Chapter 44
Wi Ilcheong rubbed the spot where Dokgo Ryeong had hit him and sat beside Eun Yak-byeok.
“Did you teach her the cultivation technique?”
“I did.”
“You must have taken quite a liking to Miss Dokgo.”
“That’s part of it, but I owe Mad Demon a great deal.”
“I see.”
“More importantly, what have you been up to lately? I didn’t get a chance to ask last night.”
Eun Yak-byeok wore a seductive expression, as if recalling the night she had spent with Wi Ilcheong.
Watching her, Wi Ilcheong let out a hearty laugh.
“More or less the same as ever. I spend my days helping women who come to me for help.”
“Young Master Wi, you really haven’t changed. Miss Dokgo is one of them, too?”
“Yes. As it happens, she needed a cultivation technique that could handle extreme yang energy.”
“Gwan-yeong mentioned that to me. Why is that?”
“I met the Sword Queen’s disciple at the Potala Sect a while ago, and there’s something unusual about her.”
“What is unusual about her?”
As Eun Yak-byeok pressed for details, Wi Ilcheong’s eyes drifted to the books piled high on the table.
“…You’re not going to write this down in those books, are you?”
“Of course I am. I enjoy my nights with you, Young Master Wi, but business and pleasure must be kept separate.”
Eun Yak-byeok, still lying in bed, waved her hand, and a drawer opened, sending a money pouch flying out.
She drew the pouch toward her with telekinesis and dropped it in front of Wi Ilcheong, then urged him to continue.
“What about the Sword Queen’s disciple?”
“…I don’t need this much money.”
“Well, considering the inner energy of our disciples who spent the night with you, Young Master Wi, I’d say this is actually too little.”
“They did it because they wanted to.”
“Wouldn’t it be even better if you could earn money doing what you enjoy?”
“…”
With Eun Yak-byeok continuing to press him, Wi Ilcheong eventually accepted the pouch.
“I’ll put it to good use.”
“I’d be glad if you did. So, what’s the matter with the Sword Queen’s disciple?”
“Well… she has a woman’s body, but quite a lot of yang energy.”
“That’s not particularly unusual, is it?”
“And she suffers from a severed-meridian condition, too.”
“…Pardon?”
For a moment, Eun Yak-byeok wondered if she had misheard.
“Isn’t the severed-meridian condition caused by excessive yin energy?”
“…That’s right. But she also has a lot of yang energy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was surprised too, and the Sword Queen was quite confused since she’d never seen symptoms like that before.”
“How does that connect to a yang cultivation technique? No… wait a moment.”
Just then, something occurred to Eun Yak-byeok.
“…Could it be?”
“Pardon?”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s only a hypothesis, after all.”
As far as Eun Yak-byeok knew, Sword Queen Seo Gyo had secret ties with the Wudang Sect.
‘A severed-meridian condition caused by overflowing yin energy, and a disciple who also possesses excessive yang energy. A cultivation technique of extreme yang…’
The Potala Sect was a venerable sect composed exclusively of female disciples, so it surely had a cultivation technique that cultivated their innate yin energy.
Once she connected all the dots, Eun Yak-byeok’s thoughts naturally led to one conclusion.
‘The Twofold Intent Heart Art (兩意心功). The Yin-Yang Constitution (陰亮之體).’
A realm attained only by the Wudang Sect’s founding patriarch, the Perfected Zhang Sanfeng, in all its long history.
A legendary tale of one who wielded yin and yang simultaneously and achieved the true harmony of the Taiji.
‘…I’ll need to increase our informants in the Wudang Sect and the Potala Sect.’
Someone was doing something absurd in a place she’d never have expected.
Thinking this was why the martial world was frightening, Eun Yak-byeok shuddered.
No matter how closely she kept watch, monsters would pop up from somewhere.
‘How amusing. So many interesting things happening lately… I could use ten bodies and still not have enough time.’
Mad Demon Dokgo Jin’s transformation into a woman.
The strange events unfolding at the Potala Sect.
The Tang Clan’s bizarre movements.
And even the Demonic Cult’s internal strife.
“Young Master Wi. I’d like to talk more, but unfortunately, something’s come up.”
“…Something I said must have given you an idea.”
“Not exactly. I was thinking I might help the Sword Queen.”
“Are you trying to put her in your debt?”
“Who knows? I might tell you if you joined our Hao Sect.”
“…I’ll pass. I don’t want to belong to anyone just yet.”
“That’s a shame.”
Eun Yak-byeok rose from the bed, sat before the table piled high with books, and picked up her brush.
As she quickly began writing in a book, Wi Ilcheong stood and was about to leave the room when—
Eun Yak-byeok stopped him.
“Young Master Wi.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“When you said you didn’t want to belong to anyone, did you mean women as well?”
