Headquarters - 5
The disciple's beloved. Kang Yunho had been taken to the Sichuan Tang Clan.
The Red Rakshasa, Dan Seowol, could not hide her bewilderment at the news that had flown in from Yichang.
Salmak was no intelligence organization like the Beggars' Sect, or the Haomen with its ranks of society's dregs. Kang Yunho might be the beloved of First-Class Assassin No. 6 — the man of the Heavenly Killing Star — but the syndicate had never kept routine watch on him. Managing the love lives of every assassin would be a waste of manpower. Still, report in if anything important happens. That was all Dan Seowol had ever told the Salmak branch chief stationed in Yichang.
"Dragged off to the Sichuan Tang Clan for writing a novel about them? Why?"
Dan Seowol now knew the cause and the effect of her disciple's beloved being taken, yet the single question — why? — refused to leave her head.
A writer was, in the end, a man of letters — a class of people honored in every age. From time immemorial, when blade-carrying ruffians abused their strength on ink-stained men of learning, neither the people nor officialdom looked kindly upon it. Roughing up even a scholar of modest renown demanded watching one's step — and yet they had seized one of Yichang's rising writers.
Even for a clan whose might was vast enough to proclaim itself the hegemon of Sichuan City, this was strange. No — precisely because it was the Sichuan Tang Clan, it was stranger still. The Tang Clan was one of the great murim families hailed, alongside the Nine Great Sects, as a pillar of the Orthodox faction. This was a clan famous for how jealously it guarded its face as an orthodox sect — and it had hauled off a writer?
Dan Seowol knew exactly how much the Sichuan Tang Clan dreaded the sting of pointing fingers, and that only deepened her puzzlement.
"A serious matter, it says."
The report did not write that he had been graciously escorted — it wrote that he had been dragged away. Which meant the Tang Clan had taken him even at the cost of its own name and prestige.
"If my disciple hears of this, she won't sit still."
Should she tell her? Dan Seowol thought of the disciple who had left Salmak's headquarters as an assassin and returned as a woman. There was no way that girl would stay quiet after hearing this news.
"Handled wrong, she could become a true Heavenly Killing Star."
A child who had spent her whole life terrified of losing herself to the bloodlust. And that disciple had finally found hope — hope of overcoming her destiny at last. The man she had come to love was a childhood friend who had known her when she was small, the big brother she had played with in the same village, a Defier of Destiny who could rewrite fate itself. If that was not a match decreed by heaven, what was?
And if her disciple's beloved were to die?
For a moment, Dan Seowol pictured her disciple — match lost, every hope abandoned, devoured by bloodlust, setting the world aflame.
Should she burn the report?
Burn the news and play ignorant? Even if her disciple later learned the whole truth and resented her for it, perhaps the girl could go on enjoying a peaceful everyday life a while longer.
"What's this?"
Her anguish finally broke when she saw the single-sheet letter tucked inside the report envelope. It was a letter Kang Yunho had written to Cheon Sohee before leaving Yichang.
"Yukiko! I do believe I have found the successor capable of absorbing every seduction art I learned in Dongyeong!"
Seolja beamed with satisfaction at Cheon Sohee, fresh from training.
"Doesn't seem like it helped much."
Cheon Sohee answered in a disgruntled voice. Seolja's seduction arts were nothing like the cheap flirtation she had imagined — but then, they were nothing like ordinary seduction either. She had only played along because of Seolja's badgering and the mood of the thing. Honestly, maybe the training Salmak ran internally would have been better after all. Cheon Sohee thought to herself.
"How can you judge from a single first lesson! Next time, no matter what sly fox comes slinking along, this will be the secret weapon that drags your childhood friend's eyes right back to you! A kunoichi famous in all Dongyeong! I shall prepare for you a Shiranui-style outfit!"
Seolja fussed flamboyantly over what costume the disgruntled Heavenly Killing Star ought to wear next. Cheon Sohee let it wash past one ear and made for the private training ground of her master, Dan Seowol.
"So you've come."
Dan Seowol said it as the two of them arrived at her personal training ground.
"Lady Dan Seowol! Is something the matter?"
Seolja asked, puzzled by the shadow on Dan Seowol's face.
"A letter has come from Yichang."
Dan Seowol said, gazing at her disciple with worry written across her face.
