The Unbreakable Vajra Flower
In this vast land of the Central Plains, bandits are the dregs of the lowest dregs—the final refuge for those cast to the very bottom of society.
The world calls us cruel outlaws who prey on the weak and lust after wealth. Well, they're not entirely wrong. Our livelihood comes from using sheer numbers to intimidate travelers and strip them of their belongings.
But the true face of a bandit band is nothing more than a swarm of vermin struggling desperately to survive each day.
Have you ever asked where the men gathered in a mountain stronghold came from? Most are powerless villagers who lost their homes to drought or flood and fled the government's merciless taxation, or shameless criminals with nowhere else to hide.
The weapons in their hands are rusted axes or notched sickles. All they possess are emaciated bodies and sheer stubbornness. A mere collection of scarecrows who know nothing of how to wield a blade—that is the reality of bandit life at the very bottom.
Even if they are lucky enough to grow their numbers, nothing truly changes. When inexperienced young heroes from the righteous sects come charging in with their swords, preaching chivalry, our lives are swept away like autumn leaves. To them, bandits are the easiest stepping stones for building reputation and convenient sacrifices to mimic justice.
Hunted by government troops, preyed upon by martial artists, and even treated as food by fellow members of the unorthodox path—what part of us looks like cruel outlaws?
Protection fees? That only works on powerless peddlers. The truly wealthy merchant caravans don't even blink at our rusted blades, because the escort masters protecting them are far stronger than any farmer swinging a sickle.
Unless you have the backing of one of the Green Forest's Ten Overlords under the Green Forest King, any half-baked banditry is nothing but a gamble with your life.
On the surface we snarl like fearless beasts, but inside we are cowards terrified our heads might roll at any moment—the very bottom of the martial world's food chain. That wretched existence is what we bandits truly are.
My father, the Black Wind Axe Jeong Gwan-pyeong, understood this truth more deeply than anyone.
---
Father had originally been an ordinary woodcutter.
During a terrible famine when the people survived on roots and tree bark, the local magistrate did not distribute relief grain to the starving. Instead, he stormed into homes demanding overdue taxes. My mother, already bedridden, could not endure their beatings and finally passed away. That very night, Father took up the axe he used for chopping wood and stormed the government office.
"Bring my wife back, you animals!"
With the rough hands that had spent a lifetime cutting trees, he split the magistrate's head in two. Clutching the bloodied axe, he gathered me—an infant at the time—and fled with other wronged commoners into the deep valleys of Mount Cheonmok. That was the beginning of Cheonmok Heokpungchae.
Having escaped government punishment, a woodcutter who knew nothing of martial arts had nothing left but heaven-bestowed strength and the fierce will to protect his newborn daughter.
Father fought relentlessly and learned viciously. He picked up crude techniques by watching wandering swordsmen and obtained third-rate manuals from the marketplace. Yet through countless brushes with death, he refined those clumsy arts into something real on the battlefield.
Growing up watching his back, I had already become a bandit by the time I came of age. While other girls my age played house with dolls, I was learning fist techniques that could beat a man to death. There were no lullabies from my mother. The only cradle songs were the crude curses of rough men.
"It is not the strong who survive. It is the survivors who are strong."
That cold, absolute truth became my flesh and bone.
Having clawed his way up from the bottom, Father knew the brutal ways of the martial world too well. Instead of relying solely on force, he led the stronghold with shrewd diplomacy.
"Do not kill. Take their wealth, but never leave behind grudges."
That was the first iron rule upholding Heokpungchae, the words Father repeated to me endlessly.
He strictly forbade any killing that would provoke the authorities. Even when raiding caravans, instead of threatening lives, we only collected reasonable tolls in exchange for safe passage. We even helped travelers in distress and distributed grain to nearby villages during famines, using public sentiment as a shield.
While other strongholds that chased bloodstained money vanished silently at the hands of soldiers or martial masters, we survived thinly but steadily, sinking deep roots into the heart of Mount Cheonmok.
Before long, Heokpungchae had become a massive force dominating the entire region. The once-insignificant woodcutter Jeong Gwan-pyeong had become the lord of a great stronghold, known by the epithet Black Wind Axe.
"The Great Chieftain of the Green Forest sends word!"
Our name, Cheonmok Heokpungchae, had finally reached the ears of the Green Forest King, the pinnacle of the Green Forest. He acknowledged our power and bestowed upon Father the Green Forest Plaque, the token that welcomed him as one of the Ten Overlords.
The power that small black wooden plaque brought was immense. Enormous, unimaginable benefits poured into Heokpungchae.
First came tribute. The eighteen subordinate strongholds within five hundred li of Mount Cheonmok knelt before Father and began offering thirty percent of their monthly plunder. Without lifting a single blade, wealth piled up in our storehouses, leaving both Father and me astonished.
Second was access to the Green Forest Black Market. We gained exclusive rights to the secret trading posts dealing in stolen goods, secret manuals, elixirs, and rare artifacts circulating in the shadows of the martial world.
Lastly came the protection of the Green Forest Main Stronghold. Fearing retaliation from the Main Stronghold led directly by the Green Forest King, nearby sects that had been eyeing us abandoned their blades, and even government soldiers dared not approach the entrance to Mount Cheonmok.
From the moment he received that small wooden plaque, Father was no longer merely the leader of a bandit band. He had become a true ruler of the Green Forest, commanding thousands of outlaws and amassing wealth from a thousand li away while seated.
---
Yet as they say, good fortune often invites calamity.
