#rothms

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the morning after was a different kind of disaster.

chung myung couldn't stop thinking about it. which was, objectively the worst possible outcome for someone who was very good at not thinking about things.

he had made it a skill, actually. a skill you develop when you've lived two lifetimes and learned that feelings were mostly inconvenient. and yet here he was, halfway through the city, tripping over sidewalk cracks like a drunkard, his mind stuck in a corner he'd been actively avoiding.

he thought about last night.

the food had been incredible. that much he could admit, no problem there. the alcohol had been good too, it loosened up something in his chest which he usually kept locked down tight. and the woman—

jiejie...

nope. he's not going there.

he just chalked it up to the effects of the alcohol. he tries to convince himself.

it's just a temporary possession, a brief moment where he wasn't entirely himself. the flirting didn't count, the way he'd looked at her across that weiqi board, the soft thing in his voice when he'd called her jiejie—none of it happened, okay?!

it was just the drink talking and he'd be laughed out of mount hua if anyone found out he was acting like a thirteen year old boy who just discovered that girls existed!

he blushed furiously at the thought and nearly walked into a vendor's stall.

"watch it, kid." the vendor called after him.

the thing was, he couldn't figure out how to go back. if he showed up again with his usual confidence, she might think he was continuing...whatever that was from yesterday.

if he didn't show up at all, that would be its own kind of answer and he wasn't about to let someone, anyone of that matter, make him look like a coward! so he was stuck in this weird limbol where his stomach kept doing backflips and his core felt hot and there was absolutely, definitely nothing wrong with him.

it's probably just the food still sitting heavy. (yes really)

he stopped in the middle of the street with hands shoved in his robes and made a decision.

information first! he thought with a clear head.

he'd find someone who knew something about her, some thread he could pull, and then everything would make sense again. people always made sense once you knew their story. this would be the same.

he found a familiar beggar on the street, an old man whose network of contacts and gossip sources probably rivaled half the sect intelligence divisions in the kingdom. the head of the beggars union branch in louyang.

chung myung approached him casually.

"hey you. beggar," he called out.

hong daekwang recognised him immediately. "mount hua's divine dragon!" and sent out a greeting, asking what was it he needed.

"i want information." chung myung responded simply.

they settled down inside, and chung myung sat on a chair like he's the boss.

"do you know of the inn past the east market? ch...chen inn. the one with the plum blossom trees, with a sign nobody can find, and a path that eats wrong turns for breakfast?" he blurted out.

hong daekwang blinked at him slowly with a dumb expression. "...what inn?"

chung myung described it again more careful and detailed, describing the location more precisely as it might suddenly jog the man's memory. plum trees in full bloom. wooden sign brushed in plain black characters. the kind of path that required either insider knowledge or a small miracle and decent luck.

the beggar squinted and thought about it harder than previously but then casually shrugged. "i've never heard of it."

which should have been the end of it, except chung myung wasn't done. no, he was determined!

he tried two more beggars from a different location, a tea seller, a chestnut vendor who seemed to know every breathing soul in the district by name and reputation.

but...

no nothing. no inn.

...what was up with that?! fine, that made sense, the location alone would explain why nobody had heard of it.

so he changed his approach. he asked about the girl instead, just her. divorced entirely from the location. a woman with long hair and a calm voice, she hits like she means business when someone calls her old—

and got absolutely nothing!

not "i don't know her," not "she keeps to herself," not any of the usual half answers people give when they're being polite about not knowing something.

just blank. fucking blank. the same blank you'd get for asking someone what they had for breakfast on a tuesday three years ago because there's literally, nothing to say! and there was no name circulating, no rumors, and no history.

and as far as the entire gossip network of the district was concerned, this woman didn't exist and never had at all.

which made zero sense to him.

everyone existed in somebody's gossip! chung myung had information on people he had talked to for thirty seconds a decade ago.

and this woman who worked in a business, served food, presumably bought supplies and paid someone something—had left behind less of a trail than a damn ghost!!

he fussed about it.

he stood in the middle of the street with that thought in his hands, turning it times and times over with his arms crossed. not knowing whether he wanted to chase it or let it drop.

is there really nothing? he questioned himself finally.

suddenly, his stomach growled, loud and undeniable. reminding him that the inn's food like the pork jiejie cooks dissolves in your mouth like water.

and whatever mystery that woman was and has, it could definitely wait until after lunch...hehe.

