One Opportunity
“So-hyeon.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Yeon Seo-rin looked at Yeon So-hyeon.
“You’ve heard the saying that the most terrifying martial artist is the one you don’t know, haven’t you?”
At those words, Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes widened a fraction, then settled again.
“…Of course. I know it well.”
“Right. As if you wouldn’t.”
Yeon Seo-rin nodded.
“While the others still don’t know your true skill—right now is that moment.”
She flashed a grin.
“Hit them with something proper.”
“Ha.”
It was as if she had been standing right beside him, reading the plan already forming in his mind. She called herself a thick-skulled oaf, yet in so many ways she revealed a sense that left ordinary people behind—his sister.
“Expect it, then.”
Yeon So-hyeon grinned right back at her.
“I’ll serve them a blow so sharp even that thick skull of yours could never imagine it.”
At that, Yeon Seo-rin threw her head back and laughed. Startled by the sound, a flock of birds rose from the lake in a rush of wings.
“Good. Good. If you put it that way.”
She brushed the grass from her clothes as she stood and asked,
“You’re taking proper care of Wongak Pavilion’s hot springs, I hope?”
“The hot springs? Of course.”
She looked at him and smiled.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed those springs.”
She strode off with long steps and vanished almost at once.
“….”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled faintly.
How could he not understand? Leaving a precious guest waiting was something she couldn’t bear, so she used the hot springs as her excuse. From far off came her joy-filled whoop—“Yaho!”—and he could only give a wry smile. Maybe she really did just miss the hot springs of Wongak Pavilion. Even the peerless Yeon So-hyeon found it hard to keep pace with the thoughts of Yeon Seo-rin.
Unpredictable. The word might as well have been coined for her alone.
Luoyang Sword Family. The Second Young Master’s camp. Headquarters of the Jiangnan Division.
What awaited Strategist Choi—his eyes still unfocused as he returned—was the strangely flustered Strategist of the Jiangnan Division.
“Strategist Choi!”
A middle-aged man of short stature and solid build, Strategist Kang, nearly jumped when he saw him.
“Where in the world have you been until now?!”
“Ah? Ah.”
Focus returned to Strategist Choi’s eyes.
“I had business… out in the Luoyang markets for a bit…”
“Never mind that.”
Strategist Kang seized his arm and pulled him aside to clear the way for another strategist rushing past. Wondering what could have everyone running about like this, Choi looked around—and only then took in the chaos filling the headquarters.
“The place is in an uproar.”
“What on earth is going on?”
At the question, the other man’s face tightened.
“You’re the strategist assigned to the Fourth Young Master, and you don’t know the situation? Did Elder Son say nothing to you?”
“As I said, I was in the markets…”
Impatient by nature, Strategist Kang waved him off.
“Forget it. On our lord’s orders, every strategist is being summoned to the conference hall right now.”
“The entire Jiangnan Division?”
Kang shook his head hard.
“No! Every strategist attached to our lord’s camp!”
Strategist Choi’s eyes went round.
“What for…?”
“This is still only a guess, but—”
Kang glanced around, then lowered his voice.
“It seems our lord has ordered us, this time for certain, to completely destroy the First and Fourth Young Masters’ ventures.”
“Completely?!”
Strategist Kang nodded.
“Still a guess—but I have grounds.”
“What grounds?”
The other man dropped his voice even further.
“According to information I’ve obtained, every elder belonging to our lord’s camp is currently in conference with him.”
“Every elder?!”
“Keep it down…!”
Strategist Choi hastily clapped a hand over his own mouth and nodded.
“I heard it from the steward in charge of the conference chamber. During a recess, the elders were talking about Daseonrang and the Valley of Sin.”
“That’s all the evidence you have?”
“The underlings say other elders were saying much the same thing.”
“If the elders spoke of it where underlings could hear, that means—”
“It means the whole camp will know soon enough.”
At that, Strategist Choi’s face went blank. It’s true our interference plans have kept failing. But every elder and every strategist, all of a sudden? His head swam. Just how is this going to unfold…?
With Choi standing there dazed and the conversation stalling, Strategist Kang’s temper flared.
“Damn it. And where has Strategist Han gone in a situation like this? Didn’t the two of you go out together?”
“Strategist Han?!”
Choi started and looked around wildly.
“Didn’t Strategist Han come in with me?”
“What are you talking about? You came in alone.”
“Alone?”
Choi had been acting strange from the start; the other man gave him an incredulous look and sighed.
“Well. It hardly matters now.”
He watched the strategists hurrying past and said,
“If my guess is right, the missions concerning the First and Fourth Young Masters’ businesses are no longer your concern.”
Luoyang Sword Family. Somewhere within its grounds.
The Emei Abbess sat stiffly indoors, waiting for the one she was to meet. The tea set before her had long since gone cold. He hounded me about the appointed hour, and now he is the one who is late?
Her teeth ground together. The more she experienced this Luoyang Sword Family, the more she found it filled with nothing but creatures whose arrogance scraped the heavens.
Then the door opened, and the Deputy Abbess entered with careful deference. She approached and pressed her lips close to the Grand Abbess’s ear, employing a transmission technique meant to keep even a whisper from escaping—what was commonly called a contact transmission.
“…For those reasons, they report that entry into Wongak Pavilion has failed.”
