Becoming a Brocade Guard, Part 3
A Brocade Guard with no mission assigned lives a daily routine barely distinguishable from a conscript sergeant with one week left until military discharge.
Not that this meant one could actually do nothing at all.
Even an unemployed couch potato has to send out resumes and pretend to prepare for job interviews. The Brocade Guard was no different. Doing absolutely nothing while maintaining the plausible veneer of being productive—that fundamental truth remained unchanged whether in my past life or my present one.
Fortunately, martial artists possessed an excuse tailormade for moments like this.
“Hwado. What are you doing right now?”
“Meditating. Regulating my breath and circulating my qi.”
Known variously as qi respiration or breath-circulation cultivation, put generously, it was the act of drawing in pure qi from nature, expelling the turbid, and cycling internal energy through the meridians. Put plainly, it was just breathing with extra steps.
I had merely evolved from an unemployed slacker into an unemployed slacker who was breathing, but the nuance made a world of difference.
‘I took a breath today.’
‘I regulated my qi today.’
There was no need to ask which of the two sounded more respectable.
Under ordinary circumstances, claiming to be in deep qi cultivation was enough to brush off almost anything. Conversely, if that excuse failed to work, it meant the situation was anything but ordinary.
“Mother told me to give you this.”
Ye Rin strolled into my personal training chamber, pulling a letter from her robes and holding it out. I stopped half-heartedly cycling my qi, took the envelope, and gave her a puzzled look.
“A letter...? If she has something to say, why can't she just come say it to my face? What does it say?”
“How should I know? She told me to just hand it over.”
“What could that ajumma possibly want with me now?”
In my experience, when someone chose to write a letter instead of speaking directly, it was almost always because the matter was either immensely bothersome, thoroughly repulsive, or both.
With feelings split fifty-fifty between dread and pure anxiety, I unfolded the parchment.
Ninety percent of correspondence in this world was stuffed with flowery rhetoric that had nothing to do with the actual point. As someone bearing the soul of a modern Korean who used to settle most communications with abbreviations and consonants, these long, pedantic, erudite passages rubbed me the wrong way.
Then again, it wasn't like I could tell a high-ranking superior to keep her letters brief. Besides, everyone in this world wrote like this. Out of sheer survival instinct, I had painstakingly trained myself to sift through mountains of superfluous verbiage and extract only the bare crux.
And what my crux-seeking eyes distilled from this particular missive was:
“Come to the Commander-in-Chief’s quarters alone tonight in secret, you hear!”
“...?”
I blinked. Thinking I must have misread it, I checked three times. The ink did not budge.
Has this ajumma finally lost her damn mind?
“What is it? What does it say?”
“She says to come to her room tonight because she wants to do something private and secret with me.”
“...What?”
Ye Rin’s face twisted into an expression as though she had just caught sight of an extraterrestrial.
Small wonder. Discovering that her own mother was a predatory, middle-aged sweet talker preying on her best friend's son would traumatize anyone. I was just as shocked. I had never imagined that ajumma harbored such filthy, lecherous intentions.
I knew it. I had my suspicions ever since she started acting suspiciously nice to me.
This was why they said you could fathom ten fathoms of water, but never the single span of a human heart. Unbelievable. I really didn't peg her for that kind of woman. Color me disappointed. Truly, there wasn't a single soul in this world one could trust.
Was this the ugly reality of a gender-reversed Murim?
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying!
“I-Is that true? Mother actually wrote that?! N-No, wait. I'll check it myself. Hand that over!”
“No thanks.”
“Stop messing around and give it to me...! Hey! Stop pressing down on my head!”
A creature cursed with short stature, burdened further with stubby little limbs. How on earth she managed to master high-tier martial arts with a frame like that remained an eternal wonder.
That night, just as the letter instructed, I slipped away alone and visited the Commander-in-Chief's quarters.
Knock, knock.
“Yang Hwado reporting.”
“Enter.”
Having received permission, I stepped inside, only to wonder if I had walked into the wrong room. The person who was supposed to be here was nowhere in sight; instead, mountains of paperwork were piled high across the desk. Was this one of the Eight Great Mysteries of the Imperial Palace: The Chamber of Ghost Documents?
“Ah, you’re here. Give me just a moment. An urgent matter.”
“Understood.”
Naturally, it was nothing so mystical. Just a miserable slave to administrative paperwork, buried neck-deep beneath documents. If she keeled over from overwork, they wouldn't even need to dig a grave. This desk would double as her burial mound.
“Are you seriously using the Samadhi True Fire as a desk lamp?”
“You should try it. It’s bright and convenient.”
“Teach me how, and I’ll consider it.”
To squander a transcendent martial art that I couldn't even attempt, let alone imitate, on mere paperwork—was there any truer definition of wasting talent? Besides, for an absolute master of her caliber, the dark ought to look as bright as high noon.
“Relying on night vision too much will ruin your eyes.”
“That answer is so shockingly mundane that I don't even know what to say.”
