The Map Beneath the Map
Gu-yang Baek asked.
"Consult? About what, exactly?"
"Before that, allow me to explain why I raised the subject at all."
Ouyang Qiangang continued in a calm, level voice.
"Raising the clan's name will indeed take time. It is a task that must be pursued with the long view in mind."
"I agree."
"But strength is a different matter, I believe. With Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor in mind, it is something we must secure as swiftly as possible."
"I share that thought. But even that is hardly something to be settled in a matter of days, is it?"
"In the clan's library, I came upon brief accounts of the branch families and the clan's own warriors from the time of the Great Righteous-Demonic War. I want to know about them."
"Hmm..."
A low groan escaped the lips of a visibly flustered Gu-yang Baek. It had never once occurred to him that Ouyang Qiangang might already know of their existence.
Silence settled over the room for a moment.
Whooooo— Outside the window, the bleak winter wind moaned low as it slipped past the study's aged window frame.
"Hoo... Never did I imagine it would be you who took an interest in them."
With a long sigh, he laid bare a wound his family had carried in silence for decades.
"Of the four branch families, three—Bongsin, An-ui, and Yeogang—collapsed without a trace in the Great Righteous-Demonic War. The last that remains, the Poyang Du Clan Manor... severed all ties with us a dozen years ago."
"Was that betrayal?"
"Can it truly be called betrayal? I do not think so. They merely struggled, each in their own way, to survive."
"Then it was because of my maternal grandfather."
Gu-yang Baek nodded, his expression bitter.
"Just so. Du Wi-pyeong, the present head of the Du Clan Manor, believes that aiding the main family would be a foolish act certain to draw Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor's wrath. And yet, I hear the previous head, the venerable Du Jeong-gwang, has never once forgotten his loyalty to the main house."
He went on in a grave voice.
"During the Great Righteous-Demonic War, more than ninety percent of the main family's own warriors were annihilated as well. The twenty-odd veteran masters who survived, knowing full well that your late grandfather had no means to take them in, scattered of their own accord into the jianghu."
His eyes darkened as he spoke on.
"Their leader was the venerable Ju Pyo, the 'Sole Spear of Heaven and Earth.' Swearing never again to drive young disciples he cherished as his own sons onto a stage of meaningless death, he vowed, 'Until the clan proves it truly deserves to rise again, I will never take up the sword'—and then vanished without a trace."
The bitter distrust of the branch families, and the clan warriors who had scattered in disillusionment with the main house. That was the present state of the fallen Ouyang Clan.
Watching his father's weary shoulders, Ouyang Qiangang felt a dull weight settle in the corner of his chest.
"Father, entrust both of these matters to me. I will resolve them—without fail."
"Gang, that is all but impossible. The venerable Ju Pyo's whereabouts have been unknown for decades, and Du Wi-pyeong has no wish to place himself under us again."
But Ouyang Qiangang did not falter.
"I will prove our worth to them. The fact that standing with the Ouyang Clan is far safer—and far more rewarding—than each of them scraping out an existence alone."
Gu-yang Baek's gaze deepened. He was coming to understand, at last, that the one to lead the Ouyang Clan forward was not himself, but the son standing before him.
Slowly, but firmly, he nodded.
"If you are that certain, then I too will place my faith in your resolve. But the weight of a clan is too heavy for you to shoulder alone. Remember that your father stands behind you."
"Yes, Father."
A smile rose to Ouyang Qiangang's lips at the feel of his father's unreserved trust. Just then, Gu-yang Cheon-gi's face flickered through his mind.
Day after day, the boy poured sweat over his studies of both pen and sword, striving to fulfill his duties as the appointed Young Clan Head.
'Cheon-gi... the Ouyang Clan you will one day inherit will no longer be a frail sandcastle that could crumble at any moment. I will hand down to you a clan that stands upon bedrock so solid no one will ever dare covet it.'
It was a silent vow, from an elder brother to the sibling who would come after him.
Leaving the study, Ouyang Qiangang made his way to the annex where Sangguan Wan'er stayed.
In the main hall, as always, Yeom Pung kept watch at her side like a shadow.
Thanks to her long convalescence, more than ninety percent of her internal and external wounds had been treated, and no trace of sickly pallor remained on Sangguan Wan'er's face.
"Young Master, today is not a scheduled day for treatment. What brings you here?"
At her puzzled question, Ouyang Qiangang drew a golden silk pouch and a silver jade box from his robe and set them on the table.
"These are new elixirs I developed myself, based on a fortuitous opportunity that came to me recently. They are called the Yang Dragon Elixir and the Yin Dragon Elixir."
After explaining the effects of the two elixirs in brief, he met her eyes squarely and came to the point.
"I wish to entrust the sale of these elixirs not to the Manor, my lady—but to you personally."
Sangguan Wan'er's eyes widened. His words carried anything but a light meaning.
'Not the Manor—me, personally? He does not see me as merely the Manor Lord's daughter. He sees me as an equal, a partner who will lead this business at his side.'
Grasping the meaning folded into his proposal, she felt a shiver of thrill pass through her, tangled with a soaring, overwhelming emotion. Yet none of it showed on her face.
She was, after all, the daughter of one of the Five Great Tycoons of the world.
With an unreadable, unhurried gaze, Sangguan Wan'er studied Ouyang Qiangang before she spoke.
"Why would you entrust so vast a venture to me personally, rather than to the trading house? Have I ever shown you anything that would merit such trust?"
"Because when I first treated you, you chose to trust me and place your body in my care, even against Elder Yeom's objections. It is with people of such boldness and decisiveness that I wish to walk."
"Ah... hmm..."
After a moment sunk in thought, Sangguan Wan'er spoke.
"Your proposal is truly audacious. But I cannot conclude a contract on your word alone. Might I give my answer after verifying these elixirs' effects with my own eyes?"
