I'm Not Zhu Bajie
Sun Wukong couldn't have been the only one who found the courtesans suspicious. Muhwa regarded him with a sour look.
"Teacher Sun, standing outside the courtesans' annex at this hour of the night... that's a little strange, don't you think?"
"Isn't nighttime when you're supposed to go looking for courtesans?"
Wukong's shameless reply left Muhwa speechless. Surely he wasn't actually some degenerate who'd sneak out in the dead of night to put his hands on them.
...If that's what this is, I can just throw him out.
Muhwa spoke with finality, her voice cold and flat.
"If that's what this is, please restrain yourself. Guest or not, this is the Namgung Clan."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The 'principle' of seeking out courtesans at night, I assume."
There was an edge in the way she threw his words back at him. Wukong snorted a laugh and waved her off.
"You came because those courtesans seemed off to you too, didn't you, Hall Master?"
"...So Teacher Sun noticed something strange as well."
Muhwa's face brightened at once. She even let out the smallest sigh — relief.
"That's a relief."
"What is?"
"Ah, well. I was worried you might be up to something unsavory."
"It's not like I'm Zhu Bajie."
Had she really thought he was some lecher trying to pull something in the dead of night?
That idiot tried that crap a few times and got his ass handed to him every single time.
The real talent was in always picking the wrong target. The ones he tried it with were always demons. They'd transform into stunning beauties and lure him in, and Bajie would fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Which meant Wukong had gotten dragged into one mess after another.
"All right. Let's go in together and check."
"No."
"Pardon?"
"I'm going in alone."
Muhwa blinked those large eyes of hers several times. Confusion flickered across her pupils.
"Do you have any idea what might happen in there? What those courtesans showed on stage... that was clearly some kind of Charm Art."
"I know. What, you think I'll fall for a Charm Art just because I'm a man?"
"That's... Teacher Sun's cultivation is so profound, I don't imagine that would happen."
"And if what those courtesans used was a Charm Art, it doesn't discriminate between men and women. I saw you blushing earlier too, Hall Master."
"...!"
Wukong cackled at her startled expression.
"Th-that was..."
"Forget it. Noticing it at all is impressive. Or maybe you're just sensitive."
"Sensitive?"
She looked as though he'd struck a nerve. Wukong paid it no mind.
"The Clan Lord asked me to look into this. Via voice transmission."
"The Clan Lord... ah. I see."
Muhwa was sharp. The mere fact that Namgung Jinbaek had made the request was enough for her to grasp the situation.
"Because things could escalate with the Hwangbo Clan... that's it, isn't it."
She nodded, regarded Wukong for a moment, then offered a formal cupped-fist salute.
"Our clan has been receiving Teacher Sun's aid for some time now. The Namgung Clan will never forget this debt."
Wukong nodded cheerfully at her earnest manner.
"I'll collect that debt several times over, so don't worry about it too much."
Muhwa smiled faintly. She must have taken it as a passing remark, a bit of modest deflection.
Unfortunately, she was mistaken.
At this point, there's no chance they'll kick me out of the Namgung Clan. Later I can make a few well-timed requests and put them to work on this and that.
The Namgung Clan was run off its feet at the moment, but Wukong fully intended to work them for all they were worth. "I'll collect several times over" was not a joke. On the journey west, every Earth Deity in the land had run themselves ragged at Wukong's command.
Before entering the annex, Wukong added,
"Ah — someone inside might try to run."
"Understood. Hold the perimeter and catch them, yes?"
"No. Let them go."
"Pardon?"
Muhwa tilted her head for a moment, then decided not to press. Even when Wukong tossed things out so casually, there was always a deeper scheme behind it. She thought it over, then nodded as if she'd figured it out.
"I'll follow them, then."
Wukong grinned. They really did understand each other.
The Hwangbo Clan bringing courtesans along was no fault in itself. The Dragon-Phoenix Assembly was a social gathering for exchange among the Five Great Clans. Banquets followed one after another, and naturally the most famous troupes in Anhui and beyond received invitations. Bringing the Seven Flowers of Shandong — rated the finest among every courtesan in the province — had, if anything, displayed the Hwangbo Clan's prestige.
The Seven Flowers of Shandong were artiste courtesans, women who sold their talent. They were not prostitutes, so the Hwangbo Clan would hardly have been carrying on openly with them — and even if the Seven Flowers had been prostitutes, the people of the Hwangbo Clan were not so stupid as to do something like that.
"That would be true, if they were just ordinary courtesans with a gift."
Wukong murmured it coldly.
The moment he stepped inside the annex, the powder-scent hitting his nose made his brow crease of its own accord. Perhaps because Wukong's five senses so far surpassed a human's. It was so thick his nose stung — thick enough to raise a rash he didn't even have.
Wukong would never have been this sensitive over mere face powder. Just walking down any street, you were hit with a jumble of smells. That was ordinary life. Having learned immovable mind from Sanzang, Wukong's likes and dislikes were sharp and clear — but his upright spirit did not waver.
This powder-scent was anything but ordinary. A powerful sense of déjà vu washed over him.
"This is the same body-fragrance those spiders used to give off."
A scent more potent than the strongest liquor. The corner of Wukong's mouth lifted. Even the great Sanzang had been shaken by it. Naturally, it was not the sort of thing the Hwangbo Clan's martial artists could withstand.
The annex was not occupied by courtesans alone. The Hwangbo Clan's warriors were there. Hwangbo Yong was there too.
"What's this?"
