CH 71

“How are you still…? I was so sure you were dead. Mu Jeong…jin definitely threw you in the pit of snakes…”

Jeonghwa muttered unintelligibly.

The situation in front of her cannot be understood with her common sense. When a person encounters a situation that transcends their common sense, it takes time for them to accept it as reality.

That was how Jeonghwa felt right now. Her shaky eyes reflected her confusion.

Jurreuk!

As she received a big shock, her internal organs that had barely stabilized were agitated again, and blood flowed out of her mouth.

Jeonghwa’s complexion paled in an instant. It was not unusual for her to lose her breath quickly.

At that moment, Pyo-wol reached out and grabbed her wrist and injected his qi. As Jeonghwa’s internal organs and qi stabilized, the color of her face returned little by little.

But Jeonghwa wasn’t happy at all. Rather, she glared at Pyo-wol as if she was going to devour him.

“You dirty assassin! How dare you hold my hands?”

She shouted with all her might. It was so that someone from the outside could hear her voice. But despite her intentions, her voice remained soft.

It was almost impossible to hear unless someone was in the room.

Knowing that fact, Pyo-wol didn’t care whether Jeonghwa screamed or not. 

“Even if you don’t shout like that, I’ll still kill you.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I told you. I’m going to kill you.”

“If you kill me, how are you going to deal with the consequences? Do you think the Emei sect will leave you alone?”

“I won’t stand still. Just like I did seven years ago.”

He had already experienced how tenacious the Emei sect was seven years ago. He even reached the brink of death back then. 

Maybe that is also why he didn’t feel afraid at all despite Jeonghwa’s threat. Back then, Pyo-wol was much weaker than he is now, and his preparations were insufficient. 

But still, Pyo-wol ended up surviving.

So now that he had done his preparations and he is a lot stronger, he had no reason to feel threatened by Jeonghwa.

“You dirty assassin!”

“Oh, I know. Is it because of me that you’re like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s me who killed Gongseon. I’m also the one who killed the young master of the Thunder Gates.”

“Lies!”

Jeonghwa harshly denied Pyo-wol’s words. But Pyo-wol continued,

“It’s true, Gongseon stopped breathing as she was sleeping. Well, at least I let her die without pain. Killing the young master of the Thunder Gates wasn’t difficult, too. Like what you said, I’m a dirty assassin. So I enjoy hiding in the dark.”

“Are, aren’t you ashamed?”

“I told you. I’m an assassin. I was raised that way.”

“Stop your bullshit.”

“You and the Abbess of Nine Calamities commissioned the Blood Shadow Group to assassinate Woo Gunsang. So the Blood Shadow Group kidnapped me together with the other children and raised us as assassins. We’re actually like your children. Because if it weren’t for you, we would have never turned out to be assassins.”

“That’s just sophistry–”

“You really think so? Is it sophistry?”

Pyo-wol looked into Jeong-hwa’s eyes. For a moment, Jeong-hwa trembled.

It was because his red eyes, shining in the dark, seemed to eat away at her heart. Jeonghwa saw a vision as if a huge snake was hiding in the dark.

The darkness seemed to stir every time the snake breathed.

Pyo-wol was the giant snake.

He was looking at Jeonghwa with completely still eyes. Neither malice nor fire were in his eyes. 

Jeonghwa did not dare to breathe heavily. She seemed to understand why a rat in front of the snake gave up on escaping.

Because that’s how she feels now.

Just by looking into Pyo-wol’s eyes, her will to live was fizzling out.

Jeonghwa shouted to shake off her fear.

“I, what do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything. I just want to tell you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think will happen to the Emei sect in the future?”

“………..”

“The Emei sect will continue to fight the Qingcheng sect fiercely, because the  Qingcheng sect’s Cheongyeop is going to die tonight. The angry Qingcheng sect warriors will run to this place without hesitation. No matter what excuses you make, they will never listen. The death of the great disciple of such a prestigious sect would never dismiss an incident like that even with your excuses.”

“You, you…!”

Jeonghwa was unable to speak and trembled.

Black blood continued to flow from her mouth. It was evidence that her injuries were getting worse. Jeonghwa was dying. Her emotional turmoil aggravated her internal injuries.

The cause was Pyo-wol.

Although Pyo-wol had not touched her, he was still greatly affecting Jeonghwa.

