Unexpected
Juhong.
She was one of the four shadow bodyguards who had sworn their loyalty to Yeon Ihwa. While her master remained in closed-door training, Juhong had been ordered to see to Hwa Baek's needs, and to handle the affairs Yeon Ihwa had no choice but to set down in her absence.
What occupied her now was the transaction with the Great Heaven Merchant Guild that Yeon Ihwa had left unfinished. Turning the treasures Hwa Baek had brought into hard coin was beyond the means of any ordinary trading house. The Great Heaven Merchant Guild was the one house cut exactly to that measure.
Will the young guild master truly agree...?
If every treasure could be converted to gold, Jeokhwamun could grow to a scale that would make its present self unrecognizable. Every condition a great sect required was already in their hands: an absolute master in Hwa Baek, a man who stood as a match for the Six Kings; the Hyeon-gong Pills, enough to fill the disciples' internal energy without shortage; and the manuals Hwa Baek had brought, left behind by the Hyeon-gong Elder, running from the Martial Foundation Art all the way to the Martial Apex Art. Give them only the coin to bear that weight, and within twenty years Jeokhwamun could rise into a sect that yielded to no great power in the world.
There was, however, a catch.
If the young guild master catches on to him, all of it turns to foam.
Converting so many treasures into a vast sum of gold demanded enormous labor, which meant the Great Heaven Merchant Guild, handling the work in their stead, could skim a commission to match. And what would a house holding that kind of leverage do, once it learned Jeokhwamun's true aim? This was the Great Heaven Merchant Guild, acclaimed by all as the foremost trading house under heaven. A fledgling sect like Jeokhwamun could be erased with a flick of a finger. If they learned of Hwa Baek and the Hyeon-gong Pills and so much as threatened blackmail with that knowledge, Jeokhwamun would have no power to resist.
So she had to be careful. The deal had to be closed deftly, and quietly, so the young guild master of the Great Heaven Merchant Guild never learned that Hwa Baek existed.
She was just setting brush to paper, drafting a letter to settle the details of the transaction, when a voice reached her.
"Juhong."
The brush stopped. She answered.
"Yes."
"I brought you something."
Hwa Baek was holding a wooden box. She had no idea what was inside, but she took it and lifted the lid. Four pills lay within, and Juhong knew them at a glance.
"These can't be... Hyeon-gong Pills?"
"They are. Finished just today."
"Why would you give them to me..."
"I don't have the authority to hand the Hyeon-gong Pills out on my own. But if it were Yeon Ihwa, she would have given them to all of you."
Yeon Ihwa cherished her shadow bodyguards like younger sisters. Had she been here, Hwa Baek was certain she would have placed the pills in their hands. Besides, every one of them had already reached a proper First-Rate realm. They had grown under his training alongside Yeon Ihwa, and they were ready to take the pills.
"And you've worked hard, cleaning up after me."
Juhong, Jucheong, Junok, Juheuk. Over the past few days he had driven them far too hard. From places no one could see, they had chased his shadow without rest, grinding their own bodies down to carry out an absurd charge — killing the Dark Heaven Sword Sovereign in a single night and spreading word of it. Without them, the plan would have met setback after setback.
"You've done well. You won't need to guard me for a while. Get some rest."
"..."
Something flickered through Juhong's eyes and was gone. For someone drilled since childhood to move as an emotionless assassin, that flicker was a considerable tremor. She couldn't help it. Aside from Yeon Ihwa, he was the first person ever to offer her genuine thanks — and a genuine apology.
Juhong nodded.
"...Thank you."
She closed the lid and slid the box into a drawer. She had just lifted the brush again to finish the letter when something caught her notice, and she spoke.
"...By the way."
Her gaze turned to Hwa Baek. He did not look quite like himself. The cloth was different first of all — still black, as always, but with a faint sheen to it. His hair had been arranged as if someone else's hands had passed through it, and skin that had only ever been pale now carried a sleek, tended gloss.
"Have you groomed your appearance a little?"
"...Not by choice."
"...?"
He took a moment before answering, and the look on his face was one of thorough exhaustion.
The preliminaries of the Sichuan Martial Tournament — a stage countless martial artists longed to enter, if only to raise their names — did not test them with duels. The trial was breaking.
Ask why a tournament should be an examination, and the answer was simple. Applicants alone numbered in the hundreds. Grant every one of them a match, and a month would not be enough to see the thing finished. For that reason the standard of the breaking trial was this: shatter more than half of twenty iron-pine boards in a single strike. The means did not matter.
KRRRSH—!!!
Hwa Baek broke all twenty with ease. He finished the preliminaries quickly, took his qualification token, and sat in one of the chairs set out for spectators to watch the rest.
