The Vermilion Fruit

The Vermilion Fruit.

Called the fruit of the immortals, this elixir's name has come down among the common folk as something out of legend. There is no one who has not heard the old tale: if ever you find a fruit resembling an apple, hanging alone from a tree no taller than a man, then that fruit is the fruit of the immortals.

What sets the tale of the Vermilion Fruit apart from every other legend is the simple fact that the fruit truly exists. Of course, it is so vanishingly rare, and of such extraordinary value, that most people will live out their entire lives without ever glimpsing one.

A gift of heaven. Because heaven's grace watches over the murim of the jianghu, nature brings forth spiritual elixirs in countless varieties. Setting aside the Empty Blue Stone Milk I once took, there are more elixirs of comparable rank than one might imagine — the kind that earn grand modifiers like supreme or peerless.

Such were the treasures lumped together as "ten-thousand-year" — things that deepened their spirituality across ten millennia: the inner core of the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Civet, the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root, the Ten-Thousand-Year Supreme Blood Treasure, and their like. The same went for elixirs of striking individual character, such as the Amitabha Divine Tree, the Yin-Yang Fruit of Life and Death, the Violet Heaven Nectar Tree, and the Violet Spirit Divine Fruit.

Yet among all those natural elixirs, if forced to name the most famous and the most expensive, I had no doubt whatsoever: it would be the Vermilion Fruit, bar none.

Not noble — expensive.

Everything in this world follows cause and effect, and the Vermilion Fruit had its reasons for commanding the greatest value of any elixir alive. It could be consumed by ordinary people who had never learned so much as a single martial art — a truly peculiar trait for anything bearing a name like supreme or peerless.

Its benefits were extraordinary, too. One who consumed the Vermilion Fruit lived a long life free of illness. On top of that, it worked wonders for the appearance: those who took it gained skin like white jade, and their features settled into harmonious proportion. Aging slowed so dramatically, it was said, that not even a wrinkle appeared by the age of sixty.

In truth, those beauty and anti-aging effects had played an enormous part in driving the fruit's value to such absurd heights. And so, rare among elixirs, the Vermilion Fruit was consumed not by those who walked the murim of the jianghu, but somewhere else entirely.

The imperial court. The halls of officialdom. This was the elixir that great ministers and high officials — or their wives and daughters — dreamed of above all others. And power and wealth, as they should, went hand in hand; so the high and mighty had swept up every Vermilion Fruit in the realm at prices no jianghu wanderer could hope to match. Since time immemorial, a long life free of illness had been every powerful man's dream, and beauty without aging every woman's.

"It should be around here."

I had come in search of that very Vermilion Fruit — the one said to be worth ten times the Empty Blue Stone Milk in cold coin. Selling it would make me a fortune, but this time, money was off the table. The Vermilion Fruit bore only a single fruit on its tree; that was its defining trait.

The Yakseon Heart Decision, Third Stage: Invulnerability. I would claim the fruit and enter the Third Stage.

And yet.

"Argh! Why won't you show yourself?!"

This was a deep ravine on Mount Daebyeol, where no human foot was ever meant to tread.

Yakseon was, one might say, a slightly paranoid sort of man. This was someone who, having laid down in the First Stage a foundation broad enough to reach Number One Under Heaven from, and having attained Diamond Indestructibility at the Second Stage, still deemed it not enough. The purpose such a man set for the Third Stage was Invulnerability.

The Vermilion Fruit, which even an ordinary man could eat to attain freedom from illness — now consumed by a martial artist trained in the martial arts, with the Yakseon Heart Decision layered on top: thus, he said, Invulnerability in its truest sense would be completed.

When Yakseon named the Third Stage, he had deliberately refused the phrase invulnerable to ten thousand poisons. By striking that qualifier away, he granted Invulnerability a wholeness beyond it — not merely proof against poison, but proof against everything.

Mount Daebyeol was unbearably vast. Straddling the spine of a great range that ran between Henan and Hubei — how could it be anything else?

Back in my days as Myeong-gae, I had gathered detailed intelligence and worked hard to pin down the exact location, yet now that I was actually here, the fruit did not simply leap into my arms. Mountains have no proper landmarks, after all; every valley looked precisely like every other. Mount Cheonjung, where I could at least count the peaks with my own two eyes, had been a mercy by comparison.

One stroke of luck: the Vermilion Fruit took the form of a red fruit. Had it been something buried in the earth like the fleeceflower root, I could have searched for years alone and never found it. Only after a solid half-day spent weaving through the mountains on my light-foot art did my search finally bear fruit.