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[reader] had woken up late.

the sun was already high when she dragged herself out of bed and by the time she had made it to the inn to open up, it was already past nine.

she stood there at the door for a moment with a key in her hand, wondering if the universe was trying to tell her something. the day had started strange and in her experience, strange mornings led to strange days and strange days were the exact kind of thing she's been trying to avoid her whole entire life.

so exhausting... she grimaced.

but she opened the inn anyway, because, duh, that was the only option available to her.

the morning had been quiet, which should have been good...except she'd spent most of it cleaning and thinking about yesterday which was absolutely not good.

she had gotten curious, which was never a trait that served her wel, and it was that particular curiosity that had her leaving the inn mid morning to track down one of the beggars that congregated near the east market.

she found one easily enough.

[reader] offered him a handful of coins that she'd gotten from her unexpected benefactor the night before, and asked him about mount hua sect's disciples. specifically, about the ones who'd been circulating in people's mouth as of lately.

the beggar had plenty of things to say, which would have been great...except none of it was actually useful!

and everything took twice as long as it needed to. ugh.

jo gul had apparently grown another two inches tall and could supposedly uproot trees now, a claim that had passed through so many mouths it was probably unrecognizable by the time it reached her ears.

yoon jong was described as the steady one. the senior disciple that somehow made everyone around him look bad just through sheer existing without anyone actually resenting him for it.

baek cheon got more of a reverence in the beggar's tone which was usually reserved for retired generals and temple statues. mount hua's righteous sword and according to him, "the only one of them with any sense, which isn't saying much."

yu iseol came up quieter and careful. he went on about her silence was intimidating and that she had beaten a tang clan family member, tang hak, in a duel, completely overpowering him.

and then there was tang soso, who had apparently walked away from her own clan, given that women didn't have much of a future there, to study the sword under a sect best known for nearly getting wiped off the map. the beggar called her "promising" and [reader] had gotten the distinct impression he didn't actually know what that meant and had just liked the sound of it.

but that was all preamble.

the real performance started the moment mount hua's divine dragon came up. the beggar's whole posture changed. his shoulders came up, his voice dropped into the register and then he told her things she already knew...

the divine dragon had dominated the worldly murim competition, cleaned house so thoroughly it was almost embarrassing for everyone else. the divine dragon had hauled mount hua's reputation back from the dead in under a year singlehandedly blahblahblah, the divine dragon could probably flatten a mountain (the beggar wasn't entirely sure on that one, but he wasn't ruling it out either)

[reader] had nodded along to all of it. (painstakingly)

great, she'd thought. and not one word about why he face planted into my compost pile.

she sighed when she got back to the inn, the first of many sighs that would pepper the rest of the morning.

she was secretly hoping that the devil incarnate wouldn't show up at the inn to cause a mess again.

and although he had given her more money than necessary, she preferred to keep her distance anyway. unpredictable people are risky and dangerous to be around. they disturbed the peace and quiet. and quite frankly, you wouldn't really know what to expect around them.

at least he hadn't shown up yet. she was grateful for that much.

except there was a bang outside...

her heart jumped, stupid thing, hoping it wasn't him, not yet, not when she was still so uncertain about how to handle yesterday's events.

but the source turned out to be infinitely more manageable.

two fat raccoons came trotting through the door like they owned the place, riding in on a gust of cool mountain air. their little feet tapping out a rhythm on the wooden floor.

