Confidence -1
Hyeok Gi-rin had probably spoken with Emperor Yu Gyeong in the middle of the night.
According to the cover story, though, her older brother from outside the palace was the one coming to see her. To give that visit some plausible weight—an older brother entering the Imperial Palace just to meet his sister—I waited until evening and suggested we take tea together.
I never expected everything to go smoothly. Even so, I had not seen this coming.
Hyeok Gi-rin had wilted like spinach left a week without water. She looked every bit as drained as the palace maids I had thoroughly scolded the day after I returned from the Heavenly Pavilion.
I had braced myself for either a furious Hyeok Gi-rin who had just had a screaming match with Yu Gyeong, or a smiling one who had successfully made peace with her brother. Instead a third, completely unexpected version of her appeared.
What is this situation now?
I floated a careful probe.
"Did things not go well, by any chance?"
Hyeok Gi-rin quietly shook her head.
"I reconciled with my brother without trouble. I simply have a great deal to think about."
So why the sudden remark, and why the wilted look?
Honestly, the urge to press her was strong enough to climb a chimney, yet I could not bring myself to do it. The depth of her worry looked anything but ordinary. It felt far too heavy to dig into with a light heart.
Better to sound out her condition through Yu Gyeong first, before poking at anything I might regret. That seemed the wiser approach.
After a rather wilted tea session with Hyeok Gi-rin, it was not long before Yu Gyeong, still disguised as Du-jak, came looking for me.
I had been gulping down cup after cup of innocent tea just to fill the awkward silence with her; now, clutching a belly swollen with tea, I found myself sitting down to yet another round of refreshments with Du-jak.
"You made peace with your sister, I see."
"Well... it feels odd to say this, but are you certain the reconciliation went well?"
Yu Gyeong's expression was just as dark.
"The matter concerning you was sealed neatly enough... yes. But a more fundamental problem has surfaced."
These siblings are tag-teaming me with suspense. What is this fundamental problem? Is it the fact that Hyeok Gi-rin carries two identities? Or something else entirely?
At least the fact that the siblings had patched things up meant Yu Gyeong was no longer likely to stick my head or wrists under a guillotine. My life was safe... yet the other goal I had quietly pursued—Hyeok Gi-rin's cheerful imperial-palace vacation—looked decidedly bleak.
I was still fretting over what to do when Yu Gyeong asked,
"How did you come to possess such gambling skill?"
What is this about?
"Luoyang is the capital. A city that has prospered for generations naturally sees vast sums spent on pleasure, and the quality of its gamblers rises accordingly. I gathered every last one of those self-proclaimed masters and set them against you—yet you crushed them all."
Yu Gyeong's face turned bitter.
"Ask ten thousand people and not one would have given you the odds. Still you overturned that table by your own ability alone. 'Do your utmost and leave the rest to Heaven,' the saying goes. The gambling floor of the Heavenly Pavilion was exactly that. In the end, no matter how carefully a man schemes, he cannot defy the fate called Heaven. I was the man who schemed. You were Heaven—the absolute."
"Hahaha, such excessive praise leaves me nowhere to put myself."
"How did you acquire that gambling skill... and what made you decide to climb to such a height? The question simply rose in me. If it is not too forward, would you tell me?"
How am I supposed to answer this?
I could hardly say that this body of Ho Cheon-an carried the Mixed Blood trait that capped my martial realm at second-rate, so I could not train the arts I wanted and had been forced to grind skills instead—and that gambling needed no materials, only intact money and wrists, so I had mastered it. Yet it was not a story I could not tell at all.
"I do not know my own origins. You must have investigated my background already, Du-jak, so you have heard the rough outline?"
"Ahem. Well... yes, that is true."
"Because of that I never knew I possessed a special constitution either. Only recently, through a chance connection with a renowned physician, did I learn the truth. Until then I had been completely ignorant—that this body could never reach first-rate."
Even Sama Hwi-gyeong, apparently curious about the secret of the gambling god Ho Cheon-an's growth, had edged a little closer.
