Chapter 40: Azure Sky and Ninefold Heaven (4)

Eunsong sat quietly on the main hall porch, looking down at the thing Jegal Yeon had finally forced into his hand.

Ten-Thousand-Miles Chasing Fragrance.

It was a gift the Sichuan Tang Family had sent last year for Jegal Yeon’s birthday.

“It will be more useful to you than to me.”

She had said that and left.

Without ever promising she would never come again.

She had said she would not beg his forgiveness again...

But the Jegal Yeon he knew would try somehow to repay that karmic debt.

“Something she doesn’t have to do.”

Not just anyone could track this incense.

Only masters of the Tang Family who had undergone special training could do it.

The crafting of this incense was the same.

It was a top-grade supply made only in the Sichuan Tang Family.

Because of that, the Tang Family had a firm principle about Ten-Thousand-Miles Chasing Fragrance tracking.

They cooperated with the orthodox side regardless of sect or clan.

No matter whose hand it was in.

It meant the Tang Family owed someone gratitude on that level.

Eunsong picked up the small bottle holding Ten-Thousand-Miles Chasing Fragrance and tucked it into his robe.

Then he brushed himself off and rose to his feet.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, his disciples came up to the lodge.

They had come to give their evening greetings.

“Master. Cheonjeong and the other five have come to pay our respects.”

“Good. Did you eat your dinner well?”

“Yes. Since tomorrow is the last day of the One-Branch Gathering, the meal was quite rich.”

“That’s a good thing.”

At Cheonjeong’s quiet gesture, Cheonhwa, shrinking back a little, stepped out from behind Cheonju with a tray in her hands.

A white sheet of paper was laid over the tray of food.

“...We brought a little food.”

Cheonhwa, too, had heard the whole story.

That from now on, she was no longer Eun Byeok’s disciple but Eunsong’s.

That because Elder Jeonggang had notarized it, even the Sect Leader could not contest it.

“How is your body. It looked like you poured out your inner power quite recklessly.”

“I’m all right. You really don’t have to worry...”

“Don’t act so stiff and distant. You can be at ease. I have expectations of you, but I don’t force things.”

He didn’t force things.

But that didn’t mean he gave up.

He was a master who simply watched over them with warm eyes full of expectation.

How much had she wanted a master like that.

Maybe, when she first met the newly arrived Soyak and bullied her...

It had been jealousy over someone taken in by a warm master.

A person driven to the edge wants to blame anyone.

All the more so when the blame hasn’t fallen squarely on them.

A terrible, unhappy fate twists people.

“But I wasn’t all that respectful to you, and...”

“You mean everything that’s happened so far. I’ve forgotten it all.”

“...Why are you doing so much for me?”

Eunsong gave a short laugh and jerked his chin at Cheonju.

“Because your senior brother asked me to. And he meant it.”

“He meant it...”

“Do you know when a person’s true nature comes out?”

Cheonju and Cheonhwa looked up at Eunsong and tried to think of an answer.

While they were struggling, Eunsong laughed and asked the other disciples as well.

“You all think about it too. When does a person’s true nature show?”

The answer came from Soyak’s mouth.

“When they are rich and at ease.”

“Why do you think that.”

“When people are starving, poor, and driven into a corner, they simply reveal their weakness. Anyone will bow to the desire to survive. But if someone is rich and at ease, with no such threat, and is still wicked, then that beast has no space left for reform or improvement.”

Cheonjeong, Cheongak, Cheongu, Cheonju, Cheonhwa.

None of them had ever thought of that answer.

It was deep enough that it hardly seemed to match her age.

“Correct. When a commoner with no rice in the granary seizes another’s rice, it is because of hunger. But what do you call it when a lord whose granary is full seizes another’s rice?”

Cheonjeong answered.

“Greed.”

“The poor do not act out of greed but out of the desire to live. But the rich act out of greed. Enduring poverty is hard, but can we truly say it is harder than living in glory and casting aside greed to live with integrity?”

Eunsong brushed off his clothes and stood up.

He looked down quietly at his disciples.

Soyak saw that his gaze was trembling.

It looked like something had happened.

“You gave that granted sword to Cheonjeong, Soyak.”

“Yes. It’s too heavy a sword for me, and I already have one blade I can’t abandon, so I had no use for it.”

Eunsong nodded.

No matter how precious and valuable something was, it meant nothing if it wasn’t used.

If senior and junior shared such things among themselves, it was praiseworthy.

“Good. You did well. Do you still have the Purple Firmament Pellet?”

“I do.”

“Then tonight, stay in my lodge.”

All elixirs were condensed masses of powerful inner power.

Human-crafted pills were the same.

If you swallowed one and didn’t properly circulate your qi, or if you were disturbed during that process, it led to tragedy.

You could die, or fall into deviation and lose your mind.

“I’ll stand guard for you.”

“...Then I’ll do that.”

