Chapter 19: Me, the Cult Leader, and the Donkey in Shorts
While I was still entertaining the hope of shutting my eyes for even a little while now that the duel was over, I noticed Hyeonam Seonsa straightening the set of his robes — making ready to leave.
"Are you going somewhere?"
At my question, Hyeonam Seonsa gave me a long, level look and answered — wearing, this time, the very expression he'd had the day we first met. "I'll be returning to the Shaolin Temple. I have to report that in the end, Bunhyang has died."
Then what of the Demon Cult's remnants? The disbanding of the assembly? …And, above all, what of my own swift return?
Hyeonam Seonsa read it all off my face, and the corner of his mouth curled upward. "Subdue what remains of the cult's leadership before the eyes of the faithful, and I expect the faithful will disperse of their own accord."
Had it been any other day, I would have lobbed back that a letter to Shaolin would serve well enough — the same as when Bunhyang had first been set upon. But as the poet Tao Yuanming, who lived from the Eastern Jin into the Liu Song, taught with the phrase buqiu shenjie, "seek not to understand too deeply," there are moments in this world when it pays not to press for details.
Perhaps because he'd brought nothing worth packing when he came, leaving was a simple affair: Hyeonam Seonsa, his robes now neatly arranged, stepped outside to accept my farewell.
How far did we walk? At a spot that seemed far enough for any courtesy of farewell, I stopped — and Hyeonam Seonsa, who had been on the verge of vanishing down the road but had managed barely a handful of steps, halted just as I had, turned bodily around, and looked at me.
"Cheongun Dojang — no. Lord Seong Hyun."
"…What is it?"
"I hope that next time we meet, it will be in pleasanter circumstances. Without all this tiresome business."
Well.
Without a situation like this one, the two of us — a Cowherd and Weaver Girl whose idea of courtship was slapping each other across the face — would likely have gone our entire lives without ever meeting.
"…If fate wills it, we'll meet again. And should that day come, I can only hope it proves an occasion I can gladly enjoy."
First light had yet to break, so I couldn't see what my words had done to Hyeonam Seonsa's face. I could feel him gazing at me all the same — that much was unmistakable. After a moment, he turned and simply melted away into the dark.
Only when his presence had dwindled to nothing did I turn back toward the inn, thinking that with the far end of the road still sunk in shadow, I might yet steal an hour of sleep.
And so I was walking from the city gate, following the market's main thoroughfare toward the inn, when something abruptly appeared before my eyes.
It was the donkey in shorts — the very one Eun Ae-hyang and I had squared off against two days ago.
In the end, we never did get those pants off it. Mm.
Now that I gave it a proper look, there was something decidedly out of the ordinary about the beast. The part of it above the shorts — the half I had always taken for unremarkable — gave an impression so bright that, by the bleary glow of the pre-dawn stars alone, I could make out its gray coat. Its stance, too, was straighter than any common donkey's, and it carried itself with such composure that it seemed less a donkey as mankind's livestock than a donkey as a donkey — a creature that existed, so to speak, for its own sake.
Presently the donkey began to move, and with my curiosity now thoroughly hooked as to what it actually was, I resolved to follow — keeping my distance.
It walked at an unhurried gait, and unlike any hoofed creature I had ever known, made not so much as a single hoof-fall, passing soundlessly through the dark — past the market, through the village, across empty paddies where no one stirred — until at last it came to a stop before a certain thatched cottage.
The cottage looked nothing special. A perfectly ordinary thatched-roof house, without a single tile to its name.
The donkey approached the brushwood gate and nudged it twice with its muzzle. I believe that was the loudest sound it had made all night.
A moment later, the door opened from within, and a figure emerged.
The silhouette — a woman, by its shape — walked up beside the donkey and began to stroke its head. The donkey pressed its head into her hand and nuzzled it, plainly accustomed to her touch.
The pants said it was no wild animal; nothing about it said it belonged to anyone, either. And so, somehow, my interest slid from the donkey to the shadow herself.
Then, as her hands worked over every last corner of the donkey, the figure spoke. "Truly empty, and truly void. What is Heaven — and what is the Demon?"
Hm. A familiar voice. To be sure I really did know its owner, I studied the silhouette more closely — and whether it felt my gaze or not, the shadow slowly turned its eyes toward where I stood. I had no reason to hide, so I stared right back, a silent contest of looks in the dark.
Before long the shadow began drifting toward me, and I knew at once who it was.
"Oh my. Lord Gongseo."
There was exactly one person in this world who called me that.
"…Cult Leader? Is that you?"
The White Book Gold King.
It was her, of course.
The house I entered under the White Book Gold King's guidance was nothing like the cult leader's chamber within the hall where the assembly convened. It was an ordinary room, no different from the inside of any commoner's home.
The lamplight seeped softly over her — the White Book Gold King wore none of the paint and finery from the assembly — and even so, the finely cut features I had seen during our private talk the last time still radiated their quiet allure.
And yet she seemed to be sending me a look that asked, plain as day, and what, pray tell, is my lord doing here? So I answered.
"Word of that donkey has been making the rounds among the people, and my curiosity got the better of me. I followed it here."