"I spent a year living in the Murim and managed to climb to second-rate. Hearing rumors of the Sichuan nangin, I settled at the Wanderer Inn. Even then I was full of confidence. My growth speed was nothing special compared to the true geniuses of the realm, yet among wandering warriors I was a crane among chickens."
The story was lightly embroidered, yet it was not far from the truth. Who was this body? A ten-year veteran of Murim Cheonha. All I had were two balls, but the vibe that comes from experience was real—I would break through Mixed Blood by any means necessary.
And the result, as I have said more than once, was failure.
"No matter what method I tried, I could not cross the threshold of first-rate. After two years of every desperate measure, I finally understood. Ah, so this is a wall I cannot climb. My path as a martial artist is blocked; I might as well try something—anything."
"And that... was gambling?"
Yu Gyeong's dazed retort came back. Well... yes, it did sound a bit absurd.
"Hahaha... ridiculous as it may seem, that is how it was. Being a Sichuan nangin is a rather closed status. While keeping that identity, there was simply no path to learn any other craft. Farming, medicine, cooking, blacksmithing... none of those were even dreams. The only thing I could freely pursue was gambling."
That part was not a lie either. In the end, gambling was about the only skill I could learn at the time.
"Anyway, once I decided to learn gambling properly, I mixed with the other nangin and learned by playing. I simply lost everything. Because I lost everything, even when my sleight of hand was clumsy the other nangin—being family, after all—just laughed it off. Once I had the basics, I jumped into real games."
"...Solely to hone your gambling technique?"
"More or less. Hanging around the tables, I found that my eyes as a martial artist could pick out the other gamblers' hand tricks. Through real matches I refined this skill and that... after about five years of prowling the gambling dens, I reached this level."
Yu Gyeong chewed over the story for a moment, then lifted his head.
"I see... so you truly did polish your gambling skill with serious intent. In the end... if I retrace your tale, you simply poured the passion you would have spent on martial arts into something else. That something was gambling, and by pouring yourself into it you reached that height. Is that the conclusion?"
"You could put it that way. Does it leave you deflated?"
Yu Gyeong gave a dry laugh and nodded.
"A little, yes. There is no law that the greatest gambler under heaven must have some grand backstory, yet people still expect one. That is human nature, is it not?"
"Haha. Is that so?"
Yu Gyeong laughed, then quietly laid bare his true thoughts.
"In truth, I once took pride in my eye for people."
Well... of course. They say personnel is everything. To achieve explosive growth you need an eye for talent. For Yu Gyeong, who clawed his way up from a time when imperial authority was scraped along the floor, that eye would have been essential.
"Yet when I looked at you I was completely wrong. To my eyes you were an ordinary man. The very picture of contentment with one's lot. No special talent I could sense, no fierce drive to climb higher. Even if talent existed, you seemed the sort who would yield just enough and get along just enough—a commoner rather than someone who stakes everything on rising."
The words stung a little. Yu Gyeong's insight seemed to have pierced rather deep into my chest.
"I am no immortal who sees through every principle of the myriad things under heaven, so I suppose I was simply too arrogant. Yes. Having been wrong once, I find myself hoping I will be wrong two or three times more..."
Yu Gyeong sighed, hesitated, then spoke.
"Haha. It is only that I worry for my sister's future... would you listen to a little grumbling? Perhaps a man who has already defied my expectations might offer some other answer."
I nodded.
"My sister yielded a great many things. Something truly precious stood between us when we were young, and we stood on opposite sides of it. Strictly speaking, she was closer to that precious thing than I was. Her chance of claiming it was higher. Yet she left the family so that she could yield it to me."
From Yu Gyeong's words I understood that the precious thing was the emperor's throne.
The most exalted person under heaven. The highest seat of all.
"I owe my sister a debt beyond words. I watched that child take upon herself a burden too heavy for her years and groan under its weight. So I want her to be happy. Truly, from the bottom of my heart. I want her to do whatever she wishes, and if she throws a tantrum I want to grant every single demand."
A sense of indebtedness.
I could feel a thick, heavy sense of debt in Yu Gyeong's voice. Knowing the siblings' history, I could gauge the weight of that debt.
