The Moon Draws Close to the River, and the River Draws Close to Man (3)
Jegal Yeona had not been speaking empty bravado when she claimed she would treat the Beggars’ Sect disciples in the names of the Jegal Clan and the Hyeongju Escort Agency.
By the time we arrived at the Yichang branch under her guidance, the foul stench that had hung in the air when we once broke through the roof in search of Yu Seojin’s money pouch was gone.
In its place drifted the rich, greasy scent of roasting meat, laced with spices that spread on the wind in a sweet, savory haze and made the nose tingle.
From the very entrance, the laborers hired by Jegal Yeona were already bustling about.
The Jang Music House was building a performance stage together with the local troupe from the Jusa Office, the wine stewards were carrying jars of liquor into the branch like an army of ants, and at the direction of the grand overseers, the confectionery house, flour cake house, vegetable soup house, oil-and-broth house, herb house, and pastry house all moved with such perfect coordination it looked less like preparation than a battlefield.
Even that preparation alone was a spectacle in its own right, and common folk who had nothing to do with the Beggars’ Sect stood around watching in fascination.
It was a banquet for several hundred Beggars’ Sect disciples, after all.
So it was hardly strange that they wore such grim, determined faces while preparing the feast.
Amid the swarming chaos of the six houses, the portly man who had appeared with Jegal Yeona watched them with a troubled expression.
He muttered to himself for a while, but the instant he saw Jegal Yeona, he hurriedly changed color and lowered himself in deference.
“Ah, ah, my lady! You’re here!”
“Are things going well?”
“Yes, of course. We’ve procured the finest ingredients exactly as you ordered. There’s plenty of liquor too, all of it excellent Shaofeng wine. This will be a banquet the Yichang beggars will never forget as long as they live.”
“Good, good. I’m very pleased with your spending, then.”
Smiling, Jegal Yeona nodded.
But the man’s face still looked pinched with distress.
“But, my lady... are you truly certain this is all right? If so much is charged to the escort agency’s funds, the clan head will...”
“What, do you think the clan head would really scold us miserably for giving the Beggars’ Sect brothers a warm meal?”
Jegal Yeona patted the man’s shoulder hard and reassured him.
“Don’t worry. Uncle doesn’t have the nerve for that. He’ll laugh it off and say we did a good thing.”
Then she turned sharply and led us onward.
“Come on, there’s no time to loiter here. Hurry and follow me.”
She never slowed her pace.
She led us past the Yichang branch and only stopped when we reached the Hyeongju Escort Agency building, about the distance of a one-meal walk away.
She went naturally inside, then headed up the stairs to the second floor.
There, at the top of the stairs, she waved us over with a brisk motion to come up quickly.
For some reason, it felt as though I were walking into a tiger’s den of my own accord, and that left me deeply uneasy.
My steps grew heavier for no good reason, and I climbed the stairs slowly.
When I reached the top, Jegal Yeona dashed to the innermost room in the corridor and opened the door.
“This is my room.”
A bed decorated with fine silk,
a censer where a faint fragrance curled upward,
and a broad verandah from which the scenery of Yichang could be taken in at a glance.
It was the sort of luxurious guest room that had been arranged with great taste.
The moment she entered, Jegal Yeona threw off her fur coat, climbed onto the bed, and flopped down at once.
“Haa... I’m exhausted.”
Then she collapsed flat on her back like a dried squid.
Seeing that, Yu Seojin curved her lips.
“Please excuse her, Daehyeop. That child starts complaining that her legs feel like they’ll burst after walking even half a meal’s distance. The fact that she didn’t throw a tantrum all the way here is practically a miracle.”
“Miracle? Did I do well? Then praise me. Quickly.”
“Honestly, what am I ever going to do with you?”
As Yu Seojin approached the spoiled Jegal Yeona and gently stroked her head, Jegal Yeona made a purring sound, utterly satisfied.
What is she, a cat?
While Jegal Yeona nibbled on snacks under Yu Seojin’s touch, I quietly moved my fingers over the tabletop.
Yu Seojin might not understand the meaning of this gesture, but Jegal Yeona certainly would.
What are you plotting?
The moment my finger stopped writing, Jegal Yeona’s laughter cut off.
Even her mouth, which had been chewing on a sweet, stopped moving.
She stared at me for a moment, then brushed the crumbs from the corner of her lips and smiled with a strange look in her eyes.
“You’re in quite a hurry, aren’t you? You could’ve played a little longer before asking.”
Then she got up and walked over to Yu Seojin.
“Seojin, could you go check on the branch for a moment and see if the banquet preparations are going well?”
“Huh? We just checked a moment ago.”
