Chapter 40

“This Purple Empyrean Pill….”
“You eat it.”
“Really?”
“I don’t need it. How many elixirs do you think I’ve eaten already?”
“Ahem. That’s that settled, then. So this Body-Guarding Vajra Pill….”
“You have it.”
“Th-then these Heavenly Silkworm Thread gloves….”
“You have those too.”

I gaped at Moyong Rin, a dashing heroine who positively reeked of cool.

“You’re telling me to take all of them?”
“Mm.”
“Really?”
“Honestly, what did I even do? You did all of it. What I gained in that fog room is plenty for me.”
“No, still, we ought to talk it over a bit more….”
“I’ll be off. I’ve got training to do.”

Moyong Rin was out the door before I could catch her. With the Dragon and Phoenix Conference this close, she was burning with drive and throwing herself into training, her eyes on nothing but the championship.

“Good grief.”

I scratched my head and looked at the door she had swept out through.

Do the people of this Moyong Family not have such a thing as greed?

It had been the same with Moyong Pae-cheon before. There was every reason in the world to covet, and not one of them showed a scrap of it.

Aren’t murim warriors supposed to go wild-eyed at the word “elixir”? From what I hear, betraying their own family over one is nothing to them.

The Moyong Family. Great Heroes, every one of them, and of truly admirable character.

There’s a reason people call them one of the great orthodox sects.

They were plainly a different thing from the black-path thugs who torment an innocent waiter, or the Demonic Cult that bursts a man’s head open and kills him without so much as a word.

I’d better revise my assessment of Moyong Rin a little.

And so, sitting there in the Great Heroes’ own stronghold, gazing out through the open door at a sky as blue as their own upright spirit….

I watched yet another Great Hero come over the wall with a deftness that would have done credit to a gentleman on the beam.¹

Moyong Danho was limping a little, so I asked.

“Thought you said you were all healed up?”
“I took a hard hit on the leg at the representative selection match yesterday…. It’ll heal soon enough.”
“We set off in a few days, don’t we?”
“It’ll be healed before then. Don’t fret.”

Danho perched himself on the edge of the veranda.

“Any griddle cakes?”
“There’s a batch made up in the kitchen. Go help yourself.”
“Yesss!”

Danho limped off to fetch griddle cakes.

First I opened the wooden case with the Purple Empyrean Pill in it. The moment the lid came up, a clear, cool fragrance spread out of it. Like drawing in the dawn air deep in the mountains, I suppose. Just smelling it was enough to blow every worldly care away and leave my head feeling scrubbed clean.

“Wow…. There’s a reason they call this a precious elixir.”

Danho was still perched on the veranda’s edge, humming to himself between bites of griddle cake.

“Obviously. It’s one of the very few elixirs that can stand comparison with the Shaolin Temple’s Great Rejuvenation Pill.”
“The Great Rejuvenation Pill? That good?”
“Less than the Great Rejuvenation Pill, of course, but being in the same conversation at all is remarkable. Honestly, I never thought the Mount Hua Sect would stake a Purple Empyrean Pill. It’s the sort of treasure that’s never, ever supposed to leave the sect.”

I tilted my head.

“So why stake a treasure like that on kids messing about?”
“Who knows. Unless he was fairly sure of winning…. Ju Jeo-ha, was it? The one they say hunted a monster on his own.”
“That’s him. Ju Jeo-ha, my griddle-cake friend.”
“Looks like he staked it on that fellow. Then you turned up riding some monster and the whole thing came apart. He’ll be weeping tears of blood about now.”

Mention of the Mount Hua Sect reminded me of something.

I think somebody said there’s a ruin site near the Mount Hua Sect too.

“Danho.”
“Mm?”
“Mount Hua’s in Shaanxi, right? And the Murim Alliance, where the Dragon and Phoenix Conference is held, has its seat in Luoyang.”
“That’s right.”
“Since we’ll be out that way, could we stop by Shaanxi?”
“Mm…. I suppose there’s no reason we couldn’t?”