Yu Gyeong believed the throne had been yielded to him; he could never treat that weight lightly.
"My sister told me that walking this path is not an unhappy road. Of course. How could any human path be filled only with unhappiness? Yet to my eyes the road she walks is gradually becoming a path of thorns. I... find it hard to watch."
"Why is that?"
For a moment I erased from my mind the fiction that Du-jak's sister was a stranger to me. I asked with genuine feeling.
The path of thorns Yu Gyeong spoke of was surely the Murim. Living as Hyeok Gi-rin—a woman dressed as a man, an imperial princess—could never be easy.
"Why do you not support the path your sister walks?"
"Conviction."
Yu Gyeong answered.
"Because my sister lacked conviction. Because she was not yet prepared in her heart to force her way through a path of thorns that will only grow steeper and more brutal. If she chose an even harder, even harsher road and simply asked me to believe in her, to help her—I would stake everything I have to do so."
Had Hyeok Gi-rin lacked that conviction?
"Yet she still seems unable to settle her own heart. If it were a problem that long contemplation could solve, I would wait. The trouble is that it is not."
"Is that so..."
How to put it? My head understood the story, yet my heart could not quite accept it.
I had already witnessed Hyeok Gi-rin's affection for the Jeomchang Sect many times. I had seen her storm out of the sect in fury for Yeo Il-ye, who must have looked like an ugly duckling. I had seen her go around begging merchants for favors on Yeo Il-ye's behalf.
I had also seen how she cherished the young disciples of the Jeomchang Sect.
It was not mere affection either. As a martial artist Hyeok Gi-rin was thriving. Great Disciple of the Jeomchang Sect, a renowned rising star of Sichuan. Her skill had already reached Super-Peak at her age—outstanding by any measure.
There was not a single reason Hyeok Gi-rin should feel she could not stand tall before Yu Gyeong.
I would have to hear Hyeok Gi-rin's side of the story.
I went to find Hyeok Gi-rin first thing in the morning, yet the shadow on her face remained unchanged.
"What on earth are you fretting over that has left you half the person you were? Please, just spit it out. I cannot stand how much it bothers me."
When I pressed her hard, Hyeok Gi-rin reluctantly opened up.
"Am I doing the right thing?"
"Pardon?"
"During the Sichuan incident. I felt a great deal of powerlessness, to be honest."
The completely unexpected words made me blink.
"All I did in Sichuan was... stay helplessly inside the Hwanggeumga while watching the schemes of Hwanggeum-seon, who could only be called a villain. And that was not all. With the martial power I had polished so diligently, I merely protected Hwanggeum-seon's life."
"No—that was the right thing to do, was it not? Even if Young Lady Yeo Il-ye had stormed in in a rage, there would have been no chance of capturing Hwanggeum-seon then."
"Even so, drawing my sword in Sichuan amounted to nothing more than that."
Hyeok Gi-rin's face stayed gloomy as she continued.
"Master Ho laid the plans, shook Seongrak Pavilion with gambling, and as a Sichuan nangin raided Jambong Gate to gather evidence. Young Lady Heukmyo likewise earned merit by capturing Yu Ji-gyeong, the master of Seongrak Pavilion... Junior Sister Il-ye punished her enemies, the Tang Clan led the punitive force, and Prefect Sama Yeom played his part as prefect. I alone merely watched."
"N-no. Did you not persuade Master Cheongheo, sow discord between the great sects and the Sichuan factions, and gather the sects connected to the Jeomchang Sect?"
"Heh. Do you call that a great achievement worth mentioning? Any disciple of the Jeomchang Sect could have done the same."
The core of the Sichuan affair had been the self-reliance of the Sichuan factions. That meant every intervention by the great surrounding sects had to be cut off, and as a result Hyeok Gi-rin—herself a Jeomchang disciple—had been left with no chance to shine.
"In a situation where the shell of being a Jeomchang disciple was of no help, I could only watch helplessly from behind. Someone like me... if another great crisis struck, could I resolve it? That thought keeps rising unbidden."