The Illness They Called a Curse
Ouyang Qiangang spoke in a calm tone.
"So my true identity, is it...? You have quite a few curiosities. Well then, I have questions of my own about you, Young Master Yeon."
"And what would those be?"
"What Gold Mountain Tower hopes to gain from this situation. Surely it is no simple curiosity."
Yeon Sa-hyeok's eyes sharpened.
"Gold Mountain Tower... wants change. We hope to see a crack form in the profit structure of the salt trade that Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor has monopolized for so long."
"And you see me as a tool for making that crack?"
"A tool? Hardly. Would it not be better to say an ally?"
Yeon Sa-hyeok leaned forward as he spoke.
"Young Master, Lady Sangguan possesses remarkable ability, but she has no backing from Myriad Gold Mountain Manor. Supporting your talents and standing against Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor are both beyond her strength alone. If you were to join hands with us, however, the story would change."
"You are asking me to switch horses?"
"I am."
"An interesting proposal. But there must be conditions."
"Of course. We are interested in your innovative techniques."
"You do not think them empty fantasies?"
"Lady Sangguan is hardly foolish enough to be taken in by a swindler's honeyed words."
Ouyang Qiangang smiled faintly. To refuse to disparage a rival and instead weigh him objectively was certainly an attitude worth praising.
"The techniques I devise are costly," he said.
"Naturally, we are prepared to pay an appropriate price. If you accept my proposal, we are prepared to place Gold Mountain Tower's information network, its capital, and even its political influence in your hands."
Silence held for a moment. Then Ouyang Qiangang spoke.
"An attractive offer. But this hardly seems a decision to make in haste."
"Naturally. Only..."
Yeon Sa-hyeok rose from his seat.
"Bear in mind that if you hesitate too long, the opportunity may slip away. Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor will hardly sit idle, after all."
Ouyang Qiangang rose as well.
"Thank you for the advice. I will give it full consideration."
"Then I shall see you again. Ah, and one more thing..."
Yeon Sa-hyeok turned and tossed out a final remark.
"Whoever you truly are, our offer stands. Whether you are Hahu Gang... or anyone else at all."
With those words, Yeon Sa-hyeok and his party withdrew everything they had set up along the official road and vanished in an instant—as if they had never been there at all.
Left alone on the road, Ouyang Qiangang murmured as he watched their retreating figures.
"An interesting man."
The estate of Mun Hong-seo, Grand Academician of the Hanlin Academy. For thirty years the man had occupied the highest seat of imperial scholarship, earning the deep trust of Emperor Changsung. He ranked at the very summit of the civil officialdom and wielded immense influence over policy within the palace, and after his only daughter, Noble Consort Mun, won the Emperor's favor and bore Princess Myeonghwa, his political standing had grown only more unshakable.
The study at the deepest heart of the estate was walled in books on every side. Sandalwood smoke curling up from the incense burner wove a faint haze into the air. Sangguan Wan'er sat with perfect composure in the chair before the desk.
Mun Hong-seo, seated across from her, was a man in his late sixties. His face, framed by a grizzled beard, was deeply carved with the passage of years, yet the sharpness in his eyes and the unbent straightness of his posture still carried the dignity of one who had long stood at the center of power. This meeting had come about by his own private invitation.
Mun Hong-seo broke the silence.
"I hear the elixir distributed by the Myriad Gold Trading Company works wonders." Grinding ink against the inkstone, he continued without so much as a glance at her. "Much like... the medicine of that Life-and-Death Divine Doctor who stamped out the dysentery in Jiangxi Province a while back. Manor Lord, the rumors are not exaggerated, I trust?"
His voice was quiet, yet strangely edged. Sangguan Wan'er was a bold woman, but just now she felt a tension that threatened to squeeze the air from her lungs.
"Exaggerated, you say... Might I ask, Grand Academician—do you doubt the elixir's efficacy?"
"Doubt..." Mun Hong-seo set down his brush and looked at her for the first time. "Not doubt. I want certainty. Whether the one who made that elixir... can cure her strange illness."
A flicker of tension crossed Sangguan Wan'er's eyes. The remark came from nowhere, but it was threaded with words that mattered: the one who made the elixir, her, and that strange illness.
She swallowed, carefully. Speaking of "the one who made the elixir" right now would not be wise. And if Mun Hong-seo was speaking of it at all, "her" station was clearly no ordinary one—yet no one came to mind.
This conversation will be more serious than I expected. All I can do is read the situation and improvise...
"What strange illness is it that you speak of?" she asked.
"An illness that turns the whole body pallid, torments it with crushing fatigue, and drains its strength away through unexplained fevers and sudden weakness. Eminent physicians judged that it seemed to arise from a want of blood, yet none could name it with certainty. No tonic availed anything. And so in some corners it is whispered to be the curse of an evil spirit."
"Is there someone within the imperial family who suffers from such an illness?"
"There is."
At his answer, cold ran down Sangguan Wan'er's spine. What he was telling her now belonged among the empire's most guarded secrets. One careless word from her, and this matter would not end lightly.
For the first time, emotion entered Mun Hong-seo's voice. It was pain, and despair.