Dang Seryeong sat beside him beneath a conical bamboo hat meant to hide her face. It was, in truth, doing very little good. Watching the hundred-refined iron pine boards come apart under the hands of experts, she spoke.
"Using hundred-refined iron just to make a few boards. They must be drowning in money."
Hundred-refined iron was the metal prestigious clans used for their sparring grounds. In the right circumstances it could even withstand blade energy, and it commanded a price high enough that it was not easily obtained.
"They have the Great Heaven Merchant Guild behind them. This much wouldn't be difficult."
The Sichuan Martial Tournament was hosted with the Sichuan Dang Clan and the Great Heaven Merchant Guild at its head, and a handful of smaller sects and trading houses in support. Of them all, the Great Heaven Merchant Guild had borne the greatest share — nearly six-tenths of the cost, by all accounts.
Dang Seryeong asked, "I know it's an odd thing to bring up now, but why are you entering the Sichuan Martial Tournament?"
She had no particular reason for asking. She was simply curious why he meant to compete, and Hwa Baek answered her.
"...The time's coming when I'll need a reputation."
"A reputation? Isn't that enough?"
Mindful of the eyes around them, she spoke around the name, meaning the White-Faced Sword Ghost. Hwa Baek considered whether he ought to explain, decided a part of it would do no harm, and answered quietly.
"I need a different kind of fame. If that one is going to be an epithet stained with evil, then the name I build from here has to lean toward good."
"...What are you talking about?"
"I'll explain the rest later."
He pressed his palm down on the brim of her hat, driving it lower. People were gathering around her. Startled by the sudden gesture, she shot a look about the crowd, then sent him a transmitted voice.
"I think people are starting to notice, little by little."
— Dang Seryeong
Hwa Baek nodded. He could hear a transmitted voice, but he could not send one. Unable to answer in kind, he let it pass and went on as if nothing were amiss.
"Quite a few scions of the great houses."
"The Sichuan Martial Tournament opens earlier than any of the regional ones. A perfect stage for young talents itching to make a name in a hurry."
"You're not thinking of entering?"
"Not at all. Honestly, I'm a bit old to be called a young talent. I may not look it, but I'm twenty-seven."
"Young."
"And how old are you?"
"...My age?"
The question set him thinking. How to define his age was not a small confusion. It was a large one.
By rights, it ought to be twenty-three...
Hwa Baek had spent his childhood in a place called the Garden. After the accident stole his memories, he hadn't known his true age, and the Garden had simply assigned ten years to the boy who remembered nothing. Follow that count, and twenty-three was correct.
Except he still hadn't decided whether to add the ten years spent in the Cave of Tempering. He did not want to count that decade as a life he had lived. He wanted to deny that time.
Watching him brood far longer than the question deserved, Dang Seryeong said, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Why are you taking it so seriously?"
"..."
"I'll just assume you're in your twenties. Age hardly matters these days."
"..."
Having soothed him in that matter-of-fact way, she took the hat off. She had already been recognized; there was no point hiding her face any longer. The air between them had grown a little awkward compared to the start, and she tried to lighten it with a teasing question.
"Just in case, though — you're not some old master who took a rejuvenation pill and turned young again, are you?"
"..."
Hwa Baek didn't answer.
And then—
"You can't be...?"
The color drained from Dang Seryeong's face. To that look, Hwa Baek offered the faintest smile.
"Might be."
He took her hat and set it on his own head, then rose and started down the street as afternoon leaned toward evening.
"Hey— what was that...!"
Face scrunched, Dang Seryeong hurried after him.
Meanwhile, the preliminaries of the Sichuan Martial Tournament were still in full swing.
KRRRSH—!!
A fist that carried not even a thread of qi smashed twenty boards of hundred-refined iron pine. No — smashed was the wrong word. Pulverized fit the moment better.
"...Pass."
Many who hoped to enter had tried their hand at the boards. Including her, only two contestants had destroyed every last one so utterly. The examiner, who understood what that meant, could only let a hollow look cross his face.
"...Huh. I didn't think they'd break quite like that."
As if it were beyond expectation. As if she hadn't imagined they could be so fragile. The woman closed her hand around a sword engraved with the name Heaven-Breaking, and her eyes followed the road a black-haired man in a bamboo hat had just taken as she went on.
"They said only one person besides me broke all of them... so he really is the strongest one here, right?"
Heaven-Breaking Sword Emperor Wi Mubaek. His daughter, and a peerless young expert newly stepped into the murim — Wi Garyeon. Platinum-blonde hair, turned radiant by the Heaven-Breaking Sword Art, streamed behind her, and beneath the sunset her golden eyes shone as bright as the sun.