Tang Clan’s Sword Phoenix (1)

Vice-captain Myeong Sahyeon of the Third Squad always began his day earlier than others.

There was something he had to do as soon as he woke.

The very first thing he did each morning was prepare hot tea.

The water boiled so fiercely it was too hot to touch one’s lips, but that didn’t matter.

By the time she rose and began her morning training, it would have cooled to the perfect temperature.

Placing the tea and some light snacks on a small tray, he smiled in satisfaction and murmured,

“Perfect again today. Just like me.”

For Myeong Sahyeon, preparing tea and a few snacks and setting them at Tang Yeo-eun’s training spot was the daily start of his routine.

He had never once heard a single “thank you” from her.

But he knew well.

The fact that she didn’t turn it away was already proof she was opening her heart.

The reason she couldn’t bring herself to say thanks was that admitting her heart was opening frightened her.

He believed.

One day her frozen heart would melt in the warmth of the tea.

He wasn’t worried about when.

For the person you want to spend a lifetime with, waiting a few years is not so hard.

After placing the tea and snacks at her training ground and returning to quarters, a male squadmate spoke to him.

“Vice-captain, do you know Lady Do Huiyeong from the Fifth Squad?”

“Mm? Lady Do Huiyeong of the Fifth? The shy, cute one? I know of her. Haven’t spoken with her, though. Why ask?”

The man grinned slyly and handed Myeong Sahyeon a note.

“Lady Do asked me to pass this to you. She ran off right after, too embarrassed to say more.”

“Hm?”

Opening the note with a puzzled look, Myeong Sahyeon soon let out a faint chuckle.

In it, she wrote she’d long adored him, asking him to come to the western woods.

“What does it say? A confession of love?”

“What else would it be? This is… troublesome.”

His comrade whooped and teased him.

“Oho! Vice-captain, are you betraying the captain?”

“As if. I feel sorry for Lady Do, swept up by my charms, but I’ll speak gently so she won’t be hurt.”

With that, Myeong Sahyeon set out.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened.

Even after people knew he loved Tang Yeo-eun, some women still approached him.

But once word spread he was a sunflower who looked at only one woman, such advances had ceased for a time…

Receiving such a confession after so long didn’t feel bad.

He did feel sorry for Lady Do, who would have to be turned down.

Captain Tang Yeo-eun of the Thirteen Squads’ Third Squad washed briefly and went to the grounds for her morning training.

As always, she found a modest tray with tea and snacks.

Sipping perfectly warm tea and nibbling just enough not to burden her training, she thanked him in her heart.

Thank you for conveying your sincere heart, unchanged every day; thank you for giving me a warmth I never once received even from family.

Then the voice she could never forget echoed in her head again.

“You should never have been born!”

It was what she had heard most from her mother as she grew.

No matter how hard she tried to be good, no matter how brilliantly she excelled in martial arts, her mother never stopped glaring at her with hatred and hurling venomous words.

She couldn’t help it.

In her mother’s eyes, everything was Tang Yeo-eun’s fault.

The cause of all her misfortune.

Her mother was the third wife of Tang Jeonghu, current head of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

And more ambitious than anyone.

Though a third wife, she had a dream:

To make her son the clan’s next head…

And she had the means.

Her natal family was among Sichuan’s most prestigious, and her beauty and ability were exceptional.

So if she bore a son, she believed she could, by her own capability, surely make him head of the Tang Clan.

But—

Even background, beauty, and talent could not solve the fact she did not conceive.

Despite marrying the clan head and, thanks to her beauty, receiving more opportunities than the other wives, she somehow remained without child.

Physicians said her body had no problems.

Seeing other wives bear children, it wasn’t the clan head’s issue either.

That only made her more frantic.

Doctors told her to ease her mind.

She couldn’t.

She took every fine medicine, sought talismans from famous diviners, tried folk remedies—everything imaginable.

But five years passed without a child.

Meanwhile, the other wives’ children grew; even a wife who entered later bore a child.

