Side Story 38. The Number One Cooking Competition Under Heaven (1)

“Puhat! What kind of nonsense is that!”

And yet the one who actually burst out laughing was Tsering herself.

“Like, ‘Did a Guihon Jade end up as a prize in a cooking competition?’”

The trio’s purpose was to recover Guihon Jade.
It was a remnant scattered across the world when the Disaster Grade yokai Guihon died.
There was no way something like that would be set into a golden ladle and offered as a prize in a cooking competition.
Baek Sang-ye also chided Tsering.

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”
“Hahaha.”

Tsering laughed and scratched her head.
Even so, the more one looked at it, the more it resembled a Guihon Jade.
A violet gemstone was not common. If it had been a bright red ruby or a yellow topaz, that would have been one thing, but where had they gotten such a purple jewel and set it into a ladle?
Something that looked exactly like Guihon Jade.

Just as Baek Sang-ye and Tsering lost interest and looked away,
Cheongho had already taken out the Guihon Compass and was examining it.

“……”
“What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, Cheongho handed the Guihon Compass to Baek Sang-ye.
Baek Sang-ye looked at it with a bored expression.
Then she froze stiff, like stone.

“…What is this?”

The needle of the Guihon Compass was not wavering weakly.
It was pointing firmly in one direction, as though drawn by something.

“It’s pointing in there.”
“Really…?”

There was no need to ask Cheongho. It was obvious.
The Guihon Compass was truly pointing toward the inside of Seok Family Manor.
Startled, Tsering made a fuss.

“Does that mean the thing set into the golden ladle really is Guihon Jade?”
“There’s no way to know. They could be keeping it somewhere else.”

The Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild run by Seok Family Manor was the greatest merchant guild under heaven.
Even if Guihon Jade was rare, or rather because it was rare, they might very well possess it.
With the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild’s information network, there was no way they would not know about the existence of Guihon Jade.
If so, would they knowingly set Guihon Jade into a golden ladle?
That too was hard to believe.

“…I don’t know either.”

But for some reason, it felt like they should not simply let it pass.

“Let’s go back to the inn first. Martial Aunt Jin might come looking for us.”

They returned to Mancheon Inn with the new information.

“How do you think Martial Aunt Jin Li-yeon will react if we tell her this?”
“Won’t we just get scolded for talking nonsense?”

Tsering muttered that.

“I heard she’s not that kind of person.”
“Well, according to Senior Sister Yu Su-rin, she’s an extremely gentle person.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“But do we really have to do that?”
“We do. They said it’s Azure Forest custom.”

Baek Sang-ye and Tsering were having a conversation that was not easy to understand.
And when they arrived at Mancheon Inn and opened the door,

“……”

Someone was there.
Long black hair.
No weapon was visible, but any disciple of Azure Forest would have noticed that her belt was in truth a soft sword.
The woman there gazed at the trio as well.
Seeing the flower patterns embroidered on the hems of the three disciples’ robes, Jin Li-yeon said,

“So you’re those children.”
“You are Martial Aunt Jin Li-yeon, right?”

Cheongho was the senior brother, but Baek Sang-ye boldly stepped forward and asked.

“That’s right.”
“My name is Baek Sang-ye.”

Cheongho and Tsering also greeted her with clasped fists.
Jin Li-yeon smiled gently.

“Then here we go!”

At least, she was smiling gently until Baek Sang-ye and Tsering lunged at her.

Back when they had been staying at Azure Forest.
Of the trio, the one the two girls, Tsering and Baek Sang-ye, had followed most closely was Yu Su-rin.
Just as Tsering and Baek Sang-ye now made up part of a trio, Yu Su-rin too had once belonged to one.

“Even so, your Great Senior Brother may have been dim, but he wasn’t an idiot.”

The eldest of that trio was Son Hee-il.

“Junior Brother Jun Myung was the real problem. He’s steadier now, but back then he was a complete fool. He even swung his fists at Martial Uncle Yi-gang and caused a whole uproar.”
“Really?”

The trio had met Jun Myung before.
He was a senior brother who could not speak and instead used Heart Speech of Wisdom Light, a man who always seemed somewhat detached from the world.
To think that such a man had done something so foolish when he was younger.

