053
053
The Heavenly Demon is bald.
To be more precise, everyone who practices the Heavenly Demon Divine Art goes bald.
- The Heavenly Demon (天魔) is the sky itself! Though the physical body is bound to the earth, the soul and spirit stand tall in the heavens above! Therefore, the qi flowing through the body must connect with the sky. And where is that point? The Baihui acupoint!
"The qi of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art is concentrated in the upper dantian, absorbing Heavenly-Yeon-ji energy at the point closest to the sky when a person stands upright. Just as bones and muscle wear down and deteriorate the more you use the body, the place where qi gathers naturally produces a recoil effect."
"Are you saying...?"
Sagong Hee pointed to the crown of her head. I nodded.
"To put it bluntly, excessive operation of internal energy weakens the hair roots. Just as martial arts have stages of ascension, the balding process also follows an order..."
"So the Little Princess will eventually go bald too?"
Having heard the full explanation, Sagong Hee beamed at her rival's future. I couldn't bring myself to deny it.
'She was smooth.'
Those who practice the Heavenly Demon Divine Art go bald without a single exception. Especially those who combine the Heavenly Demon Divine Art with their original internal energy art—their hair roots weaken at an abnormally fast rate. Baldness doesn't discriminate between men and women.
"The Heavenly Demon Divine Art is terrifying. It sacrifices your own body hair to gain power."
"Indeed."
Thus, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art is a demonic art. In exchange for power, every strand of hair on a person's body falls out, and in the very end, even the last body hair is plucked away.
"There are two ways to overcome the side effects of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. One is to reach the realm of Transcending Demon. It is similar to the Profound Realm, and those who reach this stage are called 'Transcending Demon Cultist (超魔敎人).'"
"What is that?"
"It's the stage when the Heavenly Demon Divine Art reaches Transcending Demon and attains its pinnacle. It refers to a phenomenon where every strand of hair glimmers with a golden light as the qi of heaven, not demonic energy, settles into the hair roots."
"Wow..."
From head to toe, the entire body turns gold—not the color of a human from the far Western Regions with colored eyes, but a radiant gold as if containing sunlight itself.
"But why was it specifically named Transcending Demon Cultist?"
"I don't know."
If I wanted to ask the person who coined the name, I'd have to wander the Central Plains searching for him. I only heard what the Blood Cult Leader said—I didn't fully understand his words.
"Upon reaching Transcending Demon, the hair roots are no longer plucked away. The body already contains the qi of heaven. The Heavenly Demon Divine Art is only truly completed at Transcending Demon, at the Profound Realm. Yet, in all of human history, no Heavenly Demon has ever reached Transcending Demon while preserving their hair roots."
"Meaning... they all went bald in the process."
"Yes. Every single one, without exception, up until now. The current Heavenly Demon is no different."
The person who will become the Heavenly Demon later is an exception, but I did say 'up until now,' so it wasn't a lie.
"The other method to protect the hair roots is medicine."
"Ah! You apply medicine just like treating a wound! Medicine... perhaps the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill?!"
"The Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill doesn't cure baldness either."
"Ah..."
If it could cure baldness, it would have been the true universal panacea. If the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill—which can even cure infectious plagues—cured baldness, the Heavenly Demon would be roaming the world right now with a lush mane of hair.
"The Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill cannot cure baldness, but a divine immortal can. To be precise, it's less a cure and more a method of regrowing lost hair, recorded in the Blue Pouch Book of the Medical Immortal Hua Tuo. The pinnacle of the Blue Bag Heart Method that the Divine Doctor possesses is reaching medical immortality, and only one who attains medical immortality can cure baldness."
"Is that even possible?"
"If a rebirth transformation can reshape bone and flesh, why would restoring hair be impossible?"
If body hair returned to someone who possessed everything but hair, he would boast from every street corner that he'd finally become complete.
"It sounds amazing but also a bit... could you not just live with it?"
"Grr!!"
I let out a roar from below the dantian. Sagong Hee flinched and hung her head low.
"Thanks to both your parents, yours is abundant, but know that those words can leave a wound deeper than the Taiji Wisdom Sword upon someone!"
"S-sorry, my lord. I unintentionally hurt you..."
"I'm not talking about myself. Look, does my head look like it's going bald?"
I pointed to the top of my lush head in front of Sagong Hee. Far from balding, it was so thickly haired it appeared overly shaggy unless I shook some hair out.
