035
035
I know the truth about the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.
Scores of young people gather to determine the Nine Dragons and Six Phoenixes. I'm already brimming with youthful vigor I can barely contain—so what do you think happens when people at marriageable age all converge in one place?
"That place is a complete lust den, a lust den!! Ah... a dual cultivation den!!"
The Blood Cult Leader said it plainly. The Dragon-Phoenix Gathering is nothing more than a sanctioned outlet for young murim members to legally enjoy sex. I don't think she was far off.
In the beginning, it may well have been a well-intentioned effort to honor the most renowned Rising Stars. But as the years pass, it's common for gatherings to drift from their original purpose.
The Dragon-Phoenix Gathering is no exception.
Some attend to flaunt their martial arts, but the women show off their beauty and the men wander about admiring the countless flowers. The contest to determine the Six Phoenixes in particular—unlike the Nine Dragons—is as much a competition of peerless beauties as it is a martial tournament.
"Lord, it's strange. Bong is the male phoenix and hwang is the female, so why does everyone call them the Six Phoenixes?"
Sagong Hee, lying beside me, traced her finger over my manhood like a brush. The phoenix (鳳凰) she was drawing nearly made me lose control, phoenix or whatever.
"That's because the martial artist who first proposed the name got it wrong. He didn't know that bong and hwang were distinct male and female birds."
"Ah... really?"
"Yes. And one more reason—to avoid overlapping with the character hwang (皇), meaning 'emperor.'"
They say you don't name newborns with the same characters as the sovereign's name.
Similarly, stuffy old men thought it improper to attach grandiose titles like 'Empress' or 'Lord' to mere First-Rate Rising Star girls. That's how the name came about.
"Calling them the Six Phoenixes—it sounds odd."
"Can't be helped. The original Martial Flowers numbered exactly six."
In the first Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, exactly six women made names for themselves. Had there been one more, they would have been the Seven Phoenixes. But six flowers became the Six Phoenixes.
"The current Emei Sect Leader is a former Six Phoenixes member, is she not?"
"Oh my... truly?"
"Indeed. She made her name by striking down a Sex Demon rampaging through Sichuan, after which she styled herself the Lust-Exorcising Abbess. Before that, she was renowned as the Emei Peak."
In my Blood Jiangshi days, I fought her directly—killed her, even devoured her. She may well have been a beauty in her youth, but by the time I had her, she was already an old woman, so I have little desire to remember it. By now, she'd be a few years shy of forty?
"So I have something to ask you. Do you want to become one of the Six Phoenixes?"
"......No."
Sagong Hee deliberated for a long while, then shook her head. I couldn't quite grasp her refusal to enter the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.
"Why? It's a golden opportunity to show off your beauty and martial arts. You could also participate four years from now, but by then, you'll likely be a Sword Empress rather than a mere Phoenix."
"That's exactly it. Lord, must you insist on attaching 'phoenix' to my title?"
"You dislike phoenix?"
"Yes. Think about it. Even if I defeat everyone and take first place, it'll be 'World's Greatest Phoenix' this, 'Taiji Wisdom Phoenix' that—everyone going phoenix-phoenix-phoenix. I'm not fond of that kind of title."
"You're right. The bong-bong-bong noise—isn't this enough?"
I lifted Sagong Hee's breasts slightly and let them drop. The sound of her flesh bouncing up and down, bong-bong-bong, set my Yang Energy roiling again for no good reason.
"Understood. If you wish to become the Taiji Sword Empress, I won't stand in your way. But tell me whenever you change your mind. Wudang will support you with everything they have."
"What? You're not... trying to send me to Wudang, are you?"
Abruptly, Sagong Hee climbed on top of me. A woman mounting her master is ordinarily unforgivable, but with her breasts pressed flush against me, I decided to let it slide this once.
"Why? You don't plan to live here forever, do you?"
"W-Well, that's...."
Confusion flickered across Sagong Hee's eyes. After months buried in this place—cycling through martial training, housework, and nightly duties—she seemed to have forgotten about returning to the secular world.
"I don't intend to live here for the rest of my life either. Someday I'll build a great estate and live surrounded by countless women, eating, sleeping, and shitting in their embrace. A cramped place like this is far too small to contain someone like me."
"'Women'? Plural?"
Sagong Hee's eyes sank coldly. A gloomy energy seeped through the strands of her bangs.
"Of course, plural. Did you think I'd be satisfied with just one or two? You alone can't handle me. You and Jin Sa-wol together can't handle me. Would I settle for two?"
