Ascending to Immortality (1)
Chapter 3. Ascending to Immortality (1).
Ssssss...... ssss......
Jiang Zhou was whittling a dried pine log into thin splinters by hand.
When he twisted a thick branch apart, the white flesh inside split away like tender meat, exposing the pale grain.
It was a truly terrifying display of grip strength.
"For getting rid of the gamey taste."
Gathering up the slender pine splinters, Jiang Zhou headed for the kitchen.
"Get the fire going, Samryong."
Yang Jeong sidled into the kitchen, warily watching his senior's mood.
See? I knew Big Brother secretly likes me.
The best thing about his master-in-all-but-name, he'd long decided, was that beneath that filthy temper he held no grudges. Even after beating Yang Jeong to a pulp, the man had always made sure he was fed.
Jiang Zhou gave the meat a quick sear, then brought out the mushrooms he'd hung up to dry and began to cook.
Yang Jeong, who had been quietly watching him work, finally spoke up.
"Master plans to ascend to immortality, yet you mean to stay here, Big Brother?"
Tak..! Tak.....!
Jiang Zhou answered as he stretched the noodles thin between both hands.
"Are you insane? Staying here? The second he's gone, I'm out of here without so much as a backward glance."
"Then come live in my household. I will serve you for the rest of my life."
Truly, no brothers could be more devoted.
Or so it sounded—until Jiang Zhou sneered at him.
"So you can put me to work cooking at your escort agency for the rest of my days? You think I don't see straight through that scheming little head of yours?"
Hehehe............
Yang Jeong laughed awkwardly.
In fairness, it wasn't as if he had no such scheme at all.
He had eaten at countless inns in his time, but not one of them could hold a candle to the food here—and that was with a menu of little more than noodles, rice, and Dongpo pork.
Even the Dongpo pork wasn't the authentic article; only its shape came close.
And yet every dish of it was a taste of heaven he'd never encountered anywhere else.
"Big Brother, you twist my sincere intentions far too badly."
"Shut up, you brat."
While the two of them bickered, their master made his appearance.
"Done yet? I'm starving—bring it out."
Without waiting for an answer, he settled into a chair.
At his prodding, Jiang Zhou barked out in exasperation.
"Then sit still and wait, Master!"
At his disciple's flaring temper, the old man clicked his tongue.
Tsk...
"Ah, that boy. That temper of his..."
Yang Jeong lifted a spoonful of rice, glistening with steam, to his mouth.
Ahh......
The moment the rice met his teeth, admiration spilled out of him unbidden.
Even the rice here tasted different from anywhere else. The springy texture, the softness that bloomed with every chew, the faint, lingering sweetness—he could not have found them anywhere in the world.
Having savored the rice, he put a piece of Dongpo pork in his mouth and marveled yet again.
Ahh.....
The bouncy skin, the burst of meat juices from within, the tenderness laced through with just enough resistance—it was enough to send a man into rapture.
"Chew quietly, would you."
At Jiang Zhou's irritation, Yang Jeong hurried to flatter him.
"It's simply been so long since I last tasted your cooking that I cannot keep my composure."
"Long, my foot. You were here just last month."
Hehe.........
"Well, that is true."
With a sheepish grin, he picked up some noodles with his chopsticks. The mere feel of them between the sticks told him how extraordinary these noodles were.
Slurp....
Yang Jeong shoved the noodles into his mouth, lost to the world.
The broth was clean and restrained, carrying a subtle whisper of pine, and the noodles themselves were chewy beyond reproach.
Just as he was eating himself into a daze, his master spoke.
"For dinner, I find myself wanting eel."
Tak..
Mid-meal, Jiang Zhou shot his master a look of sheer disbelief.
A sizable stream ran down through the valley beside the mountain, and it had once teemed with good-sized eels.
But after a dozen-odd years of the old man catching and eating them, finding one of decent girth had become nearly impossible.
"Really, Master. You're about to ascend to immortality—why go hunting for eel? Shouldn't a man ascending to the immortals be dining on pine needles and grass leaves?"
