Chapter 91: Falling Flame Manor
Shaanxi Province, Mount Li.
Before heading to Falling Flame Manor, Jin Seong-un decided to first visit the Divine Thief’s secret hideout.
The hideout was located on a small mountain called Mount Li, near Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province.
As he used his movement arts to ascend the mountain in one breath, he soon spotted the shrine of Guan Yu that the Divine Thief had mentioned, near the mid-slope.
Jin Seong-un paused in front of it, gazing at the statue of Guan Yu gripping the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
Though the place had grown old after centuries of standing guard, Guan Yu’s eyes had not lost a trace of their valiant spirit.
“Just like the Masters.”
The Martial Gods of the Seong-un Inn were the same.
Though their names had already become history, they still undeniably existed.
Jin Seong-un gave a polite bow toward Guan Yu, who seemed to glare at him with vigilance.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
He then grasped the small handle sticking out of the shrine’s floor and pulled it with all his strength.
Rumbleeee–!
The ground lifted like a door while spilling heaps of rubble, revealing a staircase just wide enough for two people to barely squeeze through.
It was impossible to tell how deep it went, the darkness was so profound.
Jin Seong-un slowly descended the stairs.
What kind of treasure would a thief of the Divine Thief’s caliber keep in his hideout?
It was unlikely to be trivial trinkets like those Chae Seo-ryeong once had. If it were, his Master wouldn’t have specifically told him to stop by the hideout and make use of its contents.
Lost in thought, he went down for quite a while until even the faint light from outside was completely gone.
Pitch-black darkness enveloped him.
“A door?”
At the bottom of the stairs was a dead-end wall.
Feeling it cautiously, it seemed to be made of iron.
Jin Seong-un gathered his inner qi and pushed the iron slab.
Rumbleee–!
The slab moved backward with a heavy sound. Judging by its weight, it seemed even heavier than the stele he had stolen earlier. Anyone lacking sufficient martial cultivation would not even be able to open it.
When the door opened, an expansive cave chamber appeared.
Whoosh!
He conjured the Threefold True Flame and lit a torch fixed to one wall.
Strangely enough, once a single torch was lit, all the torches along the wall illuminated at once.
“Oh……”
Indeed, the Divine Thief’s hideout was filled with mysteries.
He looked around the chamber for a while.
It was far more spacious than he had expected. If filled to the brim, it could easily hold a hundred people.
“……”
It seemed that others had made it this far before. Weathered white bones lay scattered around the chamber.
Well, it was the Divine Thief’s hideout after all.
Grave robbers would have drooled over it. Even seasoned martial masters might have been tempted to act as grave robbers to plunder it.
On one side of the chamber was a door.
Beside it were two hand-shaped holes carved into the wall at some distance apart.
“Hm.”
Jin Seong-un quietly observed the door and the holes. Between the holes and the door was a labyrinthine groove carved into the surface.
Its purpose seemed clear.
Without hesitation, he placed his hand over one of the holes and infused it with qi.
To his astonishment, the qi ignited into light and sped along the grooves toward the door.
He stared blankly at it, fascinated, until—
KWA-AAAAANG!
A massive explosion erupted, blasting out a storm of energy.
Caught off guard, Jin Seong-un was thrown back violently.
“……”
He was dumbfounded.
What use was it to know only the location of the hideout without being told how to open it?
The principle of the explosion was fascinating too.
It didn’t use gunpowder. The moment qi was channeled into the hole, it transmitted to the door and then detonated.
The blast was so powerful that he had been forced to hastily raise his protective qi to shield his entire body.
No wonder there were so many bones in the chamber.
It wasn’t merely to guard treasure. It was a mechanism designed to punish intruders.
With a quiet sigh, Jin Seong-un once again approached the door.
The dust from the explosion had settled, revealing tightly written inscriptions on the floor.
They weren’t left by the Divine Thief.
‘Qi must be infused into both holes simultaneously.’
‘If two different people channel their qi at once, it still explodes without fail.’