“The food they’re preparing for the banquet—you can eat some while you’re there.”
“I’ll go and see!”
With a whoosh, leaving behind only a breath of wind, Yu Seojin hurried out of the room.
To think she’d be completely hooked by a single simple line like that.
For a fleeting instant, I worried about the fate of the Wudang Sect.
Thud.
The door shut in an instant.
In the end, only Jegal Yeona and I remained in the room.
A rather long silence passed.
Jegal Yeona looked at me with a serious expression, as though the playful face she had just worn had been nothing more than a mirage.
I moved my fingers first and asked her:
Why did you send Yu Seojin out?
After reading the question, Jegal Yeona smiled thinly in answer.
“For one thing, because I’m about to talk about something our adorable Seojin’s empty little head couldn’t possibly understand.”
So you start gossiping about her the moment she’s gone?
“Gossip? Seojin’s stupid, which is exactly why she’s lovable. I want her to stay stupid for the rest of her life. I want her to become the sort of person who can’t survive without Yeona looking after her.”
She was saying something chilling with such brazen confidence.
This young lady was spouting lines that would surely delight a certain sort of person who likes women nipping and circling one another with this sort of possessive ardor.
“And for the second reason, because I’m about to say something I don’t want Seojin to hear.”
When she finished speaking, Jegal Yeona suddenly rose and bowed politely.
“First, let me begin with my thanks. Wolyeon Soohyeop, thank you very much for helping Seojin.”
Her sudden formality made my brows twitch.
Before I could even suspect there was some trick behind it again, Jegal Yeona cut in first.
“I’m not testing you, and I don’t have any hidden agenda.”
She sat back down and continued.
“There are plenty of people who call me their ‘friend.’ They all have their reasons. Some want to curry favor with the Jegal Clan, and others...”
She paused, then adopted her usual mischievous expression.
“...have fallen for Yeona’s cuteness.”
She stuck out her tongue and winked lightly, and there was a kind of adorable audacity to it that made me want to flick her forehead.
But soon she let the playful expression fade and closed her eyes slightly.
“Still, if you asked me to choose who I truly consider a friend in this world, I’d pick Seojin without hesitation.”
She clicked her tongue, fiddling with her white feather fan.
“Even Uncle can’t compare to Seojin. At best, he’d be eighty percent Seojin?”
Again she stuck out her tongue in a teasing gesture and went on.
Was she incapable of letting a conversation remain serious?
Or was she deliberately dressing her words in humor to hide her embarrassment?
As those thoughts lingered in my mind, Jegal Yeona’s gaze sharpened as it turned toward me.
“Seojin’s still nothing more than a raw little novice who’s just stepped into the martial world. I was worried because she’s so innocent and knows nothing of the ways of the world, but thanks to Ayen, she was able to remain safe. Yeona will never forget that kindness.”
And then, once more, she gave a playful little wink.
“So Yeona will be especially generous and raise her evaluation of Ayen all the way to a four-out-of-ten Seojin. I had you at one-out-of-ten Seojin to begin with, so consider this Yeona being four times as indulgent.”
I watched her silently.
Of course, when I played the game, I had deliberately avoided Jegal Yeona, but I knew her personality well enough.
She was not the sort of woman who revealed her true feelings to others so easily.
She was the kind who buried her real heart beneath layers of troublemaking, teasing, and meaningless chatter.
That was Jegal Yeona.
So this version of her, openly showing sincerity and asking for a conversation, was very different from the woman I knew.
But I still couldn’t let my suspicion go.
A word of thanks was only a word of thanks. The real matter would be something else entirely.
That was why she had asked to speak with me alone.
That can’t be all of it.
At that, Jegal Yeona gave a soft chuckle.
“As expected, you catch on quickly. Good, then let’s get to the point?”
Her finger pointed to the Go board resting beside the table.
“I’m bored, so shall we have a little match?”
Go?
When she saw my eyes narrow, Jegal Yeona added:
“Not real Go. We’ll just ask and answer things we’re curious about. I ask first, you answer, then you ask, and I answer. How’s that? Fair enough, isn’t it?”
I thought for a moment.
I had no idea what sort of question this woman would ask, but I had a great many things I wanted to know too.
Most of all, how she had learned that I was seeking the Divine Healer.
And why she had gone to the trouble of asking to speak with me alone.
Anything?
“Anything, so long as I can answer it.”
In other words, she wanted me to do the same.
After reading the words I wrote with my fingers, Jegal Yeona nodded in agreement.
Seeing that, I nodded back.
“Good. Then you’ll be Black, and I’ll be White. How convenient that it matches our clothes?”
