Chapter 106 - Reunion (1)

"Oh! Right! Jong Jihang! That was his na—h-huh? Senior Sister?"

At Ha Seonhyang's words, Hwa Yeji hastily looked toward the inner compound. But Ha Seonhyang's head blocked her view, making it difficult to see. She promptly vaulted over her junior sister's head and sailed toward the building opposite.

That was where the Guest Pavilion building for male visitors stood, but she paid it no mind. Hwa Yeji always did as she pleased even at the Mount Hua Sect. As the sect leader's daughter, she had nothing to fear there, and going abroad had done nothing to change that disposition.

Merely climbing onto the roof of the men's lodgings was no issue whatsoever to her.

She executed the graceful Slender Willow Drift movement technique. Willful, reckless, and insufferably arrogant though she was, Hwa Yeji's martial prowess was outstanding enough to rank her among the Five Phoenixes.

WHOOSH!

Someone suddenly leaped up toward her. Two people, no less!

One reached the roof of the men's Guest Pavilion ahead of her. The other was springing upward with exquisite timing, just as she sailed across.

The man's bangs were exceedingly long. As he leaped upward, they whipped wildly from side to side in the wind. Through the gaps, his eyes met Hwa Yeji's squarely.

Her gaze pointed down, his up.

Those utterly indifferent yet unwavering eyes drew steadily closer.

Hwa Yeji had already fully committed to Slender Willow Drift. She could neither twist in another direction nor fly back to the women's Guest Pavilion, where Ha Seonhyang stood. Even her father, the Mount Hua Sect Leader, could not have managed such a feat.

At this rate, she would collide head-on with this complete stranger!

But at that very moment!

The man with the emotionless eyes reached out at precisely the right instant and gathered her naturally into his arms. His maneuver was so wondrously deft that it blended into her movements without the slightest resistance—no, it melted into them. Normally, the force of his upward leap should have collided with the momentum of Slender Willow Drift and caused a serious mishap...

Yet he scooped up her body as it drifted like a willow leaf, then continued his own movement technique without resisting that flow in the slightest.

Was it merely Hwa Yeji's imagination that his supple, swaying movement technique felt just like Slender Willow Drift...?

SWISH!

TAP.

"Whew. You really are full of surprises. To improvise in that split second and imitate its momentum even as you ran into Slender Willow Drift! Heh heh. And to think you were wasting that talent on mercenary work. What a pity. What a pity."

The middle-aged man who had reached the roof first spoke to the man holding Hwa Yeji. Astonishingly, he had recognized her movement technique as Slender Willow Drift at a glance. More astonishing still...

'Did he really copy Slender Willow Drift?'

She could not be certain, but neither could she dismiss the words of an expert capable of recognizing Slender Willow Drift from a single look.

Despite her astonishment, Hwa Yeji looked up in wonder at the man holding her. His hair had already fallen over his face again, hiding those indifferent eyes she had seen a moment before.

He had certainly been quite handsome, with a peculiar look in his eyes...

Without even realizing it, she gazed up at him for a long while. Just as she had when she encountered Jong Jihang not long ago.

"Heh heh. That young lady seems quite taken with you. She simply can't let go."

"... Oh my!"

Only at the middle-aged man's words did Hwa Yeji realize she was cradled in the arms of a complete stranger. Hastily, she let go.

THUD.

"Ouch!"

Apparently, the man had already removed the hand supporting her back. Completely unprepared, she landed bottom-first on the roof tiles.

He gave her sprawled figure a cursory glance, then walked straight toward the middle-aged man.

"You brat. Is that any way to treat such a beauty?"

"She was the one who let go."

"Tsk, tsk. A thoroughgoing scoundrel. You'll go your whole life without ever properly holding a girl's hand. Say, young lady."

"... Y-yes?"

Hwa Yeji answered reflexively, without thinking. The situation was so absurd that the reply simply slipped out in her daze. She did not know why. Perhaps it was because no one at the Mount Hua Sect ever spoke to her with such impudence or disrespect.

"Allow me to apologize on his behalf. This fellow lived up in the rough, stinking north, so he knows nothing of manners. I hope a lovely young lady like yourself will forgive him."

"... Oh, yes. Yes..."

She gave only a distracted answer and looked at the man. But he had already turned away from her and was looking down toward Central Avenue far below.

Unconsciously, she followed his gaze. Only then did she remember why she had tried to cross over here in the first place.

'Jong Jihang!'

The man was watching Jong Jihang.

Now that she had crossed from the women's lodgings to the men's Guest Pavilion, she could clearly see Jong Jihang's imposing figure. And...

'Or is he? Is he looking at that woman?'

Beside Jong Jihang walked a woman whose beauty defied description.

