Meeting the Heavenly Demon's Fan (10)
“Do you believe me?” I asked. The woman stared at me in bewilderment. I understood. Miracles that arrive without warning are difficult to accept. Still, she needed to know this: what comes suddenly can vanish just as easily. She had to decide quickly, before I changed my mind.
“You’re saying you’ll heal me just to curse me?”
“That’s right.”
At my answer, she burst into laughter—a tangled, grotesque sound that defied simple description.
“Do you really think I’ll regret this for the rest of my life? That I won’t be able to forget you?”
“The fact that you’re asking me now is proof enough, isn’t it?”
After all, those who think only of their own salvation never hesitate when help is offered. In truth, whether she regretted it or not made no difference to me. The one who held a grudge against her was the protagonist of this game, not me.
“You…”
She couldn’t even finish her sentence. I wondered what thoughts were running through her mind after hearing my words. What I had just said was the kind of reckless statement only an outsider could make. After a long silence, she finally parted her heavy lips and spoke in a voice so small it seemed ready to shatter.
“…I believe you. What do I need to do?”
“Show me your back.”
Her role was simple. She only needed to sit still and endure the pain. I tore a piece of cloth from the window covering that blocked the moonlight and placed it between her teeth. I couldn’t have her biting off her own tongue in a fit of agony. After a moment’s hesitation, she removed her upper garment, baring her skin. Her body was beautiful, yet equally grotesque. Necrosis had already begun spreading across various parts of her. The purple marks blooming over her pale flesh looked like a curse someone had placed upon her.
When I placed my hand at the center of her back, a chill like ice met my palm. If rain fell beside her, it would surely turn to snow. I slowly gathered my internal energy. The body I currently inhabited was only at the First-class realm. If I wasn’t careful with how I circulated my energy, the process would fail. This required my full concentration.
I took a deep breath and pushed my internal energy into her body.
“Nngh…!”
A scream echoed from behind the cloth in her mouth. Easy now. It was far too soon for her to thrash about. We were only just beginning. From here, I had to create harmony between yin and yang within her body. The balance of yin and yang appeared in countless martial arts. Any technique that valued equilibrium touched upon it, and many others mentioned the harmony of yin and yang in passing. In that sense, it was one of the fundamentals of martial arts—something I knew intimately.
To me, yin was the cloud and yang was the sun. When clouds grew too thick, sunlight could not reach the crops and they withered. When the sun burned too fiercely, the crops died beneath its heat. They seemed opposed, yet each needed the other. Right now, her body was filled only with dark clouds, turning the world to ice. My task was simply to pierce those clouds and bring sunlight to the earth.
Time passed. After finally kindling a flame inside her body, I released her. She collapsed forward, strength gone from her limbs. The pain had been too much; she had lost consciousness. Understandable. It had not been a light suffering. I stood and stretched my stiff body. My head felt foggy—mental fatigue, no doubt. Performing something beyond my current realm through sheer skill alone would naturally take its toll.
Staggering toward her, I placed a hand over her dantian. The energy flowing within her remained cold, yet a small warmth now lingered inside it. This was enough. Even if the sun could not melt the world in a single day, ice would eventually turn to water beneath steady warmth and flow toward the sea. What came after was hers to handle.
Through the torn cloth, I glanced outside. The moon was already yielding its place to the sun. Had so much time passed already? Forcing my sluggish arms to move, I opened the door. The Ice Palace elder who had been waiting outside stood there.
“Have you finished your conversation?”
“Go inside and attend to your lord.”
“Pardon?”
“I have cured her Gu-eum Jeol-maek, but the damaged blood vessels and aged body have not returned to their former state. Restoring her previous health will require a long time. Summon a skilled physician and have them treat her gradually.”
“What do you mean—”
If he thought it nonsense, he could go inside and see for himself—the new life granted to his master. The elder rushed into the room, etiquette forgotten. I stepped outside. Perhaps because so much time had passed, the martial artists who had lined the path were gone. The quiet was pleasant. The moment I exited, a shout erupted from within—filled with joy.
Hidden Ending: Savior of the Ice Palace
“You actually kicked her out!”
Harin removed the VR headset and grumbled as she sat down at her computer. She hadn’t gotten to see the hidden route’s ending, but if Hwaryeong said she didn’t like it, there was nothing to be done. Still, even with that regret, today had been an incredibly fantastic day.
She transferred the footage she had recorded all day onto her computer and let out a long breath of deep satisfaction. Was it really okay to be this lucky? Was she going to get struck by lightning later or something?
Harin recalled meeting Hwaryeong earlier that day at her parents’ store while eating lunch. Hwaryeong’s appearance had been identical to her VR avatar from the stream. Even the graceful way she moved her hands and feet matched perfectly. That was why Harin had recognized her the moment she saw the woman standing before her. She couldn’t have missed it. After all, she had stayed up all night watching Hwaryeong’s videos on repeat. How could she not recognize someone whose image lingered behind her eyelids when that very person appeared in front of her?
