Hyein Satae
The dawn mist clinging to the Emei Sect's mountain gates began to lift, and warm sunlight slanted down across the peaks.
Beneath summits that seemed to brush the clouds, the great main gate was already thronged with prospective lay disciples gathered from every corner of the land.
I gave my long black hair — a sensation still utterly foreign to me — a light flick and slowly took in the surroundings.
The scenery and atmosphere here were unmistakably different from Shaolin. For one thing, instead of the stuffy crush of men packed shoulder to shoulder, this place was filled only with women — brighter, somehow, almost radiant.
"There are more people than I expected, Sister Muhong."
"……."
I flinched at the word sister rolling so casually off Ilhong's tongue.
The cover we had settled on for this infiltration was that we were actual sisters. It struck me all over again just how many bizarre experiences a single job could force a man through.
Once I'd had to play up to a man-loving pervert with another guy. Now I was cross-dressing and sneaking into a sanctuary that forbade men entirely.
"Geumhong, stop clinging."
A husky, androgynous voice — the product of herbal medicine swelling my vocal cords.
Free at last of the male disguise that had felt like shackles, Ilhong was hanging off me with a face that said she was finally living her best life. I gave her a light shove.
"Oh, come on. What's wrong with two girls being close?"
"You scare me sometimes, Seo Geumhong."
After working enough undercover jobs with her, I had learned something: this former Haomu Gate agent adapted faster than anyone. Already she was performing the unbreakable bond of devoted sisters, clamping onto my arm as if she meant to fuse us together.
"Sister Seo Muhong, we've been waiting forever to enter the Emei Sect — why that face? Smile. Come on, smile."
Mischief glittered in her pure, sunny grin.
"……You're actually enjoying this, aren't you?"
Whoever claimed that cross-dressing was a manly act needed to be found and educated.
With every step my hair swayed and my skirts fluttered. Goosebumps rose all over me; the whole thing was pure misery.
Once we got inside we would change into training robes and things would improve, but for now we were playing the part of refined daughters from a wealthy house who had come to train as lay disciples — so the frills stayed.
"Well, damn. It's finally starting to feel real, what we're about to do."
I muttered it while watching the line of women filing through the main gate grow shorter. On either side, Emei martial artists armed with spears and swords welcomed the new arrivals.
"Not 'well, damn.' At a moment like this you say, 'Oh my.' Sister."
"……."
Ilhong covered her mouth with one hand and delivered the line with exaggerated flair.
"Now you try. Oh myyy—"
They always said raising subordinates was a waste of effort. The moment the space ahead of me emptied, I ignored her completely and strode forward.
"Hey! Boss, that's cheating!"
Ilhong blurted out "Boss" by accident and scrambled after me in a panic.
"Those who have come to receive Emei's teachings, please form orderly ranks here."
A spear-bearing Emei martial artist called out in a calm, clear voice.
Women gathered in an awkward, somewhat stiff atmosphere. Unlike Shaolin, where even hangers-on had flooded in hoping to build connections, a good number of the women here already possessed a decent foundation in martial arts.
I even spotted a few who could already release a proper measure of qi.
Thinking about it, the number of women who cultivated martial arts in the Murim was relatively small. And among those, Emei's teachings were famous for being harsh and austere.
So the fact that they had gathered here at all meant they had not come for networking — it meant that from the start they had resolved, as women, to walk the martial path.
I kept scanning the surroundings, fascinated by the mysterious, almost secretive spectacle of an Emei initiation.
While I was craning my neck this way and that with open curiosity, someone tapped my arm from behind and spoke.
"Is this your first time at the Emei Sect?"
Of course it was. Who would come to a place like this twice?
To strike up a conversation so casually in a tense situation — I wondered if another creature of Hye-yul Sinni's breed had turned up. Without answering, I walked toward the front where the belongings inspection was underway.
"Hey! Don't ignore me!"
I let the cry from behind me go in one ear and out the other, picking up speed until I planted myself before an Emei martial artist like a soldier reporting for duty.
Perhaps because Emei was a Daoist sect already somewhat steeped in worldly ways, the entry process was not nearly as strict as Shaolin, which called itself the sacred ground of Buddhism.
