Ambush from Ten Sides

Munhyang Pavilion.

True to its name—a tower where one listened to fragrance—an odd scent seeped out from the very entrance. The smell of aged wood, of old paper, and beneath it all a faint tang of metal. It was the scent of time itself, breathed out by countless rare curiosities.

"Welcome."

An old man guarding the entrance greeted Namgung Cheon and Namgung Rin. His eyes, weathered and dull with years, lingered on Namgung Rin—and then the corners of his mouth lifted gently.

"It has been a long time."

"Yes. I've come to challenge it today."

"……!"

At her resolute words, the old man's eyes flew wide open.

"Please wait a moment."

He slipped inside to pass along the news, then returned and guided the two of them in.

The interior of Munhyang Pavilion was unlike any ordinary music house from the very layout. Instead of tables for drinking, display cases lined every wall, packed to bursting with instruments and ancient tomes of every description. At the center of the space stood a circular stage, with seats arranged around it like a ring.

And there, at the heart of that circular stage—

Resting in solemn majesty atop a sheet of violet silk sat a single pipa.

Its lacquered body gleamed a deep black-red, and its strings shone like a river of stars. The Cheonwolhyeon. It was a form that would wring a sigh of admiration from anyone who laid eyes on it.

But behind that beauty—

The demonic energy is overwhelming.

It carried a density of demonic qi on par with what a demon-man who had cultivated demonic arts for decades would radiate.

The Cheonwolhyeon.

Even in his past life, he had seen it only in passing—a monstrosity of an instrument.

Cheonwol Mahu, in the end, was devoured by the lute's demonic energy and took her own life.

Then why on earth did Namgung Rin want the thing? What could she possibly be thinking?

Namgung Cheon turned his gaze on her, mulling it over. She was staring at the Cheonwolhyeon in silence—with the wistful, aching eyes of someone reunited with a person they had long yearned for.

Any martial artist beholding a legendary weapon would have had greed bleeding into their gaze, and Namgung Rin was no exception—yet hers was not that.

Why?

There seemed to be something deeper, something more desperate, beneath it all.

At that moment, Namgung Rin tore her eyes from the lute, glanced around the room, and spoke.

"Quite the crowd today."

The seats were already so full that finding an empty one would have been a struggle. Kaifeng's most notorious idlers, its entertainers, and its dilettante connoisseurs all fixed her with anticipation-bright eyes.

And yet not a single one of them opened their mouth.

"Everyone's so quiet."

Namgung Rin answered her brother in a low voice.

"They remember what happened ten years ago."

"Ten years ago?"

"Mm. The last challenger was my master."

A flicker of irony crossed Namgung Cheon's eyes. The Eccentric Old Man of Romance had challenged the lute—and the fact that the Cheonwolhyeon still sat here told its own story.

So even Pungryu Goeno failed to master the Cheonwolhyeon.

A disciple stepping up where her master had fallen. He could now understand, at least in part, the meaning coiled inside the crowd's silence—and the desperation steeped in Namgung Rin's eyes.

Then a heavy voice rolled out from the balcony of that floor.

"So you have come."

An old man draped in lavish silks leaned against the railing. Taeak, Master of Munhyang Pavilion—a man who had devoted his entire life to the collection of rare curiosities, and the current keeper of the Cheonwolhyeon.

Taeak studied her for a long moment with deep, searching eyes before he finally spoke.

"Did I not tell you before? Give it up. Even your master came down from that stage coughing blood."

"No. I will challenge it."

At her unyielding answer, Taeak fell into brief thought—then glanced sideways at Namgung Cheon standing beside her.

"Is that one…… to serve as the witness?"

Namgung Rin nodded.

"Yes. More than enough for the role."

"……."

Taeak's eyes narrowed. The word witness carried no light weight in this place.

A witness, in the end, was merely a euphemism—a polite label slapped onto something that had no kinder name. In truth, it meant a executioner who would have to take the head of a person consumed by demonic energy with their own hands.

Taeak bore into Namgung Cheon with his gaze.

Strange… their faces look remarkably alike.

Then—

"Have you lost your mind?"

The words burst out of Taeak, laced with anger.

"You mean to put your own kin forward as the witness?"

But Namgung Rin did not retreat. She lifted her head with unbowed pride and threw the question back.

"Then who else could strike me down?"

"……What did you say?"

"The martial artists here in Munhyang Pavilion, at best, are barely at the threshold of the Peak Realm. Do you truly believe they could stop me if I went mad with demonic energy—me, with the Cheonwolhyeon in my hands?"

"……!"

Taeak found himself struck speechless. It was no exaggeration.

Her own admission of her skill had placed her at the very apex of the Peak Realm. If a woman like that took in the lute's demonic energy and ran rampant, Munhyang Pavilion would become a sea of blood—and not one soul present could stop her.

"Which is why it must be my own brother."

Namgung Rin pointed at Namgung Cheon.

"Because he can put me down. Most surely—and with the least pain."