“Of course, there will be some who will question the situation, right? There are already a few who think that someone else was involved, like your Junior Sister Yong Seol-ran. She truly has some good sense.”

Pyo-wol remembered Yong Seol-ran and smiled.

“But it won’t be of any use. Cheongyeop will be assassinated tonight using your Emei sect’s signature technique, Pyoseol Cheonunjang.1”

“What?”

“There was a copy of Pyoseol Cheonunjang in the clothes of an Emei disciple left in the underground cave after he died. So I learned it.”

Jeonghwa opened her eyes wide and the corners of her eyes were torn. Blood from the wound ran into her eyes and mixed with tears. It looked like she was crying tears of blood.

“It was just my luck that one of your junior brothers wanted to learn the Pyoseol Cheonunjang.”

“Oh, you devilish bastard! You will never be at peace when you die! You demon!”

At that moment, Jeonghwa realized Pyo-wol’s intentions and vomited all kinds of curses. However, Pyo-wol continued to speak without hesitation.

“That is the picture I drew in my head. What do you think? It will be fun, right?”

“S…Stop it.”

“The disciples of both the Qingcheng sect and the Emei sect who came to Chengdu will be at war against each other. If that happens, even the monsters crouching on the mountain will no longer be able to sit. The Abbess of Nine Calamities, Mu Jeong-jin, and so on–”

“Keukek!”

Jeonghwa had blood and foam form in her mouth. 

Her anger swelled to the tip of her head, and her heart ached. Regardless, Pyo-wol continued.

“I’m going to force them to go down the mountain. And I’m going to rip them out of this world. As if they didn’t exist in the first place.”

Pyo-wol’s last words were the final blow.

Puck!

“Keuck!”

The blood vessels in Jeonghwa’s brain burst out of excessive anger and deepening. Her body could not withstand the excessive psychological pressure.

Jeonghwa stopped breathing with the most painful expression in the world. 

But Pyo-wol’s words weren’t over yet.

“Terrible, right? That there is someone like me in the world. It’s terrible for me too. I…”

Pyo-wol’s gaze turned to Jeonghwa.

The figure of Pyo-wol was reflected on Jeonghwa’s empty eyes that were weeping bloody tears.

Pyo-wol asked the dead Jeonghwa.

“So why did you raise someone like me?”

* * *

Yong Seol-ran frowned.

It was a habit to come out when she had a strange feeling.

Although she didn’t show it to anyone else, her martial arts skills had long surpassed Jeonghwa. It’s just that she hasn’t revealed her skills until now, for fear of getting caught up in troublesome things.

As she had always done, she wanted to live quietly in the future. But the rapidly changing circumstances did not leave her alone.

“Huu! This is difficult.”

Yong Seol-ran walked alone in the vicinity of the White Flower Room.

Because the White Flower Room was a place that was carefully cared for, their residence was very beautiful.

Around the large pond in Mount Seokga, all kinds of flowers were in bloom. The flowers that received the moonlight were showing off their beautiful appearance. 

However, the eyes of Yong Seol-ran remained troubled.

Even walking among the flowers did not calm her troubled mind at all. Rather, it felt like her heart was beating even more violently.

It was then.

“Some, something’s wrong! Senior Sister!”

An Emei sect’s second generation disciple ran to her with a shrill scream.

“What’s going on?”

“J, Jeonghwa, senior sist— has passed away.”

“What?”

Yong Seol-ran put on a look of disbelief.

Although Jeonghwa’s wounds were serious, Yong Seol-ran heard that Jeonghwa had survived the critical point. Yong Seol-ran couldn’t believe that Jeonghwa’s wounds had gotten worse and that she had died in that small amount of time.

Yong Seol-ran hurried to the abode of Jeonghwa.

In front of Jeonghwa’s body, the physician and the disciples of the Emei sect had already gathered. In particular, the face of the clinician who treated Jeonghwa had turned white.

It was because Jeonghwa died while he was away for a while.

“How did this happen? Why is Senior Sister Jeonghwa–?”

“That, I don’t know either. I’m sure her condition was stabilized—”

“Was she attacked?”

“No external injuries were found. From the presence of blood on the corners of the mouth, her internal wound appears to have worsened, making her vomit blood.”

The physician hastily said what he knew.