People were simply expected to voluntarily surrender any belongings that might stir worldly desires.
Most of them had come determined to cultivate properly, so they handed over their things without hesitation, as if severing every last tie to the secular world.
And then I watched Ilhong, wearing the most innocent face imaginable, declare, "I didn't bring anything," and stroll straight through with a whole string of thunderbolt bombs hanging inside her robes.
"……Geumhong. You are not allowed to use those. Understood?"
"Aw, they're for self-defense. Self-defense."
Self-defense, my foot. Stuff eight miniature grenades into your clothes and you are not going to train — you are going to war.
"Honestly. Can't even open your mouth without—"
I snorted and shook my head. Ilhong added one more line with a playful look.
"You're supposed to say 'Oh my.' Try it with me……. Ugh!"
Words that practically begged for a thrashing. In the end I smacked her on the crown of the head.
And so began our training at the Emei Sect.
As with any Daoist school, the first days were buried under theoretical lectures preaching unity with nature, the harmony of yin and yang, and the principle of natural non-action.
"How can anything be this boring……."
I pinched my thigh and fought off the waves of drowsiness.
Dull and tedious as it was, if we wanted to infiltrate deep into Emei and uncover the Sect Leader's true nature, I had no choice but to force myself to memorize and study.
I had heard that outstanding students could even enter the Lotus Pavilion, and that some were granted a private audience with the Sect Leader herself.
"The training atmosphere is nothing like Shaolin."
At Shaolin, young men who already knew how to fight had poured in to learn martial arts, so rivalries flared as a matter of course, and there were constant struggles over who stood higher.
"And if someone rubbed you the wrong way, a whole pack would jump him."
It had been a place reeking of raw male energy — about as far from Buddhist virtue as you could get.
Here, by contrast, everything was quiet and so devout it almost felt awkward.
"If they find out the Boss is a man, that pack-jumping atmosphere will come roaring right back."
"……."
For a second I pictured myself surrounded by women, getting beaten senseless while they screamed "Pervert!"
A painfully sharp observation from Ilhong — one that could easily become reality if we slipped up.
At Shaolin I had been a man, so it had been fine. Here, if my identity got out, the scandal would force me to take down the detective agency's signboard for good.
"Heh heh. Don't worry, Sister Muhong. I'll take good care of you."
Ilhong said it with a wink.
"……Right. Geumhong. I'm counting on you."
Somehow it felt like subtle pressure to treat her well.
Seizing the chance, she used our sister act to glue herself to me even harder — and I could not even shake her off.
Ilhong leaned against my arm, snickering uhehe to herself.
Days of austere lodging and meals passed as we drilled the fundamentals of Emei. We took turns receiving instruction from the true-disciple instructors, and when the long-awaited martial training period finally arrived, Ilhong and I both spotted familiar faces.
"Miss Gihyo, Miss Jeongyo……?"
Beneath the clear sunlight, two Emei Tiger Guardians approached, white training robes fluttering.
The one with neatly bound hair and sharp eyes was Gihyo; the woman with clear pupils but a look that suggested she trusted no one was Jeongyo.
The well-worn treasure swords at their waists and the calluses of long training marked them at a glance as main-force martial artists of the Emei Sect.
"Hm? Someone called our names."
"Do you know us?"
They looked my carefully arranged androgynous face up and down, tilting their heads in confusion.
"……Aren't you the heroines of Emei who made your names on the Evil-Slaying Path? I've long heard of your renown."
I spun my thoughts at high speed and answered smoothly. We had never met face to face, but their fame had reached me through the jianghu — that was the line.
At those words both women clapped their hands in delight. Pride and satisfaction shone plain on their faces.
"Oh my, we never did anything that deserved to be famous."
"Maybe the story got out about cutting down the Three-Headed Demon last time? Anyway, it makes us happy."
They explained that among female heroes, titles and reputations were something you were supposed to acknowledge and elevate for one another — that was the bond of sisterhood among women of the martial world.
So keep doing exactly what I had just done, they whispered with smiles.
"But for Tiger Guardians who should be out in the field — why are you here training lay disciples……?"
"……."
At my question the lofty air they had been wearing a moment ago collapsed. Both women turned gloomy at once.