"If you only handle one type of qi, a counter-reaction is inevitable. You must handle the power of Taiji, of yin and yang, and achieve harmony. Do you understand? The top mustn't be too sparse, nor the bottom too abundant."
"I will follow your teachings, my lord. You mean to bring out the subtlety of Taiji?"
"Yes. Your body hair is part of your body as well."
Sagong Hee nodded and took the Full Lotus Position. The reflection session about the martial tournament was over, and now was the time to consolidate her internal energy for what lay ahead.
Woooooo.
The internal qi of the Taiji Divine Art began circulating through Sagong Hee's entire body. I sat before her, held her hands, assisted with the energy circulation, and cycled the qi of yin and yang.
'Even for my hair's sake, I need a woman's yin energy. If I only handle Extreme Yang Energy, I'll go bald too, but I can cool my head with yin energy.'
With proper harmony of yin and yang, you can overcome baldness too. Wrapping the easily overheating head with yin energy to cool it down and maintain a constant temperature—that is the secret art of protecting the hair roots.
Of course, I replenished my yin energy through Absorption of Yin to Nourish Yang. Thanks to that, I remained abundant, and no tragedy of overheating roots falling out occurred. Sagong Hee completed her energy circulation breathing, and we drank tea again.
"My lord, I'm curious about something. If becoming a medical immortal can cure baldness, why hasn't the Demonic Cult overcome baldness yet? They kidnapped the Divine Doctor."
That's right.
The Demonic Cult kidnapped the Divine Doctor to overcome baldness.
They packaged it publicly as treating an incurable disease only the Divine Doctor could handle, but save for a very select few, nobody knew that the 'incurable disease' was 'baldness.'
"That's because even the Divine Doctor hasn't reached medical immortality."
The kidnapped Divine Doctor was of no real help. Time and budget were abundant, and some progress was made, but the root cause couldn't be solved.
"Medical immortality isn't attained through enlightenment like martial arts. Rather, the one who discovers the lost secret method effectively becomes the medical immortal of the generation. Wouldn't you say the one who overcomes the baldness that even the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill couldn't is qualified to be called a medical immortal?"
The very moment you develop a hair-growth elixir, a cure for baldness, you become the medical immortal. The one who completes the Blue Pouch Book's only missing, torn 'chapter of hair growth' is the medical immortal.
If the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang had sought not immortality but to overcome baldness, he would certainly have died with a full head of hair. Because back then, the secret method to overcome it was recorded in the Blue Pouch Book.
"My lord, are you a medical immortal, then?"
"I am not a medical immortal, but I possess knowledge at the level of one. Yes, you seem curious. I know the secret formula to create the hair regrowth elixir that the Heavenly Demon desires so greatly. With it, I subdued the Flying Heaven Three Demons and stopped the Demonic Cult from laying a hand on you."
"My lord...! For me, such a thing...!"
"If I can protect your chastity with a mere formula, I can bare anything. Even the Taiji Wisdom Sword."
In an embrace, Sagong Hee pulled me against her chest. Overcome with emotion, she gasped for breath with glistening eyes, which made my lower half twitch in response.
"My lord, thank you so much...!"
The Heavenly Demon, who received my letter, must have been beside himself with joy as well.
- I shall take the Young Heavenly Demon for myself. I will fight and defeat you, she will become my wife.
'How happy would the Heavenly Demon be if I brought real hair as a dowry instead of a wig? And to someone who might even spar with him at full power, no less.'
I posed as a Taoist of similar caliber to the Heavenly Demon, a half-immortal, pulling off a great swindle. I claimed I could cure the hereditary illness that had plagued the Heavenly Demon clan for generations. Thanks to that, the Heavenly Demon had no choice but to swallow my misdeeds with tears in his eyes.
Pride? Humiliation?
- Hahaha! If you want my daughter, defeat me, Mubung!!
Those can be resolved later, when I stand before the Heavenly Demon and let him unleash all his rage at me through his fists. That's why I borrowed the name 'No Demon' among the Ten Demons, and I chose and announced my own alias.
"My lord, what becomes of the Flying Heaven Three Demons, then?"
"The Flying Heaven Three Demons will leave the Central Plains for a while, according to my design. The Hair-Growth Herb, which is the key ingredient for the hair regrowth elixir that the Heavenly Demon is desperate to find—Heavenly Horse's Tear—exists in a very faraway place."
