Shu was a land unlike any other in the martial world.
That was what the ancients called the region of Sichuan. Sheer mountains walled it in on every side, and the roads leading inward were said to be as treacherous as climbing to heaven itself—so much so that the phrase *the road to Shu is hard* had become a saying of its own.
When fog settled into the mountain hollows, it could linger for days without lifting. The sheer impassability of the terrain meant that even the chaos of the outside world rarely reached this place.
And so Shu had always been known as a land for those who wished to disappear.
Hermits who had turned their backs on the world. Wanderers hiding from old grudges and old enemies. Those who carried secrets they never wanted anyone to see. One by one, they had slipped into this mist and vanished.
Strange medicinal herbs grew wild here in abundance. Poisonous plants and miraculous ones bloomed side by side in the same valley, tangled together without distinction.
It was no coincidence that the Tang Clan of Sichuan—feared throughout the land for their poisons and hidden weapons—had planted their roots here. Nor was it coincidence that an alchemist who wished to remain unseen by the world had chosen this place to hide.
A land that was hard to enter, and harder still to find your way through once you had.
For a fugitive, perhaps, there was no better stage. And Shu was every bit the land of mist that the rumors claimed.
Ridge after ridge of mountains wore clouds around their waists, and the path kept sinking into a haze so thick you couldn't see a foot ahead.
Even Mageon had to double back several times.
Even a Beggars' Sect elder who had the intelligence of the entire martial world at his fingertips was helpless inside that fog.
"Great hero. To be honest with you… I'm navigating by gut feeling from here on out."
"That's fine. We happen to have someone in our group who's second to none when it comes to gut feelings."
Pung Hyeon glanced down at his chest.
The palm-sized thunder tiger had poked just its face out from inside Pung Hyeon's robe and was sniffing the air with quick little twitches of its nose.
The senses of a divine beast operated on an entirely different level from a human's.
The thicker the fog grew, the sharper and clearer the thunder tiger's violet eyes became.
*Myaang.*
The thunder tiger leaped out and planted itself facing one direction, tail raised stiff and straight.
It had caught something—a faint thread of herbal scent drifting from that way.
Not just one herb, either. Dozens, hundreds of them, all layered together into something rich and complicated.
*That's the direction.*
Pung Hyeon moved that way without hesitation.
There wasn't really any reason to hesitate, when he thought about it.
If things got dangerous, he'd ride the thunder tiger and bolt.
If there were rare medicines, he'd grab them.
And if there happened to be a celestial beauty…
Well. He'd look.
A modest plan. Shameless, but modest.
Half a day's walk later, the group reached a deep valley.
Using the Grass-Skimming Step to move quickly—sometimes walking, sometimes breaking into a run—they pressed on until the thunder tiger finally stopped.
Behind a curtain of falling water there was a hidden passage, and beyond it the fog thinned and opened into a clearing.
Pung Hyeon stopped walking.
A small herb garden spread out before him, almost too perfect to be real.
Strange grasses and flowers unlike anything he had ever seen anywhere in the world glowed softly, each one in its own color.
Some held a deep blue like the open sea.
Others carried a red like the last light of sunset.
At the center of it all stood a small cottage—old but neat, its back to the mist.
And there, among the herbs.
There was a person.
A woman in white.
She moved slowly with her back to them, pausing to examine each plant one by one.
A faint light filtered through the fog and wrapped softly around her silhouette.
When the wind stirred, her long hair and the hem of her white robe drifted with the mist, and the whole image looked like someone who had stepped out of a painting.
Pung Hyeon stopped breathing without realizing it.
It wasn't as though he had never seen a beautiful woman in his life.
Namgung Ryeo alone was beautiful enough to be called a sword-wielding celestial.
But if Namgung Ryeo's beauty was like a blade—cold and brilliant—
then the woman standing before him now was like the mist itself.
Close enough to touch if he reached out.
And yet she seemed like she might dissolve if he came any nearer.
There was a remoteness to her, as though she didn't quite belong to this world.
"Oh…"
The *alchemist who looks like a celestial* that Mageon had described.
It had to be her.
Pung Hyeon stood rooted to the spot and stared for a long moment.
