The Woman Who Was Ju Hwaryeon
It was my first time traveling to Shaanxi Province, the seat of the Jegal Family—one of the Five Great Families.
I had heard it was a place overflowing with money, its commerce and agriculture thriving without end. The closer we came to the provincial capital, the more the rice paddies and farmers multiplied at an exponential rate; even without any special landmark, I could tell we were nearing our destination.
“You look uneasy.”
Eun Seollyeong must have read my expression. She glanced at me from beneath the brim of the bamboo hat she had pulled low over her face.
“This one seems to suit you better, at least.”
After everything that had happened, I had decided I could put it off no longer and gifted her a bamboo hat. I had chosen this one with careful deliberation. The image of her casually discarding that dogskin cloak and my tattered old hat before setting off down the road was still vivid in my mind.
“This seat is fond of plum blossoms.”
A faint smile touched Eun Seollyeong’s lips. She traced the small plum blossom embroidered on one side of the hat with her fingertip.
Across the endless fields, farmers were hard at work, spreading mountain-high piles of manure and sowing seed. Sweat mixed with filthy water beaded on their copper-dark shoulders and necks and dripped away. Young and old, men and women—everyone was out with sleeves rolled up, swinging their hoes.
They're so thin.
My gaze lingered for a moment on the sharp ribs visible through their clothes, then fell away as I spoke.
“I’m not questioning your judgment, of course. But I’ve had my share of experience, and once, a martial artist whose experience dwarfed mine gave me advice about a situation a lot like this. In the end, he was right.”
“When you deal with someone, do not do it halfway—shatter them thoroughly so they never even dare think of revenge. Is that what you mean?”
I nodded. That was exactly why I had worn that uneasy look for so long. I had landed a clean strike hard enough to crack the Dragon Scale Armor, yet it still felt insufficient. The eyes of So Cheonak as he lay gasping on the ground had been full of humiliation and pure hatred.
“I would have handled it the same way under ordinary circumstances. However.”
Eun Seollyeong let the sentence trail off.
“Right now we are the ones coming to ask a favor. Even if it is only the outskirts of Shaanxi Province, we are guests invited by the Jegal. Until we make direct contact with them, I believe we must not create any variable that could cause trouble. If anything—”
She looked toward the gates of the provincial capital.
“—had something like that happened after we had already met with the Jegal Family, the story would have been different.”
The outer districts of the capital were mostly ramshackle thatched huts on the verge of collapse.
CRASH!
“Aigoo, my lord! If you take even that, my family will starve to death for certain!”
The door splintered. A scrawny farmer went tumbling. A pot full of holes clattered after him. From inside the house came a sharp scream and the sound of things being smashed indiscriminately.
Through the broken doorway stepped a massive man with a dark complexion, a horse-tail ponytail, and a protruding sun-vessel. His shoulders were so broad they cast a shadow over the trembling man on the ground.
“Ah, this bastard’s really determined to make me the villain.”
“V-Vice Manager So Jeongmun, please, have mercy!”
The dark-skinned man, So Jeongmun, seized the farmer by the collar and hauled him upright with brutal strength.
“If you’re a tenant farmer, then act like one and pay your damn rent!”
SMACK! SMACK!
So Jeongmun’s bear-paw of a hand cracked left and right across the man’s sunken cheeks. The farmer’s lip split open. He trembled and mumbled,
“It’s just… last year was a bad harvest too, and the interest is murderous. After the rent and the seed costs, we simply can’t…”
THUD!
A knee drove into the man’s gut. He collapsed, vomiting. So Jeongmun spat on him.
“If you don’t have money, there’s an easy way.”
His lips twisted into a grin beneath that dark skin.
“Sell your daughter and your wife. Want me to put in a word with Unwol Jiju for you?”
“Th-that’s impossible!”
So Jeongmun leaned in, still grinning, and whispered,
“Otherwise there’s another way to wipe out the rent. Interested?”
“…There’s another way? One that can protect my family?”
“Of course there is! Come with me.”
So Jeongmun’s mouth stretched ear to ear. He yanked the farmer up by the collar, brushed the dust off his clothes himself, even slung an arm around his shoulders, then shouted to his men behind him,
“Next house! No more seizures needed here!”
“Yes, sir!”
Scenes just like this were unfolding all over the district.
“What in the world…”
I walked forward, taking it all in. The farther we moved toward the center of the capital, the more abruptly the streets grew splendid. Well-dressed people sprouted up like bamboo shoots after rain. Shoulders brushed as we walked; the crowds rivaled any city I had ever seen. The collapsing thatched huts still appeared here and there, but they dwindled exponentially the closer we came to the heart of the city.
“That won’t be the only place.”
Eun Seollyeong spoke.
“I had heard the stories in brief, but I never imagined they would be this brazen about it.”
“What do you mean?”
She pressed the brim of her hat lower. Her face was hidden, yet the silver hair swaying beneath it and the sheer presence radiating from her made every person on the street turn to look back once she had passed.
“You are of Moyong blood, so you already know that in the recent power struggle between the Moyong Family and the Hwangbo Family, the Hwangbo have been falling behind—whether in the number of their businesses or the breadth of their influence.”
“The Hwangbo Family…? Why bring them up all of a sudden?”
I remembered the time at Cheonsubaekryeonsa when Moyong Ryu and I had tangled with them. His subordinates had said the Hwangbo men were picking fights out of resentment over how far the Moyong had pushed them lately, and had advised us to avoid friction.
“Word is they are trying to recoup those losses by colluding with the unorthodox forces that control Shaanxi’s red-light districts.”
“…But Shaanxi is the Jegal Family’s own backyard.”
Eun Seollyeong’s silver eyes flashed beneath the hat.
