A Truly High-Ranking Person
Dawn on Mount Emei was still.
A thin mist settled over the peaks, and the eastern sky slowly flushed crimson, heralding the approach of a new day.
Hyein Satae stood alone before the secret cave that successive sect leaders had passed through, gazing at the scars of the night-long battle.
Her once snow-white robes were blackened and torn, yet her eyes shone clearer and purer than before.
With eyes free of madness, she quietly lifted her gaze to the clusters of stars still lingering in the night sky.
Then a familiar set of footsteps drew her from her thoughts.
Hye-yul Sinni approached, dressed in the same worn and tattered robes from her long flight.
When their eyes met, a strange emotion seemed to hang in the air between them.
After a brief silence, Hyein Satae was the first to speak.
"……So you've come."
The tone was like that of a parent welcoming a runaway child home at last. Hye-yul Sinni smiled a subtle smile.
"Looking at the wreckage, it seems you clashed with the troubleshooter I sent."
Traces of Sword Force remained everywhere. Throwing weapons were embedded in the walls, and the scorch marks of thunder bombs were plain to see.
It was no exaggeration to say a war had been fought here.
"Was it your plan to dress black-hearted men as women and shove them into a men-forbidden zone?"
Hyein Satae asked with a hollow laugh.
"……Of course not. That was their own voluntary idea."
Especially the small, pretty-looking one among them, Hye-yul Sinni muttered as if recalling the moment.
"Truly…… It seems they'll do anything for a commission."
Faced with conduct so utterly unlike the face-obsessed martial artists of the Central Plains, Hyein Satae stuck out her tongue in something like disbelief.
"……Yes. They're people who will do anything, just as the rumors say."
Even Hye-yul Sinni had half-doubted them when she sent them into the Emei Sect, yet the result had been a complete success.
Before her eyes stood Hyein Satae, looking at her with clear, steady eyes as if she had fully regained her senses.
After they mentioned Dan Mujin—the one to whom they now owed a great debt—the two fell into another short silence.
Again it was Hyein Satae who parted her lips first.
"……I'm sorry."
It was a single apology that seemed to pack in every word she had wanted to say.
Hye-yul Sinni silently studied the sect leader who had come to apologize.
Her face was steeped in sorrow and self-reproach. The wicked energy was gone; the original, benevolent Hyein Satae had returned.
"I heard there were circumstances. That it wasn't your true will…… So I've decided to understand you, Sect Leader."
She said she had learned the whole story from the troubleshooter who had come down to Sichuan, and that she would generously overlook even the fact that her master had tried to kill her.
When she added that she hoped they could get along as before, Hyein Satae's expression grew deeply complicated.
Before the generosity of the disciple who had returned despite her master's wrongs, she seemed to grasp some small enlightenment.
"I'll return the sect's sacred treasure."
Hye-yul Sinni untied the Heaven-Interceptive Sword from her waist—the one she had borrowed for the path of punishing evil and then fled with—and held it out, scabbard and all, to Hyein Satae.
Hyein Satae stared at it quietly for a moment, then pushed the scabbard back.
"It's fine. Take it again. You have no right to reclaim it from me, but for you it is enough……"
She shook her head and said that the sacred treasure of the Emei Sect was hers.
"……"
Hye-yul Sinni's eyes went round as she looked back and forth between the offered Heaven-Interceptive Sword and Hyein Satae, as if asking whether she was serious.
"But only the sect leader can always carry the Heaven-Interceptive Sword……"
To pass it on was the same as naming her a candidate for the next sect leader.
Hyein Satae smiled an elegant smile and slowly nodded, as if confirming that was exactly what she meant.
"Even in a difficult situation you held firmly to your will. That alone is enough for me to entrust the Emei Sect to you."
At those words, Hye-yul Sinni received the returned Heaven-Interceptive Sword with a deeply moved face.
"Sect Leader……"
Her eyes reddened at the thought that she had been acknowledged by her master.
"But be careful."
"……Yes?"
At the sudden warning, Hye-yul Sinni lifted her head.
"There seemed to be a thief targeting that sword."
Besides those men, something impure had slipped into the Emei Sect, Hyein Satae warned. She told her disciple to be on guard.
So a thief had wormed into this heartwarming tale of a sect leader who had been steeped in darkness and then awakened again.
It was puzzling, but Hye-yul Sinni nodded that she understood.
"And there is one more condition."
"……Yes, what is it?"
