The Hundred-Year Sleeper
Black Water Gate was a modest sect rooted in the Shanxi region. People called it small-to-midsize as a matter of habit, but if you truly pressed the point, small was the more honest word for such a humble school.
Sorted by allegiance, it fell somewhere between the righteous path and the demonic — though unlike the usual rabble who flaunted their evil ways, it never preyed upon the common folk, and so the people of Shanxi more or less took Black Water Gate for an orthodox sect.
And yet Black Water Gate harbored a single secret that could never be told to the world: this sect had been founded by a demonic cultist.
An agent of the Fourth Rank of the Heavenly Demon Cult had planted himself in Shanxi and founded Black Water Gate. The man's name was Ma Han-seong.
The core mission of such an agent was to melt, unseen, into the common folk of the Central Plains, and having settled successfully in Shanxi, Ma Han-seong had chosen to found a sect.
That Ma Han-seong was the grandfather's grandfather of Ma Yu-han — the present young sect master of Black Water Gate. His great-grandfather, in other words.
Four generations carried — which meant roughly a hundred years had passed since Black Water Gate took root in Shanxi.
A hundred years. For a sect to hold its ground that long — too short a span to call ancient, perhaps, but a tenure worthy of the word "old-timer" all the same.
Ma Han-seong, the founding master of Black Water Gate, had been a capable and thorough man, which is how he managed to keep the truth of himself — a demonic cult's sleeper agent — hidden until the day his eyes closed for good.
And he was every bit as zealous in the Cult's service as he was capable. To him, the very existence of the Heavenly Demon was faith, and everything besides.
Settled in Shanxi, Ma Han-seong married the daughter of an obscure local family — then, naturally, had his son train in demonic arts and made a follower of the Heavenly Demon Cult of him, handing down everything he had.
Ma Han-seong's son did the same to his son, and that son to his own: each trained the next in demonic arts and raised him as a cultist. Hiding their identity as demonic cultists, burrowed deep into the jianghu of the Central Plains — "sleeper agents of the demonic path" was the fitting name for every last one of them.
And so, passed down through the generations, the current young sect master of Black Water Gate, Ma Yu-han, had likewise trained in demonic arts and become a follower of the Heavenly Demon Cult in childhood, before he was old enough to know any better.
But the founding master, Ma Han-seong, and the present young master, Ma Yu-han, could hardly be said to share the same heart. Ma Yu-han too had studied the Cult's doctrines and trained in demonic arts since boyhood — but he was a half-baked follower who had never glimpsed so much as a single hair of the Tianshan Mountains, let alone the great Heavenly Demon himself.
The depth of their devotion to the Cult could not possibly be the same, could it?
And yet Ma Yu-han defined himself, to himself, as a man of the demonic path — and this, too, was the majesty of faith.
"My son. The opportunity has finally come."
Ma Yu-han's father — Ma Cheol-gu, the present master of Black Water Gate — wore a face brimming with delight.
"An opportunity, Father? What do you mean, all of a sudden?"
The brightness on his father's face was one Ma Yu-han had never once seen, and it left him nothing but bewildered.
"The Cult has finally sent down its directive, you see. The Cult has not forgotten us after all."
"From... the Cult?"
Where Ma Cheol-gu's voice ran thick with feeling, Ma Yu-han's expression stayed flat. In truth, the Cult was a thing that had scarcely touched his life at all — he was a man past twenty now, and he had never once had anything to do with it.
Heedless of his son's indifference, drunk on his own joy, Ma Cheol-gu held out something kept within an elegant lacquered case.
"Look at this, my son."
"What is this?"
With his limited experience, Ma Yu-han could not place the precious object at a glance.
"The Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root."
"...!"
But however shallow his learning, he was not so dull as to be ignorant of that name. In an instant, greed filmed over Ma Yu-han's eyes.
"The Cult has seen fit to bestow this upon our Black Water Gate."
"Ooh..."
Awe for the Heavenly Demon Cult — awe that had long since withered away, or perhaps had never existed at all — came welling up from somewhere deep in Ma Yu-han's chest.
"And what are we to do with it now?"
