In the Name of the Seomun Clan
In the name of the Seomun Clan.
Hyeon Un glared at the Wudang disciples with narrowed, bristling eyes and demanded, "Explain yourselves."
Baek Sang and Baek Seol flinched and shuddered. Their master and the senior elders directly above them were men whose very shadows they could barely hope to tread upon — and Hyeon Un, a senior martial uncle besides, was one of the famed Wudang Seven, a figure so far above them he might as well have been standing on the moon.
"Th-that is…."
Baek Seol stammered, unable to string the words together. Her characteristically large eyes were slowly welling up with tears. The sight of his grandniece on the verge of weeping nearly softened the old man's heart for a moment — but whatever had happened here, in Jin Seongun's inn of all places, was not something he could simply wave past.
"Gal! Since when do Wudang disciples try to weep their way out of a situation?"
Hyeon Un's rebuke burst out of him, and the faint inner power carried in his voice made the very air of the room tremble. In the end, it was her elder brother who opened his mouth. Something had clearly gone very, very wrong, and this was not the sort of mess one could slip away from with vague excuses.
"…Allow me to explain."
Baek Sang's account followed. The journey through the Jianghu to attend the Tang Clan Head's birthday banquet. The chance stop at Seongun Inn. And then Seomun Ak picking a fight entirely unprovoked.
"So. You were trying to hold him back?"
Baek Sang repeated, again and again, that he and his sister had tried at the last moment to restrain Seomun Ak. At Hyeon Un's question, the two of them nodded so hard their necks threatened to snap.
Then Hyeon Un turned to Jin Seongun, his eyes asking whether this was true. The siblings looked up at the young waiter with desperate, pleading eyes. They had no idea what the Elder's relationship with him was, but even they could tell it was something special. Their fates hung on whatever came out of his mouth next.
Jin Seongun considered the two Taoists for a moment, then answered without much deliberation at all.
"What they say is true."
He had simply answered as things were. This was Jin Seongun, after all — he had registered every last movement of everyone in the inn, heard and felt each and every one of them. He knew perfectly well that the two had stepped forward at the last moment.
But Baek Sang and Baek Seol knew nothing of his martial prowess. To them, it looked as though this mysterious waiter, without truly grasping what had happened, was lying on their behalf to shield them. Gratitude and shame flooded across their faces in equal measure.
In the midst of all this, Oh Jeong-san — who had briefly mistaken Seo Yugyeom for an enemy — offered him a light apology. Then, watching the situation unfold, he sent a secret transmission to his master, Hyeon Un.
— Baek Sang and Baek Seol are green, but they aren't children of malicious heart. If the two failed to step in sooner, I suspect it was because of the Tang Clan's daughter.
A merchant like Oh Jeong-san knew the ways of the world inside and out — and naturally, that included the tangled web of human relationships. He knew that the siblings' family did business in Sichuan. He knew exactly who Seomun Ak, second son of the Seomun Clan, was — and exactly who Tang Soyeon, the next matriarch of the Tang Clan, was.
Hyeon Un's thoughtful rumble grew longer. Hearing Oh Jeong-san out, wasn't this a genuinely galling affair? Giving the two disciples every benefit of the doubt, suppose they had indeed tried to intervene, but had avoided a clash with the Poison King's daughter for the sake of family business.
But here was the real problem: the two children were not traveling as merchants of their house. They were traveling as disciples of Wudang. This was no longer a matter between Sichuan merchants and the Tang Clan. It was a matter between the Wudang Sect and the Tang Clan.
After a long moment of deliberation, Hyeon Un made his decision.
"Both of you. Hand over your Taiji Swords."
The faces of Baek Sang and Baek Seol collapsed as if the world had caved in. The Taiji Sword was the blade that proved them Wudang disciples. For the Elder to personally confiscate it meant he refused to recognize their standing at all.
"E-Elder, please—"
"Gal! Do you intend to make me say it twice?"
When Hyeon Un's fury erupted again, the two of them started violently and untied the swords at their waists. Receiving the two Taiji Swords, Hyeon Un spoke in a grave tone.
"If you cannot take these swords back from me within one year, I will expel you from the sect."
Despair settled over the siblings' faces. Ask anyone to name the most stubborn, stiff-necked elder in the whole of Wudang, and every single finger would point at Hyeon Un. One year was shorter than it sounded. Knowing they had to earn the old man's recognition within it, they felt as adrift as castaways on a boundless sea.
Decision rendered, Hyeon Un turned his gaze to Seomun Ak without further ado.
"So this fellow is the root of it all."
Every eye in the room swung toward Seomun Ak, who — knocked cold by a single blow from Hyeon Un — was still busy savoring the floorboards. Of course, both Hyeon Un and Jin Seongun knew perfectly well that he had come to his senses long ago.
Seomun Ak had woken up quite a while back. His first instinct had been to spring up, brandish the name of the Seomun Clan at the old codger who'd hit him, and vent his rage. But then, listening quietly, he'd realized the old man who had flattened him was none other than an Elder of the Wudang Sect.
