Like Bonfire Smoke That Keeps Following You
Just as I had during my spar with Hyeonam Seonsa, I evaded Yeolgong Duta’s opening strike by executing the footwork of our Flowing Cloud Movement Technique.
Yeolgong Duta barrelled another thirty paces past where I had been standing before finally grinding his charge to a halt. He whirled around and glared at me.
“Even if your face was a fake, that belly of yours seems entirely genuine,” I remarked. “You’re the spitting image of a mountain boar.”
“You insolent whelp!”
My provocation hit its mark. Grinding his teeth so hard they practically creaked, he glared daggers at me and launched a second charge on the spot.
The instant his pewter staff was about to graze me, I slipped out of its path with the same effortless grace as before. This time, however, the cultists behind me had no time to get out of the way and took the brunt of his momentum.
Swept up in the violent wake of his rush, the cultists scattered through the air like dandelion fluff caught in a gale.
“Aaargh!”
“B-Bishop… my arm!”
A gruesome spectacle of white bone and crimson blood.
Just as Yeolgong Duta prepared for a third charge, ready to plow right over the mangled heap, he abruptly froze. His gaze locked onto me.
Hmm. Guess the taunt didn’t quite work after all.
“What is it?” I asked.
“…You’re looking at me as if I’m nothing more than a painting on a hanging scroll.”
Oh, full marks.
To think another candidate had passed the Seong Hyun Civil Examination so cleanly. I would really have to consider raising the difficulty next time.
“No matter how fierce the wind may blow inside a painting…”
I shifted into the foundational stance of the Great Demon Fist, which I had learned from Hyeonam Seonsa, and continued.
“…it remains nothing more than ink upon paper. In my eyes, your offensive is mere untidy scribbling.”
Yeolgong Duta snorted derisively at my words.
“Hmph. Arrogant Wudang bastard.”
My gaze drifted toward his surroundings.
I saw cultists wailing over severed arms torn off in his charge, others writhing and groaning with gaping holes torn through their abdomens, and several lying completely still. I turned back to Yeolgong Duta and asked, “Aren’t you going to look after your own followers?”
“Hmph. Insects like them can be gathered again by the dozen once I move to another territory.”
“How do you plan to gather them without the White Rat Golden King?”
“That’s…”
Caught off guard, he fumbled for words before a smirk spread across his face, as if he had just struck upon a brilliant realization.
“Once I strike you down and word of it echoes across the realm, every surviving member of our sacred cult will flock to my banner. When that happens, I won’t have any need for that wretched wench Ah-uisa.”
“Oh, that’s quite a plan.”
Evidently proud of his own reasoning, a smug satisfaction washed over his face.
“Quite a plan to end up shitting blood, that is.”
A man really ought to listen until the sentence is finished. His face instantly warped into a furious scowl.
Right then, one of the cultists suddenly lunged forward, clutching at Yeolgong Duta’s trouser leg with terror-stricken eyes. It was the man whose shoulder he had gripped earlier.
“B-Bishop! What is happening? Why… why am I in so much pain?!”
The agony had evidently shocked his wandering soul back to reality, leaving him utterly disoriented. Yeolgong Duta looked down at him with frigid detachment, then raised his pewter staff high above his head.
Thwack!
A sickening, dull crunch echoed throughout the hall.
At that sound, both the screaming and the groaning abruptly cut short. Everyone turned toward the noise, their faces draining of all color.
Watching this unfold, I cast my gaze up toward the ceiling. Eun Ae-hyang and Yeong Yeong were perched on a high crossbeam, quietly observing the scene below.
I cupped a hand around my mouth and called up to them. “Hey, you pretty ladies up there! Come down here for a moment, would you?”
At my call, Eun Ae-hyang and Yeong Yeong leapt down together, landing without so much as a whisper of sound, like falling flower petals.
“What is it?” Eun Ae-hyang asked.
I glanced once more at the fallen cultists before replying. “Take these cultists outside while I subdue this fellow.”
Her response caught me completely off guard.