Even as he asked, a secret hope was already coloring Ma Yu-han's face.
The hope that, for the sake of Black Water Gate's future and the Heavenly Demon Cult's alike, that root might be granted to him — the young sect master himself.
But...
"We sell it."
At his father's answer, Ma Yu-han's balloon burst with a hiss.
Ma Cheol-gu was hardly a man who could fail to read the look on his son's face.
"Ha ha, you rascal. Disappointed?"
"No, Father."
Ma Yu-han's words and his face were going their separate ways.
"My son, it is not that I have no wish to give this to you. But you know the rule as well as I do — a spiritual elixir is wasted on anyone who has trained in demonic arts."
"Ah..."
Ma Yu-han — trained in demonic arts, though he had never once put them to proper use — finally grasped his father's meaning.
"Though I cannot feed this treasure to you, every last thing it brings shall be yours," Ma Cheol-gu pressed on as though taking a vow. "With the money from selling the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root, our sect could leap straight into the ranks of the mid-tier sects."
"I suppose so."
"And you are the one who will carry Black Water Gate forward. Which means all of this becomes yours, does it not?"
"Father...!"
Hope rose in Ma Yu-han's face a second time.
A towering martial artist would be splendid, certainly — but the seat of heir to Black Water Gate, soon to be a famed mid-tier sect holding Shanxi in its grip, was no poor prize either.
Young master of a small sect. He would shed the sting of being sneered at as the young master of a two-bit little sect, and take up the standing of a mid-tier sect's heir.
Hope swelled in Ma Yu-han's eyes.
"Aengran! You in there?!"
Flushed with drink, Ma Yu-han had come looking for her at the courtesan house.
Aengran was an entertainer whose name carried weight through all of Shanxi — a courtesan of the highest rank, famed for a beauty said to rival the Five Beauties of Shanxi themselves.
She was also the haughty woman who, through nearly three years of Ma Yu-han's most devoted effort, had never spared him a single grain of interest.
An heir to a sect he might be, but Ma Yu-han of the two-bit Black Water Gate had never dared — not in his wildest dreams — to take Aengran by force.
Today's Ma Yu-han, however, was a different animal entirely. Confidence brimmed full in his face.
Not the liquid bravado of a wine-flushed head, but confidence in himself — in the man who would soon stand as heir to a mid-tier sect.
"Aengran! Didn't I just ask where you are?!"
"Young Master Ma, please. You can't do this."
"Out of my way!"
A servant of the house moved to bar him, but Ma Yu-han flung the man aside and strode indoors. What right had a mere courtesan-house servant to block the heir of a mid-tier sect?
"Aengran!"
A courtesan house is not so vast. A few steps further, and Ma Yu-han had the Aengran he had yearned for so desperately before his very eyes.
Not the sight he wanted, though.
Aengran sat trading pleasant words with a stranger of a man, wearing a warm, blooming smile he had never once seen on her in all his life.
"Hoho. Young Master Myeong, how are you so funny?"
"What's funny about it? I'm being perfectly serious."
"Hoho. Hilarious."
The old Ma Yu-han — young master of a two-bit sect — might well have backed away at the sight. But the Ma Yu-han of today could not. He was, after all, a man about to rise as heir to a mid-tier sect.
THUD!
Stone-faced, Ma Yu-han drove a qi-charged stomp into the floor, and the whole house rang. Only then did Aengran's gaze turn toward him.
"Aengran. What's this? Who's this pimp-faced bastard?"
"Young Master Ma, what is the meaning of this?"
As Aengran moved to take him to task, the stranger stepped in front of her.
He did not like that.
Who did this bastard think he was, guarding his Aengran?!
"And who are you?"
"Me?"
The infuriatingly handsome man answered,
"Just a passing pimp-faced bastard, that's all."
And he smiled, bright as morning.
"You. Come outside with me."
Ma Yu-han took an instant dislike to the man, and he meant to show him what he was made of.
"Young Master Ma! What is the meaning of this outrage?!"
An enraged Aengran shouted him down.
"Huh? Uh, well, that is..."
