Yeon Ihwa
A small war is always overshadowed by a greater one.
Suppose an assassin slips into a country. He kills the people who matter, and the nation knows which state sent him. Where, then, does that nation's gaze fall hardest? Not on the assassin. It falls, inevitably, on the country that dispatched him, for the guilt of a man who belongs to an organization is laid at the organization's door.
"…I believe I understand what you are thinking."
Yeon Ihwa nodded, taking in Hwa Baek's meaning.
"There is, however, a point that gives me pause."
"……"
"You intend to kill a giant of the murim, so that the orthodox murim will hunt the Blood Heaven Cult. But an ordinary giant's head will not be enough for that."
At the very least, one of the Hundred Great Masters Under Heaven. No—even that title would fall short. If he meant for the orthodox sects, and the Orthodox Martial Alliance with them, to pursue the Blood Heaven Cult, he would have to kill a master on the level of the Five Venerables before the scheme could so much as stand.
"Nor is a mere display of force enough. You must assassinate martial artists who hold enormous sway over the orthodox sects and the Orthodox Martial Alliance. Only then will they burn with rage, and only then will they have a cause to move."
In other words, a single death would not do. He would have to kill martial artist after martial artist, until the Orthodox Martial Alliance judged that the Blood Heaven Cult could no longer be left alone. Through those deaths, Hwa Baek would have to prove two things: that the Cult possessed force enough for the Alliance to name it a threat, and that it was an organization vast enough to stain the whole world with evil.
"I will ask you plainly. Do you have the ability to kill an absolute master of the murim, or to assassinate one?"
The conclusion was simple. Did Hwa Baek possess power of that order? If he did not, the bargain would never even be attempted. It would remain nothing but absurd idle talk.
Hwa Baek answered with a face that gave nothing away.
At the end of that long, long talk, Hwa Baek and Yeon Ihwa brought the matter of their bargain to a close. Yeon Ihwa would aid him until the Blood Heaven Cult was annihilated and his purpose achieved. In return, Hwa Baek would undo the side effects of her Crimson Blood Demonic Scripture, and he would help restore Jeokhwaru to prosperity.
"…There is nothing about me that you do not know, Young Hero."
"What do you mean…?"
"Do not play the innocent. On the surface, our Jeokhwaru is nothing more than a wine house of somewhat large scale."
"……"
Jeokhwaru's hidden interior. Save for one or two of the dancers, no one knew the truth of Jeokhwamun.
Jeokhwamun was a sect of mystery, unknown to the world, which Yeon Ihwa had been laying out, step by careful step, for more than ten years. It was not yet properly founded—a gathering so shabby, and so devoid of presence, that one would be embarrassed even to call it a sect.
"I have had so many questions that I never asked this one until now. But you know Jeokhwaru, and you know me, to an uncanny degree."
"Did you think I came to you without gathering information first?"
"Even so, there is such a thing as a limit."
Yeon Ihwa had first set eyes on the man called Hwa Baek only a few days before. One could argue that he had worn a human-skin mask, gone about in disguise, and collected what he could. But knowledge that existed only inside her head—how could he have uncovered that?
When he gave no answer, she spoke in a tone gone flat with disappointment.
"…So you will not tell me that, either."
"I'm sorry."
He had agreed to join hands with her, but he could not give her the whole of the truth. Or rather, the trouble was that she would not believe him even if he did. Either way, Hwa Baek had no wish to tell any further lie, and so he let silence answer for him.
"…Very well. Set beside everything I have already asked, a question of that size is a trifle."
But there was something Hwa Baek ought to have considered.
"From now on, we will see to your living. A house has already been prepared for you. You should stay there."
"All right."
That the woman called Yeon Ihwa was far more ruthless than he had imagined.
At Yeon Ihwa's direction, Hwa Baek moved. He had little worth taking, and so he arrived at the new house with a single cloth bundle—and there he was met with a truly peculiar sight.
"Welcome."
It was not a dancer's costume, nor an outfit worn over a wig. They were ordinary clothes, the sort one might see anywhere. Her long hair left unbound and stirring, both hands gathered politely before her, Yeon Ihwa was there to receive him.
"…What is this?"
The question held a great deal. Yeon Ihwa answered as if nothing at all were strange.
"What else would it be? This is the house where you will be staying from now on."
"And you?"
"It is my house. Naturally I will be staying as well."
"……"
She had not so much as changed her expression, and Hwa Baek found he had nothing to say. There was plenty he wanted to say. But when the very person who had prepared the house spoke like that, what could he raise? In this, at least, she held the upper hand, and if he started complaining there would only be a useless quarrel. He had no wish to sour things between them over an argument that meant nothing, so he forced the words out.
"…Then I'll impose on you. For a while."
"Please, make yourself comfortable."
And so the uncomfortable cohabitation of the two began.
Once he had begun living with Yeon Ihwa, Hwa Baek left the house at once and set out for another destination. There was something he needed to confirm.
Merchants and martial artists wandered the heart of Sichuan, and at the center of that bustle stood one place the crowds had left alone. A great plaque hung upon its gate.
"…As expected."
The Sichuan Martial Tournament, held in Sichuan every year. This year's contest was set to proceed without fail, though it did not yet look as if it had even begun. Preparations, however, were plainly in full swing. Timber of every sort and laborers passed in and out, and that alone told him as much.
