The Quiet Ones Were Always the More Dangerous
Yujin's guiding principle had always been simple. In his previous life, and in this one alike.
The great maxim of his existence: possess beautiful women.
For an ordinary person that maxim would have been a tall order, well beyond any sane defensive perimeter — but Yujin believed every woman was beautiful, so the profession of host satisfied that demand completely.
He could never quite define, even to himself, why he had loved women so desperately; the one thing he knew for certain was that the feeling ran on a different track entirely from the conquest-lust born of violence.
Which meant that what he was doing right now — pressing his lips against Jegal Surin's — was, from Yujin's standpoint, a thoroughly pure and innocent act.
The rowdy din spilling out from the banquet hall he had sneaked out of drowned the sound of mingled, sticky saliva.
Having found a deserted spot with ghostly precision, Yujin pressed Surin up against the wall and parted her lips with his thumb.
"Ahh... mm..."
...Feels like something's missing.
Surin, opening her mouth without thinking, caught herself and grabbed Yujin's shoulders, shoving him back. The body of a man built close to the martial path would never have yielded to her push — but Yujin gave way obediently.
"Wait — wait a moment..! Just hold on..."
"Hm? What is it?"
When he smiled brightly as if nothing at all had happened, Surin felt like her insides were going to burst. Was this man genuinely unaffected? Yujin behaved like someone born for exactly this kind of work — with a bold, pushy streak that sat strangely on that pretty, refined face of his.
Jegal Surin glanced around warily, checking whether anyone might be watching. Then she looked up at Yujin quietly.
"...What are we, exactly?"
"What would you like us to be?"
"Unnie..?"
"Ahaha."
For Yujin, who had lived an entire lifetime as a man, the address felt utterly foreign. More awkward than the first time he'd ever been called "oppa," back when he'd served only older women. Unnie, huh. Not bad, actually.
"Unnie, then. Sure."
At those words, Jegal Surin bowed her head deep and fidgeted with her fingers.
"Then... in that case. We... we mustn't do things like this."
"Hm?"
"We're sisters. Sisters don't do things like this."
There was a surprisingly level-headed streak in her.
So she knew all along. And pretended not to.
"True enough."
He couldn't honestly claim there was no pleasure in the depravity of it, but Yujin truly did find the Surin before him adorable. From the very first moment he'd laid eyes on her.
He wasn't sure whether it approached that pure devotion so many people talked about... but either way, one thing was certain: it was no false carnality. Which was why, if Jegal Surin refused him, he had no intention of forcing her mouth open. Or her legs, for that matter.
When Yujin bit off his cumbersome glove and peeled it away, Surin turned her head aside in embarrassment.
"But... but you see."
"Yes?"
"Sisters practicing difficult things together — things they don't know — that's not strange, is it?"
Jegal Surin's face had already flushed crimson, ripely overdone. Head hanging low, she murmured on.
"My marriage will be arranged soon. And I am a complete stranger to the... virtues of the night. So... teach me. Everything that you know, Unnie."
It was an absurdly abrupt proposal. Yujin burst out laughing at how guileless she was. When her hand crept timidly toward him, Surin startled and caught it.
"Ahaha. Sure. Okay. Well, then..."
"No! Not now! Not now!"
"Hm?"
"Once my marriage is decided. Then it won't be strange anymore, so..."
This, after they'd already rubbed lips and she'd bucked her hips between his legs. Surin had a prudish streak in the strangest of places.
"Well, fine. Little sister. Young Lady Jegal? What should I call you when that time comes — I suppose 'young lady' is proper?"
"Surin. Call me Surin."
"Very well, Surin. I'll look forward to next time, then. Once your marriage is settled... let's meet again."
Yujin gave the nodding girl's chin a single stroke, waved, and vanished back toward the banquet hall. Unlike Yujin, who strolled off with a light, easy gait, Surin had to lean against the wall for a long while — her lower abdomen had drawn up tight and aching.
After days of feasting drew to a close, the two families sealed their sisterhood with a modest ceremony, and the Jegal clan headed home wearing ear-to-ear grins. If anyone had to guess, they'd walked away with a considerable windfall.
Right up until her departure, Jegal Surin never once let her gaze settle on Yujin. In any unofficial setting she was too busy avoiding his eyes — to anyone watching, the pair looked like they were flaunting some scandalous affair — but the prejudices of the murim world smothered all that awkwardness without a trace.
"Take care, Surin."
"I'll... I'll come again. Goodbye."
Having said her piece, Surin covered her face and bolted.
Once the Jegal clan had departed, Namgung Wi summoned Yujin — determined to punish his second child severely for daring to defy and rewrite a pact between houses as she pleased.
Family discipline was a matter that ranked among the very first priorities in running a great house. A proper punishment was only fitting.
"Namgung Yujin—! How dare you, in a woman's body, meddle in the gravest affairs of this family..!"
Namgung Wi steeled himself, bellowing a lion's roar fierce enough to whip his own hair about, primed to erupt in full fury.
But then.
"I'm sooorrryy."
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry, Daddy."
