As Expected, Master Loves His Daughter
A week had passed since the trip to Daedallasa.
The news that Mu Yeong had been ambushed spread until there was scarcely a soul in the kangho who hadn't heard of it, and the pace of it was so unnaturally swift that even Mount Wudang, far removed from Guangdong Province, caught wind of the affair. Most likely those within the Green Forest who bore grudges against Mu Yeong had set the story loose from every quarter, timed to the very hour.
Rumors of a slightly different cut made the rounds as well—that the ones who ambushed Mu Yeong had been right there at the scene, or that they had been a man and a woman together—but strange to say, those whispers settled almost as soon as they rose.
...My thanks, Brother Mu Yeong.
Apparently there were those who admired his character even here on Mount Wudang. While I took my lunch in the communal dining hall, the chatter of the lowest-ranked disciples drifted over to me.
"I heard the ones who stabbed Mu Yeong were actually remnants of the Demon Cult."
"Strange. What I heard was that his foundations had rotted through badly enough to spark infighting."
"You're doubting Great Hero Mu Yeong even as we speak?"
"A mere Green Forest man, and 'Great Hero' on top of it..."
Listening to them wrung a sigh out of me. Hearing it, Yeong Yeong tilted her head.
"Sahyung, is Great Hero Mu Yeong weighing on your mind after all?"
"Hm? No, not at all."
And I meant every word. Mu Yeong had said he would settle his own affairs, so there was nothing to worry over. Even if part of the rumor held true—even if his grip on the Green Forest really had gone slack of late—as things stood, no name had surfaced in the Green Forest capable of ending the breath that still clung to Mu Yeong and claiming his seat on the spot.
"Then why are you sighing as though the ground were caving in beneath you?"
"The Eight Trigrams and Five Elements are nearly upon us, and watching the whole sect churn itself up over groundless rumors—well. There goes my breath."
At once, all around us came a flurry of coughs and hasty tea-slurping, as though a whole row of eavesdroppers had been caught listening at the keyhole.
Fine, fine. Chatter all you like. But if that chatter ever carves a dent into the Wudang Sect's good name, then that road ends with me.
Yeong Yeong beamed.
"Still, Sahyung, I'm almost certain we'll take the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements this time too."
"Hm? Why? What, did the Gongdong Sect get annihilated?"
Those clowns are the ones we'll be facing in the matches, and she's certain of victory? Yeong Yeong's face registered honest surprise.
"That would be quite the story, but... it seems Father still hasn't told you, Sahyung."
A lovely story, is it. Honestly—where has the propriety of the kangho gone.
"What story? The one where he finally accepts the Sect Leader's wishes and resolves to become the next Sect Leader himself?"
At my answer, Yeong Yeong pulled a face of pure exasperation.
"What are you even saying? The Sect Leader is still hale and hearty."
The current Sect Leader, Manhaeunja, was master to my own master, Gakyeop Dojang. True to the sea in his name, he possessed an ocean's breadth of magnanimity; here and there he was hailed as a man of great virtue, and time and again I had heard his character alone praised as the second coming of Grand Master Zhang Sanfeng, the founding patriarch of our sect.
Since before I came of age, Manhaeunja had tried to set my master up as the next Sect Leader. But Gakyeop Dojang, all too eager to retire early from practical duties and slip into an elder's seat, had refused at every turn. Because of that, I too had nearly been saddled with the designation of next Sect Leader, and only escaped that burden by becoming one of the candidates for the next Murim Alliance Chief.
Just then, one of the lowest-ranked disciples approached me.
"Eldest Sahyung, Martial Uncle Gakyeop Dojang is asking for you."
Hearing this, Yeong Yeong gave me a little nod. "Looks like he's about to tell you now. Go on—hurry."
Hm. So the elders have been murmuring among themselves again, have they? I swallowed the last corner of my lunch dumplings and drained my tea.
Inside Zixiao Palace, I found Gakyeop Dojang burning incense before the True Martial Emperor with a solemn face.
"Master, did your morning training conclude well?"
He glanced sidelong at me, and his expression brightened. "Oho, there you are. Come over here."
I lit incense at his side and offered my respects to the True Martial Emperor.
Gakyeop Dojang spoke. "Looking upon the Supreme Emperor puts me in mind of that conversation between you and the Flower Tiger Immortal of the Gongdong Sect, when they visited a few days ago."
The True Martial Emperor, enshrined at Zixiao Palace with the highest reverence and also known as the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heavens, Xuantian Shangdi, is called an incarnation of the Primeval Lord of Heaven—another body of Taiji itself. To stand before the shrine of such a being and style oneself Taiji, no wonder the Flower Tiger Immortal had flown into a towering rage.
I bowed my head. "This disciple lacked depth, and spoke with insolence."
"Mm, no. You weren't wrong. When we carry Taiji within these very bodies of ours, who is to say otherwise? No—I called you here for a different reason."
So I'm not being scolded. Not that I deserved it—though a few of the elders might well have found that conversation uncomfortable.
Then for what reason did he call me?
"It's about the rumors making the rounds these days."
"Rumors... you mean about the Green Forest King? I had heard he met with calamity."
"That's the one. Word has it there was betrayal from within behind the Green Forest King's misfortune. Know anything of it?"
Ah—asking because Mu Yeong and I were classmates at Toemagwangmyeong, wondering if I had picked up anything more.
