The Long Road to Beijing
Namgung Woo had never expected to be riding in a carriage. He had worried about how terrible the ride quality would be in an era where science hadn’t properly developed, but it seemed his body no longer registered discomfort. As the carriage swayed, his body naturally absorbed the motion, as if it had built-in suspension. 'This game body is the best.'
If he had still possessed the neglected, ordinary body of a modern man from reality, the experience would have been horrific. Just imagining it made him shudder. However, his traveling companion seemed to have mistaken Namgung Woo’s lack of discomfort for genuine unease.
“Are you not used to carriages?”
The young man looked a few years older than Namgung Woo, who appeared to be around twenty by appearance alone. He was Pyeong Cho-yul, the second son of the Yo-pyeong Express agency’s leader, whom Song Chae-ji had introduced.
“Yes, it’s not my first time, but I’m still a bit awkward with it.”
“Haha. Still, that’s fortunate. It seems the martial arts you’ve learned make it much easier on you.”
“As you said, it’s bearable.”
“Even so, it would be good to get accustomed to it. The distance to Beijing is enormous. Even though Shanxi and Beizhili seem right next to each other, once you’re actually on the road, the gap is quite significant.”
Namgung Woo knew this as well. Just how vast this Central Plains truly was. From Linfen County in Shanxi Province all the way to Beijing in Beizhili. Even a rough estimate put this escort journey at around seven hundred kilometers—one way. Considering that a straight line from Seoul to Busan was a little over three hundred kilometers, this was roughly the distance of a round trip between those two cities.
'It really is insanely far.'
Of course, Namgung Woo was participating in this escort mission not as an escort warrior but purely as a guest. He had no obligation to follow them all the way to Beijing. He could leave midway whenever he wished.
'I got lucky.'
Namgung Woo briefly reflected on the events that had led him to this point. After parting ways with Song Chae-ji and Yang So-dang in Pyeongyo County, he had asked for directions from passersby and headed south, arriving safely in Linfen County. The Yo-pyeong Express agency was fairly well-known in the area, so finding it hadn’t been difficult. And the reaction when he showed them the letter of introduction Song Chae-ji had written for him had been quite intense.
“Chae-ji’s letter of introduction? You mean that Song Chae-ji from the Song family stronghold?”
“Our Chae-ji isn’t the type to write recommendations for just anyone…”
“Wait, you’re not… right?”
It had been a rather strange look in their eyes. Those reactions had given him a rough idea of what kind of image Song Chae-ji held within the Yo-pyeong Express agency. Especially the final question, cautiously posed by the agency leader’s eldest son, had been steeped in pure shock, forcing Namgung Woo to quickly deny it.
He had even worried whether there might be some kind of childhood betrothal between the Pyeong family that ran the Yo-pyeong Express agency and the Song family stronghold, but that had been nothing more than his own needless concern. During the dinner held to welcome their guest, when Namgung Woo carefully asked about it, they had burst into hearty laughter and waved their hands dismissively.
“It’s not that she never speaks, but we’ve known her since she was so young that we don’t even see her as a girl.”
“And that kid has always been such a tomboy… Did you know? She ran away from home to join the Hangsan Sect even though the head of the Song family was against it. Ah, should we call that leaving the family in her case?”
It had been quite an enjoyable time. Although his body no longer felt physical discomfort, Namgung Woo still experienced mental fatigue. The time spent at the Yo-pyeong Express agency had been perfect for resting and relieving that mental exhaustion. It had also been an excellent opportunity to study the prices and general background of this era.
Song Chae-ji and Yang So-dang had given him various supplies and money when they parted, but many of them were unfamiliar to him. Having lived in an era where physical currency had mostly disappeared in favor of electronic transactions, how much could Namgung Woo truly understand about monetary value? Especially when it came in the form of silver ingots rather than bills or coins with numbers printed on them.
In that regard, the people of the Yo-pyeong Express agency had been excellent teachers, patiently explaining the ways of the world to him.
“Are you not bored?”
At Pyeong Cho-yul’s question, Namgung Woo snapped out of his reverie.
“No, not really.”
In truth, Namgung Woo rather enjoyed sinking into solitary contemplation. It was partly thanks to this tendency that he had been able to grow so quickly in Chukrok Murim by training his internal energy through meditation. On the other hand, Pyeong Cho-yul’s face was practically plastered with boredom. Looking at his expression, it seemed far more accurate to say that rather than worrying about Namgung Woo being bored, Pyeong Cho-yul himself was the one seeking company to relieve his own tedium.
When Namgung Woo gave a lukewarm agreement, Pyeong Cho-yul’s face brightened as he opened his mouth.
“I felt regretful that I couldn’t speak much with you back at the agency because my father and older brother were there. This is perfect. There’s nothing to do inside a carriage anyway—how about we chat and ease this loneliness together?”
