Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: The Witch's Past
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Once, I saw some strange being holding my friend's hand and leading her somewhere. I told her mother about it, but she just snorted. The next morning, my friend was found dead in the pond.
I also saw blood pouring from Uncle Wang's stomach in the village across the way. That afternoon, while he was loading firewood onto an ox's back, the ox that had eaten poisonous grass went berserk and gored him to death with its horns.
From some point on, the villagers would slink away whenever they saw Bing-seol. They feared she was possessed by a ghost.
The friends who used to splash around with her in the stream would sneak up to her house at night, throw stones, and run off.
"One day, some strangers came. My mother was crying in the kitchen, and they asked me how old I was. When I said seven, they handed seven silver taels to my father. I took their hands and followed them."
"Why didn't you say you didn't want to go?"
"I was young, but I knew. If I didn't go with them, things would get even harder for my mother and father."
"So you became a cultist of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult?"
"At first, I didn't even know what was happening. I followed these strangers, and there was this enormous house deep in the mountains. It was the biggest house I'd ever seen in my life. Later, I learned people called it the Heavenly Demon Palace."
From then on, she underwent training to become a shrine maiden. The first thing they made her do was live inside a large jar with a corpse. It was to sharpen her nerves by stimulating the primal emotion of fear.
Only by forging nerves sharper than human limits could one communicate with beings from beyond the world.
"The corpse was pickled in salt, a boy about five years old. At first, I was so scared I fainted several times, but one day, I saw the boy looking at me. That's when I started talking to him. I told him my name, where I lived."
Then one day, the boy spoke to her. His name was Wang Lung.
His stomach hurt so much he cried for days until he passed out from exhaustion, then woke to find his father carrying him on his back, wrapped in a mat, climbing the back mountain. His mother followed behind, sobbing uncontrollably, but wouldn't answer no matter how he called.
"He cried all day, saying he wanted to go back to his mom and dad. I told him he couldn't go back anymore. Instead, I sang him a song. It was one my father, the ferryman on the stream by our village, used to sing whenever he took me on his boat as a child."
After about a month like that, Wang Lung stopped speaking to her. She sensed he had gone to some unknowable distant world.
Around that time, people pulled her out of the jar. After that, they made her experience all sorts of bizarre, grotesque, and eerie things.
It was frightening, terrifying, and grueling, but there was nothing the young Bing-seol could do. That was how she became the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's shrine maiden.
"Don't you resent them?"
"That was my fate."
"You're obedient."
"It's just how things are."
She seemed utterly convinced that becoming the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's witch was her destiny. Life was a chain of uncertainties, so how could she be so sure?
"Does the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's shrine maiden know everything? Like, you can see a person's past at a glance, read their thoughts, something like that?"
"It's like observing the heavens and divining the weather from clouds or the air. When something major is about to happen to someone, an unknown aura forms around them. I just read it."
"An unknown aura?"
"It's hard to explain in words."
"So you're not reading what's going in and out of my head?"
"Yes."
Thank goodness. The thought of her knowing every secret in my heart would be chilling.
"Can I make it back to the Central Plains safely?"
"I can only see faint traces of things happening soon. I can't predict the distant future. But there's one thing I can tell you."
"What is it?"
"That day we met on the shipwreck wasn't coincidence. It was our destinies, set from birth, drawing us there when the time was ripe. And at the center is you, Young Master."
"What nonsense is that?"
"I'm not joking. You will become a supreme being, Young Master. To some, an object of fear; to others, of reverence."
"......!"
"The people we've met here will be the timber used for that time. Don't forget. They will become loyal subordinates who gladly lay down their lives for you. So for that moment, you must protect them now."
I was so flabbergasted I couldn't speak.
Me, who couldn't even snag a lowly village clerk position, becoming a supreme being feared and revered by people? Those headstrong fools becoming loyal subordinates who follow me like their own lives?
Not only would they never follow me, but even if they did, it wouldn't be welcome. I can barely keep myself alive—where would I find the spare energy to look after others?
'Maybe she's scamming me because of what I said last night, begging me not to abandon her? She dragged in the others to make it more believable.'
There's a saying in the jianghu: beware women and children. It means to guard against even the slightest suspicion.
'But she doesn't look like the type to scam anyone...'
Heuk Do-san's thoughts didn't go further. He stopped in his tracks. He'd spotted unfamiliar footprints under a reef in the middle of the beach.
