The Day of Getting Married
One day, with no clients and nothing but empty hours to fill, I tried wishing on the sky.
Someone, please, kick that door open and throw a job at me.
"…Come again? You want me to do what?"
Except this was not the kind of headache I had in mind.
I never imagined a woman would walk in and, without so much as a blush, propose the most important human rite of a lifetime as if she were ordering tea.
I stared at the Tang Clan woman in front of me with pure, unfiltered disbelief.
"Boss? When did you two get that close—"
"It's not like that. Stop right there."
I thrust out a palm in the tone of a teacher breaking up a schoolyard fight, shutting Ilhong down before she could start inventing gossip, then turned back to my visitor.
"Noona. You're joking, right?"
"…No? I'm serious. You. Become my husband. That's the job."
Her voice was bold enough, but I watched her hands unconsciously clench and unclench the hem of her clothes.
"H-huuusb—?!"
Beside me, Ilhong dribbled her tea straight down her chin. Whatever wits she had just recovered promptly fled the building again.
I, on the other hand, held on to mine with years of troubleshooter experience. Clients who showed up with no beginning and no end were nothing new.
"I don't follow. Can't you just go ask the Vagabond Association…?"
The smart play with a messy client was always to toss them at another office. I pointed casually in the direction of the Association building.
"Shit, as if the Vagabond Association would take a job like this… And last time you explained it, you said you'd do anything as long as you got paid!"
Dang Yeohye snapped at me, insisting she had heard me say it clearly at the Murim Alliance. Fair enough—I had run my mouth about taking any job. Still. A marriage request out of nowhere was a little much.
"And I came because it was you, Mujin… It has to be you."
Oh, for— Now she was dropping lines that practically begged to be misunderstood, looking anxious the whole while. That was Second Young Lady Dang Yeohye of the Sichuan Tang Clan for you.
"Is this a love confession? Do you like me, noona?"
No chance in hell where that Poison Dog was concerned, but I asked it flat and easy, fishing for her real intent.
"…"
And against every expectation, she did not answer at once. I had braced for the usual explosion of curses. Instead—
"…Huh? For real?"
I muttered it with a blank look.
"N-no!! You little bastard! Don't get the wrong idea! I said I came here with a job! This punk from the start—!"
Only then did she snap back to herself, both fists clenched, shrieking loud enough to land a punch any second. Yes. That was the Orthodox Faction's mad dog I knew.
Jingle-jingle.
Someone must have heard the yelling from the street, because a man pushed open the agency door.
"…A disaster, just as I expected."
Uncle Neungsam took in Ilhong with water streaming from her mouth, the Poison Dog hopping in place, and my own flustered face, then let out a long, heavy sigh.
"I will explain everything, Young Master Mujin."
At last, the Poison Dog's communications officer had arrived.
"…A political marriage?"
Uncle Neungsam, who had been late packing their bags, nodded at my words.
A strategic union between houses. In eras like this, it was supposedly more common than marrying for love.
"Yes. More precisely, it is a political marriage that Young Master Dang Ak is forcing through on his own, Young Master Mujin."
I wondered how a mere young master could make that kind of decision instead of the clan head—until Neungsam explained. At present, Clan Head Dang Yangcheon of the Sichuan Tang Clan lay bedridden and unconscious after reckless poison cultivation. He had pushed himself trying to reach the realm of the Poison Man, or so the story went.
Seizing that opening, Dang Yeohye's older brother had grabbed the clan's real power and was now engineering this scheme to cast her out.
"Why go that far, though?"
"Because succession in the Tang Clan does not favor the eldest son the way most sects do. It turns like a gu-poison jar, Young Master."
A gu-poison jar—the vicious selection method of sealing venomous insects and toxic creatures together and keeping only whatever survived. I had heard that the Yin Gu and Yang Gu Ilhong once used on the Mystical Pavilion Master were made the same way.
"Only the most poisonous one may inherit the house. That is why our young lady, who showed outstanding talent so early, is a thorn in Young Master Dang Ak's eye."
So he meant to marry her off and make her an outsider before she could threaten his seat any further. And Dang Yeohye, trying to dodge that fate, had been living this pitiful runaway life ever since.
"And recently, after the young lady consumed the Blood Night Toad's inner core and made a name for herself in Shaanxi, the other side has grown impatient. They can no longer afford to drag this out."
Young Master Dang Ak was rushing the inter-clan betrothal by force if necessary. The other family, for whatever rights they had been promised, was equally eager—even though she had never once shown her face.
"Honestly. Who decides someone else's life's greatest rite for them?"
But that was the age we lived in. Crushing an individual's will in the name of a clan's survival was treated as the most natural thing in the world. Look at the Moyong Clan—little more than puppets dancing to the clan head's orders. Moyong Cheonghye had at least pushed back a little after joining the Murim Alliance, but only a little.