The clan head pitied her and tried to treat her well, but he grew weary of a woman who could not conceive and only became more obsessed.

Then, in the sixth year of marriage, she suddenly conceived.

She didn’t know why.

She’d tried everything—who could tell what worked?

Perhaps it wasn’t any method—perhaps she had finally begun to let go.

It didn’t matter.

It revived her as she was nearing despair.

And the doctors all said the same thing:

There were two in her belly.

Twins.

Now she wanted just one thing.

Let one—just one—of the two be a boy.

If so, she would use any means to make him the next head.

When the children were finally born, she realized her wish had come true.

Or rather, had come true… at first.

The twins were fraternal: one boy, one girl.

The problem was, the boy was stillborn.

The opportunity she had barely grasped slipped away absurdly.

A dream shattered one step from fruition—she raged.

It was worse than being childless.

And she turned that despair on the newborn daughter.

When the clan head barely stopped her from throwing the baby she held for the first time, he had no choice but to separate mother and child.

It was the right choice.

She seized every chance to pour hatred on her daughter and try to kill her.

Then she hurried to try to conceive again.

But…

The clan head, thoroughly sick of her, no longer gave her the chance.

Her ambition to become mother of the next clan head ended completely.

What remained in her was only hatred.

For the other wives who had sons, for those sons, for the husband who no longer sought her, and above all for the daughter she believed the cause of it all.

Thus Tang Yeo-eun’s childhood was etched with memories of a mother who hated and cursed her.

And the Tang Clan was not a warm place where an abandoned daughter could grow up with a sound heart.

Tang Yeo-eun strove always to be good and exceptional.

She instinctively knew that otherwise she would be ignored and forgotten by all.

She wanted attention.

She wanted love.

She wanted to receive the affection other children were granted simply for being children.

But within the Tang Clan’s walls, that was impossible no matter how exceptional she was.

From the outside, the clan looked like a family bound by blood; in truth it was a jungle of tooth and claw.

Her choice to abandon hidden weapons and poison for the sword was partly because swinging a blade was far more cathartic than throwing darts, but more importantly because she realized excelling in hidden weapons or poison was useless to her.

So when she was told to go to the frontlines, she wasn’t surprised.

She had always assumed she would be sent.

She bore the placard of a direct line while ranked beneath even collateral kin—perfect to discard with feigned benevolence.

She thought dying on the front wouldn’t matter.

She had no reason to keep living anyway.

Nor did she think herself worthy.

Yet after coming to the frontlines with her heart emptied of hope, her life changed one hundred and eighty degrees.

She already knew her face was quite pretty.

She had inherited the beauty of her mother, once famed as Sichuan’s greatest.

But she had never once been grateful for that resemblance.

Seeing that face in the mirror felt like being cursed.

So it had been.

But here at the front, everyone praised and admired her looks.

A reaction she had never received in the Tang Clan.

So too with her sword.

She had already reached the Pinnacle Realm before coming, but aside from a perfunctory compliment from her father the clan head, no one cared.

In the Sichuan Tang Clan, anything other than hidden weapons and poison wasn’t valued.

There were skilled swordsmen, but they were all hired from outside.

Here it was different.

The question was not what you studied but how deeply—and how effectively you could face demons.

So a woman in her twenties who had reached the Pinnacle Realm could only be respected as a top swordswoman.

All of this was unfamiliar to her.

She did not think herself worthy of such treatment.

So she feared.

She was terrified people would one day see her true self—the girl who should never have been born, who deserved only hatred.

Thus she opened her heart to no one.

She merely performed the role others expected: the strong, cold Tang Clan Sword Phoenix.

And she vowed to live that way forever.

So it had been.

But…

Drinking the warm tea set out each morning, a thought arose.

Perhaps this person could love not the Sword Phoenix, but Tang Yeo-eun—the girl who, by rights, should be hated.

She feared mistaking the tea’s warmth for warmth of the heart, yet she wanted—for once—to believe.

That someone in this world could truly love her as she was.

So as she sipped her tea thinking of Myeong Sahyeon, another thought surfaced.

