The Way Forward - 5
With everything on our shopping list bought, I figured it was about time to head back.
It wasn't just me, either—Hong Ryeon and Sa Yun both had their hands full with parcels. Hauling all that through crowded streets would be no easy feat, so we decided to take the long way around. There was plenty to see on this side of town anyway, so no complaints there.
"Not too heavy for you?"
I asked Sa Yun with a smile as she walked along carrying a basket of incense, but she only shook her head.
"Not at all! I'm a martial artist too, you know!"
"Really? That's a relief."
"Hehe. If you'd said it was heavy, that would've meant slacking on your training—I was planning to make you do extra drills when we got back."
Sa Yun's face froze, and I burst out laughing. Hong Ryeon tittered at the two of us, then glanced toward the edge of the road.
"Ah. Look over there."
"Hm. Wish lanterns."
It was a simple event that existed in Cheonsang Myeongwol as well. You built a lantern out of bamboo and paper, wrote your wish on it, and set it adrift on the river—no reward, nothing to it but the pleasure of the sight.
Quite a few people had already set theirs loose, it seemed; a fair number of lanterns were already bobbing along on the current.
"Shall we give it a try?"
The price wasn't steep—a mere handful of coppers per lantern. Hong Ryeon watched the water a moment, then turned a slight glance toward Sa Yun, whose eyes were shining.
"Shall we go, then?"
When we reached the stall where the lanterns were made, a stout, pot-bellied merchant with a kindly face greeted us with a beam.
"Well now! Welcome, welcome!"
"We'd like to set one lantern adrift each. How much?"
"Five coppers a lantern, that's all!"
While I was reaching for my purse, Hong Ryeon swiftly paid. When I looked at her, she only winked and grinned, and in the end all I could do was slip my hand back into my pouch.
Payment received, the owner brought out bamboo and paper. Hong Ryeon made hers while walking Sa Yun through each step, and I hammered mine together briskly in my own fashion. Putting one together wasn't difficult, but it seemed handiwork was not to be underestimated after all.
"Hm..."
"Rough around the edges, but nicely made."
"Haha. You think so? Well, then..."
I studied the paper of my finished lantern and picked up a brush. Seeing this, Hong Ryeon's lips curled into a smile.
"That brush."
"Ah, yes—the one you gave me. It's served me well."
"Ahaha. Glad to hear it."
After that round of laughter, Hong Ryeon promptly began writing something on her lantern. Then she lit the candle inside and hurriedly set it adrift on the river.
"They say it's best to keep your wishes secret!"
Perhaps because she'd done this a few times before, Hong Ryeon seemed to know the drill. As we worked on our lanterns, the owner kept calling out the custom to every customer who came along, and hearing him, I too set brush to mine.
May I reach my goals without a hitch.
By the time I finished, Sa Yun appeared to be done as well. Had she that many wishes she wanted granted? One side of her lantern was written on quite densely.
"What did you write so much of?"
"There are so very many things I want to make come true!"
"Like what?"
"That's a secret!"
"Heheh." Scratching her head with a sheepish giggle, Sa Yun covered the part where her wishes were written and set her lantern on the water. And once I could see my, Hong Ryeon's, and Sa Yun's lanterns bobbing away down the river, I picked up our parcels.
"All right, let's head back."
It was the roundabout route, but that hardly meant it was empty of people. Seriously, why was there a bottleneck on a roadside like this...? Probably because this was one of the exits from the night market. As I waited amid the swarming throng, the people ahead began to move, and I found myself naturally swept along.
Sa Yun, standing a little apart from us, was about to be caught up in the current, so I immediately grabbed her arm. Hong Ryeon must have noticed at the same moment, because she seized Sa Yun's arm almost in the same breath as I did.
Maybe that was why. Sa Yun stared blankly back and forth between the two of us.
"Startled? My apologies. So many people showed up that I was afraid you'd get swept away. Of course, you've learned martial arts now, so you'd have been fine, but..."
"Oh—no, it's not that... Thank you, truly. Thank you, Daesajeo."
"Oh, it's nothing to thank me for. Come on, let's go."
By then the way had cleared, and we slipped free of the human tide and made it back to the inn without incident.
"Well then, go in and rest; we'll meet here tomorrow morning. If you get hungry..."
Both of them shook their heads. I'd grazed my way through plenty of street food myself; I could probably just sleep.
"So we head straight up at first light?"
"That's the plan. We're meant to depart as soon as our business is done... Ah, but if you'd like to look around a while longer, that's fine too."
"How about deciding that once we're up there? Sa Yun, that's all right with you?"
"Hehe. I'll follow whatever Daesajeo and the Innkeeper decide."
"No, no—if there's more you want to see, by all means see it."
