Rebirth: A Few Weeks Later
A few weeks later.
Outside the western gate of Luoyang, a long line of people waiting for entry stretched endlessly.
Horses and oxen lowed as they hauled carts piled high with goods.
“Hey, you! Long time no see.”
“Indeed. I just got back from a trading run to Kaifeng this time.”
Acquaintances spotted one another and exchanged greetings.
“Haha, you’ve come a long way.”
“I heard the Cult finally has a sacred site. I couldn’t sit still. The moment word reached me, I raced here as fast as I could.”
Even strangers struck up conversations to endure the tedious wait.
“Hey—catch that one!”
“My wallet!”
Days like this were a harvest for pickpockets.
Yet even amid the throng and clamor choking the gate, one place remained unnaturally quiet.
A wandering merchant kept his lips pressed tight, nervously rolling his eyes toward the source of that silence.
Tall frame.
Face hidden beneath a large bamboo hat.
A small pack.
Attire that was neither especially shabby nor particularly neat or luxurious.
And an ancient-looking sword strapped firmly across the back.
The sword itself looked somewhat extraordinary, yet in Luoyang—home of the Luoyang Sword House—people did not fall into such uneasy silence over a single blade.
The merchant rolled his eyes farther, fixing them on the leather pouches hanging at the swordsman’s waist.
Those pouches…
They were utterly ordinary in every way—except that their bottoms were still soaked with blood, dark red drops plipping steadily onto the ground. Some had dried to a blackish crust, but there was no mistaking the stains for anything but blood.
Gulp.
The peddler swallowed dryly, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Just the shape, the size…
They were exactly large enough to hold human heads, were they not?
That much deduction required no special insight; everyone nearby had reached the same conclusion. Yet no one possessed the nerve to ask the swordsman outright whether the pouches truly contained heads.
They only hoped the short remaining line would shrink quickly so the gate guards would notice.
“You there!”
Thus, when a guard spotted those highly suspicious pouches and barked the challenge, everyone—including the wandering merchant—scrambled clear at once.
“Discard your weapons and prove your identity!”
In the circle of empty space that formed in an instant, the guards surged forward as one, thrusting gleaming spear-points as though ready to strike.
The swordsman, however, looked utterly unfazed. Instead of answering, she simply drew something from her robes and tossed it toward the young squad leader.
“…?!”
A hidden weapon? Poison?
Without a heartbeat’s hesitation the young squad leader flung himself to the ground the moment he saw the object, rolling clear. The reflexes and snap judgment were remarkable for a man without internal energy.
“…Oh?”
Interest sparked in the swordsman’s eyes beneath the brim of the hat.
But the one truly startled was the young squad leader himself.
“…?!”
He had clearly thrown his body to dodge whatever she had tossed—
Thud.
Yet somehow the object landed squarely against his chest.
“What in the world…?”
Was this the legendary technique of Hogeogyeommul spoken of only in rumors and tales—telekinesis that moved objects through empty air?
About to speak further, he obeyed the swordsman’s gesture and lifted the thing that had settled on his chest.
“A token?”
It was a token carved from precious jade. A long gold chain glittered from it, and silver ornaments flashed in the afternoon sun.
The young squad leader found himself reading the name engraved upon it aloud without meaning to.
“…Yeon Seo-rin?”
That name, and a single sword.
Everyone present knew her moniker.
“Cheonui Mubong…!”
Yeon Seo-rin flung the blood-soaked leather pouches to the ground and spoke.
“These are the heads of evil-doers with bounties near Luoyang.”
Once the swordsman’s identity as the renowned Second Young Lady of the Luoyang Sword House became clear, even the gate commander himself came running out.
“I had heard the rumors—that the Second Young Lady has been traveling the lands around Henan Province of late, hunting the notorious black-path ruffians!”
Disliking empty ceremony, Yeon Seo-rin cited a prior appointment and entered the city at once.
Yet her steps soon had no choice but to slow amid the dense crowds.
“…I know the streets of Luoyang are always crowded, but…”
She scratched her cheek beneath the hat as she spoke. The small wound on her face had begun to itch as it healed.
“Was it ever this packed—a true sea of people?”
It was enough to make her wonder whether the Yongbong-jihoe, originally planned for autumn, had been advanced without her knowledge.
“And most of them look like travelers.”
She muttered while studying the passers-by’s attire. A few weeks earlier she would not even have been able to tell travelers from merchants. Now she carried the clear marks of experience gained since leaving her novice days in the jianghu.
“The number of visitors to Luoyang has indeed surged. And most are pilgrims.”
The answer came from the young squad leader who had been assigned, by the gate commander’s order, to guide the Second Young Lady of the Sword House.
“Pilgrims?”
“Thanks to the sacred site of the Divine Maiden Cult. They keep pouring in from every corner of the Jungwon Kingdom.”