As she said that, she handed me the brush, paper, ink, and inkstone.
Quietly taking them, I looked at her smiling mouth and asked the question I most wanted answered.
How did you know I was looking for the Divine Healer?
That was the question I was most curious about.
No one knew this secret.
At most, there was that masked fiend who had brought the Samsinoesindan for Master to consume.
So how had Jegal Yeona known?
I was already half convinced she had some idea, but I still wanted a definite answer.
“So that’s the thing you were most curious about?”
Jegal Yeona propped her chin on her hand and looked at me.
“The answer to your question is hidden inside my own question. So this time it’s my turn.”
After a brief pause, Jegal Yeona said in a low voice,
“I read the heavens.”
Just as I thought.
My guess had been right.
“When I looked at the night sky over Zhangjiajie, it was terribly strange. The rain star that had been falling into the embrace of the Celestial Calamity Star suddenly stopped.”
I had no idea what star she was talking about, but I knew exactly who she meant.
The Celestial Calamity Star was Bang Chunghyun.
The rain star was Master.
“No, to be precise, it looked as if someone had forcibly held it in place.”
Jegal Yeona’s violet eyes shone with a mysterious light.
“A single blue star twisted cause and effect, forcibly gripping a star that was destined to die.”
And then her finger moved lightly,
“I can feel the aura of that blue star from you.”
She pointed at me.
“A Star That Defies Fate.”
At those words, I went blank for a moment.
“You’re resisting destiny, aren’t you? You saved someone who should already have been dead.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“When I saw that star about ten years ago, it had a fate of certain death.”
She knew exactly what mattered, even if she didn’t know that I was a transmigrator or who the star’s true subject was.
“You appeared from the south where the star was shining, and the place you’re heading is Anhui. The Divine Healer lives in Anhui, doesn’t she? You’re going there now to save someone, aren’t you?”
To think she could infer this much just from reading the stars.
It wasn’t for nothing that the game had hyped up the ability to read the heavens as something on the level of prophecy.
“Who exactly are you trying to save that badly? What kind of person is worth defying heaven itself for?”
Jegal Yeona’s question was sharp.
But it was unavoidable.
Lying would be useless, and pointless.
This woman, like me, was asking with half-certainty already.
After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up the brush.
I could feel my fingertips trembling faintly.
On the paper before me, I wrote slowly, but with force.
Master.
“Your master, huh...”
Jegal Yeona raised her brows in surprise.
“I thought it’d be family, or a lover. A master, then. I suppose you two are very close?”
After hearing my answer, Jegal Yeona wore a peculiar expression.
“Come to think of it, maybe the master’s life is more precious than one’s own. The martial world’s sense of loyalty is truly impossible to understand.”
She fluttered her white feather fan and tilted her chin.
Next question.
Seeing that gesture, I immediately wrote my answer.
Why are you curious about something like this?
“Would ‘because I want to use you’ be too blunt an answer?”
As she replied, Jegal Yeona’s eyes had already narrowed.
There was no hint of malice or ill omen in them.
What showed on her face instead was something closer to resignation.
“If you really are a Star That Defies Fate, and if that means you can change destiny, then that’s why I’m being honest with you now. When dealing with truly talented people, one should open one’s heart as if laying it bare upon the belly. So if it’s a matter of changing my own miserable fate, what would Yeona possibly hide from you?”
When she finished, Jegal Yeona still had her eyes narrowed as she asked softly,
“Are you disappointed? Or disgusted?”
Is that a question?
“Strictly speaking, yes.”
No.
It wasn’t exactly pleasant to hear that she’d approached me in order to make use of me, of course.
But I had a rough idea of what she wanted, and that kept me from condemning her outright.
If someone desperately wants something, and the means lies right before them...
Wouldn’t anyone try it?
If Jegal Yeona had approached me because she saw that possibility, did I have the right to criticize her?
I, who had fed the Samsinoesindan to reverse the fate of Master’s death?
Really?
I moved the brush again.
That last question had used up Jegal Yeona’s turn, which meant it was my turn to ask.
If I really am a Star That Defies Fate, and if I can change destiny...
I am not a god.
I am not some omnipotent being, as Jegal Yeona seemed to suspect.
I’m only a transmigrator who knows part of the game’s setup.
But if that was all it took to qualify as a Star That Defies Fate, then...
What fate do you want changed?
Could I change the fate of this brazen girl before me too?
And beyond that—
Could I really change Master’s fate?
“Death.”
Jegal Yeona answered calmly.
“At most, I have five years left. I’m destined to die within that time. My star has already told me so.”
She spoke of her own death as though it were someone else’s story.
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