My Son
“I just can’t figure it out.”
Eun Seollyeong’s prediction had missed the mark completely.
“This doesn’t make strategic sense either. From everything I’ve experienced, when you’re walking across open plains with no support of any kind in sight, an ambush is all but guaranteed… yet nothing.”
She kept tilting her head in puzzlement all the way until we reached the entrance of Wareung-chon, the village nestled against Inhyeon Gorge that we had chosen as our midway stop.
“Even if he’s fallen as far as they say, a man who once held the title of Guardian wouldn’t dare attack in a village full of civilians. And now the village is right in front of us… Just what is going on?”
The plan she had proposed when we began traveling together was simple.
—Use me as bait to draw out the Diancang Sect’s Guardian.
The Diancang Sect’s Guardian was famously elusive even in ordinary times, and with no fixed affiliation, tracking his movements was all but impossible. Expose the target—me—and he would approach first. Then Eun Seollyeong, concealing her presence and pretending to be an ordinary companion, would strike.
I had no reason to refuse.
Right now the greatest threat to my life was, without question, the Diancang Sect’s Guardian. No matter how much I grew, he remained a being far beyond my reach. And if a peer of his caliber like Eun Seollyeong was offering to deal with him for me, I should have been welcoming it with both hands raised high.
So I willingly made a detour through Wareung-chon, a village we would never have needed to visit on the original route, and used it as a waypoint.
“Hold on a moment.”
Eun Seollyeong bent at the waist for the seventh time and buried something in the ground.
From the moment the chance of an ambush by the Diancang Sect’s Guardian had grown vanishingly slim, she had been repeating a series of actions. As if drawing a line, she buried something on one side of the path where people passed, then something else on the opposite side. She packed the earth carefully, smoothed it with her hand, scraped up the damp soil she had dug out, and scattered it evenly far away until every trace was gone.
Her work continued even after we passed through the gorge, stopping only at the entrance to Wareung-chon, where the massive dam cast its shadow over the village.
“One, two, three… eight in total. That should do it. And finally…”
She drew four red beads from her robes and clenched her fist.
—Crack.
The glass beads shattered into powder in her grip.
“Let’s take one circuit around the village.”
Wearing a blank expression, I followed her as we walked a full loop through the settlement. Her silver hair swayed beneath the bamboo hat.
“Well? Does this satisfy you, fellow?”
She tilted the hat up slightly and blinked her silver eyes.
“…Somehow even a bamboo hat suits you perfectly.”
Her brows furrowed. Sensing the shift in her mood, I smoothly changed the subject.
“What I meant was that it effectively hides you well.”
Only then did she nod in satisfaction and pull the hat down low again.
After the seventh bandit attack, she had accepted my strong suggestion and bought the bamboo hat from a roadside merchant. Over her eye-catching white robes she had also wrapped the dog-skin cloak I had enthusiastically recommended.
“At this rate, my martial artist’s pride and dignity…”
A faint mutter escaped her, but she bit her lip and accepted it for the sake of the goal.
“…What a detestable fellow.”
She looked cold and composed, yet the lingering resentment in that mutter made me swallow hard without thinking. Beneath the brim of the hat I could glimpse the pale flash of her small lips and chin.
“In exchange for accepting this fellow’s suggestion, when we have time later, will you make a wager with me?”
“What kind?”
Eun Seollyeong, a full head shorter than me, walked slowly at my side and murmured,
“Rock-paper-scissors, and the loser gets a forehead flick. How about it?”
“….”
She was definitely holding a grudge.
I wondered if she had somehow overheard the idle fantasy I had muttered to myself the first time we met. Cold sweat beaded on my skin as I nodded.
“…Haha. What a delightful idea. Sounds fun.”
[That wager, at least, you ought to seek my consent before accepting.]
Mumyeong’s dry murmur made me let out a short sigh.
Feels like my lifespan is shrinking in real time.
We wouldn’t be staying long in this village anyway. We would restock food and necessities here, then press straight on without rest to our final destination—Shaanxi Province, where the third of the Oho-samhwa was waiting.
I had agreed with Eun Seollyeong that we would travel together only as far as about two shichen beyond Wareung-chon. According to her, any farther and the cities grew too bustling, the density of powerful martial artists too high, for the Diancang Sect’s Guardian—now a public enemy of the murim—to show himself.
On the map the place was marked as a major waypoint on the road to Shaanxi, yet the actual village was small. Barely two hundred households. Hemmed in by the massive gorge on both sides, the available land was so limited that the buildings clustered tightly together. In the wide-open lands of the jianghu, two-story buildings were rare even in proper cities; their abundance here was clearly a product of the terrain.
That’s been bothering me for a while.
I lifted my head. A colossal dam stretched across the vast gorge—so enormous it was hard to believe human hands had built it.
“They say two-tenths of all the water that irrigates Shaanxi’s crops comes from here. Its majesty truly is overwhelming.”
Eun Seollyeong raised her hat and peered through the gap at the massive dam standing against the blue sky. From her left hand, the powdered remains of the red beads fell at a precise, measured rate.
“What are you doing with that? Some kind of sorcery?”
“I’ll explain later.”
As she walked the village she continued scattering a steady amount of the powder along the roads. Leading the way, she surveyed the surroundings.
“There was a great flood in Shaanxi around this time last year. It seems the recovery still isn’t finished.”
“There was a flood?”
From beneath the black dog-skin cloak Eun Seollyeong raised a long, pale finger and pointed to several spots as she spoke quietly.