Clear prints of four claws gripping the sand like talons—definitely a beast's.
The tracks were scattered messily behind the reef, then crossed the beach and vanished into the forest.
"So that's where it was."
Bing-seol said.
"What do you mean?"
"Last night, a pair of glowing blue eyes appeared on the beach and watched us all night, then disappeared into the forest at dawn. That must have been where it was crouching."
"Can you tell what it was?"
"It was pitch dark, so I couldn't see."
Heuk Do-san looked back at the footprints.
He couldn't claim to know every beast in the continent's mountains and fields.
But for a large animal leaving tracks this size, especially a beast with such sharp claws, he should be able to identify it.
Yet the tracks before him were unlike any he'd ever seen.
"Among the mercenaries I traveled with, there was an old hunter. He said ancient forests hold mystical energies, so if you stare at one long enough, eventually the forest speaks to you."
"......?"
"What else did you see?"
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you wake up early this morning and keep staring into the forest? I'm asking what else you saw there."
"......!"
"Why? Got some reason you can't say?"
"Danger is coming soon. Glowing blue eyes, razor-sharp teeth, skeletons picked clean, dead eagles... It's a hellscape. Far more terrifying than anything on the galley."
"A hellscape?"
"We need to prepare."
"How do we prepare?"
"That's for you to answer, Young Master. And lead us, just like you have until now."
* * *
Gong Cheon-ak sat on the sandy beach.
At his feet, atop a complex web of lines, lay hundreds of seashells and pebbles.
The lines showed the direction the ships had sailed, the shells marked the Righteous Alliance's front lines, and the stones the cult's.
It was a diagram of the battle lines spread across the sea off Shandong five days ago.
After moving shells and stones around for a while, he jabbed a stick into the spot where the meteor shower had concentrated.
The place where the Nine Heavens Illusion Grand Ancestral Formation's power had activated most strongly—the exact point where the galley vanished.
The problem was he couldn't shake the feeling that everything had gone exactly according to plan.
Bing-seol said the meteor shower was unplanned, but for some reason, the cult's formation masters hadn't sent support ships for shipboard combat there.
'Did they use me as a sacrifice...?'
There were plenty of reasons to sacrifice him. Or rather, people who would.
With twelve dragons encircling one throne, how could they not tear at each other?
'Why me, of all people?'
In rank, he was seventh; in martial prowess, third. Crucially, his straightforward, brutish nature had gotten him excluded from the succession war early on.
'I fought until my bones shattered...'
Days of loyalty to the cult flashed by like a panorama. Eliminating rivals, attacking officials, battling the emperor's armies. Wherever there was fighting, he charged in first. And achieved remarkable results.
No wonder the saying circulated: "The Seventh Star Lord is no material for cult leader, but whoever claims him can become one."
Yes.
He had always been the cult's loyal hunter. The dangerous, dirty work was always his lot. Unwittingly, he'd learned things he shouldn't have.
'When the hare dies, the hound is cooked...'
No.
It was too early to conclude.
No matter how he thought, there was no reason to eliminate him amid the war. Besides, wasn't it the cult's final battle for survival?
Just then, he spotted Heuk Do-san and Bing-seol approaching from afar. Gong Cheon-ak hurriedly rubbed out the battle diagram with his foot.
Returning to the campfire, he saw the ones digging sand pits and the sentries still sprawled asleep.
Only Gong Cheon-ak had been awake alone by the sea, now walking back to the fire.
Sensing his presence, Hyeon-gak and Yeom Jin-sang snapped awake.
Yeom Jin-sang quickly composed himself, lest Gong Cheon-ak notice he'd been sleeping on the job.
Dang Yak-ran was still snoring loudly.
"Where'd you go?"
Gong Cheon-ak asked Bing-seol.
"Just out for some air."
"Air?"
Gong Cheon-ak glared at Heuk Do-san with eyes full of suspicion. Yesterday Dang Yak-ran, today Bing-seol. What schemes was he up to?
Hearing the voices, Dang Yak-ran finally stirred, stretching with a massive yawn. She seemed to have completely forgotten the tense standoff on the ship, utterly nonchalant.
Then she spotted Heuk Do-san and Bing-seol standing side by side, arms full of conch shells, and narrowed her eyes.
