Your Side, My Side
To gain something, you must cast something equal away.
That was what Dang Yeohye's father, Dang Yangcheon, had always said before he took to his sickbed.
And she had been the child who followed that teaching more faithfully than any other.
She had discarded the gentle, affectionate girl she once was and remade herself into a rough, merciless master of poison arts. Poison had seeped into her marrow during training and left her with a side effect she could barely master—a temper that flared at nothing—but she never regretted it. Her mother had been proud of her growth, and she had pushed the poison arts that were the Dang Clan's very reason for existing to their utmost extreme.
Looking back later, though, what she had abandoned had been considerable too.
Because of that temperament that led with curses and fists, not a single person remained around her. The only one left was her old servant Neungsam, who knew her former nature and endured being beaten every time without a word of complaint. Everyone else had been busy condemning her and turning their backs. To her face they called her Poison Claw Mountain Blood; behind it they pointed fingers and named her Poison Dog, as vicious as a raging cur.
What she resented most of all was herself—knowing all this and still being unable to fix it.
"Damn it. At this rate even Mujin will..."
Unlike her, her elder brother was frighteningly skilled at drawing people in and making them his own. Just look at how he had seized the Dang Clan the moment Clan Head Dang Yangcheon collapsed, as if he had been waiting for it. Sweet words and schemes, steadily expanding his influence inside the family. Whenever Dang Yeohye raised her martial achievements enough to threaten his position, he had conspicuously narrowed her standing within the clan.
"Leaving again..."
The young master was trying to make her a complete outsider, to leave her no place to stand inside the Dang Clan at all. A situation that could not help but fill Dang Yeohye with ugly imaginings.
"How much will it take?"
The voice of a man in his thirties drifted from the masterless clan head's office. Dan Mujin, whom she had half-threatened into becoming her sworn younger brother, had told her to trust only him and wait—but the anxiety would not leave her, so she had snuck in like this. She pricked up her ears, poured internal energy into them, and strained to catch the faint voices beyond the wall.
Crunch. Crunch.
As if someone were working through a shellfish dish, for a long while only the sound of shells being chewed came from the room. Unable to wait any longer, Dang Ak brought the matter up again.
"I'll give you double what you received. Withdraw from this matter."
He had no idea how much commission Mujin had taken, but he was willing to pay more than double if the man would simply step away from the family's affairs. Unlike the financially destitute Dang Yeohye, Dang Ak could swing gold by the chestful. If it came down to money, she could not even enter the fight.
Crunch. Crunch-crunch.
No matter what sum the other side offered, though, Dan Mujin remained absorbed in demolishing his food. Even with a major clan's powerful heir applying every kind of pressure, tangible and otherwise, he sat there calmly peeling crayfish shells.
...Looking at him, he's not entirely normal either.
It was something she had come to feel deeply while traveling with him. A terrifying young man who, regardless of who stood opposite him—herself included—would charge in headfirst the moment he found them annoying. Seeing him do the same even before the Moyong Clan head, the Thunder Sword, she thought he might soon snatch the title of mad dog from her altogether.
"Hmm... well, fine. Then I'll make the offer from this side first."
Thud.
When conversation clearly was not working, Dang Ak immediately laid out his cards. The sound of a chest heavy with jingling contents filled the room.
"State before everyone that Dang Yeohye deliberately hired you to ruin the inter-clan marriage. Do that, and these thirty gold coins are all yours. How about it?"
Clink. Clink.
He seemed to be scooping up a handful of yellow gold coins and dropping them right under Mujin's nose for show. The metallic sound that beguiles people rang again and again. One woman and one man swallowed hard and waited for Dan Mujin's answer.
"Thirty is too little."
Dang Ak's hand, still scattering gold, froze mid-motion. At the same instant Dang Yeohye's breath caught with a sharp little sound.
"I need at least double that."
Dan Mujin mumbled it while crunching whatever crayfish or crab it was.
"Sixty gold coins... fine. If it can thoroughly bury that Dang Yeohye wench, there's no reason I can't pay."
It was within an acceptable range, and Dang Ak answered positively.
"On second thought, I miscalculated. I'll need ten times that."
"...Aren't you being a bit too greedy?"
When Dan Mujin raised the stakes tenfold all at once in that odd tone of his, Dang Ak ground his teeth as if asking whether this was a joke. Dang Yeohye gnawed her lip in much the same way.
"You're asking me to join a vile, underhanded scheme to drive out a younger sister whose martial skill surpasses yours. Shouldn't I get at least that much just to consider it?"
There was a subtle mockery woven through the voice. Sensing it, Dang Ak spoke in a tone gone cold.
"...You bastard. Looking at it now, you never intended to accept from the start."
Huh...?
Dang Yeohye, who had been squeezing her eyes shut, snapped them open.
"You're only realizing that now?"
A snicker drifted through the wall.
If you watch soap operas, that scene always shows up—the rich parents tossing a money envelope at the commoner protagonist and telling them to break it off.
They put a decent amount in.
I had always figured that if that situation ever came for me, I would refuse on the spot. But looking at that yellow gold when I was broke from opening a shop, my heart wavered a little. Just as my hand started creeping out on its own, the Seongun Simbeop inside me surged like a wave and washed the worldly desire clean away. Then the red energy that had been stoking my greed and yanking at my hand came into view.