“I heard it through the Jegal Clan. Part of the dam spanning Inhyeon Gorge at Wareung-chon collapsed. Fortunately most of the water had already been released along the channels, so the damage wasn’t catastrophic, but there were still casualties. The Imperial Court and the Jegal Clan of Shaanxi agreed to share the cost of repairs, yet…”
Her voice trailed off.
“Judging by the state of things, progress has been sluggish.”
On one side of the dam, five layers of tightly stitched iron-hide tarps had been arranged. The tarps hung from dense ropes of twisted straw, holding back the massive volume of water. Below them, water that had not been fully contained leaked out in streams and followed the channels downward.
“Is that safe?”
“In actual warfare, when they dam a river for a water attack and then release it, they often use iron-hide the same way. As a temporary measure it should be fine.”
She added a short remark at the end.
“Probably. There—we’re finished.”
After scattering the red powder throughout the entire village, she dusted off her hands. With everything complete, we returned to the village entrance.
“You will wait here for three full days, fellow.”
“What?”
“According to the plan, we should already have encountered the Diancang Sect’s Guardian before reaching this village, fought, and settled the matter. The only remaining distance where our companionship is still necessary is the two shichen beyond this village.”
She rummaged in her robes and produced several items.
“I suspect that after your meeting with Asura you vanished, and once the Guardian lost your trail he simply… went somewhere. By the code of the jianghu that seeks to minimize civilian harm, he is unlikely to attack openly inside a village unless he has completely lost his mind. That leaves the problem of the remaining two shichen. I cannot simply send you alone across that stretch.”
“Then what?”
She pointed a finger at the village.
“Wait here. Two years ago when I passed through, there was a place I commissioned for information on the Demonic Cult. I will go settle the backlog of work that has piled up. Once I finish and return, we will travel the remaining distance together again. And take this.”
I accepted what she handed me. It was a bracer made of white sheepskin.
“Incredibly intricate.”
It was no ordinary bracer. Fine iron needles had been driven vertically into its surface. Between the needles, strings were stretched like the strings of a zither—blue, black, and red, three kinds in all. On the inner side of the wrist, like a water-level gauge, there were graduated markings and a metal indicator needle.
“These are the measures I prepared just in case during the three days I am gone. I adapted the form of a formation I once learned from a certain yin-yang master long ago.”
“…I have no idea what any of that means, but I take it this is some kind of marvelous tool.”
“Should the Diancang Sect’s Guardian invade this village while I am away, this will serve as a warning indicator for you.”
Eun Seollyeong pointed a long white finger at the blue thread.
“This blue line is linked to the formation I set at the gorge entrance more than half a shichen from the village. If a martial artist of one gapja or higher passes through, it will sense him at the same moment and snap. In a backwater like this, anyone of one gapja or higher…”
“Would be the Diancang Sect’s Guardian.”
I swallowed and muttered. She nodded.
“Unless he abandons the proper road and climbs the cliffs, he will not slip past. This blue line is also connected to me.”
On the wrist she raised was a blue thread identical to mine.
“The instant it breaks, I will begin racing back here. At full speed it will take no more than half a shichen at the longest.”
Next she indicated the second, black thread.
“This one is linked to the formation at the village entrance. It is unlikely, but if this snaps, the enemy will soon be upon you—so flee with everything you have. Finally, these five red threads…”
She gently stroked the five crimson strands bound to my wrist.
“They are linked to the red bead powder I scattered. The powder spread throughout the village will show in real time how close that martial artist has drawn to you. It can even detect him some distance beyond the village itself. As the enemy approaches, the red threads will snap one by one—use them well.”
Eun Seollyeong was far more thorough than I had imagined. At her gesture I turned the white bracer on my right wrist inward.
“This steel gauge shows the distance between you and me. The closer I am, the more sharply the needle will rise. And for reference…”
She lifted her head and looked at me.
“All of this is a single-use ritual implement that takes two full years just to craft. If nothing happens in three days, handle it so carefully that not a single thread breaks and return it to me.”
“…How much is it worth?”
“Trying to convert it into coin is foolish to begin with, but if one must, it would be a sum that would make even your household frown a little.”
“….”
My hands and feet began to tremble.
She removed the bamboo hat she had been wearing.
“I will have no need of it while traveling alone.”
She set the hat on my head, then unfastened the dog-skin cloak, folded it neatly, and handed it to me.
“I will return in three days.”
With those words she vanished like a flash of lightning.
[She must have truly hated it.]
Mumyeong remarked.
A single strand of silver hair clung to one side of the hat now sitting askew on my head.
“….”
Aside from that, there was not a single trace left that a legendary figure of an entire sect had been standing beside me only moments before. I rubbed the hair between my fingertips, then let the wind carry it away.
This was how each of us lived. This was reality.
The hour was early morning. At the village entrance, residents were only just beginning to appear one or two at a time, starting their day’s work.
“…Son?”
An unfamiliar voice. I turned around.
There stood a white-haired old man with a bent back. His clothes were shabby, his eyes milky and clouded.
“…Pardon?”
It was the word in this world that had the least possible connection to me. There was no one in this village I could possibly know. I stood there blankly, staring at the old man.
Even with my highly developed sensory perception, I could not have missed it—yet I was certain I had misheard. Or that he had spoken to someone else and I had mistaken it.
“What did you just…”
I forced out the words that hovered dryly at my lips. It was the word of greatest love and hatred for me in this world. The origin of my very roots.
At my question the old man smiled more brightly than anyone else in this world and said,
“My son.”