Something unpleasant must have happened back at the sect.
"……We botched a task the Sect Leader gave us, so we got banished here."
"Mm, a kind of confinement, I suppose. Looks like we won't be tasting outside air for a while."
Gihyo and Jeongyo stared at the distant mountains with heavy faces.
Under Emei's strict, closed regulations, the authority to come and go from the mountain legally was an extremely precious thing.
For the sake of the sect's dignity — and for fear that someone might fall for a man and flee with Emei's martial arts still in her body — only thoroughly vetted people were ever allowed outside. Stepping into the jianghu was a privilege reserved for the chosen few.
"It's all because of that Beijing troubleshooter who told us to just trust him!"
Jeongyo, who had kept her mouth shut until then, suddenly exploded — and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Ilhong barely managed to keep her shock off her face as our eyes met.
"Haa. I never should have trusted some outsider man. To think we'd be betrayed like this."
Gihyo rubbed her furrowed brow with her fingers, muttering as if the whole thing were a headache.
"What exactly did that troubleshooter do?"
At my careful question both women lit up like twin torches and whipped their heads toward Mount Song.
"He vanished without a single word! We hired Beggar Sect agents to look into it — he wasn't even at Shaolin! What is this nonsense?"
Jeongyo's outburst drew a sigh from Gihyo, who added,
"He said he'd never failed a single job in his life. We believed him, and all we got was a scolding from Hyein Satae and the chance to look like complete fools."
"Ahem, ahem."
I covered it with a dry cough.
There were circumstances, and there was timing. Still, it seemed they had been searching for their missing troubleshooter with real dedication.
Between Shaolin and Emei, why did my name have to come up every single place I went?
Especially at Shaolin, where I had apparently become a forbidden word not to be spoken at all.
"It's all your karma, Boss. Just accept it."
Once again Ilhong whispered something I could not easily argue with.
I needed to uncover Hyein Satae's true nature as soon as possible and clear up this unfair misunderstanding.
The problem was how to get close, and how to find anything out.
I had a few large-scale ideas sketched out, but when it came to actually executing them, everything felt blank and distant.
"Anyway — Seo Muhong and Seo Geumhong, was it? Both sisters have such lovely faces. You must have drawn a lot of men's eyes outside."
"Truly, how can you be this pretty? And you, Muhong — I bet you were popular even among the women."
They said they could sense a charm capable of capturing not only men but women as well, and both of them turned their interest on me.
So I must have attracted plenty of male attention. Not exactly the compliment that made a man happy.
Ilhong, on the other hand, looked ready to take flight. Being praised as a woman for the first time in ages had her soaring.
"Ehehe. See that, Sister? This is the level I'm at."
"Yes, yes. You're amazing……."
Her face was practically melting.
Apparently all that time of being treated like one of the guys by me had left a few scars.
Maybe I needed to start throwing her a compliment every now and then myself.
"Anyway, let's begin the training."
"The first thing you will learn is the most fundamental martial art of the Emei Sect — the Lesser Yang Sword……."
Jeongyo drew the treasure sword from her waist and began to explain.
Just as she was about to start teaching Emei techniques to her former clients who knew nothing of the situation, the air over the training ground suddenly shifted.
From far off, a woman walked toward us with every eye fixed on her, each step radiating unshakable confidence.
A slender, elegant presence; white training robes fluttering in the wind; a gait overflowing with authority.
At the appearance of this unknown figure, Emei martial artists all around drew in sharp breaths.
"……Why all of a sudden?"
"The Sect Leader, here of all places……."
The woman walking slowly closer was the very target whose true nature Hye-yul Sinni had begged us to uncover no matter what.
The Sect Leader of the Emei Sect who had recently reached the Flame Realm — Hyein Satae.
And she herself was walking onto the training ground as if she meant to inspect the lay disciples' practice.
"Ugh……!"
At the same instant, the Cloud Star Heart Method I had built up through accumulated merit went berserk.
As if two opposing poles were violently repelling each other, the energies throughout my entire body reacted with ferocious intensity.
And with them, Salsung — blazing red and rising.
"……What the hell is that woman?"
I groaned through the pain.