And the thing about scoundrels is that they are endlessly weak before the strong. So Seomun Ak decided to stay unconscious.
Needless to say, Hyeon Un — a battle-worn old Taoist if there ever was one — was not about to close his eyes to the charade. He seized Seomun Ak by the collar and hauled him upright by force.
"Uuugh…."
Seomun Ak went completely limp, committing himself to the performance of a lifetime, hanging from Hyeon Un's hand like a soaked piece of kelp. To any observer, he looked utterly unconscious still.
So Hyeon Un slapped him across the face.
Crack—!
Seomun Ak's eyes snapped open. The old man had woven the Inner-Empowered Strike into the blow; his eyeballs felt ready to pop out and his skull rang like a bell. Watching this, Jin Seongun murmured quietly:
"Elder, what if you kill him at this rate?"
"He won't die from something like this. The men of the Seomun Clan, like the Paeng Clan, have bodies too thick and stupid for their own good."
How dare he spew such blasphemy about the Seomun Clan and the Paeng Clan. Seomun Ak, dangling from the old man's grip, felt anew the reality of just who was manhandling him — an Elder of the Wudang Sect.
"You whelp. Did your father raise you to behave like this? If so, then I shall march straight to the Seomun Clan estate and hold your father accountable."
At Hyeon Un's flat statement, Seomun Ak's face went an even deeper shade of green.
"N-no, that's not it."
"Is that so. The Seomun Clan is an honorable house, and its patriarch Seomun Jeok is a chivalrous hero. Which means this was your doing alone — a betrayal of everything your family taught you."
Seomun Ak wanted to cry. Either way he turned, there was no escaping this.
Hyeon Un continued. "Seongun. What shall we do with this fellow? If it is your wish, I will cripple his dantian this instant and inform the Seomun Clan myself. You are my man. This fool dared sow harm upon one of mine — even the Seomun Clan would have no grounds to dispute it."
At the words my man, the eyes of the later-stage prodigies went perfectly round. Seomun Ak, who had raised a fist at Jin Seongun no less, wanted nothing more than to die on the spot.
Not out of any real remorse — he simply felt he'd had the singular misfortune of running headlong into something like a natural disaster. Who could have known that the waiter at this shabby little inn was so close to a Wudang Elder?
The injustice of it, a flicker of fury — and then the terror of perhaps losing his dantian descended on him all at once.
At Hyeon Un's hard-line declaration, the other prodigies watched nervously. None of them had imagined things could go this far for the second son of the Seomun Clan. But those who truly knew Jin Seongun — Oh Jeong-san, Seo Yugyeom, and the like — remained utterly calm. His answer was already written.
"I don't think that will be necessary. No one was hurt."
In truth, Jin Seongun considered it a lucky outcome — if Hyeon Un had arrived even a moment later, Seo Yugyeom's short saber would have punched straight through Seomun Ak's throat. Relief settling quietly in his chest, he went on.
"However, I will have to be compensated. Every guest dining here fled, and the inn we only just finished renovating is in this state…."
At his words, everyone looked around the interior of Seongun Inn. It was smashed to pieces everywhere the eye could see.
Hyeon Un flinched, not without reason — he had broken considerably more with the unleashed force of his own temper than Seomun Ak had broken on purpose. But remembering that Seomun Ak had briefly feigned unconsciousness, the Elder hurried to add:
"S-Seomun Ak! Engrave your villainy upon those eyes of yours! You destroyed, with your own hands, a place someone has staked their life upon. Your crime is by no means a small one, so you will pay restitution even if it must be done in the name of the Seomun Clan itself."
Seomun Ak wore the expression of a man deeply wronged. He was willing to admit fault — but no matter how he looked at it, far more was broken than anything he himself had smashed. Still, staring into Hyeon Un's unbending eyes, he had no courage to say so aloud. As a useless aside, the old man looked perfectly ready to cripple his dantian on the spot if he did.
"…Yes. I will pay full restitution."
Seomun Ak sighed and said his piece. It was a blessing, really, that things ended at this. Even if this trivial little inn burned down to its foundations, the wealth of the Seomun Clan could cover the damages a hundred times over without blinking.
Just then, the old man who had arrived with Hyeon Un spoke up. He was remarkably gaunt and remarkably tall, his most striking feature a pair of eyes every bit as stiff-necked as Hyeon Un's own.
"Right. And just how do you intend to pay for it, you little whelp?"
The words left a sour taste in Seomun Ak's mouth. Fine — Hyeon Un was a Wudang Elder, so he could swallow that. But who exactly was this old codger to be running his mouth like that?
Seomun Ak answered curtly, lacing his tone with the bare minimum of defiance.
"Yes. I will bear every cost required to restore this place. I committed a 'mistake,' and as a martial artist of the Orthodox path, as a martial artist of the Seomun Clan, this is only what I ought to do. Now then — here is money, so…."
