A Wooden Doll Thinks No Thoughts
On the evening two days after we received our reply, our new contact from Shaolin arrived exactly as promised.
He sat at a table on the second floor of the White Horse Inn, quietly sipping tea. A single glance at his broad back was enough to tell that his martial bone and sinew existed in an entirely different realm from someone like Bunhyang. His towering frame created the sheer illusion that the wooden table before him had shrunk, and the sword scars etched across his bared forearms resembled the fierce stripes of a tiger. He was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, no ordinary man.
Sensing my approach, he rose from his seat and turned smoothly to face me. While his head was clean-shaven, his thick beard and bushy brows were lush enough to rival Zhang Fei himself. Yet despite the wild tangle of hair framing his face, his features were carved with distinct, heavy lines that radiated the imposing dignity of a seasoned general.
I clasped my hands in a formal martial salute and offered a polite introduction.
“I am Cheongun of the Wudang Sect.”
“A pleasure. I am Zen Master Hyeonam.”
“...For a monk whose name translates to ‘Dark Rock,’ your arms are remarkably pale, setting aside the scars, of course.”
Ah. That slipped right out.
Yet Hyeonam Seonsa took no offense whatsoever. Instead, he threw his head back and boomed with laughter.
“Bwahahaha! I heard rumors of a young prodigy from Wudang whose insolent tongue tasted rotten despite his tender years. It seems they were talking about you!”
I offered an awkward, sheepish smile in return. Just as he knew of me, I was well acquainted with his reputation.
He was one of Shaolin’s foremost living masters and the reigning head of the Bodhidharma Hall. Within the storied annals of Shaolin, which spanned the entire breadth of the martial world’s history, rumors ranked him among the top three practitioners of external arts to ever walk the earth. To think they would send an exalted master of his caliber merely because Bunhyang had been incapacitated. Had they not called upon Wudang in the first place claiming they were desperately short-handed?
Eun Ae-hyang must have harbored the exact same suspicion, as her voice drifted into my mind via sound transmission.
‘If they had the leeway to dispatch a figure like him, why did they bother commissioning Wudang at all?’
‘My thoughts exactly. It leaves a foul taste in my mouth, like being the first pig herded toward the slaughterhouse.’
At that moment, Hyeonam Seonsa noticed Eun Ae-hyang and Yeong Yeong standing quietly just behind me.
“Well, well. And who might these charming young heroines be?”
Stepping forward from my side, Eun Ae-hyang cupped her fists with practiced poise.
“I am known as Chunpung Seomchim of the Kongtong Sect. I happened to be cultivating here in Luoyang and joined this mission to assist my acquaintance, Daoist Cheongun.”
“Oho! So you are the celebrated heroine who, alongside Daoist Cheongun, brought an end to the Great Demon War. Your name has reached my ears many times as well.”
Judging by his warm reaction, Bunhyang had not reported Eun Ae-hyang’s presence prior to his untimely ruin. Then again, if that wretch possessed the meticulous nature required for proper reporting, he never would have invited such a brutal thrashing in the first place.
“Your generous words flatter me,” Eun Ae-hyang replied coolly.
“And the young lady beside you?”
Yeong Yeong took a neat step forward and presented her salute.
“I am Yeong Yeong, a Two-Generation Disciple of the Wudang Sect and daughter of Gakyeop Dojang. I have accompanied my senior martial brother on this mission to gain practical experience for future escort assignments.”
Even Yeong Yeong seemed unwilling to stir up unnecessary trouble after what had transpired with Bunhyang, offering only the barest minimum of details. Hyeonam Seonsa stroked his thick beard, nodding with satisfaction as he looked between the three of us.
“Very good, very good. But tell me, where is Bunhyang, the one who penned the letter?”
“Ah, this way, please.”
To avoid any volatile developments, I gave Eun Ae-hyang and Yeong Yeong a discreet hand signal to remain behind before guiding Hyeonam Seonsa up toward the guest room.
When the door swung open, we found Bunhyang lying motionless on the bed, eyes shut in utter exhaustion from ceaseless pain. The sight made Hyeonam Seonsa flinch visibly. Glancing sideways at his face, I saw those chiseled features twist violently out of shape, fighting back a wave of grief and fury.
“How utterly horrifying... To force a living soul to bear the fires of hell within his own flesh.”
