Empty Green Stalactite Oil
The road to the Tang Clan was peaceful from the back of a black horse. Clip-clop, clip-clop—the rhythm went on and on, and listening to it, Hyeong Jin sank into thought.
The blood calamity that would tear through Sichuan had its origin in the Empty Green Stalactite Oil. The rumor that set that slaughter in motion was a single line.
The Empty Green Stalactite Oil lies where neither heaven nor earth can hold it.
A fabled elixir, they said: a single drop was enough to grant ten years of internal energy. Over that prize the martial factions and wanderers of Sichuan had already fallen to tearing at one another.
Quicker to go and find the place myself. Ten days remained until the Tang Clan Head's birthday banquet, and the journey to Sichuan would take a week. That left him three days at most to search. Better to move faster, just in case.
"Yah."
He touched his heels to the horse's flanks. The black horse lengthened its stride, and dust lifted off the road behind them.
By the time they reached Mount Daliang, the sun was already sinking.
"You rascal. Thanks to you, we saved a day."
He said it with a warmth he rarely showed, and let the horse drink. The animal blew softly through its nostrils, stretched its neck, and rubbed its nose against his shoulder.
"Feels good to run after so long, does it?"
Hyeong Jin stroked the bridge of its nose. The horse narrowed its eyes and leaned into his hand.
"I'll be back soon."
It nickered. He led it to a spot where grass and water were plentiful and tied it there, and before long the horse had lowered its head and begun to crop the grass as if it had always belonged to that hillside.
Mount Daliang. A mountain of Sichuan, pressed against the border of Yunnan—and the place where, ten years from now, the blood calamity would break.
Right. Tomorrow I start looking in earnest. The verse said it lay where neither heaven nor earth could hold it. If the earth could not hold it, then it was not buried deep underground. If heaven could not hold it either, then it was not hidden on a summit. He turned over what remained of his past life's memories and found nothing more than this: it had been somewhere on the mountainside. His eyes traveled the savage sprawl of ridges, and he let out a long breath.
The first day of the search, he worked the mid-slopes of two of the five peaks that rose over Mount Daliang, checking every cave and every cleft of rock that caught his eye. Nothing looked like a place an elixir would keep. He made his meal of dried meat, then sat with his eyes closed and walked back through every spot he had seen. Every cave, every crevice, had been joined to the ground of the mountain.
He needed to read the verse more literally. A place neither heaven nor earth could hold. It did not simply mean the mountainside. A place that neither set its foot on the earth nor showed itself to the sky. A cliff, then.
On the second day he turned to the cliffs of the three peaks that remained. He climbed the sheer faces and came down them again, probing every split and every hollow, and found no trace of anything that might have been an entrance. The sun of that second day began to slide west. Hyeong Jin descended and tipped his head.
"Was the information wrong?"
That was when two women came into view. Dang Hwa? What is she doing here, at this time? His expression settled into something grave. The two of them were arguing.
"It's dangerous, Miss. Let me go in first and look."
Dang Hwa laughed under her breath.
"If a Tang steps back from danger when the clan is settling a grudge, then that person isn't Tang at all."
The woman who had spoken first opened her mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again.
Leave them. Get tangled with the Tang Clan, and nothing ended cleanly. Hyeong Jin shook his head.
Dang Hwa was in a thoroughly foul mood. Two days left until her father's birthday, and they had sent her out on an external mission.
"They've forgotten who I am."
Seo Rin, at her side, answered with perfect calm.
"They know far, far too well, and that's the problem, Miss. If only you'd been careful."
"Anyone else would have been thrown out of the clan."
Dang Hwa's lips pushed into a pout. An accident in the poison room was still an accident, wasn't it? It was unfair. Her calculations had been exact. Where had they gone wrong? Had there been some catalyst waiting to set the blast off? The poisons lost in it had been sacrificed to the making of a new one; they, at least, would have no cause to feel wronged.
"Hmph. Drive out a genius like me and the only ones who lose are them."
"Miss... please."
"I know, I know. Honestly, the nagging—you get that from Mother."
Color flooded Seo Rin's face, and she shouted.
"Miss!"
"I said I know. A person can't say anything around you."
Dang Hwa shook her head. The two of them stopped before a cave.
"This is the place?"
"Be careful, Miss. He did kill an outer-court martial artist."
"Outer court. He hadn't even reached the peak."
"He was still of a collateral branch. Carelessness is forbidden."
Dang Hwa studied the cave and smiled. Well, look at this. A cave, and the walls and floor are unnaturally clean. Mechanical formation traps? Or a formation proper? Her smile deepened.
"This is rather fun."
Seo Rin looked at that expression and shook her head.
"There is truly no talking to you."
What met them inside was a single man in the white robes of a scholar. He looked at Dang Hwa and smiled.
"Well, now. A big fish."
"Mm. You do have an eye."
