193. Incurable Disease (2)
Incurable Disease (2)
193. Incurable Disease (2)
I simply looked at her face and thought, An ordinary Buddhist nun whose monastic robes suited her. That was all. But she suddenly burst out sobbing and seized Lee Eun-ha's hand. As oblivious as Lee Eun-ha was, with her enormous internal energy she could have forced most female martial artists' hands off, but the nun gathered powerful internal energy in her grip—perhaps she used Seizing Hand Art or something similar—and held Lee Eun-ha's hand firmly, refusing to let go. If it had been Son Yeong, she would gladly have exchanged martial arts intricacies, but Lee Eun-ha, who had never experienced a single sparring match, leaped up from her chair in alarm.
"Ah... I'm... I'm sorry. In my desperation, I was discourteous. Your internal energy is remarkably profound as well, Medicine Immortal."
The nun hurriedly released her hand, rose from her seat, and bowed her head in apology. We were the ones truly startled. Internal energy comparable to Lee Eun-ha's. Now that she was here before us, her identity became clear. A member of the Four Flowers of the Martial World who had missed the Four Phoenixes Tournament, a lay disciple of the Emei Sect, Seo-ok. She was unmistakably Seo-ok.
I'd grown sloppy myself. A master with this level of internal energy should have been obvious from the start, but after coming to the Martial Alliance headquarters, every dog and cow I met was a first-rate master, so a full-fledged second-rate expert now drew no more attention than a passing stray puppy.
"Are you perhaps Heroine Seo-ok of the Emei Sect?"
When even Lee Eun-ha cautiously asked the nun, she kept her head politely bowed and gave a belated self-introduction.
"Yes. I am Seo-ok of the Emei Sect."
Now her face registered. Her features were quite pretty, even with her head completely clean-shaven. There were three main reasons she had looked like an ordinary nun to my eyes, and to Lee Eun-ha's.
First, I spent every day kissing and sucking with Jeong-hyang, so at this point hardly any beauty could startle me. Second, hair occupied a far larger share of a woman's beauty than I had realized. However attractive her features were, the first thing that caught the eye was ultimately that gleaming bald head. And finally, Seo-ok had shaved not only her head but her eyebrows clean off, making her look deeply bizarre. I'd heard that Japanese yakuza or biker gangs shaved their eyebrows to look fierce, and she fit that image exactly.
"So the rumors were true: Heroine Seo-ok has taken refuge in the Buddhist order. How may I assist you?"
Once she steadied herself, Lee Eun-ha asked her kindly. Seo-ok's eyes brimmed with tears again as she answered.
"I didn't become a nun, I tell you! I may be a disciple of Emei, but I absolutely refuse to become some bald-headed nun."
We were thrown off-balance by her tearful reply. Wait. If a young woman wasn't going to become a nun, why would she shave off hair as precious as her own life?
"I do have faith in the Buddha, but I had no intention of becoming a nun. I fell into a trap. I trusted my senior sisters' words, and I've been turned into a bald woman!"
At Seo-ok's baffling account, not the Medicine Immortal but the Moon Immortal clicked her tongue and spoke.
—Looks like she was had. Those insidious bitches, I swear. A hundred years pass and they never change. And they call themselves Buddhists on top of it—a passing dog would laugh.—
—You know something about this?—
—I told you, didn't I? Even though the Emei Sect seems like a sect of kindly nuns, female collectives are vicious. Their sect hierarchy is extremely rigid, and the harassment is no joke. She's clearly a pretty woman, so she'd have become a target. But she also possesses martial arts that her generational peers couldn't match, so her seniors couldn't harass her easily either. For people like her, those vicious crones devised an evil method centuries ago.
