The night streets of West Black Road were quieter than usual.
This was territory of the Unorthodox Faction, but even orthodox martial artists, hiding their identities, slipped in and out to secretly buy black-market goods. With an enormous amount of wealth changing hands in a single night, the gangs that had taken root around here were rougher and more vicious than anywhere else.
Jin Sohan looked around, then stopped in front of a building with a sign that read Moonlit Night Pavilion.
“It’s gone… The Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe is gone.”
His voice came out low and heavy.
It felt as hollow as the twelve years that had blown past like wind after his masters took him away. Back then, the troupe had been full of friends he’d grown up with, and older sisters who danced the sword with him.
Where did they all go?
The years felt cruel. The thought hit him all at once—that he had come back far too late. Every person who had known him, who might have welcomed him back, had vanished without a trace.
It felt almost the same as when he’d first become an orphan.
The Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe had been his second family.
And that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
The face of West Black Road itself was completely different. The buildings stood more tightly packed than before, and the people were swarming—ten, twenty times more than he remembered. With the troupe gone, there was no one left he recognized. That, more than anything, left him feeling bleak.
One word crept into Jin Sohan’s chest.
The Unorthodox Faction.
This was its domain.
Every building crowding the alleys seemed to seep a sinister air.
…The Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe was not something that could disappear this cleanly.
He pulled his collar tight against a sudden gust of wind and glanced across the street.
At least the Rooster Head Tavern on the opposite side was exactly as he remembered it. Jin Sohan shook the dust off his shoes and stepped inside.
Rooster Head Tavern.
It was where sellswords liked to gather.
When a stranger in unfamiliar clothes came in, the eyes of those lingering there to escape the cold all turned toward him.
He had his straw hat pulled low, so the looks were inevitable. But what really startled them was the clothes he wore.
Over white martial robes, Jin Sohan had on a long black outer coat.
Someone muttered:
“Black clothes?”
“He’s actually wearing black?”
“Kid’s got guts.”
What was that supposed to mean?
A man addressed him in a curt tone.
“And who might you be, walking around at this hour dressed like that?”
When Jin Sohan glanced around, every face in the tavern looked hard and hostile.
Ah. Sellswords, of course. And this place never did like black clothes. I forgot.
Deciding there was no need to answer, Jin Sohan simply moved toward an empty seat.
There is no such thing as a color that’s outright forbidden by the world.
Especially not black—a color used everywhere.
But at some point, in the districts where the black markets had taken hold, black clothes had become something not just anyone could wear.
Avoid black garments. Avoid painting weapons black, too.
Rumors like that had been common for a long time now.
Sometimes, irrational rules take root in the soil of everyday life.
Here, for no good reason at all, black had become the color that got you stabbed.
It was absurd.
But as the number of people killed over it grew too large to count, folks naturally started avoiding black.
Of course, not everyone.
There are always exceptions. People with power, or martial artists so strong they didn’t need to care about the local gangs, could wrap themselves in black from head to toe and no one would dare complain. And then there were those who wore black on purpose, just to walk into these districts and pick fights.
That was the kind of era this was.
Jin Sohan looked at the server approaching him and almost cleared his throat in surprise when he recognized the face. The boy even had a sword at his hip now. Only then did the reality of being home again finally hit him.
Dogon… that was his name, wasn’t it…
Either way, running into someone he remembered warmed him for a moment. But he wasn’t about to greet him yet. Judging by the mood in the room, it was a night for talking with fists before talking with mouths.
*****
Jin Sohan took off his straw hat.
A clean, handsome face with pale skin was revealed.
The polished look didn’t fit the Unorthodox Faction at all—and it only made the men in the tavern more irritable. They were people who lived by swinging blades and spilling blood; they were always spoiling for something, always ready to latch onto any pretext for a fight.
Sure enough, when Jin Sohan slowly swept his gaze around, nobody in Rooster Head Tavern looked away.
Huh. A room full of eye-contact experts.
He smiled softly.
The mood in the tavern brightened in an instant. Even the ones who’d been about to pick a fight seemed to lose their momentum and reset their faces into stern masks instead.
Strange lot.
After being wrung out under the Demon-Immortal for years, Jin Sohan found that third-rate tavern thugs hardly even registered for him anymore—and that realization surprised him faintly.
Back when I was a little errand boy for the Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe, these sword-swingers looked terrifying…
The server—Dogon—came over and asked:
“What can I get you?”
“Hm…”
Judging from the polite way he spoke, he clearly hadn’t recognized Jin Sohan. That was only natural. Since then, Jin Sohan had grown taller, broader in the shoulders, and his boyish face had sharpened into a young man’s.
He answered:
“Two steamed buns, two eggs, and one bowl of Rooster Head noodles.”
He’d named the items people here ordered most often. Dogon tilted his head.
“…Have you been here before?”
Jin Sohan looked at him and deliberately used informal speech.
“Yeah. Long ago.”
“Ah… I see.”
At that moment, Dogon’s eyes dropped to the strange sword at Jin Sohan’s side.
