Sixteen Names
“Keep it. It’s good stuff.”
Moyong Ryu spoke with a solemn face.
“I scrambled to put it together the moment I heard you were coming back from your trial.”
At his words, I simply stared at him.
“How did you even know I was coming? I don’t need anything like this. And what kind of inner core is this supposed to be, anyway?”
As if it were nothing at all, Moyong Ryu answered.
“When I went looking for advance word before meeting you, I heard our little brother had finally landed himself a future sister-in-law.”
I looked at him. Moyong Ryu winked.
“Ah, so I got it ready in a hurry.”
“…What did you just say?”
Something felt off.
“Your big brother spent a bit of money so you could take better care of that body of yours. It’s pretty expensive, in its own way.”
“Wait. Don’t tell me—”
I opened the box and picked up the inner core.
“Sniff, sniff.”
I smelled it. Examined it. Even shook it and listened to the sound.
It has nothing to do with inner energy. It concerns a man’s yang essence. For the Host, it is utterly and completely useless.
Mumyeong drove the nail home.
Click.
I quietly put the medicine back and closed the box. Then I shut my eyes.
Moyong Ryu glanced around.
“So where’s our sister-in-law gone? Why are you here alone? From what I heard, it wasn’t even one—there were several. Why are you standing here like a lonely widower?”
“….”
I started walking. Straight toward Cheonsubaekryeonsa. Moyong Ryu hurried after me.
“…Was it just a rumor? No, that can’t be. My people don’t get things wrong. Or wait—don’t tell me, little brother…”
Moyong Ryu’s mouth fell open.
“You dumped every last one of them in that short time?”
“I did not!”
Moyong Ryu stared at me.
“Whoa. Why yell like that? The fact that you’re yelling means I’m right. You already looked a little down, and now—am I wrong?”
That was, uncomfortably, a little true. Talking to this man always left me feeling dragged into something.
I shoved the box at him in a flare of anger.
“It’s nothing like that. And don’t give me things like this again. I don’t need them. And—”
I hesitated a moment, then said it to his face.
“I am very popular.”
“Pfft.”
“….”
Moyong Ryu wiped the spit from the corner of his mouth.
“Aigoo, seriously, I’m genuinely sorry. Ah. This is—I should respect basic manners. Even if chivalry in the jianghu has gone to the dogs, the Blood Sect and the Demonic Cult joining hands and unifying the world would still happen faster than our brothers finding any hope… huh?”
“That’s just you, Hyung-nim. Don’t lump me in with you at a bulk discount.”
I left Moyong Ryu behind and walked on. From behind, he shouted at the back of my head.
“Hey, hey. Little brother, you mad? No, I’m sorry! I was joking! Wait! Wait! You punk!”
His voice bellowed after me at full volume.
“Turn left, left! Before you go into Cheonsubaekryeonsa, grab a meal and talk with me. I’m hungry, you dogshit little brother!”
“So, little brother.”
“Yes, Hyung-nim.”
Everyone packing the restaurant had gone silent, staring at us. The clink of chopsticks against porcelain bowls rang out through the quiet.
“This isn’t some petty revenge for earlier, is it?”
“Why would you say that?”
I shoved the next bowl aside. Pulled another over. Dragged yet another into place. A waiter brought a fresh one; I slid that one over too. Moyong Ryu pushed another bowl in front of me as he spoke.
“How did you end up eating twice as much since I last saw you? Are you a person or an ox…? Come to think of it, you’ve bulked up too. You’re bigger than my men now—”
His words stalled for three beats.
“—Yeah. You’ve definitely matured some. Anyway, that’s not the important part.”
“You eat too, Hyung-nim. You said you were starving, so why are you just picking at your food?”
Moyong Ryu scratched the back of his head.
“Truth is, I already ate a little while ago. Had a tiny bit of business to settle.”
I looked at the man across from me.
“So when you said you were hungry earlier, that was just talk?”
“If I’d told you I was full from eating, would you have come?”
I felt oddly guilty.
“I’ve changed my personality some, you know. A lot’s happened.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Pardon?”
“The air around you’s different. And me—”
He tapped his forehead.