His reaction was only natural. Bunhyang’s current condition was far more wretched than when Yeong Yeong had first broken him. Though he had regained minimal movement in one arm, his lower jaw was entirely shattered and left dangling in ribbons of flesh, rendering him incapable of consuming even thin gruel. To make matters worse, Yeong Yeong had meticulously severed his limbs below the ankles to ensure he could never dream of fleeing or harboring deceit. Looking upon him now, the term ‘living corpse’ felt like an understatement.
Sensing our presence, the living corpse cracked his eyes open. He rolled his head weakly from side to side until his gaze locked onto Hyeonam Seonsa. In an instant, his broken body thrashed in wild spasms as choked wails tore from his throat.
“Aaa-rhhh...! Aaaagh!”
It was a pitiful display—words that could no longer be shaped by a ruined jaw, spilling out instead as raw, agonized weeping. At the sight, Hyeonam Seonsa bit his lower lip so hard that a sharp, sickening crunch echoed through the small room.
A moment later, the hulking monk turned his gaze toward me. His eyes blazed with a fury so palpable even a blind man could have sensed it, and a thick bead of crimson dripped down from his torn lip.
“What manner of vile fiend inflicted this cruelty upon him?”
“...A man named Bok-myeong, the cult leader currently commanding the local remnants.”
“Who is this cur? I scour the archives of the Great Demon War regularly, yet I have never once read of such a scoundrel.”
“We have only recently gained their confidence, so his full background remains unknown to us.”
Hyeonam Seonsa clamped his mouth shut. He turned his heavy gaze back toward Bunhyang, muttering beneath his breath like a man adrift.
“How... how can this humble disciple of the Buddha be saved...?”
Suddenly, a freezing chill began to bleed outward from his massive body. Bunhyang must have perceived the ominous shift, for his shoulders shrank inward as he stared up at the elder monk in mounting terror.
“Bunhyang. I shall drag you out from this hell.”
“Aaah?”
Hyeonam Seonsa raised both massive arms and clamped his iron hands firmly around Bunhyang’s skull.
“Go now, and attain rebirth in the Pure Land.”
“Aaargh! Aaaagh!”
Shrieking in raw panic, Bunhyang tried desperately to shake his head, but Hyeonam Seonsa’s grip was an absolute vice. The crippled monk could do nothing more than twitch pathetically. A low, rhythmic murmur of Sanskrit verses began to spill from the elder’s lips.
Slowly, Hyeonam Seonsa’s flesh began to blacken. The old sword wounds that had previously looked dark and poisoned now seemed blindingly pale against the fathomless pitch creeping over his skin. So this is why they gave him the Buddhist name Hyeonam—the Dark Rock.
The moment the transformation settled, the blackened arms twitched. With a sickening, pulpy crunch, Bunhyang’s skull shattered like an overripe melon.
The headless corpse trembled violently once before slumping into limp, absolute silence. Viewed from behind, the two figures looked like a pair of maple trees driven mad in late spring, steeped in hideous shades of crimson.
As I stood watching the grim tableau in stunned silence, Hyeonam Seonsa kept his eyes glued to the mangled remains and spoke.
“Daoist Cheongun. Bunhyang fell victim to Bok-myeong and became a lost soul mired in the abyss.”
“...I am aware.”
“I merely carried out the sorrowful duty of delivering that fallen soul. Yes... that is how we must view this.”
Muttering those words like a dark prayer, Hyeonam Seonsa slowly turned his head to look at me. The moment our eyes met, the truth struck me with cold certainty.
Hyeonam Seonsa had journeyed here intending to execute Bunhyang from the very beginning. Had it been otherwise, a face claiming to bear sorrow could never have looked so utterly hollow of grief.
After informing the innkeeper that a wanderer of the martial world had met his end, we relocated to the inn’s rear courtyard. The Pig Hour was fast approaching, and the courtyard lay bathed in the pale, sickly glow of moonlight.
By now, Hyeonam Seonsa had resumed the hearty, jovial demeanor he had displayed upon our first greeting. It was as though his merciless slaughter of his own sect brother moments prior had been nothing more than an illusion.
“Let us see. The Abbot truly handed you young ones an arduous task. Forcing disciples who have honed only their own sect’s martial arts their entire lives to seal their skills and carry out an undercover mission.”
At that remark, I cast a sidelong glance toward Eun Ae-hyang. In truth, because she and I had crossed swords hundreds of times, we were capable of mimicking each other’s foundational swordplay to a fair degree. But Hyeonam Seonsa, stroking his thick beard in deep contemplation, suddenly snapped his eyes wide.
“If that is the case, then you simply need to become a man of Shaolin, Daoist Cheongun!”
...Wait, what?
