The Daoist's Desperate Gamble
Myo-rin dropped into a sudden five-point prostration. The sheer force of her kowtow left everyone in the room stunned into silence. She had seemed the sort of female Daoist who would coldly and haughtily list her demands one by one, so no one had expected this.
Namgung Woo recovered his composure first. Unlike the other three, who were complete strangers to her, he had already sensed her presence. As the representative of the group, he also bore the weight of responsibility and possessed the formidable mental fortitude that came with his lofty cultivation.
In any case, Namgung Woo looked down at the female Daoist and considered what to ask first. Unlike during the earlier standoff, he made no move to help her rise. He had not yet set aside his suspicions about her.
"I don't even know where to begin…"
Namgung Woo pulled over a nearby chair and sat down, avoiding the burdensome sight of her prostration.
"I'll listen. We have time."
The survivor of the Namgung Family was in Luoyang. One might wonder how he could afford to linger here when he could lose his life to the Dokgo Family's pursuit order at any moment, but what Jegal Chong had told Namgung Woo was not merely that the survivor existed.
'Apparently, the Dokgo Family has chosen to turn a blind eye to that survivor alone.'
The reason was unknown. Yet Jegal Chong had said that the Namgung survivor had not hidden his origins, and although the Murim Alliance had later moved to conceal the information for his protection, it had already reached the Dokgo Family's ears beforehand. Even so, the Dokgo Family had not acted. Not even after all this time. Therefore, there was no need to worry for the time being.
"And lift your head first. I have no desire to converse while you're in that position."
"Yes!"
Whoosh—!
As though Namgung Woo's words were a divine command, Myo-rin jerked her head up with startling force. The motion was so violent that Namgung Woo worried her neck might snap. Facing her properly for the first time, he slowly examined her appearance.
'Her eyes… they're unusual.'
At a glance she looked no different from anyone else, but her level was too low to deceive Changnyeongmanan. The anomaly was clear to him.
'She can leap through space without any prior preparation. It isn't strange that her eyes would be different as well.'
Paeng Ha-ryeong's eyes had a slight upward tilt, but Myo-rin's were unmistakably feline. Combined with her sharp, pointed eyes were a straight nose and somewhat thin lips. Though her features differed in texture, she was a beauty who did not fall short of Paeng Ha-ryeong, whose appearance had unconsciously become Namgung Woo's standard of beauty.
Just as Namgung Woo finished appraising Myo-rin's looks, she parted her lips.
"My name is Myo-rin."
With that introduction, the female Daoist Myo-rin's story began.
§
As her attire suggested, Myo-rin was a Daoist—a female Daoist commonly called a seonja. Paeng Ha-ryeong kept doubting whether such a frivolous woman could truly be a Daoist, but it was true. Myo-rin was a genuine female Daoist, and moreover, the successor of a prestigious Daoist lineage with deep history and orthodoxy.
Her lineage was so ancient that explaining it required going back to the Southern Song dynasty. During the Southern Song, Wang Chongyang founded the Quanzhen Sect by incorporating Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism and blending the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. The Quanzhen Sect grew rapidly by reducing its reliance on spells and establishing a proper system for cultivating martial arts. Later, during the Yuan dynasty, the Seven Disciples of Wang Chongyang split the sect into seven factions. After internal strife over the Quanzhen legacy, the factions fell one by one until the name Quanzhen Sect vanished into the annals of history—except for the Huashan Sect, the final victor of the Quanzhen civil war.
According to common knowledge, the Huashan Sect was the only surviving successor of the Quanzhen teachings. Yet another branch had endured.
"The Qingjing Sect, founded by Sun Bu'er—the only woman among Zhongyangzi's disciples—lost all its power, but its teachings have been passed down through a single successor without interruption. And the current successor is…"
"You?"
"Yes."
The Qingjing Sect had been destroyed by the internal conflict among the disciples of the founder. To avoid repeating the Quanzhen Sect's mistakes, they chose the path of single-successor transmission to eliminate all risk. To survive, they also restored the spells that Wang Chongyang had once removed from the teachings. Thus the Qingjing Sect was reborn as a mystical Daoist sect whose single successor mastered both spells and martial arts.
"And… my master was a member of Gudomujung."
"So you asked me to spare you because of that?"
"…No. If that were all, I wouldn't have been worried. Gudomujung is highly individualistic; even the leaders can't properly manage their own members. I doubt they even knew I was my master's disciple."
"Then?"
At Namgung Woo's question, Myo-rin's mouth, which had answered without hesitation until now, stopped for the first time. Her hesitation stemmed from fear. She worried that speaking these words might be an irreversible choice leading to her own destruction. Yet she had already summoned the tiger named Namgung Woo. Even if she now claimed it was nothing and told him to leave, the tiger that had taken interest would not turn away. If she wished to escape its powerful forelegs and sharp fangs, her only option was to climb onto its back.
