A creeping feeling told him this mission, too, would leave a decidedly unpleasant aftertaste. It had happened with the Bamboo Tube Beauty, and with the Starved Child Ghosts. Anything even remotely involving evil spirits put him in a foul mood.

Mindless Demons. Demonic practitioners who chose to learn demonic arts. Those who fell to Corruption and were tainted by Demonic Energy. Evil spirits were different from all of those. Grudges and lingering resentment, after all, arose when someone fell victim to malice.

When Yise’s expression hardened, Seol Ryeong smiled and swatted his arm. He was just thinking, 'Qi Refining Cultivators these days think nothing of hitting their seniors’ arms. The cultivation world really has turned upside down,' when she added,

“Anyway, I feel safer having you along. I was a little worried when I first got the assignment.”

“What’s with the flattery all of a sudden? Did you break my shield?”

“No!”

Yise caught her by both cheeks and looked into her eyes.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Mind-reading art. Tell me the truth. Did you break it?”

“I said no.”

Seol Ryeong kicked him in the shin with the toe of her shoe, then strode briskly ahead. His mind-reading art confirmed she was lying.

“Come on, let’s go.”

As she walked with her left arm and left leg swinging forward together, Yise grabbed her robes at the nape.

“Hey! Don’t grab me like that. I’m not a puppy.”

“How long do you think it’ll take to walk there?”

“What, are we going to fly?”

With an unmistakably showy air, Yise took the White Luan Boat out of his storage pouch. The flying ritual implement, painted with a white bird, revealed its imposing hull.

“...”

“You don’t even have a flying ritual implement? Can you really call yourself a Cultivator...?”

“You’re really getting on my nerves, but I am a little excited... I’ve never ridden one before.”

The corners of his lips rose slightly as he climbed onto the bow. Seol Ryeong hesitantly boarded behind him.

“Hold on tight. You’ll get hurt if you fall.”

“... Okay.”

Just as he was about to set off, her small hands caught him around the waist. Yise furrowed his brow.

“No, the passenger sits down and holds the railing. Haven’t you ever been on a ferry?”

Seol Ryeong’s face flushed and darkened until it looked ready to burst. Somehow, she seemed to be getting a little dimmer by the day. Yise could not help feeling sorry for her.

* * *

Jinju Fortress, Suari.

Having arrived in the blink of an eye, Yise and Seol Ryeong immediately inspected the scene.

“This Demonic Energy definitely isn’t normal. Level Six? Its lingering resentment might even rival a Level Five evil spirit’s.”

As she said, vicious lingering resentment poured from the pleasure house. The evil spirit itself, however, was nowhere to be seen.

While Yise examined the scene, Seol Ryeong set up her shamanic tools in the pleasure house courtyard. She placed a bronze bowl in the middle of the pavilion and began chanting, dropping talismans over it one by one. Too short to reach the ceiling beams, she kept rising onto her tiptoes to attach talismans, looking decidedly clumsy.

He watched quietly as she spread a straw mat in the center, sprinkled liquor on the ground, and began offering a rite to heaven.

“What are you doing?”

“A rain rite. A Courtesan’s Grievance Demon can only appear on rainy nights.”

Yise watched her with interest.

“You can make it rain, too?”

“Did you know? A shaman’s rain rite never fails.”

“... Impressive.”

“That’s because we keep performing it until it rains.”

'An amateur shaman after all.'

Yise kept that mutter to himself.

That evening, however, he revised his opinion. As evening fell, clouds began gathering in the sky. At first there was only a handful. Then they grew into a wad of cotton. Soon, a broad bank of dark gray clouds covered the entire sky east of Jinju Fortress, and raindrops began to fall.

She truly was a gifted shaman. Yise was beginning to find her a little frightening.

Beyond the eaves, rain fell like a hanging screen. Water gathered over the garden gravel, pattering as though it were simmering. The two stood beneath the beam where the Courtesan’s Grievance Demon had reportedly appeared and looked up at the ceiling.

