Hyeok Gi-rin Is a Crossdressing Woman! -2
"Umm... huh?"
Black Cat froze for a moment, clearly thrown by an answer she had never seen coming, then whipped her head toward Hyeok Gi-rin, who was still taking statements from the victims.
The sheer shock on her face made me squeeze my eyes shut.
"Sure, you could call the look androgynous... but isn't it a bit much to flat-out declare she's a woman in men's clothing?"
"Black Cat. We talked about illusion resistance before, remember?"
"Don't tell me Hyeok Gi-rin is using some martial art with a bewitching effect? Hmm... but I watched her the whole way here, and there wasn't the slightest sign of—"
So she had been staring at Hyeok Gi-rin the entire journey, studying every detail just to learn a little more. The thought made my chest ache.
Even so, I was the one who had to keep delivering the cruel truth.
Hyeok Gi-rin herself had never learned any martial art with a bewitching effect. Techniques like that were normally classified as seduction arts or demonic arts. There was no way the great disciple of the Jeomchang Sect would practice something like that.
"It's not Hyeok Gi-rin herself you should be looking at. It's her belongings."
Somewhere among the things she carried was almost certainly an item that helped maintain her male disguise. Jewelry, a belt—something along those lines...
"That headscarf of hers does look suspicious, I'll give you that."
The world of Murim Cheonha was full of strange and wondrous treasures. An artifact that aided crossdressing wouldn't be all that surprising. Now that I thought about it, I was a little curious myself. What kind of item, with what kind of effect, could help someone pass as the opposite sex?
Since I was a man, the odds of me ever needing to become a crossdressing woman were exactly zero, so the curiosity was completely useless—yet it still flared up out of nowhere.
"That could be it," Black Cat said evenly.
Her calm reply snapped me back to reality.
Watching her profile as she stared fixedly at Hyeok Gi-rin, I thought I caught a flicker of anger or sorrow. Wishful thinking? Probably not. That's right, Black Cat. Better to shake it off now. The deeper the feelings grow, the harder everything becomes.
"A woman in men's clothing... Hmm. But why would she need to hide her gender?"
"Beats me. From what you know, it's probably something to do with power."
"Umm... spirited away into the murim to protect her own bloodline from the imperial power struggles... It's a traditional method that's been around forever, but..."
Black Cat suddenly pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a long sigh.
"It does make sense. The fact that she's the foremost of the Ten Later Heroes yet no one knows her family or background is already suspicious... And even if it's Jeomchang, they're not a bunch of fools. They're not so saintly that they'd take in a crossdressing woman as a disciple for nothing. So Hyeok Gi-rin must have some powerful backer who benefits Jeomchang as well."
"With that kind of background, arranging one or two items to help with the disguise wouldn't be hard."
"Ugh. I've learned a rather unpleasant truth."
Black Cat raised a finger to her lips.
"Senior. Let's keep this to ourselves. Don't tell anyone. What good would it do to spread Hyeok Gi-rin's secret? Pretending we never found out will help everyone more."
I nodded without a word. Blabbing that Hyeok Gi-rin was a woman—and a princess, no less—would do me absolutely no favors. If Black Cat hadn't developed feelings for her, she probably never would have said any of this in the first place.
Silence settled between us.
Black Cat felt her thoughts tangle into a knot. Someone powerful enough to plant a crossdressing woman in the Jeomchang Sect... Was Hyeok Gi-rin someone's illegitimate child? Instinctively trying to piece together her identity, Black Cat shook her head hard and swept the speculation away.
Whoever she is, what does it matter?
She had long ago concluded that digging into Hyeok Gi-rin's true identity was dangerous. A new clue wasn't reason enough to change that policy.
And what truly mattered to Black Cat had nothing to do with Hyeok Gi-rin's identity anyway.
Her shoulders slumped under a wave of disappointment. She had finally, barely, grasped a lead—a way to catch Ho Cheon-an's attention, the man who didn't so much as flinch even when she held his hand. And before she could even put it to use, the method had vanished.
Hyeok Gi-rin was a woman!
Now, no matter how much she praised Hyeok Gi-rin, the chances of Ho Cheon-an reacting were vanishingly small. Worse—if she complimented Hyeok Gi-rin's looks now, she would only invite strange misunderstandings!
