The Women's Flower Garden
The world held many famous mountains besides Mount Song.
One of them was Mount Emei, and we stood at the foot of the path that climbed it.
I had been saddled with yet another solemn infiltration job, yet Ilhong's face looked strangely light.
"Eheheh, eheheh."
Her steps were light as feathers; she all but bounced her way up the slope. It was the look of someone who had finally cast off a heavy set of shackles—brimming with life and energy.
Having discarded her male disguise and returned to her original, lovely female attire (so to speak), she let her short bob dance in the wind as if she were simply out to enjoy a mountain stroll.
Lucky the Emei Sect of this Murim leans Daoist and doesn't shave its heads. Otherwise that sunny expression of hers would look a lot gloomier right about now.
"Troubleshooter friend, once you're inside Emei, take good care of Gihyo and Jeongyo for me."
I had decided to be friends again with Hye-yul Sinni, who had guided us this far.
She did have that slightly alarming inclination—being a woman who desired other women—but set that aside and she was a remarkably free-spirited, cheerful heroine. We even clicked when we talked.
"Still, it's a shame. Having to send you off like this. If only I had a little more time…"
She eyed Ilhong and smacked her lips as if regretting that she hadn't managed to "deepen their friendship."
Scratch that whole thing about us clicking. She's clearly not right in the head.
"Hey. You said you like women, right? Get a grip. She may look pretty, but she's a guy."
At the moment, Ilhong was in the dizzyingly complicated state of a man in male disguise who had then put on female clothes again.
"Hmm, really? That cross-dressing looks way too natural. I could honestly believe she's a real woman."
She stroked her slender chin, half-convinced, half not. Leave it to her particular tastes—her instincts were sharp enough.
Then she studied Ilhong's upper body carefully and nodded as if satisfied.
"But yeah, since she's a man for real… nothing there."
Thankfully, Ilhong was too busy taking in the mountain path to hear that remark.
Next, Hye-yul Sinni's gaze slid languidly up and down my own carefully made-up female form. Softened jawline from the human-skin mask, rounded features, shoulders and torso narrowed by the Bone Contraction Technique. When my long black hair stirred in the breeze, the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Mmm. Androgynous charm. That might work just fine on its own…"
I have no idea what this lunatic keeps deciding is 'possible.'
The appearance of an apex predator who made no distinction between men and women sent a faint chill down my spine.
"Both of you were handsome to begin with, so dressed up like this you're something else. Rare talent even inside Emei."
"Back off a little."
I shoved her face away as she closed in without so much as asking. Maybe becoming friends again had been a mistake. The woman had zero sense of personal space—and it had only gotten worse after she grew her hair long and dressed herself up so prettily.
"Abbot Beopseong, is this really how a cultivator of the Way is supposed to act? Say something to her."
I turned toward the Abbot of Shaolin with a look that said, You took her in, so manage her.
"This humble monk respects the diversity of his patrons."
But the Abbot, who had humbly called himself a "humble monk," drew a firm line—it was each person's inclination, and he would not interfere. All phenomena in the universe, he insisted, were never fixed, always changing, taking countless forms; so of course such things could be. Watching that boundlessly open-minded take on love, a recent incident floated up unbidden.
"Abbot, do you happen to know a certain monk who sneaks out of Shaolin in the dead of night to court a lady halfway up the mountain?"
At my sudden question, the Abbot's eyelids twitched, just slightly.
"…Amitabha."
Judging by the reaction, he knew perfectly well. Unlike Hwang Geolgae, who practiced pure neglect, the Abbot simply refrained from intervening in Shaolin's affairs—he still kept an eye on them.
"Does the patron know that Shaolin monk's identity?"
"Of course I do. It's Arhat Beopgwang, isn't it? The next power behind Shaolin, or so I hear. That confession the other night was painfully cringeworthy."
I clicked my tongue and shot the Abbot a meaningful look that asked why, knowing all this, he simply left it alone.
Abbot Beopseong gazed up at the unusually blue sky for a moment, then spoke in a slow voice.
"A person's heart is like a flowing river. Dam it up and you only raise a greater spray. One can only let it run its natural course."
The seething love between man and woman, he said, was something even the Buddha's teachings could not easily guide; when the time came it would fade of its own accord, and until then he was simply waiting.
"And I have already spoken with the lady halfway up the mountain."
He had apologized in case it caused her any trouble, and Song Ryeong had agreed to understand. Of course, even Song Ryeong probably hadn't accounted for the kind of night when raw emotion would come storming up the slope unannounced.
"Lady Song Ryeong is a woman of sound judgment. She will handle it carefully so no one is hurt."
Never mind that the whole thing already blew up the night before last.
For the sake of that thoroughly rejected monk's face, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
"And Patron Dan—you still have a long climb to Emei. Take this with you."
The Abbot, who had accompanied us all the way to the foot of Mount Emei, held out a rather heavy pouch with a kindly face.
"What's this?"
I took the pouch and opened it. Inside were plenty of baked wheat cakes with the moisture driven out, dried meat, and drinking water.
"From the look of things, the patron has a rather extraordinary appetite. You did not come here to practice austerities, so eat well along the way."
As expected of the Abbot. Among all the Shaolin monks, I had never met a bigger man. Truly a good person.
"You judge people way too much by food, Boss."
Ilhong had sidled up at some point and tossed the line out while sniffing the dried meat.
"So what? It's a habit from my beggar days."
I shrugged. Knowing how to give for others' sake was already a sign of a good person, wasn't it?
I looked at the Abbot, who had gone out of his way to come this far, and spoke again.
"But is it really all right for someone of the Abbot's stature to leave Shaolin empty?"
The Abbot of Shaolin answered with a faint smile.
"Patron, this humble monk is always empty."
"…Ah."