“When it comes to snatching up exactly how someone thinks of me and treats me, I’m frighteningly fast.”
“Then do you know how I used to think of you and treat you?”
Moyong Ryu looked me up and down and snorted a laugh.
“Just eat. What’s with all this sappy, one-by-one questioning between men? Little brother, want me to tell you something?”
“What?”
Moyong Ryu followed my lead, chewing a mouthful of stir-fried noodles as he spoke.
“You know what a real dogshit bastard and someone like family have in common?”
He lowered his head to meet my eyes.
“The second you sit face-to-face like this, you feel like you know exactly what that bastard is thinking, exactly what he’s feeling—not some vague guess, not some blurry hunch, but clear as words written over his head. For real. That’s the common ground. So the conclusion is, you stop rolling stones around in your head and reading the room with guesswork. That’s it.”
Heh.
Somehow I understood exactly what he meant, and a laugh slipped out.
“And you’re right. Nothing’s lonelier than making someone eat alone. I’m full, but I’ll join you.”
Moyong Ryu laughed with me and took a chopstick or two of noodles. He poured himself a drink as a side accompaniment, then reached reflexively to pour one for me—and stopped.
“Still not drinking?”
“I drink milk.”
“What are you, a kid?”
“That remark just now—you only still have a head because you’re my hyung-nim.”
“Fine, I’ll call you elder, then. I’d love to be even one year younger.”
“Ah, if that’s the case, I’m happy to oblige.”
Smack, smack.
Moyong Ryu smacked his lips, nodded, and poured tea instead.
“Reason I called you out wasn’t anything else. I still don’t know what was in that trial you took. I wanted to hear it before you went back into Cheonsubaekryeonsa. Once you’re back in Hamugwan, we won’t be able to meet.”
What Moyong Ryu said was unexpected. Seeing my expression, he went on.
“You didn’t know? Only the person who took the trial knows what it was. The rest of us can only guess—nobody knows what kind of trial you received or how you carried it out. Since Pahwanggun-nim was imprisoned, we’ve barely been able to reach him either. And Jin Muje’s the same as ever—training himself half to death, beginning to end.”
“….”
Moyong Ryu swished tea around in his mouth.
“No matter how I turn it over, something’s off. And right now, I figure I’m the only one who can deal with it properly.”
“Hyung-nim?”
“People each have their own domain. Jin Muje’s rough around the edges, but at the end of the day he’s still of the orthodox path. You know that. Same goes for Pahwanggun-nim. They can rage all they want, but there’s a limit to how they can handle things. The fight surrounding you right now is, honestly…”
Moyong Ryu gestured and shook his head.
“Not an orthodox fight. A fight between factions. A fight over justification. A mud-pit brawl. Call it whatever you like. Looking at it as that kind of fight is more accurate.”
“….”
“By blood I’m a Moyong, but when I was young my father cast me out, and I knocked around here and there. I clawed to survive, got lucky enough to build a base of support, and returned to the Moyong Family sooner than most would. But I didn’t stop there—I built connections on both sides and climbed fast…. I don’t deny my past even now. I think of both sides as me. And in my opinion—”
Moyong Ryu poured himself another cup of tea and spoke as if it were nothing.
“Strength in martial arts isn’t what matters. A scholar has a scholar’s battlefield, a martial artist a martial artist’s, the unorthodox path the unorthodox path’s, and a man of power a man of power’s. A merchant has a merchant’s battlefield. Every person has their own battlefield, and on those fields there is no high or low, no superior or inferior, no interchangeability. And—”
In a low, steady voice, Moyong Ryu went on calmly.
“Among the things surrounding you right now, a certain portion clearly falls in my field—not a martial artist’s, not the orthodox path’s. I can say without cutting corners that this has absolutely nothing to do with dismissing your martial skill or anything of the sort.”
He poured more tea. Looked at me.
“I’ll say it again: this is not me dismissing your ability. Setting ability aside, fields exist in this world, and the idea that any one person can transcend their field and be omnipotent everywhere is the kind of nonsense you only hear in idle storytellers’ tales. That’s what I’m talking about.”