I ventured cautiously, “Are you telling this junior to shave his head and take vows at the Shaolin Temple?”
Catching my blatant hesitation, Hyeonam Seonsa clamped a hand over his belly, threw his head back, and let loose a booming laugh.
“Bwahahaha! While that would please me even more, that is not what I mean!”
Cutting his laughter short, he looked me up and down with an assessing squint. Ugh. That’s the exact look Master always gives me whenever he’s plotting something tiresome.
“I heard that within a year of leaving Toemagwangmyeong, you memorized every single secret manual of the Wudang Sect. Is that true?”
“More or less, yes.”
“A brilliant fellow indeed!”
Taking giant strides toward me, he clapped a heavy hand firmly onto my shoulder.
“For a vessel to be emptied, it must first be filled! How about it? What say you to a crash course in the arts of Shaolin, the orthodox root of all martial virtue? With a mind like yours, you should easily master enough by tomorrow to employ them in live combat.”
...Is this really the context where ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’ applies? Slipping my shoulder out from beneath his iron grasp, I asked, “May I ask why you do not simply strike down Bok-myeong yourself rather than entrusting the deed to me?”
“Well now...”
A faint smile tugged at Hyeonam Seonsa’s lips. Yet within that smile, there lingered neither his earlier boisterous warmth nor the benevolent compassion of a Buddhist master.
“Why indeed?”
His gaze was that of a predator sizing up fresh, intriguing prey. The instant I met that stare, my fists clenched instinctively. No. Calm down. Let us not blow this out of proportion. That is a problem for tomorrow’s me to deal with. For now, I must simply become a wooden doll. A wooden doll carries no thoughts of its own.
“If doing so accelerates the completion of this mission, I shall gladly receive your instruction.”
Evidently pleased by my response, Hyeonam Seonsa laughed merrily once more.
“A wise decision! Though I say so myself, this humble monk possesses quite a talent for teaching. Given your aptitude for learning, I have no doubt you will acquire enough by tomorrow to settle this affair cleanly.”
Turning his broad gaze toward Eun Ae-hyang, he asked, “What about you, Fine Needle in the Spring Breeze? Traditionally, women cannot enter the Shaolin Temple, making the prospect of learning our arts an impossible dream. Yet here stands that very path, wide open before you.”
Eun Ae-hyang clasped her hands and bowed her head with smooth reluctance.
“I deeply appreciate the generous offer, Seonsa, but I am merely here in an auxiliary capacity.”
Aha. Look at her trying to wriggle out because it’s not Kongtong’s swordplay. Even back at Toemagwangmyeong, she stubbornly refused to touch any technique that didn't align with her sect’s philosophy. Some things truly never changed. But there was no way I was going to suffer through this ordeal alone.
I casually chimed in, “It seems even the peerless Fine Needle in the Spring Breeze finds the ever-shifting complexities of Shaolin’s martial arts a bit too formidable to grasp.”
Eun Ae-hyang’s head snapped toward me, her eyes narrowing into cold daggers.
“...Excuse me?”
“Oops. I meant to keep that thought to myself. It must have slipped out.”
“...Do you honestly believe I would fall for such a childish provocation?”
Brushing a strand of dark hair over her shoulder with an exasperated scoff, she feigned complete indifference. Yet her elegant brow twitched ever so slightly. Right, right. Keep pretending. You’ve taken the bait every single time since we were kids.
A sly smirk crept onto my lips.
“Suit yourself. If you don’t mind falling a step behind me, feel free to ignore it.”
“...Is that so?”
Turning sharply on her heel back toward Hyeonam Seonsa, Eun Ae-hyang bowed gracefully.
“I would be honored to receive your esteemed guidance, Zen Master.”
Delighted by her sudden change of heart, Hyeonam Seonsa beamed and nodded approvingly before turning his expectant gaze toward Yeong Yeong. She looked back and forth between Eun Ae-hyang and me for a long moment before letting out a soft sigh.
“...If everyone else is partaking, I cannot possibly sit idle. I, Yeong Yeong, shall gratefully accept this fortunate encounter.”
That’s my good junior sister. Come along and board this sinking ship with the rest of us.
Watching Hyeonam Seonsa throw his head back in raucous laughter, my mind involuntarily superimposed his smiling visage over the bloody image of him crushing Bunhyang’s skull just moments ago. Whatever sinister plot lay hidden beneath that boisterous mirth was of secondary concern right now. I would deal with his true colors the moment he bared his fangs.
...Or so I desperately told myself to keep the rising dread at bay.