027
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He takes Sagong Hee's virginity.
There's no need to rush it. He can simply wait for her to mature at her own pace.
'Surely her cooking will improve in the meantime.'
It's not as if the Great Righteous-Demonic War is about to erupt and force them to flee Wudang Mountain, nor is the Taiyi Sword Lord who has mastered the Taiji Wisdom Sword required to step forward and seize control of the Wudang Sect this instant.
Therefore, he will take Sagong Hee's virginity today.
Only after finishing certain other business first, of course.
"Jin Sa-wol, I will buy another half-day of your time. Stay here until the sun sets."
"Oh my, for what reason?"
"Teach Gyeon-hui the proper mindset a woman should have on her first night."
Sagong Hee looked away, her face flushed bright red. Jin Sa-wol gently took hold of Sagong Hee's hand and nodded.
"Leave it to me, Gaga. In exchange, please pass a message and the payment along to the pleasure house. Otherwise they'll grow suspicious when I don't return for a whole day."
"Very well. That much I can do."
I had no desire for troublesome complications. I rinsed my mouth with tea and stepped outside.
"By the way, Gaga, where are you off to? It doesn't seem like you're just heading to the pleasure house."
"I'll take a short stroll."
If it were only Sagong Hee, I could tell her anything. She knows my true skill, after all. But I cannot speak of it to Jin Sa-wol.
Would I tell a courtesan that I'm 'infiltrating the Wudang Sect'?
Telling a woman who plies her trade within Wudang's territory that I intend to make an enemy of the sect would likely only bring trouble. I might end up having to find Sagong Hee's night instructor all over again, and I'd only just secured one.
"Ah, Gaga. That..."
Jin Sa-wol caught me just as I was about to leave and pointed toward the kitchen with an awkward smile.
"...I don't know how either, you see. I have the servants make the meals and then I eat."
"Why is it that when there are two women in the house, I'm the one going in and out of the kitchen?"
"In exchange, you do go in and out of us."
"......I see. If I'm the guest, I suppose I have no choice. I've imposed on your hospitality, so the least I can do is provide a meal. Indeed."
Before I knew it, the sun stood at its zenith. I infused my internal qi into the kitchen to keep the food from cooling.
"You may help yourselves as needed. If I haven't returned by sunset, eat dinner without me."
"You'll be gone quite a while, then?"
"Of course."
I had already delayed somewhat. The distance alone meant it would take considerable time, and if things went awry, it might not even finish within half a day.
"I'll be off."
I left the house.
The destination was Wudang.
The secret vault where all of the Wudang Sect's secret manuals lie dormant.
'The Taiyi Sword Lord could not have become the supreme sovereign of Wudang Sect with the Taiji Wisdom Sword alone.'
The one destined to become Wudang's sovereign in the future is Taoist Hyeonta, Sa Jeong-hu. But at this point in time, before the Great Righteous-Demonic War has even broken out, it's not as if there are no Taoists in Wudang stronger than Taoist Hyeonta.
'Two come to mind immediately.'
The one hailed as the mightiest martial artist of his generation, who ascended to immortality from old age.
And the one who followed in his footsteps, yet brought about Wudang's downfall.
"I heard that bastard poisoned the Sect Leader."
Word was that a traitor within Wudang gathered up the sect's secret manuals and spirit pills and defected to the Demonic Cult.
Suddenly, a rumor I had heard back in my grunt days in the Demonic Cult, while gathering intelligence, surfaced in my mind.
* * *
"Cough!"
A white-haired old man vomited a handful of blood. The elders standing beside him let out low groans, every one of their eyes filled with worry.
"Senior Brother, Senior Brother!!"
Taoist Hyeoncheol rushed to the old man and wiped the blood from his lips, his face on the verge of tears. A red rash covered the old man's skin, but Taoist Hyeoncheol paid it no mind at all.
"Let go. I am not your senior brother right now, but the Sect Leader...."
The one who called himself the Wudang Sect Leader, Taoist Hyeongi, 'Man Sa-yong', pushed Hyeoncheol's arm away with his decrepit limb. His arm, nothing but skin and bones, was so thin it looked ready to snap at any moment.
"Elders, have you found the patient?"
"...We have not yet found them."
"Our disciples are searching everywhere. We will soon learn where they are hiding."
"Good. It is a disease that spread from Wudang. Wudang must deal with it, cough...."
The Sect Leader coughed up a mouthful of black blood onto a white silk cloth. At the sight of him, which seemed to show he didn't have long to live, Taoist Hyeoncheol lashed out, his voice almost a scream.
