O Season of the Fierce Girls
Henan Province. In the long annals of the Central Plains, this is ground that has appeared time and again as a stage of desire, where would-be hegemons fought tooth and nail for supremacy.
Granted, through the Song and Yuan eras the world's center of gravity had drifted toward Hebei and Jiangnan — but the people of the wulin still counted Henan among the most important lands in the realm, if only because Shaolin, the sect that first opened the history of the martial arts, stood there.
So as I strolled through Luoyang, in the very heart of Henan, I could feel the weight of the ages. It wasn't for nothing that Sima Guang, the great scholar-official of the Northern Song, once said, "If you would know the rise and fall of every age, go and see Luoyang."
...Or at least, that was what I had to keep forcing myself to think.
Because otherwise, I couldn't for the life of me accept why I was in Luoyang at all.
At that very moment I was being jostled along by a packed, restless crowd inside a certain building in Luoyang, drifting through such musings as where am I, and who even am I — when a woman's voice rang out from the very front of the throng.
"The imperial house turned its back on our White Lotus — though we once helped it drive out the Yuan — and reduced us to mere rebels, Red Turbans in its eyes!"
I nodded along, remembering the history lectures from my days at Toemagwangmyeong. That had all happened back when the Hongwu Emperor was still plain old Zhu Yuanzhang.
"Since then, the White Lotus bore the false name of the Demonic Cult and resisted — but with last year's Great Demon War, it vanished from the world's sight. Yet the cause is not finished! We must rise again and fulfill White Throughout the Ming — the whiteness of the Lotus inscribed upon every corner of the realm!"
The crowd stirred at her words — and then, all at once, that stirring crowd turned to look at me.
Suspicion was the last thing I could afford, so I raised my hand along with the rest and threw myself into the mood.
"...We must fulfill it."
Only then did those around me seem satisfied, turning their attention back to the speech.
Damn it all.
The origin of how I came to attend this gathering stretched back a few days.
Wielding a letter from General Cheonram as his leverage, Gakyeop Dojang had assigned me a mission.
"Barely a year has passed since the Great Demon War ended, and already the remnants of the Demonic Cult are rallying across the land."
"Like cockroaches."
"Precisely. Much like the covetous glances the wulin keeps throwing at our Yeong Yeong."
"...How very worrying that must be for you, Master."
Gakyeop Dojang nodded. "Among those remnants, one group's expansion is swelling faster than the rest — the Gangseong Sect, risen in Luoyang."
"Luoyang? That's Henan, isn't it? Shaolin should be practically next door..."
Shaolin, of all places. Was that not the sect hailed as the orthodox lineage of the martial arts? Trace back the roots of every martial art in the wulin and you would arrive at Shaolin — its history ran that deep, that wide.
And now a group meant to spread the White Lotus's doctrine was at work in Luoyang, where Shaolin's influence weighed heaviest. The gall on them was truly something to behold.
"Exactly," said Gakyeop Dojang. "But with the Wulin Alliance Leader's seat standing empty, Shaolin is buried in administrative affairs around the Yellow River."
I considered for a moment, then remarked, as if only in passing, "...Somehow it feels as though the Wulin Alliance used the Alliance Leader's death as an excuse to shove work they ought to be handling themselves onto Shaolin."
Gakyeop Dojang turned his head aside and coughed, once, twice. "...I said nothing of the sort."
Eyes narrowed, one corner of my mouth curling upward, I grumbled under my breath.
Without the Alliance Leader — without any single decision-maker — the Wulin Alliance's current position was that the wulin should settle its own troubles. Most likely, if they intervened and the problem festered anyway, their authority would erode, and the independent standing they had so long been guaranteed would begin to wobble.
I was still mulling that over when Gakyeop Dojang picked the thread back up. "In any case, a letter has come from Preceptor Muhak of Shaolin. They, too, have been run off their feet gathering information since the Great Demon War, and the letter asks that we deal with a demon lurking within Luoyang, scheming to bewitch the world and deceive its people."
"...And what happens if I refuse?"
Gakyeop Dojang glanced once at the ceiling, then answered with a grin. "I suppose I shall have to hear the full story of the Guangdong affair from General Cheonram and give it proper thought."
Ugh.
"...I take it that could throw a wrench into the plans of someone quite busy on his way to becoming the Wulin Alliance Leader."
"Hah..."
Then Gakyeop Dojang added one thing more. "Ah, right — you'll be sealing away every last one of Wudang's martial arts for this. It's Shaolin's request."
"I beg your pardon?"
