The Heavenly Demon Opens for Business
"Damn it. The dough's got no chew."
I scowled down at the pale lump of wheat dough.
The Hour of the Tiger — somewhere between three and five in the morning. For any ordinary martial artist, this was sacred time: the hour when the mind ran clearest, when one circulated the qi in the dantian and settled into breath regulation. I, on the other hand, was locked in a life-or-death struggle with a lump of flour.
Regulating the water is harder than learning the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Steps. How is that even possible?
My name is Baek Wun. Until a mere year ago, I was cult leader of the Demonic Cult, the man who ruled half the martial world — the apex of ten thousand demons, the one they called the greatest under heaven. The thirty-fourth Heavenly Demon.
A single flick of my hand had once made the palace lord of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace wet himself. A glance had dropped the abbot of Shaolin to his knees. And now? What was I doing?
A cramped little dumpling shop, seven or eight minutes on foot from the main gate of the Murim Alliance Headquarters. Right under the Orthodox bastards' noses — the proverbial dark beneath the lamp — and I was its proprietor.
The reason was simple. I was sick of a martial world that sprayed blood every time you turned around. Open your eyes and it was Cult Leader, the Orthodox have come knocking, or Cult Leader, we've got another traitor. I wanted out of the endless carrier pigeons and the stink of blood. So I declared my retirement on the spot and fled in the night, cult slush funds tucked under my arm.
I had exactly one modest dream: find somewhere quiet, make good food, eat it, and grow old in peace until I died. Then I actually opened the shop, and reality turned out to be its own battlefield. The elasticity of this damned flour, above all else.
"Haa..."
I let out a sigh and drew qi up into my right hand. Ordinary fist-kneading would never give me the chew I wanted. If I meant to seize, in a single moment, the gluten that hand-pulled noodle masters spend thirty years chasing, I would have to use a secret art.
A low thrum rose from my palm. Dark crimson heat-haze flickered up — and then, cunningly disguised as pure white energy, my internal power wrapped the dough.
Fourth Form of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art
A vicious art meant to twist an enemy's organs, or to snatch hundreds of flying concealed weapons from every direction at once — now the finest dough craft in the Central Plains, wringing out trapped air and driving gluten to its limit.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
Inside my palms the dough writhed like a living thing. Rotation and pressure, applied together. Too much force and the flour itself would shatter; too little, and there would be no chew at all. It demanded a finer control of qi than acupoint sealing — that art of subduing the points without destroying the dantian.
"Good. Elasticity like this is perfect."
Satisfied, I nodded and stepped up to the steamer. Time to light the fire, except hunting down a flint was a nuisance. I flicked my index finger without thinking.
A pristine internal flame, the mark of a transcendent master — kindled at a fingertip and set to the firewood beneath the steamer.
In all of martial history, I was probably the first lunatic to steam pork dumplings with Samadhi True Fire, that legendary flame which stands as the symbol of an absolute master and commands the fire-qi of nature itself. If the Heavenly Demons of generations past could see me like this, they would cough blood and fall straight into qi deviation. So what? If it tastes good, that's enough. And think of the firewood I'd save.
A sharp hiss — and white steam burst from the seams of the bamboo steamer as if something inside had exploded. The savory oil of pork and the fresh scent of chives braided together into a fragrance that split the dawn air clean in two.
"Perfect."
Ting-a-ling.
The wind chime on the shop door rang, clear and bright. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Still the Hour of the Rabbit, between five and seven. Opening time — the Hour of the Dragon, seven to nine — was a long way off.
Who's this tactless fool, showing up already...
"I'm terribly sorry, but we aren't ready ye—"
I never finished. A chill filled the shop, cold enough that it felt as if an entire midwinter ice cavern had been picked up and set down inside. Not ordinary cold. This was frigid qi carrying internal energy of terrifying purity. My hand jerked toward the kitchen knife on reflex, and I stopped it.
Calm down, Baek Wun. You are not the Heavenly Demon right now. You are Baek, owner of a dumpling shop.
A woman in white martial robes stood in the doorway. Skin like fresh snow, hair black as ebony. Her eyes were sharp enough to cut, and she was beautiful in a way you could not forget after a single look. What caught me harder than her face, though, was the strange energy wrapped around her.
This isn't the Namgung Clan's Azure Heaven Sword Qi. Far colder... and nothing like it.
I knew her. There was no way I wouldn't. Anyone who walked the martial world had heard the name at least once — the Fairy of the Orthodox Murim. Young Family Head of the Namgung Clan. Namgung Seol. Cherished daughter of the current Murim Alliance Leader, and a swordswoman of genius the age had rarely seen.
But a quieter rumor had long circulated about her birth. In his youth, they said, the Alliance Leader had fallen in love with the daughter of the North Sea Ice Palace Master — absolute ruler of the outer martial world — and she was the child of that affair. It fit. What flowed from her was not the upright qi of the Orthodox, but Ice Qi, cold enough to flay flesh from bone.