The old master took the rebuke with perfect composure.
"Starve to death before I ascend, you fool? What madman ever reached the immortals on pine needles and grass alone?"
Jiang Zhou had no answer to that.
He had only ever heard such stories secondhand, so he'd simply assumed that was how it was done.
Seeing his disciple struck silent, the master flashed a mischievous smile.
"This master intends to eat every last thing he craves before ascending, I'll have you know."
After the meal, the master emerged from the back room carrying a large chest.
Inside lay several swords and a single document.
He picked out one longsword and held it out to Jiang Zhou.
"This sword is yours."
That longsword was an inheritance the master passed to his disciple—one that could never be refused.
"I refuse it, Master."
And yet Jiang Zhou refused the old man's inheritance flatly.
Because he knew exactly what that longsword looked like.
"You would dare refuse your master's legacy?"
The master's face crumpled as he flared up like a wildfire—and Jiang Zhou snatched the sword from his hand, drew it out, and looked.
Shing....!
As the blade slid free of its scabbard, a straight, pitch-black blade was revealed.
The longsword's outward appearance was as unremarkable as any other blade's.
But the steel beneath was blackened, as though it had been scorched in a furnace.
"What am I supposed to do with a sword like this, Master?"
As Jiang Zhou held it up and pressed him roughly, the master put on a look of studied dignity.
"That sword is a treasure of the immortals, once wielded by the Venerable Taishang Laojun himself when he tended the flames of the Eight Trigrams Furnace."
"Taishang Laojun, my foot. Isn't it just a fire poker you used to jab around in the stove?"
"Why, you insolent..........."
The master, about to explode in fury, instead waved his hand dismissively.
"In any case, it is what your master gives his disciple. Use it well, and one day pass it down to a disciple or child of your own."
Tsk......
Jiang Zhou grumbled under his breath, but accepted the sword.
"Is there nothing for me, Master?"
Yang Jeong, who had been quietly observing from the side, piped up without warning. In response, the master picked out one plausible-looking longsword and handed it over.
"Here, take it, boy."
Receiving the longsword, Yang Jeong grinned so wide his mouth all but reached his ears.
It was quite flashy on the outside, and looked every bit the famous blade.
Shing.....!
He drew it, and a clean white blade flashed and gleamed in the light.
"Thank you, Master. I will use it well and hand it down as a family treasure."
The master nodded, then gestured to the two remaining swords and a single saber.
"These swords and this saber are to go to whoever fate binds them to. If no such person appears, give them to your children or disciples, whichever."
Finally, the master lifted the document.
"Are you not curious what's inside?"
"No, Master. I am not."
At Jiang Zhou's clipped answer, the master's expression warped ever so slightly.
"And why, pray tell, would you not be curious?"
Jiang Zhou set down his chopsticks and stared at his master.
"Have you gone senile, Master? How many times have you told me there's a land deed in there?"
The old man had already made something like a final testament half a year ago, and two months ago he had delivered the exact same one again.
That land deed had been a token of gratitude from an old man whose life the master had once saved—and he had repeated, over and over, that the land sat near the Murim Alliance Headquarters.
Kuhum......!
Embarrassed, the master shoved the document back into the chest.
"For dinner, I would like to share a drink along with that eel."
At those words, Yang Jeong leapt in at once.
"An excellent idea, Master. I have been awaiting the moment you would say exactly that."
The liquor served here was no ordinary swill.
Neither, of course, was it any overpriced bottle of Yoja Seolgok.
The liquor of this place was a supreme elixir without equal in this world.
But Jiang Zhou's voice cut straight through his desperate hopes.
"Master. You're about to ascend to immortality—why drink that liquor again? Are you aiming for ascension, or for turning back the years?"
Hahh......
Yang Jeong sank into his seat with a sigh as if the whole world had gone dark.
Then Jiang Zhou turned on him and rounded on him hard.
"Your tolerance is worn clean through, and you still want more, you little glutton? Do you have any idea how many elixirs you've secretly stolen and stuffed into that belly of yours?"