He said it once more. I looked at Moyong Ryu.
“…That word—field. I’ve experienced it more than anyone, and I understand it.”
From Yun Heon of the Namgung Family’s Luoyang branch, to Jegal Sea, to I-ta-bang—so many different kinds of people had built a depth of mastery in their own fields, their own worlds, that no outsider could ever touch. Even in those worlds of theirs, there existed realizations as pure and absolute as anything in the martial path, and realms every bit as real as the Transformation Realm, the Profound Realm, the Life-and-Death Realm. I had felt that clearly.
I could sense, faintly, what Moyong Ryu was trying to say.
After a moment, I opened my mouth.
“If that’s Hyung-nim’s specialty, then when it comes to strange business, you’re rotten with it.”
Moyong Ryu raised a hand to stop me for a moment. He gestured toward the attendants behind him.
“Clear the area. And Tojeong.”
“Yes.”
“Come here.”
The attendants pushed people back beyond a set distance. Among them, a small man approached and took a seat at the table.
“He’s my scribe. Name’s Tojeong. He’s been with me since the days when the former family head cast me out. I’m a terrible hand at writing, so just pretend he isn’t here and talk fast. Don’t worry about him keeping his mouth shut. I’ve verified that until I was sick of it.”
“Understood.”
I told them everything that had happened. The man called Tojeong kept silent and wrote at speed. Moyong Ryu propped his chin in his hand, and for the entire stretch of the story his eyes only flicked left and right—over and over. Those eyes were a wolf’s eyes, cold and utterly without laughter, a chill I had never once seen from him before.
The story finished within half a shichen.
Tojeong lifted his head and looked at Moyong Ryu. Moyong Ryu looked back at Tojeong.
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen.”
Tojeong repeated the same number and nodded.
“I think so as well. I’ll proceed accordingly. However—”
Gathering the documents, Tojeong spoke to Moyong Ryu.
“There is no direct physical evidence that they harmed the youngest young master, is there?”
“Physical evidence?”
Moyong Ryu looked toward the lower seat with a bleak light in his eyes.
“Physical evidence is something you need when you’re proving a case to a third party. Do we need to prove anything to anyone else right now?”
“Fair enough. I’ll begin at once.”
“Using the day our little brother is promoted to Chumugwan as the starting point—three months after that. Begin then.”
Moyong Ryu flicked his hand as if shooing a fly. Tojeong and all the attendants filed out.
Moyong Ryu stood as he spoke.
“We should go too. We’ve been in this restaurant too long. The air’s stuffy and my stomach’s heavy—let’s take a walk.”
I followed him out.
“Hyung-nim, that order just now—surely you don’t mean…”
Moyong Ryu walked on with his hands clasped behind his back.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Those bastards who thought they were sitting somewhere safe and swung their power around however they liked—this is the warning bell that tells them they are not safe. Like this—”
He flashed a grin at me.
“They won’t be able to mess around so freely anymore. The punitive trial’s already over, so the remaining regular trials will be handled by other departments and they won’t be able to pull tricks—but just in case—kh!”
Grab!
I seized Moyong Ryu by the nape of the neck and yanked him back.
Thud-thud-thud!!
Daggers punched into the spot where we had been standing. I hauled Moyong Ryu behind me, shielding him as I stepped forward.
A clear, ringing voice answered the move.
“That’s right. Lately the Cheonsubaekryeonsa Disciplinary Committee hasn’t been listening to me as well as it used to—turns out our dear little brother was this angry, was he?”
Step. Step….
Laughter rode the leisurely sound of footsteps. With a green ghost-wail of sound, silk thread wound around the daggers and reeled them back.
Whoosh!
At the tip of those daggers stood the green-hued Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family.
“It’s been a while, you vulgar little brother. And… well, well. Who’s this?”
The one who had snatched those daggers was the green-hued Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family. Behind that figure, a man came walking with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Our filthy bloodline still isn’t dead? Truly stubborn.”
The first son of the Moyong Family, Moyong Jinryong, stood there with black hair, pale skin, and a cold smile.
“….”
“….”
Right behind him, the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family stared straight through me. I did not look away from that gaze for even a moment.