Yellow Dragon Castle (4)
Yellow Dragon Castle (4)
The carriage halted. Only after we'd sent the Zhuge family members far on their way did we turn around and head toward the sect. The Crimson Ring Sect's signboard, which I hadn't seen in a long while, was still gleaming brightly, and the walls were clean. The people wore amiable expressions as they concentrated on their farming, and the man sweeping in front of the main gate beamed the moment he saw us and shouted.
"Aigo! Sect Leader! Isn't that Sect Leader! Please, come in! Aigo! While Sect Leader was away I was so lonely my neck nearly stretched right out!"
It was a fawning greeting. I patted the servant's shoulder and spoke.
"Yes, you've worked hard. Nothing happened while I was away, I trust?"
"No. Nothing at all. Thanks to Sect Leader the village is entirely peaceful!"
He sounded like a merchant. I listened to the fellow's amiable tone, nodded, and smiled. Seon-go followed behind me and greeted the servant, and we opened the main gate.
"Welcome back. That took a while, didn't it?"
The moment I opened the door, Sannyeo was sitting on the veranda drinking tea. Were it not for the manacles on her hands, she would have radiated the air of someone who had become the master of this house. Her expression was relaxed, a smile playing at her lips, as if she had known all along I would arrive today.
"It's been a while. Didn't you miss me?"
"I missed you."
I threw the question at her slickly, and the answer came flowing back like water. Without the slightest change in complexion, she used a shamelessly tender expression, then nodded and continued speaking.
"Seems your business in Hubei Province took quite some time. The man who said he was just stepping out briefly to the Dragon Phoenix Gathering vanished without a word, so I was a little worried."
Her tone hadn't carried a shred of actual worry. I sat down beside her and picked up a pastry. The locally bought pastry crumbled dryly and tasted cheap the moment it touched my tongue.
"I considered just settling down in Hubei Province. But then my master came to mind, and I couldn't bring myself to do it."
"So, what happened?"
I glanced around. The attendants quietly excused themselves, saying they had other work to do, and Seon-go yawned as she told a passing attendant to prepare her bedding. Seemed she intended to head straight to bed to shake off the travel fatigue. I looked at Sannyeo and spoke.
"I plan to bring down the Beggars' Sect."
Sannyeo stopped drinking her tea and shot me a sidelong glance. Her eyes, usually unhurried and muted as if devoid of thought, brightened like a lamp the moment talk of revenge came up.
"This talk is going to get long."
But time was plentiful. So I settled into a leisurely posture and began telling the story, starting from the Dragon Phoenix Gathering.
"...So I went into the lodgings with Hong Ye, and Seon-go said this to Hong Ye. 'Do it with my husband before you go.' Hearing that, I...."
"...Could you stick to the Beggars' Sect story, please?"
Abridged somewhat, of course.
******
The story ended. When I'd delivered only the core summary, Sannyeo's eyes went round as she stroked her chin. The lingering trace of laughter on her face mingled with the tilt of her head, like a bird-perch pole leaning in the wind.
"Interesting. The son of the Beggars' Sect leader, who's mastered the Celibate Cultivation Art. The weakness is too clear — I like it."
"With the Celibate Cultivation Art, if you have sex once, does all your inner energy dissipate?"
"The Celibate Cultivation Art is a method of inner cultivation that gathers pure, chaste yang energy to an extreme degree to raise one's realm. It's not an orthodox method. If the martial cultivation we commonly learn is like drawing energy from a river where qi flows and transferring it into a pool we call our dantian, the Celibate Cultivation Art is a method of damming up the stream of yang energy that ought to trickle out naturally, then widening the reservoir. Since it blocks an energy that should flow naturally, it's obviously easy to accumulate, and accordingly the realm ascends rapidly."
"Is it closer to the unorthodox sects?"
"Well, but it's only natural that martial arts built up easily vanish easily. You've forcibly blocked the path yang energy must travel and inflated your inner power. What do you think happens if you release your seed even once while joined with yin energy?"
I pictured a dam with a hole in it. At first a small trickle of water streams out, then the entire dam collapses as if a bomb went off, deformed beyond recognition.
"It would burst out literally like a floodgate opening."
"The remaining yang energy mingles with yin energy and grows turbid, so all the cultivation you've amassed turns to foam. The effect is good, but the weakness is far too clear — at Shaolin as well, only the most extreme practitioners study it. Looks like this fellow was terribly eager to hear himself called a genius."
