The Opening Move
Cheonhwa gathered a portion of the moss and returned at once to the physician’s quarters.
Danwon examined the medicinal ingredient, then nodded. It was unmistakably the thing she had been seeking.
“This is certainly the herb I was looking for. Oddly enough, though, its medicinal potency is unusually strong.”
“You can tell just by looking?”
“It’s my own secret method—combining martial arts with medical skill. Anyway, where did you find it?”
At Danwon’s question, Cheonhwa told her everything exactly as it had happened.
The traces of poison qi he had stumbled upon by chance. The corpses of martial artists who had practiced demonic arts, which he had found while following those traces. And finally, the real existence of the Twin-Headed Serpent from the old legends—and its extermination.
“So the legends were true.”
The physician of Danbong County, who had listened to the account, spoke with a stunned face. He had half believed and half doubted, yet the Twin-Headed Serpent of the tales had truly appeared. Still, the fact that no one would suffer from the poison any longer was a relief beyond measure.
Even though the root cause had been pulled out, Danwon’s expression remained far from pleasant.
“You don’t look well. Is something the matter?”
“It’s good that we solved the source of the poison, but the problem is that the Twin-Headed Serpent was found at all. Even if it never became a spirit beast, there will certainly be martial artists who come poking around on the off chance.”
Cheonhwa privately agreed with Danwon’s assessment. In the murim there was no shortage of people who lusted after a spirit beast’s inner core. Even without a core, there would still be those who coveted its by-products. If word spread that a Twin-Headed Serpent had appeared, nine times out of ten martial artists would flock to Danbong County and Mount Sang and stir everything up. Quietly searching for traces of a spirit beast would be the best one could hope for. Among them might even be those from the heretical or black paths who, finding no results, would simply turn into bandits.
“We had best keep this matter as quiet as possible. You keep your mouth shut as well. It is absolutely necessary for your safety and the village’s.”
“Ah—yes, I understand, Eccentric Medical Immortal.”
When Danwon pressed the point firmly, the physician seemed to grasp the situation; his face had gone pale as he nodded again and again.
“You said there were fellows who practiced demonic arts? We’ll pin this entire affair on them. There was a letter or something of the sort, so we can insist on that. What do you think?”
Danwon fixed her gaze on Cheonhwa and asked. It was none other than Cheonhwa who had slain the Twin-Headed Serpent and uprooted the cause of the trouble. Suppressing the rumors would also mean suppressing Cheonhwa’s own renown. In effect she was yielding the choice of whether to bury the story to him.
Cheonhwa answered.
“I am already suffering from more attention than I can handle. Covering up one of my exploits will hardly be a problem. I believe the safety of the villagers matters more than my reputation.”
Having already endured hardship from excessive attention, Cheonhwa felt no particular attachment to concealing the Twin-Headed Serpent. On the contrary, if the people of Danbong County were to suffer because the truth came out, revealing it would clearly be worse than keeping silent. Better, then, to bury the rumor.
Moved by Cheonhwa’s decision, the physician spoke.
“Thank you, Master Cheonhwa. To renounce even renown for our sake… We must keep silent about the Twin-Headed Serpent, yet we will still make widely known that Master Cheonhwa is the benefactor of our village!”
“No, there is really no need to go that far…”
“No! You yourself cast aside honor for our sake. If we cannot even do this much, how could we ever hold our heads high again?”
“…”
The physician’s eyes shone with the determination to repay the kindness no matter what. It did not look as though he would listen even if Cheonhwa tried to stop him, so Cheonhwa reluctantly nodded.
Afterward Cheonhwa headed once more for Mount Sang together with Danwon and Yeonhwa—to gather medicinal herbs and, at the same time, to dispose of the Twin-Headed Serpent’s corpse.
Danwon examined the body this way and that, then spoke.
“It never quite became a spirit beast, so there is no inner core. But being a snake, it does have something else.”
Danwon raised Uigisangin—Intent Qi Manifestation—around her bare hands and began to dismantle the Twin-Headed Serpent’s heads. Before long, large orbs glowing red and blue emerged into view.
