The Playboy's Son
My father was the most notorious playboy in all of Sichuan.
A vagrant who drifted from street to street, he lived a life of luxury instead of starving like the other beggars, and there were exactly two reasons for it.
The first was a face so handsome it could rival Wei Jie.
The second was a manhood so magnificent it robbed countless women of their sleep.
Armed with those two weapons, my father tumbled through bed after bed with innumerable women across Sichuan. It was said he never shared the same bedroom with any woman twice.
After sharing clouds and rain with nearly every decent-looking woman in the province, he eventually wandered into the largest pleasure house in the capital, the Myriad Red Pavilion, and slept with my mother—a famous top-tier courtesan.
A penniless wanderer sharing a bed with the greatest beauty in the capital. It should have been impossible, yet my father possessed the two things that made it possible.
Though throngs of men stood ready to offer their livers and gallbladders for a single night with her, my mother willingly embraced him.
She was so utterly captivated by his handsome face, his impressive manhood, and the honeyed tongue that could melt hearts that she even suggested they become husband and wife. But my father refused her without hesitation and vanished after that one night.
He didn’t spare a single glance at the enormous wealth my mother had amassed. Instead, he left to find a new woman to embrace. It was a foolish choice, and so very like my father.
A few months after abandoning my mother, he laid hands on a daughter of the Tang family and incurred the patriarch’s fury. Before I could even enter the world, his head was severed along with that fine manhood of his.
That is why I never knew my father’s name or face.
Not that I had any desire to know the name of such trash to begin with.
Born to parents who lived by selling their flower-like beauty and moonlit grace, I heard from a young age—until I was sick of it—that I possessed an impossibly beautiful face.
Even inside the Myriad Red Pavilion, where the Central Plains’ most celebrated beauties gathered, my own looks stood out.
While children born to red courtesans were usually tossed heartlessly into the streets, the pavilion master permitted my mother to keep and raise me, a newborn, by her side.
The reason was obvious. The master had decided that once I grew up with my fine features, I would become an excellent source of income.
Mother named me Hwayong. Even while working as a courtesan, she raised me with utmost devotion.
Hwayong.
It was an exceedingly embarrassing name for a boy, yet whether she wished it or not, I had been born with the fate of selling my flower-like face. So she had no choice but to call me that.
From the time I took my first steps, I followed the master’s orders and helped with odd jobs around the pavilion. Whenever I had a spare moment, I would squat at the end of the upstairs railing, imitating dances, songs, and every other performing art as I grew.
Mother seemed to want to raise me as an ordinary child, but the problem was that the place where I was born and raised was the very heart of Sichuan’s pleasure quarters—the Myriad Red Pavilion.
From a young age, I naturally witnessed raucous banquets, the sounds of men and women tumbling together behind closed doors, and drunken guests staggering while clutching half-naked women.
I never thought it strange. On the contrary, I simply believed that was how the world worked.
As a child, I vaguely thought that physical love between men and women was only natural, and that sharing in the pleasures of clouds and rain was as ordinary as eating and sleeping.
Yet because of that very ignorance, my childhood—aside from the constant noise around me—was remarkably happy.
I ate three full meals a day, slept in a warm bed, and my beautiful mother would sometimes hold me, gently stroke my hair, and sing lullabies.
The pretty older sisters of the pavilion would call me over when they were bored, pinch my cheeks, hug me, play with me, and smile beautifully while calling me cute.
When I imitated the arts I had secretly learned from the upstairs railing in front of others, both guests and courtesans would burst into laughter as if my antics delighted them.
One of the greatest joys of my childhood was when one of them would press a delicious sweet or candy into my small hand.
Mother disliked that I imitated the courtesans, but whenever I stepped onto the center of the stage and danced with alluring grace, she would smile faintly, as though she couldn’t help herself.
That beautiful smile that had enchanted countless men.
Then, when we were alone in our room, she would teach me how to play instruments like the zither or flute. Every time I performed well, she would slowly stroke my hair with her soft hands.
That is why the child I once was believed he was growing up deeply loved.
Damn it.
Is this what they call the lantern of life flashing before death?
