“Have you lost your senses, senior brother? No matter how gifted she is!”

Sect Leader Jeongyang slammed the desk with a bang.

It wasn’t behavior befitting how one spoke to his senior brother.

Even so, Elder Jeonggang could not fault him.

“The Heavenly Killing Star? Did you truly say Heavenly Killing Star?”

“She is not a child to fret over, Jeongyang. You know my eye for people.”

“Too keen, and every time it’s thrown Mount Hua into upheaval!”

“Look at Eunsong and Eunjung. Those two hardly—”

“At least they weren’t the Heavenly Killing Star! Even if they were blood of remnants who fled the Demonic Sect, they weren’t tainted by the demonic!”

Jeongyang clutched his head and groaned.

“That she’s the daughter of a clan executed for Blasphemy—I can live with that, senior brother. We can talk around it. Say we don’t turn away a capable child per the Dao, or whatever else. We can talk around it!”

“...Then what is it you fear so much?”

“I fear teaching a sword to the Heavenly Killing Star!”

It was a fair fear.

Strictly speaking, the Sect Leader’s point was right.

Why else the name “Heavenly Killing Star”?

It is given to one who will stir a storm of blood across the Central Plains.

“So. Would you crush the dantian of that young girl and cast her out?”

“Don’t make light— I’m seriously considering it, senior brother.”

“The Heavenly Killing Star…”

Elder Jeonggang sipped the tea on the table,

then spoke gently to the Sect Leader who was tearing at his hair.

“Rather than this, why not go and see?”

“See whom? That child born under the Heavenly Killing Star?”

“Yes. Better you judge with your own eyes.”

“And if I decide to cripple her dantian?”

Jeonggang set down his cup and smiled faintly.

“She is my great-great-granddisciple.”

“Ha… Must you go this far, senior brother? Truly?”

“I heard something. That’s why.”

“And what was that?”

****

Cheon Soyak had known in advance that she would be disliked.

She knew the instant she stepped into her room.

It wasn’t as large as the shared quarters.

The problem was that, unlike the others who slept ten to a room…

It was a room for one.

…It’s too large.

Comfortable, yes—

but she hadn’t imagined she was the only girl among all Third Generation disciples of the Great Mount Hua Sect.

A quick count of the children training in the courtyard put them at a hundred and twenty or so.

And she alone was the one.

With a sigh, Cheon Soyak unpacked.

She pushed her clothes into the wardrobe and hung her sword on the wall.

On the desk lay a training sword and a fresh white uniform.

“The sect was going to issue me a sword anyway. Why did Master buy me another?”

A Plum Blossom short sword.

A real blade sized like a short sword, made for Third Generation disciples whose bodies hadn’t finished growing.

Cheon Soyak drew it and gave it a light cut.

It was a decent sword.

Just that—decent.

The sword Eunsong had bought her, in balance and weight, had not a single flaw.

Cheon Soyak set the Plum Blossom blade down.

Even among the Third Generation, some used personal long swords—

children with families wealthy enough to afford them.

Eunsong was a disciple who received special treatment.

He knew well how cruel children’s jealousy and scorn could be.

So he had made sure she lacked nothing in any one place—

at the very least, so she would not be looked down on.

“...He needn’t have been so considerate.”

She changed into the plum-embroidered uniform,

then sat cross-legged in the center of the room.

As she closed her eyes and began circulation, the true energy sunk deep in her dantian stirred.

It was the inheritance her father had left.

...I can still only move a single grain of it.

The energy of the Harmonization Scripture was particular—

a power that resembled death without end.

But it was not demonic.

It traced the obvious law that life and death cycle.

What blooms must, in time, also fall.

—Hooo.

When she drew the Harmonization energy up from the dantian, a chill wind arose—

a bleak breath, as if blowing from the netherworld.

On the floor beneath her crossed legs, a black plum blossom unfurled.

With her breathing, the outer qi too was drawn in.

Carried along her meridians for a circuit, the Harmonization energy’s function seeped into every corner, dissolving and filtering the foulness.

Cheon Soyak looked quietly within.

A space of total black.

The floor was a water’s skin.

Its depth unknowable—yet something crouched upon it.

Golden eyes.

A white mane.

Black scales.

It was, unmistakably, a black qilin.

A qilin—guardian of the afterlife,

a spirit-beast ruling the deaths of all things,

immortality’s natural enemy, the hunter of the undying.

This black qilin was the Harmonization Scripture’s very energy and essence itself.

When she reached out a hand, it would growl as if to bite—

yet it never bit.

It only looked… lonely.

Like her, now.

Each time she contemplated herself, she would crouch before it and meet its eyes.

When she stroked it, hard scales and coarse mane curled around her hand,

and underneath, a fathomless quiet could be felt.

“...Don’t hurt me, please.”

Endless, measureless, unhindered force—

felt often enough to be a little frightening.

So she would always speak to the spirit-beast inside her,

never sure it understood.

“The other day, when I coughed blood, it hurt quite a bit.”

At that, the black qilin opened its eyes and rose—

its massive body looming over her.