“Then what about you, Senior Sister?”
“Me? I was, of course, an excellent and exemplary disciple.”

Yu Su-rin had praised herself, but Tsering and Baek Sang-ye only went, “Ooh! As expected!” and admired her even more.
Embarrassed by that, Yu Su-rin gave a wry smile.

“I caused my fair share of trouble too. You know Martial Aunt Jin Li-yeon, the one I like most, right?”
“Yes, we do.”

She had talked about Jin Li-yeon often enough to wear the words into their ears.
Yu Su-rin’s admiration for Jin Li-yeon had spread to Baek Sang-ye and Tsering as well.

“Thinking back now, I do feel bad about it, but whenever Martial Aunt Jin came back to the sect, I used to ambush her several times a day.”
“Ah, that’s what you meant.”

They had heard that Azure Forest had the peculiar custom of younger disciples ambushing their sect elders.

“It was a fine thing, but I overdid it. Still, Martial Aunt Jin never once got annoyed.”
“She must be very broad-minded.”
“That’s right. Oh, right!”

Yu Su-rin suddenly made the expression of a little rascal.
It felt easy to imagine that she had often made just that sort of expression when she was younger.

“When you meet Martial Aunt Jin in Hangzhou, make sure to ambush her once.”
“…Is that really okay?”
“Try it. You’ll learn a lot.”

Baek Sang-ye had worried whether it was really acceptable to do such a thing to a Martial Aunt she had never met before.
But Yu Su-rin had been so confident.
She had even said that if they felt uneasy, they could say their Senior Sister had told them to do it.

“Alright.”

Of course, there had also been a mischievous little part of them that wanted to see what would happen.

And indeed, she lived up to her reputation.

Tat!

They had confirmed there was no one else in the inn.
To avoid breaking furniture, Baek Sang-ye had not dared draw her iron rod, but even so, the ambush was fierce.
Baek Sang-ye stepped on a chair and leapt upward.

Then she seized the long hanging cloth draped from a ceiling beam.
The cloth, large enough to divide the seating like a wall, went flying toward Jin Li-yeon.

Pararak!

Normally, Jin Li-yeon would have drawn her sword and cut the cloth apart.
But inside an inn, she couldn’t do that.
Unable to draw her sword, her vision was obscured for an instant.

And bang!
There was movement from the right.
Jin Li-yeon guarded that side, but when the cloth dropped, what was revealed was Tsering’s pack, which Baek Sang-ye had thrown.

“Hahat!”

Tsering’s laughter came from the opposite side.
She was rushing in from Jin Li-yeon’s left.

Baek Sang-ye blocked Jin Li-yeon’s vision and threw the pack to muddy her judgment.
Meanwhile, the plan was for Tsering to close in from another direction.
For an improvised joint attack, it was astonishingly effective.
It was the kind of teamwork that would have been impossible for the trio just a few months earlier.

A triumphant grin spread over Tsering’s face.
She was expecting that Martial Aunt Jin had surely been badly rattled.

But at that moment, one of Yu Su-rin’s words came back to her.

‘Martial Aunt Jin has never once been surprised by one of my ambushes.’

As the cloth fell away, Jin Li-yeon’s face was revealed.
There was not the slightest trace of surprise on it.
From the very beginning, she had been looking toward the direction Tsering was coming from.

Tsering realized too late and tried to pull back, but it was already too late.
Fist Qi gathered around her fist.
Because she sensed danger, she had unconsciously released internal energy.
But Tsering’s fist never struck Jin Li-yeon.

Jin Li-yeon’s hand glided softly up along Tsering’s fist.
Then, as if grasping the Gokji acupoint at the elbow,

Hwiririk!

Tsering spun once through the air.
It was a move of Shifting Flowers and Grafting Trees, using the opponent’s own force against them.
Her arm had been twisted behind her back, and Tsering was subdued, unable to move.

Then Jin Li-yeon turned her head.
There, quite literally, Baek Sang-ye was ‘flying’ at her.
In one hand she held a chopstick out long like a sword.
She had leapt that way in order to avoid making any noise.
Since this was not a real fight, she had taken up a chopstick instead, but even so, a confident smile had spread across her face.
But Baek Sang-ye’s smile collapsed just as quickly.

“Ah!”