Sannyeo's assessment was accurate. Hwang Ryong-seong was drunk on being called a martial prodigy, and he reveled in flaunting his power to draw people to him. I brought Hwang Ryong-seong's arrogant face to mind and pulled a book out from my robes. The Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique. It was the martial arts secret manual Hwang Ryong-seong had fetched for me from the Murim Alliance library.
The moment Sannyeo saw the title Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique, she tilted her head, then frowned.
"The Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique?"
"It's a martial art I obtained while cultivating friendly relations with that Hwang Ryong-seong. I did train in it to some degree together with Zhuge Yeong-yu, but I haven't seemed to make any progress. Before I head back to Hubei Province, I'd like you to help me train in it."
Sannyeo let out a soft laugh at my words and leafed through the secret manual. She nodded with a knowing expression, and even laughed. Her reaction struck me as strange, so I asked.
"What? Is it a martial art you know?"
"Not a martial art I know, but long ago there was a martial master of the martial world who used this Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique. A man called Black Whirlwind. To hear that name here again."
It was a name I had never heard before. Judging by Sannyeo's reaction, he seemed to be a martial master from the very distant past.
"Was he such a great person?"
"In his era he was a renowned master. A truly vicious figure who loved killing people. He wielded two axes — the Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique in one hand, his own original axe martial art in the other — and carried out massacres, I heard."
Even just hearing about it, he was a terrifying human butcher. With what intent had Hwang Ryong-seong passed this on to me?
"Hwang Ryong-seong passed on to me the martial art of such a figure?"
"He probably handed it over without even knowing who had used it. Zhuge Yeong-yu also didn't seem to know, right? Even though the name Black Whirlwind was known, the specific martial arts he used aren't well known. He was from Shandong Province, so it would also be hard for Hwang Ryong-seong or Zhuge Yeong-yu to know."
"...How do you know it, then?"
"My master was from Shandong Province. She would occasionally tell me stories about the renowned masters of Shandong."
Hearing Sannyeo's personal stories was novel again. Her master was from Shandong Province? I wondered how a master who'd come from quite a distance had ended up meeting Sannyeo. Sannyeo smiled and spoke.
"Anyway, the person who used this was simply bloodthirsty. The martial art itself isn't demonic. Its fundamentals are solid, it's extremely powerful, and it's a very fine martial art."
"Still, it's a martial art used by a man who went around massacring people. Hearing that, it doesn't sound like it suits me."
"I suppose. For a man who violates married women, nothing suits him quite like the Bedroom Arts."
Sannyeo rose and said that, and I had nothing to say.
"...It's not violation, it's love. I even marry them."
"Rake."
I had nothing to say. I picked up the axe at my waist and changed the subject.
"Anyway, what I need right now is training. The goal is to learn and understand as much of this Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique as possible in the remaining year, and raise my realm to the peak."
Sannyeo nodded at my words and replied.
"Your ambition is good. Seeing you set your sights on such a high goal — I truly like it. But ascending to the peak realm will be difficult. If the first-rate realm is one where you envelop your weapon in inner energy, the peak realm is one where you can shoot qi through your weapon to generate formidable destructive power."
Sannyeo closed the secret manual. Then she lowered her body, curled her fingers toward the empty ground, and forcefully spread them open.
"U-ot!"
Centered around her, as if a flower were blooming, a cloud of dust surged upward, a fierce gale swept in all directions, and a thunderous roar rang out as if the earth were being torn apart. Sannyeo waved her immaculate fingers within the dust cloud.
Beneath the gracefully undulating motion, like a sea anemone underwater, a track remained as if a gigantic snake had crawled in a perfectly straight line. Sannyeo pointed with her foot at the mark she had created and spoke.
"Something like this. You saw it at the Dragon Phoenix Gathering, right?"
I had seen it. The mark Hwang Ryong-seong had left on the ground when he used his secret technique, the Yellow Dragon Twelve Palms. If that mark had been a crude, unrefined, ferocious trace, the mark Sannyeo left was sharp and straight as if measured by a ruler.
Sannyeo picked up the secret manual again and spoke to me.
"The Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique will also have stances that presuppose a realm at or above the peak. Completing those stances will be your goal."
I stared at the secret manual. Sannyeo watched my earnest gaze with satisfaction, then reached for the pastries. She picked up and ate a pastry like a squirrel with both hands, then looked at me again and spoke.
"You can do it, right?"
I hurled the Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique onto the veranda. Sannyeo, who had been watching the secret manual fly into the air, stretched out her foot and snatched it. I adjusted my grip on the axe, settled into my stance, and spoke.
"Of course."
Sannyeo opened the secret manual and said.
"Now, let's begin with the first stance."
Training begins, until the Beggars' Sect's fund collection day comes around again.