Faint Often Enough and It Becomes an Illness
The dead of night, in the small hours before dawn. All the clamor of the day had melted away into stillness, and the Medicine Hall, too, lay wrapped in a deep, silent hush.
"Hmm..."
In that quiet darkness, someone's low groan drifted up, faint and weary. I sat propped against the headboard of the sickbed, sunk deep in thought.
So what do I do...
So much had come crashing down on me today, one thing after another, that I hadn't had a spare moment to think. Only now, with the quiet dark settled in, could I finally start sorting through the mess in my head.
The most promising way back is still unifying the murim, isn't it. If I'm clearing this as an Orthodox-faction character, becoming the greatest under heaven has to be the easiest route...
I racked my brain over the clear conditions for Murim Conqueror. In truth, the greatest-under-heaven ending wasn't the only one, but the other routes leaned heavily on luck — on things derailing no matter what I intended — so I'd always been wary of them.
The Emperor route was the starkest example: it meant raising a rebellion against a neutral imperial court and climbing into the seat above the Emperor himself. The Unification route meant becoming Alliance Leader and grinding the Unorthodox faction, the Heavenly Demon Cult, and every foreign power beyond the frontier into dust. Compared to those, becoming the greatest under heaven was almost the easy road.
That was half the reason the Heavenly Demon run had been such a nightmare in the first place — on that route, murim unification was the bare minimum for the ending.
The greatest under heaven, huh... which means I'd have to reach at least the Realm of Life and Death... and unless I came here on purpose, I don't see that happening easily...
"Haah... I just hate this world..."
I tipped my head back, stared at the ceiling, and let out a long, bitter sigh.
If I'd landed in the Unorthodox faction, at least I'd have had some room to wriggle. But no — Orthodox, and of all things one of the Five Great Clans... the universe really is a son of a bitch.
I figured I was strong enough to earn the word monster now and then. The problem was that flexing that power here would earn me the label for real — and a one-way ticket onto the murim's public enemy list.
Worse, this scrawny body probably couldn't draw out a fraction of my strength right now, goddamn it... If I fought for my life this very second, forget the Heavenly Demon — these so-called top-hundred masters who barely deserve the title would carve me into ribbons...
I scratched at my head, then slid under the covers.
Whew... think positive. I've been bored stiff lately anyway. One more playthrough — and I'll pick up some martial arts on the side while I'm at it...
I smoothed the tangle of thoughts as best I could, lay down, and reached for sleep. How much time had passed, I couldn't say. As my mind quietly blurred at the edges, I drifted off with one last fleeting thought.
A hide-your-power meta, my ass....
At that very moment—
Somewhere in the Dang Clan estate, someone who had been lying there like the dead bolted upright.
"Hahk....."
Dang Mulin panted hard, shaking the fog from her mind. Though the night still carried the chill of the cold season, sweat poured off her as she scanned the room.
"Muyeong... where's Muyeong...!"
Her frantic gaze swept her surroundings — and found only her own quarters staring back at her.
CRASH!!!
In her haste she bowled over everything standing beside her and burst out of her quarters.
"Haah... haah... haah..."
Dang Mulin tore through the midnight dark toward the Medicine Hall, lungs heaving, a single thought hammering with every stride.
Muyeong... please...
A few days earlier...
For Dang Mulin, that day had been the very stuff of nightmares.
A matter on which the Murim Alliance had requested the Dang Clan's cooperation had taken her out of Sichuan, through Hubei — where the Alliance stood — and all the way to Gansu and back.
Nearly a year away from home. She had finally dragged her worn-out body back to the estate, stopped by the ancestral shrine for a moment, and as she stepped out again, a thought drifted through her mind...
I wonder if Muyeong's been all right...
Because of what had happened before, guilt was always the first thing she felt when she thought of her little brother. Leading her exhausted body toward her quarters for some much-needed rest, she was still turning him over in her mind when—
"!!!!!"
A commotion came rumbling from somewhere close by...
"Now what..."
Already bone-tired, Dang Mulin turned toward the scream with irritation written across her face — and then she froze to the spot.
"MOVE!!!"
Just ahead, the Dark Heaven Grand Master was tearing toward her at a dead sprint, her little brother slung over his shoulder.
Dangling limp across his shoulder, Muyeong's face was as pale as a corpse's.
Her heart seemed to drop straight through her feet. Without a second's hesitation, Dang Mulin took off after him.
His footsteps only stopped at the Medicine Hall, where the Medicine Hall Master came rushing out in alarm and gathered up her brother's limp body.
Taking Dang Muyeong into his arms, the Hall Master hurried inside, shouting over his shoulder.
"Nobody comes inside!"
Dang Mulin rounded on the Dark Heaven Grand Master, urgent.
"What in the world happened..."
Even as she asked, she searched his face — and found it drained white.
Haggard, the Grand Master answered.
"Guard me... for a moment..."
With that he dropped to the floor, folded into a cross-legged seat, and began circulating his energy. The moment he started, a virulent poison miasma unlike anything she had ever seen from him came seeping out of his body in visible, roiling waves.
Every part of her screamed to rush inside and see her brother with her own eyes, but she couldn't leave the Grand Master defenseless, so she waited for his meditation to run its course.
A short while later.
"Whew....."
Only now did color begin creeping back into the Grand Master's face. He rose from his seat with a long exhale.
Relieved, Dang Mulin moved to step inside — and at that exact moment, the Medicine Hall Master opened the door and came out, his expression stricken.
At the sight of that face, the Grand Master's voice cracked across the hall.
"How is the young master?!"
In answer, the Hall Master stroked his goatee once, twice — then slowly shook his head.
