Grudge (1)
Dang Su-jeong fidgeted restlessly, stealing glances at Hwi-yeom for his reaction.
Hwi-yeom let out a short, incredulous laugh at his aunt’s adorable display and said,
“…I’ve been in favor of it from the start? The one who kept putting off the proposal, insisting he’d only ask after he’d accomplished something, was Secretary Lee.”
“Th-that’s right. Yeah. But somehow I just feel like if you don’t give your blessing, he’ll never actually propose…”
“As it happens, when he brought me the report earlier I told him, ‘At this rate, I can entrust Aunt to you,’ and heaped praise on him. By now he’s probably run off to Michelangelo to order an engagement ring.”
The Central Plains had never possessed a custom of proposing with a ring the way Europe did. Exchange of betrothal gifts was the norm; if Lee Jin-myeong intended to present a ring, it was surely in imitation of the modern-born Hwi-yeom, who had once slipped a ring onto Sama Yun’s finger.
At Hwi-yeom’s words, Dang Su-jeong’s face blossomed like a flower in full bloom.
“Really?!”
“…Now I understand why Secretary Lee fell for you, Aunt.”
As a direct descendant of the Sichuan Dang Family—whose bloodline was so famous for producing beauties that the proverb “beautiful flowers carry poison” was coined about them—her looks were outstanding. The reason she had never married, however, was probably twofold: in her youth she had shown little interest in men, and her methods in combat, so fierce they sometimes bordered on cruelty and obsession, had earned her a fearsome reputation.
From Dang Su-jeong’s perspective, she had needed to crush the family’s enemies so thoroughly that no one who opposed the Dang would dare harbor hostility or dream of revenge—all to keep the collapsing clan standing.
Yet watching her light up like a girl over a single gesture from Lee Jin-myeong revealed a gentle, sensitive woman beneath it all.
A beauty of that caliber acting cold and haughty to the world, yet melting like this only in front of me? Ah, a twelve-year age gap is just a number. Absolutely.
Thanks to her refined martial arts, her physical body was still that of a woman in her twenties. Even a somewhat late marriage would leave nothing to criticize.
Hwi-yeom sincerely wished his aunt—the steadfast, magnificent woman who had protected him since childhood—every happiness on her new beginning.
“…So please stop bullying the artisans now…”
Dang Su-jeong’s face flushed scarlet at his words.
“W-was it… that obvious?”
“How could it not be…?”
Sheepish, Dang Su-jeong hung her head.
“Maaaarriage? Haa, the principles of the jianghu have truly fallen to the ground… Dear, hasn’t my treatment been a little too harsh of late?”
Dang Un-sang, who had been about to tease his sister with a snide remark the moment she asked him to help prepare for the wedding, suddenly twisted his waist in alarm when Eun Seol-ran’s eyes narrowed to axe-blades and her fingers prepared to pinch his side.
“The one being too harsh is you, dear! It’s the wedding of your one and only younger sister—why must you be so mischievous?!”
“Sister-in-law…”
Dang Su-jeong clasped Eun Seol-ran’s hand, deeply moved.
“Thank you so much. Truly, only you, Sister-in-law. As for that thing I call a brother… tch.”
When Dang Su-jeong glared, Dang Un-sang merely whistled.
“Aigo, once you marry off too, Su-jeong, the only one left for me to tease will be Un-hwa.”
“That’s not a person…”
“Come to think of it, teasing Un-hwa wouldn’t even be satisfying. She’d just shout, ‘I married an explosion!’ at the top of her lungs and look proud of it.”
“Why can I picture that so clearly…”
The Dang siblings exchanged helpless laughs. When the laughter faded, Dang Un-sang looked at his sister with a soft expression free of mischief.
“Anyway, so you’re finally leaving. You’ve worked hard all this time, holding up the family as one of its pillars… I’ll make sure the wedding preparations don’t fall short of Yeom’s own.”
“…Oppa…”
“Anyone listening would think you were the one preparing everything.”
“…My wife will.”
All three of them burst into clear, bright laughter at the same moment.
Then—
“Wha, hey, you… getting married?”
Yu-baek, who had appeared out of nowhere, tilted his head and asked.
This was the innermost chamber of the Family Head’s residence—a place no one but direct blood of the Dang Family was allowed to enter—yet no one was surprised by Yu-baek’s sudden arrival.
Dang Su-jeong believed him to be an elder of the direct line who had returned to youth through rejuvenation.
Dang Un-sang knew exactly who Yu-baek really was.
And Eun Seol-ran simply followed her husband’s lead and stayed quiet.
Dang Su-jeong smiled shyly.
“Ah, yes, Elder. That’s how things have turned out.”
“The other party… that puppy-like secretary boy?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmmm… mm…”
Yu-baek kept tilting his head. Puzzled, Dang Un-sang asked,
“What is it, Elder?”
“…Hmm.”
Still tilting his head in that characteristic way, Yu-baek suddenly spoke as if tossing the words away.
“Be careful.”
“Pardon?”
“That kid… a shadow of death has fallen across his face.”
“…What?”
The utterly unexpected statement left everyone frozen.
Dang Su-jeong, unable to hide her panic, pressed,
“What on earth do you mean, Elder?!”
“Him.”
Yu-baek’s green eyes flashed like glass beads.
“If he doesn’t watch himself… he’ll die soon.”
