The Guiseon Expedition (2)
The sound of sturdy leather shoes striking the murky gray concrete floor echoed loudly through the basement. The long corridor beneath the main building of Jipmudang saw few visitors. When a spacious area was needed, people almost always chose one of the plentiful training grounds rather than the inconvenient underground level. Only research requiring specialized equipment, visits from outsiders who might find certain sights distasteful, or projects that demanded absolute secrecy took place down here.
Gyeon Yo’s work fell into two of those three categories. Her thunderbolt soldiers were heavy, bulky, and expensive to produce. The sight of preserved limbs twitching under electrical stimulation hardly impressed the wealthy, conservative sponsors who came from scholarly backgrounds. Strangely enough, even though the medical use of jiangshi techniques had been legal for well over a century, most people still recoiled from it—except for the soldiers on the frontier and a handful of the terminally ill. What was truly absurd was that three hundred years ago, using jiangshi techniques to stabilize dying men on the battlefield and transport them to the rear had been standard practice. Even then, the scholars living in the capital had wrinkled their noses at the reeking soldiers and the practitioners who treated them. The only thing that had changed was whether people politely called it something else or openly named it for what it was.
I slowly pushed open the iron door. Beyond it, Gyeon Yo’s small back came into view. As always, she held a cup of coffee in one hand. When she turned her head and noticed Cho Yak standing behind me, her eyebrows twitched faintly.
“Jeje Yu, you’ve arrived? And behind you…”
“This is Cho Jeje, who came with me. Go ahead and greet each other.”
Cho Yak bowed first. Gyeon Yo returned the gesture, though she looked somewhat reluctant. When she raised her head, she stole a quick glance in my direction. I wasn’t particularly skilled at conversing with strangers either, but even I wasn’t as bad as she was.
It wasn’t that Gyeon Yo couldn’t speak. When the topic turned to something she knew well, she could explain it with such clarity and flow that the words practically poured from her like a mountain spring. The problem was how limited her topics were. Once she exhausted her research, the last lecture she attended, and what she had eaten that day, Gyeon Yo fell silent. If only she had been thick-skinned enough not to mind the quiet, things might have been easier. Instead, she possessed just enough social awareness to feel the awkwardness of a wordless room. After experiencing that discomfort several times, she had eventually grown afraid of meeting people without a clear purpose.
It was a chilling thought. If, before I left the mountain, Baek had caught up to my martial level and my stories had lost their charm, wouldn’t I have ended up the same way? I suddenly understood why the ancient sages had urged people to travel and broaden their experience. These days I could easily fill an entire day talking about Xining, Lanzhou, Chang’an, and the Grand Canal. The journey hadn’t begun by choice, yet I had gained far more than I expected.
Still, when it was just the two of us, we never ran out of things to discuss—her research, martial theory, and the like—so Gyeon Yo could relax. With Cho Yak present, however, she naturally grew tense. Not every scholar at Jipmudang was like Jipmususa or Gyeon Yo. Some burned with academic passion while working but hated discussing their field once they left the office. Those were exactly the people Gyeon Yo feared most.
I spoke in the calmest voice I could manage. “There’s no need to be nervous. I simply have something to discuss with Ji Gyun, and this friend came along because she finds it more comfortable to listen. Once we’re finished, we’ll leave together.”
“Ah… I see. What is this matter you wish to discuss?” Gyeon Yo let out a relieved breath and asked.
“Do you remember the name Guiseon?”
“Of course. I believe I was the one who first mentioned it to you.”
“I’ve decided to go capture him together with Cho here.”
At those words, Gyeon Yo’s expression twisted strangely. She rolled her eyes for a moment, lost in thought, then looked back at me.
“When you say ‘capture’… you mean…”
“Exactly what it sounds like. We’ll attack him, and if the situation permits, we’ll kill him.”
“Um… that’s…”
After thinking a while longer, Gyeon Yo spoke carefully. “It does seem like the most feasible approach, and I have considered it in abstract terms before… but it violates ordinary ethics… and isn’t that simply murder?”
I stared at her blankly for a second, not immediately understanding, before realizing my explanation had been insufficient. I waved my hands.
“No, I’m not suggesting we kill an innocent person. He has committed real crimes. According to a trustworthy friend of mine, he has already kidnapped several hundred people to use as research materials.”
“I knew it!”
Gyeon Yo shot to her feet with a sound that was almost a scream. Both Cho Yak and I flinched and took a step back. She clutched her head and muttered, “The experimental results never matched the number of trials. I thought he was simply unbelievably lucky, but he was committing such shameless fraud!”
“Calm down. I understand why you’re angry, but…”
Or did I? She seemed furious for a slightly different reason than I had expected. Still, there was no need to press the point. While it might not be as grave as murder, falsifying papers and betraying scholarly integrity was clearly wrong.
“In any case, the evil he has committed and continues to commit is too terrible to ignore. We’ve decided to step in and end it. This isn’t a bad thing for you either, Ji Gyun. Even if I stayed behind to help, it would be difficult to surpass Guiseon. If both he and the Henan Academy collapse because of this, won’t everything be resolved?”
