Chapter 437

As its name suggested, a swift ship was built with speed as its top priority.

If an ordinary warship was a heavyweight, then a swift ship was closer to a welterweight.

Naturally, its hull wasn’t particularly large, which meant there weren’t many places aboard where you could avoid everyone else’s eyes.

“Oh, dear.”

“Great Hero Jin. What brings you here?”

Two river bandits who had been slacking off at the stern under the pretense of standing guard recognized me and bowed obsequiously.

I nodded gravely and opened my mouth.

“Save me…”

At that moment, something sharp poked me right in the Mingmen acupoint at the small of my back.

“Save—stay alert as you go.”

“What?”

“I said, stay alert as you go. I need to discuss something with this fellow for a moment.”

“Oh, I see.”

No. Don’t agree. Please be suspicious.

I continued speaking while shooting an urgent sidelong glance at Mungyeong, who was pressed against my side.

“Be sure to take care on your way! If anyone asks about me, tell them I’m with Mungyeong!”

“Uh, understood.”

“No, not ‘understood.’ Oh, right! My master! If my master comes looking for me…”

“I don’t think that’s likely.”

Mungyeong cut me off with an innocent smile.

“It seems there’s something urgent to discuss with Great Hero Jin Wikyung. In any case, we’ve only come to see a patient for a moment, so please don’t concern yourself with us. Go on and rest in the cabin. I’ll let you know afterward.”

“Works for us.”

Nothing was sweeter than authorized slacking in the middle of a boring guard shift.

The river bandits smiled and left, delighted to lounge in the cool shade. As for the Sound Transmission¹ I was preparing to send as a last resort, a single sentence from Mungyeong stopped me cold.

“You seem to have three or four lives.”

“…”

“You have two choices. Answer every question this old man asks from now on, or, if you’d rather not, quietly keep your mouth shut.”

I asked, just in case.

“What happens if I choose the second option?”

“You’ll go to Hubei.”

“That doesn’t sound too ba—”

Mungyeong calmly continued before I could finish.

“You’ll drift all the way to Hubei while sunk at the bottom of the Yangtze. Quietly.”

“…I thought you said you’d stopped killing.”

“That depends on this old man’s will. It’s none of your concern.”

What the fuck? It isn’t like he’s trying to quit smoking…

Dumbfounded, I protested again.

“You’re the Divine Physician. Are you really threatening to kill me?”

“I’m the former Divine Physician. I passed that name on to my Disciple long ago. So? What’s your answer?”

I glared at Mungyeong.

“Do you really think I’ll give in to a threat like this?”

“Of course.”

“You read me perfectly. I’ll answer every question with the utmost sincerity.”

“…”

Mungyeong seemed momentarily at a loss for words. After a long silence, he finally spoke.

“I’ve seen all kinds, but never anyone as strange as you.”

“From everyone else’s perspective, I’d say we’re both equally strange. Send a messenger-pigeon survey to everyone in Murim and ask which one of us is the bigger freak.”

“Freak?”

“My tongue slipped. Sorry.”

The aura Mungyeong let loose made every hair on my body stand on end.

He silently watched me swallow hard, then tossed out a single phrase.

“Middle Dantian.”

“Huh?”

“Until a few days ago—no, until half a day ago—your Middle Dantian was closed. What trick did you use to accomplish such a great feat overnight?”

So this was why he’d called me aside.

I knew he’d noticed.

The hierarchy of martial realms was perfectly vertical.

It was like sitting in a lofty place and looking down upon everything beneath you.

The Fire King and the Slaughter Saint were peerless masters who had climbed the highest peaks in the rugged mountain range known as Murim.

Both had opened their Middle Dantians long before a person named Jin Taekyung had even been born into Murim. Of course they had noticed the change in me.

The problem was…

What am I supposed to tell him?

It wasn’t as though I had farted in my sleep and somehow opened my Middle Dantian. Other people could attain that kind of enlightenment only through grueling training or while hovering between life and death.

I hesitated, then spotted the large acupuncture needle in Mungyeong’s hand and hurriedly answered.

“It just happened.”

“What?”

“It just opened.”

“…And you expect me to believe that?”

Obviously not.

So I threw in a cliché straight out of a martial arts novel.

“Actually, I did have a strange dream.”

I glanced around and lowered my voice. Mungyeong’s brow furrowed.

“A dream?”

“Yes. A white-haired old man who looked incredibly ancient suddenly started swinging a sword at me without warning. I didn’t even realize it was a dream, so I focused on dodging first.”

It didn’t matter whether it was a spear, a sword, or a back-scratcher. This was a world overrun with all kinds of superstition.

A white-haired old man with the air of an immortal appearing in my dream was enough to pique anyone’s curiosity.

Sure enough, Mungyeong asked with the eager expression of a webnovel reader waiting for the next update.

“And then?”

“I summoned every last ounce of strength I had and fought back, but I was no match for him. No matter how I attacked, he dodged without a care. And whenever I tried to get away, he glided up to me like a ghost and slashed me with his sword. Swish, slash—ugh! You know what I mean?”

“You didn’t realize it was a dream?”

“I didn’t have time to realize anything. Besides, the pain felt incredibly real. Before I knew it, he’d cut me hundreds of times. I thought, So this is how I die. But then I noticed I hadn’t shed a single drop of blood. That was when I realized it was a dream.”

“Continue.”

“But it was driving me insane. He kept cutting me, and it hurt like hell. Even after I realized it was a dream, I couldn’t wake up.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Mungyeong flinched as if he’d been cut himself.

This guy gives surprisingly good reactions.

Having reconfirmed the instincts of the webnovel reader hidden behind the terrifying name of Slaughter Saint, I continued without hesitation.

