7. The Lying Bitch
1. Train your martial arts until you're absurdly strong.
2. Raise a disciple to dazzling heights.
.
.
.
1893. Let it all go.
...?
"Who on earth writes a book like this?"
Yujin flung the book over her shoulder with a toss of her arm. Ever since she'd resolved to found a sect of her own, every volume she'd hunted down in the Namgung clan's library had turned out to be exactly this sort of nonsense.
Acquire wealth. Grow stronger. Become one of the Ten Great Masters under Heaven. Take in a disciple. Blah, blah, and so forth...
"Tch. Not a single one of them is any use."
Her dream of building a sect—well, inheriting the Namgung clan outright was realistically out of the question. Namgung Seol had firmly entrenched himself as the most likely successor, and no matter how presentable the second daughter might be, there was still, apparently, an eldest son in the picture.
And besides, she couldn't very well hang the banner of a prestigious orthodox sect and use it to run a stable of women... A faint crease pinched the narrow space between Namgung Yujin's brows.
No matter how hard she scrunched that flawlessly smooth face, no wrinkle would form, but the worry showed all the same. And that wasn't the only problem.
Her attempts to build her own strength through martial arts had gone nowhere near smoothly. Setting aside her total lack of talent for the Namgung clan's techniques, her body had been so frail after her illness that the slightest bit of training left her gasping.
Even the head maidservant, who doted on Yujin so dearly, had gently—very gently—suggested she consider a different path.
"Truly, merely surviving was heaven's blessing... Perhaps you might try entering official service, child. You've been promised to the Jegal family, after all—becoming a scholar would be no bad thing either..."
In other words: you have no talent for the martial or the artistic, so go the scholarly route. Even as a civil official she could wield a measure of power, true. But what good was ink and learning in a world teeming with monsters who could carve a mountain in half on their own?
Any martial artist with a shred of sanity wouldn't dare oppose the state, sure. But someone belonging to the unorthodox sects or the demonic path—no, even an orthodox martial artist with a snapped screw might well cut her down on the spot. In this treacherous world, if you wanted safety, strength wasn't optional. It was a prerequisite.
"Hyah-! Hyah-!"
From far off came the voices of warriors swinging their swords, the ferocious battle cries seeming to speak of long years of discipline.
At the very least, I need to get stronger than they are...
Yujin let her hair hang loose and swaying as she leaned against the window. If things went on like this, a life of tedium awaited her. Bathing in the sunlight with languid eyes, she looked like nothing so much as a painting come to life.
"Do look at that. It's the young miss. The young miss is watching us train."
"Ever since she recovered from that illness, she's become oddly mature somehow. Give it three years and she'll be the finest beauty in Anhui City..."
"Our innocent, pure young miss. Let's train hard, girls, so no unsavory fellow ever sinks his hooks into her."
Amid the chatter drifting up to her, Yujin twirled her hair around and around.
Dopamine... I need dopamine...
At base, life in the underworld—no, even if you didn't go that far, the life of a modern person was one relentless chain of stimulation. There was no way the quiet, peaceful existence of a prestigious family's second daughter could ever be anything but bone-crushingly boring. She was starting to understand why the daughters of every wealthy house in the world went looking for hosts...
And Yujin, as a human being who pursued honest, unadulterated fun, was constitutionally unsuited to loafing about.
Somebody, please, entertain me. Or failing that, anything...
Something fun... something fun...
"Something FUN-!"
Screeching at the top of her lungs, Yujin sprang to her feet and went clattering down the corridor.
The dusty heart of the Anhui City market, where merchants of every description gathered to trade in the gossip of the world. Every rumor south of the river eventually passed through this place.
The topic of conversation was always changing, and today's subject was none other than the Namgung clan's second daughter, recently dead and come back to life.
"Say, old friend, did you hear the news?"
"What news?"
"Well, word is the Namgung clan's second daughter is recruiting attendants."
"Huh. Recruiting attendants this openly—no one wears their wealth on their sleeve like that family. What about the pay?"
"Who knows. For all I can tell, two or three times what any other house offers. They say she doesn't even ask about your background."
"Ha! Every woman in Anhui City will come flocking."
"You're telling me. Sure, the riffraff will crawl out too, but... this is the Namgung clan we're talking about. They'll vet them properly, won't they? The unorthodox sects in Jiangnan have been restless lately as it is..."
The merchants, having buzzed for a while about the Namgung clan's second daughter, quickly moved on to other chatter. Most of what they'd been saying was true—but there was one thing they'd missed.
The riffraff who might come crawling. Namgung's second daughter was waiting for exactly that.
Zhu Bai, chief steward of the Namgung clan, regarded Namgung Yujin with a suspicious eye.
"You intend to interview them yourself, miss?"
"Yep. That's the only way I'll get what I want. I need friends, you know. It's still all so hard for me..."
"And yet you were sprinting around like a madwoman just now."
