You Saved Your Father
Escaping the Hwangbo Clan’s martial artists had not been difficult. They had slipped free before the net could close.
But this time was different.
“To save your father, you have to come with me. Can you do it?”
“Yes!”
“No loud voices. Only whispers. Understood?”
The girl craned her neck and whispered into Ja Gangcheon’s ear.
“Yes.”
“For that, a simple nod is enough.”
She pressed her lips tight and nodded.
“Good. From now on, you and I are risking our lives together to save your father. Got it?”
Nod!
“First—which way is home?”
The girl pointed with her finger. She had grasped at once what needed to be done.
“Let’s go.”
Ja Gangcheon scooped her up and carried her straight into the net the Hwangbo Clan warriors had spread.
Nowhere safe to leave her.
He brought the girl for two reasons: there was no time to find a safe place, and he did not know which direction her father had been taken.
“Hup!”
She curled tighter in his arms. Leaping left and right, springing from tree to tree, he soon left her dizzy.
“Stay sharp. We still have to save your father.”
The words were cold, yet they woke her. A moment later Ja Gangcheon halted.
“Is that your house?”
Her eyes flew wide and she nodded.
“You lived in a cave?”
Another nod.
They deliberately hid themselves.
This was no ordinary story.
“Which way was your father taken?”
She whispered urgently.
“He went along the valley.”
Ja Gangcheon realized he had misunderstood.
“He wasn’t captured?”
“Father hid me while he ran, but I was found.”
Only then did the true picture form. He had been wondering how a lone girl had managed to flee among martial artists.
If he drew their eyes to save his daughter…
He was probably already caught, or in mortal danger.
Ja Gangcheon raced at once in the direction she pointed.
Splash! Splash!
Each time he lifted a foot against the clinging current, his balance lurched.
“Hah… hah…”
With every step blood surged and spilled behind him, yet he forced another pace.
Just a little farther.
Even one more step was to put distance between himself and the place where he had hidden his daughter.
But that, too, had reached its end.
Whoosh!
The current quickened; a thunderous roar of water rose ahead. A cliff. At the sound of the waterfall the last strength drained from his body.
So this is as far as I go?
Certain he could no longer outrun them, the man turned. He had felt the pursuers’ energy closing from afar.
Fully ten men in black light armor raced toward him.
Thud.
He planted his feet and drove the spear he carried into the wet ground.
In that instant an aura so solid it belied any fugitive burst outward.
Yet these hunters would not flinch before a wounded beast. They knew exactly how to bring one to its knees.
“Aren’t you curious about your daughter’s fate?”
He forced his face still.
A trick.
That was his judgment—until the next words made his heart drop.
“The pit was too shallow to hide her breathing. And there weren’t enough leaves to cover it.”
“You bastards!”
His spear, unable to contain the fury, carved straight ahead.
An enormous wave of energy and spray exploded outward. The pursuers scrambled back, but one was caught full in the blast. Flesh burst across his body; he spat blood and died on the spot.
“You fiend! So you care nothing for your daughter’s life!”
Thud.
After that single outpouring of rage the man dropped to his knees. The spear planted in the wet earth trembled like an aspen leaf.
“Come quietly. If you want even your daughter to live.”
Just as he was about to release the spear—
“Father!”
The voice, wrung out with every scrap of strength, snapped every head around.
It approached with impossible speed, then vaulted clean over the pursuers.
“Father!”
The man gripping his spear recognized his daughter’s face.
“Harang!”
The moment he cried her name,
Relax.
A sharp sound transmission lanced into his ear.
Instinctively he yielded. The approaching figure seized his waist and lifted them both.
“Hold on tight.”
They vanished into the waterfall.
Is this big brother a fish?
That was what Harang thought.
Bursting free of the high waterfall’s current in a single stroke was already astonishing, yet underwater he moved as swiftly as a fish—while cradling her in one arm and her father in the other.
“Puhah!”
When breath ran short he surfaced for a heartbeat, then dragged them under again.
How many times did they repeat it?
The fish big brother became a monkey big brother.
Squirrel? Bird?
At first he climbed like a monkey, then raced across the treetops like a squirrel. Once that grew easy he left the mountain as if he were flying.
“We’ll rest here a moment.”
Just when being carried left her breathless to the limit, the motion stopped.
“We can’t rest long. Recover as much as you can.”
At big brother’s words her battered father nodded and began to steady his breathing.
“What’s your name, big brother?”
“Ja Gangcheon. Details later. They’re still hunting us right now.”
He drew a medicine bottle from his robes and smeared salve over the man’s wounds.
“Ak Pungjin.”
He gave his name, yet offered no thanks. He still did not know the youth’s intent. He allowed the medicine only because it was plain the other meant to keep him alive for now.
“All right. We move again.”
After the hasty treatment Ja Gangcheon took Ak Harang into his arms once more.
Entrusting his daughter to a stranger still left Ak Pungjin uneasy, yet he could not refuse.
My lightness skill can’t shake them.
By contrast Ja Gangcheon displayed terrifying lightness skill even while hauling two people.