Under normal circumstances he would have already been running calculations.
How to get the medicines as fast as possible.
Which way to run if he needed to.
Whether there was any danger.
That was how he always operated.
But strangely, that sharp and scheming mind of his refused to cooperate today.
No calculations.
No angles.
No escape routes.
Instead, for the first time in his life, something else came first—a simple, quiet feeling of *I just want to look a little longer.*
"…Great hero?"
Mageon had been lagging behind, exhausted, and only now caught up to find Pung Hyeon standing still.
"Great hero. What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell—"
"Shh."
Pung Hyeon cut him off with a single quiet word.
His voice was low, and his eyes hadn't moved from the woman in white.
Mageon followed his gaze and spotted the woman among the herbs.
Even the most talkative elder in the martial world went silent.
He, too, lost himself for a moment.
"…Indeed. The rumors weren't exaggerated."
Pung Hyeon didn't answer.
He didn't have the presence of mind to.
He had spent his entire life thinking about exactly three things: *don't die, eat well, live long.*
He had never known what it felt like to have someone take hold of his heart, and he had never needed to know.
For an orphan who had to survive, for someone whose fate was to keep running—that kind of feeling was a luxury he couldn't afford.
And yet.
Right now.
That luxury.
Had ambushed him without warning, in the middle of a fog-wrapped valley.
*…That's strange.*
Pung Hyeon touched his chest lightly.
His heart was beating a little faster than usual.
Not the frantic hammering of someone who needed to run.
More like… a tickle.
*I'm not in any danger right now. So why is my heart pounding?*
He didn't know what this feeling was.
There was no reason he would.
He was a seventeen-year-old boy who had lost his parents young, scraped through a hard life, been taken in by Master Cheonbija, and spent seven years on a mountain surviving one ordeal after another—all of it dressed up as training.
But not knowing what a feeling was didn't mean the feeling wasn't there.
For the first time in his life.
Pung Hyeon's heart leaned toward someone.
Just then.
The woman in white paused.
She turned her head slowly.
Through the mist, for the first time, it wasn't her profile but her full face that came into view.
A pale, clear brow.
Faint, soft eyebrows.
And eyes that were deep and still.
Nothing like Namgung Ryeo's sharp, sculpted beauty—like something carved from ice. Nothing like anyone else he had ever seen in the martial world.
There was nothing flashy about her, and yet he couldn't look away.
Like an old painting. Like a calm lake.
Hers was a face that made something inside you go quiet just from looking at it.
Those still eyes turned and found him directly.
In that instant.
The fine hairs on the back of Pung Hyeon's neck stood up.
Not quite the same as the danger sense he'd developed since the tiger's den—something subtly different.
A strange, electric tremor he couldn't put into words.
The woman looked at the two strangers who had wandered in and showed no alarm, no wariness.
She simply watched Pung Hyeon quietly.
In her gaze there was a trace of mild puzzlement.
And something that might have been the faintest flicker of curiosity.
"Visitors," she said. "It's been a while."
Her voice was clear and unhurried.
Soft, like something touched by mist. Slightly languid.
Pung Hyeon knew he needed to say something.
Something about coming to find rare medicines.
Or that they were just passing through.
He needed to come up with a plausible excuse, the way he always did.
But.
His mouth wouldn't open.
The same smooth tongue that had left Zhuge Yan second-guessing herself.
The same one that had made Namgung Ryeo back down without a fight.
Froze completely in front of the quiet eyes of a woman in white.
"…Uh, well…"
That was all he managed to get out.
Pung Hyeon of the Cheonroe Sect—the name that had turned the martial world upside down—couldn't string together a single proper sentence in front of one woman standing in an herb garden.
The faintest smile touched the corner of her lips.
Not mockery.
Just something like *oh, that's a little amusing.*
The moment he saw that smile, Pung Hyeon knew it in his gut.
*Oh no. I'm in trouble.*
This wasn't a situation he needed to run from.
It was a situation he *couldn't* run from.
He'd been lucky enough to run his way out of everything so far.
But from this feeling.
From this woman standing right in front of him.
He couldn't think of a single way to escape.