"That was... because we had guests..."
Watching her jut out her lower lip and squirm, the chief steward's heart softened a little. Out of nowhere she'd come demanding to choose her own personal attendants. She was already desperately busy, she absolutely refused anyone from inside the Namgung household, and she insisted on hiring outsiders without regard for their origins. The list of grievances went on.
"If they're Namgung people, how uncomfortable would that be for me? They'd only ever see me as some fearsome superior..."
"Well, wouldn't that be only natural?"
"But I want a friend, I'm telling you. And someone from outside would have a keen eye for the state of the murim, too."
"Then allow me to review them. When it comes to judging character, surely no one is better suited than I."
"They're my attendants. I'm going to look at them."
The two opinions never once converged, and the argument dragged on. Namgung Yujin was dead set on selecting people purely for her own amusement, while Zhu Bai had no intention of accepting responsibility for letting some bizarre character into the family. In the end, they had no choice but to settle on interviewing the applicants together.
Just as everyone expected, applications for the position of personal attendant poured in without end. Martial artists, experts in every branch of knowledge, women, beauties... even with all manner of conditions attached, one had to wonder where all these people were coming from—the line never stopped.
The problem was that Namgung Yujin was utterly unsatisfied and growing sulkier by the minute.
What Zhu Bai was evaluating was, broadly speaking, their appearance, their backgrounds, their martial skill, their bearing. Yujin was looking at something else entirely. So it was with the seventy-third applicant as well. A woman with chestnut hair and sturdy thighs strode briskly into the room. A fine family, adequate martial arts. By any measure, ideal attendant material.
"Greetings. I am Su-Ah, daughter of the Jang household. In the martial arts, I have studied the Jang family's kicking techniques, and..."
— Target:Jang Su-Ah
— Affection:8
— Martial Arts: Jang Family Kicking Art — [Insufficient affection to use martial arts.]
"Rejec—ted-!"
Lifting the rejection placard with a look of pure boredom, Yujin heaved a deep sigh. Not a word she heard registered, no matter how much Zhu Bai sputtered beside her.
"I beg your pardon, what was wrong with that one?"
"I dunno... kicking techniques just feel like a no."
"What the devil is that supposed to—!"
Are there really none? A fun one, I mean.
Seventy-three people had come and gone, every one of them honest to a fault and boring beyond words. As if anyone would dare spout lies in front of the Namgung clan...
People should fib a little! A few well-kept secrets are what make things interesting.
Just as Zhu Bai suspected, there was no reason behind it at all. She was simply a girl gone mad for dopamine.
"Ha... very well, what can be done. If none of them please you by the eightieth applicant, you will void the agreement, as promised."
"Deal."
Better none at all than living alongside boring people. Having been disappointed so many times already, she held little hope for the seven who remained.
"Applicant seventy-four, enter!"
The short-haired woman who bowed her head was beautiful enough to seize the eye at a single glance. Rare indigo hair, a resolute expression—and she was tall, standing level with most grown men.
And yet her frame wasn't bulky at all; she carried a slender figure that only emphasized her femininity all the more.
"Greetings. I am Baek Cheong-A, of the Baek family of Shaanxi."
"Hmm? The Baek family of Shaanxi? Was there such a house?"
As the chief steward tilted his head, Cheong-A recounted her family's history in full, with impeccable composure.
"We were merchants for six generations—until five years ago, when the bandit horde that swept through Shaanxi razed us to the ground."
"Ah! Those bandits, I know of them. You must have suffered greatly. Do you, by chance, practice any martial art?"
"Yes. In my childhood, I learned a simple swordsmanship from the caravan leader. The White Serpent Sword Art, which mimics the movements of a pale snake. I have reached the threshold of First-Rate."
The moment Zhu Bai opened his mouth to respond, Yujin thrust the acceptance placard high into the air and shouted.
"PAAAASS!"
"Miss?!"
"Accepted! Accepted! ACCEPTED! Triple acceptance! She's in! Accepted, absolutely, unconditionally accepted!"
Flying into high spirits, Yujin leapt up from her chair and bounced about the room.
Zhu Bai found the woman quite agreeable as well, but he wondered whether she warranted that kind of reaction. Aside from being a well-endowed beauty, there was little that set her apart from the previous applicants.
...Is that the criterion, then?
He briefly questioned the young miss's tastes, then shook his head. However many eccentric stunts she'd pulled lately, surely it couldn't be for that reason...
To be fair, being a well-endowed beauty did earn Baek Cheong-A about five bonus points in Yujin's book. But there was exactly one reason she'd shouted her acceptance with her whole heart.
— Target:Wi Ji-Sawol
— Affection:-32 (This person harbors hostile feelings toward you.)
— Martial Arts: Shadow Dark Art, Crimson Blood Flying Sword — [Insufficient affection to use martial arts.]
A lying bitch. He'd finally found her.