Wait, Are You a Beast?

A roar the Namgung Clan had torn from its own bleeding throat more than a decade ago.

Even after the Great War ended, the Namgung Clan never stopped shedding blood. They hunted the remnants of the Sama Order to the farthest edges of the jianghu and put them to the sword. They crushed and burned until it seemed the Unorthodox Path would never rise in this world again.

But when has the jianghu ever been so simple?

Even a sect wiped from the face of the earth will, sooner or later, find someone to pick up its name and carry its legacy forward. How much more so for the Sama Order, once the grand coalition of every unorthodox faction? A clean ending was never in the cards.

Still, they had reason to be optimistic. They had burned the Sama Order to ash and severed the lineage of every unorthodox martial art. Every secret manual had gone into the fire. If the Unorthodox Path were ever to lift its head again, it would take decades at the very least.

Unfortunately, hopeful expectations have a way of shattering.

Hon-am-do appeared.

A former executive of the Sama Order. A notorious villain famed for cleaving men in two with a single stroke. His reappearance alone was shocking enough — and then he attacked the orthodox Azure Chivalry Hall and all but razed it single-handedly.

It was, in effect, an assault on the Orthodox Path itself. A single ominous suspicion flickered through every mind in the Namgung Clan: what if the Great War had never truly ended?

"This means remnants of the Sama Order are still operating in the shadows!"

"If they mean to use the Black Path, shouldn't we strike the Black Path down first and be done with it?"

"Don't be reckless! The man may have been acting alone!"

"Has he still not opened his mouth? We should put him to the question — torture him if we have to!"

The Namgung Clan took the matter with deadly seriousness. They wrung every last drop from their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already strained manpower and time and put the prisoner to interrogation.

And then, in the clan dungeon, he abruptly died.

"Teacher Sun? Why?"

"Well, Teacher Sun is the one who captured him, but still…"

The situation had grown even more awkward.

From Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi to the Azure Chivalry Hall, and now a former executive of the Sama Order — Sun Wukong was, without question, a benefactor of the Namgung Clan. And once Muhwa had relayed what he had heard from Wukong, they had come to recognize that they shared a common enemy.

A man far more active and forward than any guest retainer had a right to be. A comrade who faced the same foes as the Namgung Clan. A fellow wanderer of the jianghu who clearly harbored some unspoken purpose within their walls — and just as clearly held a genuine fondness for them.

That was how the Namgung Clan had come to see Sun Wukong.

All the same, killing a prisoner in the clan dungeon on his own authority was bound to be a problem. Muhwa stepped forward as their representative.

"Why did you kill him?"

"He had it coming."

Wukong said it as if it were nothing. As if it had been the only reasonable thing to do.

Muhwa paused.

He said it was a personal grudge, didn't he?

The conclusion came easily enough. This was the jianghu — the martial world of Murim, where countless debts of gratitude and old blood-feuds lay tangled beyond all unpicking.

And the man had been a former executive of the Sama Order.

Something shifted in Muhwa's eyes. Wukong's face was heavy with thought, nothing like the grin he usually wore. A sudden, unexpected kinship stirred in Muhwa's chest.

So they were enemies…

Muhwa was no different. Long ago, the Sama Order had taken his parents from him.

Why, though?

In memories as thin and formless as mist, Muhwa's family had been ordinary commoners. And yet the Sama Order had singled them out, hunted them, and killed them. Whenever they managed to flee, the pursuers came again, determined to finish the job.

He remembered it only faintly. The scent of his mother as she clutched him to her chest and ran. The two feet that had carried them all the way to Anhui Province, that had refused to stop until they died at the gates of the Namgung Clan, just to keep him alive.

A grudge does not fade with time. It does not dilute.

"Was it a grudge, then?"

"It was. They killed my people."

Muhwa let out a quiet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠breath. In the jianghu, there was no more absolute justification. Settling a blood-feud. No cause in the world put a sharper edge on a drawn blade.

There's no need to hold him accountable for this. Not now, at least.

Setting his own feelings aside, Muhwa considered the shape of the jianghu with a cold, clear eye.

Honestly, he's a master whose true depth we can't even begin to measure.

Hadn't he toyed with the Black Path bosses as if they were children? He had even smashed Hon-am-do to pieces by himself.

A different breed from the other guest retainers.

The Namgung Clan's guest retainers preferred to exist as if they did not. Most were eccentrics who had grown sick of the world and withdrawn from it.

