I Will Remember Your Face
Clank.
The sun was setting. When I gripped the door handle, a metallic ring sounded from the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap wrapped around my left hand. I took my first step into the waiting room.
It brought back the first time I had set foot in this place. They had ordered me to bring back the Sacred Lotus Flower from Baekhakmubong. There I had nearly died in a clash with the Heavenly Demon Cult. Eun Seollyeong had rescued me, only for me to nearly die again to a giant white snake. While fleeing I had discovered Yuk-bi-dong, a legacy of the White Lotus Demon Sect. This trial had been handed down by the eldest son of the Moyong Family, Moyong Jinryong, posing as a secretary—and from the start it had been set at an impossible difficulty.
“I received the carrier pigeon and came.”
There was no way I could feel anything good about this place.
Creeeak…
The door closed behind me with a groan from the hinges. Dusk was settling in. A blood-red twilight cut a straight line through the window into the dark interior. Dust motes drifted slowly through the light.
“Please take a seat.”
It was another face I had never seen before—a skinny young man.
I narrowed my eyes. Eun Seollyeong’s single pointed remark from Baekhakmubong kept looping through my head. Only this time it was not just one person. In the waiting room sat the young secretary and two potbellied giants lounging on a long bench, playing mahjong. The secretary was busily wiping the nearby table with a cloth and lighting candles one by one against the coming dark.
“Won’t you sit?”
The secretary looked at me.
“No need.”
“Pardon?”
I forced my parched mouth open.
“Standing’s more comfortable.”
“You’re a unique one. What tea shall I pour you? We have several kinds.”
With a clatter he brought out a teapot.
“I don’t need any.”
Our eyes locked.
Clack.
The men at the mahjong table looked up at me. I glanced at the tiles in front of them. Not a single one had moved since I entered. They only fiddled with them, picking them up and setting them down; their game had stopped cold. Dust floated in the stillness.
“I heard the content of the third punitive trial has been decided, so I came.”
I opened my hand toward him.
“The trial. Hand it over.”
The secretary snorted. He set a kettle on the stove.
“Disciple Moyong Bi is terribly impatient. And rude as well.”
He picked up the small hand-axe beside him, split kindling into fine pieces, and fed them into the little furnace.
“Unfortunately, the content Disciple Moyong Bi is hoping for still has one day left. We will not announce the third punitive trial today.”
The kettle began to boil. Watching it, I said,
“I clearly received a message that the trial content was decided and that I was to come.”
“To summon a disciple to the waiting room we can only use that pretext.”
The secretary brought the boiling kettle and poured into a teacup, then held it out to me. I stared at the steam rising from it and did not touch it. I only lifted my eyes to him. The young secretary smiled.
“I called you because there is something to confirm. A mere disciple should not dare talk back. Keep acting like this and you must know what kind of disadvantage it could bring when the trial content is chosen.”
He took out an inkstone and began grinding ink while watching me.
“When you met the Green Forest Band at Hyeonhobong and brought back the golden incense burner, did you by any chance encounter a disciple from Chu-mu-gwan?”
“I did not.”
“Then did you meet a spiritual beast or anything strange there?”
“I did not.”
The secretary muttered absently,
“It couldn’t have been planned that way…”
My eyes narrowed.
“…What did you just say?”
His shoulder twitched. He had not expected me to catch it. He turned with a casual air.
“Nothing. More importantly, could you explain in detail how you obtained the golden incense burner?”
“Answering isn’t hard. But first—”
I wet my dry lips with my tongue.
“What exact department do you belong to?”
His eyes widened a fraction.
“Pardon?”
“Your department. The one you serve under.”
“…I am a secretary.”
I let out a short laugh.
“No. Not that. Something more precise than ‘secretary.’ And your name while you’re at it.”
“Disciple Moyong Bi, why are you—”
Crack.
I rolled my neck and wrists.
“When I submitted the Sacred Lotus Flower for the first trial you didn’t care why I was late or what had happened—only the result mattered. Now that I actually succeeded, you dig into the process? And since Ha-mu-gwan disciples know nothing and won’t push back, you just invent some excuse, call them in, and interrogate them. Heh heh heh.”
I twisted the corner of my mouth upward.
“I’ve heard enough. You bastards need to know when to stop playing games.”
The atmosphere flipped. The secretary’s face hardened at once. I growled low.
“I let myself get played once, and now every dog and cow is impersonating a secretary and running their mouths. Since when did secretaries come this young?”
It was exactly what Eun Seollyeong had pointed out. Among the secretaries of Cheonsubaekryeonsa there were no young men.
“I’m living through real hell with these punitive trials right now. For the moment I’ll stay quiet. But I will pay it all back. Every last bit. In that sense—you.”
I raised a finger and pointed straight at his face.
“I’ll remember your face at least.”
The secretary went deathly pale.
“Someday, when you’ve forgotten today and are sleeping under a soft blanket, I’ll come find you.”
Explosive killing intent poured out of me and filled the room. The secretary’s easy expression turned ashen. He sank down and stammered,
“A-are you threatening a secretary right now?!”