Nice.

See the Dragon and Phoenix Conference, and get to a ruin site while I was at it. If that wasn’t a two-for-one, what was?

And while I was putting the plan together in my head, Danho nodded at the Purple Empyrean Pill in my hand.

“Whatever you do, don’t take that on your own. Ask Big Bro Moyong Bi to help you. That’s no ordinary elixir.”
“Why? In case I don’t absorb it properly and waste it?”
“That too. But an elixir with as much qi in it as a Purple Empyrean Pill? One slip and you can die.”
“…Die?”

Why would a person die from eating one measly elixir?

“Your meridians are still narrow and untempered. What do you think happens when a colossal surge of internal qi comes pouring in?”
“Uh, um. Wouldn’t I get hurt?”
“You’d be lucky to get off with a bit of hurt. Your meridians can tear, and if it’s bad they can burst. Think of a levee going in a flood.”

A chill.

Gooseflesh rose all over me. Do these crazy murim warriors stake their lives even on eating an elixir?

“And even short of that, you can lose control and have the medicine’s force run wild, or have your internal qi flow backward, black out and go mad.”
“….”
“Ah, that’s right. Your dantian might not hold and could be ruined outright. The vessel’s too small to hold that much energy. What do you think happens if you pour a waterfall into a bowl the size of a soy-sauce dish?”
“….”
“When a sect picks who gets fed an elixir, it’s careful because the thing is precious, yes, but also because it’s that dangerous. With a precious elixir like a Purple Empyrean Pill it’ll be worse still. You’ve not long taken up martial arts yourself, Gwang-seon, so you’d do well to be careful.”

My appetite gone, I closed the wooden case with the Purple Empyrean Pill in it.

Maybe I shouldn’t take it?

I pushed the case well away and picked up another one.

The Body-Guarding Vajra Pill.

This one makes your body tough, was it?

Danho filled me in.

“There’s talk that blade and spear can’t get through you, but honestly that’s overblown. It’ll be more that your skin toughens and your bones and organs get sturdier. Good for warriors who train mainly in the external arts.”
“Is that so?”

I flung the wooden case at him.

“You take it, then.”

Danho caught it on reflex and stared at me, dumbfounded.

“…Me, take it? Are you serious?”
“Yeah. What good would it do me? At best I’d come down with fewer little ailments and that’d be the end of it.”

I was thinking about efficiency. Say it gives me an effect of about 1. Danho takes it and he gets an effect of 10 or more. At that rate he could cover my 1 without any trouble.

Good business.

“I don’t like watching you limp, so take it and do something about that leg.”
“…Gwang-seon.”

Danho looked at me, visibly moved.

“Don’t want it, hand it back.”
“N-no. Nothing of the sort.”

I had thought about giving it to our boss, who limps the same way. But our boss is no murim warrior, and there was no chance he could digest the thing. They say you can die from taking one wrong, so rather than hand it over for no good reason and have something go wrong, giving it to Danho was far better.

“Thanks. I’ll take it gratefully.”
“So long as you know it.”

I took out the last prize, the Heavenly Silkworm Thread gloves. They had a faint green cast to them, and they were terribly thin, soft as silk.

And a blade can’t pierce these?

Pulled onto my hands, they were so light I couldn’t tell whether I had them on.

There’s a reason they’re called a treasure.

A sharp blade can’t pierce them, they hold up against fire, and they’re waterproof besides. And even then, light enough to fly away. There was nothing to do but marvel.

It struck me that Moyong Jin-seong had handed them over readily enough. Probably it was a case of better his own children having them than the Mount Hua Sect.

“Nice. Tonight’s dinner is fried food.”
“…You’re not actually planning to use those as a frying skimmer, are you?”
“What. You don’t want fried food?”
“…Never mind.”

