To Hubei Province
Sagong Hui fled.
Whether she was the true Sagong Hui or a woman bearing her qi was unclear, but the scent stirring my blood was unmistakably feminine.
“Immoral fiend.”
Sagong Hui called me an immoral fiend and ran. I could not discern what part of me she found so depraved.
‘I really wonder.’
Some misunderstandings aren’t worth resolving, while others keep you awake at night until you find the answer. Being exposed as a practitioner of demonic art was the former; revealing my depraved heart was the latter.
‘Is this what a woman’s intuition feels like?’
If she truly sensed danger and fled, so be it. But if there were any clue in my appearance, I needed precautions for future encounters with other women.
While I pondered, Sagong Hui gained considerable distance. Barefoot, she fled over the leaf-strewn ground and branches, her feet showing fresh scrapes.
“I cannot let a woman’s bare feet be harmed!”
I sprang from the shadows and closed the gap. Startled, Sagong Hui stumbled, and I leapt over her, seizing both her wrists.
“Ahhh!”
Her hair swept across her face as she fell forward.
I straddled her waist, lifting her arms overhead and pinning her wrists with one hand. With the other, I grabbed her chin and swept her hair aside.
“Let me see your face. Hmm…?”
Her face was split in two. One half was smooth skin, the other marred by burns and scars.
The boundary between scar and flesh hung in ragged strips.
“What is this….”
Tears welled in Sagong Hui’s eyes, and she said nothing. I grabbed at the torn flesh. Sticky pus coated my fingers, but driven by curiosity, I gently lifted the flap of skin.
“Artificial scar mask?”
Beneath the pockmarked surface lay flawless, jade-white skin.
Had she borne such beauty to become a Sword Sovereign, she would have topped the lists not only for sword skill but for beauty as well.
‘In the future, there was no mask like this?’
Sagong Hui’s diseased skin wasn’t a makeup mask but the real mark of illness. Stunned by the strangeness, I even doubted whether this beauty could truly be Sagong Hui.
‘Even if it’s the past, could she have been so different?’
Frankly, I had no idea she was this beautiful. Her prominent nose and large doe eyes were enchanting, and the flush of fear on her cheeks was something I’d have wished to remember forever.
‘If she is Sagong Hui, I’ll take her; if not, still.’
I searched her gentle eyes for any trace of the future Taiji Sword Sovereign, Sagong Hui. The scent of blood from her wounds told me she was the one, yet no matter how I thought about it, Sagong Hui did not have such perfect skin.
lick
I licked the nape of her neck. The sharp tang of blood startled me, and I immediately blew my yang qi through my tongue.
“Ugh. Nearly lost myself.”
I almost felt the Celestial Blossom rise within me. I extended a hand toward the source of her alien energy.
rustle
I tore open Sagong Hui’s robes left and right. As I ripped the fabric over her chest, I revealed the bumps of infected wounds from shoulder to breast.
“Ugh…!”
Sagong Hui squeezed her eyes shut, then peered at me with shame stamped across her face. She pointed desperately down the mountain.
“Please, don’t entertain evil thoughts. Please—please regain your senses…!”
“Evil thoughts?”
“You… you intend to violate me—” sob “!”
She pointed toward the snow-covered hillside like a winter plain.
My hand rested lightly on her modest chest. In that momentary pause from the Celestial Blossom, my hand lingered on her breast.
To any onlooker, it must have looked like I intended to ravish her.
“Stop it!”
I hissed, clutching her breast.
“Do I look like someone who would violate you?!”
“Yes!”
“Why?!”
Sagong Hui bowed her head and indicated the point where our bodies met.
Her eyes seemed to say, “Why ask what’s obvious?” and I winced—yet even I had no intention of forcing unity of yin and yang with this Sagong Hui.
“Is there… any need to explain?” sob
“You flee precisely because you carry the Celestial Blossom.”
“The… Celestial Blossom…?”
Terror flickered in Sagong Hui’s eyes. When she heard of a disease with at least a thirty-percent fatality rate, she panicked and pointed to the mask hanging by her cheek.
“No, no! My parents made me wear this to hide my face…!”
“To hide your face from what?”
“They said men would lust after my face—” sob “!”
“I will grant that.”
Who seeing the face of a celestial maiden could help but feel desire? Combining her words with what I already knew, I formed a theory.
‘Legend tells that Lady Hwang, wife of Strategist Jegal, hid her beauty beneath clay.’
As yoksa note, wuxia women have long used coverings to conceal beauty. When Peng Yuwol rode into the Peng mansion, she veiled her face—some women even affixed fake beards to escape unwanted attention.
‘Still, a mask smeared with pus from real burns…’
A yellowish paste of pig fat had been applied so convincingly it looked like genuine scarring.
If such ghastly skin covered her face, people would turn away in horror before realizing the beauty beneath.