Sun Wukong was not one of them.

He didn't even blink at that outrageous request to help us reclaim the Azure Chivalry Hall's interests.

He had said he was looking for someone. A man who had entered their household with a purpose of his own was someone to watch — but a purpose that could be put to use was another matter entirely.

For now, his aims and the clan's are the same.

Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi, and now Hon-am-do. Both were enemies of the Namgung Clan. Both were Wukong's old blood-foes. Their purposes aligned. If some hidden organization was truly coiled in the dark, a clan as short on people as the Namgung could not ask for a finer asset than Sun Wukong.

Better to plant a sense of debt in him than to stand here and take him to task.

Wukong surely knew, himself, that killing Hon-am-do on his own authority had been the wrong thing to do.

Muhwa decided to be generous.

"Well. You did the right thing."

"Huh?"

A gleam of genuine surprise lit Wukong's eyes at the unexpected answer.

"I wouldn't have been able to hold my temper either. You said it was a personal grudge. I don't need to ask for the details — I think I understand. I lost my family to the Sama Order as well. If anything, killing Hon-am-do saved everyone who would have suffered at his hands."

"…"

Wukong said nothing. Not because he had no reply.

A brief confusion crossed his face. A sudden ache flared behind his eyes.

He was a being who did not know forgetfulness. Every memory of a distant past remained intact in his mind, not one of them faded or worn thin. And so a fierce, piercing déjà vu — the sense that he had heard these words somewhere before — made even his breath tremble.

A moment later, from that far and faded past, a single voice slipped into his ear.

"Ah…"

It had been an entirely different situation. An entirely different person.

Sanzang's voice, grave and refined. Muhwa's voice, calm and low. They should have been nothing alike.

And yet Wukong felt the two voices overlap, ringing together in his ears.

That warmth he had felt behind compassionate eyes. A feeling at once familiar and painfully missed — and he felt it again now, in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Muhwa's gaze, exactly the same.

How?

Sanzang's pale face, speaking as if he could see the savagery coiled in Wukong's chest, as if he understood all of it.

Wukong stared at Muhwa, his gaze gone distant and unfocused.

Muhwa smiled faintly and added one more thing.

"We're not Buddhas. There's no need to act like one."

"…I'll explain this matter properly to the clan elders. But please — don't let something like this happen again."

Muhwa had been talking for some time when his words trailed off. At some point, Wukong had stopped answering entirely. Only then did Muhwa realize that Wukong was staring through him with an almost frightening intensity.

"…Teacher Sun?"

"Where did you hear those words?"

"What words?"

"That we're not Buddhas, so there's no need to act like one."

Muhwa tilted his head.

"I just… it came to me, all of a sudden."

Wukong's face grew troubled — so openly, so deeply unsettled that Muhwa found he could not bring himself to say another word.

"Well? Other than the fact that he's an extremely powerful human?"

Wukong bit down on his lip at Myodu-eung's answer.

"I don't have Destiny Sight the way you do, Great Sage Sun. I can't see past lives, so…"

"Yeah. I know. I know."

He hadn't expected a real answer. The question of what Muhwa had been in a previous life was not one anyone in this lower world could satisfy. No one who possessed Destiny Sight — the power to see past lives — could exist down here.

"Sanzang…"

It had been far too close to the words Sanzang had spoken in that distant memory. Of course, it was a common enough thing to say. Nothing particularly difficult, nothing weighted with hidden meaning.

But the circumstances were too convenient. For someone bound to him by a thread of fate to speak those words…

"…Though for Sanzang, it's a little—"

A bit rough, isn't it?

The image of Muhwa beating a Black Path boss half to death rose unbidden in his mind.

…Yeah, no. That did not overlap with Sanzang at all.

Wukong scratched furiously at his jaw, thinking it over, and felt a spike of irritation.

"Aigoo, this Sanzang, I swear. Even when he reincarnates, does he have to make himself this hard to recognize? There's never a straightforward path with him. Never."

He sighed and turned to Myodu-eung.

"Stay by that man's side."

"Surveillance, then?"

"Less surveillance and more…"

Well. That's not exactly wrong.

Wukong studied Myodu-eung in silence. The white owl blinked its great round eyes and tilted its head. Looking at it like this, it was nothing more than an adorable little animal.

"You can throw your weight around a bit, though, right?"

Myodu-eung stretched its short neck as long as it would go. Wukong could practically hear the ahem.