“What do you mean…?”
“I mean, do you have no intention of giving your heart to one woman, making a lifelong vow, and starting a family?”
“Um… with you, Sect Leader?”
At those words, Eun Yak-byeok’s brush stopped.
But soon her hand began moving again.
“…Not me. I don’t want to have children.”
“Is that so? What a shame. A daughter who looked like you would surely be lovely.”
“That’s all the more reason I don’t want one.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing. Anyway, Young Master Wi, do you ever intend to settle down?”
“Well… I’m not sure yet.”
Wi Ilcheong let out an awkward laugh.
“I have a wanderer’s heart, and my heart is too broad to give all my love to just one woman. I want to love as many women as possible.”
“…Young Master Wi, I feel like you’ll die one day at the hands of a woman’s blade.”
“I’ve heard a woman’s jealousy is frightening.”
“You say that as if it has nothing to do with you.”
“…”
Wi Ilcheong didn’t answer.
“Young Master Wi.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Sometimes I wonder whether you’ve ever truly loved a woman.”
“I love every woman I’ve spent the night with. You included, Sect Leader.”
“…I see. That answers my question. I don’t know when I’ll disappear from here, but stay at the branch as long as you like, Young Master Wi.”
“Yes. Thank you for your kindness. Then…”
Watching Wi Ilcheong leave, Eun Yak-byeok sighed.
“You’ve never loved anyone, Young Master Wi.”
He loved every woman he’d spent the night with?
It was something said by a man who had never known true love.
True love was a poison that made one fixate on only one person, with no room to look at anyone else, thinking of one’s beloved day and night until it eventually led to death.
If Wi Ilcheong had truly experienced love, he could never have said what he just had.
‘I feel sorry for Gwan-yeong and little Sohyeon. How did they end up sincerely falling in love with a man like that…’
Having seen through Wi Ilcheong’s true nature long ago, Eun Yak-byeok had never cared for him as a person, even if she did enjoy his member.
‘A man as handsome as if painted by an artist, who has never loved anyone. That makes him all the more dangerous.’
His actions were easy to predict now, making him an easy piece to control—but what would happen if he truly fell in love with someone?
Because she couldn’t easily imagine what that would look like, Eun Yak-byeok considered him dangerous.
“Haa…”
Unable to focus on her books, Eun Yak-byeok set down her brush for a moment and gazed into the air.
Then she murmured to herself, absentmindedly.
“I have no intention of marrying, Young Master Wi.”
Eun Yak-byeok hated the martial world.
It was a cruel place where the strong treated other people’s lives as worthless.
She, too, had once been weak, but after the previous Hao Sect Leader took her in and helped her, she resolved to become strong.
At the same time, Eun Yak-byeok gave up on living an ordinary life, building a family and enjoying peace.
It was too late for her to live the life of an ordinary woman anyway.
So she had kept close to her heart the ambition to accomplish a great deed and die.
To destroy the entire martial world.
That had been her sole thought from the very beginning.
Then another person who shared her purpose naturally came to mind.
‘A man more emotional than anyone. Defiantly challenging the strong, and endlessly gentle to those who have nothing. A saint who would shed tears for someone he’d just met, and a villain merciless to his enemies.’
Mad Demon Dokgo Jin.
A strange man who had turned the entire martial world upside down with the most intense of emotions—revenge—yet had never once been heard to harm an ordinary person unable to practice martial arts.
A monster with his own unwavering code, though no one knew when he might explode.
That was why he was all the more dangerous if handled poorly.
‘…Of all people, Wi Ilcheong. Of all people, Dokgo Jin.’
Eun Yak-byeok was immensely curious about how the connection between the two would change the martial world.
Perhaps it would amount to no more than a storm in a teacup, but if things went well, perhaps it could become a storm capable of destroying the entire martial world.
‘I hope it’s fate…’
Eun Yak-byeok moved her hand again and began writing in the book.
In the quiet inner chamber, only the sound of her brush moving could be heard.
*
“Phew… damn it…”
Dokgo Ryeong kept looking back toward the inner chamber, worried Wi Ilcheong might follow her, as she made her way to the estate outside the brothel.
‘No, damn it. What is with this shitty body, getting so horny?’
The moment she saw Wi Ilcheong, her lower dantian throbbed and she remembered what happened yesterday.
Her hair quickly turned pink, and at the same time, yin energy began coursing through her entire body.
The change was more humiliating than anything to Dokgo Ryeong.
‘I feel nothing for Wi Ilcheong…. I feel nothing…. I feel nothing….’
To reach the calm, mirror-like state of mind best suited to martial cultivation, Dokgo Ryeong repeated it to herself over and over.