Moyong Danho opened his mouth to say something and gave it up.

Having polished off the griddle cakes, Danho left to absorb the Body-Guarding Vajra Pill I’d given him. He carried it off cradled against him as carefully as a household god’s jar, so it really must be something precious.

And I sat on the veranda and waited for our martial arts teacher to come. Just then, a welcome voice reached me.

“Oi, waiter. Keeping well?”
“Big Bro Un-cheon!”

I turned my head to find Big Bro Un-cheon sitting a little way along beside me, easy as anything.

“Where have you been off to without a word?”
“Nowhere. Felt cooped up, so I went on an outing.”

We talked about this and that, and then he suddenly looked me up and down.

“Come to think of it, something about you has changed. Made some progress in the meantime? No, never mind that. Isn’t that a Purple Empyrean Pill?”
“It is.”

Big Bro Un-cheon stared at me, incredulous.

“What have you been doing, that you’ve got the Mount Hua Sect’s treasure? Don’t tell me you stole it?”
“Well, you see….”

Just as I was about to explain.

“Is that all he took? He stole something worse than that.”

The sudden voice brought my head around. Moyong Bi had hopped down off the wall and was walking our way. Big Bro Un-cheon asked:

“What did he steal?”

Moyong Bi gave me a nod.

“Show him.”
“Yes, sir.”

I picked up the Pork-Slicing Demon-Cleaving Saber and got to my feet. Out in the yard, I gathered my mind.

“Hooo….”

I opened the eyes I had closed. The star that had formed on my retina began to turn like a cartwheel.

— Keeen—

I swung the saber in a level arc and shouted.

“Scatter, Senbonzakura!²”

Silver-white petals went scattering.

Big Bro Un-cheon’s mouth fell wide open.

“You, you…! You stole the Plum Blossom Sword?”
“Huh? The Plum Blossom Sword has pink petals and mine are silver-white. What, is there a copyright on it?”
“Who do you think you’re fooling? I’ve met any number of Plum Blossom Swordsmen! It’s the same thing, only a different color!”

So a disciple’s cute little joke wouldn’t fly.

He’s not buying it.

I slid the saber back into its sheath and shrugged.

“That’s how it worked out.”
“There’ll be an uproar if the Mount Hua Sect finds out. How on earth did you steal the Plum Blossom Sword? No — and what’s the matter with this one’s eyeballs, while we’re at it.”

I gave the rough version to my master, who takes such an interest in our disciple, and then called Moyong Bi over.

“Teacher Yong-bi.”
“Right. Will you take it now?”
“Yes.”

Using the Plum Blossom Sword ate up more internal energy than I’d expected. Maybe because it’s a martial art I picked up by a shortcut. And I didn’t have much to begin with, which made it a problem.

I need more internal energy.

So goddamn much internal energy! Enough internal energy to come spilling over the brim!

However dangerous it might be, taking the Purple Empyrean Pill was a fate I couldn’t dodge. I sat up straight and put the pill in my mouth.

“Hm. It’s sweet and sour, isn’t it?”
“Concentrate.”
“In all my born days I’ve never seen anyone give a taste review of a Purple Empyrean Pill.”

I closed my eyes and felt the vast energy come pouring in.

An elixir holding as much internal force as a Purple Empyrean Pill can do serious harm if things go the least bit wrong. And the trouble only compounds when the damage lands on the acupoints and organs inside rather than on anything outside, so there was no helping the tension.

Moyong Bi kept a hand on Gwang-seon’s back, and his voice came out tight.

“Control the flow. No need to hurry. Slowly.”
“….”
“Guide the energy. Lead it to the dantian.”
“….”
“There’s no need to push. If the dantian looks like overflowing, stop at once. Even if a little energy leaks away, don’t grudge it — cut it off boldly. Get greedy and you could come to real harm.”

Moyong Bi weighed what was happening inside Gwang-seon.