One day they secretly slip her a secret manual. It's also a Buddhist martial art, and the target is bound to be keenly interested in martial arts, so she naively falls for it.—
—A secret manual? Is it a problematic art like the Jeseon Classic?—
—No. The art itself is superb. It's actually one of the Shaolin's 108 Supreme Arts. You know it too, Reverend: Shaolin's greatest external art—the Indestructible Vajra Body. Of course, when they hand it over, they hide that it's the Indestructible Vajra Body and call it a manual left by a certain eminent monk, saying their own aptitudes are too lacking to master it and suggesting she try learning it. Since it's an external art, the Indestructible Vajra Body is very easy to learn. A martial artist of outstanding aptitude reaches the peak in no time.
And then... in keeping with the properties of the Indestructible Vajra Body, every hair on the body falls out. Because the Indestructible Vajra Body turns the entire skin of the body into something like diamond, without leaving even a hair follicle behind.—
In an instant, goosebumps erupted over my skin. Fuck. To harass one pretty junior, they dragged in one of the Shaolin 108 Supreme Arts and put on this circus? The Moon Immortal had been an Emei disciple in the past, but she knew this in far too much detail. The Moon Immortal too was beautiful and possessed powerful martial arts, wasn't she? Had she also fallen victim to this scheme? No. The Moon Immortal still had her hair, so she must have paid them back in style.
"You... you're suffering from hair loss?"
While I had been listening to the Moon Immortal's explanation, Lee Eun-ha was bewildered. She had reason to be: hair loss was rare in women.
"Yes! Not only my hair, but my eyebrows and even my pubic hair have fallen out completely!"
Seo-ok must have been extremely desperate, because she unhesitatingly mentioned pubic hair in front of me, a man she had just met. Lee Eun-ha wore a helpless expression. Her knowledge of medicine was vast, but she had no information about hair loss. She untied the rice paddle on her back and set it within my field of view, calling for her master, the Original Medicine Immortal.
—Oh dear. This is awkward. In my past life as well, countless people came asking me to cure their hair loss, but no pharmacological text contained a treatment for it.—
The Medicine Immortal was in just as difficult a position. She had reason to be. Even in the twenty-first century, where medicine had conquered cancer and AIDS, it had failed to conquer hair loss. I'd heard in passing that treating hair loss required a level of medical care comparable to regenerating a severed arm.
"I'm very sorry, but I know of no way to treat hair loss."
At Lee Eun-ha's courteous refusal, Seo-ok collapsed onto her knees as if she had received a death sentence and clutched the hem of Lee Eun-ha's skirt.
"No! If even you, Medicine Immortal, say you don't know, what am I supposed to do? It's... it's fine if it takes time, but please, once more, think it over carefully!"
"I'm sorry, but I'm just a slip of a girl who luckily acquired the Medicine Immortal's secret manual and has studied pharmacology for less than a year. And the Medicine Immortal's manual did not cover every illness in the world. It only describes urgent conditions that could become life-threatening."
A bald head was distressing, but it wasn't a fatal disease. However pitiful her situation of waking up one morning bald was, crying and clinging here was ultimately futile.
"This is a matter greater than life to me! You're beautiful too, Medicine Immortal, so you understand my heart. Overnight, my beautiful hair, my abundant pubic hair—all of it vanished! As a woman, I'm as good as dead!"
She looked genuinely desperate, but to an onlooker it was fairly ridiculous. Why had she kept bringing up pubic hair? Then again, this was an era when a hairless pussy was considered unlucky, so I supposed finding a husband without pubic hair would be quite difficult.
"Heroine Seo-ok. I don't have pubic hair either. But there's no problem at all. Truly, there is no way. I apologize for saying this, but you are a disciple of Emei, so even if you have no hair, no one will find it strange."
Lee Eun-ha's attempt to soothe her in her own way only made Seo-ok weep even harder on the spot.
"I don't want to be a bald-headed nun! All my life, I could barely walk outside without wearing a face veil. The men who saw my face fell in love with me! But this Daoist here—now he looks at my face and shows no reaction whatsoever!"
Seo-ok, who had worn a face veil and complained it was bothersome when she was beautiful, now wept like a child as if she had lost the whole world once her beauty was gone. Even as a man, I knew how immense a treasure beauty was to a woman, so I could understand her feelings, but I had no way to help even if I wanted to.