Seomun Ak drew a coin purse from his breast. Inside was a respectable amount of gold — quite a sum for a later-stage prodigy to be carrying on his travels. In truth, it was money he had begged out of the Seomun Clan elders back when he stopped at the Wulin Alliance, intended for winning Tang Soyeon's favor along the way. In any case, his pockets were extravagantly deep for a prodigy on the road, and he held out the purse with open confidence.
"So then — how much will it take to settle this?"
The question was aimed at Jin Seongun, who turned instead to look at Shinmok — he had never known the repair costs in the first place. A flicker of curiosity crossed Seomun Ak's eyes. The excessively fine carvings and the elaborate motifs worked into every corner of this inn, he gathered, were that old man's handiwork.
So that's why he stepped forward to talk about restitution.
It changed nothing, though. He could pay whatever figure they named and be on his way. Seomun Ak turned to face Shinmok — and the old man's mouth corners began to twitch.
"Ahahaha!"
Shinmok loosed a thunderclap of a laugh utterly at odds with his stick-thin frame, and the air of the inn shook violently. The prodigies' eyes bulged. The White Cloud Sword being a Wudang Elder was one thing, but this old man who'd come along was a monstrous master in his own right. Slowly, even Seomun Ak's instincts began whispering that something had gone very wrong.
Without warning, Shinmok rapped the crown of Seomun Ak's head with the small hammer in his hand.
Tung. Tung—!
An oddly hollow sound rang out. Seomun Ak's skull stung sharply. Not enough to fell him outright — but precisely tuned to be unpleasant and enormously painful. Through that exquisite control alone, he understood anew that the old man was a master.
"Right. You declared so proudly, with your own mouth, that you would pay. So hand over one hundred nyang of gold."
"Yes, right here— …I beg your pardon?"
Seomun Ak, mid-handover of the purse, froze solid. One hundred nyang of silver would already have been an outrageous demand. Gold? It seemed the old man had decided he could run wild on the strength of his own skill and Hyeon Un's backing. Against the second son of the Seomun Clan, of all people!
"That seems a bit excessive, if you ask me."
"How so?"
"A mere portion of an inn like this has been damaged. How could that possibly warrant such an inflated sum?"
"Is that so?"
Shinmok went on thumping Seomun Ak's head with the hammer, ding, dong, without pause. Hyeon Un remarked from the side that there was hardly any point making a bad head worse by battering it further, but Shinmok paid him no mind. Soon the blows began steadily gaining weight.
"So the second son of the Seomun Clan cannot bring himself to acknowledge the work of one Jeong Cheong-baek, is that it?"
Jeong Cheong-baek?
Seomun Ak blinked for a moment. It was definitely a name he had heard somewhere many times before…
Then it happened.
Every later-stage prodigy in the room except Seomun Ak snapped into a cupped-fist salute and bowed with utmost courtesy.
"The junior martial artists of the realm pay their respects to Grand Senior Master Shinmok of the Divine Wood!"
"Sh-Shinmok?!"
So stunned that he forgot even to bow, Seomun Ak blurted out the old man's alias outright.
The three most famous master craftsmen of the age: Shinmok the carpenter, Guyaja the blacksmith, and Shin-ui the physician. Even the proudest of the Jianghu and the most arrogant officials of the Imperial Palace showed these three reverence — for the influence each of them wielded in the present day dwarfed that of any mere martial master. Shinmok above all was both a carpenter and a man of the Jianghu. He had taken up martial arts purely to improve the efficiency of his craft, and then driven himself to the Transcendental Realm — a madman in the truest sense.
"E-Elder. That is not at all what I meant."
Seomun Ak scrambled to explain himself. But Shinmok simply rapped his crown with the hammer once more and said:
"Doesn't matter. I'll simply stop by the Seomun Clan estate and present the bill to your father myself."
Seomun Ak's father's face rose before his eyes.
The truth was, for all it was called a journey through the Jianghu, he had left home half-expelled. What if Shinmok walked through the gates of the Seomun estate and laid the whole affair before him? I sent you out to grow up, and you return having slandered Shinmok's name, piled up an astronomical debt, and earned the enmity of a Wudang Elder.
'I'm… dead. I am simply dead.'
His father was a man who would go further than killing him. The problem wouldn't be a crippled dantian — it would be the severed tendons of all four limbs and a lifetime entombed in the family dungeon. For a father with his eyes on a seat among the Five Noble Clans, the world's opinion of the clan mattered more than his own sons.
Utterly horrified, Seomun Ak dropped to his knees on the spot.
"E-Elder! I will find some way to raise that money myself. Only, please, I beg you — say nothing to my father!"
"Is that so?"
Shinmok looked down at him, wearing the expression of a man who found all this tremendously entertaining, then turned to Jin Seongun with a question.
"What does a waiter's monthly wage run these days?"
"Around three or four nyang of silver, sir."
"Call it four. So paying back a hundred nyang of gold would take him… roughly forty years, then."
"Yes, well…."
Jin Seongun gave a halfhearted nod. Hyeon Un and Shinmok wore the faces of old men who had just found something truly delightful to break the tedium of their twilight years.
For it has always been true: what delights the aged and jaded masters of the world is never the upright gentleman — it is the young scoundrel.