"He wanted to smell the plum blossoms of Huashan once."
It wasn't clear if he meant the delicate pink blooms unfurling on the mountain's slopes each spring, or the elegant artistry of Huashan's swordsmanship—its fluid forms evoking petals caught in a gentle breeze. Still—
"…Guide him well."
"…! Then…"
"We should fulfill it, even if it's late, shouldn't we?"
A wish so pure deserved honoring; it felt only right, a quiet debt to the fragile dreams of the young. And since it wove through him, the boy himself should taste its fulfillment firsthand—under her careful wing, where roots could take without fear of frost.
"His physique didn't look promising," the Sword Empress added, her gaze softening with measured hope, "but with you guiding him, he'll catch on quick enough. That said, think carefully before teaching him martial arts he hasn't learned yet."
"Y-Yes, I understand! I'll stick right by his side and—"
"No, not that closely…"
After that, the Sword Flower and Yuseong seemed to weave their paths together with startling ease, like vines claiming a sunlit trellis. There wasn't a day she didn't seek him out in the outer yards, her steps lighter for the ritual. And each evening, she'd spill tales of him to her master—his earnest questions, his halting progress—like a river finding its course.
The Sword Empress simply smiled, content in the glow of her disciple's rare bloom. Watching Soyeon unfurl in another's company felt like witnessing spring's first thaw: tentative, but alive with promise.
Then one day, she summoned her pupil to the pavilion's edge.
"It seems I'll need to go into training for a few days," she explained, her voice steady as mountain stone. "I need to organize some recent insights."
"Understood!" The girl's eyes shone with unwavering resolve. "This disciple wishes you success in achieving what you desire—don't worry about me!"
With a brief bow and a shared glance of quiet trust, the Sword Empress departed for her seclusion chamber. The peaks swallowed her silhouette, and peace held—for a fleeting span.
…
When she emerged days later, the mountain air tasted of ash. Word reached her before her robes had fully settled: her disciple, confined to the sect's shadowed prison.
And the crime relayed on her hurried path back? It struck like a thunderclap, too grotesque for belief, shattering the fragile harmony she'd left behind.
"You're here, Master…?"
"Say it with your own mouth." The Sword Empress's voice cut the dim cell like a whetted edge, her eyes locked on the bowed figure before her. "What did you do?"
"Didn't you already hear it all on your way here?" Soyeon's tone carried a hollow echo, devoid of the vibrant lilt that once colored her words. "It's exactly as they said."
"…"
With a sharp gesture, she dismissed the guard hovering at the threshold, the iron door clanging shut like fate's unyielding seal.
"Speak."
"…"
"SPEAK!!!!"
While she'd delved into meditative depths, her disciple had cornered the boy in a secluded glade—force met with desperate resistance, culminating in a shattered dantian, a life's potential reduced to ruin. And then? The child had fled Huashan's embrace, vanishing into the vast, unforgiving Plains.
It was the first whisper that greeted her return—a wound reopened in the light of day.
"You dare call yourself a Taoist after this?!" The words erupted from her, raw and thunderous, echoing off the stone walls. "You dare call yourself human while wearing that face?!!!!"
She'd raised her like kin—cradling the orphan girl through tempests of doubt, forging her from fragile sapling to blooming steel. From first hesitant strokes of the sword to the tournament's roaring triumph, she'd stood sentinel, a constant shadow turned guiding light.
"How could you!! How could YOU!!!!"
How could she shatter consent's sacred boundary? Lust after a boy a decade her junior, his frame still soft with unclaimed youth?
"If you've got a mouth, speak!!!! Why in the world!!! Why!!! "
"…He tempted me first."
"…What?"
"That kid looked at me with those innocent eyes," she murmured, her voice sinking into a venomous murmur. "Called me 'big sister.' Thanked me. Said he'd been waiting for me. Said he missed me."
A chill slithered down the Sword Empress's spine, icy fingers tracing her vertebrae at the disciple's sunken timbre—twisted, unmoored.
"He pressed his body against me. Asked me to hold his hand. Blushed while looking at me."
"If that's not temptation, then what is?"
Shattered emotions gleamed in her gaze, eyes clouded like storm-tossed seas. The Sword Flower had wilted into madness, petals curled in rot.
"Isn't that just normal for someone learning martial arts…?"
The titles aside—
Thanking her for patient lessons.
Waiting eagerly for the next dawn's drill.
Missing her during the lulls between.
Asking her to steady his stance, hands brushing in correction.
And of course, his cheeks would flush after exertion, youth's honest fire.
"Because of you, that kid lost his dantian," the Sword Empress pressed, her voice fracturing under grief's weight. "Not just what he'd learned so far—he can't learn anything in the future either. Because of you. Because of the one he trusted and followed—you did this to him."
"…Haha."
"Find him. Search the entire Central Plains if you have to and bring him back. Kneel before him in front of me and apologize. Take responsibility and fix his dant—"
"Why should I bother with something I can't have?"