“I don’t even know how much time passed. Days? Months? I lost all sense of time as he cut me over and over and I kept swinging back. Then, all of a sudden, I felt something strange.”

“Explain it in detail. What was it like?”

This part, at least, I could describe in detail and tell him the truth. It was something I had personally experienced during my battle with the Arch Lich.

An ordinary person might have dismissed my explanation as vague, airy nonsense, but after listening, Mungyeong quietly muttered, “Enlightenment. You gained a fortuitous encounter.”

“Whoa, I’ve got goose bumps. He said something similar.”

“He left you a message?”

“Yes. He looked at me and smiled for the first time, then said that this fortuitous encounter was a blessing he was bestowing upon me and that I should devote myself even more fully to my training.”

“Was that all?”

“Huh?”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Uh, well…”

Hold on. I didn’t plan for this.

I’d squeezed this entire story out of my brain on the spot, and I’d already used everything I had prepared.

But Mungyeong was demanding another installment, and I had nothing left in reserve.

The problem was, Mungyeong wasn’t an ordinary reader.

He was the Slaughter Saint.

What happens if I end it here?

What else? I’d sink to the bottom of the Yangtze and drift all the way to Hubei.

As Mungyeong’s eyes narrowed, I hurriedly opened my mouth.

“He did say one more thing.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, that is…”

Fuck it. I don’t know.

I swallowed dryly and cautiously spoke.

“You have to suffer to be a Murim man.”

“What?”

“He really said that. Those exact words. Then he climbed onto his sword and flew off…”

“I can sense profound wisdom in those words.”

“Huh?”

I let out a stupefied sound while keeping a wary eye on the large needle in Mungyeong’s hand.

What the hell is he talking about now?

When I raised my head, I saw Mungyeong murmuring under his breath and nodding slightly as though he were groaning.

After muttering something unintelligible, he suddenly spoke.

“It was Lü Yan.”²

“I know about stomach cancer and lung cancer, but… are you sick somewhere?”

“…You don’t know Lü Yan?”

Mungyeong looked at me as though I were insane, then continued.

“Lü Yan. His courtesy name was Dongbin, and his Taoist name was Chunyangzi. He attained his own Dao³ and reached the realm of an immortal. People called him the Sword Immortal.”

“Wait. You mean Lü Dongbin?”

“You finally understand.”

I might not have known Lü Yan, but I knew Sword Immortal Lü Dongbin. Along with Jang Samfeng of Wudang and Bodhidharma of Shaolin Temple, he was one of the three perennial fixtures of martial arts novels.

Mungyeong continued, his expression deadly serious.

“The old man you saw in your dream must have been Lü Dongbin. He vanished by riding his sword at the end, so he must have been the Sword Immortal.”

“Uh… I suppose so.”

I’d only made that part up because it sounded cool, but somehow it had turned into this.

I knew from novels that there was an immortal named Lü Dongbin, but this was the first I’d heard of him being a master of sword-riding arts.

Talk about making the facts fit the theory.

That was exactly what was happening.

Having decided that the old man from my dream—or rather, my story—was Lü Dongbin, Mungyeong was now fitting everything together with absolute seriousness without even realizing it.

“Did his beard reach down to his chest?”

“Yes.”

“How tall was he?”

“He was short.”

“Boy! I’m asking how short!”

“Oh, just short. I was being cut to pieces the entire time. When was I supposed to study his height?”

Mungyeong nodded and let most of my answers pass, but there was one dangerously close call.

“What did he carry besides the sword?”

“Let me think… His scabbard.”

“Do you want to die? Of course he had that. Was there nothing else?”

“…I think that was all.”

The light in Mungyeong’s eyes darkened.

“Lü Dongbin did not carry only a sword. He always held a Taoist fly-whisk in his right hand.”

“…!”

“Have you been lying to this old man all along?”

It was a life-or-death crisis.

I had no idea why a man known as the Sword Immortal would walk around carrying a fly-whisk, but my top priority was avoiding Mungyeong’s suspicions. Without letting a single change cross my face, I answered.

“Everything I said was true.”

“Then why does your description contradict Lü Dongbin’s usual appearance?”

“He must have left his fly-whisk behind today.”

“What kind of bullshi—”

“No, wait. Have you ever seen Lü Dongbin?”

“…!”

“I have.”

Fuck, I’m the one who saw him. What are you going to do about it?

Seizing the advantage, I bore down on Mungyeong while he was momentarily at a loss for words.

“And did I ever say he was Lü Dongbin? I thought he was just some old man. You were the one who called him Lü Dongbin first.”

“You?”

“That isn’t the point. That’s what happened, isn’t it? Honestly, I don’t care whether he was Lü Dongbin or Kim Dongbin. I met some unidentified old man in a dream and gained a fortuitous encounter. That’s all. But you’re hounding me like I’ve committed some terrible crime, so I really… Ha.”

“…”

“Can you see the tears in my eyes? I don’t want to act like this as a grown man, but this is so unfair I’m actually crying.”

The truth was, I was scared.

That, combined with the self-loathing of having to invent lies under threat despite committing no crime, eventually sent a tear rolling down my cheek.

Is this what life is?

I had wet myself below earlier, and now I was wetting myself above.

It had started as an act, but somehow it had become real. Bewilderment flashed across Mungyeong’s nearly expressionless face.

“You little bastard. What trick are you pulling?”

“Ugh, there you go again. I’m done. I quit. I answered all your questions, so I’m leaving.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I don’t care anymore. Do whatever you want. Kill me, spare me, use Impure World Reincarnation⁴ on me—whatever.”

Just as I was about to take a step, someone appeared while scattering a powerful aura.

“What the hell is this dogshit?”

The gazes of the Fire King and the Slaughter Saint collided in midair.