The Master Of Three-Without County

Song-ran let out a long breath.

“If you have seen it, then you must know. Why it was that I meant to leave Sister Cheong Yo’s side. Because the Ink Forest Heaven will come for me in the end.”

I broke into a grin.

“This is unorthodox-sect ground, and it is Three-Without County besides. I do not think they will be able to carry Miss Song off so easily. With the Unorthodox Supreme sitting here in plain sight with his eyes open, and with me here as well, I do not believe anyone can spirit Miss Song away in secret.”

“They will come for me wherever I go. And I have stayed even so because if they will come for me wherever I go, I thought it better to be beside the people I am fond of.”

I understood Song-ran’s heart well enough. The wish to protect the ones you hold dear.

“In any case, I am grateful to Master Scholar Cheon. And so I should like to repay the kindness, even in a way such as this.”

Song-ran seemed to have made up her mind. She looked at Yeo-seol and spoke.

“The truth is that I too have been watching the change in Yeo-seol. She is much altered from when we came out of the Namgung Clan to the Dark Heaven Sect. It is less that her nature has changed than that the eyes she sees with have changed. And that means another consciousness may have entered into the original one.”

She held the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye, so of course the change in Yeo-seol had not escaped her.

“But I could not analyze Yeo-seol’s consciousness without leave, and so I was waiting until Master Scholar Cheon should speak of it. If it looked like coming too late, I meant to raise it myself.”

So she had been minding Yeo-seol in her own way too.

Song-ran did not yet know that Yeo-seol was the Ice Sacred Body. To her and to Cheong Yo both, the girl was genuinely my younger cousin.

“Yeo-seol. Come here.”

Song-ran beckoned. Yeo-seol started toward her and then checked; something must have felt out of place, because she began edging slowly backward.

“I’m not sick, though.”

Yeo-seol said it and ducked in behind me.

I said to her.

“It’s not that Yeo-seol is sick — it’s so that Yeo-seol’s head won’t hurt when her memory comes back.”

Yeo-seol believed anything I told her, and her eyes went round.

“Truly?”

“Of course.”

Yeo-seol went back over to Song-ran and sat down.

“Just stay still.”

“Mm.”

Song-ran lifted her veil and looked into Yeo-seol’s eyes.

After a moment Yeo-seol murmured.

“Hm, I’m getting sleepy.”

I answered.

“If you’re sleepy, you can sleep.”

Yeo-seol did not answer. Song-ran’s Soul-Seizing Divine Eye had caught her, by the look of it, and her consciousness had sunk away.

Song-ran’s consciousness bored down into Yeo-seol’s.

Then Song-ran gave a violent start. In one corner of Yeo-seol’s mind lay a vast force of consciousness, asleep, greater than anything she had ever encountered, and she could feel it there.

It sat there like a silkworm’s cocoon, and what she felt was its threads coming unwound one by one. Song-ran drove the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye to its utmost, and with that she made out what the cocoon inside the consciousness was.

What in the world is this? Mae Yu-yeon, the Sixth Palace Lord of the Ice Palace?

She knew the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye did not mistake such things, and still she could not easily believe it.

How can such a thing be? It has not newly come in — this is a consciousness that entered Yeo-seol’s mind long ago.

Song-ran understood that Yeo-seol was a girl who carried a secret. She tried to move nearer the cocoon and touch it, since that was the only way to get at anything more.

Just then an unaccountable repelling force came out of nowhere, and Song-ran could get no closer. The consciousness was defending itself on instinct.

Unable to hold the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye up any longer, Song-ran drew back out of Yeo-seol’s consciousness.

“Mmh!”

The repelling force must have been greater than she expected. The aftershock was heavy even though she was out of Yeo-seol’s consciousness, and her head swam. Yeo-seol toppled where she sat and fell asleep.

Song-ran put her veil back on before she spoke.

“Yeo-seol is no ordinary child.”

Cheon Tae-san had no answer to that. Not even to Song-ran could he disclose that the girl was the Ice Sacred Body.

“How does it stand with Yeo-seol’s memory?”

He turned the talk aside instead.

“There is another person’s consciousness inside Yeo-seol’s.”

Cheon Tae-san frowned at the news instead of being startled by it, and Song-ran caught that at once.

“So you knew.”

“Not that I knew — I had thought it might be so. You say another person’s consciousness; who is it?”

“Mae Yu-yeon, the Sixth Palace Lord of the Ice Palace. Her spirit has gone in whole and entire. The consciousness is so strong that it threw even mine back, so its taking hold of Yeo-seol’s consciousness will be only a matter of time.”