"Medical Immortal. Please help me. You're my only hope now. When I told my master I would leave for the Martial World to find the Medical Immortal, the elders dissuaded me, saying the Medical Immortal's true identity was the Blood Cult Leader. Do you know how I feel right now? If only I could grow my hair back, I'd feel like joining even the Blood Cult."
In the middle of the Martial Alliance headquarters, Seo-ok was making some highly dangerous statements. I understood how she felt, but did she think it was possible? The Blood Cult held a hundred-year-old grudge against the Han Chinese of the Central Plains—would they kindly treat a disciple of the Emei Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects and the Beggars' Sect?
"Even if you put it that way..."
Lee Eun-ha merely looked troubled. Maybe bringing this woman here really had been a mistake. Should I make her watch me fuck Murong Rin to her heart's content later?
—Hm. Difficult. I was going to ask Cho-ryeong, but she's such a good kid she'd obviously say let's help her without thinking through the consequences. I suppose this is something the Yeongsan Sect Leader, or you, Yeongmok, must decide?—
Geo Am spoke out of the blue.
—What? There's a treatment?—
—Huh? Isn't it obvious? By refining the purely external art of the Indestructible Vajra Body and blending external and internal arts—that's the Vajra Art I created, isn't it? The Vajra Art consumes internal energy, but its instantaneous defensive power is naturally higher than the Indestructible Vajra Body. If she begins learning the Vajra Art to a level beyond the Indestructible Vajra Body, her hair follicles will reopen, and though it will take time, the hair will grow back. The Vajra Art demands considerably more aptitude than the Indestructible Vajra Body, and the internal energy drain is severe, but for a girl like her, it shouldn't be a problem, should it?—
Ah... the Vajra Art. Right. The Vajra Art that Cho-ryeong had mastered—it had been an unusually meticulous martial art, uncharacteristic of Geo Am, that solved the hair loss problem, hadn't it?
—The trouble is, the Vajra Art was my signature martial art. I didn't even pass it on to Mount Tai; it became a signature technique of the Yeongsan Sect, taught only to our Cho-ryeong.—
Ah. Now I understood what Geo Am's worry meant. A woman's hair was precious, but to reveal the Vajra Art to an outsider for a reason like that, its value was simply too high. This was akin to demanding the Sichuan Tang Clan's signature internal art to treat a case of food poisoning.
—Junior Brother. Have you perhaps thought of a good solution?—
Lee Eun-ha, reading my expression, quickly sent a voice transmission.
—Yes. There is a method, actually. Seo-ok's hair loss is a side effect of the Indestructible Vajra Body. Senior Sister Cho learned the Vajra Art. If you layer the Vajra Art over the Indestructible Vajra Body, the hair follicles apparently reopen. The problem is, the Vajra Art is now a signature martial art of the Yeongsan Sect—not even Mount Tai has it—so it's difficult to share. It is, after all, a peerless supreme art.—
—Ah...—
Knowing the solution didn't change anything. The moment Lee Eun-ha's face mirrored mine, Seo-ok read our expressions with sudden, bestial eyes and lunged at us fiercely.
"You found a way, didn't you! Please tell me! Consider it saving a life and please just tell me. If you can cure this bald head of mine, I will repay the favor by any method whatsoever."
Her eyes brimmed with madness. Not Murong Rin's staged insanity, but the eyes of a true madwoman, enough to terrify even me. Fuck. She was scarier than a jiangshi.
"It's difficult, Heroine Seo-ok. We did indeed find a method, but it's an utterly impossible method. The Yeongsan Sect possesses a supreme art called the Vajra Art, left by Layman Geo Am. If you mastered this, it could treat the side effects of the Indestructible Vajra Body, but as you well know, Heroine, a sect's supreme art can never be disclosed to an outsider."
Even at Lee Eun-ha's calm explanation, Seo-ok's eyes did not change. Then she said something no one would have believed could come from Seo-ok of the Emei Sect.
"Then, I shall leave the Emei Sect and enter the Yeongsan Sect."