We had time to spare either way. True, that would push our arrival into the small hours, but that was no trouble at all.
"Mm. Understood. Thank you."
Sa Yun thought it over for a moment, then nodded, and we returned to our rooms—rooms on the second floor of the inn. Perhaps because they so closely resembled the rooms in my own inn, nothing about them felt the least bit strange. Were inn rooms built to some standard specification?
"Still, going straight to bed felt like a waste."
I went and checked the back courtyard below the inn. Perhaps because so many martial artists lodged here, several of them were already at their training—nothing serious, just simple conditioning or quiet meditation.
Good. Then I'd better get some training in before bed myself. If I skipped it just because we were traveling, Chae Jin would sense it like a ghost and put me through double.
A room with two beds felt quite spacious for two—more so still for Hongseong Sect disciples, used to living communally.
Hong Ryeon, fresh from the bath in the inn's washroom, caught sight of Sa Yun—washed first and now seated on her bed in meditation—and let out a soft snort of amusement. How admirable, our youngest, so determined not to skip a single day of training.
A glance out the window showed several martial artists training in the back courtyard, each in their own way. And among them, Yu Wol, moving through the forms of the Chae Family Tai Chi Chuan. What a diligent man he was.
"Oh! You're out?"
Sa Yun said, opening her eyes. Hong Ryeon nodded to her and settled onto her own bed before asking:
"What had you so startled earlier?"
"Hm?"
"I mean, when we caught your arm."
"Ah... did I upset you somehow?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just, seeing our youngest so startled made me curious. And a little worried, honestly. May I ask why you reacted that way? If it's hard to talk about, you don't have to."
By ordinary courtesy, a junior answers a senior's question as a matter of course—but the Hongseong Sect stood far apart from such formality. Eldest senior sister and youngest though they might be, the sect carried the air of a family. A private matter or two could be laughed off and let pass.
And so Hong Ryeon asked without weight, and Sa Yun answered without any.
"Oh no, it's nothing like that. Old memories simply came back to me. Um... as you know, before I met Master, I was just a wandering orphan. Back then, monsters kept appearing, and we had to flee for our lives again and again... and street kids like me were terrified of being swept away in those crowds."
"I suppose. In the middle of an evacuation, no one can spare a thought for anyone else. One wrong step and you'd be knocked down and trampled, badly hurt."
"Yes. So we always envied them."
The children who walked on with an adult's hand clasped tight in theirs. The ones who, hands held, found steadiness even amid the surging throng.
"We envied them. The children who stayed safe in the shifting tide of people because their families held their hands. All we could do was envy those children..."
A wistful longing hung at the corners of Sa Yun's mouth, and Hong Ryeon, meeting it, gave a bitter smile.
Family. Family, of all things.
"I just used to envy that hand so much, back then... and when the Innkeeper took my arm, it simply reminded me of... Oh! I didn't mean to make it sound so heavy! I—I only wanted to say that I'm grateful, to Daesajeo and to the Innkeeper, that's all!"
Flustered, Sa Yun stumbled over her words. Hong Ryeon answered by gently stroking her hair, and beneath that hand, Sa Yun, at a loss for what to do with herself, ended up simply smiling.
Perhaps it was thanks to setting out early that morning, hoping to sightsee at our leisure on the way?
The trail up Mount Changun was all but deserted—perfect for taking in the sights. Granted, there were a few well-to-do families and a handful of fresh-faced young martial artists out in the murim for the first time, but they made up the whole of who we crossed on the climb.
With so few people about, we could stop and look around whenever we pleased... Coming early really had been the right call.
"Oh! There's a pavilion over there!"
"That would be Chwiwoljeong—the pavilion where the Wine Immortal Tie Guaili, one of the Eight Immortals, is said to have drunk."
"Wow, that's so cool... Huh? What's that over there?"
"Traces left behind by the Sword Immortal Lü Dongbin."
"Wow... the Eight Immortals really did come here?"
The sword marks carved into the towering cliff declared that this truly had been a place where immortals dwelt. Honestly—who could carve a slash clean across a cliff that size in a single stroke?
And in Cheonsang Myeongwol itself, players had discovered these very traces through the ruins of the burned-down Changungwan, followed the chain of linked events along the Eight Immortals' path, and earned a genuine dharma treasure as the reward...
So they really must have come here.
"Wow... could Master manage something on that scale?"
"Hmm. I wouldn't say it's beyond her."
Was that simply what it meant to be a martial artist? Gazing up at the cliff's scars, Hong Ryeon and Sa Yun discussed the matter in dead earnest. They weren't the only ones, either—the other young martial artists climbing Mount Changun kept failing to hold back their gasps of awe at the sight.
"Come along, then."