"Found it!"

That red was unmistakably the Vermilion Fruit. I had finally found it. Unable to contain my joy, I drew near. This fist-sized red fruit, hanging from a tree barely the height of a man, held centuries upon centuries within its skin.

"Hisss—!"

And just as Yakseon had foreseen, a guardian stood watch over the fruit.

The Blood-Transforming Poison Snake. A spirit creature of such lethal venom that anyone bitten by it was said to melt into a handful of bloody mist. Even among the venomous serpents known to the murim, it ranked at the very summit. Had the poison masters of the Tang Clan of Sichuan or the Five Poisons Sect laid eyes on it, they would have drooled; to me, it was a considerably less charming creature. Of all spirit beasts, the Blood-Transforming Poison Snake alone loved the Vermilion Fruit — it was said to brood over the fruit as if it were an egg of its own.

"Chiiisss!"

The snake reared its head, tongue flickering, and held me at bay. I could feel its fury at the invader come to steal what was its own.

"My, aren't you a vicious one."

My smile lasted only a moment.

Chomp.

"Huh?"

At some point the Blood-Transforming Poison Snake had its jaws clamped around my arm. My movement art — honed chasing even Uncle Yeobaek's divine footwork — had failed to track it in the slightest. A spirit creature, and no mistake.

"Chiiisss!"

But then again — was this not the body that had achieved the Second Stage's Golden Body, on par with the legendary Diamond Indestructibility? The snake's venomous fangs were failing to pierce my skin.

I simply stood there, quietly watching the thing strain and struggle. Not because I was flustered.

A little while passed.

Scritch.

"Ugh."

With that unpleasant sound, the snake's fangs finally sank into my flesh. The venom spewing from them had melted straight through skin tempered into the Golden Body.

This was exactly what Yakseon had feared. Even a man who had achieved invulnerability to blade and sword stood defenseless against poison. If this was what it could do through the skin alone, then what would happen if I swallowed it needed no guesswork.

I could feel the venom threading its way through my blood.

"Ow. Now that genuinely hurts."

Not, of course, that I had gone mad, or taken a sudden fancy to dying.

The first time I read that, I had wondered what madness it was.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠words that followed had dissolved my misgivings, at least.

But what could I do? I was the one who had to trust Yakseon.

Ping.

In that brief instant, my sense of balance fell apart and my head began to swim.

"Whoa. Slip up even once with this, and I really could die."

I had nearly fallen off a cliff to my death. I had nearly dissolved in the Blue Phosphor Liquid. And now I had very nearly died to a snake's bite. The Yakseon Heart Decision. Truly not an art one masters without incident.

Shff.

I drew the Dancheon Sword and separated the snake's head from its body. Every fiber of its attention had been devoted to pumping venom into me; taking its neck was no trouble at all. The Blood-Transforming Poison Snake's scales were said to be hard enough to turn aside any ordinary blade — but they had never met a masterpiece of Cheon-gong's.

I hastily reached out, seized the Vermilion Fruit, and bit into it.

Crunch.

The texture and the taste were much like an apple's. The pity was that I had been granted no leisure to savor it.

Thump.

I folded my legs beneath me and closed my eyes. Empowered by the Vermilion Fruit, the Yakseon Heart Decision devoured even the snake's venom as it drove my body through the Grand Circulation. Before long, a wisp of black vapor rose from the crown of my head, thinned, and scattered on the wind — the snake's venom expelled in its entirety.

The First Stage's Cleansing, then the Second Stage's Golden Body — and at last, the Third Stage: Invulnerability. Others might have called it the achievement of an age.

Such was Yakseon's verdict upon my completion of the Third Stage. Only after consuming legendary elixirs like the Empty Blue Stone Milk and the Vermilion Fruit had I at last set foot upon the starting line.

Having only now reached the stage of cultivating the self, Yakseon said, I must next advance to ordering the household. If there was any comfort to be had, it was that the Fourth Stage's completion would itself be that ordering of the family — meaning the road ahead did not look so terribly long.

"So it begins."

I echoed Yakseon's words as if to carve them into memory.

"And yet."

And yet, that starting line of mine had been drawn leagues ahead of anyone else's. At the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, no rising star under heaven would stand comparison with me.

My smug posing lasted only a moment.

Grrrowl.

