Eight Corners Society (16)
Eight Corners Society (16)
Eun Ho-seol was beautiful.
Even to me, who had held many women in my arms, she was undeniably a beauty. Her straight golden hair gleamed like the gold thread woven into fine silk, and her blue eyes seemed adorned with jewels. Her red lips, vivid against her white skin, glowed alluringly even without makeup.
It was a face that would have caught the eye of a high-ranking lord, raising her from a brothel to nobility, or a face whose beauty would have carried on the wind and seen her welcomed into a prestigious household even if she had grown up in the gutter.
And that was precisely why I could not understand Hwang Ryong-seong. What on earth was his reason for keeping a woman of such looks as his wife and never sharing her bed? If it had been me, even if Eun Ho-seol had steadfastly refused, even if she were another man's woman, I would have threatened her family and taken her regardless. But Hwang Ryong-seong had done no such thing.
He summoned her to drinking parties and made her pour drinks, he tormented her this way and that in front of others, he was busy playing with her—yet he never laid a hand on her body. From what I heard, he enlivened gatherings by telling stories of bedding women, and he always had women close at hand in brothels, so it was not as if he lacked interest in sex.
Why? For what reason?
******
"It must be the Celibate Cultivation Art, wouldn't you agree?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu said this after hearing my question. His face held an expression of ridicule, as if he had exposed a cheap trick.
It was a hypothesis I had been unable to voice, hidden behind his brothels and debauched tastes. Yet, upon reflection, it was rather plausible. Hwang Ryong-seong liked women. He even kept a pretty, golden-haired wife, and was always surrounded by women at brothels. Who would ever imagine such a man had trained in the Celibate Cultivation Art?
Just as one hides a tree in the forest, Hwang Ryong-seong had concealed the true nature of his martial arts within countless scandals.
"...It is possible. There is no definite proof, but no answer fits better to resolve the doubts surrounding Hwang Ryong-seong."
The monstrous growth speed and inner energy that could be called the century's prodigy, the fact that he stayed close to women yet never touched Eun Ho-seol. Only two answers could resolve all of these questions. Either he was a man who had mastered the Celibate Cultivation Art, or he was simply a martial arts prodigy who preferred men.
Zhuge Yeong-yu leaned back in his chair and went on. His tone sounded oddly invigorated.
"Courtesans entangled with martial artists tend to be tight-lipped when it comes to bedding sagas. Martial artists do not want stories circulating about what it was like when they slept with a courtesan, and courtesans want to live long. What happens when their interests align? Even if they haven't so much as touched a fingertip in the room, it is easy to put on the act of a hot and passionate night."
Seeing him speak with a shrug of his shoulders, I nodded involuntarily. Come to think of it, Zhuge Yeong-yu was an epicurean expert who had visited every brothel from Hubei Province to Shaanxi Province. The petty tricks that played out in brothels were bound to be things he had at his fingertips.
"....You are quite knowledgeable, Great Hero Yeong-yu."
At my words, Zhuge Yeong-yu jumped as if I had poked him in the ribs, then cleared his throat and said,
"....Ah, well, you see, when so many people engage in such pretenses, one naturally becomes familiar with them."
But there was one puzzling thing about the story that he had learned the Celibate Cultivation Art and gone to such pains to hide it.
The Celibate Cultivation Art was undeniably a powerful martial art. It made gathering inner energy easy, and one could soar through the realms accordingly. Yet its weakness was so great that it had to be concealed even by putting on such a ridiculous act. As the name Celibate Cultivation Art implied, if one engages in even a single act of intercourse, all accumulated inner energy dissipates.
To put it bluntly, if Eun Ho-seol had been smitten with Hwang Ryong-seong and pounced on him in the middle of the night, Hwang Ryong-seong could have had his inner energy thoroughly stripped away without even realizing it, leaving him a cripple.
"But why did Hwang Ryong-seong learn the Celibate Cultivation Art? He is a crass bastard by nature. What on earth possessed him to learn something like the Celibate Cultivation Art, which only ascetic types would even meditate on?"
"It may be true that he learned from a reclusive eccentric. Among the eccentrics who bury themselves in the countryside to train, there could be someone who cultivates martial arts based on the Celibate Cultivation Art."
I shook my head at Zhuge Yeong-yu's words.
"I sensed it the last time I spoke with that bastard. He is the sort who learned martial arts under someone from the Nine Sects One Gang."
I had no grounds for it, but I had detected a peculiar familiarity toward the Nine Sects One Gang in the way he expressed himself. A sense of belonging that wouldn't be present in someone who had learned martial arts outside and then returned. Zhuge Yeong-yu said,
"Then all that remains is to ask Madam Eun directly."
I nodded. Then I pushed my chair back and rose from my seat. The tea had not yet cooled, and pastries were laid out on the table. Zhuge Yeong-yu, who had been staring at the pastries blankly, said,
"Are you leaving already?"
I nodded.
"Now that the subject has come up, shouldn't I have a little talk with Madam Eun?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu made a face that showed he did not like what I had said. He twisted his lips as if slightly sulking, then bent forward slightly and asked me cautiously,
"...But, once this business is over, what do you intend to do regarding your relationship with Madam Eun? In my view, marrying her right away would attract considerable attention from various quarters, and I am concerned it would negatively affect Madam Eun's standing. So if you intend to take another wife, first find a clever, beautiful woman from a decent family to serve as the central figure... "
I could only tilt my head and ask back at Yeong-yu's long-winded speech.