The sword, too, was completely black.
Dogon’s expression wavered.
Ah, hell. There’s going to be a fight.
Trying desperately to keep his face neutral, Dogon asked:
“Um… no alcohol for you, sir?”
Jin Sohan shook his head. Dogon quickly turned away.
“All right, I’ll bring it right out.”
Knowing exactly what was likely to happen, he let out a short sigh and hurried back toward the kitchen.
So much for tonight’s business.
*****
As soon as Dogon disappeared into the kitchen, one of the middle-aged men in the tavern called out to Jin Sohan.
“From head to toe, you’re dark. Black scabbard, black gloves… From the look of you, you’re not local.”
Jin Sohan glanced at the man, whose face was flushed with drink.
“As you can see, I’m dark.”
“Heh… Listen to this kid talk. That refined way of speaking—you’re from some great martial clan, aren’t you? Which one? Ximen? Dugu?”
“Hahaha…”
The people around them laughed, and the middle-aged man, pleased by the reaction, glared at Jin Sohan as if lecturing a junior.
“In this place, black itself is taken as a challenge. Folks outside have heard about it, too. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
Jin Sohan met his eyes.
“It’s not that I didn’t know. I just forgot. But I only have this one set of clothes, so I don’t have much choice. Please overlook it. I’ve no intention of causing trouble…”
The Divine Art of Lies flowed from his mouth once more. His face, meanwhile, still wore that gentle, fluttering smile.
People say you can’t spit on a smiling face.
And a smile that bright on a young man this handsome—rare for West Black Road—made the patrons feel strangely sheepish. A few even decided he must be a real expert and shut their mouths.
The middle-aged man, however, didn’t intend to let it go.
“Everyone here only has one set of clothes. That’s why you have to choose the color more carefully, don’t you think? Fortunately, your martial robes underneath are white. So start by taking off that black coat and bringing it over here.”
Jin Sohan kept smiling, even as the man continued needling him.
Rooster Head Tavern had always been like this.
He answered lightly, brushing off the aggression.
“My master gave me this coat. I can’t do that.”
The mention of a “master” made the man assume there was someone backing him. He took half a step back.
“What brings you here? We don’t sell swords to outsiders. You’d best be gone before dawn. Walk these alleys in that pitch-black outfit and you’ll have blades jumping out at you from every corner.”
“Sword-selling, huh…”
It was a common practice in the Unorthodox Faction—when a sect wanted to trample a place openly, they hired men like these.
Jin Sohan answered calmly.
“I didn’t come here to sell my sword. This is my hometown. I’ve come back after a long time away.”
“A long time, you say?”
“About twelve years…”
“Twelve years is quite a while.”
The middle-aged man glanced at his younger brother beside him.
“It was already forbidden to wear black back then, wasn’t it?”
“I think so.”
He looked back at Jin Sohan.
“I doubt all of West Black Road counts as your hometown. So where exactly do you mean when you say ‘home’?”
Jin Sohan pointed toward the tavern door.
“I was born right across from Rooster Head Tavern.”
The man burst out laughing.
“Ah… So you’re from Moonlit Night Pavilion, are you?”
People around them laughed as well.
“Ha ha ha.”
“Ha ha ha ha…”
A child of a pleasure house. The kind of thing that could lead to steel coming out at any time.
But every time Jin Sohan slowly swept his gaze around, the laughter died down in turn.
Just then, one quick-witted man quietly got up, told Dogon, “Thanks for the meal,” and slipped out the door with a soft thud of footsteps.
The atmosphere began to sink into something darker.
Jin Sohan, however, didn’t move an inch. Instead, he remembered something the Venom Demon had once said.
Tongues are the problem. Grind up a poison toad and make a paralyzing powder; put as much as the tip of your little finger into someone’s tea, and their tongue will go stiff first… then their guts…
The Venom Demon’s voice seemed to ring in his ears.
Why that memory, here of all places?
Jin Sohan pushed thoughts of his master aside and spoke.
“Where Moonlit Night Pavilion stands now… used to be the Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe.”
The middle-aged man’s eyes flew wide.
“Huh? The Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe? Ah… you mean the Mystic Lunar Courtesan Troupe.”
Jin Sohan corrected him, his face hard.
“The Mystic Lunar Dance Troupe.”
“What’s the difference? Anyway, the fact you remember them… You don’t look that old. Ah, I haven’t heard that name in a long time. You all remember, don’t you?”
His younger brothers nodded.
“How could we forget?”
“It was a fine place. I think of it from time to time. Heh heh…”
Jin Sohan watched their faces as they said courtesan troupe. They were full of remembered lust and greedy nostalgia.
He stared quietly at the man in his forties he’d been talking to and asked:
“You know the troupe?”
The man nodded hard.
“Know it? I miss it. I miss it dearly.”
Once he’d confirmed that, Jin Sohan rose silently to his feet, pointed to the seat across from him, and said:
“Good. Then let me buy you a drink.”