An Unexpected Encounter - 1
There was nothing especially elaborate about Cheon-un’s decision to head south rather than toward Mount Changbai in search of The Wind and Cloud Heroes.
Even for a martial artist, the journey from Hubei Province to Mount Changbai was impossibly distant. A simple round trip would consume years.
Cheon-un had been granted leave to roam the jianghu under the official pretext of searching for that legendary text, so she had to choose the swiftest possible route to her destination.
I’ll take a boat east along the Yangtze.
South of Mount Wudang the great river flowed onward until it reached the Yellow Sea. If she could sail as far as the coast and then either travel overland along the shoreline or secure another vessel bound for Liaodong, the time needed to reach Mount Changbai would shrink dramatically.
There was one more reason she wanted to go south.
I want to look one last time for the author of The Wind and Cloud Heroes.
The book had first been discovered in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei. The earlier search she had conducted with her fellow Wudang disciples had failed, yet perhaps fate would still grant her a chance encounter.
So Cheon-un was making her way toward Wuhan, intending to seek any remaining trace of the manuscript’s origin before boarding a ship on the Yangtze.
“Taoist Master! Thank you!”
“We begged the authorities again and again, but they never lifted a finger against those bandits. That you would go to such trouble for simple folk like us… we are truly grateful!”
“You actually defeated the Green-Scarlet Twin Fiends! Those brothers have been bleeding every shop dry for months. Taoist Master, we cannot thank you enough!”
Even while she moved toward her appointed mission, Cheon-un never forgot the chivalrous deeds she had sworn to perform. Her feet were set for Wuhan, yet whenever she saw the tears of ordinary people she never turned away; she simply paused for a while.
“Taoist Master! Taoist Master! My husband left with a merchant caravan over that mountain and never came back!”
“He joined the caravan that passed through our village only days ago, and they say he vanished somewhere in those hills.”
It was a trap Dang Geoho had prepared in advance to capture Dang Hwarin. Without meaning to, the young chivalrous Taoist walked straight into it, climbing the mountain in search of the innocent victims caught in the snare.
“I am called Cheon-un.”
The journey to find the author of The Wind and Cloud Heroes and the path of a true gallant had, in the end, woven an inevitable meeting.
“W-Wudang Sect?”
“How is a third-generation disciple of Wudang here?”
In Hubei Province no martial artist, no matter how bold, could stand free before the name of the great Wudang Sect. That name weighed heavily on the black-clad men.
“Who dares commit such atrocities in the very front yard of Wudang?!”
Cheon-un stared at the bodies that still held a remnant of warmth and spoke with a voice thick with righteous fury. Several of the nearest black-clad men instinctively took a step back before the gallant’s anger.
“Young hero! We are members of the Sichuan Dang Clan’s Righteous Pavilion! We are under attack by the cruel Demonic Cult!”
One of the Pavilion warriors shouted the situation to the unexpected reinforcement.
“Minions of the Demonic Cult?!”
People of the Sichuan Dang Clan on one side, suspicious black-clad figures on the other. Cheon-un did not yet understand how the battle had unfolded, but she knew with absolute certainty which side she must aid.
“No other Wudang Taoists in sight…”
Seeing that no additional blue-robed figures appeared, the black-clad men allowed themselves a small breath of relief and reassessed the newcomer.
A fair, almost pretty face framed by blue hair. A young Taoist who had barely passed twenty and clearly knew little of the world. She had most likely stumbled upon the scene by pure chance while traveling.
“Walking into your own grave? One more corpse to dispose of today!”
Wudang was terrifying, yet a single fledgling disciple was not. One of the black-clad men swung his blade before the Taoist could even draw.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Cheon-un let out an almost incredulous shout as the sword flew toward her. The black-clad man’s strike was fast—yet she had faced blades faster still, countless times. In the blink of an eye her own sword left its scabbard.
“Ghk—!”
The gallant’s blade parried the incoming steel and opened the man’s throat in one seamless motion.
“You bastard!”
“Kraaagh!”
The moment one black-clad fighter collapsed, the others nearby lunged in. Their swords were every bit as swift as the first—yet their fates were identical.
Houfa Zhiren—strike second to control the first.