“Hall Master, these are…?”
“Poison Pills. As the creature mutated close to becoming a spirit beast, its poison sacs transformed like inner cores.”
The peculiar contagious nature of the paralysis and hallucinogenic poisons that had spread through the village had also arisen from that transformation into Poison Pills. Fortunately the creature had never become a true spirit beast, so detoxification had not been overly difficult. Had the Twin-Headed Serpent achieved spirit-beast status, spiritual nature would have seeped into its venom and produced an absurdly virulent poison.
“What can be done with this poison?”
“With this we should be able to produce rather fine antidotes for both the paralysis poison and the hallucinogenic poison.”
Had they been the Poison Pills of a true spirit beast, they could have been refined into spiritual medicines that raised resistance to toxins. Regrettably this poison fell short of such an elixir. Yet poison and medicine were originally one; if the toxic nature were skillfully employed, it could be turned into medicinal nature as well.
“The body is large, so the Poison Pills are large accordingly. We should be able to make a generous amount of medicine.”
With this quantity they could distribute it throughout the entire sect without difficulty. In effect the Zhongnan Sect had gained a reliable antidote—excellent news.
Then Yeonhwa, who had remained silent until now, opened her mouth.
“What about the remaining by-products?”
“What about them? We skin it and take the hide and scales, bury the entrails in the ground, and take the leftover meat back to the village to feed them as a recovery celebration. The villagers are lucky. They get to nourish themselves with such fine meat.”
“Does that mean we have to haul not only the medicinal ingredients but the scales and the meat as well?”
“What kind of question is that? Among us, aside from me, who else has external arts as complete as yours?”
“…”
At those words Yeonhwa closed her mouth and stared at the Twin-Headed Serpent’s carcass.
If it were only the medicinal ingredients, Cheonhwa alone would have been enough. I was wondering why I was needed…
Even if Danwon handled the butchering, the weight of the scales and meat alone would be no small matter. Yeonhwa had never been particularly fond of physical labor. This was simply heavy labor!
…Should I run?
The thought flashed through Yeonhwa’s mind for an instant, but she abandoned it at once. Even if she fled, Danwon would catch her before long.
“Junior Brother Cheonhwa.”
“Yes, Senior Sister Yeonhwa.”
“You’ve reached Peak Expert, so you can carry more than I can, right?”
“…”
Cheonhwa looked at Yeonhwa, who was naturally trying to dump the larger share on him. Yeonhwa kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, avoiding his eyes. Even she seemed to feel a twinge of guilt about what she had just said.
When she trains in martial arts or practices medicine she never begrudges the sweat, yet outside of that she finds everything so bothersome.
Yeonhwa’s laziness had been famous ever since their days as entrance disciples. She would even loaf through duty shifts and only finish her share of the work by a hair’s breadth just as the shift was ending. In any field that did not interest her she was dull and listless—that was Yeonhwa. There was a reason Jeokhwa stuck so closely by her side and meddled.
If he simply stayed quiet now he would be stuck with the entire burden. Cheonhwa immediately pushed back.
“I’d like nothing better, but my body is still stiff from the Twin-Headed Serpent’s poison. And Senior Sister Yeonhwa has been so absorbed in medicine lately that your external arts training has been lacking, hasn’t it? Consider it training and take my share as well.”
“Liar.”
“…”
This time Yeonhwa fixed Cheonhwa with a long, hard stare. He practiced the Blue Heaven Qi Art, so detoxification should have been possible—yet he claimed his body was tired. What absurd excuse was that?
As the two of them bickered, Danwon’s scolding dropped on them at once.
“What are you two standing around staring for! Get it sorted and start carrying!”
At that the two hurriedly began hauling the dismantled by-products of the Twin-Headed Serpent.
That night a small festival was held in Danbong County. Officially it was a celebratory banquet for Cheonhwa, who had eliminated the group that had released the unidentified poison upon the village. The meat distributed through the village was claimed to have been food stores the villains had stockpiled.