There was plenty more to see besides that. A basin said to have been carved out by Zhongli Quan's Plantain Fan. A flower field said to have been sown by Lan Caihe.
But scattered here and there along the climb were scars of destruction, and seeing them, Hong Ryeon's face settled into a wry smile.
"Changungwan is a place the orthodox factions visit often, and perhaps because of what it means as a place the Eight Immortals once stayed, it's one of the sites the Demonic Cult attacks most frequently."
"Whoa..."
"So the Murim Alliance has repeatedly proposed stationing its masters here, and Changungwan has opposed it tooth and nail. Even after being attacked by the Demonic Cult any number of times, they won't change their policy. Look over there. See that partially collapsed section?"
"Yes."
"That's from the Demonic Cult's attack last year, I believe. I happened to be here on business at the time, so I took part in that battle myself."
"Then why does Changungwan refuse to keep martial artists here?"
"Hmm? That, I don't really..."
"I heard that when Changungwan was founded, the Eight Immortals themselves declared it: this is a place for carrying on the Dao, and the martial must not dwell here."
"But strength is needed to protect a place, too..."
"Well, that's their policy, so what can anyone do? Besides, the talisman arts of Changungwan's Daoists are strong, so they've held out without any real trouble."
Just as Hong Ryeon said, at Changungwan—where martial artists were few—raid events featuring Demonic Cultists or monsters used to trigger fairly often. But no one ever complained about it. It was a repeatable event, and success came with rather juicy rewards—some players even took up residence here, doing nothing but waiting for the event to cycle around again. Demonic Cultists and monsters delivered on tap, rewards rolling in forever—who could resist?
Of course, in the end Changungwan failed to withstand the monsters' and the Cult's assaults and burned to the ground. And of course, no one complained about that either, since it fed into a chain of linked events. It was what unlocked the quest to find the Eight Immortals' dharma treasure, after all.
So it was—me lost in such thoughts, Hong Ryeon and Sa Yun chattering away as they peered at this and that—that we arrived before the gates of Changungwan.
An aged yet grand and tranquil Daoist monastery came into view. Past the entrance, at the center of the broad courtyard, a middle-aged Daoist priestess stood receiving visitors.
"Boundless blessings. May the grace of the Eight Immortals be upon you. Have you come to offer prayers? Or...?"
"We've come to pray as well... and to receive a dharma treasure, if we may."
"A donation is required to receive a dharma treasure."
She held out a small box, and I dropped a silver coin inside. With a slight bow, she then led us inward. Inside, we came upon a hall adorned with paintings of the Eight Immortals. There would normally have been quite a crowd, but perhaps because the sun had only recently risen, the hall stood empty.
"Heh heh. So you've come seeking a dharma treasure."
The priestess who had guided us bowed to the elderly Daoist who emerged clutching papers. Once she explained that I was the one seeking the treasure, she led only Hong Ryeon and Sa Yun—both of whom wished to pray—toward the statues of the Eight Immortals on the far side.
"The dharma treasures of the Eight Immortals exist to fill what you lack. Complete this questionnaire, and I shall grant you the item best suited to your needs."
With that, the old Daoist held out the paper. From somewhere far off came the sound of Sa Yun praying with all her heart.
Haha. That prayer's for me, isn't it? Right, then—let's get this done quickly.
I looked over the questions at once. As expected, they differed hardly at all from Cheonsang Myeongwol's. Which meant I could obtain the dharma treasure I wanted...
I checked each item, filled in my answers, and handed the paper back. The old Daoist read it over, smiled, and produced a single fan from within.
"Are you aware? Zhongli Quan, leader of the Eight Immortals—Master Zhongli—compounded countless elixirs in his day and produced many wonders through the art of alchemy. Keep this treasure well, and install it with care, and the quality of all goods crafted near it shall grow all the finer."
Excellent. I'd gotten exactly what I wanted. The medicinal dishes we'd be making at the inn, the talismans Chang Ju would craft, the weapons and armor to be forged at the new smithy... The boost in quality would be modest compared to the original I'd obtain down the road—but so what? These were the days for gathering even motes of dust.
"All finished?"
"That's right. Did your prayers go well?"
"Mm. Sa Yun, you did yours well too?"
"Yes!"
"Good. Then shall we take in a few more sights on the way down?"
Let's enjoy a leisurely look around before the crowds arrive, then head home. We wandered about to see the rest of Changungwan, then made for the entrance we'd come in by.
"AAAAAH! Demonic Cultists!! The Demonic Cultists have appeared!"
"...Seriously, why now?"
Good grief. Of all the days for this to happen. The repeatable event—the Demonic Cult's assault on Changungwan—appeared to have begun.
"Let's go."
What else could we do? Since it had come to this, we might as well smash our way through and collect the rewards.