Then why would this woman, so beautiful now, don a fake scar mask in the future? The answer lay in the qi of the Celestial Blossom on her shoulder.
‘She came to Mudang Mountain and caught the Celestial Blossom.’
The beauty she’d tried to hide would never see the light of day again. Though her life survived the Blossom’s wrath, the future Taiji Sword Sovereign would live out her days as a warrior, never as a woman.
‘I cannot allow such tragedy.’
To consign the beauty of the Moon Palace jar to misery would be a loss for all the martial world, indeed all humankind. Thus I bear the duty to guide her away from that fate.
“Um, why are you… staring like that?”
Perhaps lost in thought, I had paused in my assault posture, and Sagong Hui’s gaze flickered with hope.
“Does that… mean you won’t violate me?”
“No? I am going to.”
“…sob!”
I did not hide my intent. Sagong Hui’s tears fell freely as she mourned.
“Mother was right…! All men are beasts…! Even in a plague-ridden mountain, you stoop lower than beasts!”
“Impressive spirit. Most women would keep crying or hurl curses. But it’s pointless. Seek no mercy from me. The moment I saw you, I chose to become a beast.”
“You’re mad… you must be mad!”
“Heh heh. How long will that spirit last?”
I slipped my hand from her breast toward her shoulder.
“I told you you carried the Celestial Blossom. Did you think I meant the mask?”
“What…?”
“You have the Blossom. Doesn’t it sting here?”
I tapped the reddened patch of skin. Sagong Hui shuddered in fear.
“Th-that’s just a scratch from a branch…”
“No. It’s the Celestial Blossom. If not, I’ll strip and hand you my robe without so much as a finger’s touch.”
“N-no! That I would catch the Blossom…!”
Sagong Hui trembled in confusion. Her tears showed no sign of stopping.
“What noble mountain…! Just plagues abound…” sob sniff “Why…?”
“Does a plague heed time or place?”
“Sob… sob…! I saw it when I was imprisoned in the mountain… they all died of the Blossom!”
“Imprisoned?”
She said she was locked in a prison. I paused, puzzled—and then my nose twitched.
The scent of the incident was here.
Not a naturally occurring Blossom—I detected something artificial in the air. From the man I passed before meeting Hyunta Dosa to the qi lingering on Mudang Mountain, hints had been there all along.
“Please… spare me…!”
“Ugh. Very well. I like this. Then so be it.”
Whoooosh.
I placed my hand on Sagong Hui’s lower dantian and breathed my yang qi into her. Warm energy coursed through her vessels, and her labored breathing slowed.
“I need a slave. You will become my slave.”
“Sl-slave…?”
“A slave is different from a servant. You will serve me and attend to my needs all your life. In return, I will spare you.”
“No… no…!”
A flash of hatred crossed Sagong Hui’s eyes. My utter disregard for human dignity and my proposal to barter her life and her parents’ stunned her into weighing the bargain.
“My patience is not infinite.”
“I… I…!”
Kaiyaa—!
From afar came the scream of another woman. She must have screamed on sight of me, but the sound came from farther away than where we stood.
“Mother!!”
Sagong Hui recognized the voice. She met my gaze steadily, her anger held back, and nodded.
“…If you save my parents and cure me of the Blossom, I will become your slave…!”
“I feel I’m at a great disadvantage. Very well. Heh heh. Then we must make it official.”
Swish. I brought my face close to hers. At the breath-touching distance, I pointed at my lips.
“I will claim the upper lip first.”
“Th-this….”
“Do it yourself. If you don’t by the time I count—”
crunch
Sagong Hui bit my lip instead. Rather than seal with a kiss, she bit my lip, her eyes burning without a flicker of hesitation.
“Heh heh, the contract is sealed. Congratulations, Sagong Hui. You are now my slave.”
Tasting blood, I stained my lips, then pressed a bloody kiss mark onto her cheek.
“You thought biting your lip might transfer the Blossom, but I told you it wouldn’t help. Hah, childish.”
“…Mother… please…!”
“All right, all right.”
I sealed her meridians and lifted her onto my back. Her hips felt as light as a feather in my hands.
“Your breasts are small, but your hips are still pleasing. You’ll bear many children.”
“You… pervert….”
“Kuhahaha. Such is your fate, caught by a deviant. As you said, you were destined to die of the Blossom, weren’t you? Meeting me grants you a new life.”
Act I of your life is destroyed by me; Act II will bloom brilliantly as my slave.
“I look forward to what you’ll say with that lower lip.”
“How…!”
What must a woman feel, pleading for her life and her parents’ in front of the very beast who sought to violate her?
‘If it were Sagong Hui’s mother, she must have been beautiful too?’
What would she say knowing I plan to take her mother next? Would she offer herself, or commit the ultimate sin to protect her honor?
‘When I come for her mother, Sagong Hui will surely—’
—say, “I will do it myself, please leave my mother alone!”
Thus is the consummation of our pact.