The Demonic Energy was growing denser. Seol Ryeong gripped her shamanic tools, and Yise drew his Vajra and Clear Shadow Sword.

DRIP.

A single drop of blood struck the wooden floor.

Another drop.

DRIP.

Sticky, dark red liquid ran down along the grain of the beam. The blood began dripping faster, until a mass of flesh fell from one spot on the beam and landed on the earthen floor with a soft thud.

A severed arm. Then a leg. A torso. A head. Each piece fell precisely into place, as though someone above were setting it down. At last, the pieces on the earth joined into one.

Her skin was like white jade, her body exceedingly slender. Her eyes were nothing but unfocused whites.

CREAK.

CREAK, CREAK, CREAK.

The woman—the evil spirit—slowly rose. Her limbs moved at grotesquely disjointed angles, like a puppet in a show. Seol Ryeong held out a talisman. It flared brightly for an instant, enclosing the Courtesan’s Grievance Demon in a yellow barrier. It was a Binding Talisman.

SCREEECH!

The evil spirit opened its mouth and screamed. Yise winced slightly at the ear-splitting sound and immediately activated the Vajra.

The evil spirit froze briefly. The next instant, its mouth opened wider still, and black Demonic Energy exploded out. The Vajra only kept the Courtesan’s Grievance Demon from approaching; it could not damage its spirit body.

Behind him, Seol Ryeong continued her rite to guide the spirit onward. Unidentifiable syllables began spilling from her mouth. Each word was too mournful to be a human voice, yet too distinct to be an animal’s cry. Her eyes, rolled back to show only whites, seemed to meet the equally white eyes of the Courtesan’s Grievance Demon.

The Demon swayed once, then vanished.

“... Whew.”

“Did it work? Something’s strange. It disappeared without even being exorcised.”

“No. It failed.”

Seol Ryeong let out a long sigh. Her eyes were soaked with tears.

“... Why are you crying?”

“It’s a side effect of the spirit-guiding rite. That evil spirit’s emotions flooded into me.”

She shook her head and roughly wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Anger, sorrow, resentment. It’s complicated... But what is this feeling? There’s affection, worry, and guilt mixed in.”

“Not feelings you’d have toward someone who killed you.”

“Exactly.”

Seol Ryeong spent a long while wiping away her tears before she finally spoke again.

“... You can’t exorcise a Courtesan’s Grievance Demon by ordinary means. Courtesans tend to have strong yin energy even in life, and this spirit was born of an extraordinarily powerful grudge. Purifying the soul or binding it won’t work. It will never disperse unless that grievance is resolved.”

“How do we resolve it?”

“We have to remove the cause.”

Remove the cause? Surely not.

“Our only choice is to find the person who raped and murdered her and offer him as a sacrifice.”

Yise remained silent. Seol Ryeong added that otherwise the Demonic Energy would keep spreading until it swallowed Jinju Fortress. This place would become a nest of evil spirits. Just as she said, even now the lingering resentment was growing stronger. Yise slowly rose.

They headed to a nearby outer affiliates’ outpost. Upon spotting Yise, an outer affiliate immediately escorted him to the finest lodgings and treated him with the utmost courtesy.

“I’ve been here once before, but they treat me so differently when I’m with a Foundation Establishment Cultivator... It makes me feel worthless.”

“That’s the cultivation world for you.”

Yise kept the unkind remark that she only needed to advance her own realm to himself.

“You said this concerned the Courtesan’s Grievance Demon at the Flower Pavilion...?”

“Yes. We need information on the culprit.”

The outpost manager hesitated, an inscrutable expression on his face. He was a veteran of advanced years who had worked at this outpost for decades.

“This is a rather delicate matter... But we already know who the culprit is.”

“Who?”

“A man named Kang Gyuyoung.”

Seol Ryeong tilted her head at the outer affiliate’s words. The name sounded familiar.

“So we just need to bring him in?”

“Wait.”

“Please wait a moment, Cultivator Yise.”

The two stopped him at the same time.