"what do you guys want, hm? i already fed you three sweet potatoes, one corn and two apples," she called out, exasperated.

though they both flinched at the sound of her voice, they came to her feet anyway. snuggling up looking kind of cute that clearly worked on her because she fed them regardless.

"...trash pandas." [reader] clicked her tongue.

at some point, she decided to give them a name properly instead of just "raccoon one" and "raccoon two" .

heizi and baizi.

(heizi = little blackie/black stone)

(baizi = little whitey/white stone)

they had grown on her, these two. but she wasn't about to admit out loud how fond she had become of them.

watching them eat made her stomach growl. she hadn't eaten that morning as she had been in too much of a rush to go find information and now her body was staging a quiet rebellion.

she chose to ignore it and turned her attention to cleaning up the vegetables she had pulled earlier, the ones she'd meant to sort for the raccoons before getting distracted by something else entirely.

her fingers had been reaching for a basket when one piece fell, and that's when she saw it.

a ginseng, old and gnarled, nestled among the regular vegetables as if its not the odd one out.

she picked it up and turned it over in her hands, wondering how something like that had ended up mixed in with her regular supplies. maybe it had come with a shipment, gotten muddled up somehow, she thought.

she paused as she looked at it. and made a decision that would, in retrospect, turn out to be profoundly stupid.

the second she bit into it and swallowed, she knew she had made a mistake.

what the fuck?!?!?!

the poison hit her like a physical thing. spreading from her stomach outward in waves of discomfort that became agony in seconds. her skin had started turning black, the corruption moving outward from her core and she had dropped the ginseng with a gasp.

how am i so unlucky?

[reader]'s legs gave out and she had fallen hard on the floor, ass flat. the impact was jarring and for a moment she just laid there wondering if this was actually how she was going to die, poisoned by a suspicious ginseng.

but her instinct naturally kicked in.

she closed her eyes and focused her qi on expelling the poison through sheer force of will, burning it out of her body in a burst of golden light and power.

heizi and baizi had scattered immediately, their fat little bodies booking it for the exit the second the light started emanating, and she had been left alone on her kitchen floor, gasping, covered in black soot, smelling absolutely horrible.

UGH. [reader] revolted in disgust.

when she had finally caught her breath, and when the black stuff had stopped seeping out of her skin, she looked at what was left of the ginseng with something close to awe.

holy shit.

that was some serious powerful stuff.

damn it... mere poison would be destroyed the moment it entered my body back in the day. she narrowed her eyes. ...have i gone weak?

[reader] sighs and looks up at the ceiling in annoyance. it's been a century since i unsheathed my sword...

then...

this was training material!

so of course she would eat the rest of it.

the second dose had gone down easier. though it still burned on the way through and forced her qi to work overtime to process it, she could feel her core stabilizing, growing denser—stronger, and more resilient than it had been in a century. a warm up, she thought.

finally, something that would actually push her.

"this is really tasty," she breathed out, still crouching on her kitchen floor covered in black residue. "how unfortunate, other people cannot eat such delicacy."

and because the universe had a sense of timing, a familiar voice drifted in from the entrance.

"delicacy? i would love to taste whatever jiejie is eating."

her entire body had gone rigid. she whipped around so fast her neck had cracked audibly, and there he was...

standing in the doorway like some kind of romantic male lead in a stallion novel she reads during her free time, grinning and leaning against the threshold with his arms crossed as if he owns the place.

​mount hua's divine dragon.

​he was back.

​her stomach had done an unhelpful flip (organ failure) she'd been sitting on her kitchen floor covered in poison soot, looking absolutely ridiculous.

even if she knew he'd be back since he always keeps his promises (albeit mostly the bad ones) did he really have to come back when she was stuffing her face with this ginseng looking like a chipmunk?

​chung myung, for his part, had taken all of about two seconds to process the situation in front of him.

jiejie was on the floor with a mess scattered all around her and black something seeping out of her clothes and the whole place reeked. and she was eating something that looked suspiciously like it could be poisonous.

