2. Can't Hold Back — Wooing a Woman in No Time
As a host, Yujin's life had been nothing short of tragic. Twenty-seven years of history weren't particularly pleasant to recount, so he'd always kept his mouth shut whenever the subject of his life came up — but on one thing, at least, he had been absolutely certain.
'I can't do it with men. Seriously, not even for tens of millions.'
No matter how desperate for money he got, no matter how dark the temptation, that was the one principle he had never broken.
He loved his job. He genuinely loved women — ugly or old, the creature called a woman was beautiful. Because he loved them, he could hold his head high. Men, however, he hated.
'The moment you take money for something you hate, you become a slave.'
It was barely a philosophy at all — closer to gutter wisdom — but with that mindset he had weathered every hardship life threw at him. Yet unavoidable disasters have a way of finding you regardless. A low, heavy voice echoed above Yujin's deeply bowed head.
"The marriage has been settled. The young master of the Zhuge Clan and the second daughter of this house. Namgung Yujin, you will fulfill your duty as the Clan Master's daughter."
The Clan Master, watching Yujin chew at the corner of her lip, wore a vaguely dissatisfied expression of his own. Yujin — a different soul entirely wearing her body — had no way of knowing this, but it was an open secret that the current head of house, Namgung Wi, treasured his three daughters like gold.
He, too, had no desire to marry off his little girl like merchandise.
But the seat of Clan Master was forever battered by rough waves. In a moment that demanded the judgment of a lord responsible for the entire clan, with the elders breathing down his neck, he had been unable to find a more defensible pretext.
The third daughter was far too young, and the potential the eldest showed in the Emperor's Sword Form was boundless — perhaps one day even surpassing his own. It was only natural, then, that the second daughter, whose martial talent was ambiguous and whose age was just right, ended up marked as the bride.
Namgung Wi clutched his throbbing head and looked down at Yujin.
'They say she lost her memory.'
His daughter, who should have been raging and wailing, instead remained eerily calm — and that somehow made his heart heavier still. It felt like deceiving a fool behind their back.
'If only she'd shown some talent for the martial arts. Then I'd have had grounds to keep her bound to the main house...'
"Tsk..."
While an involuntary sigh escaped his lips, Yujin's mind was spinning at full speed.
We're fucked!
Years of living under everyone's thumb had honed one particular skill: run the situation through her head, and a rough estimate always came out. This was not a problem that whining could wiggle her out of. The scale was all wrong.
'Goddamn it!'
The curse practically replayed itself on loop, filling her skull until it nearly bubbled out of her mouth — but honey on the tongue and a knife in the belly was a host's bread and butter. Not a trace of it showed on the surface. Turning over what the Grand Dame had told her when she came calling two days ago, Yujin fished the solution out of memory.
"You may play the fool entirely, if you like. Or show them something — anything at all. Give me and that man a reason to keep you here, my child."
'Aww... Mama. What do I dooo!'
That was what she'd wanted to say, before burying her face in the woman's chest. What actually came out was a very demure register indeed.
"Yes, Grand Dame. I will do what must be done."
She had apparently taken it as acceptance of the marriage — or resignation to it — and retreated into seclusion, wiping away tears. Naturally, Yujin had not the faintest intention of bending over for any man. She simply stared blankly into the air and muttered something under her breath.
"Urk..!"
Taking her for heartbroken, the Clan Master hid his own reddening eyes for no reason and ushered her back into her chambers — never knowing why she kept staring at empty space.
Back in her room, Yujin shooed out every last maid and flopped face-first onto the bed.
"Hmm..."
There was nothing to gain from letting other people watch her stare holes into empty space, after all. It had been a week since she woke up in Namgung Yujin's body, and strange characters had begun to shimmer before her eyes.
"Tch. Well. A status window, huh? Is that what this is?"
With the Grand Dame and the maids glued to her side, she'd had no real chance to examine it — but using "melancholy" as her excuse, she had finally managed to lock herself in her room alone.
As Yujin pawed at the empty air, the opening of a novel she'd once read surfaced in her mind. Some black-haired protagonist shouting Status window! Status window! — she'd assumed it was just a convenient device for neatly displaying a character's abilities. Never dreamed she'd be the beneficiary.
