It Clings to the Body, Even the Attacker's Rage
No matter how grand a city Luoyang might be, the hour before dawn is ever a silent one.
The market of Luoyang county had melted away as if the night market that once lit up the small hours had never existed at all, and past its most famous landmark — the great crossroads — only a cold, quiet road remained open. I was standing at the market's western edge, watching that road, when I felt a presence stir beside me; I turned my head to check, and sure enough, it was Eun Ae-hyang.
"You came."
"I did."
With that curt reply, she began gazing down the open road ahead, just as I was.
Then again — if I'd greeted her with a 'Yo' just now, wouldn't I have gotten a 'Welcome, Seong Hyun' back?
I turned the thought over for a moment, then concluded that the Eun Ae-hyang I'd known back in our Toemagwangmyeong days was incapable of any such reaction. A short silence followed. It was she who broke it first.
"So? Did you get a firm yes out of Shaolin about sending reinforcements?"
"I did — all thanks to my junior sister skewering Fenxiang."
"…That's not 'thanks to,' that's 'because of.' Is the whole of Wudang like that?"
"We are the whole of Wudang — and who would dare defy the whole?"
Eun Ae-hyang sighed at my sophistry.
After Yeong Yeong's punishment had run its course, I had splinted one of Fenxiang's broken arms into working order and set him to writing a letter to Shaolin requesting support. The letter never had to leave the city, and a reply came back within a couple of hours. Its contents were favorable, though they asked us to wait a day or two while the personnel were selected and sent. And so we found ourselves handed two days of holiday on the spot. Rest, as ever, is not something you beg from an employer — it is something you make with your own hands. Domain Expansion: Rest.
With time on our hands, I had proposed to Eun Ae-hyang yesterday that we settle the duel we'd been unable to hold these past several days, and she had accepted. I lost last time, so I figured this was her turn to lose — though whether our contest at Daedallasa, which had fizzled out into nothing, could even be called a duel was another matter entirely. Musing on that, I decided to sound her out a little.
"Hey, Eun Ae-hyang."
"What is it?"
"Remember Daedallasa? Last time?"
"Oh my — if you've somehow forgotten, I could recount the whole of it for you."
"Spare me. My point is, I was the one who reached the final room first."
Eun Ae-hyang flinched.
"…Did that happen?"
Th-that… with a memory like that, who's supposed to be recounting what to whom? But it seemed she had a case of her own to make.
"You may not know this, but I was the one who opened the door on our side. If we're counting that, wouldn't I be the winner?"
"No — as it happens, I grabbed the lock from Mu Yeong's side that day, just in case."
At that, Eun Ae-hyang turned her head and stared at me. Her pale face, steeped in the blue light of dawn, wore a desolate, heartbreaking sort of beauty.
But what was with that suspicious squint? Not beautiful in the slightest, I'll have you know.
"…You're serious?"
"…I am."
Yes — really, truly, a lie.
Even if she borrowed the Shrink-the-Earth stride this very instant, slipped into my room at the Wudang dojo, and found no lock there, I could simply dig in my heels and insist I had discarded it long ago. Where would a Taoist nurse attachments to worldly clutter? All things are meant to be left behind in the mortal world.
Eun Ae-hyang, who knew exactly the sort of man she was dealing with, let her expression soften and sighed.
"Honestly. True to your name of old — the Flying Cloud Taoist — a glib tongue is the one talent you were born with."
"What number is that nickname now?"
The cloud from the Song of the Great Wind, sung by Gaozu of Han. Mm… 'A great wind rises, and the clouds go soaring aloft' — wasn't it?Then that would make you the great wind that lifts me up?
I coughed a few times, loudly, to strangle that useless line of thought. In the end, our tally of opened locks had stayed dead even, so a draw was the sensible verdict. Yes. Besides, why keep score on a contest from that long ago? A man does not cling to bygone results.
"So — what's this match to be?"
