Misunderstanding
I stepped out through the front gate, and what met me was earth gouged open in patches, clots of blood dried hard across the ground.
Haah... what a mess. If the landlord sees this, he'll have a fit. Should I look up how to get rid of something like this?
I took out my jade slip. A message was already waiting.
Do those two know each other?
Well, he is a Core Formation cultivator, so dangerous makes sense. Not like he has any way of knowing who I am, though. Do I really need to make a fuss?
I closed the messages and tried to look up what I'd meant to search in the first place. I had just started writing bloodstains on the jade slip when my hand stopped.
Wait. What if this leaves a record? Don't tell me the cultivation world has something like digital forensics.
I erased what I'd written. In its place, the purchase comments under my sales post caught my eye. There were even more of them than yesterday.
Ugh. Work first. At this rate I'm going to be late.
"Senior, about those clothes from yesterday..."
So-yeon held out the folded garments with both hands. I took them and unfolded a sleeve first. They were remarkably clean, and a faint scent of flowers drifted up from the cloth.
"Whoa. You'd never know. Thank you."
"Hehe..."
So-yeon laughed, shy, then fidgeted with her hands in front of the workbench.
"Um... if we finish work early again today, may I go to the training ground?"
"Of course. Ah... but if you go back there and those awful women from yesterday start in on you again, what then? Together... no, no. If you came to my house to train... would that be... all right... maybe?"
"Yes...? Uh... if you're all right with it, Senior, then I am too, but..."
So-yeon flushed and ducked her head. She wouldn't even meet my eyes, and something about it felt distinctly off. I had the sinking sense I'd said the wrong thing.
"Ahem... still, a man and a woman ought to keep a proper distance. Let's just train together at the training ground."
"Ah... yes!"
"I'll need to pick up something to eat, though, so go on ahead. If anything happens, send me a message at once."
"Yes, Senior!"
The moment I got off work, I headed for the market.
Sssssss—
Steam from the dumplings billowed up, white and thick.
That looks delicious... Xiaolongbao today?
As if possessed, I made straight for the dumpling stall.
"One box each of xiaolongbao, jiaozi, and steamed baozi, please."
"Coming right up! Two spirit stones!"
"Here."
I took the boxes and walked straight into the herb shop.
"True Origin Pills, please. And a generous amount of the ingredients I usually buy."
"How many pills shall I give you?"
"Thirty, please."
Wang Man-geum flinched.
"...Thirty pills, you say?"
"Yes."
Wang Man-geum looked at the customer again.
Kang Ji-hoon.
The tenant living in that house on the mountainside. The fellow who, even after being told the spiritual energy there was poor, had produced spirit stones on the spot. And now that same fellow stood there picking his ear as if it were nothing, ready to spend three hundred spirit stones.
This one... he's got money, hasn't he.
Wang Man-geum wrapped the medicine case and asked, light as anything.
"By the way, is the house treating you well?"
Ji-hoon stopped picking his ear.
"Ah, haha... I'm... getting good use out of it, yes."
"Heading straight home again today?"
"Ah, no. Today I'm off to the training ground... to cultivate a little... that sort of thing."
Ji-hoon set down the spirit stones and swept the bundle into his storage pouch. Then he clutched the dumpling boxes to his chest and hurried out of the shop.
Wang Man-geum stared after him, toward the door.
Perfect. I'll put a scout on him and find out just what kind of man he is.
In a corner of the training ground, So-yeon was forming hand seals toward a scorched stone pillar.
A small ball of flame flew and struck the pillar.
So-yeon looked down at her hands, then spotted me and came running over.
"Senior!"
"Nothing happened?"
"No! No one came."
I sat beside the stone pillar and opened the dumpling boxes. Luckily they hadn't gone cold; steam rushed up in a wave.
"Eat first."
So-yeon picked up a xiaolongbao and took a careful bite. Meanwhile I drew the medicine cases from my storage pouch.
One, two, three...
The cases piled up in front of So-yeon's knees. Watching them stack, her eyes grew wider and wider.
"S-Senior...? All of this is..."
"Fifteen True Origin Pills."
"Fifteen... pills... that's a hundred and fifty spirit stones...?"
She folded her fingers and opened them again, counting, and then the color drained from her face.
"Even if I saved more than a year's wages, I... I can't accept this, Senior...!"
"...It's my heart. Please accept it..."
Ji-hoon kept his head bowed toward the ground and said it, small and timid.
Cheon So-yeon very nearly toppled over in shock.
This man... does he like me...?
So-yeon slowly studied Ji-hoon's face. The outer corners of his eyes drooped, lending him a strangely aggrieved look, and his cheeks were a little plump. A cute face, as if someone had mixed a cat and a mouse together.
It's not bad, but... isn't this too much...?
Ji-hoon set one medicine case on her palm.
"...Fifteen days. One pill a day, and it comes out exact."
Cheon So-yeon looked down at the True Origin Pill resting on her palm. No further refusal came to mind.
"...I'll take them, gratefully."
The two of them sat side by side, swallowed the True Origin Pills, and began to circulate their qi.
Hot spiritual energy surged into her dantian. So-yeon drew in a breath before she knew it.
Hah... it's hot...
Soon enough, finished with her circulation, So-yeon asked, hesitant.
