You Drew Your Sword First?
Sun Wukong had been expecting some kind of scheme. I did declare war on them outright. He had publicly sworn, right before the Three Pure Ones, that he would hunt them down and kill them himself. They had worn faces of perfect composure, but reading the turmoil underneath had been as easy as looking at his own palm. That had been partly by design. In a fight, provocation had a way of making an opponent unexpectedly honest.
But I didn't think their scheme would be this pathetic.
Sun Wukong let out a sigh.
In the faint darkness, two figures stood where scattered lantern-light reached into the gloom. Seowol and… The small, slender silhouette was the familiar shape of Namgung Seowol. The sturdy man facing her, on the other hand… That'll be the one from the Unhyeon Sword Sect.
Sun Wukong approached them slowly, listening.
"Young lady, is it not fate that we should meet like this? Ahem. How long I have waited to see you again… I, So Ji-hyeok of the Unhyeon Sword Sect, have not forgotten you even once…"
Seowol remained silent. The only one talking was the man, So Ji-hyeok. Her face was as expressionless as ever, but irritation had filled her eyes to the brim.
"The hell are you?"
So Ji-hyeok spat the words in casual, unvarnished speech at the figure who had appeared out of nowhere. Perhaps it was the dark — he failed to notice Sun Wukong's golden hair. He even looked him up and down, openly, from toe to crown.
I can't feel a scrap of internal energy off this guy.
So Ji-hyeok's brow furrowed. The face that had been so thoroughly fed up with him a moment ago had, for an instant, lit with something like welcome. His expression soured, and the words that came out of his mouth turned rougher still.
"Who the hell are you?"
Sun Wukong let out a hollow laugh of sheer disbelief. Reading the emotion flickering across So Ji-hyeok's face was not difficult. He had seen it often enough. Bajie used to look just like that.
Rising lust. A feeling with a magic that could drag even the most rational man into a bottomless pit. It was a desire Sun Wukong had never quite been able to understand, but he found himself nodding all the same. Bajie wasn't stupid, but he sure lost his head often enough. Even Zhu Bajie, who had learned directly from Tang Sanzang — the man most deeply versed in the Buddha's law in all the world — had been like that, hadn't he? Always tumbling headfirst after some pretty face and ruining everything in the process.
Sun Wukong couldn't understand it. Lust, women, whatever — but what was he supposed to do? The world was full of men who actually behaved this way.
He was still watching that pitiful face when So Ji-hyeok snapped at him, sharp and sudden.
"What? You a Wudang Taoist?"
Displeasure had settled over So Ji-hyeok's features. He glared from Sun Wukong to Namgung Seowol with an irritated gaze, because the way she looked at this stranger was in an entirely different league from the way she looked at him.
When had it been? He had been traveling in Jiangxi Province. That was the first time he had ever seen Namgung Seowol. As luck would have it, she had found herself in a difficult situation. Jiangxi had no shortage of martial artists who harbored grudges against the Namgung Clan, and Seowol, who had been traveling separately from Namgung Muyoung for one reason or another, had — true to her nature — gone and created a problem. She had fought and fought until she was in over her head. That was when So Ji-hyeok had, in his own way, stepped in to help.
Seowol's temperament was twisted in places, but she was not cruel to people who had saved her. Offering a word of thanks was simply good manners. And that, unfortunately, had been as far as it went.
She called me unpleasant, didn't she…?
So Ji-hyeok groped through the hazy memory. He had suggested a drink, since they were already connected by fate, and she had followed along, however unenthusiastically. But the longer they talked, the stiffer her face had grown, until at last she had told him, to his face, that he was unpleasant. It was the first time in his life anyone had ever said such a thing to him. People might mutter it behind his back, but no one had ever said it to him outright.
And then when I tried to stop her from leaving, ahem.
He shoved the mortifying memory as far away as he could. He had caught her wrist as she rose to leave, and the next thing he knew his face had been ground into the table. Not exactly a story he was proud of. He had been angry at first, too. He had helped her. He had even arranged a place to drink. Shouldn't she have warmed up a little, the way other women did? The women he met in Hubei usually did. The Unhyeon Sword Sect's prestige was considerable, and So Ji-hyeok himself was one of Hubei's most promising young experts. There had been no shortage of women eager to get in his good graces.