“No.”
Huh? What’s gotten into her? Did she eat something bad when I wasn't looking?
I turned to Yeong Yeong with a look that asked, What is her problem?
“I don’t want to either, Sahyeong.”
…Now what could possibly be the issue this time?
When I stared at her with an expression that plainly screamed, Junior Sister, what on earth is wrong with you? Yeong Yeong spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
“We gave them so many chances to leave this place already. Why should we bother saving fools who chose to stay behind, chanting ‘Bishop, Bishop’ until they got themselves killed?”
Eun Ae-hyang nodded in agreement.
“Besides, they already heard you being addressed as Cheongun Dojang. Even if you rescue them, wouldn’t that just make our mission harder?”
Ah, truly the mindset of martial artists pursuing the transcendent Dao, striving to shed mortal entanglements. Alas, has the righteous chivalry of the Jianghu fallen so low?
Or so I mused for a fleeting moment, though in truth I had no real grounds to reproach them. If this were Hubei, where Mount Wudang stood, or Gansu, the home of Mount Kongtong, there would be obligations and justifications born of our sects’ ties to the local populace. But this place fell under the jurisdiction and responsibility of Shaolin.
Strictly speaking, my mission was merely to help eliminate the remnants of the Demonic Cult so Shaolin could solidify its standing in Luoyang, not to play the savior on their behalf.
And Eun Ae-hyang was right. These people had already overheard my exchange with Yeolgong Duta. They knew I belonged to Wudang. Even if I brought him down, would they willingly submit to Shaolin’s fold as the monks intended?
As I stared at the ceiling, turning over how best to clean up the aftermath once Yeolgong Duta was subdued, a sudden sound broke the silence.
“Ugh!”
Yeolgong Duta let out a sharp grunt.
Surprised, I looked back down. A man had struck him with a wooden stick. Yet even as a surprise attack, it was the strike of someone who possessed not an ounce of martial arts training.
Having merely flinched without suffering the slightest harm, Yeolgong Duta looked down at the man with cold fury.
Following his gaze, I noticed a child lying unconscious behind the man. A father trying to protect his child, no doubt.
Seeing that his strike had done nothing, the man threw his arms around Yeolgong Duta’s waist in sheer panic, babbling desperately, “B-Bishop, please, please forgive my insolence! I… I must have lost my mind trying to protect my child!”
Rather than answering the plea, Yeolgong Duta raised his pewter staff once more. He brought it down with all his might directly onto the ankle of the man looking up at him.
Crack.
A horrifying snap reverberated through the hall. The man’s eyes flew wide. Letting go of Yeolgong Duta, he threw himself across the floor, screaming and writhing in agony.
“Aaargh! Aaaaargh! Uwaaagh!”
“A mindless insect whose wits were stolen by a mere wench’s tongue dares to lose his senses before me?”
His eyes rolling back into his head, Yeolgong Duta closed in and began stomping on the man without mercy.
At first, the man twitched with every crushing blow. Soon, however, under the savage stomping, his skull caved in, an eyeball popped from its socket, and gray matter leaked out across the stones. He ceased to move altogether.
Having finished his butchery, Yeolgong Duta slowly turned his gaze toward me, an amused grin pulling at his lips.
“Oho. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen such an expression on your face.”
What about my expression? I had merely narrowed my eyes a fraction.
After studying my face for a long moment, his grin broadened, and his tongue rattled on.
“The rumors claimed your old man became a cripple trying to protect you. Looks like they were true after all. Struck down by a hidden assassin, was—”
While his jaws were still flapping, I shifted my weight into another burst of footwork and closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Finding me right under his nose in an instant, Yeolgong Duta’s eyes blew wide. I clenched my fist and spoke.
“And what of it?”
Path of the Unknown
Smack!
“Kuh-huuk…!”
My fist drove straight into his abdomen.
Yeolgong Duta choked out every scrap of air in his lungs as his feet lifted clean off the floor.
Crash! Creak—crack!