"Why must you, Senior Brother... Sect Leader, suffer this! It should have been me who struck that bastard down that day!"
"No, no. The grudge was mine to bear. ...Heh, to think the hot blood of my youth would return like this."
The Sect Leader pulled up his Taoist robe. His arm was covered in deep scars, wounds unimaginable for a man once counted among the Ten Great Swordsmen of the World.
"I made a mistake. I should have cleanly taken his head, but because of old grievances, I held back my hand. See that you do not make the same error."
"Ugh...."
He had fought a life-or-death duel with the man who came seeking revenge, but the Sect Leader had held back from killing him. Ultimately, he was drenched in the man's blood.
Up to that point, it would not have been a great problem. But the man was a demon who practiced demonic arts and a patient infected with Smallpox. Mortally wounded, the man went berserk, inflicted severe injuries on the Sect Leader, and ran rampant throughout the area, spreading Smallpox.
That was the reason Wudang Mountain had been sealed shut for nearly a month, and the cause of the currently subsiding Smallpox outbreak.
"Hyeoncheol, what became of the demons?"
"All the corpses were cremated. But not a single one was found alive. They are all dead, so it seems we will be unable to trace who was behind them."
"...I see, so it is. That cannot be helped. Those who call themselves demons always destroy the evidence before they die. Understood. I wish to rest a while. I am sorry for summoning you all."
At the Sect Leader's feeble words—he who had once seemed as immovable as Mount Tai—the elders all choked up and left the room. Hyeoncheol even turned away with tears brimming in his eyes. The Sect Leader watched the elders file out one by one, then put strength into his voice and spoke.
"...Hyeonta, you rascal. Turning to leave before your Sect Leader has even dismissed you? You, come here a moment."
Taoist Hyeonta, Sa Jeong-hu, turned around and stood before the Sect Leader. The other elders clicked their tongues and stepped outside, while Taoist Hyeoncheol practically growled at him as if ready to devour him. Had it not been the Sect Leader's order dismissing them, they all would have berated Taoist Hyeonta.
"You, even in the old days, the way you conduct yourself... And you call yourself an elder...."
Creeeak, thud. The door closed fully, and all the elders had left. The Sect Leader's long, drawling speech cut off abruptly.
"...Well then. What of the matter I asked you to look into?"
"There is no trace of the demons having entered the secret vault. However, there were signs that someone had come and gone from the place where the medicinal pills are stored. A place only the elders are permitted to enter."
It was no longer a senior brother scolding his junior, but a conversation between two men who seemed deeply concerned and had investigated something together. The Sect Leader clasped Hyeonta's hands tightly, his eyes sorrowful.
"I must ask you to endure some hardship. There is no one I can trust besides you. Please, find 'that person'."
"...Senior Brother, I still cannot understand. That man used demonic arts. How can he possibly be our Grandmaster?"
"It matters not if he is a demon. It does not matter if he has mastered demonic arts to the extreme, or if he learned the sword of our Wudang only to a rudimentary level. The Taiji Wisdom Sword! How could we not welcome as Grandmaster one who has mastered that? As long as he is not some spawn of the Demonic Cult, it is enough! In my day, I exchanged Life-and-Death Realm matches with friendly demons so often that I grew so accustomed to them, I learned the enemy's martial arts just by eye."
"......I do not know. Perhaps instead of searching for a wielder of the Taiji Wisdom Sword...."
Hyeonta clenched his teeth and growled.
"Should we not find the true culprit who reduced you to this state? The vile wretch who poisoned your meal! Please, tell me. Who is it? You must know!!"
"......I cannot. That, at least, I cannot speak of."
"Merely by shielding them to this degree, the possibilities are already few enough to count on one hand. Please, speak plainly...."
"Heh, that is precisely why I entrusted this to you. Jeong-hu, I beg of you. Find the senior who mastered the Taiji Wisdom Sword. Did you not say so yourself? That he is a transcendent master who has undergone Return to Youth."
A faint Madness Qi flickered in the Sect Leader's eyes.
"If that person would only return to Wudang... if he would only bequeath the Taiji Wisdom Sword to us, we could rise again...! We could become the greatest of the Nine Sects and One Gang!!"
"......."
The master of the Taiji Wisdom Sword never appeared anywhere.
* * *
"Achoo!"
"Oh my, Gaga. Have you caught a cold? Just how much did you torment Sa-wol last night?"
"It's not that. Sniff. So, it's fine for me to keep Sa-wol until evening?"
"Yes! Goodness, Gaga, you are so wicked. Do you like Sa-wol that much?"
"What do you want me to say? She's got the biggest breasts in this pleasure house."