​"what, why are you—spit it out!" he shouted, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

​"uhh??"

​"do you want to die?! spit that out right now!!!" he roared but she didn't obliged. she just shoved the rest of it in her mouth and swallowed before he could do anything about it.

​he stared at her in disbelief, his hands flying to his hair in sheer frustration. "you crazy woman! are you insane?!"

​he closed the distance between them in about two strides and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her as if that would somehow make her cough it back up.

"are you crazy? do you want to die?" he kept saying, words tumbling out in a rush, something that almost sounded like, concern if you squinted at it right.

he cupped her cheek with one hand, opened her mouth to check with the other and examined her face with an intensity that made her forget how to breathe for a second. but still somehow managed to maintain a sort of gentlemanly distance despite clearly freaking out about the whole situation.

​"i'm fine," she tried to say, her voice muffled against his fingers. "there's no need to be worried, young disciple. i have experience with—"

"you...you!" he snapped, throwing his hands up. "first you hide an inn where no human being can find it and now you're snacking on lethal weeds like they're candied hawthorns! is this a hobby for you?!"

​she flinched so hard she've practically folded in on herself, suddenly smaller, suddenly very aware that she was covered in black poison soot and he was very much not. she hadn't understood what he meant and chose to stay quiet rather than escalate things.

she could feel the fraying edges of his patience, the moment he was about to start yelling again.

​he rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "why is she treating me like a child"

​"you smell like you swam and danced with rats." he declared, pinching his nose with a look of dramatic disgust. "go take a bath! right now! move move move!"

now that he mentioned it, yeah she does smell like she swam and danced with rats, but did he really have to say it like that?

​[reader] tried to argue but he was already grabbing her arm and steering her towards the wash basin room.

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by the time [reader] finished bathing and returned to the main inn, properly dressed and only mildly mortified, chung myung had finished cleaning up the kitchen disaster and was now settling himself at a table as he planned to stay for a while.

she almost wanted to thank him for the cleaning up before remembering that he was the one who bullied her into bathing in the first place.

"you can stop doing that," she said instead, trying for pleasant, trying for professional, trying not to think about the fact that he was now watching her work with such intensity.

"while we see nothing wrong with customers cleaning up, it's my duty to do such things."

chung myung scoffed at her. "i'm all done, there's nothing for jiejie to clean."

she accepted that and moved forward, busying herself with work while he relaxed at his table, rolling his shoulders.

"right...uh, what can i get for you?"

naturally, he ordered his meal next, and it was clear he learned absolutely nothing from his previous visit because he ordered enough food for a small army. two bowls of chicken noodle soup, four steamed dumplings, one spicy marinated tofu, three ribs, and five bottles of aged shaoxing rice wine.

it was lesser than last night's but still a lot for one person.

she stared at the order. damn.

"...the young disciple eats with enthusiasm," she finally managed to say.

"it's good food," he said around a mouthful of something before she even finished serving it. "and don't call me 'young disciple' again." he muttered with distaste.

[reader] didn't understand what he wanted to imply by that. what does he want me to call him then!

so she went to make the rest of the meal, moving through the kitchen with practiced efficiency, and when she returned with everything balanced carefully on her arms, he had already settled into the rhythm of absolutely devouring his meal as if someone would come steal it.

"ahaaha... i'm glad you're enjoying it," she sweatdropped.

[reader] felt a sense of deja vu.

they had fallen into a comfortable quiet after that. with just the sounds of him eating and her sipping her tea at the counter. she had been watching him from behind her cup when he have suddenly spoken.

​"you're not drinking with me," he said, not even looking up from his meal.

​"...well i'm working."

​"you ate poison this morning." now he looked up with his eyebrow raised, staring at her like she was an absolute lunatic. "a whole damn stalk of it. while i was right there screaming at you. people who eat poison don't get to use the 'i'm working' excuse, jiejie." he rolled his eyes.