“Ah.”
Yeon Seo-rin understood at once.
“You mean the Valley of Sin.”
The Valley of Sin—also called the Valley of Evil—was the very destination she was heading toward now.
“I heard the rumor that while I was away, His Majesty the Emperor declared the Valley of Sin a sacred site.”
Having severed ties with the master who had led her astray—the Guard Pavilion Master—and left Luoyang immediately thereafter, she had learned of the proclamation only as distant talk.
“…It is called the Sacred Valley now. That old name is no longer used.”
“I see.”
The squad leader’s habitual fingering of the Divine Maiden Cult prayer beads on his wrist caught her eye.
Before she had set out on the road, the Divine Maiden faith had felt foreign to her. She had actually seen the Medicine Fairy—her eldest aunt, Yak So-yu—while the woman still lived. Yet as this endless throng of pilgrims proved, the faith was woven deep into the lives of the common people she had met across the jianghu.
She had left recklessly to clear her head, to cast off the shackles that had bound her life… yet even that departure would have been impossible without the quiet help of her younger brother Yeon So-hyeon. Without him the Sword House people, frantic for her safety, would have stopped her before she ever left the city. Even so, she had gained much.
“…Do you follow the Divine Maiden faith as well?”
At her question the young squad leader nodded calmly.
“Yes.”
A short, plain answer. Even standing beside the Second Young Lady of the Luoyang Sword House—Cheonui Mubong Yeon Seo-rin herself—his composure seemed beyond his years.
“A veteran of the war?”
He was too young to have fought in the northern campaigns, yet that steadiness belonged only to someone who had crossed the line of death in real combat. There was no other explanation. His early promotion to squad leader would also make sense if he had proven himself on a battlefield.
“No.”
He gave a bitter smile that, too, looked out of place on so young a face.
“…Not long ago I simply had a similar experience… an unusually deep one. That was when I found the faith as well.”
An evasive reply, but she did not press. She was not the sort to dig into matters others preferred to leave unspoken merely out of curiosity.
Instead they moved with the crowd, slowly yet steadily, beneath sunlight that had grown noticeably harsher.
“We have arrived.”
At last the young squad leader stopped.
At the mouth of the valley stood the joint business headquarters of Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon and Fourth Young Master Yeon Bi.
“Thank you for guiding me. This place is new to me…”
“Not at all.”
He offered the farewell with the same unflappable calm.
“Then I shall take my leave.”
Yeon Seo-rin asked one last question.
“What is your name?”
He hesitated a moment, then answered honestly.
“…Jang Sam.”
Jang Sam.
He was a soldier of the security special unit who had fought in the battle at the Valley of Sin a few weeks earlier—one of those trapped inside the barrier wrought by Magyo arts, forced to endure battle after endless battle. Among all who had been caught that day, Jang Sam had suffered with particular savagery.
Yet as the saying goes, misfortune can become fortune. From that ordeal he had gained combat experience no ordinary gate guard of his age could ever possess, and only recently he had been promoted.
“Jang Sam, is it…”
Yeon Seo-rin murmured the name and watched him disappear into the crowd. How could a man without even a scrap of internal energy move so naturally against the press of bodies? The sight stirred the curiosity of the martial-arts fanatic in her, but she turned her gaze from the vanished figure to the joint headquarters of Yeon So-hyeon and Yeon Bi.
Scars still stood out clearly across the outer walls, vivid enough to let one imagine the desperate fighting of that day a few weeks past.
How shameful…
No matter how deep her own reasons had been—bound by a leash, her freedom stolen, living each day like a hamster on a wheel—while her younger siblings endured every hardship here, this was the first time she had set foot in the place.
Thus she could not readily step inside from the entrance. Did she even have the face to meet the siblings waiting for her within?
Will they resent me…?
The question had dogged her the entire road back to Luoyang. No—longer than that. From the days she had hunted bounty-marked black-path martial artists through wind and rain, it had remained a question without an answer.
“…Do you have some business here?”
Someone spoke to the figure standing blankly with her hat pressed low, neither entering nor leaving. Even for a woman in a daze, to fail to notice someone approaching close enough to speak was a rare lapse.
“Ah—no. I…”
Yet why did that voice sound so strangely familiar?
She turned in fluster—and found herself facing her younger brother, grown even more striking in the few weeks she had been gone.
Yeon So-hyeon.
“…!”
“If you’ve returned, you should come right in. Why are you hovering like an uninvited guest?”
His characteristic blunt tone. As always, he spoke as though he already knew every worry that had plagued her.
“Come in.”
He turned away and added in the same curt manner. It was not merely to hide his own awkwardness; it was so he could pretend he had not seen the tears that had slipped, unbidden, from Yeon Seo-rin’s eyes.
“…Welcome back.”
In that single phrase lay a power that rendered every fear she had carried utterly meaningless.