Echoes of the Past: Cheonseokyanghwanheojeonggong (2)
The man who burst onto the stage reeked of cheap liquor. He staggered straight toward me and seized my wrist with a brutal grip, right as my fingers danced across the strings of the geomungo.
“That song sounds like a damn rat squealing. It’s ruining my drink. Shut your mouth and come here!”
“Ah…?!”
The crushing force was so vicious I couldn’t even scream.
His eyes were bloodshot, glowing crimson from heavy intoxication. The moment those rough hands clamped down on me, horrific memories from Manhongru flooded back in a nauseating wave.
“L-let go… please, it hurts…!”
“What’s with this weird mask anyway? Looks like you’ve got a pretty face under there. Why the hell are you hiding it? Let’s have a look.”
I thrashed desperately, but it was useless. Several other drunkards climbed onto the stage, cackling as they pinned my arms and tore away the only shield I had left—my mask.
Of course, not a single person in the tavern lifted a finger to help.
“No! Give it back! It’s my mother’s keepsake, please!”
“…?! What the—his face…!”
The mask clattered across the floor.
In that instant, the noisy tavern fell deathly silent, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over the entire room.
A loud gulp echoed from somewhere in the crowd.
Then came the stares. Dozens of them, all at once.
Greed. Lust. Sticky, filthy curiosity. The kind of gazes I knew all too well. And because they were so familiar, the terror that gripped me was even worse.
“Kah…! Look at this. A boy with a face prettier than most girls.”
The man who had been devouring me with his eyes slowly licked his lips.
“Perfect. The innkeeper said you were just some street rat with nowhere to go, right? Then no one will complain if I take you with me and do whatever I want.”
“N-no…!!”
I twisted and struggled with all my strength, but the man who held my wrist didn’t budge. He must have trained in martial arts. The innkeeper, the other patrons—everyone simply watched with mild interest, as if enjoying an entertaining sideshow.
Please, someone, anyone, help me…!!
I was about to squeeze my eyes shut in despair when—
-Tap.
Someone grabbed the wrist of the man dragging me away.
“H-huh…?!”
Even as my whole body trembled like a leaf in the wind, I slowly lifted my head.
There stood a woman dressed in the strangest attire, gripping the man’s wrist with iron strength.
She was wrapped head to toe in a blood-red robe that looked as if it had been dyed in fresh gore. Thick black bandages covered her entire face, making it impossible to distinguish her eyes, nose, or mouth.
The only thing visible through the gaps in those bandages were a pair of terrifying, blood-red eyes that burned like hellfire.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man glared at her, veins bulging on his neck as he roared.
“Do you know who I am?! I’m Bang Seong-ho, an inner disciple of the Cheongu Sword Sect, a name everyone in this region knows!”
“That’s right! What business does a blind woman have interfering in men’s affairs?!”
“...”
But the bandaged woman didn’t spare the gang a single glance. She simply turned her head and stared directly at my tear-streaked face.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the tavern for a long moment.
After carefully studying me with those crimson eyes gleaming between the bandages, she finally shifted her gaze toward the hulking man who had introduced himself as Bang Seong-ho.
“You said no one would complain if you took him. Isn’t that a bit hasty?”
“What… did you say?”
The voice that flowed from beneath the bandages was low and hoarse, yet unmistakably feminine.
“The song he was singing just now… it happened to please both my ears and my heart.”
“Is this crazy bitch for real? What kind of nonsense—!”
-Swish.
The moment the man tried to bellow at her with a savage tone, the woman raised a single index finger and pointed at him.
It was a gentle, almost meaningless gesture. Bang Seong-ho snorted and reached for the sword at his waist—
“H-hot! AAAAAAGH!”
He suddenly clutched his own throat and screamed.
His skin, flushed from alcohol, turned a sickly dark purple in an instant. Black blood began gushing from his mouth and nose in violent spurts.
-Ssssss!
The blood that spilled wasn’t ordinary. It was boiling hot blood, steaming like molten iron. The moment it touched the floorboards, they melted with a horrifying hiss.
“Begone.”
“Hiiieeeek!!!”
At the woman’s short, qi-infused command, the gang that had been harassing me just moments ago hoisted the now-unconscious Bang Seong-ho—blood pouring from every orifice—and fled in blind panic.
“...!!!”
Only terrified silence remained inside the tavern.
-Rustle.
The woman gently wrapped her hand around my wrist, which was already bruised purple from being gripped so hard.
“Come along, then.”
“...Ah.”
-Step. Step.
Without another word, she took my hand and led me toward the outskirts of Luoyang.
A deserted riverbank. Thick reeds whispered and moaned in the wind like ghosts.