The courage of the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root he had gained, granted — but that had been barely half a day ago. Ma Yu-han's true nature was what it had always been, and Aengran's shout, sharp as autumn frost, stung him to the quick.
"I-I'm sorry, Aengran."
Back in his natural skin, Ma Yu-han apologized.
"I'm fine, Ranmae."
"Young Master Myeong, I'm sorry. Please don't let it trouble you."
But Aengran's attention was not on the apologizing Ma Yu-han. It had settled on that bastard — that "Young Master Myeong."
Grrk.
Anger flared across Ma Yu-han's face all over again.
That "Ranmae" — slipping so easily from the pimp-faced bastard's mouth, a pet name Ma Yu-han had never once been permitted to use.
And those words from the lips of the Aengran he loved so desperately — telling him not to let it bother him.
The wine-hot flush in his skull.
The certainty that he would rise as heir to a mid-tier sect.
Khh! It all tangled together, and an arrogant fury took root in Ma Yu-han's eyes.
"You bitch!"
Unable to leash his flailing rage, Ma Yu-han finally crossed the line.
"Kyaaah!"
His palm tore through the air toward Aengran's cheek.
But even that was not to be.
Snap.
The pimp-faced bastard planted himself in front of Aengran and snatched Ma Yu-han's wrist clean out of the air.
Only then did Ma Yu-han's senses come flooding back.
What in the world was this?
"You...!"
And Aengran — what was with that viperous glare of hers?
She should have been gazing upon him — the man soon to be a mid-tier sect's heir — with courting eyes by now. Why that look?
Ma Yu-han's gaze swung to the pimp-faced bastard who had blocked his way.
That was the one. That bastard was the villain behind it all.
"You call me a pimp-faced pretty-boy, and yet you're the rake who raises his hand against a woman?"
A face like some flowered young prince, and a tongue every bit as slick.
"Come outside. I shall show you the bitter taste of the jianghu."
The sight of this soft-looking dandy posturing simply because a woman was watching was beyond galling.
Then again — it was exactly what Ma Yu-han wanted.
"Fine. Good."
He would teach the bastard the scorching taste life could carry.
But just as they were about to leave the courtesan house, Aengran spoke to the pimp-faced bastard.
"Young Master Myeong, be careful. That man is a martial artist."
"Ha ha. Don't worry, Ranmae. I've picked up a martial art or two myself."
Grrk.
Ma Yu-han's mind was made up.
He was going to kill the bastard.
"How about that spot over there?"
I asked Ma Yu-han.
Where I pointed was the depths of an alley devoid of all human presence — a spot I had scouted well in advance for precisely this moment.
"Good."
So saying, Ma Yu-han kicked off with his lightfoot art and soared away. Showing off, plainly. He had not yet reached his prime, and the sheer clunkiness of it — all surface polish, nothing beneath — very nearly pulled a laugh out of me. I swallowed it.
I followed on his heels, performing a lightfoot art a shade cruder than his yet graceful to the eye. Flowered Prince Footwork, if it needed a name.
Mine was a position that required being underestimated right now, so effort on this scale was nothing at all.
We stood facing each other.
"Swear that even now you will kneel before Ranmae and beg her pardon, and I shall forgive you."
Naturally, this was groundwork — laid to rake his temper all the hotter.
"You bastard!"
A first-rate goading stratagem truly does spare one the time of weighing right and wrong — Ma Yu-han drew his blade and rushed me.
Still — for the young master of an entire sect to move that clumsily... it was enough to summon a sigh.
I squared my stance.
From here, I had to begin the performance I had described to Yi Chun-baek.
KAAANG!
"Ugh."
A block, barely held.
Whish!
"Tchah!"
A thrust, loose and full of holes.
Vwoom!
"Hup!"
A dodge by a hair's breadth.
What played out was a contest one could only call dead even.
To any onlooker it would read as a fight to the finish — but what bloomed at my fingertips was a performance of wholehearted half-measures.
And the unpolished look of my martial arts suited the Flowered Prince's getup to a tee, wiping away every last trace of suspicion.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
And so, at full boil, the exchange blew past a hundred clashes in the blink of an eye.