To learn the schedule, Hwa Baek caught the nearest laborer and asked. Fortunately, the man he stopped knew when the Sichuan Martial Tournament would open.
His reason for asking was nothing else. The preliminaries begin in a month… Then that is when I move. Hwa Baek meant to kill the Lord of Myriad Poisons and the Gold King at the Sichuan Martial Tournament.
Because no festival could spread the Blood Heaven Cult's name better than a tournament of that scale. The Hubei Martial Tournament and the Shanxi Martial Tournament would follow, true enough, but since he had already decided to kill the Lord of Myriad Poisons and the Gold King first, the Sichuan Martial Tournament was the proper stage.
"Hey, young man! Won't you buy an incense stick?"
A man's booming shout struck his ear. Hwa Baek turned and found a middle-aged fellow with a thick, unkempt beard, holding out a candle—the sort burned for its fragrance, the kind commonly used at rites.
"They call this Three-Fragrance Incense. Nothing finer for sleep. Worth having."
"…?"
"I've plenty else. Won't you take a look?"
"……"
"This one's ceremonial, see. Nine-Hunt Beeswax Incense. Cheap stuff, I'll grant you, but what it is, is…"
Regardless of any answer Hwa Baek might have given, the man launched into his explanation. Hwa Baek meant to ignore him and walk on, but the subject of incense caught his interest.
Now that I think of it…
Among the heroines of the original tale, there had been a woman who, like Yeon Ihwa, learned the Crimson Blood Demonic Scripture and nearly became a blood fiend. She was the very heroine whom Yeon Ihwa, once turned blood fiend, had tormented so cruelly. And that woman had used a certain incense, so that she might sleep in peace without ever becoming one.
Hwa Baek looked at one stick that had caught his eye and asked.
"How much is this?"
It was a night when a round moon hung over the pond.
"……"
Five night-luminous pearls, received from Hwa Baek. Yeon Ihwa turned the orbs of jade over in her fingers, treasures that claimed the highest value under heaven.
"……"
In the Central Plains as they stood, the worth of these ordinary-looking beads was all but inexhaustible. Convert a single night-luminous pearl to coin, and its price would easily surpass a thousand taels of gold. Time the sale well, and one could drive the value higher still. The cash from that would be enough to found a great sect capable of crushing most any mid-sized one.
Night-luminous pearls had not always been worth so much. They were rare luxuries in themselves, but not, in truth, especially useful things. Two hundred years ago, however, the amount mined had plunged, and their value had leapt several times over. What they would fetch at present prices, even Yeon Ihwa could not honestly imagine.
For the time being, no matter what I undertake, I will not be short of funds.
Thinking so, she moved at once to turn the pearls into cash. An ordinary trading company could not manage it. It would take a guild whose name had spread far across the world. Yes—only something on the order of the Great Heaven Merchant Guild, called the foremost merchant guild under heaven, could convert night-luminous pearls into coin.
As mistress of Jeokhwaru, which oversaw this whole stretch of street, she had no small connection to that guild's young master.
And so. I will have to meet the young guild master myself.
She wrote a letter, one that would be delivered into his hands directly. A little sincerity, mixed with a little falsehood. Careful not to scrape his temper, and careful, too, to win his favor. She wrote on.
That was when it came.
"Working late, I see."
A voice, with no presence before it. She started and turned, and there was Hwa Baek. Finding him, for whatever reason, still awake at this hour, Yeon Ihwa spoke.
"What brings you here at this hour, Young Hero…"
"The lamp in the study was still burning. It bothered me."
The hour of the Ox, between one and three in the morning, had already passed—a time when any ordinary person would long since have been asleep. Looking in on a room where a light still burned was not, at such an hour, strange in the least.
"…Forgive me. I am simply not made for sleeping at night."
So the woman said. Hwa Baek was not fool enough to miss the meaning hidden beneath the words, and he held her eyes, steady and clear.
"Is it the Crimson Blood Demonic Scripture?"
"…Yes."
Her pupils had reddened darker than they were by day.
Blood Red Eyes.
The same eyes she had turned on Hwa Baek days before were lighting the deep of the night, though she had not willed them to. That they had kindled without her intent was proof that Blood Bloom, the side effect of the Crimson Blood Demonic Scripture, had begun.
Once Blood Bloom ran rampant through her, sleep or any fall into unconsciousness would turn her into a blood fiend that drank human blood. To keep that from happening, she had passed countless nights with her eyes open.
"That must be hard."
"It is. Harder, I would say, than you wearing a mask in front of me."
"……"
"Did you truly think I would not notice? You have no gift for acting, Young Hero."
Hwa Baek's eyes narrowed.
"…That's the first I've heard of it."
"I imagine so. No one but me would have caught it. My eyes are not limited to a single function."
"The Blood Red Eyes can read another's emotions… First I've heard of that, too."
"You would have. As you know, the Crimson Blood Demonic Scripture the Blood Heaven Cult failed to complete is hardly the only one."
"…Is that so."
Information even Hwa Baek had not known. No—the woman who had just spoken something no one in this world, not even she herself, could have known let a faint smile touch her lips.
And she thought, You lied to me. Surely I may tell a lie of about that size.
The Blood Red Eyes possessed no function that could read a person's feelings. Even so, the woman who had drawn out his true heart as if it were nothing quietly whispered a small mischief into it.