A Banquet of Smiles and Daggers
Eun Seollyeong said she had come straight to me the moment she sensed something amiss.
Because right now, you are the one I must prioritize above all else.
I steeled myself against words that could so easily be misunderstood and hurried my steps.
“Until we know the exact situation, it would be best not to leave the Jegal Family grounds. Getting entangled in the power struggles between the Five Great Families would do us absolutely no good.”
We vaulted the wall and returned in an instant to the lodging Jegal Sea had assigned us.
The Jegal Family was quiet, as if nothing at all had happened. Some servants were even chatting peacefully while going about their duties. The peaceful atmosphere left me rather taken aback.
“Hey, Eun Seollyeong. Is that information certain….”
Eun Seollyeong strode ahead without hesitation.
—Thud. Thud.
She entered the room without even removing her shoes. It was the complete opposite of her usual self, who prized cleanliness and order above all. No further questions were needed. I swallowed hard.
Once I was inside, Eun Seollyeong quietly closed the door. The lodging looked no different from the outside than when we first arrived. She gestured for me to sit. She herself did not sit. Instead she leaned diagonally against the wall—a posture ready to spring into motion at any moment.
With a tense face I spoke quietly to her.
“So even you don’t know the exact situation yet, Eun Seollyeong?”
“The Jegal Family’s Law Protector, along with at least first-rate core martial artists of the family, have rushed off somewhere at full speed. That is enough.”
Eun Seollyeong cut the matter short. Despite her youthful appearance, she was a Guardian who had struggled through countless years in the jianghu. Her sense for the scent of battle far exceeded ordinary bounds.
“If Jegal Sea does not make additional contact within two shichen, we will leave Shaanxi without fail. Do you agree, Moyong Bi?”
“What if it was only a minor disturbance and Jegal Sea simply didn’t think to inform us separately? What then?”
Without the slightest hesitation Eun Seollyeong answered.
“I am certain she would know how I would respond. For the past nine years every real strategy of the Jegal Family has originated from Jegal Sea. Without her they would have been swallowed by other families long ago.”
As if answering her conviction, in less than half a shichen Jegal Sea flung the door open as though she meant to break it.
“Huff… huff… Phew. Thankfully you haven’t left yet.”
Jegal Sea was panting hard.
“I thought our Mount Hua Guardian might just vanish on us, so I ran like hell. Ugh, I’m out of breath.”
“She really came.”
I looked back and forth between Eun Seollyeong and Jegal Sea in admiration.
“Eun Seollyeong, you were right…. Huh?”
The moment she confirmed Jegal Sea’s face, Eun Seollyeong seemed to have already concluded that the situation was not urgently dangerous.
“Ah, my throat’s dry. There should be some water here.”
She strode into the room, poured water into a cup, and gulped it down in great swallows.
“Jegal Sea, the current situation?”
When Eun Seollyeong asked, Jegal Sea sat in a chair and fanned herself with her hand.
“For now there’s no bloodshed. Of course they went right up to the point of drawing blades halfway and nearly coming to blows.”
“I don’t know the details, but weren’t you all chatting over a meal between the two camps? Did the Hwangbo Family suddenly pick a fight?”
—Bang!
Jegal Sea set the cup down roughly and poured out her heated words like spilling water.
“Those pig-like bastards! Why the hell can’t the jianghu tolerate even a little peaceful coexistence? Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between the Orthodox, Unorthodox, Demonic, and Blood factions anymore!”
She snatched a fruit from the table. Without peeling it she started crunching into it with loud bites.
“I could overlook them gradually eyeing Shaanxi through Unwol Jiju, but what’s the intent behind such an open provocation? Is that Hwangbo pig father-and-son still holding a grudge over the rejected marriage proposal last time, or do they really want to test their strength against our family? Should I just go crazy and charge at them for real?”
In that appearance I saw the fiery personality I had witnessed when she infiltrated the Ju Family, back when I still mistook her for Ju Hwaryeon.
I carefully asked her.
“The Hwangbo Family’s… son proposed?”
“Don’t even start!”
Jegal Sea grimaced and nearly shrieked.
“Do you know what that massive, bandit-looking bald guy said? That his ideal type is a smart, pure-white woman with features as clear as a crane’s! Do you know how hard it was to stop my little sister from drawing her sword and going for his throat?”
The Hwangbo Family’s son would be the one with whom I had a grudge from fighting bare-handed at Cheonsubaekryeonsa. I quietly recalled his face.
No wonder the little sister got angry.
I felt a sense of camaraderie toward Jegal Sea’s younger sister, Jegal Seoryeon—one of the Oho-samhwa—whom I had never met.
Jegal Sea sighed deeply and swept her black hair back.
“While I was infiltrating the Ju Family looking for weaknesses based on the information that they were tied to the Hwangbo Family through smuggling… the foundation of our own family was rotting away….”
Having finished wiping the floor, Eun Seollyeong dragged over a chair and sat facing her.
“Jegal Sea, seeing you suffer like this even knowing about it, it seems the situation is not turning out so well.”
“Well, Unwol Jiju is a representative blunder committed during my grandfather’s generation along with the purge of minor sects in Shaanxi. Those damned black-path bastards—we should have cut out that rotten part early on even if it meant some bleeding….”
Eun Seollyeong listened to Jegal Sea’s complaints with her arms crossed.
I quietly listened to the exchange between them and organized my thoughts. The situation was more complicated than expected.