The Emei Sect belonged to the prestigious righteous ranks of the Nine Great Sects. Naturally, anyone who wished to become sect leader had to prove herself harshly as a candidate.
Hye-yul Sinni waited for the next words with a face full of resolve, as if ready to overcome any hardship or trial.
"A sect leader who lusts after the pure white of her disciples is absurd. You must correct that taste as well."
She looked at her disciple—who had become reliable in every other way—with an expression that still found her rather pathetic on that one point.
"……Th-that!"
She had kept it secret—how did she know?
Unaware that Dan Mujin had whispered it before leaving, Hye-yul Sinni was shocked as if by a bolt from the blue.
The streets of Beijing we returned to were fairly bustling and noisy.
Apparently the imperial family was preparing a grand banquet, and because of that the merchants of Beijing were busier than usual as well.
Colorful decorations were going up one by one throughout the streets, and excitement was plain on people's faces.
On top of that, next year there would be a grand anniversary celebration for the Emperor of the Central Plains, so for a good while at least all of Beijing would be in an uproar over it.
When times like this came, the Imperial Palace poured out money to buy expensive foodstuffs, materials, and goods in bulk, and the imperial family members also grew busy seeking gifts to present to the Emperor.
For the merchants of Beijing, it was a time to light a fire under themselves and prepare expensive goods.
In short, it was peak season for business.
"Our Sister Eun Hwaran should catch this wave too."
Of course, if it was her—who had a nose for the scent of money like no other—she wouldn't miss this chance.
She was probably folding her golden fan with a snap right about now and directing the merchant group's subordinates herself.
"I should stop by the Eunseong Merchant Group for the first time in a while."
I thought I'd go see my sworn sister's face.
She'd be busy, but she was the type who would put out delicious food the moment I visited.
Ah—the cook had been replaced after that unfortunate incident, so the flavor might be a bit different.
"You're going to the merchant group before our office?"
Ilhong, walking beside me, spoke up.
Having returned to male dress, the high she'd been riding in Sichuan seemed to have dipped a little.
"That look suits you better after all."
"……What do you mean by that?"
"That I'm used to it, so it's comfortable."
She was now quite a mature woman, so every time she pressed close there was more than one problem. I knew I shouldn't, but my feelings stirred of their own accord.
There was an age gap—which Ilhong absolutely refused to admit—and we'd grown up rolling around together since we were little. To harbor that kind of feeling wasn't easy.
"What is that relieved look for……!"
She bristled with a series of little huffs at my sigh of relief.
Now I was starting to feel a bit of stability again.
I let her grumbling go in one ear and out the other and patted her back, saying we should head to the Eunseong Merchant Group.
"I already asked, but why are we going to the merchant group first?"
"Something weird happened during this commission. I'm going to report it."
She clapped her hands as if remembering.
"Ah, that……"
On a night when the starlight rose.
Ilhong had begun to vaguely catch on to the secret training I had built up with Hwang Geolgae all this time.
All sorts of things had happened these past few years, and she had experienced every one of them at my side. As the successor of the Haomu Gate, she could roughly figure it out.
"So you're going to get one-sidedly beaten again……?"
"Hey, what kind of talk is that, Ilhong."
Get beaten again? What did she take a weathered Transcendental Peak master for?
"This time I'm going to hit him too."
A new energy had joined inside me, so this was my chance to aim for a one-shot reversal.
"It's really weird, you know. What kind of master and disciple only think about hitting each other?"
Ilhong shook her head as if she couldn't live like this.
But he was the one who started it from our first meeting.
I hardened my resolve and set my steps toward the Eunseong Merchant Group.
A short while later, on the outskirts of Beijing.
"Boss, rub this on it."
Ilhong looked pityingly at my face, blue and purple with bruises, and handed me an egg.
She seemed to believe the folk saying that rubbing it on would make the bruises go down faster.
"That damn old man…… Someday I'll take him down."
At my age, having reached the Transcendental Peak realm, you'd think I'd get a little full of myself.
But no matter how high I raised my realm, there was a certain old man who beat me senseless at the drop of a hat, so I couldn't stop training.
Along with the star in my head that cut my lifespan the moment I stopped, he was one of the powerful engines that kept me moving.
"In the end he doesn't know much about the moon's energy either. If it was going to be like this, I should've just said nothing and hidden it."
I'd risked a beating and made the report thinking he might know something.
He said he had only trained regarding the stars, and then thoroughly chewed me out for leaking the existence of the Starfall Heart Method to a sect leader of the Nine Great Sects—even if it was for a good deed—and for bringing back that strange energy.