What, I wondered, would be left of me without my martial arts? A genius who had memorized every secret manual in existence. A qilin prodigy devoted to the Dao. A composure so serene it could stay content even in a lawless hell.
Somehow, the list sounded exactly like the sort of self-justification you'd deliver right before the man with the shield told you to strip off that steel shell.
This was no time for that.
"Seal my martial arts? Might I ask the reasoning?"
"What do you think is the reason Shaolin is sitting out this contest for the Wulin Alliance Leader's seat?"
I thought briefly, then opened my mouth. "...Because not a single one of them ever entered Toemagwangmyeong."
That was it. Though Toemagwangmyeong had been founded under the banner of exterminating the Demonic Cult, not one of Shaolin's late-blooming prodigies had ever enrolled. Nor had they taken the field in the Great Demon War — or to be exact, they had confined themselves entirely to gathering intelligence.
Hearing my answer, Gakyeop Dojang nodded. "Right. I'm a stranger to worldly affairs myself, so I can't claim to know for certain. But it seems tied to how readily Shaolin took over the Wulin Alliance's administrative work after the war."
So that was it. Shaolin, the orthodox lineage of the martial arts — was it now dreaming of becoming the orthodox lineage of all under heaven?
For the present they might look like they were being pushed about by the Wulin Alliance, but in time this experience could well become the foothold from which they exerted influence entirely apart from it.
...As for me, that simply meant fewer duties once I became the Alliance Leader, so I could only be grateful. Disputes might well erupt down the road — but if I did sit in that seat, the me of that day would sort them out.
"But what does any of that have to do with why I mustn't show my martial arts?"
"Shaolin wants the wulin to come away with the impression that Henan's faltering order was restored not by the chivalry of any other sect, but by the path of the Buddha."
"Ah."
At my reaction, Gakyeop Dojang nodded. "Yes. They intend to credit the whole resolution to Shaolin."
I answered with a wry smile. "For men who worship the Tathagata, they seem remarkably quick to count their profits."
"It's no concern of mine, so long as it doesn't touch Mount Wudang."
My master was always like this. He had eyes only for Wudang, so whatever incident arose, if it did not block that path, he dismissed it as so much scenery passing by the window.
"This is plainly a matter Shaolin ought to resolve on its own — but if we refuse to take it on..."
"Then they'll find some way, any way at all, to interfere with Mount Wudang."
Gakyeop Dojang nodded.
For all these reasons I had accepted the mission — but truthfully, I was at something of a loss.
What exactly was I supposed to do, without my martial arts, to break up that crowd of zealots?
Borrow the arm of the government? No. That would deny Shaolin the very outcome it wanted, and in the end the resulting ill will would land squarely on Wudang.
"Hah..."
A sigh slipped out of me. One of the believers nearby, hearing it, craned his head around to look at me.
"Little brother Gongseo — soon all under heaven will belong to the White Lotus. What could weigh on you so?"
Gongseo was the alias I had taken for this assignment. I gave the believer the same public-facing smile I usually wore for would-be entrants to Wudang.
"Ah — Brother Ha. There you are."
The believer I addressed as Brother Ha was named Ha Chu, a butcher who ran a meat shop in Luoyang. From what I'd heard, he had fallen into the sect's teachings because he could not stomach the regional contempt that Henan folk endured across the realm.
Outwardly there was almost nothing remarkable about him.
...Save that, like my father once was, he was missing a leg.
In a world still awash in chaos, men short an arm or a leg were hardly a rarity. It was a world where such a thing could no longer even be called strange.
Looking at him, I offered words I didn't mean a scrap of. "A world that belongs to the Lotus ought to shine as dazzlingly clear as the midsummer full moon — yet to a novice like me, who only just passed through its gates, that world is still a far and lightless night."
"Haha, fear not on that account."
"Oh—"
Suddenly, a voice that was not Ha Chu's cut in.
I turned my head toward it, and there she was — the woman from the front of the hall, the one who had been giving the speech, now studying my face.
Ha Chu, long since used to managing without the leg, leaned on his staff, knelt without the slightest difficulty, and called out loudly, "Cult Leader! To grace the talk of such insignificant folk as us with your presence — what boundless grace—"
The woman shook her head and spoke in a voice steeped in compassion. "When a member of the Lotus's family loses their way, it falls to me, the White West Gold King, to seek them out myself and point them back to the path."
This woman, who had introduced herself as the White West Gold King, was the head of this flock — and by her own account, the successor of the Heavenly Demon Emperor himself.