It was because he was afraid that he would be misunderstood that Jeonghwa was dead because of his own actions.

The physician desperately argued that this had happened because Jeonghwa had expelled him from the room. His face was full of fear, fearing that the Emei sect might held him accountable.

Yong Seol-ran looked at Jeonghwa’s body while letting the physician’s words pass through her ear. The dark red blood that soaked Jeonghwa’s face and chest did not even come into her sight. 

What Yong Seol-ran focused on observing was the one and only eye of Jeonghwa.

Her eyes, which had lost focus, were filled with fear. 

Jeonghwa was not the kind of person who would show her emotions like this simply because she was afraid of her own death. It was clear that something else caused her to be terrified. 

Yong Seol-ran asked the physician.

“When was the last time you were away?”

“That… was only half an hour ago.”

The eyes of Yong Seol-ran shone.

‘If it’s half an hour, it hasn’t been long yet.’

Yong Seol-ran hurried out of the White Flower Room.

“Sister!”

Behind her, she heard the voices of the Emei disciples calling her, but Yong Seol-ran ignored them all. She came out of the residence and looked around for a moment.

The street was dark, and she didn’t feel a single presence.

Yong Seol-ran climbed onto the tallest pavilion in the area. She released her qi and spread it throughout the area.

If an ordinary warrior had spread their qi like this, they would have collapsed from exhaustion soon after. However, the internal energy of Yong Seol-ran was far deeper and vast than most people knew.

Her qi spread throughout the area that seems to have no bounds. Beads of sweat formed on Yong Seol-ran’s forehead.

“Found you.”

Just before her qi was exhausted, she finally sensed a foreign presence.

At first, the presence was so faint that she thought it was a small animal such as a cat or a mouse moving. However, it was impossible for a cat or a mouse to move several meters at a time.

‘North!’

Yong Seol-ran flew in the direction where the unknown person moved.

She ran through the night sky of Chengdu like a shooting star.

The further north she went, the stronger the opponent’s presence was felt. 

But at one point, the presence of the opponent she was chasing completely disappeared.

“What?”

Yong Seol-ran stopped where the last presence of the opponent was sensed and looked around. 

But there was no suspicious presence anywhere.

“Was it an illusion?”

Yong Seol-ran immediately shook her head.

Although it was only for a moment, she clearly felt the energy of an unfamiliar existence.

It was neither a mouse nor a cat. It was obviously human.

Yong Seol-ran narrowed her eyes and looked around. But she didn’t feel anything either.

She felt haunted. It was as if something invisible had made fun of her. Yong Seol-ran raised her senses once again with a confused expression. However, there were no suspicious signs anywhere.

Yong Seol-ran eventually left the area helplessly.

Shortly after she disappeared, someone walked out of the shade of a wall not far away.

It was Pyo-wol who moved while masking his presence. Pyo-wol looked in the direction where Yong Seol-ran disappeared.

‘She truly has good senses.’

Until now, no martial artist had successfully sensed his movements.

Yong Seol-ran was the first person to detect his presence since he came into the world. However, once Pyo-wol made up his mind to completely hide his presence, she failed to notice him even though she was just a short distance away.

If Pyo-wol was determined to hide his presence, there was no existence in the world that could find him. Just seeing Yong Seol-ran convinced Pyo-wol of his skills.

Pyo-wol took another step.

Now that his destination was not far away, there was no reason to carry out light footwork techniques.After a while, his destination appeared in front of him.

Golden Gates.

A member of the Three Gates and was the place where the disciples of the Qingcheng sect stayed.

Like the White Flower Room, there was a strict security network at the Golden Gates. The faces of the warriors guarding the Golden Gate were all tired. But no one neglected their duty.

“We don’t know when the Emei sect will attack, so everyone, keep your guards up.”

“Those dirty Emei sect bitches.”

It was already dawn, but the warriors guarding the Golden Gate were burning with anger towards the Emei sect.

Yesterday, they lost many of their colleagues to the Emei sect. 

No matter how much they prevailed in the fight, the sadness of losing a comrade did not go away.

Their feelings of sorrow turned into anger towards the Emei sect.

Their eyes were full of fire as they stood on the lookout for the Emei sect, fearing that they would launch an attack. 

But nonetheless. 

No one noticed a black shadow infiltrating the Golden Gates like a snake.