Tap the text to show or hide reading controls.
“Are you Songpungja?”
The Daoist shook his head.
“He is this one’s sahyung.”
“I see.”
Songpungja or not, the Patriarch’s Treasure had appeared, so taking it was all that mattered.
Jin-hyeon held out his hand boldly.
“I’ll take it.”
The Daoist’s expression turned strange.
“If the one who entrusted it asks for it, we should give it back. That’s only natural.”
“…”
“But shouldn’t we verify that you truly came at Elder Patriarch Gyeong’s request?”
“That’s true.”
Jin-hyeon pointed downward with his chin.
“Then let’s go together.”
“I am Song Hyeon.”
“?”
“My Daoist name.”
“Understood.”
The Daoist, Songhyeonja, gave a small snort of laughter.
“I’d like to know your name as well.”
“I’m here on the Supreme Patriarch’s request. I didn’t come to exchange names with you.”
It was curt to the point of rudeness. Songhyeonja cocked his head.
“Even if I ask?”
Jin-hyeon’s eyes deepened.
“You don’t want to hand over the Incomplete Strange Sword?”
“Of course not. Elder Patriarch Gyeong has maintained a good relationship with Daoling Palace for many years. We’re not bandits. Would we seize what someone like that entrusted to us?”
“Then let’s go.”
Songhyeonja watched Jin-hyeon for a moment, then smiled and nodded.
“Fine. Let’s.”
A short while later.
The two walked along the mountain path.
Jin-hyeon, walking behind, spoke evenly.
“You’re a skilled master, but you never learned movement arts?”
“Daoling Palace’s movement arts surpass any movement arts in the secular world. Of course I learned them.”
“Then let’s run.”
“Is there any need to rush? The mountain air is this good. Let’s walk a bit.”
He was utterly relaxed.
Jin-hyeon walked on in silence.
He had no reason to agree with the man, but he also had things he was curious about regarding Daoling Palace.
Songhyeonja spoke.
“Your hair is white.”
“That’s right.”
“How did it end up like that?”
“It just ended up like this.”
“Hoh.”
Songhyeonja grumbled.
“You’re too cold. You’ve got a good face and skill to match, but why is your personality like that?”
It was quite rude for a first meeting. At best, it could be called mischievous.
Jin-hyeon’s response was plain.
“I’m tense, that’s all.”
“Ha ha. Doesn’t look like you have the kind of skill that needs to be tense anywhere.”
“The Daoist I saw the moment I arrived was formidable too, and even in the fine Qingcheng air, isn’t there thick killing intent filling it?”
“!”
“It’s air that doesn’t fit such good terrain. Are you raising assassins or something?”
Surprise touched Songhyeonja’s face.
“You can feel that?”
“My chest feels tight every time I breathe. It’s hard not to notice.”
Songhyeonja admired him sincerely.
“Impressive. Even with skill, if your sense is poor, it’s hard to feel. To think the White-Haired Young Master’s qi-sense is to this degree.”
White-Haired Young Master. It was a very straightforward form of address.
“You don’t have to be so tense. They’re cultivating the Dao. They’ve washed away much of their inborn killing intent with the mountain’s spiritual energy, so soon the air will return to normal.”
“If you didn’t raise them, you captured and locked them up?”
“That’s right.”
Songhyeonja answered proudly.
“You may know this or not, White-Haired Young Master, but Sichuan Murim has fewer sects and a lower overall level than other regions. In the process, assassin organizations beyond counting were born. Because of them, countless people lost their lives in the shadows.”
“…”
“Do you become an immortal just by cultivating the Dao? Those bastards who make the lives of common folk that miserable are everywhere. Even if we have to push ourselves, we have to catch them.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s nothing impressive. It was something that had to be done. It’s just bitter that even that has to be done while tiptoeing around everyone’s reactions.”
His voice carried a hint of laughter, but the content was closer to self-mockery.
Jin-hyeon shook his head.
“That’s not what I meant by impressive.”
“Hm?”
