The Shadowless Divine Thief
The Shadowless Divine Thief.
In the murim, it was spoken of as the epithet of a legendary master thief. In truth, however, it is better understood as an epithet that stands in place of a station, rather than one belonging to any particular person. Just as the sovereign of the Heavenly Demon Cult always bears the title of Heavenly Demon, and just as Wudang's chief disciple succeeds to the title of Taecheong, so too was every mysterious gentleman of the rafters — one reputed to have mastered lightness arts and stealth of transcendent heights, able to steal anything he pleased — called the Shadowless Divine Thief.
There is no other logic by which to explain how a name that existed even in that ancient age, more than a thousand years gone — the era when Shaolin was founded and Wudang first sprang forth — should still exist in the present day.
As a personal impression, I would say the epithet is a remarkably well-coined one. It names thievery so godlike that it leaves not even a shadow behind, and in truth it must be judged the very ideal to which all who live by theft aspire. Thieves are referred to politely as "gentlemen of the rafters," and I am aware that many take the Shadowless Divine Thief to be simply a higher-grade equivalent of the same.
I cannot say with certainty how things stood in ancient times, but in the murim of today, that is a misunderstanding worth setting right. The reason is simple: in today's murim, the gentleman of the rafters refers to a person who actually exists, while the Shadowless Divine Thief denotes not a person at all, but an unknown phenomenon.
"Ah, so the Shadowless Divine Thief has graced us with a visit."
That is to say, the Shadowless Divine Thief ought rightly to be seen not as the epithet of a legendary master thief, but as a figure of speech — the phrase uttered when a theft goes unsolved or a precious thing vanishes without a trace.
Brother Gwak had named the culprit behind the theft of Wudang's hidden treasure, the Taecheong-dan — the Supreme Clarity Elixir — as none other than the Shadowless Divine Thief. A culprit whom even the Great Wudang had failed to track down; one might as well infer that its true identity was a ghost.
Wudang was a great sect of towering renown. Befitting the grandeur of so vast a sect, it was only inevitable that many guests would come to call and lodge within its grounds. Knowing that the guest halls housing Wudang's visitors were clustered near the Taihe Palace, my steps in search of Chun-baek naturally turned in that direction.
One would think a great sect like Wudang would keep its bounds under stringent guard, but such is not in fact the case. The wall of disciples watching the approaches to the mountain gate was thick enough as it was, and any witless ruffian who dared make trouble within the Great Wudang's gates would long since have met the blade and passed on. An outsider could hardly roam freely at this hour, well past the hour of the Rat — but if that outsider were a master of the Mystic Realm, the situation changed entirely.
Whoosh.
The Cloud-Treading Steps, the lightness art of the Dancheon Sword Clan, took lightness and elusive swiftness for its very foundation, and so my silhouette crossed the roofs of Wudang's halls no differently from a gentleman of the rafters.
'Here he is.'
We had parted ten days before without so much as an explanation, so I had not been told precisely where Chun-baek was lodging — but that was no obstacle. My vast qi-sense, which had lately begun to grasp the fringes of spirituality, had no trouble sensing the presence of so extraordinary a man as Chun-baek.
Softly.
I alighted without a sound before the guest hall in which I was certain Chun-baek resided.
"Do come in."
Chun-baek's voice reached me in the same instant. I had hardly unfolded my stealth arts to their utmost, yet I had not expected to be seen through so instantly at such an hour. Chun-baek's all-around vigilance, honed by a wanderer's life, truly lived up to his name.
"Ahem."
The place was a guest hall to begin with, but its present occupant was Chun-baek, so out of a guest's courtesy I announced myself and opened the door. Within, in the center of a room as trim and orderly as befitted Wudang's upright spirit, sat Chun-baek.
"Is today the day?" Chun-baek asked.
I had told him nothing in detail; I had merely let drop that there was business at Wudang besides the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe.
"That's right."
At my answer, Chun-baek rose to his feet.
"Where are we to go?"
"To Yeongeun-gung."
"Hm."
Yeongeun-gung — the Palace of Welcoming Grace. Befitting a name that meant "welcoming grace," it was the hidden repository where Wudang kept every spiritual herb and elixir in its possession. It was also the home ground of Wudang's Medicine Pavilion. And it goes without saying that it must be seen as a place where a guard force far exceeding the mountain gate's was stationed at all times.
"Yeongeun-gung, you say..."
The name of Wudang's Yeongeun-gung was a fairly famous one, and Chun-baek seemed to know it.
"Might I ask why we are going?"
That he had refrained from prying all this while was proof enough that Chun-baek was a true gentleman, and no meddlesome busybody like Brother Gwak or Myeong-gae — so it was only right to tell him the truth now.
"I believe the Shadowless Divine Thief will be calling on Yeongeun-gung."
At that, Chun-baek's face sank into deep deliberation. At last, having worked the matter through, he asked carefully:
"...You're not telling me you're that Shadowless Divine Thief, are you?"
"Mm."
I could see why he had deliberated. Evidently the affair of the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root at Black Water Gate was carved deep into his memory, so the misunderstanding would need untangling. Just as I opened my mouth to set it straight—
"Take me with you."
"...What?"
My brother Dancheon Hak was there too.
In the murim there is a saying: embracing risk. It is not a phrase for chivalrous heroes who pursue justice with no thought for their own safety, but one used chiefly by gambling addicts and the lowest dregs among bettors. Interpreted, it means that the higher the risk, the greater the reward that answers it — one might as well say the phrase itself is the essence of gambling.