“Perhaps now… I could tell him myself. That I’m grateful—always grateful.”

Speaking her heart terrified her, but for the one who had looked at her unchanged for years, perhaps she could muster some courage.

With training done, she returned toward her quarters and resolved herself.

Perhaps it would remain only a resolve again,

but she would try.

She would tell him.

But as she walked with that determination, she froze in shock.

Myeong Sahyeon stood before her quarters, face rigid.

“V–Vice-captain?”

She had resolved to tell him herself, but this was too sudden.

Her mouth wouldn’t work.

Myeong Sahyeon said, unlike his usual self, with a stiff face,

“Captain, I have something to say. Come with me.”

Flustered, she nodded frantically.

“Eh? Y-yes, of course.”

He led her into the woods.

Apparently to a secluded place.

Tang Yeo-eun’s heart pounded harder.

Thinking on it, a place without people was better for her confession as well.

He was unlike himself, which made it all the more… expectant.

Perhaps today, he would—

As they went deeper, he suddenly stopped.

Startled, she asked,

“Why—why? Vice-captain, why stop here…?!”

But when she saw his face, she could say no more.

It was twisted in pain.

With a horribly contorted expression, he forced words out.

“D–don’t… Captain, don’t follow me…”

“Huh? Vice-captain, what’s wrong? Why?”

Then, in an instant, his face went blank again, voice hard.

“It’s nothing. Come with me, Captain.”

Lightning struck her mind.

A thought so dreadful she hadn’t dared imagine it.

She called to him, vacant-faced.

“Vice-captain?”

He still spoke dully.

“Hurry. There is somewhere you must go with me.”

Tears streamed from Tang Yeo-eun’s eyes.

This was not the Myeong Sahyeon she knew.

In a daze, she murmured,

“No… this isn’t right. Sahyeon, please.”

He seized her arm roughly and said mechanically,

“Hurry. There is somewhere you must go with me.”

She shook her head blankly.

The Myeong Sahyeon she knew would never talk of his business while she wept.

Nor would he handle her so roughly.

She had to admit it now.

He… was not Myeong Sahyeon.

Realizing he had been possessed, Tang Yeo-eun grabbed his arm and shook him, crying out,

“Sahyeon! Wake up! No! You can come back! You can come back! Please, wake up!”

His face twisted in agony again.

A pained face, earnest eyes.

With great effort, he said,

“Kill… me… before I harm you…”

Her strength left her.

Kill him?

She had at last barely managed to believe in someone.

She could no longer imagine life without him.

And now she was to kill him?

It felt as though her heart were being torn out.

She finally burst into tears.

Shaking her head, she sobbed,

“No. No! Don’t say that! Don’t say things like that. Don’t try to leave my side, please!”

With a contorted face, Myeong Sahyeon screamed and drew his sword.

“Aaaargh!”

Clang!

“Sahyeon!”

Even with his terrifying glare and raised blade, she could not defend.

She could not bear to point her sword at him.

Like a child, she only cried his name.

“Sahyeon! Sahyeon!”

Then, holding his sword in reverse grip, he finally drove it down with all his strength.

Thunk!

“Ghk!!”

Tang Yeo-eun’s eyes went blank.

His sword had pierced—not her—but Myeong Sahyeon’s own heart.

“Sahyeoooon!”

She screamed his name and rushed to catch him as he collapsed.

“No! No! Noooo!”

With the sword in his heart, cradled in her arms, Myeong Sahyeon at last smiled as his usual self.

With blood-soaked hand, he gently caressed her cheek and whispered,

“Forgive… me… love…”

His lifeless hand fell limp.

“Nooooooo!”

Clutching him and wailing, Tang Yeo-eun was watched by members of the Thirteen Squads who had rushed over at the sound.

None could speak.

Beloved by many at the front for his cheerful, easygoing nature, and for Tang Yeo-eun a first salvation in life—Myeong Sahyeon—breathed his last.

By grim coincidence, his self-inflicted death occurred around the same time Mae Yeogyeong’s body was found.