It tapped her with its long muzzle, toppling her—

sniffed, then licked her cheek.

“Ah—ticklish, ngh…”

As if recognizing the blood of its master.

It even looked apologetic.

Soon, the inner power hardened in her dantian began to surge,

rolling like the parted Red Sea.

The spirit-beast kept pestering her, even unbidden.

Cheon Soyak knew its intent by instinct.

It was pouting—

asking not to be left alone.

It had likely been her father’s dantian’s spirit-beast.

Its master had changed without warning, and since then she’d been too busy merely standing upright to circulate properly.

What spirit-beast would follow a master who never came to see it or feed it?

“All right. I won’t neglect you…”

Only then did the black qilin stop licking.

It lay down, wrapping the girl in its great body,

rumbling softly each time her small hand stroked it.

She didn’t know how long they remained like that.

At last, Cheon Soyak rose within her inner space.

A grand circulation was done.

It was time to go.

“I’ll be counting on you—still.”

She rubbed one of the qilin’s horns,

then slowly closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she would be in her room.

When she opened them—

“Did you just complete a grand circulation?”

The Sect Leader, Jeongyang, was standing before her.

“H—hik.”

A startled hiccup burst out of her.

****

“...My apologies.”

Only after Elder Jeonggang patted her back for half an hour did the hiccups stop.

It was, admittedly, something to feel sorry about.

Sitting properly with her knees together, Cheon Soyak asked,

“It’s fine. What brings the Sect Leader here?”

“Ah, well, that is…”

Do you truly complete a grand circulation already, as Elder Jeonggang says?

He couldn’t say that; too many ears about.

It was just after the Third Generation’s afternoon training.

“And the Grandmaster as well…?”

Cheon Soyak tilted her head.

Sadly for Jeongyang, Elder Jeonggang had little interest in preserving his Sect Leader’s dignity.

“Ah, our Sect Leader simply wouldn’t believe me.”

“Come now, senior brother—really?”

“Do you believe me now? That my great-great-granddisciple is a once-in-an-age talent?”

“That isn’t what matters.”

Sect Leader Jeongyang unfurled his inner power, sealing off the sounds around them.

The world fell quiet in an instant.

Having seen Eunsong do the same, Cheon Soyak was not much surprised.

“I heard… you are born under the Heavenly Killing Star.”

“That is so.”

“I’ll speak plainly. I am afraid.”

Cheon Soyak blinked—

purely because she did not grasp his meaning.

“Then why not take my life?”

“...What?”

“I am still young, weak, and small. If I frighten you, Sect Leader, you can easily harm me.”

For a moment, Jeongyang was struck dumb.

It was true.

He could cripple her dantian and drive her out,

or end her here, with no one the wiser.

Elder Jeonggang would fight him to the death—

but the decision, in the end, was the Sect Leader’s.

Why, then, was he not doing it?

No—why could he not?

“...Insolent child. Do you think I cannot?”

“No.”

Yet there was no fear in those black eyes.

Jeongyang tried to see what coiled in them, but could not.

He could only hear what Cheon Soyak said.

“I think you will not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you are kind, Sect Leader.”

It was an answer neither expected.

Both Jeonggang and Jeongyang widened their eyes.

“That I am kind…”

Jeongyang rolled the words in his mouth.

“On what grounds do you judge that?”

“Because you wrestle with it.”

“Because I wrestle…?”

Cheon Soyak nodded.

“A person’s kindness comes from wrestling with their choices. If one never revisits and wrestles with one’s own decisions, one is a beast. It’s because you continually struggle with what kindness is and how to act that you can move forward without falling into the arrogance of calling yourself kind.”

Silence fell.

Both Jeongyang and Jeonggang knew the weight of those words—

and that such words were not what one expects from a child.

Cheon Soyak went on.

“You are wrestling over whether to cast me out, kill me, or cripple my arts.”

“So you knew.”

“You came because you heard of me from the Grandmaster.”

“And still you’re so calm?”

Cheon Soyak did not waver—

even before Jeongyang, Sect Leader of the Great Mount Hua Sect.

“I have done everything I could.”

“...Have you.”

“Yes. When my father and mother died, I fought to keep a stubborn life. I clung to my Master’s hand and came here. And I have answered your questions with all I have.”

Her small fist tightened.

“So I will not sit still and let it happen.”

Jeongyang’s brows lifted.

So did Jeonggang’s.

Neither had expected that.

“Even cast out, the Flower-Halo Sect is a martial house. And I am a daughter of a martial house. If you think I will accept death in silence—no. I will not.”

“Do you think you could so much as harm a single hair on my head?”

“I’m not that foolish.”

“Then how could you think such a stupid—”

“—One.”

Even sitting before the Sect Leader, the girl’s neck stayed straight.

“Even so, I will die standing.”

The plum blossom is one of the Four Gentlemen.

The plum that Mount Hua honors most is not a symbol of ostentation.

It is the flower that blooms first—

before the late winter snows have even melted.

A sign of spirit, integrity, and unbending resolve.

In that figure, Jeongyang saw the plum—

a snow-blooming plum at midnight, in a winter storm.

Chapter 9

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