-Whoooosh.
The biting early-winter wind cut through my thin clothes, but I barely felt the cold. The strange, overwhelming aura radiating from the woman in the fluttering red robe as she held my hand tightly left no room for such trivial sensations.
-Step.
Only when we reached a rocky embankment overlooking the dark, churning river did she finally stop.
The woman in the blood-red robe sat lightly atop a large boulder overlooking the river, as weightless as a feather. With the moonlight behind her, her crimson silhouette looked ethereal—both mystical and dangerously fragile, as if she didn’t truly belong to this mortal world.
“Won’t you sing for me?”
She spoke to me in a gentle voice as I fidgeted nervously, glancing around.
“The song you sang back at the tavern. I quite liked it. Do you know any others?”
“Y-yes…! I do…!”
It was a polite request, yet it carried an undeniable power that made refusal impossible.
“Huuu…”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
The cold river wind filled my lungs and left again, calming my trembling heart just a little.
With the gentle lapping of water and the mournful howl of the wind as my accompaniment, I carefully parted my lips.
In my kind mother’s hands, the thread is drawn—
She sews clothes for her wandering son.
Stitch by stitch before his long journey,
Fearing he will return too late.
It was a song I had composed myself to the poem Wandering Son’s Lament by Meng Jiao.
The sorrowful melody I had once sung while holding my mother’s frail, illness-wasted hands drifted mournfully along the river wind.
Who says the heart of a blade of grass—
Can ever repay the warmth of spring’s sun…?
The more I sang, the tighter my throat became.
My mother’s final moments kept flashing before my eyes. By the end, what came from my lips was no longer a song, but something closer to a choked sob.
“Hic… sob…!”
“...”
The woman simply watched in silence as I finally broke down in tears after finishing the song.
I don’t know how long I cried.
When I finally sank to the ground, swallowing my overwhelming grief, she approached and whispered softly.
“I listened well. You have a truly beautiful voice.”
After that brief compliment, she looked down at me with eyes filled with mysterious energy and said,
“Then I suppose I should repay you.”
“...?”
-Rustle.
With slender fingers, she gently pressed several points across my face, my heart, and my wrist, as if taking my pulse.
“Born with the Earth Wisdom Star and the Yin-Yang Dual Body.”
“...Yes? What does that mean…?”
I tilted my head, confused by her cryptic words.
“It means that if you do not learn the proper martial arts soon, you are fated to die an early death in the streets.”
“...!”
At those words, my entire body froze on instinct. It felt as if my heart had dropped into my stomach.
Death.
Ever since my mother passed, I had lived with death constantly at my side. There were days I even thought dying would be better. In this filthy world, what did it matter if I died in the streets or met some violent end?
Yet the moment I heard the verdict that death was truly upon me, something hot surged up from deep within my chest.
I don’t want to die.
I wanted to live. A fierce, primal instinct overwhelmed my reason—the desperate refusal to die so miserably, so meaninglessly.
Caught between the desire to die and the desperate longing to live, I breathed raggedly, my face twisted in confusion.
From behind the bandages, those blood-red eyes seemed to pierce straight into the deepest part of my soul as she asked,
“Do you want to live?”
“...Ah…!!!”
It was a question that touched the very core of my being.
Trembling, I nodded with great effort.
“Yes…!!! I want to live!!”
The woman lifted the hem of her robe, gently wiped my tears, then pointed toward the east.
“If you walk eastward from here, you will reach an unexplored mountain called Heokryeonsan. Dig beneath the old dead tree standing at its summit.”
Before I could ask any questions, she vanished in a flutter of red robes, as if she had been nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream.
Left alone in the middle of the night, I stood there in a daze, staring blankly at the spot where the woman in black bandages had been.
-Step. Step.
Then, without looking back, I began walking east, exactly as she had pointed.
Even though I staggered like a drunkard, my eyes remained fixed on the faint sliver of hope that lay somewhere in that direction.
I walked for three days and three nights without rest.
The soles of my shoes wore away completely. My bare feet tore open and bled. Hunger drove me to eat dirt, and thirst forced me to drink foul water, yet I never stopped.
I felt no pain. No—pain had become a luxury. Only one thought filled the emptiness inside my head: I had to survive.
The blind faith that the place the woman had told me about held the one and only chance to completely change this pathetic life of mine was what kept me moving.
After enduring trials that brought me to the brink of death, I finally reached the summit of Heokryeonsan.
With bloodied hands, I dug beneath the withered old tree and unearthed a half-rotten wooden chest.
Inside it was a single worn manual wrapped in the hide of some unknown beast.
The title was written in characters that seemed to writhe like fresh blood, dark crimson and ominous.