"Within my own territory, at the very least, this one is a mountain god!"

"Uh… right."

Not exactly intimidating, but… well. A mountain god is a mountain god…

Wukong hesitated, just for a moment, over whether this was really someone he could leave a job to.

Then again, as long as an Earth Deity doesn't leave its own domain…

An Earth Deity wielded tremendous power within its appointed territory. Even this little creature, ruffling its feathers and swiveling that stubby neck from side to side, was — within its own lands — something close to an immortal, however incomplete. This one was still young, but a fully aged Earth Deity was the kind of being that even a great yaoguai thought twice about crossing.

The roc of Kunlun and the turtle of the Southern Sea alone are enough to make anyone uneasy.

At any rate, here in the vicinity of the Namgung Clan Estate, Myodu-eung was a reasonably reliable card to play. More reliable, even, than Ojeong, who was next to useless unless he was in the water.

"If he really is Sanzang's reincarnation, something is going to happen."

"Happen?"

"If he's Sanzang, it means a body without a soul. It could collapse at any time."

Time was the problem. No matter how exalted a soul might be, a body left empty for too long would inevitably begin to fail. And when that moment came, Myodu-eung had more than enough ability to take emergency measures.

"Aha! Leave it to me, Great Sage!"

Myodu-eung spread its wings wide, then thumped them against its own chest in a crisp salute.

"But could you grant me one small favor?"

"A favor?"

Myodu-eung carefully cocked its neck from side to side.

"W-well… might I also ride in your robes, the way that creature does?"

"…"

What kind of ridiculous—

"Mrrrowww."

A cat's face poked out of Wukong's robes and hissed. The owl fixed the cat with a fierce, round-eyed glare. An untimely staring contest unfolded then and there.

Wukong looked at the two of them — mountain god and beast — and heaved a long sigh.

"Do the job well and I'll even let you build a nest on my head."

"Yes, sir!"

Myodu-eung bounced up and down on its skinny little legs.

They were just wrapping up when Wukong found Ojeong staring him dead in the face.

"…Are you talking to an owl right now?"

The look of a man watching something deeply, profoundly unhinged. First the cat, and now an owl?

"What are you, some kind of beast?"

Wukong's expression did not so much as flicker.

"Introduce yourself. This is Myodu-eung, an Earth Deity."

"…So the cat is Teacher Janggyeong, and this owl is an Earth Deity."

Ah.

So they had added another piece to the lore.

Ojeong still had no idea how to handle Sun Wukong, who had summoned him at noon only to put on this bizarre display. He thought it over for a long moment, then gave up.

Fine. Keeping a bit going this hard is work in its own right. I'll play along.

Ojeong let out a heavy sigh and dropped straight into a bow — aimed squarely at Myodu-eung.

"Earth Deity. This unworthy human offers his respects."

He told himself that playing along was not a humiliation. Then the owl nodded as if it had understood every word, and the humiliation came rushing in anyway.

Ojeong sighed inwardly and greeted the cat as well.

"Did you sleep well last night, Teacher Janggyeong?"

"Mrow."

The cat answered as if accepting the courtesy. Ojeong's mood took a distinctly strange turn.

"…There. Introductions are done. Now how about you tell me why you called me here."

"We're going to Hoga Manor."

"Hoga Manor — that surviving Black Path faction?"

"That's the one."

The only Black Path boss Muhwa had told them to leave alive.

"He's the one who made direct contact with Hon-am-do and took his orders. We need to find the connection."

"And why do we have to be the ones who— ah. Right. The Namgung Clan must have their hands full."

Ojeong had the right of it. Every available hand was already thrown into reclaiming the Azure Chivalry Hall's interests and putting the place back in order.

"On top of that, I hear they're holding the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly."

"The Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?"

"A friendship gathering for the next heirs of the Five Great Clans. The Namgung Clan is hosting it this time. So the clan head's son and his niece — the ones who went out into the jianghu — are supposed to be coming home."

"Sounds like a pain."

"It's a fairly important event. A meeting of the next generation of clan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heads, after all. And I hear the Changryong Chulgwan will take place then as well — the ceremony that seats the clan head's son as Young Clan Head."

"They'll be run off their feet, then."

"Yes. It isn't far off now, so people should be gathering at the estate any day — though for some reason there's been no word yet. I'd like to get a look at the other clans' heirs myself, if I'm honest."

"Yeah, well. No interest here."

A bunch of children playing house. Nothing worth paying attention to.