Due to Shaanxi’s nature as a place where people and goods gathered, the pleasure quarters had flourished. During the previous family head’s time, Unwol Jiju—which dominated those quarters—first appeared. The previous family head, who was like a grandfather to the current Jegal Family, believed that if a leading force emerged in the underground economy it would efficiently aid their rule over Shaanxi. He therefore made a treaty to overlook their activities in exchange for a certain amount of protection fees.
For a while they lived quietly in the shadows as sworn, keeping the line well. But their size gradually grew, and recently, with the appearance of an external force backing them—the Hwangbo Family—they became arrogant. They openly rose to the surface, buying up farmland and exploiting commoners as tenant farmers with high interest rates.
In response to the people’s resentment the Jegal Family tried to intervene belatedly, but the Hwangbo Family also declared intervention under the pretext that their capital was invested in the farmland. This discussion had taken place in that tense situation.
“…The Hwangbo Family’s goal is probably to weaken the Jegal’s power through Unwol Jiju as a proxy and expand their influence in Shaanxi. In fact, last year’s famine was the turning point. That’s when Unwol Jiju bought up large amounts of farmland sold at dirt-cheap prices, and the balance of power started tipping sharply.”
“What about wiping out Unwol Jiju even now?”
As if asking whether she hadn’t already thought of that, Jegal Sea sighed.
“No justification. On the surface they’re perfectly clean and constructive legitimate merchants simultaneously running dozens of brothels. To avoid getting caught they pay taxes and protection fees on time without a single delay. Sigh!”
Jegal Sea scratched her head in frustration, messing it up, then neatly arranged her hair again.
“Of course that doesn’t mean the great Jegal Family of the world will just take it lying down, right? There are ways. The problem is it takes some time. Anyway, I’ve been saying all sorts of things while hosting guests.”
Toward Jegal Sea, who waved her hand dismissively, Eun Seollyeong said,
“If there is anything we need to help with, tell us. Since you are helping us, that much is nothing.”
“Thanks for the offer. But nothing will happen for now. This is a matter that needs to be resolved with a long breath.”
Jegal Sea rejected Eun Seollyeong’s proposal without the slightest hesitation.
“If we rashly take any physical action out of anger over this clash, I think that would be playing right into the Hwangbo Family’s intentions. You two just quietly wait a week, and once the Hwangbo Family leaves, just get the brand and go on your way.”
Eun Seollyeong slowly nodded.
“If that is how you think.”
“Ah, right. Come to think of it.”
Jegal Sea rummaged in her robes and took out two red papers.
“Tomorrow those annoying Unwol Jiju bastards say they want to prepare a place of harmony for the dispute that happened today. They’re hosting a banquet and inviting people from both the Hwangbo Family and Jegal Family camps.”
She held out the red invitation cards, one each to me and Eun Seollyeong.
“Moreover, they want to invite even the guests that the Jegal Family is hosting and treat them lavishly in the name of Shaanxi’s honor. Come if you want. I don’t know how well those guys will prepare, but if the hospitality is even a little lacking, give them a scathing critique.”
Eun Seollyeong flipped the invitation front and back as she spoke.
“You grind your teeth so much about the Hwangbo Family and Unwol Jiju, yet you are attending the banquet as well? Eating a meal face to face with those you hate can never be enjoyable.”
Jegal Sea widened her eyes as if asking what she was talking about and snorted.
“This is politics. Even if deep down you want to stab them to death and slit their throats—no, the more you want to do that, the more you must smile and shake hands until the very end to surely slit their throats. Do you think I’d pass up that perfect opportunity to chat with those bastards in a private setting and dig up their weaknesses at the same time?”
At the very least she had to take every single family member and drain their expensive liquor to vent, Jegal Sea said as she clenched her fist tightly.
“Haa… this is why the thinking of scholars is….”
Eun Seollyeong looked at such a Jegal Sea and sighed softly. She suddenly turned her gaze to me.
“It is not someone else but Jegal Sea who is going into the tiger’s den, and as her friend I cannot just stand by and watch. I will likely have to attend the banquet under a false identity. What will you do?”
“I….”
Actually, on the way here the chief steward of Unwol Jiju who had caused a bit of a stir kept weighing on my mind. She said she was going to a banquet hosted by the force that such a man served as chief steward of.
Eun Seollyeong was of course a superior martial artist to me. That was an all-too-obvious fact.
But.
…
I recalled the face of the chief steward who had greedily licked her up and down with his eyes.
…I was also curious what expression she would make if she knew what I was thinking inside right now.
“I’ll go too.”
“Oh, you as well?”
Eun Seollyeong seemed to have thought I wouldn’t go; she slightly raised her eyes in surprise.
“Y-yeah. I mean… the food.”
I mumbled.
“There’ll be lots of delicious food, right?”
“Ahh—.”
Her expression of understanding it at once felt like a subtle wound.
Jegal Sea frowned.
“For Eun Seollyeong, since she has a past connection with me, creating an entirely different official identity beyond being a guest is no problem. But you’re a bit different. Do you have some other identity you can put forward instead? Anything is fine. After all, our Jegal Family is famous for inviting people of all sorts of origins.”
“Identity?”
Jegal Sea nodded.
“Yeah. Preferably something with a bit of name value or official affiliation in the jianghu that the other side can accept at a glance would be even better.”
There was nothing to ponder.
“Of course I have such an identity.”
I nodded as I spoke.
“One that fits perfectly, in fact.”