The Green Snake Society
Jang Mubok slumped to the ground, clutching his severed shoulder and moaning over and over.
"Ughhhh..."
"All that fuss over losing one arm? How dare you lay a hand on my... no, what do you expect, when a martial man torments common folk who know nothing of the martial arts?"
Suddenly conscious of the onlookers crowding in, of the eyes around her, and of Cho Jawoon at her side, Suyul hastily rephrased herself, doing her best to sound like a proper orthodox heroine.
Whether that pleased him or not, Cho Jawoon gave a quiet nod.
"Well done. Your hand ran a little heavy, but one might say even that was too light a price for such an insult to a friend."
"No, I'm fine, but this gentleman... oh my, are you all right? Here, let me help you up."
"Uh... uhhh..."
Jin Seokyoung of the cloth shop had gone hollow-eyed at the unbelievable scene that had unfolded before him in an instant; taking Suyul's arm, he rose in a daze.
The man who, until moments ago, had pressed in on him like he meant to kill him—who now lay crumpled wretchedly in a corner, arm cleaved off and jawbone shattered, weeping in agony—who was that man?
Jang Mubok, fourth-ranked of the Seven Demons of the Green Snake, the notorious Green Snake Society that ruled this region.
To Jin Seokyoung, an ordinary merchant born and raised in these parts, he had been a formidable martial artist bearing a terrifying epithet—a presence as lofty as the very heavens, one he would never have dared even look at.
And the young woman before him had severed that man's arm with a single flick of her hand.
The shock struck Jin Seokyoung all the harder because she was no ordinary young woman, but a courtesan.
"How... how so easily? In that body, against a master like that..."
"Ah, well, women do learn the martial arts too, you know. And a master? Please. He's nothing but a rotten thug."
It was hardly more than a muttered aside—where could a mere courtesan have learned martial arts, to wield them like that?—but Suyul, unaware that he saw her as a courtesan, took the question at face value and answered as she pleased.
Watching the two of them, Cho Jawoon spoke with a grave expression.
"Miss Kang. Might the one who passed the martial arts on to you have been a master of the Mount Hua Sect?"
Mount Hua?
Why is this bastard playing coy when he knows perfectly well I learned it in the Demonic Cult? Suyul, staring silently at Cho Jawoon, sighed inwardly.
"Mount Hua? Ah."
The severed man's wailing and the commotion had drawn quite a crowd by now, and there was no telling who might be mixed in among them.
A spy of the Demonic Cult, or one of that spy's underlings, could well be lurking in their midst.
If a master of unknown identity, wielding Bamboo Leaf Hand of all things, had appeared under such circumstances, it might well have roused the pursuers' suspicions.
That was why, Suyul reasoned, Cho Jawoon—who knew everything—had arranged the stage so the story could come from her own lips: not the Demonic Cult, but a master of Mount Hua.
Inwardly, she marveled once more at the man's thoroughness, his meticulousness.
When he's spoon-feeding me lines like this, the least I can do is play my part. How else would anyone survive this treacherous murim?
Suyul darted her tongue out to wet her crimson lips, then laced her voice with internal energy so that everyone around could hear.
"That's right. My master was a great master of Mount Hua in his day. He's since asked that his name be forgotten, so I never learned it. But he was a truly wonderful man—kind, and with the air of a Daoist sage hanging about him."
When Suyul answered so smoothly, Cho Jawoon, naturally, took every word in earnest.
Bamboo Leaf Hand was a supreme art imparted only to first-generation disciples and above even within Mount Hua, never taught beyond its walls—so by conventional reckoning, there was nowhere to learn it but Mount Hua itself.
Of course, that is, setting aside a retired master of Mount Hua—or the Heavenly Demon Cult, whose long and storied history had seen it plunder the strongholds of every great sect at least once.
"Hoh... what a remarkable twist of fate. I've had some small connection with Mount Hua myself since my younger days, and if this is how things stand, then meeting you, Miss Kang, must truly be no ordinary bond. All the more reason I cannot simply walk away. In fact—since it has come to this, why not travel with me through Shaanxi and pay Mount Hua a visit? Perhaps the new life you seek is waiting for you there."
"Hmm? Isn't that awfully sudden? Let's talk about it later. There are far too many people around."
