A Dutiful Son
“There isn’t a man alive who could look at a hundred nyang in silver and not be tempted. And even fewer martial artists can restrain themselves when temptation is too much. I hear you drew even with Escort Leader Pung Gang-ik in a duel?”
Luzhu’s eyes, fixed on me, glittered with the odd brightness of a girl who had just found a pretty stone by a stream.
“Skill like that, the quick mind to identify the jade seal you happened to pick up and the meaning behind a song you only overheard by chance, and the nerve to come find me and make your move. If I let a rare talent like you slip away, I’d have no right to sit in the branch master’s chair.”
I let out a quiet breath of relief inside. At least it was clear this wasn’t a place I was going to die in. That didn’t mean I wanted to accept her offer and be done with it.
I’d come home because I was sick of living as a blade-for-hire.
Being a gatekeeper at a pleasure house wasn’t bad, but I had no desire to become Haomu Sect’s errand boy and spend my days killing people on command.
“You want me to do work for Haomu Sect?”
“For a talent like Chief Jeong, our sect would welcome you anytime.”
“I’m not a wanderer anymore. I don’t want to bully people or kill them.”
“It isn’t as though every problem has to be solved by killing someone. If you have strength, words are often enough.”
“I don’t want to be tied down to anything.”
When I tried to keep my distance, Luzhu made an offer I couldn’t easily refuse.
“Then let’s call it a guest position, or an invited post. If our sect asks you to take on something, you can decide for yourself whether to accept. You’ve probably done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?”
“Like the lodgers staying in the annex?”
“Something like that.”
I couldn’t see a way out. Rather than give a straight answer, I changed the subject.
“Did Bang Jo-in know this place was Haomu Sect?”
Luzhu shook her head.
“There was no reason to tell him. Not to a scoundrel who listened in on other people’s conversations like a rat and extorted valuables from them. Even at Yongcheon Escort Agency, only the escort agency master and a few others know.”
How had Bang Jo-in thought he could shake Luzhu down? Had greed blinded him so thoroughly that he grew reckless because Yongcheon Escort Agency was already handling security for Simhyangru?
In any case, Luzhu hadn’t killed him on the spot and shut the whole matter up. She’d paid Bang Jo-in in silver instead.
Even without summoning one of the lodgers in the annex, Bang Jo-in would already have been as good as dead the moment Luzhu’s bodyguard drew his sword.
Luzhu probably had wanted to kill him.
The biological mother of a promising juren scholar who had passed the provincial exam was, in fact, a lowly courtesan of no standing at all.
If that truth came out, it would obviously become a huge obstacle to her son’s future, regardless of what happened to her.
He might fail the metropolitan exam for reasons no one could explain, or be excluded from the official post granted to successful candidates.
Even the prefectural magistrate, who seemed to know Luzhu personally, might turn his back on her if he didn’t want enemies using her weakness against him.
Luzhu must have feared such a ruinous outcome too, which was why she had searched for her son for so long. And yet she had still restrained her killing intent toward Bang Jo-in and forced herself to endure. Why?
It didn’t seem likely to be because of Yongcheon Escort Agency. Killing one escort could be buried quietly enough.
Probably she didn’t want to leave behind any loose ends.
The circumstances under which Bang Jo-in overheard the conversation between the two of them were too perfect to call a coincidence.
What had the bodyguard been doing that he failed to stop Bang Jo-in from entering the annex? Had he deliberately stepped away so as not to interrupt them?
If, by some chance, Bang Jo-in had been acting on someone’s orders to find a weakness in the branch master of Haomu Sect, then simply killing him would not have been enough.
Maybe that was why they had made the cold calculation to let Bang Jo-in go and keep him under watch.
For Haomu Sect, monitoring every move and breath of a man like him would not have been difficult.
Even if the back alleys of Seochon were controlled by the Black Night Gang, Haomu Sect’s eyes and ears were everywhere.
Why, then, had they given him more silver when Bang Jo-in returned?
Maybe they had decided it was too early to make their move. Or maybe they intended to put him at ease first, then deal with him quietly outside later.
She looked like she’d answer if I asked, but I closed my mouth.
Bang Jo-in was dead, after all.
I didn’t know whether there was anyone out there who’d taken up his death as a grudge and come looking for revenge, but at least I wasn’t one of them.
Going deeper than this was crossing a line.
It would probably be better for my own skin to stop being curious about a foolish gambler who had spent his own life recklessly and paid for it with an early grave.
I tucked the promissory note and black plaque into my robe and rose from my seat. Luzhu got to her feet too, looking oddly light.
I was about to give her a polite farewell when it suddenly occurred to me that this was the perfect chance. Only then did I remember what Haomu Sect actually did.