"Haa... How did things end up like this..."
Black Cat shot Ho Cheon-an a resentful look. She knew full well that the Shadow Image Qi Gong hid every emotion, yet the glare came of its own accord.
"It's such a shame Hyeok Gi-rin turned out to be a woman... It was a real opportunity..."
"Ah, well... um."
Ho Cheon-an scratched the back of his head as he looked at Black Cat's drooping shoulders.
"Once this job's over, want to stop by a pastry shop?"
"Pardon?"
"There's a place in Sichuan that only people in the know have heard of. You're always snacking on something anyway. Their fundamentals are solid, so even their puffed rice will taste great."
Black Cat's mind spun in an entirely different direction. Was Senior Ho trying to comfort her right now? Did he actually think she was interested in Hyeok Gi-rin?
The idea that Ho Cheon-an genuinely believed she had feelings for Hyeok Gi-rin made her heart plummet. Had she praised the other woman too much?
"Senior! I am not interested in Hyeok Gi-rin!"
"Sure, sure. I think so too."
The words were reassuring, but his eyes were full of pity. Black Cat felt the back of her neck go stiff.
The one I like is Senior Ho!
Seeing her hands tremble with fury, Ho Cheon-an hastily opened his mouth.
"Hey, hey—when someone goes all-out with rare treasures just to deceive people, of course you can get fooled. There's nothing embarrassing about it. Getting tricked is the natural outcome! Mm! If I didn't have my special constitution, I would've fallen for it completely too!"
"That's not—!"
"Look over there. See the way those young ladies are looking at Hyeok Gi-rin? Honey dripping from their eyes. You were running Shadow Image Qi Gong the whole time, so no one saw a thing. It never happened. Nothing to worry about."
"Ugh..."
Black Cat let out a long sigh. Truthfully, she had brought this on herself, so there wasn't much she could say.
I should have made it clear back then.
She replayed the regret she had already revisited a hundred times. The moment she showed her face. Swept up in emotion, she had agreed to the goal of training together until they both reached the Transformation Realm.
Back then she had thought just being by his side was happiness enough.
I never imagined a person could only see martial arts...!
He truly looked at nothing else. Even in the underwater cave she had failed to capture his interest.
I was an idiot for thinking he was jealous. A complete idiot!
Ho Cheon-an had simply noticed that Hyeok Gi-rin was a woman and had been trying to stop Black Cat from praising another woman's appearance as if she were attracted to her.
A serious sense of crisis gripped her. At this rate, nothing would happen between her and Ho Cheon-an until they both reached the Transformation Realm.
"Senior! Once this is over, we are definitely going to that pastry shop together! Understood?"
"Huh? Ah, of course. My treat."
This senior needed a more aggressive offensive. Having reached that conclusion, Black Cat was snorting battle spirit through her nose when Hyeok Gi-rin returned from gathering statements.
Black Cat still looked visibly worked up from the revelation that Hyeok Gi-rin was a woman in disguise. I was just about to steer the conversation further toward pastry shops when Hyeok Gi-rin came back. Her dark expression suggested she hadn't heard anything she wanted to hear.
"Hoo... The situation is not good."
"The bandits' momentum must be considerable."
"They came fully prepared. Four lodge masters of the Seventy-Two Strongholds of the Green Forest, their vice-masters... and it seems they brought every elite fighter from their mountain holds as well."
Hyeok Gi-rin laid out the information she had gathered. The four-stronghold alliance consisted of Tiger King Lodge, Clear Mirror Lodge, True Flavor Lodge, and Eight Treasures Lodge—names that mostly sounded delicious, yet they were notorious bandits throughout the Sichuan region.
"Fortunately, they say they only take valuables and do not harm people."
"A truly bandit-like way of operating."
"Hmm?"
"I can see their thinking as clear as day. Greedy fellows who can't commit one way or the other."
My words drew a puzzled look from Hyeok Gi-rin.
"Why do you think they refrain from harming people? To put it extremely, killing every witness or taking entire merchant caravans prisoner would generate far more short-term profit."
What happens when you let people go? Word spreads to every corner of the land overnight. Then the caravans and travelers heading for Mount Jeongnam simply change course. People who would have filled the bandits' bellies if they hadn't heard the rumors instead turn and flee.