Cho Jawoon seemed entirely too absorbed in his performance, so Suyul reined him in.
Does this bastard know the meaning of moderation?
But what must the thug have felt, watching the two of them carry on so nonchalantly in front of the gruesome sight of a man with his arm cleaved clean away?
"You cursed bastards! I swear I'll kill every last one of you! Jipyeong! What are you doing?! Go fetch the brothers already!"
Jang Mubok, sprawled out with his arm in his grip, snarled at Han Jipyeong, his sworn younger brother and fifth of the Seven Demons of the Green Snake.
And perhaps that was a mercy for Jipyeong too, who had been fidgeting helplessly, at a loss for what to do.
His sworn elder brother Jang Mubok was unquestionably the stronger of them, a cut above himself.
Yet the woman dressed as a courtesan had hacked off such a man's arm in a single stroke, mercy be damned—while the unknown young man beside her hadn't so much as twitched a finger, calm as you please.
Worse still, even to Jipyeong's eye there was no gauging whatsoever how skilled that young man might be.
And so, burning for vengeance yet unable to rashly raise his blade crying Avenge our brother!, and unable all the same to shamelessly slink off without a shred of loyalty, he had been caught squarely between advance and retreat—an excuse dropping into his lap then was nothing short of a godsend.
An order had been given; now he had his opening to slip away.
However formidable those masters were, there were only two of them.
Once the Green Snake brothers came running—the Chief and the Deputy above all—the pair would be taken, surely.
Rationalizing it thus to himself, Han Jipyeong hurriedly scrubbed the unsettling word Mount Hua from his mind.
Impossible.
That was a bluff.
Mount Hua would never teach the martial arts to a courtesan.
"I'll be back before you know it, Brother!"
With that, Han Jipyeong unleashed the finest lightness skill he had and vanished down the back alley.
"Hm. Is that loyalty, or the lack of it?"
Watching him go, neither Suyul nor Jawoon made any move to stop him.
No—it would be nearer the truth to say they didn't spare him a single thought.
There was no need for them to bare their true strength, the martial might of the Transformation Realm.
Two fighters at the early Peak stage were more than enough; no matter how many of these country unorthodox rabble came swarming, they posed no threat at all.
"Hoh. That much would have to count as First-Class or better, wouldn't you say?"
"First-Class, nothing. Did you not see her cleave Jang Mubok's arm off with a single stroke—nay, a single knife-hand? She must be at least at the Peak."
"Oh, come off it, friend. That woman in the gaudy dress didn't look a day over twenty-five—how could she be at the Peak? Even in the great sects whose names ring across the jianghu, they say one reaches the Peak only past forty."
Even in a quiet country village, plenty of common folk took an interest in the murim and its martial arts. In a troubled world, tales of the jianghu were entertainment beyond compare.
Especially those who hadn't been born and raised here in Gansu—people who had migrated in from the cities, or who had simply loved to travel and wandered far and wide—had picked up all the more secondhand lore, and they clucked and chattered over it now.
Generally speaking, First-Class meant roughly a second-generation disciple of a great sect, while among first-generation disciples only the quickest of understanding reached the Peak around the age of forty.
And masters who had attained the Transformation Realm? They were as rare as feathers from the phoenix's tail—there was no need even to say it.
By such common knowledge, believing that a woman so young had ascended to the Peak was hard to swallow, so the villagers' doubts were only reasonable.
Of course, the trouble was that Suyul—reborn from Yul Sogang into Kang Soyul—and Cho Jawoon, concealing his identity as the True Pine Sword Emperor Cho Youngbin, were anything but ordinary cases.
"True enough. Where would you ever see a Peak master in a village like this? But look at that young man's imposing bearing. Doesn't he seem every inch the dashing hero, with martial arts to match? The scion of some prestigious house, without a doubt."
"But there are only two of them. Those vicious Green Snake devils number close to forty—if they all come swarming, can those two manage it? Their spirit does them credit, but I worry they'll let young bravado run away with them and come to real grief."
"The Chief and the Deputy are First-Class masters themselves; those two alone would be more than a match. Add the vipers of the Seven Demons and the rest of their men on top of that..."
"Shouldn't someone warn them to run, even now?"
