Senior Brother and Junior Sister
Late at night, moonlight washed over the chambers of Huayang Palace.
A noble lady who could not sleep gazed up at the moon and thought of someone who had already gone.
“I find Empress Ga Hwiryung rather pitiful somehow.”
Worry and concern colored Imperial Consort Ma’s voice.
“Mother, you should call her the deposed empress now.”
Princess Dohwa, standing at her side, spoke quietly.
Her tone was calm, yet her slender brows twitched ever so slightly at the sight of her mother sympathizing with a political enemy.
Had this not been the imperial palace—where schemes and intrigue howled like winter wind—she would have been the very picture of a tender, loving mother. But the palace now lay under a thin veil of tension after the Son of Heaven’s sudden declaration.
“Ju Eoyang, I hear that striking down the empress’s faction this time was a plan you and Cheon Su-gong devised together. Did you foresee that matters would unfold this way as well?”
They had used the Blood Sect as a lever and driven the empress from the palace exactly as intended. By rights, the fall of a rival should have let the consort’s faction reap every benefit.
“We did make the plan, yet I never expected it would come to this…”
The crown prince’s death and the empress’s fall had finally stirred the emperor’s long-unmoving heart, and every member of the imperial clan had been handed a new mission:
the destruction of the Blood Sect and the head of its leader.
In other words, a sudden variable had crashed into their scheme to expand influence after the empress’s downfall and seat the Third Prince, Su’an Gong, upon the crown prince’s throne as a matter of course.
“What can we do? No one can predict His Majesty’s whims.”
Imperial Consort Ma—who knew the emperor better than any other of the blood—gazed at the still pond of Huayang Palace and smiled a helpless little smile.
“Even so, the contest now has a clear goal. We must move quickly.”
By the Son of Heaven’s own decree, even the Second Prince Ju Gachi—now a kite with a severed string—had been given a chance.
If he could somehow crush the Blood Sect and bring back its leader’s head, the seat of crown prince could be his.
“It still aches that we failed to drive out the Second Prince along with the deposed empress.”
When she had first spoken with Cheon Su-gong, the goal had been to cast down every last member of the empress’s faction so no future trouble would remain.
If, by some chance, the Second Prince ever sat as crown prince…
Princess Dohwa—Ju Eoyang—stood beside her mother, staring into the quiet pond, and let out a long, heavy sigh.
“Eoyang, my child, you only ever seem to gather more worries. It makes this mother’s heart ache.”
Seeing her daughter’s cares multiply of late, the consort spoke with genuine maternal concern.
Once more Princess Dohwa’s carefully composed brows twitched.
Her expression said she had a great many things to say about why she had to step forward so far, why she worried and fretted so much—yet she swallowed them all.
Though she ranked only as the third imperial princess, she was, in truth, the head of this household, the one who led the consort’s entire faction.
“My daughter, let us set aside these headache-inducing talks for once and speak of something hopeful.”
“What sort of hopeful talk do you mean…?”
Hopeful talk? Princess Dohwa’s mind was so full of how to break through the present crisis that no such thing could find room to enter.
“Once we have, through every hardship, made your younger brother crown prince—what do you intend to live for after that?”
In short, she was asking what dream her daughter held for herself.
The princess’s words seemed to stick in her throat; she could not answer with her usual fluent grace.
“What comes after making my brother crown prince… I have never once considered it, Mother.”
Imperial Consort Ma nodded as though she had expected exactly that answer.
“Never considered it? Is it not past time you were married off yourself? You have already missed the proper age for marriage by quite a margin.”
“…”
Ordinarily a Son of Heaven’s daughters underwent the coming-of-age ceremony around fifteen and then began seeking marriage prospects.
In that sense, the emperor’s whims had left Princess Dohwa well past her season for marriage.
“Look at His Majesty and me. Husband and wife are happy only when their hearts are in harmony. So you, too, must find a proper match—not a political one.”
Stay close by and meet a good partner, her mother was saying.
If not a political marriage, did that mean she should take a live-in son-in-law instead? The talk of marriageable age was beginning to sound like ordinary nagging.
“…Rather than that, Mother, I would prefer we first discuss how to eradicate the Blood Sect.”
Princess Dohwa firmly steered the conversation back to the critical matter facing their faction—her voice carrying a faint note of fluster.
Sheer cliffs of strange rock, and hidden deep within them, the true stronghold of the Blood Sect.
Inside a vast cavern thick with sinister qi and the stench of blood, countless small candles struggled to hold back the dark.
Upon an altar stained with the traces of countless blood arts and pools of gore, the Right Dharma Protector Nachal-gang kept slamming his forehead against the stone before the figure beyond the curtain, as though he could never make amends.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Nachal-gang drove his brow into the floor with force enough to crack the bone.
“You failed?”
From beyond the blood-red curtain came the Blood Sect Leader’s voice, heavy with disappointment.
Having barely escaped the imperial palace by weaving blood arts through the chaos, Nachal-gang began to report every detail of what had occurred.
“We succeeded in turning the crown prince into a jiangshi, yet an unforeseen variable arose…”
“What variable?”
Nachal-gang swallowed once, then spoke a name.
“Dan Mujin. That blasphemous wretch has once again obstructed the great work of the Blood Sect.”
“…”
How many times now had that troubleshooter Dan Mujin interfered?
Even the Blood Sect Leader, whose emotions were normally thin as mist, found himself speechless for a moment from sheer absurdity.
When silence stretched from beyond the curtain, Nachal-gang slammed his head down even harder in shame.
Whether the figure behind the curtain was deep in thought or something else, no further word came for a long while.
Only when Nachal-gang’s skull seemed about to split open did the blood-red curtain whip aside. A youthful man strode out.
