Is There Anyone in the World Who Knows Me? (7)
Is There Anyone in the World Who Knows Me? (7)
The sky over Chang'an glowed with the most vivid crimson since the city walls first rose on this land. At least, to Jong Yuseop and his companions who had bolted out of the pleasure house, the red was intense. The flames that had started in the warehouse hadn't spread to other buildings, but they embroidered the black sky with embers, wafting the scent of ash and the spectacle to the onlookers.
"Euhahaha! Now this is style! True style! The flames are so lovely! Keep pouring!"
From the upper floor of the pleasure house, people could be seen sticking their heads out the windows and shouting. Jong Yuseop had no time to get angry at them.
The warehouse was burning.
All he could see was the warehouse engulfed in flames.
"Water! Bring more water! Pour water on it!"
"Hurry! Hurry!"
People were frantically running with buckets of water. They desperately poured water onto the blazing warehouse, but each time they splashed it, the flames only paused their advance for a moment. Jong Yuseop stood facing the fire, his face blank with shock.
"Move, hurry up! Pour the water! Throw the water!"
The man who had come out of the pleasure house with him grabbed a gourd and ran to scoop water along with the other workers. But Jong Yuseop stood frozen in place, unable to move.
"Ah, aah...!"
Jong Yuseop's mouth fell open. The man who should have been moving most urgently couldn't even walk properly. His eyes darted faster than his body could. A soldier had collapsed nearby, catching his breath and coughing dryly. Staggering, Jong Yuseop approached him. The man, his face covered in ash, clutched something burnt that looked like silk and repeatedly hacked up black clumps of ash.
"Keuk...! Keuk...!"
Jong Yuseop grabbed the man with trembling hands and said,
"Wh-what happened to the goods inside? Th-the goods, what happened to the goods!"
"Th-this... outside..."
The man grabbed by the collar laboriously lifted up the silk that had been reduced to ash. It was burnt pitch-black, and even the parts that remained intact had grown glossy from the heat, rendering them worthless as merchandise. And this was all that remained for Jong Yuseop now.
"Uh, euh...! Euaa...!"
Jong Yuseop clutched his own head. He tore at his hair, making animal-like sounds as he stumbled backward.
"Eu, eueuaa...! Aah...!"
He collapsed to the ground, a stream of strange noises spilling from his mouth. The man who was pouring water to extinguish the warehouse fire saw Jong Yuseop slumped on the ground and barely suppressed the curses rising to his throat. No matter how incompetent he seemed, he was a peak-level master of the Zhongnan Sect, and a man whom Venerable Geumbok regarded as a son.
He must not be treated disrespectfully. The man barely calmed his anger and spoke to Jong Yuseop in a cold voice.
"Great hero! You must get up! Right now, shouldn't putting out the warehouse fire and dealing with the situation be the priority? Great hero!"
"Ugh... ugh..."
He was mentally fragile. The man couldn't understand how someone like this had become a peak-level master. Weren't martial artists supposed to be humans who reached a higher dimension through the cultivation of mind and body? What kind of upbringing had he received at home, how had he been treated, to become a man like this?
The man shouted.
"Great hero! You must rise quickly! We have to put out the fire!"
Only after being shouted at twice did Jong Yuseop finally come to his senses. He spoke with an oddly relaxed tone, like someone waking from hypnosis, completely at odds with the situation.
"Ah, aah... R-right. Right... Wh-what should I do?"
The man looked around and said,
"What are you doing! Requisition bath tubs from the neighboring households! Great Hero Yuseop! Is that manageable for you?"
"Ah, yes! Hurry up! And call everyone from the residence too!"
The flames were shooting high into the sky. Under the man's command, they devoted themselves to putting out the fire.
********
"Come this way."
With the fire raging at the warehouse, there was no one left guarding the residence. I strode confidently through the mansion corridors, unfolding the map, and Sannyeo followed behind me, her nagging gentle.
"Still, you should be careful. We shouldn't leave any traces that someone entered the residence, right?"
"That's why I'm walking using the Dark Moon Step."
Sannyeo observed my footsteps. She looked back to check if I left any traces behind, then said,
"What exactly did your master do, to only teach you techniques for satisfying women, the Golden Capturing Hand, and skills for sneaking into other people's houses?"
I briefly considered telling her the truth, then tilted my head and said,
"He was an apostate monk who lived at Shaolin Temple. Didn't I mention it before? I said I met a hermit master and learned martial arts from him. You can tell from my inner cultivation method."