"In any case, that is why a false betrothal with you is required, Young Master Mujin. To put a stop to their schemes."
So that was why she had barged into our office. Fair enough. For a job like this, where else was she supposed to go but our detective agency?
"But if it's a fake engagement, it doesn't strictly have to be me, does it? I can introduce you to some suitable guy—"
"No. It has to be you."
Dang Yeohye, who had kept her mouth shut until now, finally spoke. Her gleaming dark-green eyes locked onto mine without a flicker.
"Martial talent that reached Peak Realm at fifteen. The title Dog-Beating Dragon, bestowed by the Alliance Leader himself. Poison resistance that makes you look like a Poison Man, and a deep personal connection with me… Someone the Tang Clan elders will accept? There's only you, Dan Mujin."
It had to be someone the family could be made to swallow. And among the Orthodox rising stars, the only one who was both close to her and absurdly talented… was pretty much me.
"See, this is why you should make more friends on a normal day—"
"…I have friends, you bastard!"
A fist loaded with pure rage came flying. I snapped my head aside and flicked her wrist, dodging that tiny knuckle.
"Hey now! Striking your husband already?!"
I was not about to start as a beaten-up spouse. When I barked at her for the lack of manners, Dang Yeohye looked at me like I had lost my mind.
"Y-you crazy bastard…! We're not even that kind of thing yet!"
Not yet, huh.
I glanced at Ilhong, the pillar and brains of our office. She must have read my mind, because she answered before I even asked.
"I'm against this job."
"Why?"
"I'm just against it."
An emotional take with not a scrap of the logic she usually lived by. In the end, the agency director—me—would have to decide.
"For the record, that pouch I showed you earlier is only the deposit. If this works out, I can pay more once I'm back at the main house."
True enough—she had been broke from living as a runaway, but the Sichuan Tang Clan itself was one of the richest houses ruling Sichuan. On top of that, we owed quarterly taxes to the Court for setting up in the capital, and I still had to pay Eun Hwaran back. The next job had no schedule and no guarantee of profit.
No need to run the numbers any further.
I stretched my right hand straight out toward Dang Yeohye. She tilted her head, then took it.
"Looking forward to working with you, wife."
"…You lunatic. Don't. That's cringey."
Flustered, Dang Yeohye yanked her hand free and muttered under her breath.
Jo Harang, who had earned the title Divine Wind Saber through her exploits in Shaanxi, had come down from Mount Song—home of her sect—and was stopping in Beijing.
She had wanted to refine her Peak Realm insights with her master, but she had descended for two reasons: to collect the reward from Master Jo's commission, and to visit the new business she had heard her close friend was opening in Beijing.
I wonder how he's doing, that Mujin idiot.
At first she had written him off as just another cocky low-rank vagabond. But over a long journey and trial after trial, the two of them had grown close at a startling speed. The groundless hostility from their first meeting had faded somewhere along the way, replaced by a strange sense of kinship.
And that young man—who had shattered the wall of Peak Realm that had blocked her path, and who had guarded her back through fights that could have cost their lives—rose in her mind, and a smile spread across Jo Harang's lips of its own accord.
"Jo Harang. Thinking of visiting that fellow who switched to troubleshooter work?"
Gamun, pressing the payment for Master Jo's escort job into her hands, eyed her steadily as he asked. He added that work had kept him from the opening, and that if she was going, she should take his gift along as well.
"Strange kid, that one. He could just keep working as a vagabond—why dive into jobs fit for low-grade unorthodox types? Tsk, tsk."
Even if blood was involved every time, vagabond work was far better in both the quality of commissions and the pay. Gamun shook his head as if he truly could not understand it.
"Mujin isn't only after money. Even before, he always looked satisfied when people needed him—and when they were grateful."
And that odd relief as well. She had seen him once, easing under some unknown energy rising near his dantian, muttering that he could stay sane a while longer.
"That's what's strange. If he likes that sort of thing, he should just play the gallant hero."
"But if he works as a vagabond or a troubleshooter, he can make money too, right?"
Jo Harang shrugged, as if she fully agreed with a man who wanted both principle and profit.
"Come to think of it, you were a little strange yourself at first."
A mysterious girl who had appeared under a starlit sky and bluntly asked him to help her make some money. Now she was a proper Peak Realm martial artist and one of the mainstays of the Beijing Vagabond Association.
"Which brings me to this—interested in one more job? Master Jo's side wants you to teach martial arts to their children."
Jo Harang pictured the two brothers and their bizarre debate of the sword. They could not possibly think the boys had talent. They simply wanted a master invited into the house so they could boast of being on friendly terms with a Peak Realm expert.