"With Jang Mubok glaring daggers at them like some vengeful demon? Who would dare say such a thing? If those two run, he's a dead man..."
The common folk were only whispering among themselves, but every word carried clear as a bell to Cho Jawoon's ears.
It was touching, the way these commoners worried for young heroes of the orthodox faction.
Cho Jawoon, too, had had his season in his younger days, when he roamed the whole country vowing to hunt down every last unorthodox fighter—so bloodied was his blade that there had been no time to wipe it even with silk.
The epithet he earned then was True Pine Sword Ghost. In those days, the mere sound of that name turned the unorthodox factions cold to the marrow.
That he bore the title Sword Ghost—rarely pinned on a hero of the orthodox faction—was precisely because his hand against the unorthodox had been so merciless, so resolute.
Now he had ascended to the Transformation Realm, and the name had been raised in turn to True Pine Sword Emperor.
Those days existed too. It has been a long time since I felt like this.
"No, no, not this one. It's far too drab."
"Ye-yes... then how about this one...?"
Paying no mind to the chatter of the common folk around them, Suyul hauled the half-dazed cloth merchant to his feet and went inside to pick out clothes.
A good half hour had passed, and when Suyul's voice drifted out—apparently still no closer to a choice—Cho Jawoon smiled wryly once more.
"Women."
"Ughhhh..."
He had been sitting in the doorway, quietly watching Jang Mubok writhe and groan where he lay clutching his shoulder, and was just beginning to find the spectacle tedious—
—when the ground began to thrum with footsteps, and a column of men came into view, bellowing as they came, kicking up a wind of sand.
"So they've finally come."
Several dozen martial artists swaggered in, shoving roughly past the commoners' shoulders. Every face was a map of scars, and their eyes gleamed greasy with greed.
The Green Snake Society, the scourge that gripped Cheongseok County here in Gansu.
The man at their head stepped forward and growled:
"I am Sa Gwangjin, Chief of the Green Snake Society. Are you the one who dared lay hands on our Green Snake?"
"Ch-Chief... ughh..."
Jang Mubok whimpered his chief's name, piteous as a beaten dog, but Sa Gwangjin only stared at him a moment in disgust, then turned his head away, cold.
A martial artist who had lost his right arm was half a cripple already—scarcely worth calling a martial artist at all—and one look at that state had snuffed out whatever interest remained.
Sa Gwangjin had come less to avenge Jang Mubok than to defend the Society's pride.
To the unorthodox, nothing mattered more than pride. Pride above life itself.
Lose your pride and you became a laughingstock; become a laughingstock and you could no longer hold Cheongseok County in an iron grip.
"Not going to answer, you cursed wretch? Do you know where you stand?"
Cho Jawoon went on staring at the Chief without a word of reply, and at last the deputy, Jin Biok, opened his mouth in his place.
Only then did Cho Jawoon part his lips, unhurried.
"It wasn't by my hand that he ended up in that state, but she is my companion, so I suppose you may count it as mine."
"What? Is this bastard playing games with—"
"More to the point—is that all of you?"
"What?"
"I mean, did any of you stay behind? If so, I'd be forced to go to the tiresome trouble of hunting you all down. And I am not so idle a man as to spend that much time on rabble."
However lowly the rabble, being called rabble to one's face is enough to sour anyone's temper.
All the more so when the man saying it looked barely half his age—a green whelp.
Killing intent coiled in Sa Gwangjin's eyes, writhing and circling like a thread-thin serpent.
"You—orthodox pup. Do you have any idea where you stand? Here in Cheongseok County, we are the law. We are order. Some whelp who's done nothing but bury himself in training, who wouldn't know real combat if it bit him—where do you get off posturing!"
With the last word, Sa Gwangjin erupted, venting his aura and killing intent from his whole body at once.
The unorthodox master's blood-reeking killing intent spread outward, pressing in from every side, and the faces of the onlooking villagers drained white as they choked out stifled gasps.
Then, from every inch of Cho Jawoon's body, a mighty aura blossomed—deep as the sea, lofty as the heavens, overwhelming all of it—and quietly swept Sa Gwangjin's killing intent aside the way a great wave swallows a sand castle, gathering the villagers into its shelter.
Sa Gwangjin's face twisted as he watched his own aura be so pitifully shoved aside.