“Yes, that’s it. Eat in a hurry and you’ll come to grief. Slowly — let the dantian adjust to it.”

Gwang-seon in particular had not long taken up martial arts, so his dantian was still unripe. It could only be small.

What happens if seawater is suddenly poured into a pond with lotus leaves bobbing on it?

The textbook way is to widen it slowly through qi circulation. But the textbook way is only the textbook way. Absorb it slowly, a little at a time, and the boy ought to take in a fair portion of it, if not all of it.

Everyone has their own limit, of course, but Moyong Bi believed.

Gwang-seon was surely not a vessel that would overflow at so little as this.

Gwang-seon did as Moyong Bi said and led the energy slowly to his dantian.

“Good. Hold that pace. Don’t tense up…. Huh?”

In that instant, something went wrong. The moment a portion of it entered the dantian, the energy that had been flowing along smoothly went wild.

Why has this thing gone off all of a sudden?

Moyong Bi saw the pill’s energy running out of control and made up his mind fast.

Throwing away a Purple Empyrean Pill is a shame, but there’s no help for it.

He was on the point of cutting the pulse then and there to scatter the energy.

Then the thrashing energy of the pill was sucked away to one side at a terrifying speed. The dantian was devouring it greedily.

Before he could get a word out, Gwang-seon’s dantian had absorbed the whole Purple Empyrean Pill in an instant.

Without so much as a fraction wasted. All of it.

What in the world is this?

Had the thrashing been a last struggle just before it was eaten?

“Oho. I’m brimming with power. There really is a reason everybody goes on and on about the Purple Empyrean Pill.”
“….”
“….”

Moyong Bi and Baek Un-cheon stared blankly at a delighted Gwang-seon.

Time slipped by, and the day of the Dragon and Phoenix Conference drew near.

Before they left, Moyong Jin-seong gathered the children and spoke.

“The gangho is wide, and the world you will meet is without end. Go and know the world broadly, and carve the name of the Moyong Family clearly into that vast realm under heaven!”
“Yes, sir!”
“I cannot go with you now, but whatever happens I will certainly be there for the final, so have no worries.”

Moyong Jin-seong had a charge for Moyong Bi as well.

“Lead the children well and come back safe.”
“Yes. Have no fear.”

And so, along with a few guardians, the Moyong Family’s rising generation set out on the road to Luoyang, where the Dragon and Phoenix Conference would be held. The mood was as boisterous as if they were off on a picnic, and they were buzzing with anticipation and excitement over the connections and the challenges waiting at the other end.

“Good days, these.”

The escort, Moyong Bi, had been watching them from behind with a fond look. He turned to Baek Un-cheon, who had tagged along out of boredom.

“What do you think? Is there one among that lot who’ll take the championship?”
“Mm…. Who can say.”
“How about our Gwang-seon?”
“Win the Dragon and Phoenix Conference? Not a hope, as things stand. Rin has more of a chance than Gwang-seon.”
“As things stand, you say.”

The two escorts looked quietly at Gwang-seon, who was handing out griddle cakes to the children.

“When did he even make those griddle cakes?”
“Got up early in the morning and made them as snacks, apparently.”
“Seen like this he’s a warm-hearted waiter and nothing else.”
“My point exactly.”

The laughter went out of both their faces.

“He’s growing too fast. He’s closer to a spirit beast playing at being a person.”
“He’s an unfathomable one, in all sorts of ways.”
“If we run him hard the whole way there, maybe it could be done after all?”
“Could it?”
“If it doesn’t work, that’s a pity. Let’s give it a try at least.”

The two of them came to an agreement.

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yes?”

Baek Un-cheon walked over to Gwang-seon and flung the thing he was holding.

“Catch.”

Gwang-seon dodged on instinct.

— Thud!

It came down and set the ground booming like a drumhead.

“…What is that?”

Baek Un-cheon grinned.

“A training pouch.”