novelraw Chapter 185 : Male-Forbidden Sacred Domain
Chapter 185 : Male-Forbidden Sacred Domain
Chapter 185: Male-Forbidden Sacred Domain
The sparring ground of the Shaolin Temple was covered with soft earth.
Lay Disciples were taking turns sparring amid clouds of dust, each trying to prove themselves while important figures watched from the sidelines.
Since the order moved quickly, before long my turn to spar with Jogon arrived.
The young man appeared before me with a detestable attitude.
“I truly regarded you as a true friend…!”
I shouted while trembling with overwhelming betrayal.
Jogon, who had parted from me with a smile just moments ago, now stared at me as if thinking, ‘Has this lunatic gone mad?’
“Friend, have you lost your mind? Why are you suddenly like this?”
Judging by how he subtly diverted my attention toward Beopgwang and moved separately after we slipped away…
He must have expected pursuit, and it seemed likely he had already figured out our identities long ago.
Perhaps even that group beating earlier had been a trap laid to confirm who we were.
“Friend? Don’t call me by that word, you traitor!”
I had thought he was a good person just because he gave me food when I was hungry.
I stretched my foot forward and kicked up a cloud of dust—whoosh!—as I shouted.
“No, seriously, why are you acting like this? I even gave you my precious wheat flatbread.”
There was genuine bewilderment in Jogon’s eyes. If it was acting, then it was truly top-tier acting.
“You’re that martial artist from the Emei Sect who ran away with a man, aren’t you?”
“……”
At my blunt accusation, I caught Jogon’s cheek trembling ever so slightly.
For a brief instant, the young man’s mask almost slipped.
“……I don’t know what you’re talking about, friend. You’ve been saying strange things since earlier.”
“That expression just now already gave you away.”
Despite my continued bluffing and provocation, Jogon desperately maintained the act and tried to hide his reaction.
“I’m saying I have no idea what you mean. I truly can’t understand…”
Words won’t do.
“Salseongi, lend me a little strength.”
I gathered the blazing killing intent burning within me and fired it like a focused beam straight at the opponent before me.
Startled by the sudden killing intent, she instinctively trembled and reacted violently.
Whoosh!
When I moved again, Jogon—who hadn’t even flinched earlier—displayed superhuman reflexes driven by the instinct to survive.
To an outside observer, it probably looked like both of us had simply twitched once.
But for the two of us involved, we had already gauged each other’s speed and level of martial prowess.
Especially the footwork she had almost used earlier—it was the distinctive movement of the Emei Sect that Gi Hyo and Jeong Yo had shown me, saying it would help identify them.
“See? I knew it.”
“……”
Jogon’s face hardened stiffly, and this time she couldn’t even refute me.
So it really was the Emei Sect master Huiyul.
I should have suspected something when she was excessively friendly from the very beginning.
“To betray your sect for a man, steal a sacred relic, and then sneak into a male-forbidden sacred domain.”
The words “Have you no shame?” slipped out of my mouth naturally.
“…It’s not like that! There were other hidden circumstances.”
“Then what? What circumstances?”
I asked without lowering the ominous aura around me.
Conscious of the gazes around us, Huiyul whispered softly.
“I can’t talk about it here… Let’s finish the sparring and speak somewhere quiet.”
“I refuse. I’m going all out here, if only to expose your identity to the world.”
Her expression darkened further at my words.
“…Calm down. If you do this, we’ll both be in serious trouble.”
She threatened that if this happened, not only she but I would also have my identity exposed.
“I won’t be in trouble. At worst, I only lied about being a Lay Disciple. But you? A woman boldly stepping into a male-forbidden sacred domain, and a famous martial artist of the Emei Sect at that. Your name will spread throughout the entire Central Plains.”
Threats like this usually end with the one who has more to lose being defeated.
She should have looked before choosing where to lie down.
“D-don’t do this. Please calm down and listen to me.”
Her voice trembled as if she believed I might really do it.
“I don’t want to calm down. I’m going to charge in just like this.”
When a friend turns into an enemy, they become even more terrifying.
As I continued provoking her with an irritated tone, she bit her lip and looked frustrated.
“Wow, Captain really seems like a bad person.”
“Quiet.”
Ilhong, who had been watching from the side, spoke in admiration.
I shut her mouth before I could decide whether it was praise or not.
“But before that, let me ask something. How did you know I was an outsider chasing you?”
The identity had been prepared by the Beggars’ Union. There shouldn’t have been any way to discover it. The disguise had been perfect.
“Well… normally when someone comes to the main mountain of the Shaolin Temple, even if they come from a powerful clan, they become at least a little intimidated. But you were far too confident…”
In short, my unshakable “I’ll do whatever I want” attitude had been the problem.
Apparently I lacked the typical timid atmosphere ordinary people show before a massive orthodox sect.
“The Captain isn’t very talented at disguises. No matter what he does, it’s obvious.”
Ilhong, a master of male disguise and an expert in the Human-skin Mask, nodded as if she agreed.
A disguise works only when everything changes—from body shape to tone of voice, speech patterns, and behavior. She criticized my attitude toward disguises.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re amazing. Truly the perfect man.”
“…Hmph.”
Perhaps years of living in male disguise had given her a strange sense of pride.
At my sarcasm, Ilhong pouted and started thumping my back repeatedly.
“Alright then, shall we continue what we left unfinished? Let’s have a proper fight.”
I had heard she was a Transcendence-level master.
I spoke while sending out a monstrous fighting spirit and killing intent that only she could fully feel.
Perhaps sensing I would recklessly charge without further talk, the Emei Sect master began taking a defensive stance with a despairing expression.
She had already lied once by pretending to be a friend. Whatever her circumstances were, I thought it wouldn’t be too late to hear them after completely subduing her.