No trace of light lingered in the Sword Flower's eyes—hollow voids, devouring all warmth.
"Even if I did that, even if I fixed his dantian, could I have him for myself? No, right? He'd just end up in some other woman's hands anyway. So why should I?"
"…What did you just—"
"Oh… now that I think about it, were you interested in him too, Master?" A mocking lilt crept in, venomous and sly. "Was that why you kept asking me about him? You should've said so—I might've shared him with you once, since it's you."
The more she heard, the deeper the outrage plunged—like a blade twisting in unscarred flesh. She'd never fathomed her disciple could plummet into such abyss, a fall from grace into the void.
"Ahh… now that kid's out there struggling in the world. Tempting other women like he tempted me, preying on their hearts and wealth."
"Stop spouting nonsense…! How could he end up like that after—"
"But no matter what woman he meets, he'll never forget me."
Shiver.
A chill lanced up her spine, sharp as winter's first bite. A horrifying revelation bloomed unbidden, dark petals unfurling in her mind.
"You… did you do it on purpose…?"
"…Ahaha! AHAHAHAHA!!!!"
The Sword Flower's laughter erupted like shattering glass—manic, unhinged. No; she was unhinged, a storm unchained.
"I left a mark on his body he can't wash away. No matter how he lives from now on, he'll see that scar and think of me."
"You… you've truly lost your mind. How could you even think such a thing…"
Even the Sword Empress, who'd stared down legions of shadowed fiends without flinching, faltered here—her disciple's frenzy a mirror too warped to face.
At this precipice, choice loomed inexorable. The justice that had anchored her life, her very breath, demanded reckoning. By her own creed, her disciple stood irredeemable now—a villain who'd spurned the lone olive branch extended.
One who'd kicked away the single chance she'd been given.
"…I'm sorry."
The Sword Empress made her choice, the words a whisper carved in regret.
Her hand closed around the hilt of her sword, steady despite the tremor in her soul.
Slash!
Ending it in one stroke was her final mercy—an apology etched in swift finality. For failing to guide her charge, for the blindness that let shadows fester unchecked.
But one debt remained, heavier than mountains.
"…Find that child. Search the entire Central Plains if you must. Bring him back."
She owed him atonement too—as the master who'd birthed a monster from what should have been light.
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check if my heart's still beating.
Not because I drank too much the night before and might've keeled over from some tavern-bred ailment—no.
It's just that in a world where the next breath hangs on fate's fickle thread, each dawn's quiet pulse brings a small, hard-won joy. Being able to peer into others' tomorrows while my own remains a fog-shrouded inch ahead? Scarier than you'd think, a constant whisper of fragility.
I don't even know if I'll stir safely from slumber's grasp. That's the fortune teller's lot—gifted with glimpses, cursed with blindness to self.
Did I pack everything properly?
Today marked the plunge: joining Tang Ayeon on her vampire hunt, a jaunt into the wilds that promised more grit than glamour. From the chatter, we'd camp once outbound and once return, the carriage's sway our monotonous companion for days on end.
Chatting passed time pleasantly enough, but I doubted the well ran deep with these strangers. They'd handle provisions, so my bundle held simple comforts: snacks to stave off the gnaw, a weathered book for the lulls.
I'd also secreted a few hidden weapons into my sleeves—slender assurances against the unknown.
No idea if these will work.
I'd bled points dry from the shop's coffers, scraping every last spark to claim them, but against qi-forged martial artists? Their edge felt as chancy as a gambler's die. Still, I'd trust the gamble; desperation had its own forge.
Creak.
Bundle slung over my shoulder, I descended the inn's creaking stairs to the common room below, where Tang Ayeon waved from a corner table, her smile bright as morning silk.
I'd figured time stretched ample before the rendezvous, so this must be her bid for a shared bite—farewell to proper fare.
"You're early? I thought we had a while left."
"I wanted to talk before we left and grab a meal together," she replied, patting the bench beside her. "We'll be stuck with preserved rations for a while, you know?"
"…Oh."
She had a point. I'd grown spoiled on the city's savory sprawl lately—steaming buns, spice-kissed stir-fries—and now? Salted jerky and hardtack loomed.
They'd outshine the bitter weeds I'd choked down in the peaks, sure, but the drop still tugged a quiet pang.
"Sit down. Beef noodle soup for you, right? I saw you scarfing it down last time."
"…You're paying?"
"You spend all your earnings the day you make them, so you're broke in the mornings, right?" Her grin turned teasing, eyes sparkling with shared secrets. "Even if you've got cash, it'd barely cover a bowl of plain noodles."
"You know me too well, Miss."
Aside from Master, she probably held the clearest map to my quirks—a mirror held with kindness, not judgment.
I slid onto the bench across from her, eyes flicking to the waiter slumped in the corner, snoring softly amid the morning hush.
"Drinking this early might be a bit—"
"Miss, my hands shake if there's no alcohol in my blood."