"...If I must postpone the marriage, I shall. Why are you telling me to find another woman?"
Adding more women to cover up a string of affairs is not like watering down strong liquor with water—it is simply throwing more wood onto a burning pyre. At my words, Zhuge Yeong-yu had an expression that said 'oh, right' and scratched his head as he said,
"...No. It is nothing."
It was incomprehensible. But still, wasn't he just rambling out of an elderly, meddlesome concern for me? I said as I opened the door.
"Great Hero. Do not worry so much. How could I possibly do anything that would harm you, the Zhuge Family, or, from a broader perspective, the Imperial Household? I shall be back."
When I said that, Zhuge Yeong-yu stared at me with wide eyes and a dazed expression. It seemed I had left a sufficiently deep impression on him, so I closed the door with satisfaction. From beyond the closing door, a small voice drifted through.
"C-come back safely... "
"Sseup... "
Ah, I felt a little unsettled somehow.
******
"Ah...! Ah-oot...! Hoot...! Hng...!"
Just because you have shared her bed once does not mean you can ask her for detailed stories. People, even when lost in pleasure, will snap back to their senses if they detect a suspicious presence.
"More...! More...! H-harder...! Haa...!"
I could not ask whether Hwang Ryong-seong had trained the Celibate Cultivation Art, or who his backers were. Both the questions and my actions had to take a roundabout route, so that she would be the one to spit out that information. She could not be allowed to think I had come to see Eun Ho-seol simply to defeat Hwang Ryong-seong.
I had to make her believe I was trying to bring down Hwang Ryong-seong in order to make Eun Ho-seol mine.
"Aaaah...! Haaah-ook!"
"Hoo... "
Eun Ho-seol, having lightly reached her peak, clawed at the wall. She was braced against it, her buttocks pressed tight against me. The hem of her skirt had rolled up, revealing her white bottom, and my cock was buried inside her cunt, pumping out thick, sticky fluid.
"Haa..! Aaaa...!"
Each time I spurted more semen, Eun Ho-seol's shoulders trembled and her waist writhed, as if trying to take all of me inside her. As I lightly brushed along her vaginal walls, savoring the afterglow and satisfaction, Eun Ho-seol, who had slumped to the floor, turned her head and stuck out her tongue. I laid my cock, still slick with her love juices and my semen, onto her tongue and squeezed the remainder from the base, feeding it into her mouth.
"Mmff...! Hoo...!"
As if it were the most natural act, Eun Ho-seol stretched her lips around it and licked and sucked it clean. Then, looking at me with a dreamy gaze, she gulped and opened her mouth.
"Ah...!"
A pristine mouth met my gaze. I stroked her head to let her know she had done well, and holding her close by the waist, I settled onto a garden chair. When my eyes met Seon-go's through the bushes, Seon-go nodded. The guards in the next room were asleep today as well, oblivious to everything.
I held Eun Ho-seol tight by the waist with one arm and caressed her thigh with the other. Eun Ho-seol, still adrift in the afterglow of our recent lovemaking, was stroking my leg with a dreamy gaze. I savored her touch and said,
"It is a pity to think that someday, days like this must end."
"...I don't like that kind of talk."
Eun Ho-seol said that and pressed herself even closer to me. But both she and I knew these dreamlike days could not last forever. A long tail is bound to be stepped on, and since my main base was in Shaanxi, I could not settle down and live in Hubei Province whenever I pleased. I said as I stroked her hair.
"I don't like it either. How could I turn my back on a woman as beautiful and wise as you, madam, now that we have been bound together?"
"Just live here."
Her arms clung to me so tightly they would not come loose. The clear gaze looking up at me was beautiful. The way she spoke in short, clipped words was adorable, too. I went on, pretending I knew nothing.
"I cannot do that. How could I abandon my sect and waste so much time? And how could a real man secretly meet his woman? Would it not be right to defeat the opponent forthrightly and claim the woman?"
At the word 'secretly,' Eun Ho-seol flinched; naturally, Hwang Ryong-seong came to mind. I continued.
"I, too, aim to become Number One Under Heaven. Hwang Ryong-seong is a target I must someday defeat. So shouldn't I train and gather more information on him? Just wait a little. And then... "
Eun Ho-seol was not listening to my story. She was rolling her eyes, lost in thought.
She was already thoroughly steeped in this life with me. Sudden deprivation paralyzes reason. If she had been living happily and sweetly all this time, and suddenly an obstacle appeared to stop it, what kind of reaction would she show? If she had to return to how things were before, what thoughts would race through her head?
"If you have information, will it be resolved quickly?"
Desire rushes ahead to remove that obstacle. Sticky desire and anger intertwine, transforming her into an active collaborator. Before I could even answer, she wrapped her hands around my neck. She hung on like a noose, and meeting my eyes, said,
"But there is a condition."
"....A condition?"
"Number One Under Heaven."
Her eyes were earnest. She even scanned me as if searching for something. I retorted the moment I heard it.
"You are stating the obvious. I will become Number One Under Heaven. Something that goes without saying is not a condition. Name something else."
"That will suffice, then."
Eun Ho-seol withdrew her gaze from me. It was a glance quicker than her searching one. It was an attitude entirely at odds with the woman steeped in pleasure and amusement; her judgment was swift. It even seemed she had arrived at a decision based not on my answer, but on something else.
She stretched her head past my nape and whispered.
"Hwang Ryong-seong... he is a beggar's son."