Gaining The Third Energy

Gu Jin-ha had never forgotten the thrill of setting a trap. Nor the sight of the catch, thrashing in it and suffering.

A clever bastard like you could hardly fail to see my trap. But that cleverness of yours is what will drop you into the pit.

He did not doubt for a moment that his trap was a sound one. The last time he had run into Cheon Tae-san at the Namgung Clan the humiliation had been cruel, and after it he had thrown away even the very small guilt left in him. The very next day he had made straight for the Jeongryong Sect.

I had not meant to use even this. That I should have to spend what I prepared against the worst is your doing and nobody else’s. If it catches me two rabbits at one throw, there is nothing to hesitate over.

Gu Jin-ha looked down at the small pill in his hand and steadied himself. With an inquiry into collusion with the Demonic Cult for his justification, he had questioned Yi Mak-seong and dropped the pill he had from Elder Gal U-heon into the man’s tea.

However Elder Gal came by it, this one thing can drop the Jeongryong Sect and that bastard Cheon Tae-san into the abyss together. And then I will have accomplished everything I came to Hefei for.

The Demonic Surge Pill was what put such confidence in him. Once inside the body, the elixir pill set demonic qi surging little by little; it was deadly poison and spirit elixir at once, and only the Demonic Cult’s highest councils could use it.

The Demonic Surge Pill is not simply an elixir pill that makes demonic qi surge. The demonic qi of the Demonic Surge Pill is dangerous beyond any ordinary measure — the moment a man comes into contact with the one it has poisoned, he is exposed to it as well.

That was why the pill was forbidden even inside the Demonic Cult.

Because a man who took the Demonic Surge Pill came, without fail, to his death.

When Gu Jin-ha kept stealing glances at Yi Ung and Yi Mak-seong, I watched Gu Jin-ha closely. The two of them were answering another Inspector’s questions, and as the questioning went on the voices kept climbing.

“It is truly not so. Why would my son be in communication with the Demonic Cult crowd?”

“His reputation with those around him has never been good, and looking at what he has done, one begins to suspect he has learned the Demonic Cult’s martial arts.”

At that Yi Ung flew into a rage.

“I know my son’s conduct is not good. But the Demonic Cult? That is a charge forced onto him. No — someone has framed him.”

“There is talk that Yi Mak-seong gives off demonic qi. This is not a thing you can settle by insisting.”

“Then do it! Confirm this instant whether my son has demonic qi in him.”

That brought Gu Jin-ha’s eyes straight to me.

“That is why I have brought along a gentleman who can tell the difference. A gentleman who, in his time at the Murim Alliance, even cleared the poison out of men afflicted with demonic qi. Is that not so, Scholar Cheon?”

He beamed at me as he said it, in a tone that might have been mockery or might have been praise. Whatever it was he found so amusing, the smile did not suit the situation at all. To read a pulse here would be to walk straight into a trap of his.

Today is not the only day there is. I can absorb the energy some other day. Better to refuse for now.

There was no need to step into a trap the man had set when I could see it perfectly well.

“That is so, but what authority have I to be reading anyone’s pulse? It would be better to send for one of the physicians at the Murim Alliance.”

At my refusal Gu Jin-ha grew impatient.

“Still, should not Scholar Cheon, whose chivalrous spirit alone stands higher than any martial artist’s, be the one to help? Otherwise the Jeongryong Sect may have a false charge of colluding with the Demonic Cult laid on them, you know.”

Watching Gu Jin-ha shove me outright toward the trap, I let out a breath of a laugh.

Push like that, and who is going to set foot in it?

It was then that Yi Mak-seong, in the middle of being questioned, suddenly let out a hideous scream.

“Kuaaaaargh!”

Yi Mak-seong clutched his head in both hands and cried out.

“What is the matter with you?”

At the sight of their son in that state, Yi Ung started and stepped closer. Blue veins stood out in knots on Yi Mak-seong’s face, and the whites of his eyes showed.

“Qi deviation!”

The warriors around them shouted it in alarm. The symptoms were exactly those a man shows when he falls into qi deviation. And then, in an instant, demonic qi came pouring out of Yi Mak-seong’s body as though it had exploded.

“Oh—!”

“Demonic qi!”

