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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Chaos
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An unexpected full prostration.
At the all-out deep bow offensive, the onlookers were shocked into silence.
The female Daoist, whose outward appearance suggested she would haughtily and coldly list her demands item by item, who would have known she would come out like this?
The one who recovered his senses the fastest was Namgung-Woo.
Unlike the other three, to whom she was a complete stranger, he had at least already grasped her existence, and it was also due to his sense of responsibility as a representative and his outstanding mental strength from his lofty realm.
In any case, Namgung-Woo looked down at the female Daoist and chose his thoughts on what to ask first.
However, unlike with Hang-wi, he didn’t help her up or anything.
It was because he hadn’t completely dispelled his suspicions about that female Daoist yet.
“I don’t know what to ask first…”
Namgung-Woo began, avoiding the female Daoist’s burdensome full prostration and pulling a nearby chair to sit on.
“I’ll listen to your story. We have plenty of time.”
The survivor of the Namgung Family in Luoyang.
One might wonder if he had the leisure to dally here when their life could be lost to the Dugu Family’s extermination order at any moment, but what Zhuge Jong had told Namgung-Woo wasn’t just about their survival.
‘For some reason, the Dugu Family is said to be turning a blind eye only to that survivor.’
The reason was unknown.
However, Zhuge Jong had said it.
The Namgung Family survivor hadn’t hidden their origins, and later, when the Murim Alliance began to conceal information for protection, it was confirmed that it had already reached the Dugu Family’s ears before that.
Yet, the Dugu Family hadn’t moved.
Even now, after a considerable amount of time had passed.
So, at least for the time being, there was no need to worry.
“And first, lift your head. I don’t want to have a conversation with you in that state.”
“Yes!”
Fwoosh-!
As if Namgung-Woo’s words were a supreme command, the female Daoist abruptly lifted her head.
It was such a violent movement that he worried her neck might break.
Facing her properly from the front, Namgung-Woo slowly scrutinized the female Daoist’s appearance.
‘Her eyes are peculiar.’
At first glance, she didn’t seem much different from other people, but her level was too low to deceive Ever-Clear Vision, and Namgung-Woo clearly saw her incongruity.
‘Since she has the power to leap through space without any prior preparation, it wouldn’t be strange for her eyes to have something special too.’
Peng Ha-ryeong also had slightly upturned eyes, but the female Daoist’s eyes resembled those of a cat.
Sharp, extended eyes, a fittingly high nose bridge, and lips that felt a bit thin.
Though different in type, she was a beauty who didn’t fall short even compared to Peng Ha-ryeong, who had become the standard of beauty in Namgung-Woo’s subconscious.
By the time Namgung-Woo finished his thoughts on the female Daoist’s appearance, the female Daoist parted her lips.
“I am Myorin.”
Revealing her name, the female Daoist, Myorin’s, story began.
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Myorin, as her attire suggested, was a Daoist.
A female Daoist, commonly called an Immortal Lady.
Peng Ha-ryeong constantly doubted whether such a frivolous woman was truly a Daoist, but it was true.
Myorin was, in name and reality, a female Daoist.
Moreover, she was the successor of a prestigious Daoist lineage with a very deep history and legitimacy.
How deep was its origin?
To explain the Daoist lineage Myorin was inheriting, one had to go back to the Southern Song Dynasty.
The Quanzhen School, a Daoist sect founded by Wang Chongyang by mixing Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, adopting the Neo-Confucianism established by Zhu Xi during the Southern Song period.
The Quanzhen School, which indiscriminately combined whatever seemed good and decent from the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, greatly grew by reducing sorcery and establishing a systematic training system for martial arts.
Then, during the Yuan Dynasty, the Quanzhen School was split into seven factions by Wang Chongyang’s disciples, the Seven True Daoists of Quanzhen, and after a civil war fought over the legacy of the Quanzhen School, they collapsed one by one, and the name of the Quanzhen School disappeared into the annals of history.
Except for the final victor of the Quanzhen internal conflict, the Mount Hua Sect.
It was common knowledge that the only surviving successor sect of the Quanzhen School to this day was the famous Mount Hua Sect.
However, there were other surviving factions besides them.
“The Qingjing Sect, founded by the Pure and Serene Ascetic Sun Bu’er, the only woman among Chongyangzi’s disciples, lost all its power, but its teachings have been passed down unbroken through single succession. And the current successor is…”
“You?”
“Yes.”
It was the Quanzhen School, destroyed by internal conflict among the founder’s disciples.
The Qingjing Sect, defeated in the internal conflict, chose the path of single succession to completely eliminate the risk, wanting to avoid the fate of their mainstream Quanzhen School.
And to survive, they reincorporated the sorcery that Wang Chongyang had previously removed into their teachings.
The Qingjing Sect was reborn as a mystical Daoist school of single succession that taught both sorcery and martial arts.
“And… my master was a member of the Wayseekers of the Mist .”
“So that’s why you asked me to save you?”
“…No. If it were only that, I wouldn’t have worried. The Nine Paths Martial Order is so individualistic that even those called its leaders can’t properly manage its members. I think they probably didn’t even know I was my master’s disciple.”
“Then?”
At Namgung-Woo’s question, Myorin’s mouth, which had answered everything without omission until now, stopped for the first time.
Her hesitation stemmed from fear.