"Ooooh! Don't tell me — from No. 6's man!"
"It is. An urgent letter from my disciple's beloved."
With practiced ease, Dan Seowol drew the small letter out from between her ample breasts.
"Give it."
The Heavenly Killing Star stepped up to her master and shot a hand toward the letter — a speed so blinding that no master alive would have sensed her coming. For Dan Seowol, letting her disciple's movement slip past her even once was enough. She evaded the reaching hand and tucked the letter back into the valley of her chest.
"Why?"
The Heavenly Killing Star asked, eyes brimming with puzzlement.
"You may read it — if you promise not to act rashly once you have."
Worry seeped from the grave gaze Dan Seowol fixed on her disciple. After long deliberation, she had decided to tell her. Even so, the matter was grave indeed — the shock could break her. First, the girl's heart needed preparing.
"Understood."
When her disciple gave a small nod, Dan Seowol handed over the letter.
A dozen emotions seethed inside Cheon Sohee, but she let none of them show as she carefully opened her brother's letter.
— The novel I wrote has gotten me taken to the Sichuan Tang Clan. If word from me stops, come looking for me at the clan.
"According to the report, he was dragged away for the crime of writing a novel connected to the Sichuan Tang Clan."
Dan Seowol relayed the report she had received as flatly as she could manage.
"I'm going."
Not even a heartbeat of hesitation. Cheon Sohee turned to leave at once.
"No."
"You cannot!"
Seolja threw herself into Cheon Sohee's path, and Dan Seowol caught her disciple by the shoulder, holding her back with a grave voice.
"Let go."
"I will not! Do you take the Sichuan Tang Clan for some backwater stockade?!"
This was the Sichuan Tang Clan. Even the Emei Sect and the Qingcheng Sect — mainstays of murim among the Nine Great Sects — whatever the depth of their martial arts, took a step back to the Tang Clan when it came to influence within Sichuan City. The hegemon of Sichuan City. The Sichuan Tang Clan. Even if all of Salmak marched against them — never mind one Heavenly Killing Star — the world would call it folly. And she meant to go there alone.
Yukiko spread both arms wide to bar Cheon Sohee's way.
"The Tang Clan's poisons can't touch me."
Cheon Sohee declared it proudly. And it was no empty boast. She was the Heavenly Killing Star, gifted with talent straight from heaven. She carried innate resistance to poison, resistance forged through an assassin's training, and even the gift of driving out invading extreme poisons with the Asura Life-Seizing Skill. She had not yet reached the fabled realm of Invulnerability to All Poisons, where no toxin under heaven could touch her — but no one needed to deny that within Salmak, she was the one warrior best suited to cross hands with the Tang Clan's masters.
"And what of hidden weapons?! If every Tang clansman flings even a single dart, No. 6 will be left a pincushion!"
"Then I'll dodge them. Move. Or I cut you down."
"Urk! Then cut me down if you must! Yukiko does not mind gaining the experience of a master cut down by her own disciple!"
I knew it would come to this. Dan Seowol sank into thought as she watched her disciple make for Yichang with unbending resolve. Even she could not talk the girl down. Only one person in this world could.
Dan Seowol decided to spend the words she had prepared in advance.
"Your brother might die."
"That's why I'm going."
Cheon Sohee answered without even turning her head.
"I said he might die because of you."
Only then did Cheon Sohee turn her head and look at her master.
"If you go to your beloved, your madness will surely flare anew. Even if you somehow manage to free him, you will have heaped fresh grudges upon the Tang Clan — and then your beloved spends the rest of his life a hunted fugitive."
The Sichuan Tang Clan forgets nothing. Wherever Cheon Sohee and Kang Yunho fled, that grudge would run them down.
"We could hide him in a safehouse."
"Hide him there your whole life? No — you would not even need a whole lifetime. If your beloved sits idle for only a few years, your destiny is plain as day."
Thanks to the Defier of Destiny, the Heavenly Killing Star had won a reprieve from the seasons when her reason was devoured by bloodlust. But someday, that day would come. For it never to come, the Defier of Destiny had to keep shining. If she went now, every last hope could crumble to nothing.
Dan Seowol dared to lay hands on the thing her disciple feared above all else. However desperate the girl was to reach Yichang, she would not so easily brush aside the fear she had carried all her life. So Dan Seowol believed.