A heavenly horse's tear.
"Where?"
"To the east. Long ago, Qin Shi Huang ordered Xu Fu to search for the Elixir of Immortality to overcome death. This is similar. The Three Demons will leave the Central Plains to find the Hair-Growth Herb."
I decided to strip the Flying Heaven Three Demons of their title and expel them from the Central Plains, and in exchange, I would take over their role. Although I unilaterally pushed the matter forward, both the Three Demons and the Heavenly Demon will surely be satisfied.
However, the distance they must travel will be extremely far—even from Hubei here. A month or two, no, certainly more than a year would be required. A great distance indeed.
"No matter how fast they search, it'll be around the time the next Dragon-Phoenix Gathering returns."
"......My lord."
Sagong Hee knelt before me and met my eyes.
"You once told me that if I had something to say, I shouldn't ask whether it's okay to ask, but just ask directly."
"I did."
"...You're leaving, aren't you? Sooner or later. Soon."
At her direct words, I immediately nodded. I lifted my cup and turned my head toward the window.
"I intend to watch over the Little Princess in place of the Three Demons."
At my words, Sagong Hee slowly closed her eyes. Her tear-laden lashes trembled faintly, but she soon lifted the corners of her lips with effort, placing her hands neatly on her own thighs.
"You intend to take the Little Princess as your wife, don't you? I had a feeling since that day you met the Little Princess at the clinic. When looking at other women, my lord always looked at their bodies. But you looked the Little Princess straight in her eyes. Even when standing in the spectators' seats at the martial tournament, even when my match was on."
"Sagong Hee."
"You hesitated to leave me behind here. But now that you've raised me enough... more precisely, now that there is another fence to protect me, you've decided that you can leave to seek other women now."
Sagong Hee was indeed brilliant.
"Because the moment I obtained an alias and became a key figure of Wudang, the Wudang Sect would protect me from all things."
And that was why she didn't want to participate in the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.
"We talked about something similar last time."
I wiped Sagong Hee's tears with my hand and stroked her cheek.
"Wudang Mountain will become your second home. You will become the junior sister who walks the path of the Taiji Wisdom Sword with Taoist Hyeongi until he retires after this final Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, and Taoist Hyeonta will firmly support you. Taoist Hyeoncheol, who will become Sect Leader, will also be unable to ignore you, the White Path's Number One Flower."
"But my lord won't be there."
"I'll only be absent for a little while. Didn't I promise? I will return without fail."
"How can I believe that? A butterfly leaving a flower, trying to go covet another flower's nectar."
"Then I shall leave proof."
Srrk. I put out the candle.
"Hee. We've known each other for almost a year now. But both you and I gave up many things for our internal training."
We engaged in dual cultivation every single day, but 'it' hadn't happened.
"Right now, you and I are not here as master and disciple, nor lord and servant."
Fluster. At my hands reaching for her front lapels, Sagong Hee flinched just like the day she first placed her body over mine.
"We are here as man and woman. Mubung, Taiji Sword Empress, Taiji Wisdom Sword, whatever else—we face each other as one man and one woman."
I leaned my head slightly forward and met the eyes of Sagong Hee sitting across from me. Just as Sagong Hee had grown remarkably, I too had grown so tall that I now had to look down at her. The man reflected in her pupils—filled with anticipation, fear, and affection—had become a sturdy youth before I knew it.
"Miss. What is your name?"
The woman placed her hands over mine on her chest and smiled brightly, even as she wept.
"...This young girl's name is Sagong Hee."
"Is that so?"
I pressed my forehead against Sagong Hee's, embraced her waist, and whispered into her ear.
"My name is ... I wish to become your husband."
For the first time in eight years since my regression, I revealed my name to another.
"Will you become the mother of my child?"
"What? M-my lord! But I am... the Taiji Flower, the White Path's Number One Flower, and if I were to become pregnant...!"
"Tch, Gyeon-hui. You've already prepared the rice, is that how it is? Tsk. Didn't I tell you?"
Smack, smack.
"That right now, you and I are not martial artists—we are a woman and a man who desire each other."
I lightly slapped Sagong Hee's breasts left and right as a disciplinary measure.
"I want you, Sagong Hee."
"......Take me."
Not as the Lust Demon, but as a man, I embraced Sagong Hee.