​[reader] nearly choked on her tea, her grip tightening around the ceramic cup until her knuckles went white. her heart gave an unhelpful, frantic thud against her ribs. does he know? no no, no, he can't possibly...

​"that was... an accident," she managed, her voice a little too tight, forcing her face into a smooth, blank mask.

​"an accident?" he scoffed, pointing a chopstick at her. "you shoved the rest of it in your mouth after i told you it was toxic! throwing it out would’ve been wasteful, you said! who thinks like that?!"

​"...a frugal business worker?" she said unsure, her chest squeezing with anxiety.

[reader] quickly grabbed the teapot, her fingers trembling just enough that the porcelain rattled against the tray. she desperately needed him to stop talking about it. "a little poison is... manageable."

​he set his cup down with a sharp clack that made her flinch half an inch. "a little poison," he repeated, mostly to himself, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. "you're out of your mind. truly."

​her shoulders had crept up half an inch, defensive, her mind racing to find a way to redirect his attention before he started digging deeper into her identity. "i am perfectly ordinary, young disciple. the young disciple exaggerates."

​"i don't exaggerate!" he barked, leaning forward over the table, his gremlin energy returning at full force. "you live in a ghost town. you run a tavern that requires a compass and a prayer to find. you play weiqi against yourself and you eat death roots for a morning snack! what part of that is ordinary?!" he said all of that in under five seconds. (impressive)

​[reader]'s stomach did a miserable flip. please just eat your soup. please just drop it.

​"more tea?" she asked hesitantly, her customer service smile plastered onto her face like a desperate shield as she stepped forward to pour, hoping to drown out his questions with hot water.

​he accepted with a grunt and she poured.

chung myung turned his attention toward the weiqi board still sitting at the end of the counter, its stones scattered mid game from yesterday.

his entire face had lit up, the probing tension instantly vanishing into childish excitement. "hey, is that from yesterday?"

​[reader] turned to what he was saying. "yes, it is."

​"you didn't finish it?"

​"i was going to..."

​"play me." he demanded suddenly, slapping a hand on the table.

​"i, i'm working!" [reader] blurted out, the excuse slipping out automatically because the thought of sitting that close to mount hua's divine dragon while her nerves were already frayed was terrifying.

​"you're always working!" he complained loudly, throwing his head back like a toddler being denied a toy. "does this place ever close?! are you a ghost? play a game with me, i paid you enough to buy the whole inn!"

​"it closes at night..."

​"that's not what i meant!" he groaned, slumping in his seat.

​[reader] just opted to chuckle nervously, her heart finally slowing down by a fraction as she quickly retreated behind the safety of the counter.

he looked at her a second too long before deciding the food in front of him was a more of a pressing concern. he got right back to eating.

he randomly pointed at random dishes and asked what was in them, and every so often he'd announce through a mouth full of food that the soup was "almost too good" which she recognized as the highest praise he was capable of giving.

at some point, two small shapes had appeared at the kitchen doorway with noses working overtime, trying to weigh the smell of pork against the very real risk of getting caught.

"..are those the raccoons from yesterday?" he asked, following her gaze.

"yeah, uh, they live around here."

he chewed obnoxiously loud. "they live here?"

"around... there's a difference."

chung myung hummed thoughtfully. "what're they called?"

[reader] debated on giving him the information before deciding it was probably harmless. "heizi, and baizi." she pointed to each.

he contemplated about it for a moment before an idea sparked in him. "oh, like the stones?"

"like the stones."

something flickered across his face. "hmmm. not bad. not bad at all."

"your approval means so much," [reader] said dryly.

heizi had taken that as permission and waddled fully into the room, planting himself directly under chung myung's chair on the very reasonable theory that meat occasionally fell from tables.

chung myung looked down and heizi looked up. neither of them moved for a solid moment.

"don't feed him from the table," she warned, already knowing exactly how this would go.

"i wasn't going to!" he said with a tone that didn't sound convincing at all.

a piece of pork had hit the floor four seconds later.