‘Even if martial artists of the same sect with the same cultivation method try together, it still explodes.’
‘Song I-yeon was here.’
‘Crazy thief. Can this thing even be opened? Divine Thief, could you open it yourself?’
‘Damnable bastard!’
Most of the writings were desperate guesses left at the cost of someone’s life, mixed with curses and angry insults.
Each stroke of the writing carried bitter resentment. It seemed many had lost comrades while trying to solve this puzzle.
“Well, that’s what you get for trespassing into someone else’s hideout……”
Although, truthfully, the Divine Thief had stolen the goods in the first place.
Jin Seong-un mused to himself as he studied the holes again.
The fact that there were two holes clearly meant something had to be done simultaneously.
But feeding the same qi into both caused an explosion.
Naturally, feeding different qi would cause an explosion too.
As he pondered, he suddenly recalled one crucial clue.
“Since this hideout belongs to Master……”
He stepped closer to one of the holes, considering his options. There were two.
Blood Demon Qi and Women’s Moon Qi.
He imagined infusing Blood Demon Qi and watching the whole place blow up.
“……That’s a bit much.”
Even Jin Seong-un felt a twinge of fear.
He then raised Women’s Moon Qi and placed his hand over the hole.
If it could be solved by simply channeling the same qi, then sect brothers sharing the same cultivation method would have already looted the place.
But strictly speaking, their qi would never be identical. Even if cultivated with the same method, innate nature and temperament made subtle differences inevitable.
Thus, to channel perfectly identical qi into both holes, only one person could do it.
There was only one way in the world.
Jin Seong-un activated the Technique of Exchanging Two Forms at the same time as he raised his qi, instantly shifting to the opposite hole.
Two streams of qi poured into the holes.
Pure white qi coursed through the labyrinthine grooves, reaching the door simultaneously.
Clang–!
The door opened.
As expected, only the Divine Thief, or someone who had inherited his ultimate art, could open it.
.
.
.
The small chamber within was surprisingly modest.
There were no dazzling gold bars or luminous pearls.
On a plain wooden table sat an old wooden chest.
That alone was the entire purpose of this hideout.
Jin Seong-un carefully opened the chest.
Inside, wrapped in white cloth, was a dark-colored iron armor.
An uneasy feeling washed over him.
So the treasure meant to aid him was armor, of all things……
He lifted the armor. It was large enough to be fitted onto the statue of Guan Yu outside.
Yet strangely, it was as light as if made of feathers.
He removed his upper garment and donned the armor directly on his bare body.
Clang–!
At once, the armor tightened smoothly around him, fitting as though it were part of his own skin.
It was so light and flexible it felt as though he wore nothing at all.
On the waist was inscribed in red characters: Dragon Armor.
Jin Seong-un tapped the Dragon Armor lightly with his fist.
Thud, the sound was heavy, yet the armor was so solid that no impact reached his skin.
Jin Seong-un then gathered strength in his hand and struck his side with force.
KWAANG–!
A small explosion erupted.
Even so, the Dragon Armor did not shatter, nor did it suffer the tiniest scratch.
Jin Seong-un then wrapped his hand with the Blood Demon Palm.
“……”
That wasn’t right.
Retracting the Blood Demon Qi, he nodded once and stepped outside.
He did not know who the Dragon Armor’s original owner was, but he was grateful enough to be lent such a fine item.
It was truly a thief’s way of thinking. Though Jin Seong-un himself failed to realize it.
Hubei Province, Xi’an (西安).
In that city, peaceful as its name suggested, stood a quiet manor exuding serene dignity.
Kang, Kang–!
From dawn until just before daybreak, the clanging of hammer on iron resounded throughout the manor.
“Wasn’t that too harsh a refusal? After all, we went through the formation together.”
By the blazing fire, Chae Seo-ryeong muttered in complaint as she hammered away, recalling Jin Seong-un’s rejection.
Her appearance now was entirely different from when she had visited Seong-un Inn.
Her face was smeared black with soot, her sleeves rolled up tight.