“Well, Kang Gyuyoung is a noble of the Jinju Kang family, originally from the main mountain.”

“Explain.”

Yise’s voice grew lower. After hesitating for a long while, the manager finally spoke with a sigh.

“He is... a pureblood born on the main mountain. His aptitude was outstanding. People said no one his age could compare to his talent.”

Seol Ryeong clapped her hands.

“I remember. The lecher. Kang Gyuyoung the lecher. He’s infamous among my acquaintances, too.”

“Yes. That’s the one. Unfortunately, his character fell far short of his ability. He had nothing resembling a Dao heart.”

“Then why did he return to the mortal world? Did an inner-demon tribulation leave him ruined?”

The outer affiliate shook his head at Yise’s question.

“No. He raped and murdered a female outer affiliate. As punishment, he was subjected to the Art of Severing Roots and Meridians, reduced to an ordinary person, and expelled.”

“Sick bastard.”

Seol Ryeong spat out the curse.

Someone born a pureblood, blessed with outstanding aptitude. Someone reduced to an ordinary person by the punishment of severing his roots and meridians. One might question why a Cultivator should suffer such a punishment for harming an ordinary person, but a man like that would inevitably succumb to an inner-demon tribulation and become a demonic practitioner. From Daemudo’s standpoint, making an example of him would have been unavoidable.

The ordinary nobles of the main mountain chose between two paths: remain there for life, serving as attendants or doing menial work, or have all their memories erased and be adopted into a collateral branch of a noble family in the mortal world. Kang Gyuyoung had apparently chosen the latter.

“Normally, all his memories should have been erased, but his backer prevented it.”

“Who’s his backer?”

“Kang Ihyeon. Kang Gyuyoung’s father.”

Yise fell silent for a moment. Seol Ryeong knit her brows and tugged lightly at his robes.

“He’s Hall Master Kang Itae’s cousin. He’s currently Black Tortoise Hall’s deputy master.”

Yise’s gaze settled quietly on the outpost manager.

“... So what? Son or not, he’s an ordinary person now. Would he care that much?”

“Think about it,” Seol Ryeong answered quietly. “He stopped them from erasing his son’s memories when he was expelled. No matter how worthless his son was, even after he became an ordinary person, he loved him.”

“...”

The outpost manager pressed a hand to his forehead in dismay.

“He was expelled for causing trouble on the main mountain, relying on his father’s and family’s influence. Even after being sent to the Jinju Kang family, he continued his vicious behavior. In fact, this is far from the first murder he’s committed.”

“...”

“There was a similar incident before. A Cultivator from the main mountain tried to punish him, but Cultivator Kang Ihyeon personally intervened to protect him. It nearly led to bloodshed between the Inner Halls.”

Yise gathered his thoughts for a moment, then looked at Seol Ryeong. He had wondered why they had assigned a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to an evil-spirit extermination mission. Could it have been for fear that the Jinju Kang family might harm her?

It was absurd. He had seen countless contemptible Daoists, but protecting a son who had raped and murdered someone was enough to make even a demonic practitioner shake their head.

Still, he certainly needed to be careful about escalating matters. His choice could spark conflict between Winged Dragon Hall and Black Tortoise Hall. Yet if he left the evil spirit alone, there was no telling how many more lives would be lost in Jinju Fortress.

'Leaving it alone wouldn’t be good for the Jinju Kang family themselves, either.'

“Let’s ask the main mountain first. Checking with the people involved would be safest.”

Yise sent message talismans to both Hall Master Kang Itae and Cultivator Kang Ihyeon.

'Your blood relative raped and murdered someone, and the victim became a vengeful evil spirit. May we offer him as a sacrifice?'

He relayed only the facts, exactly as they were.

Hall Master Kang Itae’s reply arrived first.

-Follow procedure.

Short and clear. An answer entirely like him. The reply that followed, however, was the exact opposite.

-Permission denied.

Seol Ryeong and the outer affiliate looked at Yise helplessly. Yise crumpled the message talisman.