Cheon-un drew upon the subtle principles of Wudang swordsmanship, calmly watching each opponent’s line of attack before decisively overwhelming them.
“Hit her from both sides at once!”
“She’s just a greenhorn Taoist! If we rush together she won’t be able to respond!”
They were not wrong. Wudang sword arts were fundamentally defensive; even when one yielded the initiative the advantage remained. Yet Cheon-un still looked like a youth only a little past twenty. No matter how thoroughly she had internalized the principle of striking second, there were limits to what one person could handle.
Blades coming from every direction would be too much. The black-clad men closed the distance, ready to overwhelm her simultaneously.
The Eight Trigrams advance first.
But the one who moved first was Cheon-un herself, abandoning pure defense and exploding forward.
“Guhk!”
“Urgh!”
They had expected the young Taoist to hold a defensive stance. That single moment of carelessness shattered their incomplete encirclement in an instant.
“So you actually thought you could handle this.”
They had taken her for a moth diving into flame; she was not. The strongest of the pursuit squad flung aside the body of a Righteous Pavilion warrior he had just slain and spoke.
“Do you feel no shame for cowardly cutting down the wounded? Come, then—I will face you.”
“Arrogant brat. I was going to come whether you invited me or not.”
The black-clad man strode toward Cheon-un as though he were walking into his own courtyard, studying her carefully.
She had abandoned the defensive advantage of Wudang martial arts and seized the initiative herself. Had she reached a realm where offense and defense no longer mattered? The form looked like Taiji Sword, yet something was different. The young Taoist was using a martial art he had never heard of. A bluff? Whatever it was, if it had worked this far it deserved caution.
He cast a glance around the battlefield. The precarious stalemate had begun to tilt, however slightly, with the appearance of this unexpected figure.
More men would have been ideal, but the force had already been split to chase another group. Continuous pursuit and fighting had further worn down both numbers and stamina. If he dragged this out any longer they might lose their prey entirely.
Finish it quickly.
For the greater plan, a measure of risk had to be accepted. Unconcerned that his own life force was burning away, the black-clad man detonated the demonic energy within his body.
What a monstrous aura…
Cheon-un watched the man wreathed in writhing black energy. The murderous pressure was so thick her skin crawled.
Run away.
Was it a power of the demonic energy itself, or simple instinctive terror before an unknown force? For the first time in her life she felt the urge to turn her feet and flee.
They’re strangers. Not my senior brothers, not my junior disciples. Aside from belonging to the same righteous path, we have no connection at all.
A hallucination that sounded like her own voice yet was not her own seemed to whisper in her ear.
It’s all right to run.
The opponent had at least several decades more internal energy. She could still escape right now. She could claim the enemy had been beyond her, that she would face him again someday. All she had to do was run and invent an excuse.
But Cheon-un did not.
This is exactly like Unhyeon’s situation.
The final scene of volume one of The Wind and Cloud Heroes: a carriage attacked by a mysterious assailant, a woman trapped inside. Would Unhyeon have fled in that moment?
She had read the book hundreds of times. Not knowing the contents of volume two did not mean she could not predict that scene.
I decided to become a chivalrous hero.
To stand against injustice and protect the weak. She had stepped into the world so that she would never bring shame upon the name of Wudang.
If she turned her head once, she would keep turning it forever. Cheon-un tightened her grip on the sword to steel her will.
“So you endure it? Amusing.”
The black-clad man smiled at her.
On a sudden intuition Cheon-un directed her internal energy toward her head; the pure, clear qi of a Taoist instantly swept away the turbid demonic force clouding her mind. Had that been a special ability of the demonic energy?
Her thoughts cleared. A single moment of confusion was enough to ruin everything.
Cheon-un raised her sword so that she would never again turn away from injustice.
The black-clad man struck first.
Cheon-un sought to apply the principle of softness overcomes hardness, intending to receive the ferocious blade with yielding softness.
“Kh—!”
Her face twisted as the sword punched straight through her softness.
Wudang’s softness itself was not lacking; Cheon-un’s own softness was. The sheer ferocity was more than enough to shatter yielding force.
“Is that all you have?!”
She clenched her teeth against the man’s mocking laughter. All she could do was barely redirect the successive attacks.