“The masters of Daoling Palace came down the mountain, brought down countless assassin organizations, and even captured and imprisoned the remnants, yet it never got caught by Sichuan’s information networks.”
“…”
“I knew you weren’t an ordinary Daoist hall, but I didn’t expect Daoling Palace to keep its own information network.”
Songhyeonja turned back to Jin-hyeon with a stiff face, then smiled again as he spoke.
“Not everyone who receives Daoling Palace’s teachings becomes a Daoist. Some go down the mountain and make a living. Some even establish merchant guilds or modest sects.”
“They became your eyes and ears.”
“Sichuan is wide. No matter how great the Eight Martial Houses are, they’re clustered around Chengdu, so many people take root in outer regions where they won’t face territorial bullying.”
“It’s like a lay sect.”
“Hah. A lay sect. They’re only helping the main palace out of goodwill.”
“That’s what you call a lay sect.”
“Hahaha.”
“If many of them built sects, then most of them must be hiding their strength.”
“You say dangerous things so easily.”
“What’s dangerous about it? Most of the Eight Martial Houses are being smashed anyway.”
“Hm. Is that so?”
At Songhyeonja’s reaction, Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed.
“So you knew.”
“…”
“You knew the Eight Martial Houses were collapsing.”
“That’s right.”
Songhyeonja didn’t bother pretending otherwise.
“I knew.”
Jin-hyeon felt he needed to revise his impression of Songhyeonja.
He admitted that a Daoist hall ran lay sects and even kept an information network at its side. In front of someone he’d met for the first time today.
If Songhyeonja wasn’t a fool, that wouldn’t happen. Meaning, his judgment could be taken as Daoling Palace’s judgment.
He didn’t know if he represented Daoling Palace, but he was clearly a top-level figure who could influence its moves.
Jin-hyeon’s mouth opened naturally.
“It’s certainly unexpected.”
“Unexpected in what way?”
“I didn’t expect talk about Sichuan Murim’s reality to come so easily from a Daoist’s mouth. You’re that interested in Murim affairs too?”
“After the Empire fell and the imperial family’s influence shrank with the emergence of the Eight Wastes Alliance, the Heavenly Will Alliance has taken on their role. Daoling Palace cares about the lives of common folk. Naturally, we can’t help but care about Murim as well.”
“That sounds nice. In a Daoist sect with that much power, there have to be those who want to live grandly like the Nine Sects. If you truly worried about common folk’s lives, you should’ve come down the mountain long ago.”
“That isn’t something I can just let pass. Like I said, everyone has their circumstances.”
“I don’t know what those circumstances are, but it’s surprising that they’re serious enough to put the common folk you claim to worry about on the scales.”
“Fortunately for us, we have the excuse that pursuing the Dao is as important as thinking of common folk.”
“What a convenient Dao.”
“That’s why it’s hard to attain. It does whatever it wants.”
It was like daggers clanging against each other.
The way the two traded words without yielding an inch was as fierce as a life-and-death bout without blades.
“I don’t know why a Daoist’s personality is this sly. At least you won’t live taking losses.”
Songhyeonja snorted.
“I’m already taking losses, aren’t I?”
“?”
“I’m spilling Daoling Palace’s affairs piece by piece in front of Sichuan’s most famous young swordsman, the White-Haired Sword Ghost. If that isn’t a loss, what is?”
Jin-hyeon’s steps stopped for the first time.
“White-Haired Sword Ghost?”
“You didn’t know? It’s a nickname quietly spreading in Sichuan Murim. Though to be fair, White Sword Rising Hero is more famous than White-Haired Sword Ghost.”
There was no way it was famous. If such a nickname had been attached to him, it would’ve reached Jin-hyeon’s ears long ago.
Jin-hyeon turned to Songhyeonja.
Songhyeonja deliberately hunched his shoulders.
“Did I make a mistake?”
“So it was you.”
“?”
“Whether it’s White-Haired Sword Ghost or White Sword Rising Hero, you’re the ones who made it up and spread it.”
A strange light rose in Songhyeonja’s eyes.
“Why do you think that?”
