The Night the Crescent Moon Rose -1
It was the era when imperial authority had fallen to the floor.
That was synonymous with the age when the powerful ministers ran wild, and Yu Seo, who could barely manage his own health, had no means of seizing the reins of those ministers.
The ministers chose successors according to their own tastes and tore apart a sister and brother who only wished to protect each other.
And so Princess Yu Ya decided to flee into the Murim.
Thus Princess Yu Ya became the man Hyeok Gi-rin.
Hyeok Gi-rin stood before the mountain gate of the Jeomchang Sect and steeled her heart. Even in a Murim where the principle of non-interference between court and martial world held sway, she judged that only something on the level of the Nine Great Sects could withstand the pressure of the central ministers.
The sects of the Nine Great Sects expressed their reluctance. Hyeok Gi-rin, who was not Princess Yu Ya, was a girl in male disguise who had been pushed out of the central power struggles. Even outside the Nine Great Sects, what sect would willingly take on the headache that was Hyeok Gi-rin merely upon hearing of her?
Yet the Jeomchang Sect accepted that Hyeok Gi-rin. And so she hardened her heart even further. What would the Jeomchang Sect demand of her? How much did they intend to bleed her dry by taking in someone with such complicated circumstances?
The world was all the same. Before profit, everyone became a monster. No matter how she wept and pleaded that she did not wish to fight her brother, not a single person lent an ear.
They only raised their voices for their own gain.
Though her situation was difficult, she would not allow herself to be easily used in the Murim.
No matter how much she was oppressed, she would never accept any demand that would harm the imperial house.
The masters of the Jeomchang Sect looked with awkward eyes upon Hyeok Gi-rin, who carried such thick poison in her heart. One among them, Master Cheongheo, awkwardly held something out. A crude lump wrapped in coarse oil paper entered Hyeok Gi-rin’s sight.
“Would you like some candy?”
Hyeok Gi-rin blinked, and Master Cheongheo laughed softly.
Having grown up among adults who urged her to tear her brother apart, skilled only in baring her teeth and raising her spines, Hyeok Gi-rin continued her life in the Jeomchang Sect. In that way she learned to hold people in her heart rather than poison. She became someone who could stand by Yeo Il-ye’s side, filled as it was with hatred.
She became one whom the disciples of the Jeomchang Sect followed, and though a disciple herself, she became the great disciple who could teach the other disciples.
I have received so much help.
Hyeok Gi-rin had watched everything. Watching the process by which her younger self, eyes filled only with venom, came to smile brightly, Hyeok Gi-rin smiled as well.
Those who love others will always be loved by them.
Hyeok Gi-rin recalled Ho Cheon-an’s words. He had spoken of her as though she were one who gave love, yet she did not think so. She considered herself one who received.
It was because of the teachings and affection of the masters that she was who she was now.
She had received help from many others besides.
And what of the affairs in Sichuan Province alone?
She had received help from Sama Yeom, and from Heukmyo as well. She owed debts to the people of the Tang Family. And she had received a great deal of help from Ho Cheon-an too.
One who gives, he said.
Was it not Ho Cheon-an himself who was the one who gave? He had stepped forward so readily for Yeo Il-ye’s sake, and he had shown off his sleight of hand for the children’s joy.
And what of the Imperial Palace? He had worked so hard to mediate between her and her brother, and…
He even granted me this enlightenment.
Hyeok Gi-rin found herself smiling of her own accord. That he, who was himself the one who gave, would look at another and call them one who gave—it was so very like Ho Cheon-an that it was amusing.
It had been a short but deep bond. She had merely hired him because he was Yeo Il-ye’s benefactor and she thought he might be of some small additional help, yet he had come to accompany her to the Jeomchang Sect and even to the Imperial Palace. There was truly no way to describe it other than as an unknowable fate.
There is no need to fear falling short of one’s qualifications.
Indeed, that was so.
Today’s topic, as announced last evening, is eliminating the candy from the bowl.
Hyeok Gi-rin recalled Ho Cheon-an teaching the masters.
One might have expected him to shrink under the masters’ fervent gazes as they competed for the children’s attention, yet Ho Cheon-an had seized hold of the masters like a fish in water and rapidly taught them the techniques.
Remembering the sight of Ho Cheon-an, a mere first-rate warrior and Sichuan nangin, evaluating the masters of the Jeomchang Sect—who held the foremost seats among the Nine Great Sects and were experts of the Transformation Realm—and assigning them homework, Hyeok Gi-rin felt that all the worries that had been eating away at her heart were futile.
Hyeok Gi-rin contemplated her inner world.
Extremes and extremes.
The landscape of the Jeomchang Sect, with its clean, orderly buildings far removed from splendor beneath the tranquil Mount Sunam, and the Imperial Palace, vast and majestic, glittering with gold and radiating its presence.
On the left stood the masters and disciples of the Jeomchang Sect. On the right stood Yu Gyeong and Sama Yeom.
And in the center lay a cliff that could not be crossed. That cliff was so deep one could believe an endless abyss stretched below.