Jin Li-yeon had used Tsering like a human shield and thrust her into that path.
Startled, Baek Sang-ye snatched back the chopstick.
But Jin Li-yeon instead shoved Tsering away.
There was no way Baek Sang-ye could change direction in midair. She and Tsering crashed right into each other.

The two of them went tumbling noisily across the floor.
The ambush had failed.

Without the slightest doubt, Jin Li-yeon asked,

“Did Su-rin put you up to this?”
“Ugh. Yesss….”

Tsering got up with an awkward look on her face.
Baek Sang-ye looked disappointed too.
When they looked up at Jin Li-yeon, she was smiling gently.
As expected, she really was a Martial Aunt broad-minded enough to earn Yu Su-rin’s admiration.
The innkeeper, startled by the commotion, came out from the kitchen.

“Good grief… you lot are really making a damn racket.”

It was an everyday occurrence for Murim people in Hangzhou to make a commotion in inns.
The innkeeper clicked his tongue and went back.
Hearing that muttered remark, Baek Sang-ye’s face reddened.

“The feint was good, but you need to understand that your opponent may pretend to fall for it.”
“Th-thank you, Martial Aunt.”

Fortunately, the mood remained warm.
Jin Li-yeon looked at Cheongho, who had been standing quietly in the back watching, and asked,

“You’re Cheongho, right?”
“Yes.”
“I heard you’re these girls’ senior brother.”
“That’s how it turned out.”
“As expected, as the eldest, you’re the steadiest and most dependable.”
“Thank you.”

Cheongho offered his thanks in quite a polite manner.
Seeing that, Baek Sang-ye’s jaw dropped.

‘How underhanded!’

When they had planned the ambush, Cheongho had agreed to join in too.
But when the moment actually came, Cheongho had simply stood in the back, gaping blankly.
And after that, he got all the praise to himself.

Baek Sang-ye jabbed Cheongho in the side and whispered,

“Why did you just stand there? Are you kidding me?”
“Because it looked obvious it would fail.”
“…Kuh.”

Once he put it that way, she had nothing to say.
She could’ve claimed the ambush would have succeeded if Cheongho had joined in, but even she did not really believe that.

“Come inside. I have something to tell you.”

Jin Li-yeon and the trio straightened up the mess they had made, then went upstairs to the room.
It seemed she had rented the room next to theirs.

“You all have Guihon Compasses too, don’t you?”

She took out her own Guihon Compass and showed it to them.
Cheongho placed his Guihon Compass beside it as well.

Even though both contained a little Guihon Jade, the needles did not move.

“Since we’ve confirmed they don’t interfere with each other, we can use both of them.”

Having said that, she began her explanation.

“I’ve been working in the role of Azure Forest’s investigator, collecting Guihon Jade.”

Jin Li-yeon was a martial artist whose name was also well known for her exploits in the Murim Alliance.
Even before the existence of Guihon Jade became known to the world, she had been collecting it.

“I recovered three of them, and this time I was pursuing the fourth.”

The Guihon Jade she had recently tracked down had been here, at Hundred Flower Pavilion in Hangzhou.

“Then did you succeed this time too?”
“I failed.”

But someone intercepted the Guihon Jade.
Iron-Faced Poisonous Hand, who had collapsed vomiting, was handed over by Jin Li-yeon to the Murim Alliance.
Under questioning, he said that a man in black had made him vomit up the Guihon Jade and then stolen it.
There was no way to know what faction had intervened.

“So I kept tracking it. At last, I found a lead.”

Jin Li-yeon had at least roughly traced the whereabouts of the Guihon Jade.
In truth, she could not be certain that she had traced the exact path of that Guihon Jade.
She opened her mouth.

“The Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild.”

There had been suspicious movements within the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild.

“It seems there is Guihon Jade in the estate of its owner, Seok Sung.”

The trio looked at one another.
It was the very estate where they had just gone to see the notice for the cooking competition.

“Um… Martial Aunt.”

It was hard to believe, but they felt they had to say it.

“We just came back from in front of that estate.”

They told her that the golden ladle prize for the cooking competition seemed to have a gemstone set in it that looked very much like Guihon Jade.

For the first time, real shock appeared on Jin Li-yeon’s face.