"If they truly meant to pull one big score and run, this would be the worst possible method. They should have swallowed their prey silently, like an antlion's pit, then vanished without a trace."
The reason they didn't was simple: they wanted to nest properly on Mount Jeongnam along the Nanjing Highway.
The Nanjing Highway was the lifeline connecting Sichuan to the Central Plains—a golden road along which the vast wealth piled up in Sichuan Province flowed. If they could establish themselves on Mount Jeongnam, the tolls alone would free them from money worries for life and let them amass enormous riches.
"If they harm people, no matter what they try, they will never be able to settle on Mount Jeongnam. In Sichuan, where there are no demonic cults and barely even unorthodox sects, do you think anyone would tolerate killers?"
"Hmm. There is a flaw in your reasoning, Nangin. If they truly wished to establish themselves on Mount Jeongnam, they should not be stripping the merchants of every last coin either."
"You're right about that."
So why were Tiger King Lodge and the rest of the tasty-named crew leaving people unharmed while still taking every scrap of valuables?
Did they really think the merchant groups and travelers they had robbed would simply sit still? Of course not. They would foam at the mouth and storm every murim sect demanding the bandits be wiped out.
If they truly wanted to settle on Mount Jeongnam, collecting a simple toll would have been a far easier path than seizing entire loads of cargo.
"But think about it. Why are they bandits in the first place? Would people capable of patient, rational judgment and long-term investment crawl up a mountain and make a living by preying on others?"
"Ah..."
People judge and predict according to their own standards. Common sense? Law? Courtesy? Why would anyone who understood those things become a bandit? Respectable types like that would at least join an unorthodox sect.
Four of the Seventy-Two Strongholds of the Green Forest had joined forces. It was a major undertaking in which four mountain holds had staked their very survival, so it was only natural to assume every move had been carefully deliberated.
But bandit behavior had to be judged by bandit standards if you wanted to predict it.
"If you can patiently invest in something that might fail, you're not a bandit. First they want to squeeze out the value of the effort they already put into claiming Mount Jeongnam. And while they're at it, the profits they'll rake in once they're settled there are already dancing before their eyes."
Cleaning out every merchant in Sichuan in one big score. Properly establishing themselves on Mount Jeongnam. Even aiming for just one of those goals would have been extremely difficult.
"They covet the wealth, so they take the wealth. They want to run, but the future profits from Mount Jeongnam glitter in their minds. They want to go all-out, but they fear the consequences. They're afraid, yet they still lust after riches; they lust after riches, yet they also want long-term income. The perfect specimen of shortsighted, half-hearted men who live only for today."
"I see..."
The way Hyeok Gi-rin looked at me changed. How to put it?
Her eyes suddenly sparkled.
"It is exactly as my junior sister said. She told me that Benefactor's eye for the world and the stratagems in his mind are extraordinary, and it seems her assessment was not wrong in the slightest."
Apparently Yeo Il-ye had been telling Hyeok Gi-rin stories about me.
"Ahem. You flatter me."
"No, not at all. This Hyeok spent a long time among the victims gathering information, yet the points you just raised never even occurred to me. No matter how many testimonies I heard, I could not grasp their thinking—it felt like walking through fog. And with only a few words you explained it all so clearly...!"
"Painting my face with gold like this leaves me nowhere to put myself. I simply know the ways of the lower depths well enough to make the inference."
"What need is there for modesty? To think from another's position. This Hyeok also learned the sages' teaching of putting oneself in another's place, yet failed to practice it. You have practiced it, and so you are a better person than I."
I coughed awkwardly again and again.
They do say praise can make even a whale dance.
Even if she was crossdressing, having Hyeok Gi-rin's eyes shine as she heaped praise on me one compliment after another... well, it didn't feel bad.
"From time to time I would like to seek your counsel. Please do not refuse my requests."
"Haha. Of course. Offering an opinion is hardly difficult. Speak freely whenever you wish—no need to feel burdened."
"Huhu. With you accepting so readily, this Hyeok feels as though I have gained a host of reinforcements."
Getting hit with a continuous barrage of "You're amazing!" made it hard to keep my mouth from twitching upward. I was busy forcing down the corners that kept trying to soar toward the heavens when—
"...Senior."
Black Cat's voice drifted over, somehow ice-cold.