Hence examples of it are easily found in bullfights and horse races, the very bywords for gambling. A weak bull or a slow horse naturally invites little hope of victory. As I have said many a time, there is no absolute in any contest — but it is common knowledge that a weak bull or a slow horse rarely wins. And so in gambling, one bets on the weak one at long odds to offset that low probability. Should the long shot one embraced at risk actually win, an overnight fortune would be no dream. Among gamblers, the method goes by the name of the leverage effect.
It looks extreme at a glance, yet one might say it resembles life itself. That only those who embrace risk may hope for great reward is, after all, a scheme faithful to the law of cause and effect.
I am no degenerate who gambles, but I recalled that maxim for one reason alone: I was embracing that very risk at this very moment.
"Follow me closely."
Nod. Nod.
At my cautious voice transmission, Chun-baek and Dancheon Hak dipped their heads — and in the same breath, we began crossing the roofs of Wudang's halls.
Swish!
All three of us were masters of supremely refined lightness arts, so reaching Yeongeun-gung would take no great time.
For covert work, it is said, the fewer hands the better. Highwaymen might ride in packs, but thieves generally work alone, or in pairs at most, for exactly that reason: the more people involved, the thinner the stealth and the mobility inevitably become. That said, added numbers do not bring losses alone. More hands and more eyes widen one's reach considerably, after all. The risk that our movements would be betrayed had grown, but the ground we could watch had expanded — risk acceptance in its classic form, one might say.
Clatter—
"Whoops."
"Shh—!"
I hastily clapped a hand over the mouth of my brother Dancheon Hak, who had misstepped on a weak spot of the eaves.
"Whew..."
Right. The truth of it was, I had done nothing but pile up excuses for having failed to shake Dancheon Hak loose.
Back in my Myeong-gae days, building on Brother Gwak's information, I had been able to gather intelligence on the Taecheong-dan theft from every manner of stratum. A matter as grave as the theft of the Taecheong-dan was hardly the sort of thing that should have reached the ears of a mere third-rank beggar — but having already come upon it, digging deeper was possible. I had found a definitive buoy in the sea of information that flooded into the Beggars' Sect like the tide, and for one known as Myeong-gae, a capable information broker, the rest was no difficult task. In those days I did not yet know of the Yakseon Heart Decision, so I suppose I had simply meant to do Wudang a favor and ride the goodwill to glory.
Anyway. The theft of the Taecheong-dan had taken place exactly half a month after the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was held. For so momentous an incident, the date being pinned down so precisely was a rare stroke of fortune. Many of the rising talents who had taken part in the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe were still staying on at Wudang, which tangled the affair all the further — and if I had to guess, the reason word of it reached even Brother Gwak's ears lay with one of those outsiders as well.
There was information from after the theft, too. After a full six years of pursuit, the case of the stolen Taecheong-dan had been closed as the mystery of the Shadowless Divine Thief. That's right: despite the Great Wudang's arduous efforts, far from capturing the culprit, they had failed even to identify one. For me this was, in its own way, a point of regret — had the culprit been identified even in the future, the theft of the Taecheong-dan would have been a matter I could resolve as easily as turning over my palm, now that I had regressed.
For the record, the reason the pursuit ended after a mere six years was that the Great Orthodox-Demonic War broke out. Even so, I — once a capable information broker — had managed to lay hands on one meaningful piece of the investigation: the Taecheong-dan was never found anywhere within Wudang's mountain gate. In other words, Wudang had established beyond doubt that the deed was, at the very least, not the work of an insider. Since that fact would serve as my guideline for tonight, it was achievement enough to be called meaningful. What it meant was this: whoever infiltrated Yeongeun-gung from outside tonight was the culprit.
"Brother Hak, take the rear left of Yeongeun-gung. Chun-baek, the rear right. I will cover both approaches at the front. Should either of you notice anything amiss, signal the others by voice transmission."
The moment my transmitted voice faded, the figures of my brother Dancheon Hak and Chun-baek vanished, swift and elusive as drifting smoke. They were capable men both; they would find their positions and melt into hiding without trouble.
Tonight, from this hour on, we would watch Yeongeun-gung with iron-tight vigilance until dawn broke. Two masters of the Harmony Realm and one of the Mystic Realm. To slip into Yeongeun-gung through the stringent watch of three was to be judged impossible — even if the one attempting it were truly the legendary master thief, the Shadowless Divine Thief himself.
Darkness had settled all around, and the hour of the Tiger had passed. We had begun the watch around the hour of the Rat, so a good four hours had slipped by. Standing guard through the dead of night is wearying work — by the measure of ordinary men, that is. My brothers and I were all masters who had long since achieved the divine blossoming, and our bodies could go three days without sleep or food without great harm. And so what kept my nerves drawn taut was not fatigue, but tension. The reason, I judged, was that the mystery which even the Great Wudang had failed to solve had yet to show its face.
Time flowed on regardless, and past the hour of the Rabbit the sun began to rise, pale and hazy. And then—
"The... the Taecheong-dan!"
Faintly, a scream from someone of the Medicine Pavilion tore through the tranquil dawn. I caught Chun-baek's eye, then Dancheon Hak's. Both shook their heads. Meaning that no one had entered Yeongeun-gung — and no one had left it.
'Hm...'
Truly, a thing to make ghosts weep.