'Now they're openly flirting.'
At that moment, Yeom Jin-sang patted himself down as if remembering something.
"What are you doing?"
Gong Cheon-ak asked.
"Nothing."
Nothing, when the Seventh Star Lord was questioning him?
Flames shot from Gong Cheon-ak's eyes.
Realizing his blunder too late, Yeom Jin-sang hurriedly explained.
"Actually, I set aside some clam meat for breakfast this morning, but it's completely gone."
Gong Cheon-ak scowled as fiercely as he could.
With the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's reputation at stake, stealing clam meat? He wanted to rip the man's mouth open right then.
But mindful of the misunderstanding and beating from last night, he held back.
'The cult's discipline has hit rock bottom.'
Meanwhile, Yeom Jin-sang thought to himself.
'Someone definitely stole it.'
Gong Cheon-ak was too high-ranking to rummage through subordinates' pockets for clam meat. Hyeon-gak, as seen last night, hadn't eaten meat even as his guts burned, out of monkish principles.
That left the two women and Heuk Do-san, but women seemed unlikely no matter how he thought.
'Come to think of it, that guy fell asleep first last night. And woke earliest this dawn...'
Yeom Jin-sang narrowed his eyes at Heuk Do-san.
Heuk Do-san glared back at Yeom Jin-sang.
'Why's that bastard glaring at me?'
"What's that?"
Gong Cheon-ak asked Bing-seol.
"Conch shells and crabs."
"Who doesn't know that?"
"Just wait a moment. I'll whip up breakfast right away."
Bing-seol filled conch shells with seawater, added two or three crabs each, and set them to boil over the campfire. She was copying what Heuk Do-san had done yesterday with the giant clam.
In no time, six crab stews were ready. Everyone gathered around the fire and ate.
No seasonings, just crabs boiled in seawater, but the stew tasted better than any delicacy.
"Monk, what have you been munching on alone since earlier?"
Heuk Do-san asked Hyeon-gak, who was crouched in a corner, busily crafting something while chewing away.
"Sea cucumbers."
"Sea cucumbers?"
"I went to piss, and they were all over the ground. Looked fresh enough, so I picked some up and ate them."
"Tsk tsk tsk. Picking up anything off the road and shoving it in your mouth. Beggar or monk? Make up your mind."
Gong Cheon-ak picked a needless fight.
"I'm busy. Don't bother me."
Hyeon-gak surprisingly let it slide.
Heuk Do-san glanced at Bing-seol.
She must have noted where Hyeon-gak relieved himself, then "accidentally" led him there.
With Gong Cheon-ak watching, a Demonic Cultist couldn't openly fetch food for a righteous faction member. It was surely repayment for Heuk Do-san infusing yanggang qi to save his life.
Feeling Heuk Do-san's gaze, Bing-seol grew embarrassed. To change the subject, she quickly asked Hyeon-gak.
"What have you been making since earlier?"
Hyeon-gak faltered slightly.
They'd spent days together, but this was the first time the witch had spoken to him first. He didn't like it, but since she'd asked, he'd explain.
"I'm making a wooden fish."
"What's that?"
"Long ago, a high monk had a mischievous disciple. The rascal skipped practice for all sorts of nonsense and died young."
"And then?"
"Later, the monk was crossing the sea by boat when a whale with a tree growing on its back approached, weeping. The monk used his karmic vision and saw it was his dead disciple reborn as a fish due to past karma, tormented whenever the wind blew because of the tree on its back."
"Oh my, so what happened?"
"Pitying him, the monk held a water-land repentance rite to free him from the fish's body. The next night, the disciple appeared in a dream, begging the monk to cut the tree from his back, carve it into a fish shape, place it before the Buddha, and strike it. So that when practitioners struck it, they could guard against wandering thoughts."
"Ah, so that's the story. But why specifically a fish shape?"
"Fish have no eyelids; they sleep with eyes open. It's a reminder that practitioners must always stay alert. There, it's done."
Hyeon-gak turned around.
A mysterious object emerged: the tip of a conch shell with small holes punched in both ends.
Suddenly, Hyeon-gak picked up a stick and began tapping it rhythmically.
The mood chilled instantly. He could have just said he was making a wooden fish—why the long-winded tale?
Heuk Do-san brushed the sand off his rear and stood.
"Once we've eaten our fill, let's get moving."