“This is delicious. What kind of meat is it?”
“Similar to chicken yet different. A taste I’ve never had before.”
“This stuff calls for wine!”
“If Master Cheonhwa hadn’t dealt with those heretical dogs, we never would have gotten such nourishing food.”
Because the creature had been on the verge of becoming a spirit beast, the Twin-Headed Serpent’s meat, despite being snake, boasted an excellent flavor. At first some people hesitated, not knowing what it was. But when the renowned physician, the Eccentric Medical Immortal, guaranteed it would be good for their health, one after another they began putting the meat into their mouths.
That night, all through the village, praise for the Zhongnan Sect and for Cheonhwa continued without end until dawn.
An antique pavilion.
In the darkness, lamplight illuminated the room as an old man listened to a report.
“The plan in the Shaanxi direction has gone awry?”
“Yes. When the Eccentric Medical Immortal set out on her relief journey, the heretical and black-path groups along the travel route abandoned their positions.”
“The Eccentric Medical Immortal—the famous physician of the Zhongnan Sect. To be obstructed by Zhongnan again… We seem thoroughly entangled in ill fate with them.”
The old man clicked his tongue and unrolled a scroll across the table. It was a map that allowed one to take in all of Shaanxi Province at a glance. He began placing black and white go stones upon it.
“Xi’an and Weinan are the seats of the Zhongnan Sect and the Huashan Sect, so it is difficult to exert influence there.”
In Xi’an, the provincial capital and heart of Shaanxi, and in the region lying to its east, the white stones held the superior position.
“Last time the area around Baoji was cleared.”
Next, centered on Xi’an, the white stones dominated the western part of Shaanxi as well.
“And this time nearly half of Shangluo has been blocked off.”
Finally he removed the black stones that had occupied the region southeast of Xi’an and replaced part of that space with white stones instead.
“Centered on Xi’an, the orthodox side has gained the upper hand in the southern vicinity. Even after we drained the orthodox forces as much as possible through the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace and Guigumen, they still maintain this formation. Truly a deep-rooted tree, one might say.”
The old man glared at the white stones occupying the map with an expression of weary disgust.
“What of the spirit-beast contamination plan?”
“No solid intelligence has come in yet, but I believe it was almost certainly exterminated.”
“Tsk. Finding a specimen on the verge of becoming a spirit beast is no easy task to begin with. For even a single experiment to prove this difficult…”
The old man shook his head slowly, then asked the messenger.
“What of the jiangshi we scattered?”
“They have not yet been identified. Even when they attack people, only wild beasts are suspected, so they are growing smoothly.”
“Good. Having them move alone, using the false Wol-ak’s movements as reference, has paid off well.”
“War Demon, please grant your command on what we should do next.”
The old man addressed as War Demon answered the messenger.
“Fortunately the forces near Shangluo remain intact. Have them move northward through Shaanxi as they are. It is a region where the Paegeumun holds the upper hand; they will contribute to sowing chaos.”
The War Demon redistributed the black stones he had taken from Shangluo across the northern regions of Shaanxi. Unlike the southern areas where white stones held the majority, the north was dominated by black. The situation was gradually settling into a solidifying phase.
Having received his orders, the messenger bowed his head and melted into the darkness as though dissolving into it. The silent vanishing was a footwork technique of extreme naturalness.
Even after the messenger had gone, the War Demon continued to look down at the map for a time.
We have been made to eat dirt any number of times by the orthodox path, yet we have still steadily worn down their strength.
They had been defeated in battle again and again, but they had not yet lost the war.
The heretical and black-path murim is an environment where demonic arts spread easily. A place that will stop at nothing for its own profit.
That was why these jackals never refused martial arts that could grant power in a short time by sacrificing others. Building upon that, they gradually inflated their strength until, one by one, hidden dragons worthy of being called great sects began to emerge.
First we seize control of the heretical murim in the north.
The War Demon picked up a single black stone and made his opening move upon the northern reaches of Shaanxi.