Someone might ask who would harm a disciple here, in Great Mount Hua Sect.

But Eunsong was someone who already knew Sect Leader Jeongyang’s true face.

He was not a man to leave alone a plum blossom that did not turn toward him.

And those who wanted to win favor with a man like that...

Or wanted to tie their line to his, were no different.

Especially the Sect Leader lineage’s direct disciples.

Like Myungjeok, the next Sect Leader and First-Generation senior of that line, or Senior Brother Eun Byeok—those were ones to be wary of.

After losing the wager, he had just lost both of his disciples; there was no telling what he might do.

‘Of course, if all of them came at once, there’d be nothing I could do on my own, but...’

Would they, really.

Would the Sect’s foremost disciple and the Second-Generation Head Senior all come charging just to ruin a Third-Generation disciple.

They probably wouldn’t, if only because they would hate how pathetic they’d look.

“All right. Then the rest of you can go back.”

“Yes, Master. Come on, let’s go.”

Cheonjeong gathered up the others and shepherded them out.

Cheonhwa was still a bit awkward and shy...

But with Cheonju looking after her, she would adapt soon enough.

Thinking of how lively the lodge would become wasn’t all that unpleasant.

More than anything.

If he had talented disciples who would stand on his side.

Then Soyak, who would stand at the vanguard of the Heaven-Toppling great work, would also have a stronger rear.

Just as Cheonjeong was leading the others down from the lodge,

Eunsong held out his hand to Soyak.

Without a word, Soyak placed the Purple Firmament Pellet box on his palm.

“I’ll check it for a moment.”

There was no telling what they might have done to it.

For a Mount Hua martial artist and Daoist, it was a duty to wander the world as a roaming pillar.

In that time, he had learned how evil people could become.

Especially those who were rich and powerful.

Jeongyang and Myungjeok were people with power.

And they were people filled with endless jealousy and inferiority.

Eunsong quietly sent his qi into the Purple Firmament Pellet and inspected the inside.

Only after confirming that he felt no sinister or poisonous aura did he let out a sigh of relief.

“At least they didn’t go that far.”

“...Would they really have done something like that?”

“They’re the ones who inflicted the pain of Hair-Cutting and Marrow-Washing on two children every month, Soyak.”

He was talking about Cheonju and Cheonhwa.

Hair-Cutting and Marrow-Washing was something that should be done once and be enough.

Even if you did it often, if you ate fasting meals of grain-avoidance, once a year was more than enough.

But once a month.

It was fortunate they had stopped when they were young; if they had endured that torture until they were fully grown, there was no telling how twisted they’d have become.

Heart Demon was nothing else.

An evil heart—the urge to vent your anger on others as much as you yourself have suffered—that was it.

In that sense, you could say he too was already caught by his own Heart Demon...

But just because he had his own faults didn’t mean he wanted the still-young and clear Third Generation to live that way as well.

“All right. Come here. Sit cross-legged right in the middle of the main hall porch, keep this pill in your mouth, and begin circulating your qi.”

“How long should I do it?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. When it’s all over, your eyes will open.”

Soyak quietly nodded.

This was her first time taking a pill like this.

The Purple Firmament Pellet gave off a sharp, cool fragrance.

As if to say that, unlike these blossoms of Mount Hua that had been in bloom for thirty years, its fragrance had not faded.

“...The scent is strong.”

“It’s an elixir not inferior even to Shaolin’s great supreme pills.”

She calmed her faint tension with a deep breath.

Just as Eunsong said, she sat down on the main hall porch and lightly straightened her back.

Then she put the pill in her mouth.

“...Ah.”

The moment it entered her mouth, it melted at once.

Something hot and cold slid down her esophagus with a far-off fragrance.

Like drinking strong liquor, it seeped all the way into her gut.

She felt a harmony where warmth and chill mixed and coexisted.

And at that moment, inner power began to creep up through her acupoints and then roil.

The inner power contained in the Purple Firmament Pellet had begun to release.

If she were an average Third-Generation disciple, this would be where she needed the Daoist master’s help.

But Soyak was not.

And Eunsong knew that.

On this Mount Hua, he was one of only three people—along with Elder Jeonggang and Master Myunggon—who knew the functions of Harmonization Scripture and Falling Plum Elegy.

‘...It will devour it.’

Eunsong’s prediction was correct.

The black qilin in Soyak’s dantian sensed the external energy that had flowed into its master’s body and woke.

Then it swept through her whole body.

Harmonization Scripture’s inner power surged full through every meridian.

Each time it did, the Purple Firmament Pellet’s inner power shattered like white foam on a wave and began to be absorbed.

“Well then, I suppose I’ll be up all night.”

Eunsong sat down in front of Soyak, who was already in a state of utter selflessness, circulating her qi.

With his plum-blossom sword slung over his shoulder, he spread his senses wide and kept watch over the surroundings.

Just in case.

Truly, just in case.