Eun Ae-hyang seemed to consider for a moment, then pointed a finger down the road ahead of us.
"What, that thing?"
"What do you see, Maengun Dojang — the Blind Cloud?"
So now I'm the blind one. Wasn't that supposed to be Yeong Yeong's job?
I looked out at the road, a shade brighter now than when we had first arrived.
Mm. Just as mountains are mountains and waters are waters, a road is merely a road, and yet… hm?
Past the crossroads, something seemed to be moving. Looking closer, I made out a donkey standing all alone at the roadside — a donkey, peculiarly enough, wearing shorts on its hindquarters.
Eun Ae-hyang spoke.
"I heard this at the White Horse Inn yesterday. Everyone in Luoyang knows that donkey, apparently."
"Quite the VIP. No — a V.I.D., a Very Important Donkey."
Ignoring my wordplay, she went on.
"And apparently, not one soul has ever managed to strip those pants off it."
"How remarkable. Set aside the pants, and it looks no different from any ordinary donkey."
"So if no one's ever managed it — wouldn't whoever among the two of us strips them first take the victory?"
Eek — pervert. Eun Ae-hyang, are you seriously proposing we strip the pants off a donkey whose sex you couldn't even tell me?
Just kidding. Eun Ae-hyang had always thrown herself into even the silliest contests with utter devotion — back in the day, she'd duel over things like plucking the whiskers of the Wulin Alliance's mountain goats.
Watching me sink into thought, she asked,
"Something you'd like to say?"
"…Pardon me, but might you happen to be a person of great wealth and refined artistic taste?"
Eun Ae-hyang's face went flat with disbelief.
"What nonsense are you spouting now? So — are you doing it, or not?"
I looked at the donkey once more. Oblivious to our presence, it did nothing but idly chew at the dirt by the roadside from time to time.
"So long as I catch it somehow and get the pants off, that counts?"
"Just so we're clear — if the donkey dies or gets hurt, we have a problem."
"Fool. Who would even think such a thing?"
Someone who stood by and watched Yeong Yeong demolish Fenxiang yesterday, perhaps?Does she know that line doubles as a self-introduction?
I narrowed my eyes to slits and glared at her. Eun Ae-hyang dodged my gaze, looking sheepish, and cleared her throat.
"Anyway — whoever catches it and strips it, purely and cleanly, wins."
…So the 'donkey' is the one who gets treated purely, then?
When I nodded my assent, Eun Ae-hyang drew a line in the dirt before us and had us set our toes against it. I fished a coin from my pocket and held it up for her to see.
"The moment this touches the ground, we begin."
She nodded; after a beat, I snapped the coin into the sky.
—Ting.
The coin climbed, spinning, and for some reason seemed to hang there in the empty air. When it fell, it fell slowly, drifting down with lazy indifference. Even as it gathered speed, I could somehow count every rotation and make out the faintest scratches on its face as it dropped — up past the crown of my head, past my eyes, past my chest, past my knees—
—Tap.
The instant the coin struck the ground, we both kicked off with everything we had.
But I did not turn toward the donkey. I twisted toward Eun Ae-hyang and hurled myself at her, arms reaching to flatten her where she stood.
"I'll plant you straight into the ground!"
Anyone else would surely have panicked and crumpled. But my opponent was Eun Ae-hyang, who knows me far too well; with hardly a flicker of surprise she slipped past my hands, caught my wrist, and turned to face me.
The moment our feet touched the ground, her left heel whipped toward me. I raised my left arm to catch the kick, tore my pinned right arm free, and put space between us.
Eun Ae-hyang said,
"As if I don't know you. You're nothing but a cloud swept along inside the spring breeze."
"Oh-ho — the wild goose's prints in snow and mud, is it? Your wind, like a footprint left behind…"
Letting the words trail off, I closed the distance in a flash and swung a knife-hand outward in a slicing arc as I finished:
"A cloud that flies higher than any goose could hardly be judged by footprints in the snow, my dear friend!"