And yet, among all the cult leaders I had met during the Great Demon War, I had never once seen her like.
The White West Gold King turned her head to me and went on. "The great river that is the White Lotus has run dry, and so for now our doctrine, our ideal, must look to you like something scattered upon the empty wind. But when the season turns, it will come down as a mighty rain and wash the world into a paradise of peace. In that season of the Lotus, we shall be the downpour — the first to fall, before any other."
I regarded the White West Gold King as she preached her earthly paradise.
Unlike the ordinary Han, her face was painted as lavishly as any Miao woman's for a festival, and the red pigment brushed along the corners of her eyes lent her peach-blossom allure a strange, curling heat. Yet she carried herself with a dignity a world apart from the courtesans of the pleasure houses, and the result was a charm you would rarely meet anywhere in the Central Plains.
Then the White West Gold King smiled. "You there — Gongseo, was it?"
"It is."
Nodding, she let her gaze travel from my heels all the way to the crown of my head. "Mm. You've a rather fine face on you. You look a very kind soul."
I put on my public smile. "...Thank you."
"A face with no root of care in it. Amid all this world's turmoil, you have already found your direction and are walking it true, I see."
And then, mid-sentence, the White West Gold King seized my hand in both of hers. "But if the ideals and doctrine of the Lotus were joined to that path of yours, you would reach your goal all the sooner — like a bird given wings."
"Ah — that is, my hand—"
"Oh my. Forgive my presumption."
The White West Gold King released me, looking faintly abashed, covered her mouth, and laughed a soft hoho.
...Had I not been a Taoist pledged to the pursuit of the Dao, I might well have joined the faith on the spot.
As I set about calming my traitorously fluttering heart, a sudden chill crept over me from somewhere nearby.
Tch.
That was a tongue-click, all right...
Right. This was never a mission I was running alone.
I looked toward the source of the cold, and there stood Eun Ae-hyang and Yeong Yeong.
Whether she had caught the same chill I did, the White West Gold King flinched. "Ah — well, then, I shall go and see to another quarter. May the teaching of the Lotus settle whole and undisturbed within your heart."
With that, she melted into the crowd.
Which meant it was time for me to learn more about their circumstances. Quietly tail them from behi—
"Seong Hyun. Where do you think you're going?"
"Senior brother — was holding hands with a woman really so memorable?"
Somehow the two of them had already closed the distance and planted themselves hard at my back, each seizing one of my shoulders.
The alley sat a little apart from the heart of Luoyang.
Not a soul in sight, the lane had a hollow, forgotten air — stripped of its former glory, a place that could no longer afford to play the gracious host.
Which raised the question of why I was standing before the two of them there, hands clasped together, head bowed low.
"...Junior sister. By our master's command, before I take my place at the escort bureau I finally have the chance to come out and apprentice to the world — could you not simply watch me quietly and say nothing?"
Yeong Yeong answered in a voice cold enough to frost the air. "You've already apprenticed to the world quite enough, if you ask me. All that's left is standing guard, so that senior brother doesn't go off the rails."
"For a man bearing the epithet Blue Cloud Taoist, your heart is stuffed full of red and lecherous thoughts."
At Eun Ae-hyang's words, I lifted my head and looked at her.
Ah, yes — that was what they called a takedown. It only activated when she condemned me with those frost-cold eyes.
"By the way — when did you even join in, Eun Ae-hyang? I don't remember hearing that the Kongtong Sect was part of this mission."
At my question, Eun Ae-hyang swept her hair back over her shoulder with one hand. "Did you think Shaolin held ties with Wudang alone? We received one of those letters as well — and I am the one who was sent."
"No — I'm telling you I never heard a word of it. Did you at least hear that you're not to use martial arts on this mission?"
At that, Eun Ae-hyang turned her head away, as if to slip out from under my gaze.
You didn't know?
No doubt she had learned of it from the letter I'd sent saying I wouldn't be able to duel her for some time. But then why on earth were you here?
At that moment Yeong Yeong leveled a glare at Eun Ae-hyang. "Should a heroine whose years for marriage are already full and running over really be roughing it in the field like this? As her junior in the wulin, it is my duty to worry on her behalf — she has not a single betrothed to her name."
Eun Ae-hyang's brow twitched. She turned on Yeong Yeong. "I am speaking with my classmate from Toemagwangmyeong. Would you keep quiet for a moment?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me."
...Summer was nearly upon us, and yet the air was this frigid. Truly, one could call this a fierce season.
And if this season had sprung from those two — then the fierce thing was never the season at all, but those girls.