I headed toward the Outer Court Hall, where the retainers usually stayed. Specifically, I made for the section that had most recently begun to see residents.
An unexpected sight awaited me there.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm training in martial arts."
Seol Ri-hyang was trembling in a horse stance. I took her in slowly from head to toe.
And I was taken aback.
"Except for a few special cases, all martial arts begin from the lower body. Training the lower body deepens the fundamentals of your martial arts and increases your stamina, so while it's grueling, you could say it's killing two birds with one stone."
"If you understand, then get going. I'm dying here, so don't talk to me."
"But with a stance like this, you'll only tire yourself out—you won't actually train anything."
"What?"
Seol Ri-hyang's eyes flew wide open. But her arms and legs were still trembling, so it wasn't all that threatening.
"Your posture is astonishingly sloppy."
I let out a deep sigh and placed my hands on Seol Ri-hyang's shoulders and elbows.
"Look. Stretch your arms out straight, and relax your shoulders. Don't try to lift your arms with your shoulders. Ah, and don't forget to keep your arms parallel to the ground."
"Huh? Wha—?"
Seol Ri-hyang let out a strange sound. I shook my head at her clumsy posture and lightly pressed on her leg.
"Your thighs should be parallel to the ground, just like your arms. If it's too hard, don't half-lift them—spread your legs wider instead."
"Where are you touching right now?!"
"Where else? Your thighs are bent at an angle that puts unnecessary strain on your knees. Lower them. Push your hips down like you're sitting on an invisible chair."
"Ah, my hips…"
Seol Ri-hyang's face flushed red for a moment, but she let out a deep sigh and corrected her posture as instructed.
"Good. Now hold this position for a count of one hundred."
"You show up out of nowhere and this is what you have me doing…"
"…"
"Ugh! Fine! I'll do it, alright? I'll do it! So get rid of that look in your eyes like you're watching something incomprehensible!"
Seol Ri-hyang started counting with a shout. She seemed earnest enough, which was nice to see.
As I watched her with a satisfied smile, she somehow managed to finish counting all the numbers before collapsing onto the open ground as if she'd been dropped.
She was now too exhausted to even shout, just quietly gasping for breath.
I hoisted her up and carried her over to the shade of a tree growing beside the training ground.
"It's cool here…"
"It's shade, so of course it's cool."
"Who doesn't know that? I'm just saying thanks for moving me."
"Then just say thanks from the start."
"Th—ank—you! Happy now?!"
"Well done."
Seol Ri-hyang, who had put force into every single syllable, got a light chuckle from me in return. I rubbed my hand against my long, flowing hair.
"…What are you doing?"
"I was just wiping off the sweat I got from moving someone who was training like a fool a moment ago."
"T-take back the thanks! I don't need any of it, so get lost!"
"There's no other shade around here but this spot. Besides, I came because I had something to say—I can't just leave without saying it."
"…"
Seol Ri-hyang stared at me in silence. Her gaze was clearly sharp, yet somehow it didn't feel threatening in the least.
Perhaps it was because I had grown too accustomed to the Seol Ri-hyang of my previous life. Back then, she had turned her thorns on everyone except the few she had allowed into her heart.
I, too, had to endure that venomous stare for months after we first met. It was no wonder I had been demoted to the Iron Blood Faction.
She possessed genius-level talent and the rare martial art of Yin Art, but more than that, she constantly clashed with others.
The Black Alliance was an unorthodox organization, but an organization was an organization. A single outstanding member was fine, but internal discipline mattered more.
…Saying that, I had also been demoted because I would draw my sword first whenever I got upset.
Seol Ri-hyang, who had been glaring at me, finally let out a deep sigh as if she had given up, and asked.
"So? What do you have to say that you came all the way here for? Aren't you busy with the engagement preparations with Tang unni and all that?"
"I am busy. That's why I ran away… no, I just dropped by before things got even busier."
"???"