My stomach growled. Yakseon had arranged his three stages under the maxim that nothing in this world matters more than a sturdy body — but there was one thing he had never considered. Even the grand completion of the Yakseon Heart Decision could not ward off starvation.

"Hmm."

My eyes fell on the snake I had just beheaded.

"I don't suppose I could roast it?"

To a beggar of the Beggars' Gang, snake meat was nothing short of a feast. I was no longer a beggar — but how could I not know that taste? Most beggars gave venomous ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snakes a wide berth, but for a man who had achieved Invulnerability, there was nothing left to fear.

"Bet it's delicious."

My mouth was already watering.

Crackle, crackle.

The Blood-Transforming Poison Snake roasted up beautifully. The long and short of it: the thing was genuinely delicious. Simply grilled over an open flame, its flavor outshone every mountain delicacy and riverside dainty I had ever eaten.

It reminded me of a saying from one of the jianghu's eccentric masters: There is no food in this world a man cannot eat. There are only foods a man may eat but once.

You were wrong, sir.

I can eat this as many times as I like.

A small village beneath Mount Song, in Dengfeng County, Henan.

Before making for the grounds of the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, I stopped at an upscale tavern. Between claiming the Dancheon Sword and taking the Vermilion Fruit, days had passed — yet perhaps because I had reached the Third Stage, my light-foot art had taken on such spring that I arrived earlier than expected. My purse was comfortably full, so the expense gave me no pause.

"Ahh—!"

I sipped Jiannanchun alone at my table, pausing between swallows to praise the greatness of baijiu.

Murmur, murmur.

Glances kept flicking my way, and whispers kept rising from all over the tavern — and the whispering of the women, who occupied every corner of the place, made up the lion's share of it.

I knew the reason. It was my face. Mine — Dancheon Myeong's.

One's appearance is a strange, slippery thing. This face was unquestionably mine. I was certain that if I walked back into the Dancheon clan this very instant, Uncle Yeobaek or my father would know me on sight. And yet, whether thanks to the Vermilion Fruit's merits, a few small changes had crept in. Fine — I couldn't in good conscience claim there were none. My features had settled, subtly, into harmony, and my skin had cleared to the luster of white jade.

And that was all. Certainly that was all. The trouble was that those few changes had turned Dancheon Myeong — never especially handsome, never especially plain — into Dancheon Myeong, the striking beauty. Catching my reflection in a bronze mirror, I had caught myself thinking, Well, well. Look how handsome you've become — and that, I must admit, was the undeniable truth.

So there I sat, sipping my wine alone and privately savoring the common folk's reactions — a novelty I had never once experienced, before my regression or after — when a voice spoke up.

"Excuse me, young hero. Might we share your table?"

I turned at the sound of a lovely voice and found a beautiful woman smiling at me — a beauty who would not have been outshone even beside Yang Su-rin, she called one of the Five Flowers of Anhui. A glance around told me the tavern was already full to bursting; full enough that a man hogging a whole table to himself felt a touch indecent.

"Mm."

As I weighed the request, my gaze slid past the woman — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and landed on a man scowling behind her.

That face was familiar.

"Aren't you Brother Namgung?"

Unmistakably Namgung Tan, eldest son of the Namgung Clan — one of the Five Great Families of the murim, and the martial house reckoned foremost in all of Anhui. He, too, must have come to attend the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly.

"And who might you be, that you know me?"

He knit his brow and studied me hard as he asked.

"Brother Namgung, don't you remember? I am Myeong, of the Dancheon clan."

Great clans, whatever their private feelings, invariably kept up a certain cordiality with one another; it was only natural that the direct blood of the Namgung Clan, masters of Anhui, and that of the Dancheon clan knew each other's faces.

He looked me over from head to toe, then spoke.

"Dancheon Myeong? Ah — the bastard, you mean?"

Right. I knew this. I knew that sons raised as golden boughs and jade leaves in great clans could grow up more than a little discourteous.

But one look at the smile hanging on Namgung Tan's face, and I knew something else besides: those words had been no slip of the tongue.

He had attacked me. Through the crudest, most contemptible weapon there is — a man's birth.

"It's been a while. Good to see you."

I greeted him with a smile, as though I hadn't heard.

"Please, the two of you — sit wherever you like."

"Much obliged. So even a bastard gets taught manners toward his betters."

Namgung Tan smiled thinly at me and took his seat.

I had not crossed a decade of life and death and come back just to swallow insults like this. It seemed I would have to give that pup a lesson he would not soon forget.