Fortunately, Hwaryeong had been gracious toward the overly excited Harin. She had answered all her questions and even given her an autograph. For the record, that autograph was already framed and hanging in the most visible spot in Harin’s bedroom. That wasn’t all. Thanks to Hwaryeong telling her to meet in Apis, Harin had finally encountered the person she admired most inside the game and even received guidance on martial arts. If it hadn’t been for Hwaryeong, Harin would never have realized just how light and ever-changing the Wind Flow Fist truly was.
Of course, what happened afterward had been rather embarrassing. Crying her eyes out right in front of Hwaryeong like that—and not just quiet tears, either. She had wailed like a child who had lost her parents in a supermarket. Remembering how Hwaryeong had panicked while trying to comfort her, Harin buried her face in her hands and pressed her forehead against the desk.
She was insane. Completely insane. What on earth had possessed her? She hadn’t been in her right mind at the time. Hwaryeong chasing after her had been so terrifying that she couldn’t think straight. Even now, recalling that moment sent shivers down her spine. Was that killing intent? She had thought it was just something from novels, but experiencing it firsthand made it impossible to laugh off.
Harin thought of the protagonists from the wuxia novels her father used to read to her as a child—warriors who could bring countless underlings to their knees with nothing but their aura. If she trained hard enough, could she recreate that scene someday? Could she become a wuxia protagonist? She couldn’t hope to match Hwaryeong, but could she at least stand at her feet?
It wouldn’t be easy. Harin recalled Hwaryeong playing Revenge. The way she toyed with the first boss—who was usually called the Guardian of Refund Time—treating it like a child. The way she instantly killed the second boss, who smashed the heads of those who hadn’t requested refunds. The way she cleared the third map, where players complained about special forces appearing in a wuxia game, without taking a single hit. And finally, the way she subdued the final boss—who was said to be impossible to defeat without injecting drugs into its body—while keeping it alive.
She couldn’t analyze or evaluate it. All Harin could do was marvel at what she had witnessed. If she uploaded this footage to MyTube, how many people would watch it? The first battle between Hwaryeong and the Outer God that had been uploaded to Decay MyTube recently had surpassed seven hundred thousand views in just two days. Maybe this video could aim for a million?
But Harin decided to keep the footage to herself. This was a memory shared only between her and Hwaryeong.
— Coffee~ Tok!
A Coffee Talk notification arrived. The sender was Enri. At this hour, wasn’t she usually asleep after finishing her stream? What could it be about? Harin couldn’t help but feel puzzled. While it was true that she and Enri had exchanged messages several times, they weren’t close enough to contact each other privately.
The message was about Hwaryeong.
— You recorded everything from playing with Hwaryeong today, right? Send it to me too.
How did she know? Come to think of it, when Harin had been crying, Hwaryeong had gone off to make a call. That must have been with Enri. There had been speculation that the two were personally close—turned out it was true. Then Enri must have been the one who recommended Revenge to Hwaryeong.
After a brief moment of thought, Harin decided to send the video to Enri. It was thanks to Enri that she had gotten to see Hwaryeong’s magnificent performance, after all. Enri had the right to watch it too. Still, she couldn’t show the part where she had been sobbing while receiving instruction. She would only send the section where Hwaryeong played Revenge.
She opened the editing program, intending to cut the footage, and quickly became absorbed in it.
“Harin!”
“Aaaagh!”
Her father, who had snuck up behind her, startled her before she could react. Harin nearly toppled over in her chair. She glared at him with narrowed eyes, but Yuryong, who had known her since childhood, only found the sight adorable.
“Dad, I told you to knock.”
“I did. You just didn’t hear it.”
She had nothing to say to that, but did he really need to scare her like this? While Harin let out a heavy sigh, Yuryong examined the footage on her monitor.
“Revenge, huh. How many playthroughs is this?”
“It’s not mine. I was watching someone else’s.”
“You were?”
Yuryong knew Harin’s personality well—when it came to wuxia, she could never sit still. She was the type who would rather move her own body than watch something. The fact that Harin had quietly watched this meant the footage itself was captivating enough to hold her attention.
“The person in this video must be incredibly good at the game.”
“Yeah. Have you heard of Hwaryeong?”
“Of course. She’s causing quite a stir in the wuxia communities these days.”
Yuryong grew animated as he spoke about Hwaryeong. Among those who enjoyed wuxia right now, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t know her name. Countless people wanted to see her with their own eyes. If he could, he would love to meet her and have a conversation.
“She really does seem like the Heavenly Demon who stepped out of a wuxia novel. Is that her in the video?”
“Want to watch it?”
“Sure. Let’s take a look.”