“Threat? A threat, is it.”
I pushed the hand-mirror on the table with one finger. In its reflection the two men behind me quietly rose.
Thud.
A pot-lid-sized hand landed on my shoulder. The man growled in a low voice,
“Hey, mere disciple—have you forgotten where you are?”
“No.”
I lifted my head and muttered,
“I know exactly where I am.”
“What—”
I snatched his hand, twisted it, and spun. In the same motion my left hand seized the inkstone from the table and smashed it into his face.
Crack!
The inkstone shattered. I brought it down again until it was completely destroyed.
“Argh! My nose!”
I seized his hair, slammed his face into the table edge, then drove my knee into him again and again. Screaming, he crumpled.
“You son of a bitch!”
The other man yanked a dagger from his robes.
Crunch!
I clamped his wrist and drove him into the wall, then struck the wrist with my palm. Bone snapped; the dagger clattered free. Still gripping the broken wrist I hammered his face with my fist. He spat blood as his head snapped back. Teeth flew.
“What’s going on!”
Bang!
The door nearly came off its hinges as three more men burst in. Anyone could see they were not from Cheonsubaekryeonsa.
“Th-that bastard did this to our guys!”
The secretary pointed at me, face blue with panic. I kicked off the wall and launched myself.
“You crazy bastard! Do you know where—”
I flew. My entire knee buried itself in the speaker’s mouth. Lightning-fast I drove uppercuts into both cheeks and jaw.
“You bastard!”
Another charged. I kicked a chair under his legs; he tripped and went down. I snatched the teacup from the table. His eyes went wide as I smashed it into his face.
Smash!
The cup shattered. Glass shards turned his face into a bloody mess. My elbow crushed his philtrum.
“H-hiiik!”
The last man spun to run. My hand shot to the furnace and closed on the small hand-axe.
“Hup!”
Thwang!!
The flying axe grazed his head and buried nearly half its blade in the wall beside him. The handle quivered with a low hum.
“U-uaaaa…”
His lower half went wet as he collapsed. In the blink of an eye the waiting room was littered with groaning giants. I dragged in ragged breaths, pushed sweat-soaked hair from my face, and looked at the secretary.
“Where was I?”
“D-don’t come closer.”
“Ah, right. You asked if I was threatening you. No. It’s not a threat. Don’t misunderstand.”
“Something’s wrong. According to the reports I received, a third-rate nobody like you shouldn’t have this kind of skill!”
I walked up to him, bent my knees, and met his eyes level.
“It’s not a threat. It’s a notice of what’s coming. So behave yourself.”
“D-do you think you’ll walk away from this?!”
I yanked the axe from the wall and drove it into the floor in front of him.
“Whatever bastard you serve—deliver every word I’m about to say, clearly.”
I spoke while hauling air into my lungs. My eyes burned with red light. In those crimson pupils the secretary’s terrified face, pissing himself, was reflected.
“Whether you’re from the Five Great Families, the Nine Sects and One Gang, or any clan under heaven, I don’t care. Whatever the motive—whether my eldest brother put you up to it or not—I don’t care. Man or woman, old or young, I don’t care. Only one thing: the moment you face me someday, you die by my hand. Not a metaphor. Not an exaggeration. Literal. Know that, and then play your games.”
With that I walked out without looking back. I stepped into the alley. The sun was already gone. Night had fallen. Even for night it seemed too dark—
Pat-pat-pat.
Rain began to fall. I raised my palm and felt the cold drops. The rain grew heavier. Winter rain was icy; my body heat plummeted. I took five steady breaths.
Good.
From my robes I drew a black face mask and pressed it on, then pulled the cloak’s hood over it. I had once heard from Pahwanggun that the inner grounds where the leaders of Cheonsubaekryeonsa resided were protected by a formation laid down by yin-yang masters and taoists.
‘If anyone not permitted enters carrying a weapon longer than two spans, a warning sounds—something like a barrier,’ he had said.
Honestly I had been half-doubtful. But I was not foolish enough to stake my life on that half-doubt. I chose maximum safety. I had brought no weapons. The only armament I wore was the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap on my left hand.
I melted against a wall and watched. Looking down I saw a handful of snow melting under the cold winter rain. I scooped it up and put it in my mouth. The white breath that had been puffing from my lips vanished behind the snow. Hidden in the dark, I waited.
“Huk! Heok!”
The young man who had called himself a secretary came hurrying out, straightening his clothes. It was not even a secretary’s attire—an unfamiliar blue-and-white outfit I had never seen. He looked far more like a courier racing to deliver a report. My guess had been right. That bastard was no secretary.
“Everything is going as planned. Follow him.”
Mumyeong whispered from the darkness. Under the mask my eyes gleamed as I nodded.
Today I would infiltrate the interior of Cheonsubaekryeonsa.
Ssshh.
I rose into the winter downpour and began to trail the panicking “secretary” in silence as he fled somewhere into the night.
“I should at least get one look at whichever bastard’s face. Fair’s fair.”