The Emperor's Sword Form she understood well enough; the Grand Dame had drilled it into her ears until they bled. The secret sword art of the Namgung Clan, or whatever. Anyway, an incredibly powerful martial art. Even accounting for the despairing one-tenth proficiency, the forms were drawn so naturally into her body, as though carved deep into her very bones. The way her body moved as if it weren't her own struck her as a little uncanny. So — Emperor's Sword Form, pass, for now. But then...
"What even is this? I mean, seriously. Why is there a martial art under my name?"
Dig through her memories however she might, Yujin had been a perfectly ordinary modern person. Sure, her work had involved using her body — but that was a euphemism, and in Yujin's world, hurling energy blasts was the stuff of movies. And yet there it was on the status window, a martial art stamped square with her own name.
"Seven... Colored... Affection Art..."
Seven-Colored Affection Art
"Ack! You scared me."
The status window had popped up out of nowhere, and Yujin cracked the back of her head straight into the headboard. Rubbing her round skull with slow strokes as she reread the passage carefully, she felt the pain simply melt away. Read it again, and the words didn't change. If this believable-looking status window reflected reality as written, then Yujin had all but won the lottery.
"Heh... hihihi..."
A snicker. A snort. Goodness me. Ah, dear. The delicate young lady of Qing'an grinning like that looked about as creepy as a ghost smiling — but thankfully, she was alone in the room.
It had been roughly two months since she awakened as Namgung Yujin, and she had by now pieced together a rough understanding of this world. Just as money made the world go round back home, here you had to be — to put it bluntly — goddamn strong. So strong, in fact, that even the thugs who feared nothing and no one would call your house "the Righteous Martial Alliance" and suck up to it shamelessly.
The problem was that the martial path was never an easy one, and Namgung Yujin, despite her surname, seemed to have no talent whatsoever for it.
To borrow the maids' whispered phrasing: 'bronze born in a gold mine.'
Compared to ordinary people it wasn't half bad, really — just hopelessly insufficient for anyone carrying the name Namgung. Just as Yujin was on the verge of giving up on success as a martial artist, fortune had dropped straight out of the sky.
...in proportion to the depth of affection, receives the target's martial arts as one's own.
"Hihi. Heheh..."
Seducing women had always been easier for Yujin than eating and relieving herself. It was simply her daily life. And now she believed, without a shred of doubt, that it was her destiny.
Besides, on closer inspection, this was nothing if not a martial art steeped in the host's own philosophy. No host works for free — so I give her love, and she gives me a house, a car, money, fame, power, martial arts, a sword, a bow, and a spear. Mm-hm.
They said climbing even one level higher in the martial arts demanded endless training, unforeseeable fortuity, and talent bestowed by heaven itself.
And yet here was a mystic art that simply received another's martial learning.
Closing her eyes tightly and gazing up at the ceiling, Yujin found herself remembering the time at twenty-three when she'd worked construction... no, when she'd been in love.
A successful older woman who owned several buildings.
'Yujin-ah, I just saw it walking by and bought it...'
There had been a car key in her palm worth three years of an office worker's salary. That day, Yujin understood something: even time — the one thing money could never buy — could be bought with love.
Which meant this martial art was made for her. A martial art heaven had dropped for Yujin alone. Having reached that conclusion, she sprang bolt upright from the bed.
A martial art that could become anything, could do anything, depending on how it was used. Pressing her palms together, Yujin began loosening up, stretching this way and that — an old childhood habit, the ritual she always performed before starting something big.
Fist clenched tight, Yujin rang out a great shout, eyes burning with resolve like a warrior throwing down the gauntlet.
"Let's go seduce some womeeen—!"
A clear, pure, and utterly graceful voice rang throughout the Namgung Clan estate.
The incident itself erupted precisely twenty days later — on the fourth day of the Zhuge Clan's visit.
"Impossible! She's cutting straight through the Seven Sages Lake Lotus Formation! That is nothing short of an emperor's stride...!"
"Since when could the young lady unravel a formation like...!"
In the friendly sparring match against the Zhuge Clan, every last onlooker watched in stunned disbelief as Namgung Yujin strolled through one of the Zhuge Clan's most notoriously labyrinthine formations as casually as if she were taking a walk.
And watching that match, someone's cheeks had flushed a deep, lingering red — the red of someone falling head over heels.
Naturally, that someone ought to have been her betrothed, the young master of the Zhuge Clan, Zhuge Min...
...and how nice that would have been, except the one blushing was the shy, brown-haired girl standing behind him.
The young master's little sister — Zhuge Surin.