At that unruffled answer, Seol Mun-hyeok's face twisted.
"Just as I thought. Tang dogs care about no one but themselves. Calling them orthodox is an embarrassment."
"Oh, that's rich, coming from the mouth of the man who killed Tang people and ran."
"Miss! Your dignity."
Dang Hwa's expression crumpled.
"So what he says is fine, and I'm supposed to stand here with my hands folded and listen like a proper lady?"
"No point talking, then."
Seol Mun-hyeok's face set with resolve.
Even as he spoke he drew a detonator from his robes—and his finger stopped. A heartbeat later he coughed blood and collapsed. The device slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor. Dang Hwa watched him without a flicker of interest. What does he think the Tang Clan is? Killed one outer-court martial artist and decided he was somebody.
"Cough... since when?"
He forced the question out through the blood.
"From the start."
Her answer was thoroughly bored. The fallen man's hand trembled, inching toward the device.
"What are you so worked up about?"
Dang Hwa picked it up. Despair washed over Seol Mun-hyeok's face.
"A mechanism, by the look of it. Press this and the place comes down?"
His startled gaze snapped to her.
"Hey. What do you take a clan that lives by hidden weapons for? One look, and it's obvious."
He went to the trouble of preparing it. Might as well play along. Ten steps to the exit. The collapse starts on the inside. That should be plenty. She seized Seo Rin and flung her out through the mouth of the cave, thumbed the detonator, and launched herself after her.
The mountain answered with a thunderous roar.
At the blast, Hyeong Jin's head turned. The cave Dang Hwa had entered was coming down.
"What?"
Below the cliff the cavern dropped in on itself with a crash, and the shock ran up into the rock above. The outer face of the cliff sheared away, and an entrance was laid bare—an opening into a cavity that had been sealed midway up the wall. Hyeong Jin's eyes lit. A moment ago, that entrance had not existed. It sat where no one would spare it a glance unless they had come looking at the cliffs on purpose.
"So that's why it wasn't found until ten years later."
He smiled. Meanwhile the two who had escaped the cave were already at each other. Flung clear, Seo Rin had veins standing on her forehead.
"Why would you press that, Miss? We very nearly died."
"But I was curious. He was dying, and he looked at me with such a desperate face."
Seo Rin beat a fist against her own chest.
"What sin did I commit in a past life? Aigoo—what kind of fortune in mistresses is this?"
Dang Hwa smiled.
"I'm perfectly fine, as mistresses go."
"Are you serious?"
"Anyway, who is that person over there?"
Seo Rin's expression sharpened.
"Don't change the subject."
"I'm telling you, look."
Caught. Hyeong Jin sighed. A mistake. He had been too absorbed in the hidden cavern's entrance.
"He really is there."
The two of them came toward him at an easy pace. Dang Hwa's face was filmed with dust, and even that could not hide the beauty she had been born with.
"Hello. I'm Dang Hwa of the Tang Clan."
She offered the greeting with flawless etiquette, and Hyeong Jin returned it with a fist-and-palm salute.
"Hyeong Jin of the Jeomchang Sect."
Her brows drew together.
"Jeomchang? What brings you all the way from Yunnan?"
Not a muscle of his face moved as he deflected.
"I like famous mountains. I climb Jeomchang Mountain often as well."
"Aha. So your hobby is coming all the way from Yunnan to climb mountains? And the mountain you happened to climb had the Tang Clan's precious young lady on it, and you were watching her?"
Dang Hwa nodded to herself.
"A wonderfully persuasive excuse, Young Hero Hyeong Jin."
He let out a breath.
"My master ordered me to Sichuan to attend the Clan Head's birthday banquet. Meeting you here today was chance, nothing more."
She smiled with her eyes.
"We'll leave it at that. Even though you weren't climbing any mountain, and were watching us?"
"I was not."
"Right, right~"
Utterly willful. He sighed where she could not hear it.
"Then you're bound for the Tang Clan? Come with us. We're going the same way."
"Please go on ahead. There's still a mountain I haven't climbed, and I mean to look it over before I leave."
"Oh? Shall I come along? I've taken an interest in mountains myself."
Confusion flickered across Hyeong Jin's face. The moment Dang Hwa saw it, a mischievous smile rose on hers. Seo Rin thumped her on the back.
"Miss. Let's go and wash. Where do you think you're wandering, looking like a beggar?"
"Forgive us. Our young miss has more mischief than is good for her."
Seo Rin bowed, and Hyeong Jin bowed in return.
"Not at all."
The two of them drew away, bickering as they went. Hyeong Jin drew a deep breath. Thank goodness.
The mouth of the secret cavern was not far. He cleared the rock that blocked it and forced himself through the gap, and a chill slid over his skin. Deep inside, beneath a stalactite trailing from the ceiling, a single drop of blue liquid gleamed in a small stone pool.