"Kyaa! You beast."
The courtesan giggled and gathered up all the silver I had handed her. I had stopped by the pleasure house to purchase Jin Sa-wol's time, and the courtesans, who moments ago had been worried about her not returning, quickly set their minds at ease.
It was commonplace for a courtesan on an outcall to a man's house to return late, but it was unsettling all the same when there wasn't a single message.
"Take care. You mustn't torment Sa-wol too much~"
"I'm the one being tormented, what are you talking about."
"Kyaaa!"
When I subtly revealed a glimpse of my collarbone, the courtesans shrieked and egged one another on in delight. They treasured their own fantasies—savoring the scenario of a handsome young Murim hero unable to extricate himself from a mature woman's skirts as if it were happening to them.
"Sa-wol hit the jackpot, the jackpot. She's always going on about 'handsome men, handsome men!'"
"Hey, it's not just a handsome man, it's a 'pretty boy!' Hohoho, our Sa-wol has no sense."
"Quiet. Go and see to your work."
I shooed the courtesans away. My business at the pleasure house was done. All that remained was to climb Wudang Mountain and take care of what I had originally come to do.
'I should finish this quickly, go home, and devour Sagong Hee's virginity.'
The nagging regret wouldn't leave me—that if I waited just a little longer for her to ripen, I could harvest a staggering amount of inner energy. But fruit that grows overripe spoils and rots, inevitably losing its sweetness.
A flower must be plucked when it is most beautiful. I repeated this to myself several times, steeling my resolve.
'Snatching martial arts secret manuals is the same. If I learn other martial arts of the Wudang Sect, my inner energy will increase that much faster as a result.'
One might think that learning techniques outside the Taiji Wisdom Sword would only slow my development with miscellaneous knowledge. But with Sagong Hee's level of skill, the synergy between them would undoubtedly bring about even swifter attainment.
"Well then, slowly now... Hm?"
I hid my body within the shadows. If my sharp qi sense had been even a moment slower, I would have been exposed.
"Hm?"
"What is the matter, Senior?"
"Nothing. Didn't someone just look at me?"
"If you walk around holding three skewers in your hand like that, anyone would stare."
Thump, thump.
I swallowed hard at the sight of the middle-aged man and the beautiful young man walking before me. In particular, my gaze fixed on the middle-aged man with his disheveled hair and slovenly appearance.
'If my Shadow Concealment Technique had been just a little slower, I'd have been caught.'
If your skill difference is as thin as a sheet of paper, the outcome is clear. But conversely, it also means the opponent can sense that you possess skill roughly a sheet of paper above his own.
'What is the Divine Spear doing here?'
The mightiest warrior of the Imperial Guard, the greatest spearman in the Central Plains, a man whose title bears the character for 'divine': the Divine Spear.
The armband reading 'Inspector' worn by the young lord beside him nagged at me a little, but what truly bothered me was the fact that the Divine Spear was in this region.
'Aren't those the guys chasing the Demonic Cult?'
I had heard that before the Demonic Cult openly began to stir, the three mightiest warriors of the Imperial Palace roamed the Central Plains searching for traces of it.
Ultimately, all three came up empty. The Demonic Cult annihilated an entire martial sect to announce its full-scale emergence, and the three earned the derogatory nickname: the Three Incompetent Generals.
Later, those Three Incompetent Generals would perform great deeds in the war against the Blood Cult and be hailed as the Three Competent Generals. Even so, it was safe to say their intelligence-gathering ability was catastrophically poor.
"Senior, more importantly, please listen. I am telling you, the disappearance of this mother and daughter is deeply connected to the Demonic Cult."
"Across the vast lands of the Central Plains, how many women bear such a name do you think? More than one or two."
"Oh, come now. Please trust my intuition a little. Wasn't it thanks to my deductions that we uncovered Chu So-gwang was not the real Chu So-gwang? And the young lady of the Paeng Clan cooperated with our investigation of the Chuso Escort Agency's secret vault on the condition we keep the truth hidden."
"Tch. If the Paeng Clan heard that, they'd come for your head this instant. Stop spouting nonsense. That is a secret known only to you, me, and the young lady of the Paeng Clan. If someone else overheard, there would be hell to pay."
"Ha, Senior. Who would dare harm me?"
The young lord pounded his chest with pride and lifted his chin. I saw the face beneath the bamboo hat, and my heart dropped.
"With the Divine Spear here to protect me."
Back in my days as a Demonic Cult grunt, my very first assassination target was standing there, puffing out his chest.
Holding the Yongmo Sect records on Sagong Hee and Jin Sa-wol in his hand.