The Man Who Seals Acupoints
"I've heard enough."
Sun Wukong rose from his seat. Neung's face went past pale and straight into ashen, the color of something already dead. He hadn't stood because their business was finished.
Crimson blade-qi gathered around both of his hands.
No one in the room needed it spelled out. They all understood what it meant.
The talking was over. He had no further use for them. And now he would hunt down the little rat he'd deliberately let slip away...
Ah. So he'd been waiting on purpose.
Up in the rafters were the courtesans' bodyguards—their pillar-husbands, in all but name. In ordinary times they kept watch; in a crisis they stepped in, or sent word to the outside. Sun Wukong had seen through every last one of them, and he had waited, perfectly at ease.
He's going to kill all of us. Not just us—everyone.
The moment that thought landed, the world went dark in front of Neung's eyes. No one faces death with true composure. Least of all her. She looked at the younger sisters seated to either side.
We clawed our way out of hell. We are not dying here. Not to a freak like this.
Her mind spun. Of the Seven Shadows of Shandong, four were skilled in martial arts—Neung included. All four were First-class. They had fought together so long they were experts at coordinated assault. But she couldn't make a rash decision. She traded glances with her sisters in a hurry, and the feeling in their eyes was unmistakable.
Fear...
A fear so thick it defied understanding. And of course she knew where it came from.
We used the Heart-Captivating Art to inflame their blood and send the Hwangbo Clan warriors after him. Every last one of them went down.
There hadn't even been an exchange of blows. Hwangbo Yong had dropped from a single flick to the forehead. The Heart-Captivating Art they had spent so long refining had been shattered in an instant. The rest of the warriors had all been slapped silly.
They weren't in their right minds, true. But even at their best—untouched by the Heart-Captivating Art and the Bewitching Fragrance—the result would have been the same.
Nung bit down hard on her lip. Even if they attacked together, they couldn't win. She understood that proposition perfectly. And from that understanding came the terror. The fear.
But that wasn't all of it. They didn't realize it, but a more primal dread sat buried deep inside them—the primordial fear of a helpless creature standing before a vast natural enemy. A savage predator.
Neung squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. They couldn't win a fight. And they couldn't simply surrender their lives. If they wanted to live, they had to offer him something worth sparing them for.
"The night is long. Long enough for plenty of conversation. We talk until dawn, wait for the next night, and talk again. Don't you think?"
Sun Wukong let out a hollow laugh. In the soft light her pale face and crimson lips gleamed; even a decadent allure spilled from those large eyes. He understood perfectly why the Hwangbo Clan had fallen for them hook, line, and sinker.
Same as in the old days. A demoness is a demoness.
A dangerous breed. He clenched his fist.
"You figured you'd stall me while that little rat ran off to your boss for help, is that it?"
Neung's expression darkened. The Heart-Captivating Art was no ordinary martial technique. The eyes, the gestures, the curl of the lips—all of it combined into a single bewitching art.
If he'd been the kind of man you could bargain with using beauty, things never would have come to this.
She knew it in her gut: the Seven Shadows of Shandong's strongest weapon was useless here. This was a man whom even the Heart-Captivating Art, laced with dense Bewitching Fragrance, couldn't touch. Neung's fingers, pressed to the floor, twitched.
If I throw myself at him here, maybe two or three of us can get out alive.
If the four First-class among the Seven Shadows charged him at once, the two or three youngest might slip away. And of those, one or two might actually survive.
The instant Neung steeled herself to do it, Sun Wukong's ice-cold eyes suddenly curved into crescents.
"...!"
The transformation was almost kaleidoscopic. The entire atmosphere flipped in a heartbeat—so abruptly that Neung, meeting his gaze, went blank. His very face seemed to change. It was so dramatic she wondered if he'd used a Face-Changing Technique.
A moment ago his mouth had been smiling, but his eyes had belonged to a man of iron and blood, cold as a slaughterhouse. Now he looked like a thoroughly good-natured fellow. A bright, cheerful smile sat on his face as if it had always been there.
While they sat stunned, still trying to adjust to the new face and the new mood, Sun Wukong spoke.
"All right. We've got plenty to talk about, so let's take our time with it later."
"...!"
Disbelief flared in Neung's eyes. Sun Wukong grinned, playful.
"What, want me to kill you all before I go?"
"N-no, G-Great Hero."
Neung bowed her head, her voice shaking in a way it never did.
"Still, you'll need to stay quiet while I'm gone, yeah?"
So saying, he walked toward Yung, seated at the far left. The courtesans flinched—then immediately understood what he intended. He was going to seal their acupoints.
Just as they'd guessed. Sun Wukong had learned more from Ojeong than mere Murim common sense. Acupoint sealing was one of those things.
Sealing acupoints to put someone to sleep. Humans really will invent anything.
Back in my day, you either used a Sleep Art or stuck a Sleep Bug under someone's nose. What a pain that was. Compared to that, just pressing a few meridians? So much easier. A long-dormant scholarly enthusiasm had flared up, and he'd learned the technique.
Acupoint sealing was a higher art than most people assumed. You had to know every meridian in the human body. Depth, precise location, durability—all of it varied from person to person. You needed to know every condition, and the real trick was injecting just the right amount of internal energy. Contrary to the popular belief that any martial artist could seal acupoints, it was a study that demanded a considerably high realm.
Of course, to Sun Wukong, Murim realms had always been so much useless noise.
The problem was that the person who'd taught him acupoint sealing was Ojeong.
Thok!
The instant Sun Wukong pressed Yung's acupoint, her spine snapped backward. Both arms seized up and began to shake. Foam spilled from her mouth. Her eyes rolled white. She went into convulsions.