"This disciple remains too dull-witted to know anything of it."
"You rascal. If you're dull-witted, then which of our Wudang disciples would you call a genius?"
Seemingly satisfied with my answer, Gakyeop Dojang chuckled and clapped my shoulder. From where he stood—guiding the great pillar of the Orthodox faction, the Wudang Sect—he could hardly look kindly upon a talent of his own sect consorting with the Unorthodox.
"Is that all you wished to discuss?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Well, earlier, Yeong Ye—"
"What?! Yeong Yeong has found someone she's sweet on?!"
At the single word Yeong Yeong, Gakyeop Dojang's eyes snapped wide and his qi burst outward. The incense smoke began to shiver, rippling in answer to my master's energy.
Master, no one said any such thing.
Who on earth would dare say it?
"Compose yourself, Master. I only meant that Yeong Yeong told me something earlier, and I took that to be the reason you called me here."
Gakyeop Dojang wheeled around and glared at me. So it wasn't over after all. Truly the second-in-command of Wudang, right beneath the Sect Leader—raising a storm twice in a single audience. Twice.
"What? ...Ah. That matter."
As though recalling himself, Gakyeop Dojang drew his qi back in and let out a long breath, striving for calm.
Yeong Yeong, may you never once ask for a pretty flower to be plucked for you—may you never become like Gao Qi's daughter, the child of that early Ming poet, gone from this world too soon.
For your father will surely turn all the world into a field of red flowers, laid down for you alone.
Thinking it through, I could guess exactly whom Yeong Yeong's hair-trigger temperament took after.
"What Yeong Yeong meant is probably something to do with this year's Eight Trigrams and Five Elements."
"That's right. So just what was discussed while I was off teaching the juniors?"
"Right." Gakyeop Dojang nodded. "You know well enough how the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements has always run: the Two-Generation Disciples handle administration, the elders hold their symposium, and the disciples beneath them contest the sparring matches."
"That is so. Though I spent long years at Toemagwangmyeong and never once entered the ring myself, I did hear that in the most crucial of those matches, we never once failed to beat the Gongdong Sect."
"We did. But the Gongdong Sect, who passed through a few days ago, raised the objection that this arrangement is unfair."
"What manner of grievance?"
"In plain terms, the grudge of children who lost those matches when they were young and have since grown up."
Ah, that much I can understand.
Unlike our Wudang, where we took up fist and sword from earliest childhood, the Gongdong Sect learned chiefly by theory—discerning which of the Five Elements a person drew nearest to, and studying how to move in harmony with it. From their standpoint, it was certainly galling that bouts fought at that tender age left dents in their sect's good name.
"There was a time when merely resenting what one's masters had laid down would never have been tolerated."
As he spoke of the Gongdong Sect, Gakyeop Dojang clicked his tongue, wearing the look of a man watching something pitiful. Then he glanced sidelong at me—and sighed.
Hey now. What disciple devotes himself to Wudang more than I do, and you're sighing at me?
When I fixed him with an interrogating stare, Gakyeop Dojang cleared his throat with great ceremony.
"In any case—the grievances of the Gongdong disciples have been honored, and this year's Eight Trigrams and Five Elements matches will fall to the grown disciples. Yourself included."
"Oh—then the running of it, the administrative side, won't be ours—"
"No. That, too, is yours."
Oh, shit. As I stood dumbstruck, wearing the face of a man chewing dung, Gakyeop Dojang sighed.
"I don't doubt your talent or your devotion to this sect one hair's breadth. But that nature of yours—the one you make no effort to hide—that is what shows itself a problem."
"Aw, but there's no need to hide it."
Gakyeop Dojang shook his head slowly.
Though honestly, Master, from where I stand, the bigger problem looks to be a master who will never, ever let go of his Yeong Yeong...
"Still, I do feel sorry for piling so much weight upon you two. Ah, and that reminds me—"
Gakyeop Dojang broke off, as though something had just occurred to him. What now? Why does everything I have to hear today insist on coming all at once?
"A letter arrived recently from Grand General Cheonram."
...Oh no.
"I keep little watch over worldly affairs, so I can't claim to know the ins and outs, but there was talk of Westerners in it."
I kept my mouth shut tight and waited for my master to go on.
"On its face it seems to be the usual request—choose a Murim Alliance Chief, and quickly. But why in the world would Guangdong Province, so far from Hubei, come into it..."
...So nothing more detailed than that reached him. But the true point must lie elsewhere.
If he bothers to circle the matter so delicately, he isn't after the letter's contents at all. It means there is some other favor I'll be made to grant.
And an exquisitely troublesome one, at that.
Foreboding crawled up my spine. Spinning on my heel toward the doors of Zixiao Palace, I was already speaking.
"I see. Then I'll be off to run the afternoon train—"
"Halt."
Urgh, dammit.
At some point, Gakyeop Dojang's hand had clamped down hard on my shoulder.
M-Master? There's the malice of a hungry ghost in that grip of yours.
"Now then, my disciple. Shall we have a little talk?"
"...Haaah."
Beyond the doors I could not pass, the late spring sky hung cloudless and clear. The moment summer arrived, Hubei—the furnace of the Central Plains—would be swallowed whole by the heat.
The kind of heat one can escape on Mount Wudang: the kind that wrings sweat from you with every step and turns the space between your legs distinctly unpleasant.