With the man's eyes concealed beneath his hair, Hwa Yeji had no way of knowing whether he was watching Jong Jihang, the woman, or both.

'But is she human? Or a fairy?'

The woman walking beside Jong Jihang was beautiful. No, beautiful was nowhere near sufficient to describe her.

Dark, graceful brows reminiscent of a clear night sky. A smooth nose as though sculpted by the greatest artisan of all time. Lips the color of cherries dissolved in water and diluted to just the right shade. A perfectly proportioned, clearly defined chin, rounded yet not quite round. Long, lustrous hair and rosy skin. A long neck and a slender figure...

She was a woman so beautiful, so perfect, that she scarcely seemed a creature of the mortal world.

Hwa Yeji's face suddenly burned.

The very fact that someone like her had been called the Greatest Beauty of Shaanxi felt pathetic. And she was mortified to think she had taken pride in it.

That figure, walking with such light steps in pale blue silk.

Was she not truly a fairy?

A wound opened in Hwa Yeji's heart. And she had only seen her once...

"Well, well. The young ladies really are in a different league here in the Central Plains, eh? You, brat. Do you know who that young lady is?"

At the middle-aged man's question, the man glanced toward him, then slowly spoke.

"I do. Very well."

He raised a hand and brushed his bangs aside as he spoke.

He—Dong Bongsu—knew more about that woman, or rather, that person wearing a woman's guise, than anyone else here.

"Namgung Hye."

'Do Heo-ok.'

Fairy of the Murim.

It meant a fairy of the martial world. Simple as it might sound, the title carried a wealth of meaning.

In the Central Plains, the most beautiful person in a region was commonly described as the Greatest Beauty of such-and-such a place.

But what if that place were replaced by Murim, encompassing the entire martial world rather than a single region? And what if, instead of Greatest Beauty, the title used the word Fairy?

The foremost woman of beauty and talent in Murim.

A woman who was not only the most beautiful in Murim, but also possessed outstanding talents. That was the Fairy of the Murim.

In a sense, it was an extraordinarily presumptuous epithet, but several female masters throughout history had borne the title. It had then disappeared as female martial artists grew less prominent over the past century or so.

Recently, however, a woman had appeared to inherit it.

Namgung Hye.

A woman whose noble clan had been annihilated overnight in a surprise attack by The Heavenly Demon Castle and the Eighteen Waterway Strongholds of the Yangtze River, mere days before her wedding. A woman who had lost her dearly beloved fiancé and her entire family.

A woman who bore all the world's misfortune alone.

Naturally, and predictably enough, no one initially knew what an extraordinary woman she was.

Perhaps she had always been extraordinary. Perhaps her clan had simply been so great and powerful that it overshadowed her own talents...

Before the Great Anhui Massacre, all anyone knew of Namgung Hye was that she was the most beautiful woman in Anhui, or the kind, virtuous second daughter of the Namgung Clan's Patriarch.

That was all.

So when she vowed to avenge her clan and fiancé and sought to become a fighting arm of the Murim Alliance, the responses were predictable.

Someone like you...? Even if you inherited Do Heo-ok's internal energy, how could a woman wield the Thunder Saber, a martial art of extreme yang...? What do you expect to accomplish with nothing but a pretty face...?

Everyone either tried to dissuade her from her rash endeavor or mocked her. No one foresaw what she would achieve.

Namgung Hye shattered those perfectly reasonable expectations in a manner that was anything but ordinary.

With the wholehearted backing of the Taoist Sage of Heaven, she became one of the Murim Alliance's strategists and accomplished a great many things.

Not only did she make an immense contribution to locating the Heavenly Demon Castle branches hidden throughout the Central Plains, but her extraordinary tactics and outstanding decisiveness in battle against the Castle repeatedly saved the Murim Alliance from peril.

The Heavenly Demon Castle's advance had been so unstoppable in the early days of the Black-White Great War that her arrival and achievements meant all the more to the Alliance.

Some even said that, when the Heavenly Demon Castle drove them back so hard that even the martial world of Gansu collapsed, the orthodox path might have been utterly finished without her.

Beauty like that of a fairy.

Unpredictable strategic brilliance.

And Do Heo-ok's martial arts to boot.

It was truly a rebirth as the most gifted woman in Murim.

Thus Namgung Hye became the Fairy of the Murim, the most celebrated of the Murim Alliance's many strategists.

Namgung Hye, the Fairy of the Murim, answered the people's cheers with a heavenly smile.

Living up to their expectations was necessary, and it was also an easy, effective way of "packaging" oneself.

People cheered for a convincing exterior. It was no different now. Enthralled by a slightly—perhaps considerably—pretty face, they raved without ever seeing the true nature beneath it. Viewed another way, though, that was proof of how splendid the performance was.