“Let your guard down just because you're a master, and your health goes downhill before you know it. Our clan's martial arts place such heavy emphasis on ocular techniques that farsightedness sets in early. Most of our bloodline can spot a speck leagues away, yet struggle to read the paper right under their noses.”
So she was farsighted. Well, it wasn't like LASIK surgery existed in a wuxia world, so I could empathize with taking preventative measures. Still, harnessing Samadhi True Fire merely to reduce eye strain seemed more than a little excessive.
It wasn't as though her internal energy was limitless... Wait, actually, it probably was. One glance at that bursting middle dantian was all it took to know she was a peerless supreme master defying all common sense.
How on earth did a magnificent pair of breasts like that produce something like Ye Rin? No matter how many times I saw it, it defied all belief.
“You brought a tail with you.”
“I didn’t bring her. She followed me.”
“Indeed. She’s been loitering outside for hours. She made no effort to conceal herself, so I simply let her be.”
“Doesn't Ye Rin have anything better to do?”
“It only shows how much she cares for you.”
“What could she possibly have to worry about when I'm meeting the Commander-in-Chief?”
“Such are the tangled, troublesome feelings of a woman. And since it's just the two of us, you may drop the formalities.”
“Fine, Aunt Ye Seon. But why did you summon me all of a sudden? And at such an ungodly hour?”
“I was swamped with duties during the day and couldn't find a moment to talk. I apologize for calling you right before bedtime.”
Sleep didn't matter. I could always catch up during working hours tomorrow. What mattered was why she was so swamped that she couldn't summon me during the day, and what sort of business warranted dragging me here in the dead of night.
Ye Seon set down her brush after finishing the final document and turned to look at me. Her gaze was so razor-sharp it made her earlier complaints about failing eyesight seem like a complete lie. As I swallowed hard under the mounting tension, she parted her lips and spoke in a low voice.
“Hwado.”
“Yes?”
“Try acting cute for me.”
“......?”
Has this ajumma gone completely senile?
Granted, I had slung all sorts of scandalous accusations after reading her letter, but frankly, I never dreamed reality would actually play out like this. I mean, she was my mother’s friend! We had known each other since my age was in the single digits. And that was only from my perspective; from Ye Seon's perspective, she had watched over me since I was an infant in swaddling clothes.
Harboring lust for someone like that?
Not an easy feat.
Yet that seemingly impossible feat was happening right before my very eyes.
It was bewildering, bordering on utter absurdity, but wishing it weren't so wouldn't change reality. Well, it was difficult, but not strictly impossible. Given the era and setting, perhaps it wasn't all that uncommon.
Frankly speaking, what do I care?
Her being my mother's friend? My mother was practically a stranger to me anyway. The age gap wasn't a major issue either. High-ranking martial artists aged at a snail's pace; having undergone Body Cleansing and Bone Rebirth, Ye Seon looked like a woman in her mid-to-late twenties. Moreover, people in this world married young, so the fundamental gap wasn't vast. If I added my past life's age, I might even be older than her.
Most importantly, that figure of hers... One look at it made a man want to drool. She checked every single box of my ideal type.
Wait, now that I really thought about it, wasn't this actually fantastic?
The fact that she was a mother gave me slight pause, but wasn't that just proof of certified, Michelin-star quality? Besides, if Ye Seon truly intended to take me by force, I had zero means to resist. It was far better to switch into 'enjoy the ride' mode.
“Wait. Why are you taking your clothes off?”
“?”
As I casually began untying my collar, Ye Seon hurriedly threw out a hand to stop me. What the hell was her problem? She was the one who asked for it!
“What's the matter now?”
“That's my line! What do you think you're doing?!”
“Auntie, you told me to strip.”
“When on earth did I ever—?!”
BAM!
The heavy wooden door shattered into splinters as two women burst into the room.
“I-I prayed it wasn't true, but you really summoned him to do that...?!”
“Whoa. Never took the Commander-in-Chief for that kind of woman. Turns out she's into young meat after all.”
Taking in Ye Rin, whose flushed face was contorted into the visage of an enraged yaksha, and Wi Ji-ryeon, who was standing there for reasons unknown with a grin plastered across her face like she was having the time of her life, Ye Seon pressed her fingers firmly against the bridge of her nose as if struck by a sudden, violent migraine.
“All three of you... on your heads. Now.”
Thus Ye Rin’s impulsive act of matricide and mutiny came to naught. And in accordance with the military's time-honored, toxic tradition of collective punishment, Wi Ji-ryeon, an innocent bystander, and I, the actual victim, ended up planted upside-down on our skulls alongside her.
Ye Seon rubbed her temples and let out an exasperated sigh.
“...So what you're saying is, all this happened because you completely misunderstood my words?”
“To be precise, it's Auntie's fault for wording it in a way that practically begged to be misunderstood.”
“Where in my words was there any room for misunderstanding?!”