At my answer, the White Book Gold King wore an expression of genuine wonder. "How curious. In all its life, Jeom-ryeo has never once let a soul follow at its heels. And the one it finally allows turns out to be you, my lord."
Ah — so the Jeom in Jeom-ryeo was perfectly literal. Not that it had ever struck me as particularly wary of people.
The White Book Gold King went on. "By nature, that child breathes out an aura so uncanny that it draws every eye even as it turns every step away. A most peculiar creature."
"What, is it a spirit beast of some kind?"
"Perhaps. I couldn't say — I've never laid eyes on anything else I'd care to call one."
So that's why no one has ever gotten those shorts off it.
But then — for her to say she had never seen a spirit beast.
Was that a confession, in its own way, that she was no heir of the Heavenly Demon Great Emperor? I decided to sound her out,
"The Great Cult Leader who once dwelt in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains was a master who could bend spirit beasts to his will — the Azure Serpent and the White Serpent among them. And yet you have never seen anything of the kind?"
It was a remark so blunt it needed no interpreter of the Seong Hyun dialect — as good as saying outright, You are no one connected to the Heavenly Demon Great Emperor.
But though the White Book Gold King caught the meaning perfectly, she showed no particular sign of surprise. If anything, a bitter smile crossed her face — one that looked almost relieved — as she replied.
"What manner of man was this Heavenly Demon Great Emperor, that even with the White Lotus broken and scattered, he is still honored with the name of Great Cult Leader?"
At that question, my mind turned back to the moment I had stood face to face with the Heavenly Demon Great Emperor.
Hair white as the snowfields where he kept his stronghold, whipping about him like a madman's — and still he had stood there unbowed, and the majesty of it had been something to feel in your very marrow.
"…In the martial arts, he was a man who inspired genuine awe."
Hearing my answer, the White Book Gold King let her eyes flick briefly toward my hand.
"To speak of the martial arts as you do — then you are no ordinary man after all, but one with roots sunk deep in the jianghu."
When I answered her with silence, the White Book Gold King turned her gaze to the ceiling instead.
"I see. So that is how it is…"
Her words trailed off, yet there was not a sliver of fear in her voice — nor of surprise.
She stared up at the ceiling for a long while as if turning something over in her mind, then lowered her head and fixed me with a piercing stare.
It felt as though some hidden corner of my heart had been laid bare, and the moment I looked away, she asked.
"Whom do you serve?"
I answered.
"If I told you, would you believe it?"
"Probably not — if it were anyone else."
"And what makes me any different from anyone else?"
The White Book Gold King touched a finger to her chin, considered for a moment, and said,
"Well… your face, for a start?"
Why is the end of your sentence curling upward like that? Commit to it, at least.
The White Book Gold King — evidently finding her own words delightful — broke into a smile utterly unlike the one she had worn before, and began to laugh aloud.
…And when a pleasant smile is laid over a pleasant reason? Somehow, I was the one who ended up wounded.
After a time, the White Book Gold King curbed her laughter and spoke again.
"That was a joke."
"A joke, was it."
When I narrowed my eyes at her, she raised a hand to cover her mouth, let out a small hohoho of quiet laughter, and said,
"If you had truly come here meaning to kill me, you would have done it long before now. Instead, here we are, talking like this — so I have come to think of you as someone I can speak with."
The image of the White Book Gold King out in the dark, stroking the donkey's head, rose again before my mind's eye.
"You said something out there — 'truly empty, and truly void.' Might I ask what you meant by it?"
At my question, the White Book Gold King's laughter died, and she looked at me.
"You have a way, my lord, of answering my words with questions."
"There are times a question serves better than an answer whose truth would only be called into doubt."
The White Book Gold King nodded, as though she found that answer satisfactory.
"…Do you remember the story I told you the other day?"
I thought for a moment, then gave its title.
"It was The Warrior Who Never Existed, wasn't it."
The White Book Gold King nodded.
"And what do you think that story was trying to tell, my lord?"
"I took it for a piece of crude, outlandish amusement, nothing more."
At my answer, the White Book Gold King breathed out slowly, a smile on her face that seemed, somehow, sad.
"I see… The truth is, I told you that story because I had a favor to ask of you."
"What favor?"
Then the White Book Gold King let her gaze slip past my shoulder, toward the door. I followed it and looked that way as well.
The darkness had lifted, unmistakably, from before — and through it seeped a pale blue light, the kind one catches only for a breath at dawn, or just after dusk.
"To explain it, I will have to begin with another story. Will you hear it?"
My sleep, I decided, was already well and truly spent.
I nodded.
The White Book Gold King closed her eyes, as though setting her thoughts in order one final time. After a long, slow breath, she began.
"Tell me — have you ever heard of a place called the Tarim Desert?"
"…I know it lies somewhere in the northwest."
"I see. So that is the extent of what you have heard."
The White Book Gold King spoke on, still wearing that bitter smile.
"I was once a child who lived in an underground village hidden beneath the Tarim Desert."
And so there began to make its way toward me, carried on the silver tongue of the White Book Gold King — the woman who had beguiled the faithful without ever once being the Heavenly Demon — the one story that had brought me, the cult leader, and the donkey in shorts together under a single roof.