"But if you hid it and got caught, you'd get hit even harder."
"But if I never got caught in the first place, there wouldn't be any reason to get hit, right?"
He was an old man who even avoided contact with the Beggar Sect, so his ways of hearing news about me from outside were limited.
"Hmm, now that you mention it, that might be true……"
Ilhong scratched her chin and conceded my plausible point.
We chatted like that until we arrived at our familiar, close troubleshooter office.
"Oh? Mujin! You're finally back."
The familiar large saber and Jo Harang's face. She greeted us brightly in the front yard of the office.
"I was so lonely by myself. You never said it would take this long. What on earth happened?"
Guarding the house and pouring herself into training was fine for a day or two. But when that stretched on for at least a month, every day had felt as long as eternity.
"Things got a bit twisted. Originally it was a commission to infiltrate Shaolin Temple on Mount Song, but somehow I ended up infiltrating the Emei Sect too."
And when I mentioned Mount Song and looked at Jo Harang, the scene of Song Ryeong and Beopgwang—those hot-blooded middle-aged people and their courtship—suddenly floated up, but.
It was better not to say that, for everyone's sake.
If I said, "You might end up with a husband for your master if things go well," she'd probably bolt straight for Mount Song right now.
"Wait, Mujin, the Emei Sect? You guys can't go in there, right? It's a men-forbidden zone."
At that completely natural, common-sense reaction, Ilhong and I shrugged.
"There's no such thing as impossible for a troubleshooter."
"We used bone-shrinking arts and human-skin masks to cross-dress as women."
When we said we had forced our way through and succeeded at the Emei commission and come back, Jo Harang made a slightly grotesque expression.
"Eek, even if it was for a commission, men cross-dressing and infiltrating a place with only women…… Umm, this is like something only lechers would……"
She rested her chin on her hand and sank deep into thought, as if our actions were colliding with the upright values of the Purple Micro Star.
Worried she might start branding us as bad people, I quickly changed the subject.
"Your master got a confession from a monk."
"Eeeek……!"
Effect confirmed.
When I suggested that when she returned to Mount Song she might have one more person to serve besides her master, she jumped.
"Just kidding."
"You bastard……! You wanna die for real?!"
It was actually true, but if only we kept our mouths shut it would end up as a joke.
"Anyway, Harang, why are you just standing around in the front yard? You're not even training."
I asked why she was out here when she didn't have a single drop of sweat on her.
"I got kicked out."
"……?"
What the hell was this nonsense?
What bastard was kicking my office staff out of my own office?
As I stared at the tightly shut office door with a puzzled face—
Bang.
"I kicked her out. There was a reason."
The office door opened, and a familiar aging face appeared.
A slightly cold, chilly expression. The look of someone who suited the profession of the Eastern Depot perfectly—the closest aide of Princess Dohwa.
"Oh, come on, what is it this time?"
The moment I saw that face, a complaint burst out of me asking what business he had now.
I'd already gone through hell last time stopping an assassination by poison.
How much had Hwang Geolgae chewed me out over that? For getting mixed up with the imperial family again.
Of course, once we were allowed to bring Beggar Sect members into the palace, that talk had died down.
"Tsk. You talk too much. Quiet down and come in alone. A distinguished person is waiting for you."
Cheon Su-gong gestured carefully for me to hurry.
Someone whose very appearance had to be secret enough that even office staff Jo Harang had to be driven out—someone that high-ranking.
Could Princess Dohwa have left the palace and come all the way to this office this time without hiding her peerless beauty?
"Do not lose your manners under any circumstances. If you do anything improper, I really will make you pay……"
Cheon Su-gong also seemed to find the person difficult, warning me quite strictly.
When I stepped inside, a mature beauty flowing with elegance sat in an office chair, dressed in splendid silk robes.
When our eyes met, the woman offered a gentle smile.
"You're being far too cautious, Cheon Su-gong."
It was a warm voice full of maternal affection.
"But this one is the type who might go anywhere……"
"Huhu. Even so, he is a child acknowledged by the princess. How could that be?"
Someone Cheon Su-gong would bow and scrape to like that.
Then Cheon Su-gong forced my stiff back down and said:
"Hurry and pay your respects. This is the one who gave birth to Princess Dohwa, Her Highness the Imperial Consort Ma."
In other words, the person sitting before me was Princess Dohwa's mother and the Emperor's consort.
"Whoa……"
My mouth fell open of its own accord.