The Devil Sword Barrel (2)
"This feels like hitting the absolute jackpot……."
The two women had extraordinary figures.
If a beauty contest were judged on backs alone, both of them would have taken first place as co-champions. The more astonishing of the two, though, was Je Chuyeong. She was calm and demure by nature, and from the outside her frame looked slender and delicate. But her bare body told an entirely different story. She was even more voluptuous than her older sister, Je Hayeong.
"We didn't strip down so you could admire our figures, you know?"
Je Hayeong said.
"Unless I'm blind, I can't exactly not look. But why are you showing me the Jangbodo?"
As he asked, Jin Yigang studied the two women's backs. They had gone so far as to undress for his benefit—there was no reason to refuse.
"You've more than earned the right to see it."
She had heard the whole story from Mu Daebo. It would be no exaggeration to say that Jin Yigang was the one who had wiped out the Five Vices of Heavenly Cripples.
"……Don't tell me this is about keeping that oath—the one about becoming your servant if you saved my life?"
"Would you like to be our master?"
Je Hayeong turned her head to look at him.
"That doesn't sound like a good idea to me."
"Scared?"
"Yes."
Jin Yigang nodded without hesitation.
"We're not frightening people."
"My creed since childhood has been 'never take on what you can't answer for.' But……"
"Go on."
"You could've just shown me the map. Why the full nudity?"
"You saved our lives."
"As payment?"
"Just kidding. The truth is, our family has spent over ten years studying this map. We identified the mountains, valleys, hills, and plains marked on it. Then we split the map in two—engraving the left half on my back and the right half on Chuyeong's. Engraving them on our backs was our own idea. The shoulder blades stand in for small hills, the long ridge where the spine runs marks a valley, and the buttocks represent the mountains."
"……"
While Je Hayeong spoke, Jin Yigang kept studying the map.
"So you couldn't crack the map's secret?"
"If we had, we wouldn't have begged the Imperial Court for help."
"Is Yul Hancheon, the man downstairs now, the one the Imperial Court sent?"
"No."
"Then……"
"To be precise, we don't know who he is either. We were only told that without him, no one could interpret the map."
"Are you planning to show him your backs too?"
"We'll give him the original map."
"What a relief."
"I don't see why that's a relief for you."
"Good food tastes better when it's shared, but beautiful things are prettier when only one person gets to look."
"Hohoho! You do talk a silver stream, don't you."
"Stay just like that."
Jin Yigang walked around to the side of the two women's heads. Standing there, he gazed down at the maps etched into their skin.
"Tuck your arms in."
"Like this?"
The two women drew their arms inward against their chests.
"Lift your hips higher and raise both shoulders—dig the spine in deeper."
"You're not just trying to see the front, are you?"
"I told you—I never take on what I can't answer for."
"Then why are you swallowing?"
"That's called the male instinct. It only activates in the presence of a beautiful woman's body. Anyway—were these really drawn on a single sheet?"
"They were. Why?"
"Same picture……"
Jin Yigang tilted his head.
"What do you mean, same picture?"
"If you peel away the shimmering layer at the top of the design on Aunt Chuyeong's back, the two images become identical."
"Did you just call us aunt?"
"Isn't that what we agreed on?"
"It's just…… sitting naked in front of a nephew feels a little strange."
"Stop swallowing."
"I wasn't swallowing!"
"I meant Aunt Chuyeong, not Aunt Hayeong."
"I-I wasn't swallowing."
Je Chuyeong cried out, raising her upper body slightly—and in doing so, exposed a hint of her chest.
"I can see everything."
"Hmph! Well, I've seen everything too."
"Seen what…… wait, were you there?"
"I'm a physician too, you know? My sister can vouch for that."
"So that means……"
"I stimulated the circulation and even palpated you by hand."
"Oh my—these old ladies……"
"If we're old ladies, then what does that make you, you brat?"
"That's exactly why you two never got married, huh."
"You really want to die, don't you?"
Je Hayeong sprang to her feet and glared at him, nostrils flaring. Even with her chest fully bared, she didn't seem to care in the slightest.
"Ah―!"
Jin Yigang let out a low groan.
"What now?"
"I've got it."
"Got what…… don't tell me you've interpreted—"
Je Hayeong stared at him, eyes gone wide as saucers.
"There's a reason the same picture was drawn twice, in a pair, on a single sheet."
"What reason?"
"Could you stand up?"
"Stand up?"
"Aunt Chuyeong, press your right side against Aunt Hayeong's left, and Aunt Hayeong lies down on her side. Not flat on the floor—the two edges of the drawings have to meet. Like this."
Jin Yigang pressed the outer edges of his left and right palms together, forming a ninety-degree angle between them.
"You hold her."
"I need to look at the drawings from here."
"Can't you look while you hold her?"
"I could. But if I'm holding her, I'll be seeing a lot more than the drawings. All of the aunts, in fact."
He said it as he stepped in front of Je Hayeong.
"You've got some nerve, you know that? And are you really going to keep saying 'aunt' every other word?"
"You are my aunts."
"What kind of aunt is only two years older than you?"
"I'm only thirty-four?"
"You don't look it, do you?"
"Maybe a little saggy……"
"That's not sag. That's just size."
Je Hayeong barked, pointing at her own chest.
"She's right."
Je Chuyeong chimed in.
"Anyway, these old ladies……"
Jin Yigang shook his head, then knelt down in front of Je Hayeong.
"Do I just lie straight and still?"
"Yes."
Jin Yigang slid both arms under Je Hayeong's flank and hips and lifted her. Afraid she might tip sideways, Je Hayeong quickly grabbed hold of his arm.
Pressing their flesh together so the edges of the two maps aligned, Jin Yigang compared the drawings.
"There it is."