Summoning me in the dead of night, telling me to sneak in alone, and demanding cute affection out of nowhere—every single detail screamed misunderstanding. Alas, the military was an institution governed not by logic and reason, but by rank and coercion. Just as suffering victims were always silenced, I had a mouth yet could not speak freely.
Sob... A world where the victim gets interrogated.
This gender-reversed Murim really was devoid of all dreams and hope.
“What did you do that gives you the right to yell at him, Mother?!”
“Watch your tongue before your mother! And I told you to address me by my official rank within imperial grounds!”
“Is that what's important right now?! Summoning a full-grown man to your private quarters at this hour! Have you stopped to think about the scandalous rumors that would ruin Hwado's reputation if anyone saw?!”
“That is precisely why I told him to come in secret!”
“That makes it sound a thousand times more suspicious!!!”
“Ahem...”
Even Ye Seon seemed to realize she had no ground to stand on, failing to mount a direct rebuttal. Frankly, the mood and progression had matched the exact plot of a scandalous doujinshi.
“I already told Rin, so fine... But Wi Ji-ryeon, why are you here?”
“The shrimp called me. Said she couldn't take down the Commander-in-Chief alone and needed backup to raid the room.”
“? Even if both of you jumped her, you wouldn't stand a chance.”
Even if Mun-gyeong and I joined the fray, we wouldn't be able to handle a single one of Ye Seon's fingers.
“Sounded fun, so I tagged along.”
Crazy dopamine addict, BL-obsessed degenerate. Phrasing it like that really proved what a hopeless creature she was. A sudden wave of revulsion washed over me, and I took a step back.
“...I concede my words may have caused a misunderstanding. But considering the relationship between you and me, common sense dictates I would never demand such a thing of you.”
“I wouldn't mind doing it with you though, Auntie.”
“...What?”
The air froze instantly.
Wi Ji-ryeon gaped at me in pure disbelief.
“Damn... I always wondered why you hadn't gotten married at your age. Turns out you're into older women?”
“It's not that. Auntie looks young on the outside. Plus, she has big breasts. Enormous breasts.”
“Is that so critical you had to emphasize it twice?”
“Isn't it?”
“Fair point. It is pretty important.”
“Ahem! Cease teasing your elders! Breasts are merely lumps of flesh. To a martial artist, they are nothing more than an impediment! A slender, compact physique like Ye Rin’s is vastly more advantageous for martial combat.”
Auntie... You seemed to think you were offering a logical rebuttal, but your daughter standing right behind you looks ready to flip her lid. If this went on, I was about to bear witness to an actual act of matricide, so my inner Confucian dragon hastily steered the conversation away.
“If that wasn't why you summoned me, why did you ask for something like that?”
“Well, that... is rather difficult to explain right this moment. Won't you just give it a try first? If it proves too difficult, you don't have to...”
“It's not like I can't do it, but...”
She wanted me to act cute even in a situation like this? I couldn't fathom what her real business was.
Still, to do as instructed, I moved behind Ye Seon, wrapping my arms around her in a back-hug, and leaned in close to whisper in her ear.
I was an alpha male who acted cute without shame. And I knew the exact magic words that drove the women of this world wild.
“Noonaaaa...”
Flinch.
At that cloying, velvety whisper, a supreme master who possessed flawless command over every fiber of her flesh shuddered violently. I was certain that even if I had sliced off her ear with a blade, it wouldn't have elicited such a dramatic reaction.
Glancing to the side, I saw Wi Ji-ryeon gagging in mock horror.
Ye Rin... From my angle, I couldn't see her face, but the sound of grinding teeth echoed unmistakably.
“I wanna get dischaaaarged...”
“Ugh, you were doing so well until you started talking crazy again.”
Quiet, Mun-gyeong.
When the tip of my tongue lightly grazed the rim of her ear, Ye Seon gasped in sheer shock and violently shoved me away. Her face was flushed crimson, burning like a furnace.
“I—I told you to act cute, not seduce me!”
“Are they different?”
“Of course they're different!”
“Then why did you just sit there and let me do it?”
“......”
Look at this woman.
As I stared down with dead, cold eyes at Ye Seon, who was awkwardly averting her gaze, she finally spoke as if unable to endure the scrutiny any longer.
“You asked for a discharge. I can grant it.”
You think you can change the subject with something as cheap as—
...Wait. That statement was far too earth-shattering to dismiss.
“Huh?”
“What?!”
“Whaaat?”
Wi Ji-ryeon, Ye Rin, and Mun-gyeong gasped in succession.
Me? I hadn’t drawn a single breath since those words left her mouth.
Holy shit. Military discharge?!
“Auntie, the truth is, I have long held the deepest reverence and adoration for your boundless, generous heart.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Ye Seon replied, reaching into her robes to draw out an imperial decree, presenting it before me.
“Yang Hwado. As of this day, you are relieved of your post in the Brocade Guard and ordered to matriculate into the Heavenly Martial Academy.”