Dangga Pungun, Volume 3 — Part One
"Stand right there, Saekma! You would flee from me?!"
The third volume of Dangga Pungun opened with Dang Jeong unleashing his famed ultimate technique, the Poison Killing Domain.
"Fleeing, you say?! A whelp scarce emerged into the jianghu, and his arrogance scrapes the very heavens! When a man spies dung upon the road, he simply walks around it — pray tell, how is that fleeing?!"
"That wretch Saekma. Blustering even now," Scholar Hwang murmured as he read the passage describing Saekma hastily widening the distance from the Poison Killing Domain, glaring daggers at Dang Jeong all the while.
"Ha ha. Does my Poison Killing Domain frighten you so?"
"Neeeeever! Gkkh! One of these days I will wring that neck of yours!"
Furious down to the roots of his hair, yet unable to close the distance — Dang Jeong's signature technique had now reached a realm that even the Erotic Fiend could no longer treat as he pleased.
Unable to discharge his rage, Saekma vanished into the distance once more.
"So the Poison Killing Domain has become an object of terror even to Saekma."
The Poison Killing Domain. A desperate bluff improvised in Volume One, truly completed in Volume Two — and by Volume Three, it had come to the point where even when Dang Jeong laid his goading stratagem, Saekma would simply run.
Watching Dang Jeong grow, Scholar Hwang felt a pride much like that of seeing a friend who had studied devotedly through hard times finally pass the imperial examinations.
Of course, even with Dang Jeong's realm elevated, all was not without its troubles.
"Within the Poison Killing Domain I can defeat even Saekma — yet I cannot catch the Saekma who flees beyond its bounds."
Dang Jeong lamented as he gazed after the vanished Fiend. He was a newcomer to the jianghu, and a gap in martial skill between him and Saekma most certainly existed. It was only his signature technique and the peculiar nature of the Tang Clan's arts that allowed him to disregard that gap and aim for the Fiend's very life.
"Hoh. Is Dang Jeong lacking still, that he cannot defeat Saekma alone?"
Scholar Hwang gazed upon the despairing hero with an aching heart. If he could not seize Saekma alone, what then was to be done? Surely reinforcements were called for. Could that be precisely why new women were to appear this volume?
Anticipation swelling, Scholar Hwang read on.
"Big Sister! I've found him! It's Saekma!"
"Villain!"
"Just as foretold — the two peerless beauties of Hubei, the swordswomen the preview promised! But — Saekma?!" Could they truly mean Dang Jeong, the truest chivalric hero of this age?
"I am no Saekma. If anything, I am the one hunting him."
"Silence, villain! Purple hair and green eyes! I have heard the rumors — that Saekma's arts resemble those of the Tang Clan. Never did I dream he would be OF the Tang Clan itself!"
"The Sichuan Tang Clan. So it was your doing all along."
"You are mistaken."
"Shameless to the last — just like the Erotic Fiend! Big Sister! Draw your blade!"
"To think Dang Jeong would cross blades with women swordsmen over Saekma's likeness!"
The martial arts of the two beauties were truly superb. One struck with icy precision while the other swept like living flame; their combined sword art flowed as though the two had been born of one womb, each covering the other's openings, growing ever stronger with every exchange.
"Could it be?! Is Dang Jeong losing?!"
It was a power no rising newcomer of the murim seemed capable of withstanding. Sick with worry for Dang Jeong, Scholar Hwang's eyes went wide as saucers.
"Ahk!"
"Urk!"
"Feeling calmer now?"
Of course, they were no match for a man who had fought Saekma in duels where his very life hung in the balance.
"Kuhuhuh! THAT is it!"
Dang Jeong had only appeared to be in peril because he was taking pains to subdue the two women without harming a single hair on their heads. The moment the truth dawned on him, Scholar Hwang clenched his fist and let out a great cheer.
"Forgive us, young hero. I am called Im Mi-ryeong."
"Sorry for mistaking you, hehe. I'm Im Min."