...brat.

she didn't comment on it and heizi hadn't wasted the opportunity either.

three bottles of shaoxing wine in, the alcohol was loosening his tongue, and chung myung was propping his chin in his hand, squinting at her with that annoying, persistent curiosity of his. "hey. how long have you even lived out here anyway?"

​[reader] froze mid wipe, the rag halting against the wooden counter.

the anxiety, which had briefly settled, spiked right back up into her throat. don'tsayanythingsuspicious.

​"a—a while," she said carefully. damn it! i stuttered. she cursed herself inwardly.

​he visibly frowned. "how long is a while?"

​"a while-while."

​chung myung let out a loud, frustrated groan, slamming his fist on the table so hard the empty soup bowls rattled. "what the hell is 'a while-while'? is that a number?! just say the number of years!"

​she blanched, the color draining entirely from her cheeks and chose not to give an answer. instead, her mind went entirely blank with panic, and she instantly channelled all of her terrifying anxious energy into the rag in her hand. she kept her eyes glued to the counter and began scrubbing a spot that was already perfectly clean with absolute, furious intensity, hoping that if she pretended to be deaf, he would disappear.

​he opened his mouth like he wanted to yell but decided against it as it was too much work to argue with a literal brick wall. he slumped back, muttering loudly, "crazy, difficult woman. no wonder you only have raccoons for friends."

​[reader] hid her face behind her teacup, allowing herself a tiny, relieved smile, though her hands were still cold from the adrenaline.

i swear i'm a dull and tedious person! there's absolutely nothing suspicious about me!

(and somewhere, in a distant part of her mind, she'd been faintly aware that this was the exact thought that had gotten every protagonist in every story she'd ever read into catastrophic trouble, but she'd chosen, wisely, not to dwell on it.)

eventually the food had run out. chung myung had leaned back with both hands pressed to his stomach, looking like a man who had just won a war against an enemy made entirely of dumplings and his own appetite.

​"that," he announced to the empty room, "was good." patting his own belly that gained, like what, five pounds?

​[reader] offered an anxious smile. "i'm glad."

​he stood up and stretched until something in his back had cracked audibly, before reaching into his robes.

she braced herself for the sound of coins, and was still somehow not prepared enough for when an entire second pouch hit the counter.

[reader] picked it up and felt the weight of it. she stared at him. "...really? are you serious—this is too much again."

​"keep it," he said, already moving for the door, rolling one shoulder out as to relieve physical tension. "...call it an apology for yesterday." he murmured so very lowly.

​she paused, looking up from the heavy pouch. the lingering anxiety from his interrogations made her want to push back, just a little to regain her footing. (lol)

"...an apology for what, exactly?"

okay somehow that was the worst thing she could have possible said at that time because chung myung froze right at the threshold.

​he didn't look cool or mysterious at all. instead, a massive, furious flush of red hit his ears and he whipped around, looking entirely caught off guard and completely scandalized at what she actually said out loud.

he looked less like a grandmaster and more like a red tomato.

​"you—! i was drunk!" he barked out, his voice cracking slightly as his usual loud bravado went entirely out the window. "forget it! wipe it from your brain!"

​"well i really can't..."

after shamelessly doing those things?

​"well, try harder!" he roared, his face entirely red now as he stomped across the threshold. "stupid inn! stupid jiejie! don't expect me back!"

don't threaten me with a good time...

​and then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him so hard the little bell rang aggressively.

she stood there holding a pouch heavy enough to run the inn for a two months (if she counted last nights payment, that'd be five), staring at the space where he had been as if he might materialize again if she looked hard enough.