"They said the pay wouldn't disappoint. What do you say?"
"I'll pass. And I don't think I can take other jobs for a while either."
"Hm? Why is that?"
"After I say hello to Mujin, I'm heading back up Mount Song to sort out my insights."
That was why she had only shown her face to her master before coming down. Once she entered closed training, she would not leave the mountain for some time.
"Mount Song? Ah—the place with your sect."
"That's right."
Something-or-other Jaha. An unfamiliar sect name; Gamun had already forgotten it.
"Heh… So you came all the way down here just to see that fellow's face?"
Gamun smiled with a knowing, slightly odd look.
"Yes. A close friend I crossed the line of life and death with spent a fortune starting a business. Of course I should go see it, shouldn't I?"
"Hmm. A close friend. Close friend…"
He toyed with the cross-shaped scar on his face, muttering as if something had clicked.
"Jo Harang. Do you know this? Between a man and a woman, there is no such thing as 'just friends.'"
He said it almost as a declaration. Jo Harang's brow twitched; she answered that could not be true.
"What kind of talk is that? Please don't take our friendship—forged through life and death—so lightly."
She had had plenty of fellow vagabonds, but Dan Mujin was the first person she had ever truly called a friend. Close in age, martial talent that did not fall short of hers, the same practice of encouraging good and punishing evil, and a vast stock of good karma held inside him—exactly the ideal friend she had always imagined.
"Heh heh heh… Well, sometimes a person needs a big shock before they realize."
Gamun murmured with amusement as he looked at Jo Harang, young as she still was compared to him. Even a master could not easily pin down their own heart.
He pulled something from the table and tossed it to her.
"Jo Harang. Deliver this to that fellow for me."
One was the Class-B Vagabond Badge he had promised to give on Mujin's return. The other was a rolled-up painting.
"Why is a four-legged beast standing on two legs… Chairman, what on earth is this picture?"
"Leave it to sit and it will be worth money. Tell him it's my gift for the opening."
With that, Chairman Gamun said he had work and left.
"Ugh…"
The beast in the painting struck a thoroughly lewd pose. Jo Harang walked out of the Vagabond Association building wearing the face of someone who had just seen something unholy.
"I will never understand the tastes of important people."
This was supposed to be worth money? She shuddered at the world of painters and the Way of Painting, shook her head, and headed into the market street.
With a light, springing footwork, the outer edge of the shops came up in no time. Spotting the two-story commercial building she had been told about, she stopped.
"Hm? Looks like they're heading somewhere."
The moment she arrived, she saw Dan Mujin and his party hurrying off, pulling a baggage cart. The load piled high on it suggested a long journey.
"Mujin? Where are you going?"
The young man, mid-pull, flinched at the familiar voice and turned.
"…Whoa—what? Jo Harang, when did you get to Beijing?"
His surprised face lit up as he greeted his friend.
"I'm late, but I came to congratulate you on the opening. Only… looks like you're headed somewhere right now?"
"Huh? Ah, well. Business in Sichuan came up… Bad timing."
He was clearly hurrying, and something about the way he dodged the question felt off. What kind of business was it, exactly?
Then Ilhong, standing beside him, opened her mouth as if to report him.
"Young Lady Jo Harang, can you believe it? This man just got married."
"…What?"
The words hit like a blow to the skull. Jo Harang's mouth fell open. Who did what?
"You see Heroine Dang Yeohye up ahead? He's going to Sichuan right now to marry that woman."
A woman with a high, sharp nose and arrogantly upturned red-tipped eyes. Dang Yeohye was shouting from the crowd for them to hurry up.
"Get over here! You slow-as-hell husband bastard! That bastard's probably pulling some scheme even now!"
She was calling Dan Mujin by a thoroughly strange title. Jo Harang's head turned toward her one and only friend in jerky little ticks, like a broken puppet dance.
"Misunderstanding. Total misunderstanding."
The second their eyes met, Dan Mujin started waving both hands wildly, insisting it was all a misunderstanding.
"What part is a misunderstanding…?"
Jo Harang asked.
"Right? What part is a misunderstanding? You are going to hold a wedding with that woman."
"Hey—are you seriously doing this right now?"
Instead of helping, Ilhong only grumbled and got in the way. Dan Mujin shot her a sharp look.
"It's not a real marriage. It's because of a job."
What kind of job in this world proceeded by forming a marriage pact? Jo Harang wore a look of pure, speechless disbelief.
"I'll explain later…!"
As Dang Yeohye drew farther ahead, Dan Mujin and his party shouted that they would explain later and took off, hauling the baggage cart after them.
Watching them vanish, she felt an unnameable emotion whirl up from her chest. Without realizing it, she let the gifts she had brought drop from her hands.
"What is this…"