Far from the image of a noble’s daughter, she looked every bit a blacksmith.
With the crimson pupils of Falling Flame Point Pupil, she read the flow of qi and hammered the glowing iron slowly.
Time passed.
“Oh……”
She admired the thin piece of forged iron, murmuring softly in awe.
Falling Flame Manor had lost its past glory—that was undeniable. The days when it crafted the world’s greatest swords were long gone.
Even so, it survived. Not as a forge of swords, but as a workshop of needle masters, creating thin and delicate needles by harnessing the power of Falling Flame Point Pupil.
The needles of Falling Flame Manor were coveted by every medical house in the land. Particularly, Chief Strategist Sima Baek often purchased large quantities of them to meet physicians’ demands.
Chae Seo-ryeong stared at the needle she had just forged, then flicked her hand.
Swish–!
The thin needle flew straight at the wall before losing strength and dropping.
She clicked her tongue.
“How do the Tang Clan people manage it?”
Some of the Manor’s needles ended up in the Tang Clan’s hands. She had once seen them throw needles and daggers. If she could master that art, it would surely help her thieving in the future.
Pondering, she left the smithy and headed toward a quiet training ground tucked away in the manor.
Looking around briefly, she pulled a handful of thin needles from her pouch.
Chrrrk–!
She scattered sharp needles all across the training ground floor. Hundreds of needles shimmered under the moonlight like ripples on water.
They were rejects, forged by trainees too clumsily to be sold.
Chae Seo-ryeong then dashed barefoot across them. Without extreme care, her soles would soon be stained with blood.
She focused with all her nerves.
“Ahh!”
Pain pricked her sole.
Grimacing, she pulled out the embedded needle.
Her concentration faltered. This hadn’t happened in nearly a year.
“……How did he do it?”
No matter how she tried to shake it off, thoughts of Jin Seong-un kept surfacing.
Frustration boiled inside her.
She had been certain no peer could outrun her.
But she realized that was arrogance. Jin Seong-un was much faster, more stealthy, and even stronger.
She recalled the strike he had unleashed during the formation.
A single sword, yet its ferocity was as if it contained the sun itself.
Seeing it directly through the Falling Flame Point Pupil made it all the more shocking.
“No sense of shame at all.”
She shook her head.
His blunt refusal had stung, but thinking on it now, it was for the best.
After all, he had been trapped by the Sima Clan scoundrel’s formation because of her thievery.
She couldn’t ask such a person to help her in danger again. They weren’t even that close.
It was only the burden of a duty passed down through generations that weighed so heavily on her shoulders.
Though she reasoned it out, she still felt pathetic.
At that moment—
A maid cautiously approached the training ground.
“Stop right there!”
Chae Seo-ryeong halted her sharply.
The ground was littered with needles. This was her private training ground, so she scattered them as she pleased.
Startled, the maid bowed slightly.
“My lady, a guest has come for you.”
“A guest? Is it Sister Jin-hee?”
“No, it’s a man……”
For some reason, the maid’s face reddened as she continued.
“He’s extremely handsome.”
“What?”
Chae Seo-ryeong’s face froze.
She had no male friends, handsome or otherwise.
As she thought hard, her eyes suddenly widened.
“Ah, could it be?”
She swiftly used her movement arts and rushed to the front gate.
.
.
.
As she expected.
Standing awkwardly at the gate was none other than Jin Seong-un.
“What the—! Why are you here?”
She shouted, unable to hide her delight, but quickly frowned.
She had rushed out without washing off the day’s sweat and soot. Worse, she was barefoot.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.
The maids passing by shot them curious glances.
No man had ever come looking for Chae Seo-ryeong before.
And this one was tall and strikingly handsome.
His expression so grave, it looked as if he were about to make a confession on the spot.
Feeling the atmosphere of anticipation from the maids, Chae Seo-ryeong also flushed slightly.
Then Jin Seong-un declared in an earnest tone:
“I came to challenge Falling Flame Manor.”
In that instant, both Chae Seo-ryeong and the maids froze.