Come Back Tomorrow
It hardly bears repeating, but Mo Seyeong is an extraordinary beauty. From that magnificent white hair, which calls to mind snow piled deep across a winter field, to those slightly upturned eyes, to a nose so high and proud it could almost belong to a woman of the Western Regions, to that small, neatly shaped mouth, and a face that — with only the slightest exaggeration — is no larger than my fist. She is the kind of beauty who would send any celebrity of the real world flying with a single correction punch.
In the world of Supreme Sword Heavenly Immortal, the Four Flowers of the Martial World stand at the absolute pinnacle of beauty. Of course, there are women every bit as lovely who were never counted among them — Dan Yuha, for one — but the Four Flowers are, without question, beauties of an absolute order. And Mo Seyeong, who is numbered among them, is an officially recognized beauty of this world.
For the record, Seol Hwa-rin, who is counted among the same Four Flowers, is an officially recognized beauty of this world as well.
"Try any tricks and you can count yourself crossing the River of the Dead that instant."
"Yes, yes. Who do you take me for, that I'd try something like that?"
I looked at her long, slender legs. White, fine, long, and beautiful. It was hard to believe those legs contained the monstrous power to cover dozens of yards in a single burst.
Then again, hunters with Abilities were no different. They casually performed bizarre feats that no law of physics could ever explain. Come to think of it, the strangest power of all was probably the Unix Cube I carried.
"Then I shall begin the massage."
I wasn't particularly confident in my massage technique. I was, however, extremely confident in my item. Slipping on the Massage Gloves, I took Mo Seyeong's foot with care and began to work it, pressing into her sole with just the right amount of force.
"Hnnn..."
Arms folded, legs stretched out toward me, Mo Seyeong received the massage with surprising docility. It seemed it wasn't as bad as she'd expected. No — it had gone well past "not bad" and into genuinely good. If it weren't, a woman with a temper as foul as Mo Seyeong's would never have sat there so quietly taking a massage.
I put my heart into it, pressing into her soles with both hands and stroking over the whole of each foot. At some point Mo Seyeong closed her eyes and simply enjoyed what I was doing.
"You're better than I thought. So that's why you were running your mouth."
"Haha. Is it to your liking?"
"They say even a grub has a talent for rolling... Well, I don't know if you're good enough that the Rakshasa Demoness would come to Fairy Gate in person, but this isn't bad."
"Isn't bad" was the highest praise Mo Seyeong was capable of giving. As expected of a B-grade item. Buoyed by a fresh surge of confidence, I grew bolder with my hands.
Starting from the soles of her feet, my hands began to travel upward.
"I'll work out the knots in your calves."
"It's not like I have any knots. But, well. Fine."
I didn't rush. Watching her reactions, I could tell she had no intention of stopping me. In that case, all I had to do was take my time and work the conquest properly. I widened the area I was kneading, nice and slow.
"Mmm... hnnn..."
She even let out a faint moan. A good massage will pull a sound out of you whether you mean it to or not. Excellent stimulation applied to loosened muscle is no different from a caress.
"This side seems quite tightly knotted. Proof of diligent training, I imagine."
"As Head Disciple of Fairy Gate, of course I never slack on my training. Hnnn... Not bad at all."
Mo Seyeong even let a sweet little hum slip from her nose. My hands grew bolder still.
"I'll massage your thighs."
"Nn. Then this position's going to be a bit awkward. Wait a moment. I'll change."
Mo Seyeong lay face-down on the bed. She was still wearing her martial robes, but the pose was intensely erotic — she looked exactly like a bitch in heat presenting herself, begging me to take her from behind. Dan Yuha was the same way. When it came to this sort of thing, Mo Seyeong was a complete innocent.
Fuck, I want to bury my face in that ass.
"This should make it easier to massage, right?"
"Yes. It should."
I wanted to plant my face in that ass and inhale right then and there. Doing so, of course, would be a fast way to lose my head.
I brought my hands to her thighs, slowly. They were as yielding as the finest cut of meat. There was little visible sign of training, but there was no question that unprecedented power lay hidden inside. I stroked over her thighs with genuine care.
"Nnnh... hnn... hnn..."
The moans were coming quite naturally now. Since they were the sounds of a massage, she didn't seem embarrassed by them. I had a feeling that if I pushed a little further I could catch the thread of a real conquest — but I decided to pull back for now. One step back, the better to take two steps forward.
To hold onto a woman, a man has to know when to put it in and when to pull it out. I took my hands off her body completely.
"Well? How was my massage?"
"Hnnh? That's it?"
The disappointment in her voice was thick enough to spread.
"Yes. Surely that's more than enough for you to judge my skill?"
"I... I still can't really tell. If I want to confirm you're actually good enough that the Rakshasa Demoness would personally grace us with her presence... I'll need a little more. You never know. You might be a spy who picked up a convincing massage technique."
"As you wish."
Heh.
Her thoughts were written all over her face. Women really are simple creatures.
"Then just a little more—"
"Senior Sister! Are you in?"
Seol Hwa-rin's voice rang out from the other side of the door without warning. Mo Seyeong startled like a married woman caught in a tryst with a man who wasn't her husband.
"Hey! Hide in that wardrobe. Now."
"Y-yes?!"
A woman bringing a man into her own room was certainly a scene that invited misunderstanding. Mo Seyeong practically hurled me into the wardrobe, then called toward the door.