“How foolish…”
She muttered.
Foolish, huh. That wasn’t something a woman who had turned the Emei Sect upside down should be saying.
I circulated the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method and pushed internal energy through the meridians of my entire body.
Then I gathered immense power into the Yongcheon Acupoint, preparing to unleash it and charge fiercely at her—
“Amitabha. Young benefactor, could you pause for a moment?”
A deep, low voice seeped in like the wind from right beside me.
Startled by an approach I hadn’t sensed at all, I flinched and hurriedly stepped back twice.
“Who might you be, Elder…?”
A veteran master with white eyebrows swaying in the wind and long graying whiskers.
He was a venerable monk whose entire presence radiated a transcendent, otherworldly elegance.
“…A-Abbot?”
Thanks to the shocked murmurs of the surrounding Shaolin Monks, I learned his identity.
“Why would he appear at something like a Lay Disciple sparring match…?”
“He rarely even shows himself for the Shaolin Temple’s major affairs…”
Since he was someone who rarely left seclusion, everyone stared at us in disbelief at his sudden appearance.
The Abbot of the Shaolin Temple—Beopseong.
A legendary high monk of Shaolin whose name had been widely rumored, though he hadn’t even appeared at the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament.
Clear spiritual light shone in his eyes, and an indescribable profundity flowed around him. He was on a completely different level from a certain old man who swung his fists at the slightest provocation.
“C-Captain… why is the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple standing in front of us?”
Ilhong asked the question I wanted to ask.
Unlike the murmuring crowd around us, the monk before us spoke calmly with a gentle expression.
“Benefactor Muhong, would you kindly listen to the unfinished story of this person with many circumstances?”
His voice was not loud, yet it carried an authority that silenced every sound around us.
If even the Abbot of Shaolin stepped forward to mediate, then it probably wasn’t simply a case of running away with a man after all.
It seemed there was some hidden truth behind this request that I hadn’t known.
“But hearing the story of someone who already deceived me once…”
When I hesitated, the Abbot’s clear gaze pierced through me.
“Is that not also the case for you, benefactor?”
“….”
I was momentarily speechless. I had hidden my identity as well. Thinking about it, I had nothing to say.
“Well. Fine then.”
Huiyul finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Alright, let’s move somewhere quiet and hear her story.
When I nodded, the Abbot replied with a benevolent smile.
The deepest place within the Shaolin Temple.
Beyond the window, the distant ridges of Mount Song stretched out, and the breaths of past Shaolin Abbots seemed to linger in the air.
There, in Beopseong’s residence, we finally heard the true story that Huiyul had been suffering alone while hiding all this time.
“What? So you really didn’t run away with a Shaolin Monk?”
I had assumed it was just another romantic scandal I often encountered while working as a troubleshooter.
But Huiyul’s explanation completely contradicted the request made by the Emei Sect masters.
Tilting my head, I asked again if it was truly the case. Unable to endure the injustice any longer, Huiyul pounded her chest and cried out.
“Of course! That’s impossible. Because from the beginning I…”
“From the beginning you what?”
At my question, Huiyul paused briefly, took a deep breath, and opened her mouth.
“Because I prefer women over men…”
She suddenly made a shocking confession.
Her face looked relieved, as though something she had hidden for a long time had finally been released.
“….”
Without saying a word, I quietly pulled Ilhong closer to my side.
Good heavens—such a dangerous woman had been among the female-only sacred domain filled entirely with women.
“S-so now you believe me?”
“I believe you.”
The Central Plains is extremely conservative about such matters. A confession like that, staked on a master’s honor, was probably the truth.
“You don’t seem uncomfortable being close with men either, so I gathered the courage to say it.”
Seeing me pull Ilhong into my arms, she spoke shyly.
“Hmm.”
Where should I even begin explaining this?
I scratched the side of my head awkwardly.
Untangling such a complicated misunderstanding sounded bothersome, so I decided to just let it pass without saying anything.
“So why did you run away then? Were you discovered while revealing your orientation?”
Huiyul kept circling around without revealing the true reason.
I pressed her about why she had fled all the way here.
She stared at the mountain ridge beyond the window and answered heavily.
“Because I felt something strange from the Emei Sect Leader, Venerable Huiyin…”
Her voice was almost a whisper.
Huiyul spoke as if confessing the internal problem within the Emei Sect.
“Strange? What do you mean?”
Come to think of it, the one who had sent people to pursue her had been the Sect Leader of the Emei Sect herself.
It felt as if the order of events had been reversed because I received the request first. Something significant must be entangled in this matter.
“You heard the rumors that the Sect Leader’s realm recently advanced another step, right?”
“Yes. I heard that after long years of training, she finally reached the Blazing Flame Realm.”
I hadn’t known that, but Ilhong answered beside me.
“That’s when it started. It felt like she changed a little.”
Her realm rose, and her personality changed.
Given the context, it clearly wasn’t a change in a good direction.
“Did she disguise herself or something?”
It was faint, but perhaps she truly had been replaced.
When I suggested that possibility—
“No, it wasn’t that. I even brushed against her skin under the pretense of coincidence, so I know. What I felt was something unsettling—an aura that should never be felt from someone who practices the Dao…”
She muttered about the secret changes she had noticed recently.
And once she began investigating that matter, the Sect Leader apparently noticed and suddenly changed, threatening Huiyul’s safety and even her life.
In the end, she fled in panic all the way to the Shaolin Temple and sought refuge with the Abbot, with whom she had prior ties.
“Something about that does sound strange.”
I frowned.
“Right? It’s really unlike her. I’ve admired the Sect Leader for a long time, so I know.”
Huiyul casually dropped yet another shocking confession.
Without saying anything, I pulled Ilhong even closer into my arms.