Cheon Tae-san had expected something of the kind, but he had never dreamed that the soul of the Ice Palace’s Sixth Palace Lord had gone into Yeo-seol’s consciousness.

He called up what the records said of the Ice Palace. Mae Yu-yeon had been an absolute master, one of the few in the history of the murim ever granted the title of Martial Empress. She was famous besides under the byname of the Three-Question Martial Empress, and of all the Ice Palace’s Palace Lords she was the one the murim knew best.

Being of that order, no doubt, is why her soul was kept and then put into Yeo-seol’s body.

Some part of the Ice Palace’s command had very likely put Mae Yu-yeon’s soul into Yeo-seol’s body to win the Martial Empress’s glory back.

Come to think of it, the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult do not know this. Nor they alone — Jong So-bin does not know it either. Had she known, she would have given me some hint of it. And yet, had Jong So-bin known this, would she still have handed Yeo-seol over to me so readily?

Cheon Tae-san thought of Yu Yeok-rip.

Elder Yu, it seems, did know. For they behaved as though they had no need of a Palace Lord or a Young Palace Lord at all. Which means they knew Mae Yu-yeon would wake by way of Yeo-seol.

The Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult almost certainly did not know. Had they known, their whole approach would have been different. Would they not have moved to kill the Ice Sacred Body rather than secure her? In all the Ice Palace’s history Mae Yu-yeon was the Palace Lord who loathed the two cults most.

“Is there no way to remove Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness?”

“This is a consciousness planted the moment Yeo-seol was born, so the two are as good as one body already. The consciousness has fused with Yeo-seol’s innate qi. Even were it removed, it could not be done wholly, and some measure of Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness would remain in Yeo-seol.”

“Even if the consciousness cannot be wholly removed, you are saying that it can be removed after a fashion?”

“Yes, removing it is possible. But it is possible only if there is someone from the Musang Heaven. The people of the Musang Heaven are those who know how to handle souls and spirit energy, and only with their help can Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness be cut away.”

Song-ran looked at Yeo-seol with pity in her eyes.

“With the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye I can keep Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness from moving, but I cannot cut away a consciousness that has fused with the innate qi. The ones who can do that are the people of the Musang Heaven. They must be found first.”

Cheon Tae-san spoke to Song-ran frankly. To save Yeo-seol he gave up the secret he had resolved never to tell anyone as long as he lived.

“Miss Song, I do not know whether you are aware of it, but the truth is that I have learned the martial arts of the Ghost Immortal. The Ghost Immortal, it turns out, was of the Musang Heaven. And so I know how to handle spirit energy.”

“Ah!”

Beyond the veil he could feel the startled look in her eyes.

“I know that many of the Musang Heaven’s people hid what they were and went about in the murim. The Ghost Immortal was likely one of them. It is on that account that even within the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens the Musang Heaven is not thought well of.”

With her interest turned elsewhere, Cheon Tae-san came to the main point.

“If I mean to cut Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness away, what must I do, and how?”

“That consciousness must be drawn into the consciousness of one of us two.”

“Oh no!”

Nothing about it was easy.

“I rather think it must be drawn into mine. I shall have to master it with the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye and put it to sleep.”

Cheon Tae-san found himself considering the opposite case.

“If you use the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye and Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness wakes even so, what becomes of it then?”

At Cheon Tae-san’s question Song-ran could not readily answer.

“Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness has not yet come out of the cocoon. Had it come out, the thing would be impossible; because it has not, I can control it.”

Cheon Tae-san went on looking hard at her all the same, and Song-ran asked.

“Are you worried for me?”

“How should I not be? I cannot lay a calamity on Miss Song for the sake of saving Yeo-seol.”

“It is not all to the bad. If I can master Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness, I can inherit her martial standing. I should become an absolute master overnight.”

Song-ran said it out of concern for Cheon Tae-san, but she knew how dangerous a thing it was. Her hand was quivering. If it went wrong she would be eaten away by Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness, or she would die.

“And it is for just this that I hold Sister Cheong and Master Scholar Cheon in such regard. Because you always think of others first.”

In this age it was the common thing to pursue one’s own gain before any consideration of others.

“And greed rises in me too. If I take Mae Yu-yeon’s martial arts for my own, I shall be able to stand against the Ink Forest Heaven. So I cannot give it up either.”

Cheon Tae-san saw that Song-ran’s resolve was fixed, and nodded.