"Um... Senior, how do you form your hand seals? My casting is still far too slow..."
"Ah, that..."
Ji-hoon stepped up before the stone pillar and formed the seals.
The ball of flame rising from his palm died, leaving only smoke.
"..."
"..."
Ji-hoon cleared his throat and waved a hand.
"S-So-yeon, you give it a try."
So-yeon stood before the pillar and drew the spiritual energy she had just gathered up into her fingertips.
The fireball swelled far larger than usual, then slipped from her hand and scorched the earth beside the pillar.
The two of them looked down at the blackened ground side by side. Ji-hoon clenched his fist and dropped his head toward the dirt.
"I... I'll find a way...!"
So-yeon looked up at his profile.
Hm... is that kind of cool...? Weirdly reliable...
No Sam stopped at the mouth of the valley. The detection talisman in his sleeve warmed with a sting. He examined a crevice in the rocks along the path, and there it was: a single warding talisman, half covered in moss.
Off to a bad start. Didn't they say second layer of Qi Refining? The defenses are considerable.
No Sam circled wide around the rock and went into the valley. Through the trees, a tiled roof came into view—a low wall, and an old wooden gate.
The building itself is nothing special.
He picked a gap between the trees where the wall stood fully exposed. Push his body through those branches, and it was a spot no one inside could possibly see. But the moment he tried to set his foot down, the detection talisman grew hot again.
Hmm...?
No Sam froze his foot in midair. He lifted the fallen leaves beneath his toes with a stick, and a trap lay there with its mouth open.
A second-layer Qi Refiner laid defenses like this? He's no old monster... If I go in any farther, there's no telling what's waiting.
A chill crawled up the back of his neck. Instead of climbing the wall, he went up the slope. Once he had hidden himself behind a tree, the yard lay open below him.
The dirt yard was sunken in patches. Every hollow was scorched black along its rim, and the flowers beneath the wall were half burned, their heads drooping. Between them, clots of blood had dried a dark crimson.
This is...?
No Sam counted the hollows one by one. Five, six... Past ten, he stopped counting.
No matter how I look at it, this isn't something a second-layer Qi Refiner could do.
There were exactly two ways to explain it. Either an old monster had taken over the body of the man who lived in that house, or he had a backer so immense that the moment anyone touched him, they could be destroyed from afar.
Either way, this isn't something I should meddle in.
No Sam turned back the way he had come without a moment's hesitation.
No Sam opened the door of Wang Man-geum's herb shop and stepped inside.
"Back already? Well? What kind of man is he?"
"Boss. I'm washing my hands of this."
Wang Man-geum closed his ledger.
"What are you saying?"
"There was a warding talisman posted from the mouth of the valley. And a trap was laid in the very spot where I meant to hide."
No Sam lowered his voice.
"The yard is gouged in more than ten places, and there were dried clots of blood. That is not something a second-layer Qi Refiner can do. Either an old monster has taken his body, or there's a tremendous backer behind him. One of the two. Boss—have you ever seen a second-layer Qi Refiner prepare to that degree? And a duel deep enough to cave in a yard? Is that even something the second layer of Qi Refining can do?"
"Hm? An old monster...? A backer...?"
Wang Man-geum repeated it before he knew he had.
"Surely not. A fellow who looks that meek, doing something like...?"
"Boss. If an old monster took the body, the face would still be the original owner's."
Wang Man-geum shut his mouth. And against that utterly meek face, he called up, one by one, the things that man had done.
The day he had paid three months' rent all at once came first. Even after being told the spiritual energy was poor, the man had produced spirit stones without a word of complaint. That day Wang Man-geum had laughed to himself, pleased to have unloaded a useless house.
He was a man who didn't need spiritual energy. What he needed was a place to hide from people's eyes.
Today he had bought thirty True Origin Pills while picking his ear.
A man to whom three hundred spirit stones was pocket change...
And when asked whether the house was treating him well, the man had smiled and dodged the question.
Because he'd already buried dozens of cultivators out there...!
Wang Man-geum's hand trembled atop the ledger.
I put a scout on a man like that...?
And he had pried it out of him himself—whether the house would be empty?
"...He didn't catch you, did he?"
"I didn't touch the warding talisman. I avoided the trap, too."
No Sam paused, then added,
"But listen. A cultivator of that caliber... he might already know."
Wang Man-geum couldn't say a word.
"Anyway! I'm out. I'll return what I was paid."
No Sam took a pouch of spirit stones from his robes, set it on the table, and turned toward the door.
And then—
BANG!
Someone flung the door open from outside.
It was Ji-hoon.
He gripped the doorframe, shoulders heaving as he gasped for breath, his face drenched in sweat. He swept the inside of the shop, then stared straight at Wang Man-geum. His eyes were bloodshot.
Sh... shit... demonic arts...?
Wang Man-geum dropped flat on the floor at once. No Sam's knees hit the ground with a thud.
"F-forgive us... w-we'll do... anything! J-just spare our lives...!"
"J-just our lives...!"
Ji-hoon held the doorframe and caught his breath for a long moment, then spoke in a bewildered voice.
Wang Man-geum trembled with his forehead pressed to the floor.
A method...? A method to deal with us...?