Eun Ae-hyang ducked low beneath the strike and drove a fist at me. I caught the hand, pivoted, and hoisted her clean off the ground. Thrown though she was, she hauled on my arm the instant she landed, and the momentum dragged my body toward hers.
"My, my. Someone's gotten quite strong."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"Though you do feel heavier than before. Could it be…"
"Could be what?"
"Well, along with your strength, your figure's put on a little— tsk…"
At that instant, before I could even finish, Eun Ae-hyang hurled a fist at me with everything she had.
—Wham!
"Ugh!"
The fist came flying in an instant I hadn't predicted, and this time I had no choice but to meet it head-on with my arm — and strange to say, it throbbed against my guard like a killing stroke.
And still she gave me no room to breathe. The moment she let go of the wrist I'd been holding, she twisted about and seized mine instead, making certain I couldn't run. Which meant I was staring straight into her face — and in her eyes burned a will I had never seen there before. The iron resolve to smash my mouth to pieces.
…Ah. She is genuinely, truly angry.
With my movements locked down, Eun Ae-hyang pressed her attack. In that narrow space I could do little more than twist, dodge, and block. This had happened before, after all — back then, hadn't she refused to stop until she had landed four hundred blows? But I could hardly keep up pure defense against an Eun Ae-hyang whose skill, strength — and, yes, weight — had all grown since those days.
Then a wide, sweeping strike came at me, and dodging it let me glance toward the donkey. At my unexpected maneuver, her assault paused for a breath.
"Where are you looking… oh."
Eun Ae-hyang's face said she'd just remembered something, and an opening appeared. In that instant I wrenched my wrist free and sprinted for the donkey.
Right — remember the rules. This isn't about subduing your opponent. First one to strip the donkey's shorts wins.
She clicked her tongue and came after me.
A pity, Miss Eun Ae-hyang. At that speed, you'll never catch me.
Convinced that I could finally win, I looked back at her, face full of grin, and called out:
"The finest needle in the spring breeze under all of heaven, sunk and vanished into a lazy cloud — what a failed little breeze you've become!"
"Ugh."
Perhaps she sensed how the tide had turned; Eun Ae-hyang's expression darkened. Mm… it nags at me a little that this isn't a victory won by superiority in the martial arts. But a win is a win. One more jab couldn't hurt.
"No! Not even a failed breeze — you're stale air trapped in a paper lantern, struggling with all your might to take flight!"
At my words, sparks began to blaze in Eun Ae-hyang's eyes, fiercer than before. That's right — this is a provocation. So what will you do about it? What can you even do, Eun Ae-hyang?
But instead she stopped running and began glancing around. Then she picked up one of the stones pinning down a merchant's wrapped goods—
—and hurled it at me with everything she had.
Ah. So that was a move.
My eyes went round at the unexpected stone-throw; I broke off my sprint in haste and flipped backward, barely twisting clear of the rock. The moment I landed, Eun Ae-hyang — already in close — was drawing back her fist to strike. And behind her, I saw the sky.
…Mm? Now what's that?
I threw up a hand and said, urgently:
"Hey! The sun's coming up over there!"
She looked behind her. Sure enough, dawn was breaking.
I shrugged.
"A shame — this match, too, ends in a draw."
Eun Ae-hyang stared at the sun for a long, long moment. Then her gaze slid to me.
"So?"
"Hm?"
Wh-why is your fist still clenched, might I ask? Wh-wh… huh?
A chill shot down my spine, and I scrambled to put distance between us. But Eun Ae-hyang would not drop off me, and she kept coming. Empty of qi, perhaps — first she swung her fists, then flagstones, then a butcher's cleaver from who knows where.
She looked for all the world like a vengeful ghost. Truly, the very image of rage clinging to the body and chasing it wherever it goes.
…How does one come to such lengths? And how can their number be so vast? Even were I to attempt the count, it would surpass the grains of sand upon the shore.