".........I'm sorry, Big Brother."
Yang Jeong had no choice but to bow his head low.
Just as his brother said, these days even elixirs only made his strength surge for a fleeting moment before fading.
Two years of staying here, and he had swiped and devoured herbs and liquor a good five or six times—until his tolerance had run dry for good.
"Big Brother. Still, if Master says he wants to drink....."
"Are you trying to die, Samryong?"
"My name is Yang Jeong, not Samryong, I keep telling you."
Yang Jeong stuck his lips out in a pout.
That he was called Samryong instead of his own name was entirely the master's doing.
Yang Jeong had been frail as a child.
Worried for his son, his father had hired a skilled tattooist to ink three dragons into the boy's body.
It was a prayer that he might be strong and long-lived as a dragon.
Perhaps that desperate wish had worked, for the boy grew up without a single serious illness.
But after leaving home, he had crossed paths with horse thieves and been pushed to the very brink of death.
By great fortune, Jiang Zhou had saved his life—though he'd been so delirious, slipping in and out of his senses, that he couldn't even manage to give his own name.
The only thing he could remember from those days was an old man's voice.
"Did I not tell you never to drag in whatever strays you find outside?"
"I'm sorry, Master."
The instant he heard the old man's voice, Yang Jeong had blacked out completely.
When he next opened his eyes, the first face he saw was Jiang Zhou's, and the second was the master's.
"So you've come back to your senses, thank the heavens. What is your name, and where do you hail from?"
At the master's question, Yang Jeong had opened his mouth to answer.
But no matter what his heart willed, his lips would not move.
Uuuuh.........
Nothing but groans of pain slipped past his teeth.
Tsk, tsk...
Clicking his tongue, the master had declared:
"Three dragons on his body, eh? Then Samryong—he shall be called Samryong for the time being."
And so he became Samryong, not Yang Jeong.
Now the master turned to Jiang Zhou with a face of feigned solemnity.
"This may be the last drink this master ever takes in this world—must you nag at me even now?"
Jiang Zhou did not yield an inch.
"That's already the tenth time you've said it."
At that, the master's expression transformed into one of pure, pleading desperation.
"Just three cups. Three, and not one more. Look the other way this once."
With the old man begging like that, Jiang Zhou's resolve could hardly hold.
"Fine. But exactly three cups. Not one more."
The moment Jiang Zhou relented, the ever-watchful Yang Jeong jumped in.
"Big Brother, I will have just one cup as well."
Aigoo......
"You revolting little leech."
Three days had slipped past in just that fashion.
"What a gloriously radiant day. If I do not ascend to the immortals today, when ever shall I do so?"
Repeating the same refrain he'd droned every day, the master suddenly tilted his head back to gaze at the sky.
Yesterday and the day before, the heavens had been high and blue—but today they looked higher and bluer still.
No—so impossibly blue that it felt as though his own body was being pulled up into them.
Good. Very good.
Beneath a faint, hazy smile, the master called for his disciple.
"Jo-ya."
"What is it?"
Jiang Zhou appeared with his usual curt reply.
Any other day, the old man might have shown a flicker of displeasure at that brusqueness. Not today.
Wearing a gentle smile, he spoke in a voice gone soft.
"The cub who once breathed nothing but a beast's killing intent has grown into a fine young man. What will you do, once this old man is gone?"
The master had been worrying over Jiang Zhou's future all this time.
Perhaps that worry had become a weight upon his heart—the very reason he had put off his ascension so long.
"I have a knack for cooking, so I mean to try running an inn."
Only then did relief bloom across the master's face.
His disciple was very different from other people.
Even the most vicious of killers hesitated, in some corner of their hearts, at the thought of harming others.
His disciple had no such hesitation at all.
"The memories we most wish to forget are the ones that refuse to fade. This old man hopes you will gather only joyful memories from here on."
The master's rambling was utterly unlike his usual self.
And that was what troubled Jiang Zhou.
"I will not be drawing a sword, Master. Not first, at least."
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, the master smiled and nodded.
"That will be enough for this old man."