“What you say is correct, but even if he is a criminal, private punishment is still illegal…”
Gyeon Yo stopped mid-sentence, then seemed to realize something and answered herself. “Ah! The two of you are murim practitioners. If the crime can be proven, the private punishment of a registered murim expert is legally permitted within limits. However, if the evidence is clear, wouldn’t it be simpler to simply report it to the authorities?”
Report it to the authorities? I had never once considered that option, so I fumbled for a reply. Cho Yak stepped in instead.
“You’ve worked with the authorities before, so you should already know. Their processes are slow and overly complicated in every matter. If you want to make certain he pays for his crimes, it’s better to handle it ourselves.”
“That… is also true…”
Gyeon Yo nodded as if convinced, but then her brows furrowed slightly. It looked like something had occurred to her. After a short wait, she turned to me.
“By the way, are the two of you going alone?”
“That’s the plan. Why?”
Cho Yak’s answer made Gyeon Yo’s frown deepen. She hesitated several times before finally speaking.
“Guiseon receives support from Prince Han’s Palace. As far as I know, the palace maintains roughly three hundred personal guards. I’m not doubting your skill, but I worry you might face retaliation…”
“Don’t worry. It’s true that only the two of us are heading there, but the friend who gave us this information will have made separate preparations. Besides, even if there are three hundred of them, they’re just palace guards, not a trained military formation. There won’t be cavalry or cannons, so there’s no reason to fear them blindly.”
Or was there? Surely not. At least three hundred years ago, such a thing would have been unthinkable. Ordinary merchants who owned a few riding horses or merchants dealing in firecrackers had to register their names with the authorities. Real warhorses and gunpowder were matters of national prestige. No matter how powerful a prince or duke might be, they were still merely a family granted authority by the state. Unless the imperial family and court had gone mad, they would never allow private forces to possess cannons or cavalry.
Yet Gyeon Yo’s face turned deathly pale at my words. I wondered whether the new imperial family and court that had risen while I trained in the mountains had truly lost their minds.
“Did you intend to oppose Prince Han’s Palace from the very beginning?”
“…Do they really have cannons and cavalry?”
“No, of course not… but even three hundred elite infantry would still cause quite a battle.”
“Ah, well. We have a very capable friend, so our side’s preparations will be more than sufficient.”
“Luoyang is going to fall into chaos…”
In truth, three hundred ordinary infantry posed no threat whatsoever to Cho Yak and me. This wasn’t an open field; it was the middle of the city. How could regular soldiers hope to pin down high-level experts? Even the meticulous Mister Zhou wouldn’t have made grand preparations for something so simple, but there was no need to explain that much.
Yet for some reason Gyeon Yo’s face grew even more rigid. She pressed a fist to her mouth, thinking hard, then uttered words that made me doubt my own ears.
“In that case, I will go to Luoyang with you.”
“Why on earth? If you’re worried about us, it’s unnecessary.”
Gyeon Yo shook her head. “I can roughly guess how powerful Jeje Yu’s martial ability is. Since you understand combat far better than I do, I’m sure you will win if you say so. However, I’m concerned that the Henan Academy’s materials might be lost in the process.”
“Weren’t they fabricated anyway?”
“They may have hidden the genuine records separately. And even if the process was full of illegality and manipulation, the results themselves are real. We may not be able to use them as they are, but they could still greatly benefit future scholarship. We cannot allow them to disappear.”
“Hmm…”
She wasn’t wrong. The data had been produced by kidnapping and killing hundreds of people. If it truly held value, it would be better to preserve it for the world now rather than let dozens more die later to recreate it. Above all, if she had decided to go, it was her choice. I couldn’t take responsibility for it, so I meant to give her a few warnings and grant permission when she spoke first.
“Of course I won’t cause any unnecessary trouble. My life is far more important than those materials, so I naturally won’t participate in any fighting. I will stay at a safe distance, and once you inform me the situation is secure, I will only go to retrieve the data. That should be acceptable, shouldn’t it?”
She had already included every condition I would have demanded, so I simply nodded.
With our party now increased by one, we immediately went to see Jipmususa and applied for an official trip on the grounds of filing a protest and requesting cooperation regarding the Henan Academy. Gyeon Yo’s proposal was apparently convincing enough that the paperwork was approved without a single question.
The fastest way from Suzhou to Luoyang was by boat, but since Cho Yak was with us, we couldn’t take one. While Gyeon Yo handled the various procedures, Cho Yak and I went to reserve a carriage. The vague unease that had been bothering me finally crystallized, and I let out a small exclamation.
“What is it?”
“Something has been weighing on my mind since earlier. I finally realized why.”
“Since earlier?”
“When Ji Gyun said that if the crime could be proven, private punishment of a registered murim practitioner was legally permitted.”
“She did say that.”
“What does ‘registered’ mean?”
Cho Yak stared at me with the expression of someone looking at a ghost. I felt strangely guilty and quietly averted my eyes.