He nodded.
"What's 'there'?"
"The design carved into Aunt Chuyeong's back is the reflection on a water's surface."
"So when the map was drawn, they rendered both the original and its mirror image together?"
"Exactly. The picture on Aunt Chuyeong's back is the reverse of the one on Aunt Hayeong's—in other words, it's a scene reflected in a bronze mirror. And in the mountains, the only thing that can act as a giant mirror is a lake."
Jin Yigang set Je Hayeong back down.
She sat and stared at the design on her sister's back.
"Ha……!"
Je Hayeong gazed at it with a dazed expression. The Jecheon Medical Manor had obtained the map ten years ago. She had studied it without missing a single day and crossed the Funiu Mountains countless times. And yet the secret she had never managed to unravel, Jin Yigang had solved at a single glance. So this was what they meant when they said treasure chooses its own master.
"May I go now?"
"Do you have any idea where the place on the map is?"
"I have a guess. But would I tell the man sent by the Imperial Court?"
"Not a chance in hell."
Je Hayeong shook her head.
"I'll be going, then."
Jin Yigang left the room and headed downstairs. The five old men, Mu Daebo, and the Three Fiends were all drinking together in one spot.
"Over here, lad."
Mu Daebo raised a hand and beckoned him over.
Jin Yigang went to an empty seat and sat down.
"Why are we lingering here?"
Old Man Na asked.
"Beats me. Probably because of those folks."
Jin Yigang pointed at Yul Hancheon's party. Yul Hancheon was still seated in the same place, sipping his tea.
"Care for a drink?"
Na Hu-jeok asked, lifting the bottle.
"Pour."
Jin Yigang held out his cup.
"Receive it with both hands, you brat."
"No."
"……"
Na Hu-jeok stared at him.
"If we rank by who dies first instead of who was born first, I'm your senior. So quit your whining and hold it out."
"Sounds like you're saying you'll die before me. Is that right?"
"Just hold the damn cup."
Jin Yigang set down his cup and walked outside.
A short while later, he came back carrying a large boulder. First he drained the drink Na Hu-jeok had poured him, then drew the blade Yu Bong-ji had given him and brought it down on the stone.
The rock split cleanly in two.
"Well, I'll be damned!"
Na Hu-jeok cocked his head.
"What?"
Jin Yigang looked at him.
"That stone isn't something even a martial artist could cut through easily. Not with a divine sword, either."
"I just swing eighty-four thousand times, that's all."
"Eighty-four thousand times?"
"Pass through every one of the Thousand Martial Statues at the Jecheon Medical Manor and you've performed exactly eighty-four thousand distinct movements. Add in the footwork and it comes to a hundred sixty-eight thousand."
"You trained there?"
Nang Baek asked, eyes wide with astonishment.
"Trained, my ass. I was stuffing myself with drugs that should've killed me and they didn't, and I had nothing better to do, so I ran the statues to kill time."
"How long?"
"At first I just ate and slept at Thousand Martial Plaza whenever I wasn't taking medicine. Once I got used to it, I ran the circuit once or twice a day. For five years."
"You're telling me you passed through the statues at Thousand Martial Plaza every single day for five years without missing one?"
"There aren't a thousand statues, there are one thousand and fourteen. And every statue's movements and stances are different."
Shrrk!
Jin Yigang kept slicing the stone.
Once it was down to a manageable size, he began shaping it.
"What are you making that for?"
"Preparations."
"For what?"
"Why do you think that man is here?"
Jin Yigang pointed at Yul Hancheon.
"How would we know?"
"He's here to decide who owns the Jangbodo, isn't he?"
"I thought the Jangbodo belonged to the Jecheon Medical Manor. Doesn't it?"
"It does, of course. But as you saw, all the Nine Kings have come crawling out to claim ownership. The problem is, they're not the whole story."
"Meaning?"
"Every other power in the martial world wants the Jangbodo too—the one that leads into the Invincible Fist King's domain. And every last one of them is hiding right there."
Jin Yigang pointed toward the Funiu Mountains.
"So you're saying even more enemies are lurking out there."
"What we've been through is just the tip of the iceberg."
"What does enemies in hiding have to do with deciding who owns the Jangbodo?"
"To carry the Jangbodo to Mount Laojun, someone has to escort it, doesn't he?"
"So one of the thirteen factions becomes the owner of the Jangbodo, and the other twelve have to fight off the enemies gunning for it?"
"That's the only fair way, isn't it?"
Jin Yigang looked at Yul Hancheon.
As it happened, Yul Hancheon turned his head at that very moment and met his gaze. Their eyes locked across the room.
"That's the one."
Jin Yigang said with a grin.
"Then I suppose we wait until they arrive."
Nang Baek said.
"They'll be here by midnight tonight."
"I thought that man said tomorrow morning?"
Nang Baek pointed at Yul Hancheon.
"Tomorrow morning is when they'd arrive if they were coming properly. Right now they're running here like dogs on drugs. We just sit back, drink, and wait. Old man?"
"What?"
"Busy?"
"No?"
"Then why isn't my cup full?"
"Fill it yourself, you brat."
But even as he grumbled, Nang Baek picked up the bottle and poured.
"Press it in good and full."
"Got it, you little devil."
Nang Baek barked.
It was exactly as Jin Yigang had predicted.
Around midnight, the six kings arrived one after another. After brief greetings with Yul Hancheon, four tables were pushed together at the center of the dining hall, and they took their seats around it.
"You are men of keen minds, and your intelligence networks are second to none, so you already know why I have come here. I will therefore spare you the explanation."
Yul Hancheon gestured behind him.
At once, his subordinates brought forward four barrels and set them on the table.
"The Devil Sword Barrel!"
Namgung Wonmu murmured, as if in a groan.