Neung shrieked.
"Y-you said you wouldn't kill her!"
"Huh? I said I'd keep her alive for now."
"So 'keeping her alive' means crippling her? You were going to turn her into a vegetable to keep her quiet?"
Watching her precious youngest sister crumple and roll her eyes, Neung found herself screaming before she knew it. Sun Wukong gave an awkward little laugh.
"Ah. So that's not how you seal acupoints?"
"..."
For a moment Neung lost the power of speech. She wondered if he was some kind of sadist who got a kick out of toying with people. She was wrong. That look in his eyes. Those slightly raised, sheepish shoulders.
Good heavens.
He's sealing acupoints without knowing how to seal acupoints? Is he trying to kill someone?
Better to just kill them outright. Dying like that... Death by blocked meridians was a pain beyond words. Horrific.
Neung bit her lip and sealed Yung's acupoints herself. The convulsing girl soon went still, her face peaceful. Sun Wukong made a small sound of admiration.
Ah. So that's how you seal acupoints. He spoke, looking faintly embarrassed.
"Right. You lot do it yourselves."
"..."
"Or should I do it?"
He reached out. A killing point. The other courtesans screamed. Neung's face went white.
It was a bizarre situation—a hostage being told to seal the other hostages' acupoints—but there was no other way. Terrified her sisters would be crippled, Neung sealed their acupoints with painstaking care.
Then, after sealing the last of them—Gyu—she realized.
"...Ah."
There was no one left to seal hers. She looked at Sun Wukong, her eyes trembling.
"I'll take care of yours."
Neung's face drained of color. Sun Wukong smiled brightly.
"It's fine. I'm a pretty fast learner."
Her face went slack with horror. When I wake up... I'll see my sisters again, right...?
Contrary to her fears, Sun Wukong grasped the essence of acupoint sealing in a remarkably short time. As if a mere human trick could possibly stymie him. His focus burned bright.
Having successfully sealed Neung's acupoints, he walked out and smacked the back of Ojeong's head—Ojeong, who was standing vacant-eyed in front of the door.
"Gah!"
Ojeong clutched his head and yelped.
"Why'd you hit me? Out of nowhere?"
"I asked you to teach me acupoint sealing, and you taught me how to cripple people?"
"Well... I learned it pretty sloppily myself. Haha."
Ojeong laughed awkwardly. Sun Wukong wound up for another smack, then turned his gaze aside. Muhwa, as expected, was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's the Law Enforcement Hall Master?"
"Ah—that guy came bursting out from inside!"
"That guy?"
"That Hao Clan man who was at the Hwangbo Clan!"
"Ohh."
"It was definitely one of them. It was dark so I couldn't see well, but I remember every one of those faces."
"So why are you still here?"
"Well, Great Hero, you told me to stand here and not let anyone in, didn't you? I'm following orders to the letter."
Sun Wukong looked at him with a thoroughly unimpressed stare, as if he understood perfectly. Sheepish, Ojeong confessed.
"Those two were so fast with their lightness skills I didn't even dare try to chase them."
Sun Wukong pointed at the annex.
"I sealed the courtesans' acupoints. Keep an eye on them, more or less."
"Keep an eye on them?"
"If anything looks off, kill them."
At those merciless words, Ojeong's body went rigid. Sun Wukong had decided to let them live for now—but he also carried the cruelty to beat them to death on the spot if they tried anything funny.
"Understood. But how do you plan to chase them, Great Hero? It's far too dark to pick up a trail."
Ojeong, too, could track lightness-skill traces if he put his mind to it. The problem was time. In the dark, chasing every trace one by one would take forever. Of course that sort of thing wouldn't bother Sun Wukong—but it would still take longer. That much was obvious.
Sun Wukong pointed at the sky, utterly unconcerned.
"I've got a guide."
Ojeong's gaze followed his finger upward.
"Huh?"
Something white was flying through the sky.
"Great Sage Sun, sir! Allow this one to escort you!"
Sun Wukong snorted a laugh. Earth Deities really did come in handy.
The Central Plains were vast. Even Anhui Province, a mere fraction of them, was enormous. Most people died without ever leaving the region of their birth. Even now, after so much time had passed, there was no end to the wilderness that human hands had never touched.
A hidden cave in a nameless hill. Two strange men were there.
The atmosphere was anything but calm. They snarled at each other as if they might draw blades at any second. Yet neither was rash enough to strike first. They both knew perfectly well they couldn't do anything to the other.
An old man with a lump beside his nose glared at the man across from him as if he wanted him dead.
"Why is the Dosan Sect, which is supposed to operate in Shandong Province, pulling stunts in Anhui?"
The man across from him answered in a slick, oily voice, his reddish eyes gleaming.
"Then shouldn't the Geohae Sect be gathering those rusted sword fragments in Hubei Province? What brings you to Anhui?"
The old man with the lump was struck speechless. The other man snickered and added,
"Sure, things happen when you're handling business. But if you're going to do it, do it right. Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi dying is no great loss—but Honamdo died too, didn't he? And on top of that, you poked the Namgung Clan and stirred up a hornet's nest. If you're going to do something, finish it properly."
"..."
"What's more, I hear you just turned tail and hid. Isn't that right, Gunei Nosa?"
The old man with the lump beside his nose—Gunei Nosa—bit down hard on his lip. It wasn't that he had nothing to say. He glared at the other man with blood-red eyes. Killing intent fierce enough to tear a man apart shot from that gaze alone.
"You... do you even know who's at the Namgung Clan right now, and you're still poking them?"
The man snorted.
"Who? The Namgung Clan's patriarch? Or the vanished Sword God?"
"...!"
A heavy silence settled over them.