Myo-rin clenched her teeth and steeled her resolve. There was no guarantee she would survive if she did nothing, so whether she prospered or perished, she would leave it to heaven and take the gamble.
"…I helped Lee Ja-ryong."
The atmosphere in the room, which had been loosening, instantly grew taut again. Myo-rin felt the gazes upon her turn, for the first time—or perhaps even more violently than before—hostile. Honestly, if it had only been the Yang brothers or Paeng Ha-ryeong, she would not have been concerned. Even if they drew their swords, she was confident she could shake them off and escape. But Namgung Woo was different. The moment he decided, her own neck would declare independence from its master. Myo-rin realized she had stepped onto a tightrope. One misstep and she would fall to her death.
"Explain in detail."
Namgung Woo's voice rang out coldly. True qi laced his words, filling the room through sound waves. This was no mere display of power. It was a measure to block Myo-rin's escape routes. Unlike martial arts that operated through one's own inner energy, spells manipulated external qi as well. With so much foreign true qi mixed into the air, no spell could function properly. Having fought spellcasters like Lee Ja-ryong and Dongbang Hwa, Namgung Woo had already internalized how to combat them.
Under the crushing sense of mortal danger, Myo-rin forced her voice out and added an explanation.
"Lee Ja-ryong commissioned me. He asked me to place the Danbaek Stone where he indicated… In exchange, he promised to give me the lost manual that the Cheongjeong Sect had been searching for."
"Using the spell that lets you cross space?"
"…That's correct. Lee Ja-ryong must have sought me out precisely for that ability. With the power to traverse space, he could complete the task without anyone noticing and in an extremely short time."
Myo-rin recalled how Lee Ja-ryong had contacted her. Unlike her master, she had wandered wherever her heart led without settling anywhere. Lee Ja-ryong had found her nonetheless. He knew exactly how to summon the successor of the Cheongjeong Sect.
"Perhaps Lee Ja-ryong joined Gudomujung from the very beginning with my master in mind… He wasn't particularly close to any other members of Gudomujung besides my master… He was after the power passed down through our lineage… to prepare for the day he would rebel in Beijing…"
Myo-rin's words were less an explanation than a muttered analysis of the past. Yet they carried enough conviction to make Namgung Woo entertain similar thoughts.
"…Even so, the fact that you helped Lee Ja-ryong remains unchanged."
"That's right! Do you know what happened to Beijing? How many people died and were injured… What on earth were you thinking—?!"
"I didn't know!"
Myo-rin cried out, cutting off Paeng Ha-ryeong's fierce interrogation. Her two clenched hands resting on her knees trembled violently.
"I didn't know the Danbaek Stone would be used for that. I thought the idea of summoning Gvimon was nonsense to begin with. Something like that couldn't possibly be possible. A human summoning Gvimon… I just thought it was for eavesdropping or surveillance. Since he had entrenched himself in the imperial court, I assumed he wanted to uncover the weaknesses of high officials…"
"'I didn't know'… That single flippant remark doesn't make this any less serious!"
Paeng Ha-ryeong and Myo-rin argued. Though it could hardly be called an argument when Paeng Ha-ryeong attacked unilaterally, Myo-rin did not simply endure it; she tried her best to defend herself and refute Paeng Ha-ryeong's words. Namgung Woo, however, had no interest in the women's quarrel. Of course, he felt pity for those who had died or been injured. He also felt human compassion for those dying before his eyes and righteous anger toward the monstrous individuals who killed them. Yet he felt no particular empathy for the fury over a rebellion aimed at overthrowing the imperial family, nor for the suffering of people he had never met.
What troubled Namgung Woo far more was not whether Myo-rin had knowingly aided Lee Ja-ryong's rebellion, but the part about Lee Ja-ryong joining Gudomujung specifically to obtain the power of the Cheongjeong Sect. Namgung Woo recalled the memories he had glimpsed from Lee Ja-ryong on the day he killed him with his own hands. Lee Ja-ryong's true name was Ju Gyeon-je—the cousin of the current emperor, Seonghwa Emperor, and the only son of the previous emperor, Gyeongtae Emperor. How had Ju Gyeon-je, who was said to have died at the age of six, become the fearsome spellcaster Lee Ja-ryong? When Gudomujung was identified as Lee Ja-ryong's affiliation, Namgung Woo had assumed they had raised him. Yet Myo-rin testified that Lee Ja-ryong had joined Gudomujung only after he had already grown into a spellcaster. If even Gudomujung was not the power behind Lee Ja-ryong's growth… then who had created him?