This bastard, every single chance he gets...
The Heavenly Killing Star, urging betrayal to corrupt me. I immediately circulated the Seongun Simbeop and drove every scrap of that red energy out.
I like money. Because of this guy, I just can't properly indulge in wanting it.
"Dan Mujin, was it? You'll regret this decision."
"Well now. Regret."
Young Master Dang Ak recovered the chest of gold and sneered to his heart's content.
"Whatever you do, Yeohye's spouse will be the eldest son of the Baek Family Head. I'll move the clan to make it so."
In other words, I would lose the chance to take the money and fail the commission on top of it. He looked at me with the pitying eyes of a man regarding a frog at the bottom of a well.
"Do you know what's wrong with this crayfish dish, Young Master Dang Ak?"
Crunch.
At the sudden talk of mala crayfish, Dang Ak's face twisted with displeasure. I snapped the crayfish at the waist and peeled out the tiny scrap of tail meat.
"The shell is huge, but when you crack it open the meat inside is barely a speck. Just like a certain petty man who pretends to be a magnanimous gentleman on the outside while trying to crush his own younger sister."
What a pathetic human being. If your martial arts and realm fall short, you train harder and surpass them. Instead he lured people with money and pulled stunts like this. Perhaps the reason Dang Yeohye had no one around her was half her own personality—and the other half this man's behind-the-scenes work.
"...Quite an insolent mouth you've got. Reaching the Peak Realm so young, so nothing enters your sight anymore?"
As if shedding his pretense, Dang Ak's eyes changed in an instant. Anger and a thin layer of contempt. He rose from his seat with a gaze gone cold.
"I was going to give you a chance, thinking the talent was a waste... but you insist on choosing a sinking ship, you foolish brat."
"Well. Which one sinks is the question."
"Do you think you can set foot in Sichuan after making an enemy of the entire Dang Clan? If I just put pressure on the Vagabond Association, your work will—"
"I already quit the vagabond business halfway. And you're already talking as if the entire Dang Clan is yours. Young Master."
When I pointed out that he was not clan head yet, Dang Ak's face hardened completely. He narrowed his eyes, glared at me for a moment, then walked straight out the door.
"A waste of time. I'll be going."
"Yes. I'll finish eating and leave."
"...Tsk."
He clicked his tongue to the very end as if he still could not believe it. You cannot leave expensive food behind, can you? An unavoidable habit from my beggar days. I waved a hand after the departing Dang Ak.
After shamelessly finishing the meal and stepping out of the clan head's office, I found Dang Yeohye and the others rushing toward me in a clump.
"H-how did it go?"
Dang Yeohye speaking in an uncharacteristically hesitant way. I casually answered while picking my teeth with a toothpick I had split from a pair of chopsticks.
"You've arrived, wife?"
A solid chunk of gunk came up on the end of the toothpick. Normally when I played the husband like this she would jump up screaming not to talk nonsense.
"D-don't say weird things..."
For some reason, today's her—rather than getting angry—looked a little shy.
"..."
Did she eat something wrong? Why is this woman suddenly like this. I flinched at the scene, having braced myself for a full barrage of curses.
"Uncle Neungsam, what's wrong with her?"
"...This is the first time I've seen Young Miss like this since she was a child."
When our eyes met, Uncle Neungsam answered that he had no idea either. Hey—if you don't know, who here does?
"Ilhong, do you know?"
"...I don't know."
And even Ilhong looking somehow in a bad mood. Uncle Neungsam and I glanced at each other over this strange situation—and shrugged our shoulders almost at the same time.
To gain the family's recognition and break the political marriage, Dang Yeohye had brought a young, capable Peak Realm martial artist as a marriage candidate. To cut to the conclusion, though, her intention had failed. As Dang Ak had boldly claimed, he had a firm grip on the Dang Clan. Whether he had dangled massive funds and interests as bait, most of the elders and blood relatives were already on his side.
"A woman who can't control her temper, with curses at the end of every sentence, who even beats her husband! Who would truly harbor affection for her? Therefore that man is nothing but a vagabond bought with money!"
At Dang Ak's cry, various elders nodded and chimed in agreement. Certainly, a husband who got beaten was something unimaginable in this era. I myself had seen every kind of spectacle working as a troubleshooter, so it was no big deal to me.
Anyway—despite bringing a martial genius who had excelled at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, earned the Murim Alliance Leader's recognition, and possessed an outstanding realm—Dang Yeohye had failed to turn the tide of public opinion.
"That's why you should've made some friends in normal times."
"...I did try in my own way, you know?"
I looked at Neungsam with a really? expression.
"Well. There were times she held back to one hit when she was going to hit twice."
"Hmm. Effort in her own way..."
As I had heard, poison arts really were dangerous martial arts. To take a once-normal girl and turn her into a walking powder keg.
"Big Sis, what do we do now?"
At this rate she would either be dragged into the marriage the young master was pushing, or run away again and wander avoiding the family's shadow. Meanwhile Dang Ak would keep expanding his influence inside the clan. If Clan Head Dang Yangcheon happened to die suddenly, there would truly be no answer left.
"Th-there's one more method."
But it was not a dead end—she mentioned the existence of a Plan B to break the current situation.
"What is it?"
At the casually tossed question, she stared hard at my face. As if wanting something.
"...I need your body."
And a rather ominous answer came back.