“Sect Leader…?”
Skin white as paper from long years without sunlight, and eyes the color of fresh blood in stark contrast.
He looked fragile at first glance, yet his gaze held contempt for the entire world and a cold-blooded readiness to regard every human being as nothing more than meat.
Nachal-gang and every Blood Sect disciple present bowed their heads as if pulled by invisible strings.
“This Leader will take the field himself.”
“…!”
The pillar and spiritual root of the Blood Sect, the Leader himself, declaring he would step forward—Nachal-gang and the disciples were struck dumb with shock.
“B-but, my Lord…!”
“Enough.”
The Blood Sect Leader raised a hand and silenced his Right Dharma Protector.
“Useless thing.”
That single contemptuous rebuke drained the color from Nachal-gang’s face.
Watching the flustered Right Dharma, the Leader called another name.
“Rise, Left Dharma Protector.”
At once a man who had lain submerged in the pool of blood upon the altar surged upward.
Gwang Hyeol-so, the Left Dharma Protector who had clawed his way back from death for the sake of vengeance. His empty eye sockets flared open at his master’s summons.
“Come. Let us take your revenge together.”
The Blood Sect master whose head Dan Mujin had once severed.
A neck cut once could never again form words. Gwang Hyeol-so simply nodded in silence.
“Haaah.”
The training grounds of the Eunseong Merchant Group, which I had finally returned to only after spring arrived.
The moment Hwang Geolgae laid eyes on my face he let out a long, deep sigh.
“I haven’t even said a word yet. Why the sigh right off the bat?”
I looked at my master—who greeted me not with warmth but with an immediate groan—and spoke with genuine incomprehension.
“Because you went and caused another disaster, that’s why a man sighs.”
“I haven’t even told you what happened yet.”
His distrust of his disciple seemed to have reached new heights. I scratched my cheek and answered.
“Boy, who do you think I am?”
“The Bluffing Daoist.”
Thwack.
A wine gourd smacked me square in the forehead. It didn’t hurt, but the blow left a thoroughly foul taste in my mouth.
“I am Hwang Geolgae, Dragon Head Sect Leader of the Beggar Sect.”
Ah, right. That title existed too.
He spent so much time loafing around and drinking that I had momentarily forgotten.
“And every scrap of information in the Central Plains flows through the Beggar Sect.”
The largest information network of the righteous factions, sharing the underworld with the Haomu Gate—that was the Beggar Sect’s true identity.
According to Hwang Geolgae, they had recently rebuilt enough of their intelligence net around the imperial palace that even the major incidents occurring inside those walls now reached their ears.
“Uh… so then, does that mean…?”
“Yes. I already heard the whole story from Bak Chil—how you helped kick the empress out.”
“…Ahem.”
I had nothing left to say. I scratched my cheek again, looking sheepish.
Then a sudden thought struck me.
He knew every last detail, yet all I got was a single flying wine gourd?
Was that really the end of Master’s “discipline”?
“So, uh… you’re not going to thrash me?”
“What a ridiculous brat. You actually want a thorough beating?”
Hwang Geolgae snorted as though the idea were too absurd to bear.
He gripped his staff and lifted it, ready to oblige if I insisted.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant…”
I hastily waved both hands and took several steps back.
Still, it was strange. The seasons had turned once, yet there was no way this old man had suddenly turned over a new leaf.
“So you told the Son of Heaven he was running the country into the ground and tried to give him advice?”
I had never put it quite that strongly.
I answered his slightly distorted question with a faintly uneasy face.
“I didn’t know he was Emperor Hongrak at the time… I did bad-mouth the emperor a bit, saying he was basically neglecting everything…”
Hwang Geolgae heaved another deep sigh.
“And after that you walked out with your head still attached instead of having it cut off by the Shadow Guards? Even received a small reward?”
I nodded.
“And after hearing your words he stopped neglecting things and started moving?”
“Yes, well…”
Wasn’t that actually a good outcome? Thanks to it I had become one of the very few people who had insulted the Son of Heaven to his face and lived to tell the tale.
“This is a disaster.”
“What? Why?”
I asked back, bewildered. Hwang Geolgae shot me a look of pure exasperation.
“That capricious Son of Heaven seems to have taken a liking to you.”
Taken a liking to me, was it? Sounded better than being hated, at least.
“Allow me to offer my condolences in advance.”
He shook his head as though I had already been dragged into something truly dreadful, and looked at me with the pity one reserves for the recently deceased.
“From now on you, too, will suffer under whims no man can predict even an inch ahead.”
“….”
Claiming he had lived through it himself, he stared up at the stars and lamented that the same fate had now fallen upon his disciple—perhaps it was destiny.
Honestly, I would have preferred the thrashing. All this theatrical mourning was making me far more uncomfortable.
“Is it really that dangerous? Catching Emperor Hongrak’s interest?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Not yet, at least.”
“…Then what am I supposed to do from here to get out of this mess?”
I waited for whatever advice he might offer.
Instead Hwang Geolgae pulled a strip of dried jerky from his robes, began chewing, and looked at me with eyes that clearly said, This is your problem now.
“I told you from the start not to get involved. It’s already too late, so what can you do? Accept it as fate.”
If you can’t dodge it, embrace it—my master, ever the expert at needlessly stoking my anxiety.
“Enough of that matter. Go and meet your new junior martial sister.”
What kind of sudden nonsense was this?
A junior martial sister meant a female disciple who had entered the school after me.
“Who is that supposed to be?”
Hwang Geolgae answered by silently pointing somewhere.
I walked in that direction—and found myself face to face with a familiar yet mysterious woman who seemed to carry starlight in her very body.
“Boss!”