“Miss Song, if it should go wrong with Miss Song, I will see to it that Miss Cheong may live in comfort all her life. And should Miss Song not die but merely live on, I will care for her until the day she dies.”

“For those words alone it is well worth the venture. Above all for Yeo-seol’s sake. I have no wish either to watch Yeo-seol live caught fast in Mae Yu-yeon’s consciousness. I am fond of the Yeo-seol who is all innocence.”

“Then when shall we begin the rite?”

“While we are about it, let it be tomorrow evening. I have things to prepare as well.”

“Very well. I shall call on you again tomorrow.”

Cheon Tae-san took a courteous leave of Song-ran, hoisted Yeo-seol onto his back and came out. Yeo-seol was fast asleep still, breathing softly.

When I came outside, though it was the hour when darkness had settled, the street was bright. A good many of the shops had lanterns hung out.

Anywhere but a properly bustling quarter, most shops shut their doors before the sun went down for fear of thieves and robbers getting in. Here, though, the shops along the street had their doors open and were trading quite openly, and there were plenty of people passing.

“Bless me.”

Just then someone who had recognized me bobbed a bow. I looked over, and the strapping man spoke.

“Good day to you. Scholar Divine Sword.”

“Who might you be?”

The words Scholar Divine Sword made me squirm, but this was no occasion to quibble over it.

“Yes. I am the slash-and-burn farmer who got farmland a while back, thanks to the Scholar Divine Sword.”

In those clothes, with his whole appearance grown so neat, there was no telling he had once been a slash-and-burn farmer.

“Oh, is the land you farm all right?”

“Yes. This humble one has handled a great deal of land in his time, but I have never seen better land than our Three-Without County’s. Poyang Lake is not far, so there is no worrying over water, and this year the yield looks like being a large one. And having planted and sold other crops beforehand, my family are just now on our way out from a meal at an eating house.”

With that he called his family over and had them greet me.

“Master!”

The strapping man’s wife called me Master, and my face went hot.

“Ho ho ho. Such a title is more than I deserve.”

“Not at all. You are the master of the land, so of course you are our Master.”

The goodwife was the one who flared up instead, and I was left with nothing to say.

“Do go on with what you were doing. Do not be held up on my account for nothing.”

“Thank you.”

The strapping man and his household made me a bow that was almost a prostration, and withdrew.

Every time I passed along the street there were not a few who recognized me and greeted me.

Come to think of it, this brings back the time I was on the North Road. I wonder if Du-sik is getting on well.

As I walked on thinking of the North Road and Du-sik, someone shouted at me from the second story of an inn.

“Scholar Divine Sword!”

I looked up to see who it was and found familiar faces waving at me. It took me a moment to place them, and then I smiled.

“Oh! If it isn’t my comrades-in-arms!”

At my words the men broke off their drinking, sprang to their feet and drew themselves up in a military salute. They were corps members of the Dark Heaven Asura Corps who had fought the Demonic Cult at the Hohyeon Estate.

The sight of them carried off the headache Yeo-seol had given me and lifted my spirits. I kicked off the ground with the Nine Nether Ghost-Spirit Footwork and, with Yeo-seol still on my back, shot up to the second-story railing.

“Oh!”

“The Scholar Divine Sword indeed!”

A murmur went around.

“Will you be taking a cup here today?”

They were all martial artists older in years than me, so I spoke to them with respect.

“Yes. These days, isn’t Three-Without County the best place there is to drink with an easy mind? No quarrels break out here.”

“Of course. When the Supreme himself has proclaimed the Three Withouts, there is nobody who would dare break it.”

The inn too had been fitted out quite respectably while nobody was looking. In the time I had been away at the Hohyeon Estate the village had changed a good deal.

I called for the keeper of the eating house.

“Goodness me, if it is not the Scholar Divine Sword, the master of Three-Without County.”

“Proprietor.”

“Yes.”

“These gentlemen here are comrades-in-arms of mine. I shall pay tomorrow for whatever wine and food they take today, so have no worry about it and bring them whatever they wish.”

The Dark Heaven Asura Corps warriors did not refuse. They sprang up and gave me a cupped-hands salute.

“Thank you. Scholar Divine Sword.”

“You make my face burn. For shame.”

“We may end up with a man drinking himself to death today.”

“Then enjoy yourselves before you go. I shall be off first.”

I came back down from the inn using my lightness skill. All around, people were pleased enough with what I had done to break into applause.

It was all bluster, but is this not what makes life worth living?