"Ugh...."
Sagong Hee fell silent. I had in fact taken both of them at once before, and the outcome was always the same—both unconscious while I drank alone, the moon my only companion. Two was nowhere near enough to contain everything I was.
"Seven at minimum. Does the sun not rise once for each day of the week? Sun-Moon-Fire-Water-Wood-Metal-Earth—one woman each day—that's how I'll soothe my Yang Energy."
"...Why not say you'll take three hundred sixty-five women, since there are three hundred sixty-five days in a year?"
A cheeky tone. But what Sagong Hee did next made me laugh despite myself.
Squelch. In all our time together, Sagong Hee had never once inserted my manhood herself. That she now took my member inside her of her own accord was both a blessing and a curse.
"Lord, am I not enough?"
Hong-ryeon was exactly like this.
I had possessed one woman for so long that the woman became possessed by me.
Sagong Hee was beginning to show an attachment to my Yang Energy. Her inner walls tightened around my length as she tried to slowly constrict me. I seized her hips and adjusted our position.
"It's not that you're lacking. In time, as you mature further, you'll become one of the peerless beauties counted on one hand across the world. It's not that you're insufficient...."
Thrust. I drove my hips upward. Sagong Hee's hands immediately braced against my shoulders as her posture crumbled, and I pressed my lips to her cheek.
"It's that my lust is too abundant for merely one woman to endure. Look—are you not already thoroughly exhausted?"
From the moment we returned in the afternoon until the moon hung at its zenith, we had skipped dinner and done nothing but fuck. Sagong Hee's stamina was utterly spent.
Even now, her taking my member inside her was purely an expression of willpower born of attachment. If she pushed her body any further, she'd pass out on the verge of death.
"How can I... h-hic... satisfy you, my lord...?"
"Who knows. At minimum, you'd need to surpass the Peak Realm and enter the Harmony Realm."
The Taiji Sword Empress was a master who had reached the Harmony Realm.
Had her flower and neck not been broken by me, she possessed the talent to reach even the Profound Realm well past forty.
If Sagong Hee could attain the level of the future Taiji Sword Empress—and go even further—she might be able to handle me both martially and in bed. But she still had a long way to go.
"Gyeon-hui, I know what you feel for me. You are a woman who, in serving me as your master, can fulfill everything perfectly—except the housework."
My collarbone grew damp. Sagong Hee buried her face against my chest and wept without a sound. I had no desire to discern whether these were tears of excessive climax or the grief of something she'd hoped for from me being shattered.
"I am the wind. I cannot linger on just one flower."
"You're so cruel, after making my body like this...!"
"You shouldn't have fallen for me in the first place."
"H-Hic...!"
Thrust. I snapped my hips up once more. Sagong Hee gazed down at me through her disheveled hair, spilling ragged breaths.
"Heh, do you want to wholly contain me? Then surpass me. Only one single person will ever be able to do that."
"That person... what level are they at?"
"The Life-Death Realm."
Since the Great Righteous-Demonic War, the sole person to reach a realm no one else had overcome. The woman no one knew by title or name—the woman I myself gave a title to in the final moment.
Nine Heavens Divine Maiden.
Only a woman who could drag the Blood Jiangshi down from being the world's strongest, ascend to the pinnacle herself, and bring peace to the world—only such a woman could finally handle me.
"Gyeon-hui. Think you can do it? You, who crumples even under my Yang Energy right now—can you climb to a summit even I never reached?"
"H-Hic... haah. My lord...."
Sagong Hee cupped my face in her hands and smiled.
"Wait for me. I alone... will become strong enough to accept all of you, haaah...."
Slump. Sagong Hee trembled and collapsed onto me. I patted her back as she lost consciousness, then placed my hand on the small of her back to check her Internal Qi.
"......She reached climax as she came."
Sagong Hee's rate of growth was terrifying. Feeling her body's warmth beneath me, our bodies drawing the taiji together in the union of man and woman, I leisurely greeted the morning sun.
If she's around the level of the Nine Heavens Divine Maiden, being kept on a leash might not be so bad.
If Sagong Hee truly became the world's strongest, surpassing even the Nine Heavens Divine Maiden, then even if she grew possessive and demanded I look only at her—I could forgive it.
If she's stronger than me and defeats me, then as the loser, I'd naturally have to obey.
"I won! From now on, I'm taking you, my lord!"
"......That doesn't sound half bad either."
But for now, I'm still the stronger one. And just as fast as Sagong Hee is growing stronger, starting now, I too will grow even stronger.