Seol Ri-hyang tilted her head, but I pretended not to see it and continued.
"Oh, before that, there's something I've been curious about."
"What is it?"
"I heard that while you were looking for a usable martial art, a martial artist from the Tang Clan was supposed to check your basics… have you always been training alone with such a sloppy stance?"
"That's not it. The martial artist teaches well. It's just that my posture got sloppy from training alone earlier—normally he corrects it properly."
"Then what was I just looking at?"
"Well… actually, he told me to rest today, so I was studying my letters since morning…"
"Studying?"
"My head started hurting, so I stepped out to catch my breath, and somehow it ended up like this."
"…"
In other words, she was avoiding her studies and using training as an excuse to slack off.
As I watched her with complicated feelings, Seol Ri-hyang covered her face with her hands and cried out.
"Don't look at me like that!"
"…Well. I suppose that's possible."
When I first learned to read, I'd run off to the training ground making a similar fuss, only to be dragged back by the Iron Blood Faction Leader more than a few times.
"Still, when you're told to rest, rest. At least keep that one promise."
"Fine, fine. I'll just rest quietly and study for the rest of the time."
"I'm not just saying that. I don't know who's overseeing your training, but the Tang Clan wouldn't assign just anyone. They're probably at least an instructor, if not a full master. They had a reason for telling you to rest today."
"Ah! Right. They said they were the Deputy Commander of the Dark Soul Squad. I'd seen them a few times on the way here, but…"
"…They assigned a vice-captain to you?"
To think that the vice-captain of the Dark Soul Squad—one of the Tang Clan's two elite martial forces—had been assigned to me.
I'd seen the Deputy Commander of the Dark Soul Unit a few times on the way back from Guangdong Province. She was a female martial artist who had reached the mature Peak Realm.
Though the Dark Soul Squad primarily used hidden weapons, the whip hanging at her waist suggested she had considerable expertise in whip techniques as well.
"The Tang Clan must have high expectations for you. This is a good opportunity—don't waste it."
"I know. She volunteered herself, saying she wanted to teach me in the first place. There's no way she'd take this lightly, right?"
"She stepped forward on her own?"
"Yeah. She said her circumstances were similar to mine. She received a new chance thanks to the Tang Clan's favor, and she said she hoped I'd find the same."
"Hoh."
That made sense. From what Tang So-wol had told me before, the only requirements for joining the Dark Soul Squad were skill with hidden weapons and loyalty to the Tang Clan.
If you were unmarried, they would even arrange a marriage with a close collateral branch of the clan.
On the one hand, that meant they only recruited proven talents. But at the same time, it also meant that only those who had gone through enough trials and tribulations that they had no choice but to be loyal to the Tang Clan ever made it in.
"You got lucky. No, wait—are you telling me you knew you needed rest, but you kept pushing yourself to train anyway?"
"Ugh! I-I won't do it anymore, so stop scolding me!"
"I'm not trying to scold you. I'm worried."
"Worried?"
"Yeah. When someone tells you to rest properly during basic training, it means they're about to push you until you're on the verge of death, and they want you to recover your condition first."
"…"
Only then did Seol Ri-hyang realize she had dug her own grave. Her face hardened, and as her complexion turned pale, I chuckled and spoke.
"Come to think of it, I haven't gotten to the main point yet. Once the Engagement Ceremony is over this time, I plan to take Tang So-wol on a short trip to Shaanxi Province. I'll be away for a while, so I came to let you know in advance."
"What?! Just the two of you?! A-although you are Betrothed…"
"Surely not. We did catch the mastermind this time, but regardless, Tang So-wol nearly ended up in danger. I was the same. I do plan to bring a few escorts along."
"Ah."
Seol Ri-hyang nodded blankly. The surface reason for going to Shaanxi Province this time was, as I'd just said, a trip.
It was because Tang So-wol had been forced to return not long after her first foray into the martial world was cut short by that unpleasant incident.