The White Tiger Corps, whose trade was hunting the Demonic Cult and the demonic path, knew demonic qi when they felt it. A thick, unpleasant energy, like being sunk in a swamp.

Some of the corps’ warriors drew their swords and shouted.

“Demonic qi!”

Yi Ung shook their head.

“It cannot be. It cannot. My son…”

“As a rule it is the parents who know their own children least.”

Gu Jin-ha replied wearing the satisfied smile of a man whose plan had come off.

“There is something wrong in this.”

“With the proof standing there as plain as that, and still you would wriggle out of it.”

Gu Jin-ha turned his head and looked at me.

“Let Scholar Cheon come and read the pulse. Only then can we know for certain whether it is demonic qi.”

Yi Ung came running to me and clung to me.

“Please look at my son, I beg you. It is absolutely not demonic qi.”

They said it, no doubt, knowing I was not of Gu Jin-ha’s party, and staked a hope on exactly that. If it were confirmed here as demonic qi, the charge Gu Jin-ha had named would fall on the Jeongryong Sect exactly as it stood, and so Yi Ung too was desperate.

Every eye in the place was fixed on me. Not confirming it was a problem, and confirming it was a problem.

I thought for a moment, then went over to Yi Mak-seong.

“I shall read the pulse, then. Whether it is truly demonic qi.”

At my words I saw Gu Jin-ha break into a broad smile.

Just what trick has he worked, to be as pleased as that?

Knowing perfectly well it was a plain trap, I put my own foot out into it. To make certain of the Seven Stars energy he carried. And besides, I had the means to strip demonic qi away, so I was confident of walking back out of the man’s trap.

What he did not know was that demonic qi is an energy drawn out with spirit energy, not with internal force. That was how, in my time at the Murim Alliance, a rumor got about that I was a physician who could treat demonic qi.

I asked Jong So-bin for her help.

“Miss Jong, can you help me?”

Jong So-bin answered by getting to her feet.

“Could you seal the points of the Governing Vessel on his head with thick needles charged with ice-cold qi? It has to be done without laying a hand on him.”

“How many cun deep should the thick needles go?”¹

“Three cun for the Baihui point alone, and one and a half cun for all the rest. Do not set them by hand — you must throw them in. Would that be difficult?”

Oddly enough, for all that she was the Young Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace, Jong So-bin was a master thoroughly versed in medicine. She had learned it in the first place to use as a hidden weapon, and had gone on to a full mastery of acupuncture itself.

“It is not difficult.”

Jong So-bin breathed ice-cold qi into the thick needles and threw them at the points along the line of the Governing Vessel. Each time one struck home in Yi Mak-seong’s face his body twitched, and when ten of them stood lodged in it, his screaming died down.

Yi Ung, unable to keep still, came over to me and spoke.

“My son — will he be all right?”

“Sect Leader Yi. If you want your son to live, you must trust me entirely. From here on say nothing at all, and only watch.”

Yi Ung understood that this was a moment of utter extremity, in which one misstep would drive the Jeongryong Sect into the ranks of the Demonic Cult and their son could die. Knowing that the life or death of the Jeongryong Sect and of their own house rested with the scholar, Yi Ung clung to him with the desperation of one clutching at a straw.

I looked at Gu Jin-ha. The man still had a smile held wide at the corners of his mouth.

I stretched out my hand toward Yi Mak-seong.

Gu Jin-ha watched Cheon Tae-san stretch out his hand and grinned.

You are finished now. A man without even internal force, once demonic qi has invaded him, will be a ruined man in no time. Then I will drive you in as one of the Demonic Cult and throw you into the Murim Alliance’s prison. Live there and suffer until the day you die.

Then he watched Cheon Tae-san reach toward Yi Mak-seong and check himself, and tilted his head.

What is he doing?

Cheon Tae-san’s hand went not to Yi Mak-seong’s wrist but to his head, and he laid his palm against the thick needle standing in the crown of it. Ice-cold qi hung about the needle, and a white frost had settled over it.

Inwardly I went over it again.

Demonic qi is sensitive to temperature. It is an unstable energy above all, so at low temperatures its activity falls away. Which is why the Demonic Cult has no choice but to be seated in Xinjiang.²

Not even the Murim Alliance’s own physicians knew that, because every one of them reaches for internal force to put demonic qi down.