Just a little more cultivation and my Internal Energy will reach one Gapja.
Absorption of Yin to Nourish Yang.
I still hadn't stolen a single handful of Essence Energy from Sagong Hee.
"So you came alone? Hee-hee, it's all your karma, Gaga. You raised her to be a child who knows nothing but you."
"Quiet. Just pour the drinks."
After laying Sagong Hee to rest, I'd come to the Pleasure House that afternoon and taken up my wine cup. Jin Sa-wol clung to my side, filling my cup and putting on coy airs.
"You gave a child who'd lost both parents and was about to close off her heart a place to live. You taught her martial arts, gave her the power to never be violated carelessly wherever she goes. You made a girl who takes joy in learning blossom into her talent—isn't it only natural that a flower gazes at the sun?"
Jin Sa-wol lifted the wine bottle and poured its contents over my member. Then she opened her mouth wide and drank it all.
"Hoo-ah. The wine tastes wonderful."
"Why are you drinking the wine I paid for? I have no intention of getting you drunk, so put it away."
"Gaga, since you bought me, if you take me, wouldn't the wine I drank be drunk by you as well?"
"Tsk, enough. I came to ask about something, and you're drunk on sex, not wine. I bought a courtesan and a woman showed up. Have I been scammed? Hm?"
I reached down and stroked her through her undergarments.
"...Hoo. You're not wearing any?"
Blushing, Jin Sa-wol only smiled without denying it. Refilling my cup, she patted my thigh and gave a breezy smile.
"I'm going to get soaked anyway, so what's the point of wearing them? Once you've known the taste of Gaga's manhood, is there anyone who doesn't get wet? If I'd only trained in martial arts and become stronger than Gaga—what do you think I would've done?"
"Who knows. Tie me up and have your way with me?"
"I'd carry Gaga's child. Hee-hee, and then I'd rent you out by the night to women craving your Yang Energy—spreading happiness to every woman in the world."
"......That's enough to send chills down my spine. You planning to turn me into a whore? Hah-hah."
About half a year.
After buying Jin Sa-wol's time nearly every day with enough coin to purchase a house, she and I had grown close enough to trade crude jokes like this. Raising Sagong Hee together, we'd become man and woman in body, and friends who shared our true thoughts in spirit.
"More importantly, Sa-wol. Have you heard anything about matters in Wudang?"
"Of course. Every working girl in the Pleasure House is busy washing their nethers right now. The Dragon-Phoenix Gathering. Am I right?"
"Yes, heh-heh."
Where people gather, the water trade is never far behind. Jackals who couldn't even claim a sparrow, let alone a phoenix, will eventually chase their frustrations into the pleasure houses—a golden opportunity for the courtesans to fill their pockets.
"If you're thinking of bedding someone else, tell me in advance. I'll find another girl that day."
"Oh my. Gaga, do you know how much money you give our establishment? I'm already exclusively yours. I've been removed from the Courtesan Register, and even putting myself aside, if I tried to take another man, the elder sister would slap my cheek first. As long as Gaga keeps seeking me out, I'll gaze at no one else."
"And if I stop coming around?"
"I'd go back on the register, wouldn't I? I can't very well sit around growing cobwebs down there, you know. Hee-hee."
This is why Jin Sa-wol is so easy to be with.
"Admirable and terrifying in equal measure. Understood. Heh-heh. So, any news of pretty young ladies already arriving? You know, the ones who come a few months early."
"Hee-hee, planning to devour them already?"
"Ahem, such vulgar language. I'm going to pluck flowers."
Having intertwined our bodies countless times, Jin Sa-wol knew my nature well. Nor did I have any reason to hide it. This was comfortable for both of us, and it meant I could rely on her help.
"So, any news?"
"How could there not be? Knowing Gaga would seek them out, I prepared in advance."
Rustle. Jin Sa-wol produced a book. As though readied just for me, the cover bore the title Flower Guidebook (花卉圖鑑).
"Ten taels of silver."
"...Right now? You must be joking. I didn't bring that much."
"Oh my, is that so? Then...."
Rustle. Jin Sa-wol began to remove her clothing. Her eyes, glinting with the wine's warmth, were thoroughly stained with lust.
"I'll buy Gaga's time for ten taels of silver. How about it?"
"......Selling my body just to look at a flower directory—that's a first."
I emptied my cup.
"I'll put ten taels' worth inside your belly."
"Kyaaah!"
I successfully obtained the Flower Guidebook.