the barest mercy the strong owe the weak... khk... do you? Had you shown us this majesty from the start, do you think we would have dared attack?"
Cho Ja-un let out a short laugh as he looked down at the dying man.
"Had I been the weaker one, I would be the one dying. Today it simply happens to be the other way around. If some unorthodox brute stronger than me ever comes looking and defeats me, then I will offer my neck without complaint. Just as I will not beg my enemy for mercy then — the way you are now."
"You goddamn bastard! The Black Ram Gang will never let this go. We'll find you, and we'll kill—"
Before Sa Gwang-jin could finish his final flailing, Cho Ja-un's sword traced a light arc through the air, and the man's head dropped with a dull thud and rolled across the ground.
His eyes bulged wide, carrying a grudge that would never be settled.
"You talk too much."
This was the ghost of the Jinsong Sect — the man who, twenty years past, had wandered the whole of the Central Plains and taken the heads of hundreds of unorthodox fighters. The Jinsong Sword Demon had returned.
"Huh? What? It's over already?"
"Ah. Right. I did say I'd call you... it rather slipped my mind."
The door opened, and So Yul's voice — utterly out of place amid the blood-soaked aftermath of slaughter — drifted in. Cho Ja-un scratched his head and turned to look at her.
But then...
"Hah..."
"What?"
"Must you wear that outfit?"
"What's wrong with it?"
So Yul was draped in yet another garment that resembled a courtesan's dress — no, plainly just another courtesan's dress — and Cho Ja-un laughed in weary resignation.
"It's not... well, it's hardly ordinary clothing, I'll grant you. I'm just curious why you insist on it."
At this rate, there was hardly any point in buying her clothes at all.
"I don't know... it just feels nice? It's easy to move in when I use footwork, and it looks good in the bronze mirror too. The other clothes were all so..."
So Yul shrugged, entirely unbothered.
"Hah..."
"I'm telling you, there wasn't a single decent one among them! And since when does a man talk out of both sides of his mouth? So? Are you saying you won't buy them?"
"No, I'll buy them, it's just... something about it... Fine. I understand."
In the end, Cho Ja-un nodded. He had no desire to keep wrangling over her taste in clothes.
"I suppose that's simply how it is out in the countryside. Once we reach a big city and find something better, I'll buy you something different then."
More than a year had already passed since So Yul had become a woman, which meant she had grown reasonably accustomed to her new body. She had gone half-mad the first few times that monthly ordeal arrived, but she had soon resigned herself to it as one of those things no one could help — and her eye for clothing had shifted a little as well.
And yet in one respect she differed greatly from any ordinary woman: she felt no aversion whatsoever to gisaeng dresses that most women would be too embarrassed to even touch.
The reason was simpler than one might think. Shame, humiliation — emotions like these are learned too, instilled from childhood by one's surroundings and upbringing.
A child who squats to relieve himself in the middle of the street, for instance, is scolded and sternly corrected by his parents, and so the lesson — ah, that is wrong; doing that is shameful — is carved into his mind until it becomes second nature.
Clothing worked precisely the same way. The lesson that a woman ought to be ashamed to wear such things is engraved deep in a girl's heart from the time she is small.
Naturally, no one had ever told So Yul that such clothes were shameful, nor had she been given the years it takes to learn it — and so the thought simply never occurred to her.
There was one more problem besides: having been a man originally, she took one look at her own peerless beauty reflected in the bronze mirror, dressed in that courtesan's dress, and found the figure utterly to her liking.
Had her transformed figure been unremarkable, or her face anything less than stunning, she might well have wrapped herself in coarse cotton and picked out a shapeless martial uniform instead. But her beauty had yet to become known to the world — and the moment it was, titles like Fairest in Gansu, or Fairest in Shaanxi should she catch eyes there, would follow as a matter of course. Her looks were simply that kind. And so she dressed in clothes that showed that beauty off, and fell head over heels for her own reflection.
Besides, she had been so absorbed in trying on outfits and admiring herself in the mirror that she had sensed the Blue Sand Society closing in, and sensed Cho Ja-un cutting every last one of them down — and dismissed it all as beneath her notice. Which is to say, the matter was already settled.
Cho Ja-un, of course, knew nothing of So Yul's complicated inner workings — but he could make sense of it in his own way, from another angle entirely.
She wore gisaeng dresses for so long that anything else must feel like a burden.
And so, with no better answer, he had nodded along. When the person whose taste it was insisted she liked it, arguing further would have made him look rather strange.