But she—
Cheon Sohee—
—was no longer the Heavenly Killing Star of the past.
"Better I go mad than watch my brother die."
Her voice was resolute. Her staggering words dropped the training ground into a long silence. Dan Seowol above all, blindsided by the blow, could not easily open her mouth.
What manner of man was this Kang Yunho, anyway? Enough to overturn the Heavenly Killing Star's first priority. I would like to see that face, just once.
The same thought coursed through the heads of both stunned women.
"I'm going."
Dan Seowol's shock only barely settled when her disciple moved to walk away. Her final disciple. She could not send her off like this.
"Then you mean to betray your brother?"
Dan Seowol reached for her disciple's beloved one more time.
"Betray him?"
"Read that letter again. Did your brother ask for your help? He did not. He left word behind for one reason only — so you would not worry if word from him stopped."
It was the truth. Kang Yunho had never wanted Cheon Sohee coming to his rescue. He had sent the letter because, should the worst come to pass, he wished to spare her the torment of searching for a man who could not be found.
"……"
Cheon Sohee could not refute her master's words either.
"Your beloved said he would do his utmost to keep his promise to you. He even left a letter so you would not worry. And now you mean to go to him because you cannot trust him? Even at the cost of turning to foam everything he has struggled to build?"
"He could die."
"Disciple. A promise is not kept by one side alone. The other side must believe. Are you saying you cannot trust your brother?"
"I trust him. But—"
"Then trust him to the very end."
Cheon Sohee looked into her master's eyes as the woman held her back with unshakable resolve. They were not the eyes of the taskmaster who had always driven her without mercy, but the eyes of a parent gazing upon a daughter still green and unready.
Reading the wavering in Cheon Sohee, Dan Seowol went on in a tender voice.
"The virtue of a good wife is to stand by her husband to the very end."
Never in her dreams had she imagined the day would come when she would say such words to her — and that much, Dan Seowol kept to herself.
Cheon Sohee's eyes wavered.
'I want to go to my brother. But I can't go.'
He could die.
She wanted to save him. But would going truly fix anything? Would it not make every single thing worse? She did not know which choice was right. But if her brother died, she would curse herself for the rest of her life.
If she appeared, her brother would look at her with nothing but tenderness. He would not scold her — he would simply hold her. And there, their story would end. Yunho would never rise to fame again, and she would walk on toward the catastrophe written for her.
"Your skill may well overflow for taking lives, but it is still too little for guarding one. So for now, it is your turn to trust your beloved."
Her master's gentle counsel pierced her ears, and Cheon Sohee bowed her head.
Weak. Lacking. Yunho was in peril, and she could not go to him. He had given her so very much, and she had nothing to give back. All she had to offer was her trust. Her strength was far too meager — to shield her brother, and to master the murderous heart of the Heavenly Killing Star.
"……I will enter the Training Cave and seal myself in closed-door seclusion for a while."
Cheon Sohee said this to her master as she turned her body toward the Training Cave. Closed-door seclusion — to bar the door, sever every tie to the outside world, and give herself over to nothing but training. It was her way of saying she would not leave.
"A wise choice, No. 6!"
Seolja cried out, her face bright with joy.
"And if…… when I come out of seclusion, there is still no word of my brother—"
"Then we go to Sichuan together."
"……I'm going to the Training Cave right now."
Delay even a little, and she felt she would head straight for Yichang after all. Cheon Sohee set off for the Training Cave.
"We'll be waiting."
"Keep your spirits up!"
Cheon Sohee watched the two of them close the door of the Training Cave. Starlight slipped through the narrowing crack — but Cheon Sohee soon looked away from the sky, down to her own hand.
— Fate lies not in heaven, but in your hand.
Her brother, even now, even in this very moment, was pressing forward to save his own destiny — and the destiny of the Heavenly Killing Star. All she could do now was trust him, and climb higher in her arts so the bloodlust could never devour her.
"Yunho. Stay strong."
The Heavenly Killing Star murmured quietly, praying her voice might somehow reach the brother so far away.
She would give it her all. Trusting her brother. And the seclusion, too.
But if, when the door opened, the news waiting for her was that something had happened to him……
The Sichuan Tang Clan would receive the Heavenly Killing Star.