"Of course."
As though he had been waiting for exactly that, Ouyang Qiangang handed the elixirs on the table to her and to Yeom Pung.
"You need have no fear of side effects. They have already been thoroughly tested."
"Wan'er, you never know—let this old man try them first."
Yeom Pung stepped forward, but Sangguan Wan'er lifted a hand to stop him.
"No, Uncle Yeom. How could I doubt a medicine bestowed by the man who saved my life? I will test it myself."
Without the slightest hesitation, she placed a Yin Dragon Elixir on her tongue. Yeom Pung, honoring her wishes, took the Yang Dragon Elixir as well.
Two days later, when they faced each other again in the annex, a hot fire burned in Sangguan Wan'er's face—the blazing ambition of a merchant.
Yeom Pung, a master of the Peak realm, had been unable to suppress his astonishment. From a single pill alone, the merest traces of turbid qi mingled in his internal power had been scoured away, and one of his long-blocked qi pathways had blown wide open with a sensation nothing short of miraculous.
Sangguan Wan'er, too, had felt the effects with her own body—even the faint scars of internal injury lingering along her heart meridian had vanished, and a fresh luster flowed beneath her skin.
She bowed her head deeply toward Ouyang Qiangang.
"Young Master, I owe you an apology for doubting the worth of these elixirs. I have confirmed it: their effects soar far beyond anything I had imagined."
Her brilliantly shining eyes were filled with the ambition of a merchant princess poised to spread her trade across the whole world.
"I will take charge of this venture and see it through myself. Devote your efforts solely to production, Young Master. Whatever storms come from outside, our Myriad Gold Mountain Manor will hold every one of them at bay."
Yeom Pung added his voice.
"Young Master—when our Myriad Gold Mountain Manor seals a pact, we honor it with our lives."
Sangguan Wan'er asked Ouyang Qiangang.
"And how do you wish to divide the profits?"
His answer was concise.
"Seven to three. Seven for me, three for you."
Knowing full well that his terms—held as he was, sole master of the technique itself—were anything but excessive, she accepted without a word of protest.
"I will send word the moment the business plan is complete."
"I'll be waiting."
And so Ouyang Qiangang gained the mightiest and most steadfast of allies for bringing the Yang Dragon Elixir and the Yin Dragon Elixir before the world.
Even after the contract with Sangguan Wan'er was sealed, Ouyang Qiangang did not leave the Ouyang Clan for several days. He meant to move only after she had perfected the business plan and departed the estate before his eyes.
Shutting himself in his quarters once more, he sank into his own form of training. To any outside eye, he seemed merely to sit in quiet meditation, eyes closed, circulating his breath.
But his mind, within the virtual training space Akasha had rendered inside his mindscape, was repeating drills without rest—training equal to decades in the real world. Without moving his body at all, the nanobots stimulated his musculature, skeleton, and neural pathways, yielding results equal to—no, greater than—practice in an actual training hall.
At the same time, he set his hand in earnest to refining the four martial arts that remained to the Ouyang Clan after the Great Righteous-Demonic War: the Transcendent Heart Art and the Wuji Thirteen Forms, along with the Thirty-Six Wuji Swords and the Seventy-Two Wind-Wall Breaking Swords.
That day as well, Ouyang Qiangang opened his eyes from training and sank into thought over the Map of Nine Dragons and Ten Thousand Mountains.
'Something is wrong... I sense a discord within the Five Supreme Techniques.'
In his mind rose, vivid and unmistakable, the single sword scar he had witnessed in the underground cavern.
'That scar drew infinite variation out of a single "intent." Yet each of these Five Supreme Techniques is far too perfectly self-contained. It is like gazing at a tree with no roots, its branches alone in riotous leaf. Something—a more fundamental secret binding all of this together—must lie hidden here.'
Wanting to test his intuition, he called to Akasha.
"Akasha, analyze the full energy data of the original Map of Nine Dragons and Ten Thousand Mountains. I want to know whether there is any residual data within it that we have yet to decode."
Understood, Doctor. Now that your internal power has broken through a full sixty-year cycle, my computational capability can perform deep-layer analysis that was previously beyond me. Initiating re-analysis.
A short while later, Akasha spoke in a voice tinged with bewilderment.
Analysis complete... and, Doctor—your hypothesis was correct.
"Really? There was residual data?"
Yes. Even setting aside the data of the Five Supreme Techniques, approximately 12.7% of the original Map still remains as a high-density encrypted data layer we were never able to decode before. Concealed within this painting is information beyond mere martial arts—something we do not yet know.
"What do you mean?"
It appears that another image is hidden beneath the painting.
"A hidden image?"
Ouyang Qiangang's heart began to pound.
Yes. I will now reconstruct the hidden data in three dimensions and begin projection!
With Akasha's words, the Map of Nine Dragons and Ten Thousand Mountains unfurled across his mindscape. At once, the hundreds of millions of dots and lines that composed the painting dissolved and recombined, giving birth to an utterly different image.
It was a map of incomparable precision—mountains and rivers traced across it, along with specific terrain and structures.
And at the very center of that map, a bizarre emblem whose shape could scarcely be made out was engraved in sharp relief!
Akasha's voice trembled, thin and high—utterly unlike her.
...Doctor, this Map of Nine Dragons and Ten Thousand Mountains is... highly likely to be one of the four lost pieces of the Treasure Map said to have been left behind by the Celestial Martial Emperor.
"……!"
Ouyang Qiangang's breath caught. Gooseflesh swept over every inch of his body.
The Map of Nine Dragons and Ten Thousand Mountains—at once the curse of his family and its hope. Its true identity was a fragment of the legendary Treasure Map, the very map Dong Hyeon-do had devoted his entire life to hunting.