Hurtling backward, he smashed through the wooden door of the chamber where the White Rat Golden King had resided, vanishing inside. A moment later, the sound of structural collapse rumbled from within.
Glancing inside, I saw that the ceiling had caved in, unable to withstand the shock that had shuddered through the wall.
That took care of one of them.
It’s done. No need to dwell on it. No need to think any further. No…
A suffocating tightness clamped down on my chest.
Unbidden, the memory Yeolgong Duta had dredged up began to surface in my mind.
My father, hunched like a boiled shrimp, clutching his severed ankle. The pool of blood seeping from the empty space where his foot ought to have been, overlapping with the present before my eyes. And standing tall right before him, two legs planted firmly on the ground.
I shook my head, trying desperately to tear my gaze away.
Yet like smoke from a bonfire that clings to a person no matter where they step—smoke that once seemed so fascinating to a child’s naive curiosity, only to sting the eyes and draw frightened tears—the more I looked upon that memory…
…the harder it became to draw breath.
I bent slightly at the waist and clutched at my chest, trying to ease the constriction. But as the hallucination sharpened, the suffocation only grew worse.
Looking up from those two legs, I saw the assassin, his face shrouded in dark shadow against the glare of the light. The assassin stared at me, then slowly raised the hand holding the blade that had just severed my father’s ankle.
Right then, Yeong Yeong’s voice cut faintly through the haze.
“…hyeong, are you… all right? Sa… Orabeoni…”
What was she saying? A few words sounded like Sahyeong, or Orabeoni.
Thanks to that faint tether, the vision finally dissipated, though my heart continued to hammer violently against my ribs.
Then Eun Ae-hyang came up to me.
Without a word, she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace.
At her touch, the ragged breath and racing pulse that had threatened to tear my body apart began to settle, bit by bit.
In the quiet between us, she whispered softly, “The past, and the vague future clouded with anxiety, are merely footprints that have passed or will pass along the martial path. Think only of the present.”
Words I had heard from her time and again whenever this happened, ever since our days back at Toemagwangmyeong.
She was right.
Just as she said, in the Jianghu, nightmares, agonizing memories, and moments of joy alike were nothing more than footprints left behind on the road already traveled.
Once my breathing steadied, the tightness in my chest eased completely.
Looking at Eun Ae-hyang, who was still holding me close, I murmured, “Hey, I’m fine now, so give me a little room.”
Otherwise, how am I supposed to hold you and confess later on?
Eun Ae-hyang stared blankly at my face for a moment, then turned toward Yeong Yeong. “He’ll be all right now.”
Hearing that, I looked at Yeong Yeong. She looked as though she were on the verge of tears.
“Junior Sister,” I said, “who on earth went and brought tears to our dear sister’s eyes?”
“…Orabeoni, are you really okay?”
To have my younger martial sister worrying over me—truly, a total failure as an elder brother.
To prove I was perfectly fine, I raised an arm and flexed my bicep. “As you can see, completely hale and hearty. Once you become an expert, you’ll be able to bounce back like this too.”
At that, Eun Ae-hyang chimed in. “My, so becoming an expert means you need a beauty like me to embrace you before you can come to your senses?”
“…What?”
“…What of it?”
“What do you mean, what of it?”
As the two of us resumed our usual bickering, the relief on Yeong Yeong’s face vanished entirely. Pouting with puffed-out cheeks, she marched over and demanded, “So, Sahyeong, is it true you have a way to find the White Rat Golden King?”
Ah, right. It isn’t over yet.
We still had to make the White Rat Golden King formally disband the gathering before the cultists and guide them to take refuge under Shaolin. To do that, we needed to track down the rat who had presumably scurried away.
After a moment’s thought, I gave a small nod. “I can’t say for certain, but I have a method that might just work.”
“What is it?”
“Before that, though…”
Putting the answer on hold, I looked around at the cultists strewn across the floor, their faces still pale with terror.
If finding the White Rat Golden King belonged to the future, then for now, I had to decide what to do with these people.
…Right. Just focus on the present. Only the present.