Just as the stronghold had grown beyond what we could manage, Father—who had seemed as solid as a boulder all his life—collapsed from an unknown illness.
The moment he fell, the stronghold descended into chaos. The rough men lost their center and began to waver, while wolves waiting to seize power started showing their teeth.
Faced with the threat of everything Father had built crumbling, I defied his fierce objections and declared myself chieftain at the age of twenty-seven, before even reaching full adulthood, in a woman's body.
"What does a mere girl know?"
"You should be playing the lady beside a man, not presuming to lead!"
To the flood of sneers and resistance, I answered not with words, but with my fists.
I had inherited Father's powerful frame and heaven-bestowed divine strength. On top of that, my martial talent was extraordinary. Even after only skimming a few third-rate manuals picked up from the streets as a child, I could grasp the principles of inner cultivation on my own.
The law of the Green Forest was simple: the strong devour the weak.
Those who coveted the chieftain's seat had their skulls crushed like dry firewood in my hands. Even the arrogant sub-chieftains were no exception. I grabbed them by the collar and hurled them like sacks of grain until they never dared speak out of turn again.
Once my strength was revealed, the discontented fell silent.
Though I could never compare to Father, I possessed enough martial prowess to command the ragtag bandits. Thus I led the precarious Heokpungchae, doing my best to follow Father's advice from his sickbed.
Yet while my fists silenced their mouths, they could not completely quell the discontent seething beneath the surface.
"Nephew, how long do you intend to live so pitifully? We're one of the Ten Overlords—shouldn't we be securing a proper fortune?"
At the center of the unrest was him: Father's sworn brother and the stronghold's second-in-command, the Vice Chieftain Seung Pyo. To him, our ways were not wise diplomacy but the pathetic survival of cowards.
"Sitting in this heaven-sent fortress and doing nothing but petty thievery! We should raid more caravans and amass greater wealth!"
He whispered greed into my ears whenever he could, dissatisfied with the iron rules Father and I had upheld.
He argued that we must become crueler to survive, that we must shed more blood without hesitation, and that doing whatever it took to grow the stronghold was the true path forward for Heokpungchae.
The brotherly bond Father had formed became the perfect armor for him. Exploiting the fact that I could not easily restrain him, Seung Pyo began chipping away at the stronghold's taboos.
Behind my back, he began secretly communicating with unidentified unorthodox factions.
"To expand our power, we need a solid backer."
Under his protection, masters of dubious origin from the demonic path began flowing into the stronghold one by one under the guise of guest retainers.
"Drive them out immediately. Taking in outsiders of unknown origin will bring us to ruin!"
Despite my sharp warnings, he merely snorted. He had already slipped beyond my control, a horse with its reins cut.
He openly used his followers to massacre and plunder nearby merchant caravans, committing bloodbaths.
On the sorrowful night when Father finally succumbed to his illness and drew his last breath, before my mourning cries could even echo, Seung Pyo revealed his true colors.
"From now on, the master of Heokpungchae is me."
A gleaming blade was pointed at me, still dressed in mourning clothes.
At his side stood a strange man clad in blood-red robes that glowed ominously even in the pitch darkness.
"Resist and you die. Hand over the Green Forest Plaque quietly."
"You dog!"
I roared like a beast and kicked off the ground.
I crushed the ribs of three of Seung Pyo's guards with my bare hands and was about to snap his neck when the hem of the blood-red robe filled my vision.
Thud—!
A dull impact rang in my ears.
There was no pain. The world simply flipped before I could even blink. I could not tell what had struck me or where.
"Kuh…!"
Dark red blood gushed from my mouth as I was slammed into the ground. Through my blurring vision, Seung Pyo approached slowly with a mocking smile.
"Kahaha! A worthless wench like you dares to act up!"
His vile laughter echoed and faded as my consciousness slipped away.
The place where I awoke was an underground prison with not a single ray of light. They bound my limbs with thick iron chains and violated me like an animal.
Crack! Crack!
Each time the whip split the air, chunks of flesh flew and my skin hung in tatters, exposing white bone.
Yet even as my entire body burned with agony, I bit my tongue and swallowed the blood rather than give them the screams they wanted.
"This vicious bitch…!"
Seung Pyo snarled and thrust a red-hot branding iron toward my face.
"Speak! Where did you hide the Green Forest Plaque? If you don't, I'll burn that pretty face of yours to nothing!"
"…Keep barking. Even if it costs me my life, I will never tell you where the plaque is."
I forced my swollen eyelids open and stared straight into his eyes, then spat the blood pooled in my mouth directly onto his face.
The Green Forest Plaque bestowed by the Green Forest King. Without it, he could never be recognized as one of the Ten Overlords.
'He must be going mad with frustration.'
If he killed me—the only one who knew its location—the plaque would be lost forever. Yet keeping me alive risked future trouble.
Unable to do either, Seung Pyo could only hurl the branding iron in rage, unable to end my life.
In the end, the situation reached a stalemate.
In the pitch-black underground prison, time lost all meaning. Endless darkness where day and night were indistinguishable. There I remained, bound like a beast, little more than a living corpse.
Daily torture and interrogation, followed by silence. Even as flesh was torn away and bones shattered, becoming an everyday occurrence, I did not go mad. No—I could not afford to.
What sustained my half-dead body was not hope. It was the burning killing intent to sink my teeth into Seung Pyo's throat. With only that single thought, I endured each day of hell, chewing through the torment and surviving one day at a time, no matter how long it lasted.