She was the first woman who ever treated me like that.
It was a thoroughly unimpressive reason, but he had taken her into his heart all the same. Sadly, nothing had come of it. Seowol had shaken him off with perfect coldness and left Jiangxi. He heard later that she had returned to the Namgung Clan, but he had not even dared to follow. The Unhyeon Sword Sect's prestige only carried so far, after all.
He had gone on living without quite being able to forget her — and he had never dreamed he would run into her here, of all places, at the Wudang Sect.
The wine had gone to his head, and Gwangso's words had found a willing ear. That's right. A real man ought to know how to step forward. So he had boldly asked Namgung Seowol to meet him. He had hesitated for a moment, remembering how cold her face had been when they parted in Jiangxi. And yet — she had accepted readily.
See? She hasn't forgotten me either, has she?
So Ji-hyeok had crowed inwardly. But when the Seowol who actually appeared looked at him with a blank face and ice-cold eyes, it felt as though the world were crumbling under his feet. He had tried to keep the conversation going somehow, but he was not so oblivious that he failed to grasp why she had come. She's here to cut me off, clean and simple.
It was precisely then, just as a fresh gloom was settling over him, that Sun Wukong appeared.
The truth was, even a sudden intrusion would not have soured his mood this badly. He might have been annoyed at the thought that someone had overheard him getting thoroughly rejected, but that alone would not have kindled hostility. The problem was that Seowol's face had changed the moment Sun Wukong arrived.
To anyone else she still looked blankly expressionless. But So Ji-hyeok caught the shift in her eyes at once. A faint light of trust, dripping from her gaze. His eyes narrowed.
He had put on a reasonably gentlemanly front in front of Seowol. By nature, however, he was a man who came rather close to doing as he pleased and answering to no one.
"Doesn't look like a Taoist, and you don't look like a properly trained martial artist either. Body's solid enough, so maybe a Second-class expert who's picked up some external arts…"
The thoroughly belittling tone was anything but accidental. Seowol, standing beside him, furrowed her brow — and So Ji-hyeok's emotions boiled that much hotter. They were clearly more than ordinary acquaintances.
Then Sun Wukong's voice dropped, low and flat.
"Name."
"…Are you talking to me?"
Sun Wukong, however, was no easier to deal with. He paid not the slightest attention to anything So Ji-hyeok said or how he said it. He simply wanted the one piece of information he was curious about, and that was that. The problem was that this very attitude made So Ji-hyeok's temper flare in turn.
"Hah. No manners at all. Can't even tell where you stand. Isn't it the inferior who introduces himself first and asks permission?"
Sun Wukong felt a peculiar twist of mood. It was as though the man had stolen the line that should have been his. He let out a short snicker, and So Ji-hyeok's anger began to climb in earnest. Seowol was still glued to Sun Wukong's side, and the sight of it kept catching on his nerves. What was more, he could feel nothing extraordinary from the man in front of him. There was a certain pressure that came with that large frame, but that was all. No aura honed sharp as a blade, no grandeur like a vast mountain, no stillness like a deep lake, no breadth like the open sea. No matter how generously he looked at it, this was a Second-class martial artist who had trained in external arts and nothing more.
So Ji-hyeok frowned and jabbed a finger into Sun Wukong's chest, poking him again and again.
"You little— if you want a name, you should speak first. Do you even know who I am, running your mouth like that?"
Sun Wukong's torso did not move. So Ji-hyeok shoved with his finger, and still there was not the slightest give. It felt exactly like jabbing his hand into a boulder. His brow tightened. The hardness coming off those dense muscles was like stone. His assessment that this was a martial artist trained in external arts seemed, if anything, more correct. And at that point, So Ji-hyeok decided it was time to let his rising fury out.
Young lady Namgung has simply never seen my martial arts, that's all.
He stole a glance at Seowol's face. Her eyes, turned on him, were still ice-cold. They said she was a typical martial artist who reveres the strong.