"Bring the Clan Leader."
At that, Dang Mulin's reason snapped clean through. She lunged for the room where Muyeong had been carried.
"Muyeong!!!"
Grab—
The Medicine Hall Master caught Dang Mulin by the right arm before she could bolt inside. Then he handed her the cruelest words she had ever heard.
"It's too late..."
As if his voice hadn't reached her at all, Dang Mulin strained against his grip.
"Let go of me!"
Seeing her out of her mind with grief, the Hall Master raised his voice.
"I told you it's too late!"
Deep sorrow was carved into his face as he said it.
"By the time he reached the Medicine Hall, his breath had already stopped. It hadn't been long — I tried to piece it back together, but..."
The Hall Master broke off and let out a heavy groan. He steadied his breathing, then pressed on.
"That boy's body is drowning in a vicious poison as we speak. Don't go barging in there and end up needing a funeral of your own. Wait until the Clan Leader arrives."
The truth crashed over her — her brother's breath already gone, the poison devouring his body so lethal that nothing short of their father could hope to counter it — and a vast helplessness swallowed her whole...
Thud—
Dang Mulin sank to the floor, her face hollowed out, and broke into wrenching sobs.
"No... nooo! Muyeong, please."
"Hng... hng..."
At the sight of her collapsed on the ground, wailing over the loss of her little brother, everyone in the Medicine Hall could do nothing but fall silent.
Before long, the Dark Heaven Grand Master returned with the Clan Leader and a handful of senior retainers.
The Clan Leader's face was utterly blank as he addressed the Medicine Hall Master.
"Where is my boy...?"
For all the blankness of his expression, the pressure rolling off him pressed down on everyone in the room until no one dared so much as breathe.
The Medicine Hall Master led him inside, to where Muyeong lay. The door thudded shut, and after that, only Dang Mulin's weeping filled the silence.
Before long, the Poison Refinement Hall Master came over and patted her shoulder, trying to offer what comfort he could.
"What in the world happened in that meeting...? The doors of the Clan Leader's Hall fly open out of nowhere, and suddenly Muyeong's dead? Somebody had better start explaining."
He finished by fixing the Dark Heaven Grand Master with a long, hard glare.
Every other gaze in the room swung toward him as well. The Grand Master took a steadying breath, leaned his back against the wall, and began, carefully.
"The young master came by the Dark Heaven Hall this afternoon. He proposed giving Miss Mulin a scare, now that she was due back today. As it happened, we had nothing pressing on our hands, so we agreed..."
"So the three of us — myself, the Vice Grand Master, and the young master — sat down in the pavilion in our inner compound to work out the details."
He paused, swallowed hard, and went on.
"Anyway... at some point, a maid came by with refreshments and tea. We were all eating and drinking without a thought in the world when the young master suddenly collapsed. The poison was probably in his tea, but..."
He had barely finished when the Execution Hall Master cut in.
"What happened to the maid?"
The Grand Master exhaled.
"Hah... I couldn't tell you. The moment it happened, I hoisted the young master onto my back and ran. The last thing I saw was the Vice Grand Master lunging straight at her."
The words were barely out of his mouth before the Execution Hall Master was striding for the door, his face dark as a storm front.
"That maid needs to stay breathing, whatever it takes."
Once the Execution Hall Master was gone, the Grand Master picked the thread back up.
"And after that... well, you all know the rest."
With those words, silence settled over the room once more.
Some time later...
Screeeech—
The door slid open, and the Clan Leader and the Medicine Hall Master stepped out.
The Clan Leader's voice came out dry and hollow.
".....Prepare the funeral."
The sight of him — worn hollow, speaking of his own son's funeral in that dead-flat voice — sealed every mouth in the room.
At those words, delivered like a verdict, Dang Mulin's mind simply went white.
The next day...
A suffocating heaviness hung over the Dang Clan estate in Sichuan.
Even the servants, who on any ordinary day would have been trading idle jokes, now spoke in careful, hushed fragments, their faces grave.
"Out of nowhere, just like that... what a bolt from the blue..."
"I know. Heaven is cruel... taking both of the Clan Leader's sons."
"Then who becomes the next Clan Leader...?"
"Shh! The funeral isn't even over — have you no shame, talking like that?!"
Such whispers drifted through the halls. And beneath that solemn hush, the funeral proceeded.
Dang Mulin came back to herself and ran to where the funeral was being held, wailing.
"Muyeong.... Muyeong....."
When the guards moved to block her from opening the coffin — she only wanted to see her brother's face one last time — the Clan Leader gave the smallest shake of his head, and they stepped aside.
Sobbing, she pried the lid open.
Inside, her brother lay with his eyes closed, looking for all the world like he was only sleeping...
And then, softly—
Her dead brother quietly opened his eyes.
"!!!!!"
At the sight of her dead brother's eyes opening, Dang Mulin couldn't even manage a scream. She simply fainted on the spot.
Back to a moment ago...
Praying with everything she had that what had happened before she fainted was no dream, Dang Mulin reached the Medicine Hall.
Screech!!!
At the rough scrape of the door, one of the Medicine Hall staff who had been dozing inside jolted upright.
"I... wasn't sleeping..."
She ignored him and pushed inside — and there was Muyeong, breathing deep and even in his sleep, color warm in his face.
Squeeze—
Dang Mulin seized her brother by both cheeks and pulled him into a fierce embrace.
"Thank goodness... oh, thank goodness..."
As for me — jolted out of a sound sleep by a weeping woman slapping both my cheeks, and now pinned fast in her arms — I thought:
Fuck... just let me sleep...