At this rate she would lose. Unable to fully parry the overwhelming power, she was driven back step after step. The principle she needed was softness overcomes hardness, yet reality was hardness severs softness. Wudang’s sword was not lacking—she herself was lacking, and so the blade was cut.
My present realm is insufficient. Then…
Recognition and decision came in the same breath.
Cheon-un took a half-step forward. Only half a step—yet that half-step carried her into the black-clad man’s domain, a space only those who were prepared to stake their lives for chivalry could enter.
“Petty tricks! Before absolute force nothing else matters!”
Courage was not recklessness. That half-step-faster attack succeeded in disrupting the man’s center of power.
Still not enough. Her realm was still insufficient. She was still far too lacking to truly comprehend Wudang’s softness.
Should she give up? Cheon-un wrestled with the thought.
No. Then she would simply use another sword. From her fingertips the martial art she had desperately trained for the past half-year began to unfold.
The Eight Trigrams transform once.
Fierce, hard energy gathered along the blade with which Cheon-un was receiving the enemy’s sword.
“Suddenly a hard sword? Laughable!”
Hard against hard—anyone could see whose power was greater. The weaker side would be crushed without mercy. The black-clad man poured even denser demonic energy into his own blade.
The Eight Trigrams transform once and do not stop.
“What is this—?!”
From soft sword to hard sword, from hard sword back to soft. The blade charged with fierce energy lost its balance in the sudden yielding.
“You dare use cheap tricks on me!”
Panicked, the man poured still more demonic energy into his sword and swung with everything he had. This chance would come only once. If she faltered now and let the opportunity slip, the initiative would return to him.
Stand unmoving like Mount Tai, and look upon the opponent with a mind as clear as the bright mirror of still water.
Cheon-un did not waver; she merely turned her body a fraction. The overpowered sword brushed only the edge of her sleeve.
The black-clad man’s blade had left its proper path—a clear opening.
The Eight Trigrams transform once; one transformation becomes a thousand transformations. Even if I have not yet reached ten thousand…
“Just what the hell are you—?!”
He tried desperately to recover his sword, but before he could—
—it will be enough to complete Wudang’s sword out in the world.
—the pure essence of the sword art created by the Eighth Generation Sect Master unfolded from Cheon-un’s fingertips and pierced straight through the black-clad man’s chest.
“Ghk—!”
Strength and weakness. In a contest of pure power much time would have been needed. Yet just as deciding to perform a chivalrous act required no long deliberation, so too the dividing of life from death needed only an instant.
“Keh-heh… that was never a Wudang sword! You… were you never of Wudang at all?!”
Clutching his chest, the black-clad man staggered slowly backward. A hole punched clean through his torso. He was holding on with internal energy, yet anyone could see that survival was hopeless.
“This, too, is a Wudang sword.”
“Wudang has released a terrifying monster into the world… To be unable to see the great enterprise through to the end… how… regrettable…”
He never finished the sentence. At last he collapsed.
The reversal of the battle was instantaneous.
Once the Taoist named Cheon-un and the Righteous Pavilion warriors rode the rising momentum and drove back the pursuing black-clad men, no further enemies came.
So the first wave was stopped. Thanks to the unexpected reinforcement not many had died, and Hwarin also seemed unharmed.
“Can you stand?”
The handsome Taoist who had introduced himself as Cheon-un approached me and held out a hand.
“…”
I did not answer at once. For a moment I simply stared blankly at the Taoist. A chivalrous hero who actually extended a helping hand precisely when it was needed.
It was as shocking as seeing the mythical creature called a “girlfriend” in real life. Wow. So this world really was a proper martial arts world after all. I was a little moved.
“Are you all right?”
“Ah?! Yes, I’m fine. I can get up. Ah—!”
I put strength into my legs and tried to rise, only to stagger again.
“Allow me to assist you.”
With Cheon-un’s support I finally made it to my feet.
“Is there something you wish to say?”
Why does this kid keep staring at me? Don’t tell me he’s that kind of person? Does he actually have something to ask? After looking at me for a while longer, Cheon-un suddenly posed a completely unexpected question.
“There is something I would like to ask. Are you, by any chance, from Joseon?”