Yujin knew exactly how much power a pretty face held. He understood it better than anyone — and knew how to wield it. Besides, that old man over there looked, at a single glance, like a total pushover for his daughters. Yujin thrust out his lips, drew his already thin, narrow frame in tight, and made himself round and small — a posture that screamed I don't want to leave home with every inch of his body.
"Uh..."
He fiddled uselessly with his index finger, lips puffing in and out.
"I just... I love it here, and outside is scary, and... marriage. All men are scary. Except you, Daddy. Right?"
It was acting of such caliber that no one would believe this was the same person who, mere days ago, had seduced an innocent girl to the very brink of her bed. Namgung Seol, standing alongside as an observer, even took Yujin's side and began pleading for him. As expected of Affection 94.
"Father. If anything, Yujin may have created an opportunity. Our close ties with the Jegal clan carried burdens of their own, did they not?"
"Mmgh..."
No father alive could withstand the aegyo and pleading of his daughters — sons were another matter entirely. Two rounds of pitiful acting and three rounds of welling tears later, Namgung Wi raised both hands in total surrender and chased them out of his presence.
With nothing more than a formal sentence of one month's confinement.
Thrown out alongside Namgung Seol, Yujin hooked his arm through his sister's. They were both women now, after all. Whatever.
Having grown as accustomed as one could to this surreal situation, Yujin no longer felt any awkwardness and could even pour on the charm freely. Honestly — a man who'd sold his body to women had surely done this sort of thing a hundred times before.
"Unnie, teach me martial arts."
"Hmnn? Hm? Wha—?"
Uncharacteristically for her grave demeanor, Namgung Seol began to stammer, every nerve in her body fixed on the warmth pressed against her arm.
She's touching me. She's actually touching me. Ah. Ahhh. I could die happy.
Was this really the same Yujin who'd despised her so? She felt close to dying of happiness.
"What — what kind of art do you want? You already received the transmission of the Imperial King's Sword, didn't you? From what I saw at the last bout, your attainment seemed considerable..."
"Mm... the sword doesn't seem to suit me, honestly. And it would give me such calluses."
"Calluses are essential for a martial artist, are they not?"
"Well, you see, there are times when rough fingertips are simply... impolite..."
It was a subtle joke, but the pampered Namgung Seol had no hope of understanding it.
"Ahaha. Slender jade fingers. I intend to stay a pair of slender jade fingers, you see."
"If it's a family art... there is the Heavenly Thunder Finger. A finger technique ranked among the ten finest under heaven. If mastered... the Finger alone would be enough to place you among the hundred great masters."
"Did you learn it too, Unnie?"
"I did not. But if I'm to teach you, learn it I must. Its current flows in the same vein as the Imperial King's Sword, so entry should be possible before your confinement ends. And should that prove impossible, we need only call on the family elders for help — Grandmother mastered the Heavenly Thunder Finger to its extreme."
"Yes! Thank you, Unnie."
"...Hmph. Think nothing of it."
Watching Yujin beam up at her, arm still looped through hers, she could feel her own breathing turn ragged. Was that... a snort of air through the nose?
Having gotten the answer she wanted, Yujin returned to her quarters without a moment's regret. No matter what, she didn't want to lay a hand on her own sister. Though judging by that breathless, snorting expression, the thought had crossed her mind that the other party might lay hands on her first...
Back in her room, Yujin flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. A ceiling entirely different from the one above the bed she'd died in. A different world. A different sky...
Unlike the frantic days of receiving visitors and diligently touring the family estate in the name of adaptation, she had leisure now — and with it, she sank into thought.
Would she simply live out her days as the idle second child of the Namgung clan?
Collecting a bit of charm here and there, learning martial arts half-heartedly... occasionally seducing a woman or two along the way?
Not a bad life, that...
The Yujin of his former life had been a proactive skirt-chaser. Others might dismiss him as a pathetic wretch who drank himself to death — but at the very least, he had been proud of himself.
After all, in the last field of vision he'd ever seen, the women had clearly been smiling...
Yujin sat bolt upright and called up the status window floating before his eyes.
"..Martial art, activate. Imperial King's Sword Form."
As though someone had walked her through it, she murmured the invocation and unleashed the art — and a blue aura, vast as the open sky, wrapped itself around her body. A presence every bit as weighty as the qi that flowed from Namgung Seol herself.
The Formation Art was nowhere near this strong...
Though he understood not a shred of the underlying principle, it was unmistakable: the higher the affection, the stronger the original art, the higher the quality of the martial skill granted.
They'd handed her this game-breaking cheat power for free — and she was supposed to live locked inside this stuffy compound?
No. Nope. Not happening.
This time too... this time, once again...
"I want to live surrounded by beautiful women."
Just as some King of Shang had built ponds of wine and forests of meat to romp about with his women — he wasn't royalty, but in this world, if one's martial arts were strong enough, such a life was entirely within reach.
He would leave the Namgung clan, found an independent sect of his own... unorthodox or orthodox, either would do.
He would build a men-forbidden order, like the Ami Sect — and become its leader.
Thus was the day that Namgung Yujin set his goal — a goal founded on lust and lust alone.