At those words, Namgung Cheon inclined his head inwardly.

So that's how it was.

A final safeguard against the day she became a monster. For that role, she had needed someone with strength enough to bear it.

And no martial artist of any orthodox faction in Kaifeng would dare raise a blade against the blood of Namgung. Which left, in the end—

She was refused by the eldest young master, no doubt. That's why she came to me.

There had been no one else to choose.

Taeak looked back and forth between the two of them for a long while. At last he let out a deep sigh and shook his head.

"……What a cursed bloodline you are."

He murmured it quietly, then lowered his head in resignation and stepped back.

"……Do as you please."

At Taeak's half-surrendered words, Namgung Rin strode lightly up onto the stage. The moment she took her place at its center, the silence of the hall grew heavier still. Every gaze in the room converged on her.

Instead of answering, she seated herself before the Cheonwolhyeon—

And without hesitation, drew the pipa into her arms.

Wuuuoong—!

The pipa vibrated with an unsettling resonance, and began to exhale its black-red demonic energy in slow, creeping waves.

"Kgh!"

Namgung Rin's brow furrowed. A chill qi and an intent to kill climbed up her from her fingertips.

Vicious from the very start, aren't you.

But she did not let go. Instead she drew up her internal energy to suppress the demonic qi and held her posture firm and unshaken.

"I will begin."

BONG—!

A heavy, ferocious vibration, like the strike of a colossal drum, shook all of Munhyang Pavilion to its foundations.

The piece she had chosen was Ambush from Ten Sides—a pipa epic depicting the desperate moment when the Hegemon-King Xiang Yu, encircled on every side by the armies of Han, made his last stand at Gaixia.

Dadadadang—!

A torrent of blindingly fast strokes followed. A grand, savage melody, like tens of thousands of warhorses thundering across a battlefield, flooded the hall.

The audience, forgetting even to breathe, were drawn helplessly into that overwhelming sound.

But—

"Ugh—"

As the performance climbed toward its crescendo, Namgung Rin's expression began to twist. A foreign noise was threading its way into the pipa's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠voice.

The demonic energy had reached into the deepest chamber of her memory and dragged her wound into the light.

CLANG! KAAA-NG—!

The sharp, splitting shriek of blade against blade.

It was the reason she had once been forced to flee the Namgung Clan as a child—the terrible sound she had spent her whole life running from.

I hate it……

Her breath caught in her throat. Her vision blurred, and the audience in their seats ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠warped into sword-wielding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠martial artists. Every clash of the blades they swung sent that noise stabbing into her ears.

I have to run.

Like back then.

As a child, her father had quietly gathered her trembling frame into his arms and carried her out of the clan—to a world without that noise, where nothing existed but the wind and its sound. And the master she met in that place had been a salvation sent down from heaven itself.

But now—

Master……

That salvation was collapsing before her eyes.

So I have to save him……

She plucked the strings with everything she had. But fear had turned her fingers to stone. Dodging the endless phantoms of blades flying at her face threw her rhythm into ruin, and her lips, pressed shut to swallow her screams, split and bled.

Ngh……

Her fingertips trembled uncontrollably. The nightmares of her past tangled with the despair of the present, crushing down on her mind from every side.

"……."

Beneath the stage, Namgung Cheon watched the whole of it unfold with his arms crossed.

It's provoking her inner demon.

He saw straight to the heart of the situation. Rather than attacking her qi and blood, the demonic energy was delving into her memories, making her collapse from within. It dredged up the terror buried in her deepest depths and lured her toward qi derangement and madness.

That was the way of the Cheonwolhyeon.

But not yet. It's too soon to step in.

Namgung Cheon did not move. This, too, was a wall she had to climb on her own.

If she could not overcome her fear by herself, then no matter how much aid he gave her, she would remain forever a half-made mistress, swayed and ruled by the demonic energy.

And so the moments slipped past.

Tum. Tum. Tum.

Namgung Rin's playing had already frayed beyond any pretense of melody. She was barely holding the notes together, and even that thread seemed ready to snap at any breath. Sweat beading on her forehead ran down her jaw and dripped, drop by drop, onto the pipa. Blood from her lips had stained her white collar a vivid red.

Am I……

Going to end up not saving my master, but becoming another trinket of this cursed lute myself?

It was the very moment despair moved to swallow her whole.

—Pull yourself together, and listen to me.

A familiar voice pierced through to the core of her being.

My brother?

Her fading consciousness sharpened all at once, as though jolted awake by that voice. The voice transmission flowed on without pause.

—Do not strain to make the muddy water clear. Simply see where that turbid current wishes to flow, and open the road for it.

Do not purify the current—open the way for it instead.

That single sentence tore open Namgung Rin's choked breath.

……Ah!

Her eyes trembled violently.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

That's right—if the demonic energy comes from the pipa itself……

Namgung Cheon's transmission continued.

—Accept the demonic energy.

Beneath the stage, Namgung Cheon's eyes flashed.

—And send it back out. Through the pipa.