The Grand Abbess waved a hand, and the Deputy Abbess hastily withdrew. It was not that the deputy was especially timid; anyone who had ever served at this old woman’s side would have behaved the same. Failed…
At that moment the opposite door opened, and the one she had been waiting for revealed himself.
“I have kept you waiting, Purple Voice Divine Nun.”
The man who appeared, calling her by that old sobriquet, looked every bit as aged as she did.
“It has been a long time since anyone addressed me by that name.”
At the old woman’s words, the old man let out a laugh that whistled between his teeth like escaping air.
“Even among those of the same generation, we ought to gild each other’s faces a little, don’t you think?”
The old woman snorted softly.
“Looking at how well-oiled your face is, it seems the Sword Family has done more than gild it—did they put you through a marrow cleansing as well?”
Even under her barbed words the old man smiled unperturbed and took his seat.
“Well. As a former sect master of one of the Nine Great Sects, they may not have gone so far as a marrow cleansing, but they did grant me an elder’s seat in this family and treated me with proper respect.”
At that slick manner the old woman raked his insides once more.
“Ha. Coming from the man who handed over the famous Diancang Sect lock, stock, and barrel, of course they would treat you well.”
The former sect master of Diancang—now surviving only as an affiliated branch of the Luoyang Sword Family—bared yellowed teeth in a grin.
“Thanks to that, my disciples no longer need to tramp about collecting protection money or running half-failed inns. They can devote themselves wholly to their martial arts. How fine a thing is that?”
One hand cannot clap alone. When the other man slipped free of every thrust as if greased, even the Grand Abbess’s venom had nowhere to go.
“In any case, I benefited greatly from the information you passed me in advance, Sect Master.”
Intelligence on the Fourth Young Master’s ventures. Intelligence on the investment group. Intelligence on the First Young Master, who had come out of seclusion. All of it had come from the former sect master of Diancang.
“The Dali Duan Family has been a long-standing friend of Diancang since ancient times. And since the Duan Family and Emei have joined hands, Emei is our friend as well, is it not?”
“Having an ally in this land a thousand li from home is a reassuring thing.”
The former sect master of Diancang smiled.
“So. What was your impression after exchanging the first move with the First Young Master?”
Asking for her impressions when he already knew the outcome only showed how twisted the former sect master’s nature was.
“…He was quite sharp. Had you not warned me about him beforehand, Sect Master, I might have suffered a far greater humiliation.”
The former sect master laughed heartily.
“Merely ‘sharp’? If you saw how that boy has been turning the family’s Elder Council upside down of late, that soft word would stick in your throat.”
The Grand Abbess narrowed her eyes. It seemed she would have to revise her assessment of the danger posed by the First Young Master—known as the Swordless One—considerably higher.
“…Now that we know the enemy’s true nature, we need only respond accordingly.”
At the old woman’s words, the former sect master of Diancang nodded.
“You are right. The most terrifying foe is the martial artist one does not know.”
He lifted her cold cup of tea and emptied it aside.
“Now that you know his true face, a Divine Nun of your skill can torment that boy to her heart’s content.”
Then he poured the wine he had brought himself into the cup.
“My lord, the Third Young Master of this family, has also ordered that we spare no cooperation with you.”
Outside the room where the Grand Abbess and the former sect master of Diancang conversed, two nuns spoke by transmission.
“At this very moment we cannot know what the Sword Family’s First Young Master and Daseonrang are discussing. Is the Grand Abbess not uneasy?”
The Deputy Abbess smiled.
“Call them successful merchants and fawn over them all you like—in the end, they are only children.”
The smile that curved her lips carried a metallic tang of blood.
“So long as their families are held as hostages in all but name, the majority of Daseonrang’s shares will ultimately fall into the hands of our Emei Sect.”
Luoyang Sword Family. Wongak Pavilion. The First Young Master’s study.
“Young Master. The ladies of Daseonrang request an audience.”
At the voice from outside, Yeon So-hyeon rose from his seat.
“Show them in.”
Led by Sang-gwan Nan-hwa, five young women whose names rang across the Central Plains entered the study. Despite the accumulated fatigue of the long road and the chaos they had endured that very day, Daseonrang’s condition was better than expected. Was it the strength of their spirits?
“You have come a long way. You must be weary.”
Yeon So-hyeon received them with courteous formality, yet without concealing the authority that was his by right.
“I am Yeon So-hyeon, First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family.”
Sang-gwan Nan-hwa stepped forward as their representative and returned his greeting.
“To be received with such generosity leaves us scarcely knowing where to put ourselves. This humble girl is Sang-gwan Nan-hwa, representative of Daseonrang.”
After exchanging greetings with the others as well, Yeon So-hyeon spread a hand and guided them to the seats prepared in advance.
“Well, then.”
He poured tea for them with his own hands, granting them ample time to settle their hearts, then gently opened the matter.
“As for the reason this First Young Master invited you here…”
At that moment Sang-gwan Nan-hwa raised a hand slightly—politely, without overstepping courtesy—and cut across his words.
“Hm. Have you something you wish to say first?”
“Thank you for your forbearance.”
Yeon So-hyeon opened his palm and yielded the floor to her.
“First Young Master.”
Sang-gwan Nan-hwa drew a deep breath, then spoke.