So Ji-hyeok had not sat idle after parting from Seowol in Jiangxi. He had gathered every rumor about her. She was infamous in any number of ways, but one thing was certain: she worshipped the strong, and when it came to martial arts she was sincere. Obsessive, even.
He regretted not having shown her his skill back then. For all that he looked like this, he had stepped onto the threshold of the Peak Realm before the age of thirty. He was neither an heir of the Five Great Clans nor a rising talent of the Nine Sects, and to have come this far anyway meant he was certainly no ordinary man. The corner of his mouth lifted, faintly. If this fellow had only trained his external arts to a moderate degree — if he was around First-class, even — wouldn't he make a decent opponent to demonstrate a little of what he could do?
Of course, the sensible thing would have been to find out who the man actually was before making any such plan. But since when had the world been populated exclusively by sensible people? A man putting on a show of weight in front of the woman he liked was the same whether he called himself a hero of the martial world or not.
Internal energy gathered at So Ji-hyeok's fingertips — a refined technique, concentrating his power into each slender joint.
A sharp crack of impact.
So Ji-hyeok's eyes flew wide. He had expected one of two things: that the man would be driven back, unable to withstand the force loaded into his finger, or that he would grit it out and his face would twist with pain. Neither happened. It still felt like pressing a finger into solid rock. And that was not all. The finger he had thrust out so confidently felt, instead, as though it were buckling — as though the joint itself were about to fold the wrong way.
"You…?"
"I don't know what kind of stunt that was supposed to be. Think you could just tell me your name?"
Sun Wukong sighed. So Ji-hyeok, apparently taking even that as mockery, twisted his face.
"You've trained your external arts quite well! Hmph! External arts will shatter under a fist loaded with internal energy — and yet you come strutting out trusting in that paltry skill!"
The shout and the punch arrived together. Sun Wukong flicked his hand, light as a breeze, and let the fist slide past him. Only then did So Ji-hyeok's mind snap fully awake. The movement had been steeped, unmistakably, in the principles of internal energy circulation. And not just that — it was clearly stronger than his own.
He had already committed himself with such fanfare. For an instant, So Ji-hyeok hesitated.
"Let's hear that name now."
"…So Ji-hyeok of the Unhyeon Sword Sect."
"Right. So Ji-hyeok. After sitting around drinking at the temple, what were you thinking, showing up like this?"
"…!"
"What, don't tell me the big secret plan you all cooked up in private was just to go chase some girl on a whim."
So Ji-hyeok's face flushed a deep red. Sun Wukong's eyes narrowed.
"What, that really is all of it? What are you, a bunch of idiots…"
At those words, So Ji-hyeok's face burned as though it might burst. Internal energy gathered in his right hand. His bearing went rigid, as if he might strike at any instant.
"Stop."
"…Young lady Namgung?"
Seowol stepped in front of Sun Wukong before anyone else could move. So Ji-hyeok's pupils wavered. A faint look of betrayal crossed his face.
As far as Seowol was concerned, she had intervened because she genuinely felt sorry for him. Setting aside the fact that he had tried to scheme his way into a drinking meeting, the man had, after all, once helped her out of a difficult situation in Jiangxi. However frivolous his manner, however full of desire his eyes, a debt received was a debt received. She had a fair idea of the disaster that would follow if this continued with Sun Wukong, and she had stepped in intending to end it here.
To So Ji-hyeok, it looked like something else entirely. Something surged up from inside him. He had always been called hot-tempered, and now, as though the wine were still in him, his emotions boiled over with ugly ease.
In that moment, Sun Wukong's eyes flashed. So Ji-hyeok, oblivious to the meaningful look now turned on him, sneered straight through the swell of his own feelings.
"Hah. Playing hard to get, acting all high and mighty — so you had a lover stashed away somewhere? Looking at how cozy you two are on Mt. Wudang. Ah~ don't tell me you left the Namgung Clan just so you could go sightseeing with a man?"
As he spoke, So Ji-hyeok drew his sword. A cold gleam flashed even in the dark. Seowol, who had never been good with people, was briefly taken aback. She had not imagined he would be so beyond all decency as to actually draw a blade. She flicked a glance toward Sun Wukong.
Sun Wukong, for his part, was smiling.