After a moment’s hesitation, I asked Luzhu, who was looking at me in surprise, “Could I place a request with Haomu Sect too?”
“Of course. What would you like?”
“I’m looking for someone. Residents who used to live here in Seochon.”
“Please, sit down.”
So I sat back down across from Luzhu, no longer a visitor but a client of the Haomu Sect branch master.
I gave her the names and ages of Soso noona, as well as the uncle and aunt.
Luzhu took out brush, ink, and paper and carefully wrote down the information.
When I described their faces, she dipped a fine brush in ink and sketched swift lines across the paper, then held it up for me to see.
In an instant, the face of a young girl was drawn.
“Is it close?”
“The chin should be a little narrower, and the eyes a bit larger. The nose too, a little straighter…”
I corrected the details one by one against the image of Soso noona in my memory.
Luzhu’s drawing skill was so good she could have passed for a painter.
All at once, I thought of the face sketch Won Seo-gang had shown me.
The style was similar, but just different enough to feel distinct. Luzhu hadn’t drawn that one, but I was sure it must have been requested from another Haomu Sect branch.
Had Won Seo-gang also sat in this very room, making some kind of arrangement with Luzhu before settling in as a lodger?
After a few revisions, a fresh sheet of paper held finished face sketches of Soso noona, the uncle, and the aunt.
They were exactly as I remembered them from childhood, and yet the sight of them made my chest feel hollow. Ten years had passed. There was no way Soso noona still looked like this.
I didn’t even want to imagine how much the aunt and uncle might have been worn down and changed by the world.
“Can you find them?”
“Since I have their names and background, it’ll take some time, but it should be possible. Assuming they’re still alive.”
If they were still alive…
There might be a bitter truth waiting for me that I simply couldn’t bear to accept. Even so, I wanted to know.
If Soso noona’s family were no longer of this world, then I wanted to find their graves and at least offer memorial rites.
And if someone had done them harm, I would chase that person to the ends of the earth, whether to the Western Regions or beyond the southern frontier, and collect the blood debt myself.
“How much will it cost?”
“Five nyang in silver as an advance. The advance is nonrefundable even if the request is canceled. The remainder depends on the work involved, but if we can’t complete the request, we won’t take it.”
“Then I hope I’ll be paying the remainder.”
I took one of the promissory notes I had just received and handed it over, then got back five nyang in change.
“Please take good care of it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
When I stepped outside, it was already deep night. The bodyguard, who had been looking up at the moon, came over to me.
Keeping a little distance, I followed him across the garden.
Watching the back of that tightly controlled master of the sword, I naturally found myself thinking of the short but fierce clash I’d had with Won Seo-gang the night before.
What would happen if I fought this bodyguard?
I imagined him stepping through footwork with those light, precise steps before swinging his sword.
Most wanderers used a dao.
It was easier to handle.
Those who used swords were usually men who had learned proper swordsmanship somewhere, whether from a fallen sect or elsewhere.
Every swordsman I’d seen so far preferred thrusting to cutting. Won Seo-gang’s swordsmanship was the same.
A dao could thrust too, but its power was inferior to a sword’s. The blade and spine were made different in thickness and weight so that the weapon could produce maximum speed and destructive force when slashing, and that same structure became a hindrance when thrusting, throwing the center off balance.
A sword was symmetrical in weight and shape on both sides of the blade, centered around the sharp tip rising at its point.
It wasn’t as easy to put force behind a cut, but for thrusting it was perfectly suited.
Bang Jo-in had died when a single strike pierced his heart. If the killer had used a dao, he would have simply hacked at the neck or carved a deep wound across the chest.
No matter how bright the moon was, precisely piercing the palm-sized heart of a moving target was the kind of technique only twisted sword maniacs would use.
By then I was certain.
It wasn’t Yi Yun-jae who killed Bang Jo-in.
It was this man.
The scene of that day formed in my mind.
Bang Jo-in, having blown away all his gambling money, went back to Luzhu and squeezed more silver from her.
Yi Yun-jae, listening in secretly from outside, had been furious, lost his reason, and followed after him intending to kill him.
Even if he was third-rate, he was still a martial man who lived by the blade. There was no way a scholar who had spent his life reading books would be a match for Bang Jo-in. Stabbing him through the heart in one blow made no sense.
Yi Yun-jae, who had rushed in with a knife, would have been subdued easily. Since Bang Jo-in knew about the connection between Yi Yun-jae and Luzhu, he probably wouldn’t have dared draw his broadsword either.
He might have batted the knife away with the sheath itself, then kicked Yi Yun-jae over and knocked him down.