As I fell endlessly through a bottomless hole, memories of my forgotten childhood rose like droplets before my eyes.
If you’re going to die, at least die cleanly. Why drag up these cursed things I had buried on the far side of oblivion?
What the hell is this feeling ripping my chest apart?
Regret? Or longing for home?
No, it couldn’t be.
The Myriad Red Pavilion.
Those memories from that hellish place were a lifelong curse laid upon me.
A demonic cave that gnawed at my soul until my body shuddered at the mere thought of it.
The root of all the evil deeds I had committed, a horrific place that had planted heart demons I could never exorcise in my lifetime.
But.
Mother….
The face that, no matter how hard I tried to recall it, no matter how desperately I tried to picture it, would no longer appear.
A face that had faded to pure white with only its outline remaining, as if someone had deliberately erased it from my mind.
That mother’s face became clear only at the very brink of death.
How her beautiful lips curved when she smiled. How lovely her face looked with its light makeup when she held me on nights I cried from nightmares. How her lullabies comforted my heart as she patted my back.
Well… I suppose this is enough.
Since I could see Mother once more before dying, I had no lingering attachments left.
My vision slowly grew distant as my consciousness sank into darkness.
Strangely, it wasn’t as painful as I had expected.
Only the sensation of the old shell called a body peeling away layer by layer from the soul that enveloped it.
There was no pain like skin being torn by a blade or bones shattering.
If this is truly death, it wouldn’t be so bad to simply close my eyes and find peace like this.
The tension that had filled my entire body until the moment I leaped from the cliff drained away completely, leaving me with a strange sense of relief.
...Hm?
It was then.
From somewhere far away—whether the bottom or the sky, I couldn’t tell—a single streak of red light fell toward me.
A deep crimson energy, like a drop of blood falling into a clear well, engulfed me and—
Urk—?!
Something invisible seized me roughly by the back and dragged me upward, upward from where I had been sinking.
Caught in that force and hauled up, my vision suddenly cleared, revealing a somehow familiar landscape.
A desolate field in full bloom with crimson spider lilies.
That is…?
It looked like a scene I had seen somewhere before.
But the instant I narrowed my eyes to look more closely, the sight receded in a flash, paying no heed to my will.
Then came a blinding surge of light.
Unbearable dizziness, and consciousness rising to the surface of darkness.
I groaned at the sudden intense beam and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Ugh…!”
-Thud
The body that had been drifting through an unknown space was hurled onto a hard floor.
Damn it, I can’t breathe…!!!
In the unknown light and shaking vision, I collapsed onto an unfamiliar wooden floor, gasping desperately on my knees.
“Haa… cough, haa…!”
My mind was pulp.
I scraped together what little conscious sand I could from my half-awakened state, instinctively braced my hands against the floor, and tried to steady my breathing.
Where… where am I?!
The breath I lacked rushed into my empty lungs all at once.
I coughed and drew breath in and out several times, yet the overwhelming unease and terrible dizziness made me feel like I would lose my mind.
“Unnie…? Unnie?!!! Seol-hye unnie!!!”
At that moment, a woman’s cry tore through the air, calling desperately for someone.
“Seol-hye unnie, are you alright…?! Please lift your head…!”
Who the hell was this Seol-hye that she was calling out with such urgency?
I wanted to stand up quickly and figure out what was happening, but my churning mind refused to let me move even a finger.
“Huk, haa…!”
After panting like that for a long while, the violent pounding of my heart that felt ready to burst finally began to calm.
“Ugh!”
My labored breathing had settled somewhat, so I forced my eyelids open. Yet everything before me was so distorted it made me nauseous.
My vision refused to focus, like staring at the world from beneath churning water.
“Ah…! Unnie, are you feeling a little better now…?!”
Yet strangely, the face of the person standing right before me, looking down, remained perfectly clear without the slightest distortion.
....?
It was a familiar face.
No—beyond familiar. It was the face of the person who had been with me only moments ago.
The woman who had glared at me in the cave within the North Sea Snow Mountains, right until I threw myself off the bottomless cliff.
Wait… the Sword Empress?!