“That is precisely why they put Unwol Jiju out in front. The Hwangbo Family provides protection and pours in enormous funds. Unwol Jiju uses that backing to buy up land and businesses little by little from the inside, like a fruit rotting from within. They squeeze the tenant farmers, grow their power, and slowly gnaw away at the Jegal Family’s territory.”
The words left a foul taste in my mouth. My voice rose.
“What kind of word games are those? Even so, they’re doing this in broad daylight—are people really just going to sit on their hands and let that kind of transparent farce—”
A clear, ringing voice cut through the air.
“The problem is that in the real world, even that kind of blatant ‘cover-your-eyes-and-call-it-night’ argument works perfectly well as a justification.”
Before us stood a woman wearing a scholar’s cap, hands clasped behind her back, a crane-feather fan half-hiding her lower face.
Eun Seollyeong’s eyes widened.
“…I expected Jegal Seoryeon of the Oho-samhwa to come, yet here you are in person.”
“You know how it is. My little sister’s head is packed full of nothing but martial arts. Besides, I was the one who asked her for the recognition mark, so it only makes sense that I step forward myself.”
She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with glossy black hair and strikingly clear eyes. Flanking her stood two guards in white martial robes, the color of cranes.
“It really has been a long time, Guardian of Mount Hua. Four years, is it?”
“Jegal Sea. It has been a while.”
Eun Seollyeong slowly removed her bamboo hat.
“When the letter arrives by carrier pigeon from none other than Eun Seollyeong of the Guardians, of course I come myself. And that one next to you—”
Jegal Sea fluttered her crane-feather fan and smiled with her eyes.
“—must be the man causing all the trouble. You look like you’ll cause quite a few more. Heh.”
“…?”
Something felt off. I had absolutely no connection to the Jegal Family. Yet those smiling eyes just now—I had seen them somewhere before.
Eun Seollyeong introduced me.
“This is Jegal Sea, eldest daughter of the Jegal Family, with whom I once shared a past connection. She is also the older sister of Jegal Seoryeon of the Oho-samhwa.”
“N-nice to meet you.”
There was no benefit in making a bad impression. Belatedly I clasped my fists in a hurried salute.
“If I may be so bold… have we met before?”
Eun Seollyeong shot me a look as if to ask what nonsense I was spouting. But I could not take my eyes off Jegal Sea. Her lower face was hidden by the fan, so I could not be certain—yet that distinctive smiling of the eyes was far too familiar. Familiarity this strong only came from having actually spoken, from having formed a real connection. It was not the sort of thing that arose from merely brushing past someone on the road or meeting eyes for a moment over a meal at an inn.
“Heh. Same as back then—usually so dull and hazy that it’s practically a trademark.”
…
It was like a single spark cutting through darkness. I slowly lifted my head and looked at her.
“A man like that, the moment something exceeds the little standards he’s set for himself, turns into a blade sharper than anyone else in this world. And on top of that… hmm. Connected to a Guardian as well. And it turns out he belonged to Cheonsubaekryeonsa?”
“It can’t be.”
Jegal Sea muttered as if she found it amusing, then tilted her head.
“Strange, though. A monster of your caliber stuck in Ha-mu-gwan at Cheonsubaekryeonsa? Impossible. There must be some story behind that too.”
The fact that she could say even that much left me certain. It was an unbelievable truth. My voice came out hoarse.
“No. There’s no way that person is here.”
Eun Seollyeong frowned and glanced left and right.
“Have the two of you met before? That shouldn’t be possible. Until recently Jegal Sea wasn’t even with the Jegal Family—she was out gathering intelligence… ah.”
She must have realized. A short sigh escaped her.
Jegal Sea spoke.
“Rumors of the hostage incident spread, of course, but the Ju Family used every ounce of their power to bury the fact that their own daughter was the hostage. So even a Guardian wouldn’t have known. Still, I am a little hurt.”
She smiled at me.
“Even though I was in disguise back then, I recognized you instantly just now—even with my lower face covered—yet you still can’t quite place me.”
Cold sweat slid down the back of my neck. So this was what people meant by falling backward and still managing to break your nose.
“…Ju Hwaryeon!”
She was the woman I had taken hostage while escaping the Ju Family. She had thrashed and fought endlessly; I had forced her along. Back then I was still a clumsy martial artist who couldn’t even seal pressure points, so I had beaten her while she wore a chamber pot over her head and dragged her with me. In the chaos of the escape, a private soldier of the Ju Family had loosed an arrow by mistake and she had taken it in my place—yet even with the pot on her head she had sensed it with uncanny sharpness. Later, when everything was over and I was leaving, she had blocked every exit but one, controlled every variable, chosen the exact time I would pass, and stepped out in front of me to warn me of the danger waiting ahead.
I thought even then that she was no ordinary person…!
With a soft rustle, Jegal Sea lowered the crane-feather fan that had hidden her lower face.
“Ju Hwaryeon… I lived under that name for nearly half a year, so hearing it again after so long feels strangely nostalgic. It seems we have quite a few things to talk about. That said—”
The woman in white scholar’s robes tapped her palm lightly with the fan.
“I already received full authority and the recognition mark from my sister in advance. Even so, no matter how much the Guardian of Mount Hua vouches for him, stamping that mark of recognition on some man I don’t even know felt thoroughly distasteful.”
“Jegal Sea, wait—about that, first—”
Eun Seollyeong tried to interject and mediate. Jegal Sea did not stop.
“The man who smashed straight through the Ju Family, annihilated the pursuit squad, and was a peerless asura in human form. On top of that, a man bound to me by a thoroughly bad karma. And I’m supposed to stamp the mark on him.”
The woman who had once been Ju Hwaryeon bared white teeth and whispered mischievously,
“Should I really put the stamp on this man?”