So the talk of mixed blood was true. Cold like that...
A bead of cold sweat slid down my spine. Had I been too bold with the location? Trusted the tactic of hiding in the dark beneath the lamp a little too much? No. Impossible. I was holding the Turtle Breathing Technique in perfect form, erasing every trace of my presence. My energy should read as nothing more than a waiter so healthy it was almost a problem. Even a master who had reached the Profound Realm could not see through me.
She paid me no attention at all. Her gaze swept the inside of the shop, then fixed on the menu hung on the wall, boring into it with the faintest crease between her brows.
"......"
The longer the silence stretched, the more oddly fast my heart beat. Was she angry because the dumplings were expensive? Ingredient prices had gone up. There was nothing I could do about it.
After a long stillness, she spoke a single line.
"One order of pork dumplings."
Even her voice was cold. Absolute zero — cold enough to freeze dumplings fresh from the steamer. I put on the most amiable smile I could manage.
"...Will that be to go, or will you be dining in?"
"I will eat here."
Thank goodness. Just a hungry customer. She had probably finished dawn training and come in because her stomach was empty. I swallowed a sigh of relief and opened the steamer, still breathing steam.
A rush of vapor — and through the pale cloud I plated five king dumplings, their skins gleaming with oil. The wrappers were thin enough to show what lay inside, and that inside was packed solid with meat and juice.
Extra. Eat these and get out of here.
I added a neat pile of pickled radish and set the plate on her table.
"Here you are. They're hot, so please be careful."
Namgung Seol did not answer. She lifted her chopsticks, and her eyes traced the pleats of the wrapper in minute detail — a gaze as sharp as if she were dissecting the forms of a sword art.
What is this? A health inspection? I cleaned the place properly.
With an elegant motion she picked up a single dumpling, parted her lips just slightly, and took a careful bite. The thin wrapper burst with a bright, crisp sound. At the same instant the hot juices trapped inside poured out like a waterfall and flooded her mouth. Flash-cooked in the fierce heat of Samadhi True Fire, the pork had lost none of its savor; every bit of it was condensed there.
In that instant, Namgung Seol's eyes flew wide.
"......!"
Her chopsticks stopped dead in the air. As if something had struck her, she forgot even to chew and stared blankly into empty space, her pupils trembling.
Does it taste bad? Did I oversalt it? Or did she burn her tongue?
I was still watching her nervously when words I could not believe slipped from her mouth.
She looked up at me, face grave.
"Proprietor. These dumplings... by what mental cultivation method did you shape them?"
"......"
Young hero. That is ginger and garlic, mixed in a golden ratio, because I was trying to kill the pork smell. A mental method? I consulted some market granny's secret recipe. That's all.
I could not tell her the truth. I laughed, awkward, and dodged.
"I simply... put all my care into shaping them."
"Care... care, is it."
Namgung Seol nodded as if she had seized upon some great enlightenment, then began putting the remaining dumplings into her mouth. Whatever wariness she had arrived with was long gone. With every small, earnest chew, a red flush bloomed across her cold white cheeks.
Well, look at that. She's enjoying it.
The Fairy of the Orthodox was nowhere to be found. All that remained was a young woman barely past her coming-of-age, utterly disarmed before good food. On the last dumpling she even sucked the chopsticks, as if she regretted letting it go.
"Haa..."
She breathed out a satisfied sigh. The chill pouring from her body had softened by a degree, and her complexion had brightened, like someone whose blocked acupoints had finally opened. From her robes she drew out a single tael of silver and set it on the table with a clean tap.
"The bill."
My eyes went round. One plate was five pun. A tael of silver was more than twenty times that.
"Ah, young hero, this is far too much. I don't have change on me right now..."
"I have no need of change."
She rose. Then she looked me straight in the face. It was not the indifferent gaze from before. It was the look of a seeker who had grasped something immense — or, more precisely, the look of a beast that had awakened to a peerless flavor.
"I shall come again tomorrow."
"Ah, yes. Thank you, but you've given me so much..."
"And, Proprietor."
Halfway out, hand on the door ring, she looked back. Through the hair the wind lifted, a strangely persistent gaze ran me through.
"What is your name?"
"...Baek Wun."
"Baek Wun. White Cloud... a fitting name for a recluse of hidden depths."
"A recluse? No, I just make dump—"
She left a meaningful smile behind and opened the door.
Ting-a-ling.
I stood there, staring blankly at the silver she had left.
Shattered a wall? With a dumpling? All I had done was put in a little extra secret seasoning, and she had mistaken that for internal energy?
Well... she paid a lot, so it's fine.
I shrugged and cleared the empty dish. The plate was so clean it hardly needed washing. Who knew the martial world was this generous? Retiring had been the right call.
But I did not know it then. That this first customer was the omen of a calamity that would smash my peaceful retirement to pieces. And that tomorrow she would not come alone — she would drag even more troublesome things along behind her.