‘I feel nothing for Wi Ilcheong…’
Just then, her mind naturally recalled yesterday’s events once more.
Wi Ilcheong’s touch.
Wi Ilcheong’s gentle tone.
Wi Ilcheong’s delightful tongue…
“Kyaaaah!!!”
Dokgo Ryeong swung her sword as if having a fit, and her yin energy surged up and moved according to her will.
“Damn it!! Forget it already!!!”
As an experienced martial artist, her body faithfully performed the moves despite the turmoil in her heart.
The five techniques of the Shura Rakshasa Saber Art, modified to suit a sword.
The seven techniques of the Sun-Shooting Sword Art she had learned from Baekri Sohyeon.
And the final finishing move, whose initial insight she had grasped in a dream.
“Hup…!”
She channeled her surging yin energy into her sword and performed the finishing move as she thought ideal, but something still felt wrong.
“…Damn it, what is it?”
She knew the incantation, understood the forms, and had a rough idea of the intent behind the martial art.
She was sure she could quickly raise her realm if she had enough inner energy to support her when she actually swung the sword.
But the final technique alone refused to go the way she wanted.
“No, damn it… It’s supposed to go like this…”
“What is supposed to go like what, Miss?”
“Eek…!!”
Hearing a familiar voice suddenly behind her, Dokgo Ryeong jumped in fright and backed away.
“…You’re avoiding me that much? It hurts.”
“Did you come here to get hit again?!”
It was Wi Ilcheong.
Wi Ilcheong usually took Dokgo Ryeong’s sharp words with a calm smile, but today he seemed a little downcast.
“…Did I do something wrong?”
“Huh?!”
“…Judging by your reaction, I must have done something. Please, give me a chance to apologize…”
“D-don’t come any closer!”
The closer Wi Ilcheong came, one step at a time, the faster her heart beat.
What had happened yesterday had certainly been Eun Yak-byeok’s doing, but in Dokgo Ryeong’s mind, it was etched as Wi Ilcheong’s face and voice.
Whenever she saw Wi Ilcheong, she kept remembering yesterday, and her lower dantian throbbed.
“The Hao Sect Leader told me that I’d teased you, Miss.”
“Th-that’s nonsense! Ignore it!”
“Are you all right? Your face is very red.”
“N-no…!”
Hearing that her face was red, Dokgo Ryeong hurriedly checked her hair.
It was pink.
‘Again…! This damned lust…!’
Flustered and embarrassed, Dokgo Ryeong grabbed her hair and tightened her grip on the sword in her hand.
“Th-this damn hair…!”
Just as Dokgo Ryeong squeezed her eyes shut and went to cut her hair, she felt something familiar.
The sensation of a blade biting into flesh.
“…A woman’s hair is precious to her.”
When Dokgo Ryeong opened her eyes again, she saw Wi Ilcheong holding her sword in his hand.
“Hey… you…”
“I’m all right. It didn’t go very deep. More importantly, you actually cut through my protective aura with that sword energy… You’re truly impressive.”
“Y-you idiot! You’re bleeding!”
“This much is fine. It’ll heal soon.”
“N-no…! Just…!”
Dokgo Ryeong’s heart pounded violently, and her mind grew confused.
‘No, damn it. I’ve seen blood countless times, so why…!’
She had seen it countless times.
She’d suffered and inflicted wounds worse than this.
But when she saw Wi Ilcheong’s hand cut by her sword, she couldn’t calm down.
“Y-your clothes… Bandages…!”
“Miss… please calm down…”
“Wound medicine! Do you have wound medicine…”
“Miss Dokgo!”
Only when Wi Ilcheong shouted did Dokgo Ryeong come to her senses.
“…I’m fine. It really is nothing.”
“S-sorry.”
As Dokgo Ryeong’s shoulders slumped, her hair quickly returned to its usual red.
Her heart grew cold.
Seeing Dokgo Ryeong’s downcast expression, Wi Ilcheong smiled.
“I didn’t know Miss Dokgo could make that sort of face.”
“W-what?!”
“You’re a truly fascinating person, Miss Dokgo. I can never figure you out. You were angry just a moment ago, and now you’re gloomy. And then you suddenly tried to cut your hair.”
“…Damn it. Pink is fucking awful.”
“Isn’t it pretty?”
Thump.
The moment she heard Wi Ilcheong’s words, Dokgo Ryeong’s heart pounded again.
‘What is this? Poison? Did I get hit by some kind of illusion or sorcery without noticing?’
Her heart had been running wild of its own accord for a while now.
These bewildering feelings made Dokgo Ryeong want to get away from there immediately.
Just then, Wi Ilcheong said,
“Miss Dokgo.”
“W-what?”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Huh?!”
Dokgo Ryeong’s hair turned pink once again.