The worry and anxiety that saying these words might be an irreversible choice of self-destruction blocked Myorin’s mouth.
However, Myorin had already called upon the tiger named Namgung-Woo.
Even if she tried to say it was nothing and tell him to go back now, the tiger that had taken an interest wouldn’t turn its head.
If she wanted to escape its strong forelegs and sharp teeth, she had no choice but to ride on its back.
Myorin clenched her teeth and steeled her resolve.
Since there was no guarantee she could survive by staying still anyway, she would leave it to heaven whether she prospered or perished and try a gamble.
“…I helped Li Zi-long.”
The loosening atmosphere in the room instantly tensed up again.
Myorin felt the gazes directed at her turn violent for the first time, perhaps even more so than at the beginning.
Honestly, if it had only been the Yang brothers or Peng Ha-ryeong, she wouldn’t have cared.
Even if they had drawn their swords, she was confident she could shake them off and escape.
But Namgung-Woo was different.
The moment he made up his mind, Myorin’s own neck would declare independence, leaving its owner’s throat.
Myorin realized she was standing on a tightrope.
A tightrope walk between life and death, where falling meant dying.
“More details.”
Namgung-Woo’s voice echoed chillingly.
True Qi was mixed in his voice.
Riding the sound waves, Namgung-Woo’s True Qi began to fill the room.
This wasn’t a show of power, demonstrating that such things were possible.
Namgung-Woo’s action was an operation to block Myorin’s escape route.
Unlike martial arts operated by one’s own internal energy, sorcery was a power that also dealt with external energies.
But with so much of another’s True Qi mixed in the atmosphere like this, there was no way sorcery could function properly.
Li Zi-long, Dongfang Huo… fighting directly with sorcerers counted among the best under heaven, Namgung-Woo had unknowingly learned how to fight against sorcerers.
Amidst the sense of mortal danger, Myorin managed to squeeze out her voice and add an explanation.
“I received a request from Li Zi-long. To place a Danbaek Stone [Opal] where he told me… If I did that, he said he would give me a lost secret manual our Qingjing Sect was looking for.”
“Using that space-traversing sorcery?”
“…That’s right. Li Zi-long probably sought me out aiming for that too. Since it’s a power that traverses space, it can be done without anyone noticing, and the work can be finished in an extremely short time.”
Myorin retrieved from her memory how Li Zi-long had contacted her.
Li Zi-long, who had perfectly found her, who, unlike her master, had no fixed place and just wandered as her heart led.
He clearly knew how to summon the successor of the Qingjing Sect.
“Perhaps, Li Zi-long joined the Wayseekers of the Mist aiming for my master from the beginning…. Other than my master, he wasn’t particularly close with other people from the Nine Paths Martial Order… Aiming for the power passed down in our Daoist lineage… For the day he would stage a rebellion in Beijing…”
Myorin’s words were less an explanation and more like muttering the contents of her analysis as she retraced the past.
And those words held great persuasive power for Namgung-Woo, making him think similarly.
“…Even so, the fact that you helped Li Zi-long doesn’t change.”
“That’s right! Do you know what happened to Beijing? How many people died and were injured… What on earth were you thinking…!”
“I didn’t know!”
Myorin shouted, cutting off Peng Ha-ryeong’s strong interrogation.
Her two clenched hands, gathered on her lap, were trembling.
“I didn’t know the Danbaek Stone would be used for that. The idea of summoning a Ghost Gate, I thought it was ridiculous from the start. Something like that, it couldn’t possibly be real, right? A human, summoning a Ghost Gate… I just, I just thought it was for something like wiretapping or surveillance. Since he had established a foothold in the Imperial Palace, I thought he was trying to find weaknesses of high-ranking officials…”
“You didn’t know… This isn’t a problem that can end with such a light phrase!”
Peng Ha-ryeong and Myorin’s argument.
It was a form where Peng Ha-ryeong attacked one-sidedly, to the point where one wondered if it could even be called an argument, but Myorin didn’t just take it, trying somehow to defend herself and refute Peng Ha-ryeong’s words.
However, Namgung-Woo had no particular interest in the two women’s dispute.
Of course, Namgung-Woo also felt sorry that people had died and been injured.
There was certainly compassion for those dying before his eyes, and also human anger towards the atrocious person killing them.
However, he felt no particular empathy for anger towards the treason that tried to overthrow the Imperial Family, or the painful lives of people Namgung-Woo had never even met.
What confused Namgung-Woo more was not whether Myorin had knowingly helped Li Zi-long’s rebellion or not, but the part where Li Zi-long had joined the Wayseekers of the Mist aiming for the Qingjing Sect’s power.
Namgung-Woo recalled the memory of Li Zi-long he had glimpsed on the day he killed him with his own hands.
Li Zi-long’s true name was Zhu Jianshen.
The Emperor, Chenghua Emperor’s cousin, and the only son of the Jingtai Emperor, the emperor before the last.
How did Zhu Jianshen, who was known to have died at the young age of six, become the fearsome sorcerer Li Zi-long?
When the Wayseekers of the Mist was pointed out as Li Zi-long’s affiliation, Namgung-Woo had thought they had raised Li Zi-long and moved on.
But Myorin testified that Li Zi-long had joined the Wayseekers of the Mist only after growing into a sorcerer.
If even the Wayseekers of the Mist wasn’t the backing that raised Li Zi-long… then who on earth had created Li Zi-long?
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