"It began as simple fatigue and dizziness. But little by little her face turned white as paper, and every ten days she would be seized by a burning fever of unknown cause. The palace physicians, calling it a deficiency of blood, tried one blood-nourishing remedy after another. Nothing worked."
His hands trembled faintly as he went on.
"Now some even claim an evil spirit has marked her, that a demon drains her blood. But I am certain of one thing. It is not the mischief of ghosts. It is a disease."
Silence settled over the study. Sangguan Wan'er's mind raced.
Was there anyone alive who could move the Grand Academician like this? His daughter, Noble Consort Mun, died years ago, and I have never heard of trouble befalling his three sons...
Then a single figure rose in her memory. Carefully loosening her hands, stiff with tension, she asked.
"Could it be... Her Highness the Princess..."
Mun Hong-seo nodded.
"It is. Princess Myeonghwa, His Majesty's youngest daughter, suffers from that uncanny disease."
"Hmm..."
Mun Hong-seo went on, his eyes sunken deep.
"Princess Myeonghwa... as you will know, she is the child of my only daughter, Noble Consort Mun. Since the Consort passed three years ago, the princess is the only blood kin left to me."
Now Sangguan Wan'er understood why the Grand Academician had sought her out, and why he had asked about the elixir. But at the same time, a larger question took shape.
"Grand Academician, the Yang Dragon Elixir and the Yin Dragon Elixir are elixirs beyond doubt, but they are not medicines that cure disease. Nor can anyone say whether they would avail Her Highness's illness at all. So why tell me all of this...?"
"Heh heh... You underestimate this old man far too much." With a wry smile, Mun Hong-seo continued. "My granddaughter's life hangs upon this. Do you think I would have summoned you without knowing even that much?"
He opened the jade box on the table. Within lay three or four Yin Dragon Elixir pills.
"I already obtained Yin Dragon Elixirs—the kind sold to women—and set the palace physicians to analyzing them."
"Ah!"
"Their conclusion was that the Yin Dragon Elixir cannot cure Princess Myeonghwa. But..." The Grand Academician's gaze turned piercing. "Alongside it came a second conclusion: the one who created this thing must possess the ability to cure her disease."
Intuiting what Mun Hong-seo wanted, Sangguan Wan'er's face hardened. There was a rumor not long ago that the imperial household was sending an envoy to the Ouyang Clan Manor to commend the Life-and-Death Divine Doctor for putting down the dysentery... So commending him was not all the envoy was meant to do...
The Emperor had surely intended to bring the Divine Doctor into the palace and have him treat the princess.
"Manor Lord, do not scowl so," Mun Hong-seo said, his tone gentling. "I did not summon you to persecute you, but to ask a favor."
"And what favor would that be..."
"I hear you have suffered for want of a license in the salt trade. Is that not so?"
"It is."
"A salt-trade license is no easy thing to obtain. Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor holds an oligopoly over the existing salt production and distribution networks. If the new method of salt-making you proposed proves viable, the collapse of their profits is merely a matter of time. And Gold Mountain Tower..." Mun Hong-seo paused. "They do not care to see Myriad Gold Mountain Manor extend its influence through the Imperial Capital."
"I am aware."
The Grand Academician's eyes hardened.
"I can open the road to a salt license for you."
"And in exchange, there will be conditions."
"Naturally. Where in this world is there a free lunch?" Mun Hong-seo leaned forward. "First, let me ask you this, Manor Lord. Is the one who made that elixir truly the Life-and-Death Divine Doctor?"
Sangguan Wan'er's thoughts tangled. If the Divine Doctor's identity came to light, Ouyang Qiangang could not but stand far more exposed to the blade of the Blood Sea and the watching eyes of the jianghu. And yet this was also a chance to hasten not only her own fortunes but the restoration of the Ouyang Clan itself.
For a moment she called Ouyang Qiangang's face to mind, then let out a long breath.
"He is, Grand Academician."
Mun Hong-seo's eyes narrowed, trembling faintly.
"Can you reach him?"
"I can."
"Ah...!" A light of joy kindled in the old man's eyes. "How long would it take to bring him to the palace?"
From his words, Sangguan Wan'er realized that Mun Hong-seo knew nothing at all about Hahu Gang.
"It will take time."
"Of course it will. But I would rather it did not take too long."
"Nor can I promise you that he will treat Her Highness. I hold no authority to compel him."
"Do your utmost." Mun Hong-seo's brows trembled thinly as he pressed on. "The princess's illness... is worsening. Of late she cannot rise from her bed from morning to night, and the least exertion leaves her gasping, near collapse. The physicians say she will be fortunate to see the spring."
When the conversation ended, Sangguan Wan'er looked back before stepping out of the study. Mun Hong-seo sat leaning against the back of his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling. In that figure she saw less a man of power than a desperate grandfather grasping at any means to save his granddaughter's life.
Her heart was heavy as she walked the corridor outside. A bargain with the imperial family was a double-edged sword. It could grant a powerful shield, and at the same time expose them to a far greater danger.
I must consult Young Master Ouyang. A decision this weighty is not mine to make alone.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Watching the streets of the Imperial Capital flit past the carriage window, Sangguan Wan'er set out for Yeomga Manor.