“I’m trading with a pretty solid information network too, and I’ve never heard those nicknames.”
“It happens sometimes. The person in the rumors lives without even knowing he’s gained a nickname.”
“For that, the ears I have spread everywhere are fairly sharp.”
A cold smile touched Jin-hyeon’s face.
“The fact you went as far as making nicknames means you’ve been reading my moves all this time. And putting me on a stage means you want to gain something through me.”
“…”
“You’ve been doing interesting things in the shadows.”
Songhyeonja couldn’t deny it.
‘He’s practically a ghost.’
The insight of a young man who didn’t even look thirty was truly terrifying.
His martial arts, considering his age, were already shocking enough, yet after talking with him, his eye and mind were even more astounding than his martial arts.
“Of course you know my name too. I don’t know why you needed to exchange names.”
“…That’s right.”
Songhyeonja nodded.
“I knew your name. Jin-hyeon, was it.”
“If even mountain Daoists know my name, I must’ve been making quite a stir.”
It was hard to tell if it was sarcasm or sincerity. A bitter smile touched Songhyeonja’s face.
“I know, and yet I don’t.”
“Do you?”
“Rumors are rumors, nothing more. But you have to see a person directly to know his true face. Even now, talking with you, I still don’t know what kind of man Jin-hyeon is.”
It was sincerity spoken plainly.
Jin-hyeon watched Songhyeonja, then cocked his head.
“Seems there are many who see me in a good light?”
“Hm?”
“If White Sword Rising Hero is more famous than White-Haired Sword Ghost in Daoling Palace, doesn’t that mean there are more people who see me favorably than those who don’t?”
“!”
“Then I’ll retract what I said earlier. It’s clear you put me on a stage to gain something, but I can’t assume it’s necessarily for private profit.”
Jin-hyeon smiled.
“After all, a Daoist has his duties. You shouldn’t claw at each other like secular sects. Isn’t that so?”
Songhyeonja clicked his tongue inwardly.
“How many moves ahead are you reading?”
“It’s not that I’m amazing. You leaked too much information.”
“Even with many fragments, you can infer that far from a few words?”
“Because of answers like that. You’re acknowledging right now that what I’m saying is true.”
“…”
“You don’t seem like a fool, and it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to test me.”
Jin-hyeon’s eyes narrowed.
“You were planning to come find me someday, holding a fairly friendly hand. Isn’t that right?”
“…”
“Why? Do I look like the kind of talent who could become a lamp for your future?”
“…Hahaha!”
Songhyeonja burst into laughter without meaning to.
It wasn’t because Jin-hyeon’s words were funny. Seeing someone who could lay bare his own, and Daoling Palace’s, inner thoughts with a few words, the only thing he could do was laugh.
After laughing for a long time, he spoke bitterly.
“I know one thing. When you’re the White Sword Rising Hero, you’ll be reassuring, but if you become the White-Haired Sword Ghost, you’re the kind of man we’d have to erase somehow, even if it meant returning to the secular world.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“But there’s still something I don’t know. Why are you involving yourself in the Divine Iron Merchant House’s affairs?”
If he had ties with Gyeong Hang, he would learn it anyway. Jin-hyeon watched Songhyeonja, then tossed it out.
“The Supreme Patriarch is my grandfather.”
“?!”
“At least, for a time.”
Surprise rose on Songhyeonja’s face.
“Grandfather? Unless you’re Gyeong Do-cheon…”
In an instant, he recalled the adopted son of the Divine Iron Merchant House who had gone missing months ago.
“Gyeong Se-hwi?”
Jin-hyeon’s mouth corner lifted.
“The Incomplete Strange Sword. Will you hand it over now?”
Songhyeonja looked at Jin-hyeon with trembling eyes, then his face turned serious.
“I’d say we’ve enjoyed the mountain air enough.”
“Difficult.”
A moment later.
Two shadows sprinted as if flying over the treetops and, in an instant, crossed over a peak.
Reading Settings
#129 / 282
Have a story of your own? Write it on SDO Originals.
Start writing