I scratched my chin.
So that's why everyone was so shocked when the Abbot showed up at the lay disciples' sparring matches.
Whether it was Hwang Geolgae or Beopseong, those who had awakened to the Way and cultivated the Buddhist path were oddly alike. Perhaps because only by leaving the secular world and its afflictions behind could one transcend karma.
But the way Beopseong was looking at me felt strange—pitying and sorrowful, as if he felt sorry for a wayward sentient being.
"I took the liberty of reading the patron's face and destiny. No matter how I look at it, the patron is fated to live a harsh life."
"…"
My appetite vanished on the spot. I set down the dried meat in my hand.
"Surely the life you have lived until now has already been difficult—but from here on it will only grow more so. Bear that in mind."
I wanted to deny it by shouting that physiognomy was garbage, but after everything I had already been through, the thing that nested in my skull, and the profound qi glimmering in the monk's eyes, I couldn't dismiss it so easily.
"Even if a cruel fate tries to drag the patron to ruin, you must endure stubbornly and resist."
Please stop spoiling my life.
Could he actually read the heavenly secrets? Had he followed us all this way just to deliver that warning—that my life was harsh, so be careful?
"D-do you… see something in me?"
"Dimly. Very faintly… That is all this humble monk can see."
How much dharma power did you have to amass before something like that became visible? It sounded as if he had opened the Heavenly Eye. As if he already had one foot planted in the Pure Land beyond this world.
"Strive, as you always have, and never give up. With the patron… perhaps you may yet overcome that cruel fate."
Something distant in his voice made it feel as if someone higher still were speaking through the high monk's mouth.
I fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes. That was already my plan. Fate or no fate—should a person really be tossed around by something like that?"
I had never believed in that sort of thing much to begin with. Following only a path already laid out was no longer the life of a living person. I vowed once more that I would not be swayed by any baleful star, and that I would carve out a trajectory of my own.
Heh heh… No use… You think this lady hasn't tried…?
Something crimson flickered and sneered. Salsung, negative about everything as always, was predicting my failure—but I wasn't buying a word of it.
"Then just trust me and wait. I'll handle this perverted Emei friend's request myself."
At the word "perverted," Hye-yul Sinni bristled and jumped.
With Abbot Beopseong seeing us off—wondering, no doubt, what about me still weighed on his mind even after coming so far—I began the climb up Mount Emei.
In the Sect Leader's quarters of the Emei Sect, the dawn air seeping through the window cracks only sharpened the chill.
Here, where the surrounding mountains and streams showed dimly through the light like a single ink-wash painting, two women who had once gone to Beijing on the Sect Leader's orders to place a request—Gihyo and Jeongyo—knelt side by side on one knee.
"Have you found the woman who betrayed our trust and fled with Emei's sacred relic?"
Hyein Satae's frigid voice filled the chamber.
Her bearing, refined by polished martial arts, still carried an elegant poise—but the coldness within it was sharper than ever before.
"That is… still…"
Gihyo opened her mouth hesitantly. Both Emei women bowed their heads, faces mixed with deep worry and unease.
"From what we could learn, that troubleshooter seems to have gone completely silent."
He had last been sighted in Henan Province. Far from finding Hye-yul Sinni, he himself had vanished without a trace. They had heard he had never failed a single request—so why, of all times, did it have to happen on theirs?
Guilt pressed in. Gihyo and Jeongyo bit their lips hard.
"Ha."
Without so much as a twitch of her facial muscles, Hyein Satae snorted as if they were pathetic.
That icy sneer left the two women with a sense of something alien—and a chill running down their spines.
"Tsk. I shouldn't have trusted him."
The moment the words left her mouth, Hyein Satae swept her sleeves and strode out through the door. White robes billowed in the wind; the sharp slam of the door opening and shutting rang through the quarters.
Gihyo and Jeongyo were frozen stiff, unable to move for a long moment. Only when they finally looked at each other did they let out weary breaths.
"She's… different somehow…"
Gihyo broke the silence first, a dejected look on her face. The coldness the Sect Leader had left behind seemed to pace the room.
"I know. Honestly, it's like she's a completely different…"
A different person. In the past, even when she scolded them harshly for bungling a task, warmth had still lived underneath. Now it felt as if they were facing someone else entirely.
"Could what Hye-yul Sinni told us actually have been true…?"
Jeongyo's voice scattered on the wind.
Those suspicions were exactly what Hye-yul Sinni had desperately pleaded with them about before she fled. At the time they had shaken their heads and driven her words away as nonsense. Now, recalling the woman they themselves had once led the charge to cast out, an unnameable anxiety began to take hold of them.
As the Emei Sect drew near, the mountain air grew even clearer—as if some ineffable, numinous immortal energy were circling this peak.
"But Boss, they both just believed me without any fuss when I said I was a man?"
Ilhong had claimed with her own mouth that she was male, and when both of them accepted it so readily on the way up, she seemed to have gotten a little sulky about it.
I followed the line of Hye-yul Sinni's earlier gaze and casually scanned Ilhong's upper body.
"…What was that look just now?"
"Nothing."
I mumbled it away, but Ilhong seemed to catch on.
"It's because I wrapped bandages for the whole 'cross-dressing man' setting, okay…?"
"Right, right. Of course."
I tried to brush it off. Whatever the truth was, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to carrying out the request.
"…Gah! I'm serious!"
When words failed her, Ilhong started thumping my back—tap-tap, then thump-thump. Hitting an adult? Her hands had gotten terribly bad habits.
Bickering like that, we arrived at the main gate of the Emei Sect. A lofty plaque looked down on us from its proud height.
"Welcome. The Emei Sect greets its new lay disciples."
And what spread out before our eyes was exactly that—
a secret flower garden of women, where no man was allowed to set foot.