“That sounds good. It wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
Namgung Woo wasn’t the type to obsessively cling to solitude, so he decided this was a good chance to broaden his common-sense understanding of the world. He asked,
“As you know, I am a complete newcomer to the gangho. I’m quite in the dark about the current state of the murim. Would you be willing to teach me a little, Brother Pyeong?”
“Oh, the gangho murim! That’s an excellent topic. After all, if you take away talk about the escort business, what else do we discuss but romance stories or tales of the murim?”
He certainly had a long-winded way of starting a conversation. Pyeong Cho-yul seemed even more interested than Namgung Woo in the subject he had casually tossed out.
“The current murim can be seen as entering a stage where the confrontation between the righteous and demonic factions is becoming entrenched.”
Unlike his father and older brother who usually remained at the agency unless it was an important mission, Pyeong Cho-yul frequently joined escort journeys or even took command of them himself. What was an escort agency’s job, after all? It was to accept goods or letters and deliver them to a specific location or person on the client’s behalf. Naturally, such work required martial strength. Without the backing of force, how could one guarantee safety? Therefore, it was fair to say that the work of an escort agency had one foot firmly planted in the world of the gangho murim.
Agencies that had cultivated considerable martial power of their own were often regarded as no different from murim sects. Naturally, Pyeong Cho-yul had traveled to many places and become entangled with numerous murim practitioners. He had no choice but to be well-versed in the history of the gangho.
“The Murim Alliance, represented by the Nine Great Schools and the Seven Great Families of the righteous path. And the Black Demon League, formed by the union of the Seven Black Factions and the Four Great Demonic Families. These two powers divide the gangho murim between them.”
This much Namgung Woo had already heard in passing during his travels. He also knew that the Shadowless Gate—the great demonic sect that dominated Shanxi—was one of the Seven Black Factions that formed the core of the Black Demon League, and that the Dokgo family, which had destroyed the Namgung family, was considered the leading house among the Four Great Demonic Families.
“But thanks to that, the murim has recently been enjoying its most peaceful days. When you think about how just twenty years ago there was a fierce war between the righteous and demonic factions, it feels like a completely different era. Ah, of course I was still a snot-nosed brat back then, so I don’t actually remember it.”
Whether it was meant as a joke, Pyeong Cho-yul chuckled to himself after speaking. Namgung Woo awkwardly let out a few dry laughs to play along.
'The Namgung family was destroyed about twenty years ago as well. So does that mean they got caught up in the righteous-demonic war and were annihilated by the Dokgo family? Then why hasn’t the Murim Alliance stopped the Dokgo family’s pursuit order even now?'
Could it be that the Namgung family had been treated as a disposable pawn?
To resolve the chain of suspicions forming in his mind, Namgung Woo subtly asked a question. However, he avoided asking directly why the Namgung family had been destroyed. After all, he was already hiding his Namgung surname, using the alias Nam Woo—just as Song Chae-ji had done. Moreover, the martial arts Namgung Woo had learned were precisely those once called the Namgung family’s hereditary techniques.
Even though this was a different world, one could never be too careful. There was always the chance that the Namgung family’s martial arts here were truly similar to the ones he knew. Twenty years wasn’t that long ago. A warrior who had been thirty at the time would now be fifty and still roaming the gangho. There was no telling whether such a person might see Namgung Woo’s techniques and exclaim, “Wait, that’s the Namgung family’s…!”
In any case, Namgung Woo judged that creating a direct link to the Namgung name would be unwise. So he slightly redirected the question.
“By the way, how did the war come to an end?”
“Why the righteous-demonic war ended? It’s simple.”
Pyeong Cho-yul answered in a somewhat listless tone, as if the matter wasn’t particularly interesting.
“Because the imperial family wanted it that way.”
“The imperial family?”
Even from Namgung Woo’s perspective, it was a rather unexpected answer. Why would the imperial family suddenly come up in a discussion about the history of the gangho? But when he thought about it logically, from the imperial family’s standpoint, the very outbreak of the righteous-demonic war must have been absurd. Weren’t they essentially holding a massive brawl that they proudly called a “great war” inside a country governed by the strict Ming Code?
“Then shouldn’t they have stopped it right after the war broke out?”
“At the time, even the imperial family didn’t have the luxury to do so. They were caught up in their own fierce power struggles. With two emperors, it would have been strange if there weren’t any fights, wouldn’t it?”
“Two emperors?”
“Yes. The Tumu Crisis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that horrific tragedy was the starting point of the righteous-demonic war.”
The Tumu Crisis was an event Namgung Woo also knew about. Wasn’t it the incident where, after the Ming emperor was taken captive in a war against the Oirats, the imperial court abandoned the captured emperor and installed his younger brother as the new ruler? Hearing that there were two emperors, it seemed the Tumu Crisis Pyeong Cho-yul spoke of was exactly the same event he knew.
And after asking a few more verifying questions, Namgung Woo arrived at one possibility.
'Could it be… that this is a parallel world?'