Sannyeo nodded at my words and said,
"Come to think of it, there are quite a few apostate monks interested in the Bedroom Arts. Either they were so interested in bedroom techniques that they became apostate monks, or after becoming apostate monks, they took an interest in such things. The causality is unclear, but apostate monks and the Bedroom Arts are surprisingly connected. Back in Sannyeo Valley where I lived, an apostate monk would sometimes come by, claiming to be a master of the Bedroom Arts and giving lectures on this and that to the village elders."
Looking back, wouldn't things have gone better for me if I'd just gone that route from the start? Become a master of the Bedroom Arts who handled women like dough, legitimately dishonoring the wives of martial masters or latching onto some wealthy woman, so I could learn martial arts without any worries and stride down the path of world domination?
"Should I have started that way?"
"Oh my, you must not know how those people ended up?"
"Did they live comfortably as gigolos?"
Sannyeo shook her head.
"They usually die by the sword. Touching another man's woman breeds that kind of deep-seated hatred."
"That's all because they aren't thorough enough. Look at me. I kill them all or send them far away. That's how you make a world where everyone's happy."
Sannyeo snorted and said,
"Still, when it comes to coveting other men's women, the same old story is on everyone's lips. There was a man named Cheonpung, who fled Shaolin during his training and spread the Bedroom Arts as he pleased. A figure from about forty years ago."
"Cheonpung?"
A sentence surfaced in my mind. It was the first line of the martial arts manual I had read to the point of disgust two years ago.
[I am the right arm of the Heavenly Demon. I am Sex Demon Cheonpung.]
Cheonpung. The right arm of the Heavenly Demon. Sex Demon Cheonpung.
That bastard's name had come out of Sannyeo's mouth.
Whatever she made of my reaction, Sannyeo smiled and continued.
"Yes, Cheonpung. He wandered around pulling bizarre stunts, claiming he'd teach people how to love women, but he ended up violating the daughter of a martial family at the time, got caught, and died a miserable death. From what I heard, they castrated him and hung him up in the marketplace for three days."
"He died gruesomely."
While I responded like that, my mind was thinking something else entirely. Cheonpung was hanged in the marketplace and died? Then what was that corpse I saw in the cave? What the hell were those writings left behind by Sex Demon Cheonpung?
[I was able to reach this place while evading the Murim Alliance's pursuit, but my injuries are severe, and I will not live long. However, fearing that the lineage of my secret teachings might be severed, I leave these writings behind. Should anyone find this place, I hope they will carry on my will.]
In the writings I had clearly seen, Cheonpung had fled to a cave near Mount Hua Sect. But if that bastard died in the marketplace, then what the hell were the writings and corpse I saw?
"...Are you sure he died in the marketplace?"
Sannyeo shrugged.
"I didn't see it myself, but they say Namgung Gi-hwan, the direct disciple of the Namgung Clan at the time and the current Murim Alliance leader, commanded his capture and execution. So it can't be false."
I asked again.
"Then was that bastard the right arm of the Heavenly Demon?"
Sannyeo tilted her head.
"The name of the Heavenly Demonic Cult only became known in this martial world barely ten years ago? Why would the Heavenly Demon's name come up? No one even knows who the Heavenly Demon's right arm is. If he heard his right arm was a rapist who got his cock cut off and died while violating other men's women in the martial world, wouldn't he be so dumbfounded he'd attack out of sheer fury?"
Strange.
Something was so fucking strange.
Then what the hell had I been learning up until now?
Had I been believing in the delusional diary of some bastard who was neither a sex demon nor the Heavenly Demon's right arm?
No.
For that to be the case, the things I had trained so far were excessively effective. The Dark Moon Step, the training method adapted from the Golden Capturing Hand—they were all far too effective. And it wasn't just some cave made to fuck people over; the location was too exquisitely chosen, and the preparations were too thorough.
Fasting pills, stakes, and ropes. It was a place so thoroughly prepared to truly leave behind secret teachings for someone.
I couldn't know if that bastard was the real Cheonpung, but what was certain was that the cave must have been made by someone with genuine skill.
If so, another question inevitably arose in my head.
Who the hell?
For what purpose had they impersonated Cheonpung and left those writings?
"Do you happen to know something about Cheonpung? Is he perhaps a role model you want to emulate?"
Sannyeo asked in a teasing tone. I shook my head and retorted,
"I'm already a greater martial artist than that bastard."
"A greater wife-stealer, you mean. Cheonpung couldn't even manage one properly, but you've already snagged two."
"Tch..."
Was that a compliment?
It probably was.