"huh." she said to nobody in particular.

she looked at the pouch thoughtfully. this kid could probably fund this entire inn for the rest of time and never even notice the money was gone. should i ask the young disciple to be my benefactor?

he was younger than her by roug̵̨̥͍̭̼̳̊͋̀̐͜ͅͅh̵̨̖̭̮̘̪̀̃l̷̥͎̜̱̘͔̋͆̍y̵̧̨̨̰̬̼̖̣̟̾́̿̅̓̒͘͘ ██5███ ŷ̵̥̭̹̣̱̺̊̈́̆̊͗̉̑̕e̵̪͍̪̼̦͚͙̭̜͐̍͆͘ͅa̷͖̒̌̎̿̎͝rs, he drank like it was a competitive sport, and called her an old hag within ten minutes of meeting her.

absolutely not. she had standards!

if anything, it should go the other way around. she should be the one tossing him a pouch of coins and telling him to enjoy himself. that was how the natural order of things worked.

[reader] cleaned up the place rigorously. she swept where he had tracked in dirt and put the go board away properly this time since no one would be coming back to it today. heizi and baizi had relocated to a sunny patch by the stove and curled into a single lump of fur, completely unbothered by the chaos that had unfolded just hours earlier.

"sigh. you two have it easy," she told them, meaning every word.

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by the time she finished closing up, the light had shifted again, that same gold and long quality it had yesterday, the plum trees casting soft shadows across the path. she locked the door and flipped the sign, before she started the walk home with her basket on her arm and two raccoons trailing behind her.

the forest was quiet. the creek caught the last of the light in scattered gold pieces. somewhere above her, a bird called twice then went silent.

she had no idea that several hundred meters up and to her left, on a rock outcropping that offered an unreasonably good view of the path below, someone was watching her go.

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chung myung had found the spot by accident the first time, scrambling up whatever rock was closest just to put distance between himself and his baek sasuk who was chasing him for stirring trouble. (yet again)

he hadn't planned on coming back. and yet here he was again with a bottle in hand, watching a woman walk home with two raccoons trailing behind her as if it's the most natural thing in the world for a person to do.

he sat on the edge with one knee drawn up, the other leg dangling, a half empty bottle hanging loosely from his fingers.

below, [reader] paused at the creek and crouched down for a moment. she said something to one of the raccoons that he couldn't hear and kept walking.

he drank but he couldn't really taste anything.

something was happening in his chest and he didn't have a name for it.

it wasn't poison, he'd checked that twice already as his core was completely clean. not hunger, not after the meal he'd just put away, (though admittedly his appetite operated on different rules than normal people)

whatever he was feeling, it sat low and warm and refused to leave. and the longer he watched her disappear and reappear between the trees, the worse it got.

he frowned at the bottle as if it provided answers he wanted.

he had met a lot of people in his time. understatement! considering he lived two lives now, the first one ending on a battlefield that smelled like blood and plum blossoms, the second one currently in progress. sect leaders, emperors, one man who'd insisted with total sincerity that he was actually three people stacked inside a coat.

chung myung liked to think he had a fairly comprehensive catalog of human behavior by now.

but this woman didn't fit anywhere in it.

it wasn't the strength. he had plenty of suspicions there, but he was filing those under later for now. plenty of people were strong (in a way...)

it wasn't the strangeness either and although she was plenty strange, what kind of person lives this far out, runs a place nobody can find, and treats an old poisonous root like a snack? strange people were usually the interesting ones in his experience.

it was something underneath that.

he hated not knowing things. that was just true about him, same as his preference for good food, same as his hatred of the nine great sects, same as never once in either of his lives developing anything resembling a soft spot for someone who wasn't from mount hua.

he was bad at this whatever this was. he had known that about himself for over a hundred years and made his peace with it.

below, [reader] reached the bottom of the path. the trees swallowed both her and the raccoons. she was gone.

he sat there a while longer anyway. (thinking about her...)

chung myung drank again and lay back against the rock with the bottle balanced on his chest, before watching the sky start to bruise purple at the edges.

he told himself, with all the confidence of a man about to be catastrophically, spectacularly wrong, that there was absolutely no way some strange woman running an inn in the middle of nowhere was going to be that someone who finally cracked through years of him simply not caring about people.

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murim secrets: y/n is ancient! is she who she believes herself to be?