In the middle of that, Yi Yun-jae had lost the jade seal he always kept on him.
The bodyguard, arriving a beat later, must have seen Bang Jo-in threatening Yi Yun-jae and intervened without hesitation, driving his sword straight into Bang Jo-in’s heart.
Maybe, on Luzhu’s orders, he had been keeping Bang Jo-in alive for the moment, but had really been eager to cut out the nuisance for good.
And when a convenient excuse finally appeared, perhaps he had seized the chance and acted decisively.
Whatever the case, it would have been an impulsive killing.
If there had been a plan to erase Bang Jo-in from the world, there would have been no need to pay him silver twice.
There would have been no blood spilled at Simhyangru, either.
It would have been much cleaner to wait until he left the gambling den and kill him in the alleyway behind it. Or else they would have done it inside the annex walls.
While the bodyguard was taking the stunned Yi Yun-jae to the annex, a maid discovered the abandoned corpse and screamed.
After that, I came running.
Once I’d thought it through that far, I stopped walking without realizing it.
The bodyguard looked back at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“You seem like an incredible master. Do you happen to use swift swordplay?”
For the first time, a smile formed on the bodyguard’s pale face. It was as faint as moonlight glinting on a blade, making it hard to tell what he was really thinking.
“You don’t look like an easy dao user yourself. We’ll probably be seeing each other often from now on, so let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Geuk-hwan.”
Geuk-hwan gave a respectful martial salute as he said his name. I returned it with a left palm over right fist.
“Jeong Dae-cheon.”
Maybe because he had the Luzhu’s approval, Geuk-hwan’s words and attitude toward me were much softer than before.
After escorting me to the gate, he returned the willow-leaf saber and even offered me a farewell.
“Take care on your way.”
Then there was the silver. A full hundred nyang of it.
With that in hand, there was no reason for me to keep standing guard any longer.
Still, thinking of my ties with the escort agency, I stayed until the month was out and quit on the day my wages were paid.
Jo Gyeong-jik tried several times to stop me, but in the end he accepted my resignation.
The unknown black-clad masked man who had been said to kill Bang Jo-in was never caught.
Just as Luzhu had promised, I was never dragged off to the magistrate’s office.
Rather than go fishing for an innocent culprit and drag some poor bastard in as a scapegoat, the authorities tightened patrols, dragged their feet for a while, and then quietly buried the matter.
The death of a third-rate gambler who had brought disaster on himself by failing to mind his place was soon forgotten.
The pleasure house flourished as before.
That juren scholar Yi Yun-jae never returned to Simhyangru after the day Bang Jo-in died. I figured he’d gone back to his home in Hubei Province to prepare for the metropolitan exam.
I wasn’t especially curious, but about ten days later I learned what had happened to Yi Yun-jae.
Word of a conversation among the prefectural magistrate’s party, who had come to visit Simhyangru, filtered from mouth to mouth until it reached my ears.
After returning home, Yi Yun-jae abruptly suffered the loss of his mother a few days later.
It was said his mother had lost her husband three years earlier and had lived only for the sake of the one son she had struggled to raise.
When her son passed the provincial exam, she was so overjoyed she could hardly contain herself, and she invited neighbors, friends, and relatives to a grand banquet.
She must have reveled in the envy and jealousy of others, basking in the happiness and pride of a mother who had raised a successful son, but it didn’t last long.
Before she could even see her son rise to office and walk the road to success, she met a futile end.
A healthy middle-aged woman with no obvious illness died suddenly overnight.
It would have been the sort of thing gossips loved to talk about, and yet what drew the most attention was the son’s overwhelming filial devotion.
Who could remain unmoved by a family death? But Yi Yun-jae was especially extreme.
He sobbed so bitterly that everyone watching wondered if he might not die right after his mother and follow her to the grave.
He wasn’t performing formal mourning; he was wringing himself dry in sorrow and crying as though his heart had been torn out.
People even said this was the very pain described by the phrase “intestines torn apart.”
He cried so much that his bloodshot eyes swelled up, and his throat grew so hoarse he could barely speak.
Even those seeing Yi Yun-jae for the first time could readily imagine the depth of his grief.
How devoted he must have been to his mother.
How wrenching it must have been to know he would never see her again.
The servants in the house, as well as the condolence visitors who had come out of politeness, felt deep sympathy and pity, and many of them wiped at their eyes.
Some cried with him. Others were deeply moved and, reflecting on their own conduct, felt ashamed of themselves.
As the visitors carried the story of what they had seen and heard back to others, everyone in Hubei Province sang Yi Yun-jae’s praises.
They called him the one and only dutiful son under heaven.