When Wukong opened the door and walked in, a group of martial artists snapped their eyes wide. Whether they were drunk on wine or on this powder-scent, they could barely keep themselves upright. Wukong clicked his tongue.
"Here I thought the Hwangbo Clan was using the courtesans as some kind of scheme. Completely the other way around."
Not all of them were that far gone, though. Hwangbo Yong's eyes went round. He rose and offered a cupped-fist salute.
"Teacher Sun? How did you come to be here...?"
He glanced around, reading the room. Holding a drinking party with the courtesans he'd brought along — that was hardly a dignified sight.
Wukong didn't even bother answering Hwangbo Yong's greeting. He simply looked at the courtesans beside him with a cold gaze. As Wukong stayed silent, a strange stillness settled over the room.
Unlike usual, he was making no effort to conceal his presence. The aura that flowed from him naturally seized the entire chamber in a single crushing grip. Seven courtesans — the Seven Flowers of Shandong — stared back with uneasy pupils, looking frightened, or perhaps simply bewildered by the situation.
Wukong suddenly smiled.
"That loathsomeness of yours hasn't changed one bit, then or now. You sly little things."
The words were aimed at them. The courtesans averted their eyes, faces full of fear. On the surface they looked like so many blossoms who knew nothing of martial arts — the kind of sight that could set a man's heart on fire. Hwangbo Yong's face hardened somewhat as he stepped in front of Wukong.
"Teacher Sun, I am embarrassed to be seen like this, but this is the Seven Flowers' annex. The Hwangbo Clan invited them and escorted them all the way here to Anhui. So why, exactly, have you come here in secret at this hour of the night?"
Wukong looked at him and clicked his tongue. Slightly unfocused pupils. A flushed face.
Hwangbo Yong was a reasonably clever man. He wouldn't have become the successor otherwise. At Manhyangru, the moment Wukong stepped in, he'd recognized he was outmatched and withdrawn at once. This was different. He wasn't backing down. The typical picture of a young man with his blood up.
Wukong found it rather amusing. The suspicion he'd been entertaining hardened into certainty with every passing moment. The powder-scent grew thicker and thicker. Hwangbo Yong's face, which had retained some composure, flushed redder and redder with agitation. He looked ready to draw his sword at any second.
Wukong looked at him and sighed.
"Tsk, tsk. A man who can actually use a sword, and you're being led around by a woman's smile? What kind of man lets his lower half do all the thinking?"
"Now see here, Teacher Sun!"
Hwangbo Yong couldn't hold back. He took a step forward. In that instant, Wukong's hand shot out.
Even with his mind clouded, the reputation of a rising talent of the next generation hadn't gone anywhere. Hwangbo Yong's hand found his sword hilt. That was as far as he got.
Crack!
A crisp sound rang out, and Hwangbo Yong's body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. The suddenness of it sent the Hwangbo Clan warriors lurching to their feet in alarm.
Wukong snorted. His keen sense of smell caught every shift — the powder-scent thickening and thinning in time with their movements.
"To toy with a person's will as you please, even if they are only human. You wretched things."
Contempt dripped from his voice. For a fleeting instant, one of the courtesans' faces twisted. At the same moment, the Hwangbo Clan warriors charged. Wukong kicked the wine table in the center of the room into the air.
Crunch. Thunk. Thud!
Six swords buried themselves in the table. Wukong's body slipped nimbly beneath the rising tabletop. The warriors startled as he burst out from under it. Before they could even react, Wukong's hand swept from right to left in a single fluid stroke.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Exactly six sounds, and six cheeks burned red. Every last one of them crumpled just as Hwangbo Yong had, faces gone slack.
Going limp as if their minds had been blasted somewhere far away from a single slap was a different matter entirely from simply losing a fight. The Seven Flowers of Shandong went deathly pale.
Wukong dusted off both hands and muttered,
"Figures. The way to break the enchantment isn't much different from back then either. Except for the martial arts part."
They hadn't merely lost consciousness. Whatever had been quietly beguiling and steering their wills had been severed clean through. Wukong smiled sweetly at the courtesans staring at him with terrified eyes.
"What. Wondering why I'm fine?"
"...Great Hero, I don't understand what you mean. We're just courtesans who sell our talent and our smiles."
Wukong cackled. The way they trembled, faces full of fear — even the most wooden-hearted man in the world would have flinched.
"You really are the same demonesses who nearly shook even Sanzang's will. You think I'm Zhu Bajie? You think I'd fall for a little powder-scent like that?"
"We don't — we don't understand what you're saying. We only came here at the Hwangbo Clan's invitation. Why are you persecuting us like this?"
Wukong laughed, but he clicked his tongue as well. So even through cycle after cycle of reincarnation, a soul kept its original nature. These were human bodies now, reborn — and if anything, their craft was stronger than in their past lives, not weaker.
The flicker of admiration lasted only a moment. Wukong cut them off coldly.
"Shut your mouths."
When someone who is always smiling suddenly goes still, they become all the more frightening. The man who had been cackling a moment ago set his face, and the atmosphere froze into silence.
The courtesans trembled as if terrified. But beneath their bowed heads, their eyes were flicking rapidly between one another. Wukong sighed, picked up a sword that had been rolling on the floor, and drove it into the boards right in front of them.
"Move so much as a finger and I'll cut off all your arms and legs."
At that, the one in the center — her hair coiled in a bun — glared at Wukong as if she wanted him dead.
"Who the hell are you."
"Close your mouth before I rip it open."
"...!"