And I had added the reason that it would help Tang So-wol and I grow closer, saying we would take the opportunity to look around Shaanxi Province, a place I had always wanted to visit… but in truth, the real purpose was something else entirely.
The Shaanxi Twin Demons.
That was the alias of the twin brothers who had appeared out of nowhere one day, committing every kind of atrocity, only to be subjugated not long after.
It wasn't as if there were no Unorthodox Sect martial artists in the territory of the Orthodox Sects, but no one ran wild with as little fear as the Shaanxi Twin Demons. Or rather, to be precise, any who did appear were quickly eliminated.
Indeed, the younger of the Shaanxi Twin Demons met his end at the blade of a Zhongnan Sect disciple, while the elder, who had barely managed to flee, was cut down by a Mount Hua Sect disciple—a fitting end to their infamous reign.
However, the reason I had heard of the Shaanxi Twin Demons was not because their infamy and the deeds of the two prestigious Orthodox Sects had spread all the way to Zhejiang Province.
It was because of a rumor that the two, who had been Third-Rate martial artists barely better than thugs, had suddenly appeared one day as Peak Realm masters—all thanks to a peerless Spiritual Medicine they had stumbled upon.
It was a common tale. One becomes a master overnight through a Fortuitous Encounter stumbled upon by chance.
When I was young, I wondered if I might discover such a Spiritual Medicine myself, so whenever I crossed a mountain, I would deliberately seek out paths that led nowhere…
But after getting lost once and suffering terribly for it, I gave up. I learned the lesson that a Fortuitous Encounter belongs to the realm of heavenly fortune, and that it was not something I could find simply by searching for it.
I was truly young back then. I believed that as long as I had internal energy and a peerless divine art, I could accomplish anything.
At any rate, thanks to that lesson from the time, I had let the rumor pass me by without much thought… but then the Heavenly Demon invaded, and the Orthodox and Unorthodox Sects joined hands to barely resist.
By chance, I found myself fighting alongside a master from the Mount Hua Sect, and I was able to hear the story of what had happened back then.
The Spiritual Medicine the Shaanxi Twin Demons were said to have consumed truly existed, and before the elder brother died, he had revealed its location in a desperate bid to save his own life.
Naturally, no Spiritual Medicine remained, but at that spot, they said, lay the corpse of a man who had died long ago and the torn remnants of a damaged secret manual.
What I'm after on this trip to Shaanxi is that Spiritual Medicine.
The martial artist who told me that story used to mutter about the glorious days of the past whenever he drank, long after the Mount Hua Sect had been wiped out.
Thanks to hearing it so often that my ears practically grew calluses, I still remember the way there.
Fortuitous Encounters are, by nature, the domain of heavenly fortune. But for me, who had committed the unintended act of Defying Heaven by turning back time, they were also within reach.
If left alone, the Shaanxi Twin Demons would have found it and committed all sorts of atrocities, so I felt no guilt whatsoever about intercepting it.
Still, if a medicine could push a Third-Rate martial artist all the way to the Peak Realm even when split in half, it was no ordinary Spiritual Medicine.
A Spiritual Medicine consumed by someone unprepared would not fully unleash its effects.
So I had planned to go retrieve it only after reaching at least the Peak Realm. There was still plenty of time, and I believed that was the only way to absorb the medicine's power completely.
But after everything I'd been through recently, my mind had changed.
This was no time to ration it. What I needed to do now was reclaim my pre-regression martial level as quickly as possible.
And, if I could, take a step into the Harmony Realm.
Only then could I either flee from the Heavenly Demon or land even a single strike against him.
Swallowing these thoughts, I asked Seol Ri-hyang.
"Is there anything you want as a souvenir?"
"…What was Shaanxi Province known for again?"
I chuckled at the sight of Seol Ri-hyang tilting her head in confusion.
***
A few days later.
The engagement ceremony between Tang So-wol and me was held.