The Scent of White Sandalwood
The childhood I spent in Manhongru had once seemed like it would last forever. Yet as time flowed on, the world around me began to change, slowly but relentlessly.
As I grew taller, as the last of my baby fat melted away and the soft down on my cheeks vanished, the way people looked at me shifted. The courtesans’ eyes gradually filled with a lewd, hungry gleam. When I helped with chores, their hands would wander openly, tracing every curve of my body with shameless intent.
The patrons who visited the brothel were no different. Men and women who had once smiled and ruffled my hair while saying, “What a lovely child,” now reached deliberately for my waist or hips, murmuring filthy compliments as they passed.
I had watched these scenes to the point of exhaustion since I was small, but when I became the object of them, terror and nausea rose in my throat like bile.
My mother, who had always protected me, contracted the dreadful yangmaechuang. Her body wasted away with terrifying speed. Even as she suffered, the number of times I was molested only increased. So she crafted a silver mask with her own hands and placed it over my face, ordering me to work only in the kitchen where guests could not see me.
She made me wear the mask even when moving through the building, and she repeatedly warned me to clear tables without ever meeting the customers’ eyes. It was her own way of shielding me from the grasping hands of those who looked at me with ill intent. But if the world were kind enough for such measures to work, neither of us would have been living in a place like this to begin with.
Sticky fingers sliding between my legs while I washed dishes, rough hands seizing my buttocks whenever I carried water buckets—these things became routine. The men leaving my mother’s room would stare at my unmasked face and sneer, “When you grow up to look like your mother, you’ll command a fine price,” without the slightest shame.
At first I could still force a smile and endure it. I told myself that if I just held on a little longer, Mother would recover. If I could bear it until then, we could return to the happy days we once knew. I swallowed my tears and repeated those words to myself again and again.
But the touches and stares directed at me grew bolder, more openly obscene. The words used to harass me became cruder. That must have been when it started. Every night my heart would pound so violently it felt ready to burst. The mere sound of footsteps behind me was enough to freeze my entire body. The realization that I was trapped with no place to run, surrounded by a darkness that made me sick, only grew clearer with each passing day.
The day Mother finally lost her battle with the illness and left this world, I sat curled in the corner of our room, clutching the clothes that still carried her scent, sobbing uncontrollably.
The door creaked open. One of the courtesans who had long watched me with unsettling eyes entered, wearing a strange smile.
She was beautiful. Beautiful enough that patrons never hesitated to spend their money on her. Yet the smile she wore that day carried something ominous, something dark.
“Yeon-seol-ah, don’t cry. Big Sister will comfort you.”
She smiled gently and sat beside me, stroking my back with soft, soothing hands. For a moment I truly believed she had come only to offer kindness. But then she seized my arm, yanked me to my feet, and dragged me—still clutching Mother’s clothes—toward some unknown room in a distant corner of the building.
The moment the door closed behind us and the latch fell with a heavy thud, the sweet, cloying incense and thick smoke enveloping the room made me realize something was terribly wrong.
What happened afterward… even now, I have no desire to recall it clearly.
My body, rigid with tension, fear, and humiliation. The eerie, seductive laughter that lingered in my ears. To the woman whose fingers began to wander across my skin, I muttered endlessly. Whether I was begging to be spared, pleading for her to stop, or simply sobbing, I no longer remember.
I had always imagined that a first experience would be something that made the heart flutter with sweet, tender excitement—a beautiful thing, just as others described. Yet what I received was nothing more than a revolting act in which filthy desire was poured over me without mercy.
The stench of incense and sweat that filled the room. The sickening sensation of unfamiliar body heat clinging to my skin. Her tongue crawling over me like a slug. Fingers that tasted every inch of my body. It felt as though not only my skin, but the very inside of me had been torn to shreds like rags.
After the nightmarish ordeal ended, I cannot clearly recall whether I was still clutching Mother’s clothes or had simply fainted. What I do remember with perfect clarity is that after that day, Manhongru no longer felt like any place I could remain.
The very next morning, the brothel owner summoned me. Tear stains still marked my face, and my chest was covered in the livid bruises left by the previous night’s assault, yet he paid them no mind. In a flat, businesslike voice he spoke.
“Your mother is gone now. You will have to earn her share.”
“Your face is pretty and your body is still mostly untouched. You should command a decent price.”
“This is a place where both men and women come and go. Serve every guest with sincerity, regardless of who they are.”
“And don’t even dream of running away. A brat like you wouldn’t last a day outside. You’d simply end up dead in the streets.”
The moment those words reached me, a chill ran down the back of my neck. Only after losing Mother did I finally see the true nature of the place I had lived in.
The laughter blooming beneath red lanterns now sounded like screams mixed with the stench of money, powder, and incense. The glamorous illusion I had clung to shattered. This had always been a marketplace that carved away human flesh and sold it by the pound.
The sticky mud that clung to my ankles. The unbearable stench rising from it. The mingled odors of women’s powder, alcohol, and the fishy reek of bodily fluids—an unforgettable stench that made my body shudder with revulsion.
“Ugh…”
The cold, sticky darkness was seizing my ankles again, dragging me back down into that hellish abyss of memory.