“I’m ready.”
Now was the time to cooperate.
So they crossed the forest again.
The pursuit finally ended in Jining of Shandong Province—the place where the poet Li Taibai had lived twenty years and left countless traces.
“There’s a large lake this way. By boat we’ll be safe.”
Following Ak Pungjin’s counsel they boarded a pleasure craft and drifted downriver, throwing off the last of the hunters.
“We’ll get off here.”
Spotting a small pier in the distance, Ja Gangcheon told the boatman.
Only after they had left even the landing behind and entered the woods did they take up the conversation they had postponed.
Ja Gangcheon began.
“Why is the Hwangbo Clan after you?”
Ak Pungjin looked stunned.
“You don’t know who we are?”
“No. If I hadn’t heard Harang’s scream I wouldn’t have interfered. I meant only to save the child and leave it at that—but when I heard the Hwangbo Clan was involved, I ended up rescuing you as well, mister.”
He could have simply called it chivalry, yet he deliberately laid out the full reason.
“You have a grudge against the Hwangbo Clan?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“I can’t explain even that.”
“My apologies. I was rude.”
“It’s fine. More importantly—tell me why the Hwangbo Clan is hunting you and Harang.”
Ja Gangcheon was boldly collecting the price of their lives.
Ordinarily Ak Pungjin would have hidden the truth, yet after everything that had happened he was not so shameless as to lie.
“I am a man of Jangpung Express. One of the few who still live.”
“Jangpung Express? Ah—the Shandong Ak Family?”
“Some call us that. But we were never a clan. We simply ran an escort agency among our blood kin. Outsiders labeled us a family.”
Jangpung Express, or the Shandong Ak Family.
They bore the name because of the peerless figure Yue Fei. The sole inheritors of the Ak Family Spear Art he created—renowned both as general and scholar—were none other than Jangpung Express. Combined with their unique Eagle Claw Hand, they came to possess exclusive arts as if they were a true clan.
“Ten years ago the Hwangbo Clan lured our escort agency into a trap. Only a handful survived and scattered. I am one of them.”
“Then why stay in Shandong? You could have gone farther.”
“I kept fighting. Over the past ten years I’ve killed at least fifty. If I didn’t do at least that much, I would have gone mad.”
A reason easy enough to understand. Only Harang weighed on the mind.
“This child is innocent.”
“No! I’ll take on Father’s work. Someday I’ll wipe out the Hwangbo Clan and raise Jangpung Express in its place.”
Even Ak Pungjin smiled bitterly at that.
“The day the Hwangbo Clan crossed our walls was the tenth day after Harang was born. I had to abandon my wife to save this child.”
How could the girl not know that searing grudge? Yet a life spent inside a hatred she could not even remember was pitiful.
“Harang. Want to come with me?”
“What? What about Father?”
“Father can’t. I have many people I must protect as well.”
He was not about to wage open war on the Hwangbo Clan; he could not bring the man into the manor.
“Harang will stay with me.”
Ak Pungjin lightly took his daughter’s hand, reacting at once to the offer.
“I am grateful you saved my daughter’s life. Though I have nothing, if there is anything I can give my benefactor, I will give it. But please allow me to repay my daughter’s debt as well.”
It was both a plea not to touch his child and a quiet warning.
“Fine. I’ll take that as payment for the rescue. There’s something among what you have that I need.”
“Please speak.”
“Give me information that could become the Hwangbo Clan’s weakness.”
Information that would have been buried with him had he died.
“I will tell you. But the story will be long.”
“That much?”
“Not one or two cases. In monopolizing Shandong they committed countless evils. If I told you everything, tonight would not be enough.”
Ja Gangcheon’s brow furrowed.
“They have long been the overlords of Shandong. The blood spilled to keep that seat is by no means little.”
“Understood. Then I’ll go buy something simple to eat first.”
He moved because he had heard Harang’s stomach growling.
A short while later he returned with food, and the long tale began.
Because the night stretched on, he heard not only of the Hwangbo Clan but of Ak Pungjin’s entire life.
By morning Ja Gangcheon knew the man had been the head of Jangpung Express. That was why he could not leave Shandong.
“There’s Deungmyeong Manor in Gyounam. I’m there—investigate me from time to time.”
Telling someone to investigate himself.
To Ak Pungjin the words sounded utterly novel.
Not a shred of shame?
While he pondered, Ja Gangcheon’s intent remained simple.
“Look into me. When a moment for cooperation comes, let’s meet again.”
When goodwill continued to the very end, Ak Pungjin spoke the words he had held back.
“If ever you have need of me, place a plain cloth atop the ruined pagoda of the abandoned temple south of Jinan. I will then send word of a place we can meet.”
“Understood.”
Ja Gangcheon answered, then met Ak Harang’s eyes.
“You saved your father. You know that, right?”
“Big brother saved him.”
“We did it together.”
Her lips trembled as something welled up inside her.
“You did well. Hang in there until we meet next time. Got it?”
The young girl nodded with all her strength.