The depth of that cliff was the difficulty itself.
It was Hyeok Gi-rin’s own recognition that a life going back and forth between both sides would be that hard. And so she had always thought she must choose one side or the other. Was she the Murim person Hyeok Gi-rin, or was she the imperial princess Yu Ya?
It was the wrong worry.
Hyeok Gi-rin closed her eyes. And she erased. She erased and erased and erased again.
And so when she opened her eyes, neither the Imperial Palace nor the Jeomchang Sect remained in Hyeok Gi-rin’s inner world. Only people remained. There were the masters of the Jeomchang Sect, and the young disciples running about, and Yeo Il-ye and her martial siblings sitting in a circle. Among them were Sama Yeom and Yu Gyeong as well. Heukmyo, the same-sex friend from the Murim she had thought she could never befriend, was beckoning to her. And there was the figure of Ho Cheon-an holding a cup and dice.
Looking upon that sight, Hyeok Gi-rin wore a bitter smile. In the end, this was what she had wished for.
It might be greed, but to be both princess and Murim person.
She decided to dream once more the dream she had thought impossible.
To that end, Hyeok Gi-rin closed her eyes. Or in some sense, one could say she opened them. Emerging from her inner world, Hyeok Gi-rin looked upon Yu Gyeong standing before her.
Yu Gyeong and Hyeok Gi-rin gazed at each other in silence. It was Yu Gyeong who first opened his mouth.
“I thought I knew you.”
He had regularly received the reports of the Eastern Depot. He could not know her every move, but he could grasp her approximate path. Whenever he heard the news that her realm had risen or word that Hyeok Gi-rin’s renown had grown, he had rejoiced.
And so he had believed he knew her… yet it had all been a delusion. He had merely looked only at the young Yu Ya without seeing Hyeok Gi-rin.
“You have grown much.”
Yu Gyeong recalled the sight he had been watching until just now. The energy of Hyeok Gi-rin that had pulsed like the heart of a giant from myth. She had simply not expressed it; she was already a great person.
Hyeok Gi-rin looked at Yu Gyeong. She looked precisely into his eyes and spoke with resolve.
“I do not wish to abandon either the bonds I made in the Murim or the bonds I hold as a member of the imperial family. The bonds of the Murim are filled with people who care for me, and those connected to me as royalty care for me as well, so I wish to answer them all.”
And for that, she said, she needed her brother’s help.
“I will take everything. No longer will I hide; I will stand behind my brother as a princess of the imperial house. No longer will I hang back as the Murim person Hyeok Gi-rin. I will lend a hand in the war against the ministers that is not yet finished.”
“…Very well.”
“Moreover, as the great disciple of the Jeomchang Sect I will look after the disciples and revere the masters. Like my junior sister Yeo Il-ye, if other martial siblings fall into danger I will run to them. I will not ignore the bonds I formed not as a disciple of the Jeomchang Sect but as a person of the Murim.”
“I see.”
Hyeok Gi-rin spoke the words Yu Gyeong had waited and waited to hear.
“Please help me. Brother. Please believe in me.”
“The ministers are still strong. Through my efforts I have succeeded in pruning their branches, yet their roots run very deep. To pull out every last bit of the ministers’ crouching power will be a long and arduous road.”
“If you, Yu Ya, appear, the ministers may unite their strength to oppose you, and should that happen, merely living as Princess Yu Ya may become overwhelming. There will be any number of occasions when your life as the Murim person Hyeok Gi-rin and your life as Princess Yu Ya collide.”
Did she have a plan to break through such situations?
“What will you do then? When you face a situation you cannot handle alone.”
Yu Gyeong asked Hyeok Gi-rin.
“At such times… I will ask for help.”
“…Help?”
“Yes. Help. If I fall into crisis, I will ask Master Cheongheo to help me. If I need a gambler, I will ask Master Ho the nangin to help me.”
Hyeok Gi-rin smiled gently.
“If I receive help that way, will I not be able to resolve it?”
“Ha…”
Yu Gyeong burst into the laughter that welled up.
“Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Yes. That is precisely the right answer!”
The answer was so simple that Yu Gyeong felt delighted. Yes, if that was the conclusion and answer she had reached, then as her brother he would support her forever.
Yu Gyeong thought of a certain gambler who had arranged this place.
Not only that gambler—there would be those in the Murim as well who supported her just as he did.
“Do not forget.”
“Yes?”
“That I am your very first supporter.”
“Haha.”
Hyeok Gi-rin looked at Yu Gyeong and laughed. Yu Gyeong looked at Hyeok Gi-rin and laughed. They were two people who had made a choice that might well be filled with more hardship than laughter, and two people who understood that well, yet laughter simply came.
“Of course, Brother.”
“Good. Then from this moment let us discuss our countermeasures!”
“Yes!”
It was a deep night no different from any other.
The two of them, unlike any other time, entered Hyeok Gi-rin’s room side by side.
It was a night when a crescent moon hung in the sky, seeming to smile with its eyes as it watched their retreating figures.