Please. Stop.
I had wanted to run. I had wanted nothing more than to escape, so I had grown stronger. I had vomited blood and carved my own bones in pursuit of power. I had become so strong that, in the end, that very strength had strangled the life from my body. Yet these cursed memories still clung to me like vengeful ghosts, refusing to let go.
In the darkness, a faint lantern light appeared. Beneath it, the slumped back of a woman shimmered into view. A thin, frail back. Bloodless, pale hands. And the faint, elegant fragrance of white sandalwood.
I knew who she was from her silhouette alone.
“Mother…!”
My lips moved of their own accord. The voice that tore from my throat did not belong to Wi Yeon-seol, the Beautiful Face Heavenly Killer who had feared nothing beneath the heavens. It was the helpless wail of young Hwa-yong, the child who could only clutch her mother’s skirt and cry.
“Hwa-yong-ah, my sweet little Yeon-seol-ah… I’m sorry for leaving you behind…”
With those final words she had left me, the vision of my mother began to drift farther away. Darkness rising from the depths slowly swallowed her whole.
“Mother, damn it, no…!”
I reached out, but my hand found only empty air. Cold emptiness brushed my fingertips, along with the terror of never being able to touch her again.
“Don’t leave me! Please! Don’t leave me alone, Mother!!”
In a darkness as deep as the end of the world itself, I screamed until my throat tore. The desperate cry never even echoed; it simply dissolved into the empty void.
My mind felt wrapped in thick fog. Caught between the hazy boundary of dream and reality, the first sensation that reached me was the soft, enveloping comfort of something warm and fluffy wrapped around my body.
“……”
I cautiously lifted my eyelids. The moment my eyes opened, a single hot tear that had been clinging to the corner of my eye slid down my cheek.
“Mother……”
The lingering aftertaste of that cursed dream refused to fade. A wet, broken voice slipped out before I could stop it.
Beyond my tear-blurred vision there was no darkness, no hellish brothel. Instead I saw an unfamiliar ceiling—elegant in its simplicity, made of wood I had never seen before.
“Ah…”
As I drew a slow breath, a clean, refined fragrance tickled my nose instead of the nauseating stench I expected. The calming scent of white sandalwood.
“Huu…”
That gentle aroma slowly eased the frantic pounding of my heart.
Exhaling deeply, I turned my head toward the presence I sensed beside me.
“…Un…nie?”
There sat Yeon-jin. She knelt properly with her legs neatly arranged, gazing down at me with an expression so full of worry it looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
The sight drew a soft sigh from deep in my chest, laced with genuine admiration.
Ah. She really is beautiful.
With my vision now completely clear, I studied her face carefully. She looked as though she had only recently come of age; her features still held the softness of youth. Her eyes, transparent and reminiscent of garnet, carried a mysterious crimson hue. The color might have seemed bewitching on another, yet the gentle downward curve of her eyelids softened that red glow into something as warm as spring sunlight.
Her impression was as innocent and warm as a harmless puppy, yet—
She is a martial artist, after all.
Near the hem of her robes, inner energy she could not completely conceal rose like faint heat haze. Normally she would have kept it perfectly restrained. But her worry for me had clearly disturbed her heart, making her breathing and qi flow feel somewhat rough.
Even so, combined with her pure appearance, the aura she gave off was impossibly gentle and warm.
Simply looking at that clear, anxious face made the lingering horror of the nightmare gradually recede.
They say ten years can change mountains and rivers.
Could this gentle young woman who looked as if she couldn’t harm a single ant truly become the icy beauty wrapped in northern wind and snow after thirty years? The ways of the world were truly beyond comprehension.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. When I smiled, Yeon-jin’s stiff expression brightened at once.
“Sister! Sister Seol-hye…! Are you feeling better now?”
That damn “Sister Seol-hye” again.
I nearly snapped that my name was Wi Yeon-seol, but a sudden flash of memory stopped me cold. The reflection of an unfamiliar woman’s face I had seen on the pond’s surface moments ago rose sharply in my mind.
“……!”
My mind snapped back to clarity. I jerked upright far too quickly. The dizziness that had begun to subside surged back with a vengeance.
“Ugh!”
I groaned, clutching my throbbing head with my right hand while my left hand roughly seized the cotton blanket that covered me.
“S-Sister…? Are you all right?”
Yeon-jin’s voice trembled. The pain in my groan brought anxiety flooding back into her expression.
“…Yeah. I’m fine.”
I gave a short answer, then moistened my dry lips. What should I say next? With no good excuse ready, I asked as casually as I could manage.
“More importantly, what happened? Where are we?”
“Ah…”
Yeon-jin lowered her head slightly, looking troubled. The way she fidgeted with her fingers made her seem like a child who had done something wrong.
“Sister suddenly ran toward the pond… then you looked as if you had seen something terrible and became badly startled…”
She glanced at me carefully before continuing.
“And then you fainted.”
“…What?”
“So I carried you here to my room. You were completely soaked, so I wiped you dry and changed your clothes in case you caught a cold…”
Her hesitant voice grew smaller and smaller.
“Did I… perhaps do something I shouldn’t have…?”