The two swordswomen could not lift their heads for shame. Im Mi-ryeong and Im Min: the elder, Im Mi-ryeong, a beauty with a cool, frost-set face; her junior by a single year, Im Min, a beauty with a bright and blooming one. Different in flavor yet impossible to rank, the two were not only cousins but fellow disciples under the same master.
"Ah — Hubei's famed Two Flowers of Blue and Red. Urk!"
"Young hero! Are you hurt?! You eased your hand and took a wound for it — and here we were the ones who sought your very life!"
"It was a trifling misunderstanding. How could I ever lay hands upon women of chivalry pursuing the Erotic Fiend?"
Rubbing casually at the wound he had earned by sparing the pair, Dang Jeong favored the two with an easy, untroubled smile. For an instant, the two swordswomen could only stare at him, transfixed.
"Dang Jeong, you rascal! Upright is all well and good, but you mustn't go setting women's hearts trembling with those dashing words of yours! Lady Du Eung-hyang waits for you, man!"
Dashing even in another man's eyes. Dashing indeed — and yet. With his heart hopelessly tangled, Scholar Hwang heaved a sigh.
The three took to one another at once and set off in pursuit of Saekma — and of the three, Dang Jeong shone the brightest. In moments of danger he spared his body nothing; at the sight of the women who had fallen prey to the Fiend's wiles he wept genuine tears; and his fury at Saekma he did not trouble to hide.
"That a man could be this sincere over the misfortune of another. Dang Jeong's rage carries all the way into my own heart."
As Scholar Hwang read on, his loathing of evil and his burning hope for Dang Jeong's chivalrous deeds rose higher and higher in his breast.
"Young hero Dang, do not grieve so."
"Brother Dang Jeong..."
The two women had hunted Saekma to punish the enemy of all women — and in the midst of that hunt, they had met a hero who grieved so truly for the sorrows of women. Under the weight of Dang Jeong's sincere grief and rage, the pink blossoms budding in their hearts put down deeper and deeper roots.
"Brother Dang Jeong, is your shoulder all right?"
"A minor wound. I am quite well."
"I have brought medicine. Might you rest the pursuit a while, and let your injury heal?"
"Evil does not stand waiting because good has grown weary. Were I to rest, somewhere, this very moment, an innocent woman's tears might be falling."
"Yes. THIS is Dang Jeong!"
Wounded, he does not crumple. Before monstrous evil, he does not yield. An uprightness so stubborn it borders on foolishness. Had Dang Jeong been a man shaken by a mere wound, he would long since have been living in happiness with the Greatest Beauty of Sichuan or Hubei's Number One Courtesan.
Who, after all, was Dang Jeong's one true wife? Even in the Tea Book Club, where the factions blazed away at one another like wildfire, they spoke with a single voice on this: Dang Jeong, upright and unyielding, was the man the Central Plains needed most in these times.
A fond, contented smile spread across Scholar Hwang's face at Dang Jeong's words.
But those words had set fire to more than Scholar Hwang's heart alone. As Dang Jeong gazed out the window, seemingly lost in memory of the two women, Im Mi-ryeong and Im Min — watching that far-off look upon his face — found themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a charm from which there was no breaking free.
"Dang Jeong, you rascal! You already hold the hearts of two women — and now you would seize two more, both at the same time?!"
Raise an iron wall, he wanted to cry. A wall to rival the Great Wall of ten thousand li! Yet Scholar Hwang, main pillar of the Hubei's Number One Courtesan Faction, sighed and lamented — and could only admit, ruefully, that it would have been stranger still had the two women not fallen.
Im Mi-ryeong and Im Min. The two women, utterly ensnared by Dang Jeong's charm, began their subtle approaches upon his heart.
"Brother Dang. Come now — say 'aah' for me."
"Lady Im Min. This will not do."
"Your shoulder was wounded on my account. Save those hands for when you face the Erotic Fiend."