"Ahem... very well, then. If that is your taste, what can I do about it?"
The common folk who had been staring, hollow-eyed, at the corpses of the Blue Sand Society strewn across the ground gradually came back to themselves at the two's utterly casual exchange.
"No... how... how could the Blue Sand Society be wiped out in a single instant like that..."
Everyone who had watched the scene unfold was dumbfounded. They had been anxiously wondering whether those two young people might be in over their heads — and in the blink of an eye, one of them alone had swept away the notorious Blue Sand Society.
Some turned their faces away from the gruesome sight. But for those who had suffered the Society's tyranny for years — the merchants above all — the reaction was very different.
"Th... thank you!"
When one merchant bowed low to the ground, the rest, who had been hanging back warily, all burst into cheers.
"Hooray!! Thank you, Great Hero!"
"Do you have any idea how much money those devils squeezed out of us? We were one step from ruin!"
"Truly... truly, thank you. How could we ever repay this debt..."
With the crowd swarming in around them, seizing their hands amid the cheering, a bewildered So Yul quietly asked Cho Ja-un:
"Hm. You're the one who handled everything, Ja-un, so why are they fawning over me too? And was it hard on you? I'm guessing their racket was pretty bad?"
"Is that not only natural? From the look of it, no orthodox sect worth the name extends its reach this far, and the officials concern themselves only with the capital — their authority never reaches a village on the fringe like this one. So the unorthodox rabble run wild, with no sense of limits."
"They really were awful people. So does that mean we've done something proud and honorable, as heroes of the orthodox path?"
So Yul asked with a bright smile, wondering whether she had played the part of an orthodox heroine to perfection — and watching her, a smile rose to Cho Ja-un's face as well, the kind a father wears while looking at his daughter.
Yes. What did the clothes matter? He could simply buy her new ones later. What came first was healing this child's heart, bruised as it had been by the orthodox sects, and guiding her down the right path. That was all he needed to think about.
"It does. And Lady Kang here is already a hero of the orthodox path without lifting a finger. A disciple of Mount Hua, no less?"
"Huh...? Ah. Right, that's me."
So Yul rolled her eyes upward, scrambling for the lie, and Cho Ja-un — mistaking it for bashfulness — smiled all the more warmly.
"For now, go and take these people's hands. When you've done a good deed, you ought to accept your due."
"My due?"
"These smiles of theirs are my joy, and lifting the fear from their hearts is my pride. The heartfelt gratitude welling up from within them is worth more than any treasure."
And so So Yul went from hand to hand among the merchants, exchanging words with each in turn, while quietly watching Cho Ja-un smile again and again.
"Hero, thank you. Please stay at our house tonight."
"Ah — we hadn't managed to find lodging yet, as it happens. Thank you for the offer."
"Um... me too! Please, try these! They're dumplings!"
"This is the best-selling wine we carry. A local brew called Green Mountain Wine — if it suits your palate..."
Cho Ja-un's waist bent and straightened in an endless rhythm of bows as the merchants pressed one small gift after another into his hands. His easy, unreserved manner brought the color back to their faces.
As So Yul watched him quietly, someone tapped her on the side.
"Um... hero?"
"...? Oh — yes?"
She turned at the unfamiliar form of address and found a face that was not quite familiar, yet one she certainly knew: the woman who ran the stall selling red date cakes.
"You seemed... to like the red date cakes earlier. This is all I have to give, I'm afraid. I'm sorry. And thank you."
Held out abruptly in the woman's hands were two red date cakes, neatly wrapped in paper.
......
So Yul took them without a word. The sweet scent she had caught when they first entered the market curled into her nose once more.
Fidgeting as she watched, the woman stole a careful glance at her and went on.
"That Jang Mu-bok you cut down earlier... he harassed me day after day, and in the end he even threatened me — said he'd waive the protection money if I came to him as his concubine. It only grew worse and worse... I had just been wondering whether I should die today, or tomorrow."
......
"And right then, you appeared, hero. Thank you, truly."
Looking at the stall owner's bright smile, So Yul found herself nodding before she knew it.
"That won't be happening anymore. I'll drop by from time to time."
Waving off the woman's repeated bows of thanks and watching her hurry away, So Yul peeled open the paper around the neatly packed cakes and took a bite.
It was sweet. Yes — this much was reward enough.
Cho Ja-un watched quietly as So Yul bit into her red date cake.
Gansu. Blue Stone County.
A village where the sweet, faintly bitter aftertaste of red date cake still lingered on the air.