"Ah! Junior Sister. I'm in."
"May I come in?"
"Yeah. Come in."
I peeked through the crack in the wardrobe. The gap wasn't wide, but it was more than enough to see what was happening outside. Seol Hwa-rin, the White Snow Flower, entered the room in martial robes much like Mo Seyeong's.
"What were you doing? Isn't this usually the hour you'd be at the training grounds? You weren't there, so I came looking for you."
"Ah, well... my body's a bit tired today. I think I've been pushing too hard lately, so I was giving myself a proper rest."
"Ah. Rest is important too. You always drive yourself so mercilessly, Senior Sister."
"Ahem! That's right. Anyway, why are you here?"
"Oh, that's right. A letter arrived from the Murim Alliance. Since the Sect Master is away, I needed to give it to you."
"A letter? The Sect Master's at the Murim Alliance right now. If they have something to say, they can say it to her in person. Why send a letter?"
"I wondered about that myself. I haven't looked at the contents."
"Then shall we check it here? Hmm. I've got a bad feeling about this."
Mo Seyeong opened the letter Seol Hwa-rin had brought and read it on the spot. From where I was, I couldn't see the contents — but fortunately, she spoke them aloud.
By authority of the Murim Alliance, notice is hereby given that the prisoner Chu Pawol, currently held in the custody of Fairy Gate, is to be transferred to Fallen Phoenix Prison without delay.
"This is..."
"What does it say?"
"It's a letter from Fallen Phoenix Prison, under the Murim Alliance. They want to transfer Chu Pawol — the one we captured — to Fallen Phoenix Prison."
Chu Pawol.
I knew that name. He was a character from the original novel.
The Thousand-Tear Erotic Demon, Chu Pawol. A legendary lecher said to have made a thousand women weep and to have bedded ten thousand. He was a peculiar case — a man who had learned martial arts and yet possessed no combat power whatsoever, because his martial arts existed solely for the purpose of sexual intercourse.
In the original, Chu Pawol is hideously ugly, but he bewitched and bedded women with nothing but his martial art, the Yin-Yang Harmony Technique. He even got the Imperial Family's youngest princess.
The Yin-Yang Harmony Technique.
The name sounds grand beyond measure, but in truth it is an erotic art devoted entirely to sex. Then again, few things in life matter as much as sex, so the grandiose name is understandable enough. That said, looking at how the novel actually describes it, I have my doubts that it really is an art for sex alone. Tear the Yin-Yang Harmony Technique apart in detail and you find no shortage of bizarre techniques that could be put to use in a fight.
Come to think of it, Fairy Gate was the one that took this bastard into custody. After he bedded an imperial princess, the enraged Imperial Court put up an enormous bounty, and the current Sect Master of Fairy Gate was the one who caught him.
He appears in the original, but not as a major character so much as a name that surfaces in passing through other characters' conversations and the world's background lore. Beyond that, even I don't know much about him.
In particular, there's an episode where Gong Woosun throws an absolute fit trying to learn the Yin-Yang Harmony Technique, and that's where the art gets explained in detail. Chu Pawol himself, the actual owner of the technique, barely appears except as a notably ugly man.
There is, however, a bit of setting on him in the author's afterword comments.
It was such a passing element even in Supreme Sword Heavenly Immortal that I'd forgotten about it — but thinking about it now, there may be no character more important in this novel than this man.
The Yin-Yang Harmony Technique! The bastard is as ugly as a man ravaged by smallpox, but they said he bedded countless women with this one martial art alone. I have to learn this, no matter what it takes.
If the Yin-Yang Harmony Technique met my Power of Sex, the effect would be magnified beyond all reason.
I revised my plans. Originally I had intended to put everything I had into bedding Dan Yuha and Mo Seyeong — but I decided instead to meet Chu Pawol and learn his martial art. Once he was transferred to Fallen Phoenix Prison, meeting him would become impossible.
Fallen Phoenix Prison... the Murim Alliance's greatest jail, called a living hell on earth. Once you go in, the only way out is as a corpse. Chu Pawol has earned the Imperial Court's deep hatred, so of course that's where he'd be sent. Which means I have to meet him and learn his art before that happens.
Chu Pawol was probably locked in the dungeon Fairy Gate maintained. Like most sects, Fairy Gate had a dungeon of its own — a place to hold martial artists who had committed crimes within the sect, or captured demonic masters.
One way or another, I have to get access to that dungeon. Hmm. The dungeon keys are definitely in Mo Seyeong's keeping, aren't they?
I laid out the plan calmly in my head. I had a mountain of things to do. Treat Dan Yuha. Raise Mo Seyeong's affection. Learn martial arts from Chu Pawol...
Bedding Seol Hwa-rin would have to wait, it seemed.
Once I learn the Yin-Yang Harmony Technique, bedding women will only get easier. So there's no need to rush. None of them are going anywhere, and that bastard Gong Woosun still has a long way to go before he becomes active.
What mattered now was painting the big picture.
Seol Hwa-rin exchanged a few more words with Mo Seyeong, then left the room. The moment she was gone, Mo Seyeong strode over to the wardrobe and pulled the door open.
"Out."
"Yes!"
"I shouldn't have to say this, but you know what happens if you go running your mouth about anything you heard in here, right? Not that it was anything particularly important."
"I understand! I'm a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut."
"Hmm. Good. Then get going."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Just as I was about to leave the room, Mo Seyeong added one more thing.