"Lady Im Min is truly a woman like a blossom of spring."
Im Min's tender sweetness was like a spring blossom, seeping softly into the heart. With that sun-bright smile, she could capture any man's heart in a single instant — any man, that is, save Dang Jeong.
"Lady Im Mi-ryeong?"
"These are herbs that grow only upon the sheerest of cliff faces. Eat them, and be well again."
"But how — in a village so remote as this?"
"To think she was hiding her dirt-caked hands behind her sash out of sheer mortification! Kuhuhuhuh! Cold as frost — yet hotter than anything alive! Who knew the expressions of love between two women — cousins and fellow disciples both — could differ so wildly! What tender-hearted ladies... Gah! No!"
If even Dang Jeong had not yet been bewitched by the pair, how could he, a mere reader, permit himself to sway? Thinking hard upon Du Eung-hyang, Scholar Hwang barely managed to anchor himself against their charm.
And so the discord between the two swordswomen grew, one man standing between them. Cousins though they were, fellow disciples, sisters in all but blood, the rivalry only swelled.
"Big Sister, from now on I'll be the one applying the young hero's Golden Sore Powder."
"Your hands are clumsy. You will not."
"Big Sister! What skill does applying salve possibly require? And you've quite the sneaky streak yourself, I notice!"
"Whatever are you saying?"
"Don't think I haven't seen you — saying you're dressing his shoulder wound while ever so casually stroking the young hero's firm muscles!"
"I-I was not—"
"Heh heh heh. Two women, quarreling over Dang Jeong. Why is it that nothing in this world is so endlessly diverting as women fighting over a man?!"
A war of guard and feint, all for Dang Jeong's heart. At the spectacle of women contending over a man he himself esteemed, Scholar Hwang could not contain his laughter.
"Big Sister Mi-ryeong — who was that man you praised so the other day?"
The contest over one man had deepened until cracks ran through even a bond like sisters'. When Im Mi-ryeong — the finer martial artist of the two — began to draw the greater share of Dang Jeong's attention, Im Min reached for a forbidden move.
"Im Min. You—"
"Lady Im Mi-ryeong — is there a man she holds dear?"
"Big Sister Mi-ryeong has a hero she's fond of. What was his name again... Un Hyeon, was it?"
"Un Hyeon?"
"It is not adoration — merely admiration. I once chanced to receive the aid of a certain hero. His swordplay carried a profound mystery within it — dazzling, yet never once losing its gentleness. He must surely hail from a great orthodox sect."
"To think Lady Im Mi-ryeong, who so rarely finishes a sentence, would praise a man so lavishly. He must be a truly extraordinary hero."
"Yes. The finest hero I have ever— ...Ah!"
"Lady Im Mi-ryeong?"
"Heeheehee."
"Ugh!"
She had been played. To sing another man's praises before the very man she secretly cherished! Only upon seeing Im Min smiling, eyes narrowed to sly little crescents, did Im Mi-ryeong understand that she had walked straight into a designed snare.
"How frightening! In the wars of women, the tongue cuts deeper than blade or fist!"
Who knew the spring-blossom Im Min could unfurl such stratagems in love's name? Who knew the frost-set composure of Im Mi-ryeong would crack before it? Terrifying, he called it — and yet Scholar Hwang found the tangled relations of these three so riveting he could scarcely bear it.
"I shall go out for a while."
"Lady Im Mi-ryeong!"
She had merely explained herself at length — a touch too at length — so that Young Hero Dang would not mistake her heart as belonging to another man. But the very surplus of her words turned traitor upon her. Surely now Young Hero Dang would conclude she harbored love for some other man. Unable to stomach the injustice and the sting of humiliation, Im Mi-ryeong bolted from the inn where the party was lodging.
And from a great distance away, the Erotic Fiend watched as Im Mi-ryeong stepped out of the inn, his gaze fixed upon her.
"NO!!! It cannot be—?!"
Panic seized Scholar Hwang, and he frantically turned to the next page.