Seeing Yi Mak-seong’s symptoms, I had thought at once of the Demonic Surge Pill, and had grasped Gu Jin-ha’s intention along with it.

So the man thinks I do not know the Demonic Surge Pill exists. When I already have the whole of the Demonic Cult’s forbidden demonic arts and its spirit elixirs at my fingertips. He will have been hoping I would be poisoned by the pill’s demonic qi, but there is no chance of that.

Ice-cold qi hung about the thick needle, so the demonic qi could not invade it.

But spirit energy cannot be blocked even by ice-cold qi. This way, without laying a hand on Yi Mak-seong, I can absorb Yi Mak-seong’s spirit energy.

As the needles driven into the Governing Vessel let their ice-cold qi flow, the demonic qi’s activity fell away to almost nothing and Yi Mak-seong began to settle. In the meanwhile I sent spirit energy into his body and searched out the Seven Stars energy.

There it is. Ah, that is a relief. Yi Mak-seong’s energy is the energy of the Tanlang Star.

I had been a little tense at the thought that it might, just possibly, be Paeng So-un’s Lucun Star or Namgung Mu-baek’s Wuqu Star, both of which I had already absorbed. An energy that duplicated one I held would be of no use.

Yi Mak-seong’s Seven Stars energy was lodged in the lower dantian.

With a Seven Stars energy lodged in the lower dantian, internal force stops growing and the symptoms of the madness only worsen. No wonder he turned out an utter hellion.

Through the thick needle I absorbed the energy of the Tanlang Star lodged in the lower dantian. Spirit energy is untouched by temperature, and it came up the frozen needle and gathered into my palm.

“What do you think you are doing? You have to read the pulse to know for certain. How can you tell anything with your hand on a needle!”

Gu Jin-ha shouted it as though flying into a rage, since Cheon Tae-san would not move as he intended.

“Second Seat Inspector, be quiet, if you please. Master Scholar Cheon is reading the pulse this very moment, is he not? They say a physician of real skill can tie a thread to the wrist and know the pulse from its vibration alone. He would hardly be doing it that way unless he had some confidence in it, would he? And Master Scholar Cheon is doing this by way of precaution, so we ought to make allowances.”

When Wang Cheong came over and spoke, Gu Jin-ha glared at them with anger in his eyes. Wang Cheong’s eyes rested on him, steady and indifferent, and for an instant killing intent, cold and unmoving, shot through his mind. Only then did Gu Jin-ha flinch.

Only then did Gu Jin-ha come to himself, and he muttered.

“Ah, I said it only out of concern.”

With his wits back, his second plan came to him. Cheon Tae-san was such a cunning bastard that there was no telling how he might slip out of it, so Gu Jin-ha had prepared a second trap, in the spirit of a man who sets out to take a tiger. He had thought there would be no occasion to use it, and had not known he would be using it straight away.

“The demonic qi has surged just now to a degree the White Tiger Corps’ warriors can feel. The Demonic Cult or the Blood Cult crowd will have sensed it. They are frantic to find the Ice Palace’s Young Palace Lord themselves.”

Wang Cheong asked indifferently.

“And so?”

“The Young Palace Lord must be moved to the second safe house.”

“…”

It was a fair point, and Wang Cheong could make no answer.

“It is folly to have Yi Mak-seong and the Young Palace Lord in the same place. Corps Chief, take the White Tiger Corps and escort the Young Palace Lord to the second safe house now. Sect Leader Yi can go back to the Jeongryong Sect.”

Wang Cheong hunted quickly for an excuse.

“Is there any need for that? Blood Cult or Demonic Cult, if they come looking we need only take the whole lot of them.”

“I hold that protecting the Young Palace Lord comes first. Sect Leader Yi is not the target they are after.”

Wang Cheong did not answer, and Gu Jin-ha went on.

“Ah, this is an order given by me, and I hold the full authority of the Elders’ Council. Should Corps Chief Wang refuse this order, they will suffer enormous disadvantage hereafter. Having to lay down the post of Corps Chief, for instance. Something of that sort, hm?”

At Gu Jin-ha’s words Wang Cheong’s lips twitched.