Hwi-yeom was restructuring the business organization together with Lee Jin-myeong.
The process of folding the Sichuan Carriage Company that Lee Jin-myeong had founded into the Hwiyeom Group (called a “conglomerate” in the Central Plains) was proceeding smoothly.
Capital had been injected by Hwiyeom Comprehensive Finance, and the governance structure placed Hwi-yeom as president and Lee Jin-myeong as vice president. Since they were accepting no outside investment, sorting out the ownership was naturally simple.
What remained was deciding how to select and assign the managers and officers beneath them, how to set their wages and service systems, and how to arrange business partnerships with government offices such as the Provincial Administration Commission.
Once the work seemed to be winding down, the newly promoted Second Secretary Hwang Ji-su entered carrying a coffee pot and snacks.
With Second Secretary Lee Jin-myeong stepping out to become vice president of Sichuan Carriage, she—the most senior among his secretarial staff—had filled the vacancy.
Lee Jin-myeong was, in effect, a power broker within the Dang Family: he served as vice president of one of the group’s subsidiaries (and in practice held the real authority of a president, since Hwi-yeom left the day-to-day work to him) while simultaneously planting his own person in the post of Hwi-yeom’s closest secretary.
“How are the proposal preparations coming?”
“Well. Almost finished. I’ve already received the ring. All that’s left… is to present it along with the other gifts and actually propose.”
“Location and atmosphere matter for these things. Have you thought of a place?”
“Ah… a-about the location and atmosphere, you mean…”
Seeing the utterly lost expression on Lee Jin-myeong’s face, Hwi-yeom clicked his tongue.
“Call it a day and go home early.”
“Pardon? Did I make some mistake…?”
“Not a work mistake—you’re making a mistake with the marriage preparations. You weren’t seriously planning to propose to my aunt on the side of the road, were you?
Find a proper place. You could even prepare an event… ahem, some kind of surprise that will amaze her.”
“C-could you give me more concrete guidance…?”
“Rent out an elegant restaurant or teahouse… write pictures or characters with candles, hire a band to play a song just for her in a place that belongs only to the two of you… or, conversely, use your usual connections to gather people and make her happy…”
“A-a little more detail…”
“No—if I spell out every single thing, it won’t even be you proposing to Aunt anymore, and if she finds out later you’ll be in trouble. You might get nagged for the rest of your life.”
“That… would be problematic. Understood. I’ll figure it out myself.”
In the end, Lee Jin-myeong left work a little early.
On the way home he habitually boarded a haenggeo—the Sichuan Carriage, the public bus-coach.
What should I do? I’ve never paid attention to this sort of thing before…
Lee Jin-myeong sank into thought as deeply as if he were planning a business venture.
That was why he never noticed that someone had been watching him for some time.
After riding the carriage to Hwiyeom Street—the largest commercial district in Seongdo—he stepped down and continued walking as if on a stroll, still lost in contemplation.
Even on a weekday afternoon, bustling Hwiyeom Street was already thronged with people.
Lee Jin-myeong strolled along, so preoccupied with scouting locations he might visit with Su-jeong and places suitable for a proposal that he paid no attention to anything else.
The gaze that had followed him continued to track him even through the crowded market.
“A pleasure house… still, proposing at a pleasure house feels wrong, doesn’t it? Though the buildings are the prettiest and the views the best… but going to Caffe the One would feel like confessing at the office, so the weight of it would be a bit…”
“….”
Bloodshot eyes pursued him from behind.
Harsh breathing—huff, huff—
Yet Lee Jin-myeong never noticed.
He had once entered the Qingcheng Sect as a lay disciple for a short time before descending the mountain; he had never properly learned martial arts.
Even after becoming Hwi-yeom’s secretary he had been taught basic internal energy methods and fist-and-foot techniques, but work had always chased him so hard that he never truly mastered them.
On top of that,
the complacent belief that no one in Sichuan would dare lay a hand on a member of the Sichuan Dang Family meant he was walking without an escort.
In other words,
he was completely defenseless.
“…Hmm?”
Still deep in thought as he walked, Lee Jin-myeong finally realized he had wandered into an alley between shops—an area nearly deserted—and stopped.
“Ah, so the cloth shops selling clothes only went as far as back there. This place has gotten quite large too.”
Muttering to himself, he turned around—and saw a strange man standing there.
A man draped in a large wind-cloak (a hooded cape worn against the wind) blocked the mouth of the alley like a gate.
Haa… haa…
Rough breathing that sounded almost excited reached him.
“…Who are you?”
Lee Jin-myeong tensed slightly and instinctively groped inside his robe.
Whenever he left on distant business he always kept a Hagyeongchong loaded with powder there, but he had gone empty-handed to report to Hwi-yeom, not daring to carry a concealed weapon.
“…Vice President of Sichuan Carriage, Lee Jin-myeong?”
“That is correct… and who might you be? Show your face and state your identity.”
The man did not remove the wind-cloak even at Lee Jin-myeong’s words.
Only the bloodshot eyes visible beneath the hood made it clear that this person was far from normal.
That raw killing intent made Lee Jin-myeong flinch.
What is this? Those eyes… like a blood-starved demon…
“You… it’s all because of you. If you hadn’t gone and made something like Sichuan Carriage…”
“I have no idea what you mean. Are you aware that I am the secretary who serves the Young Family Head of the great Sichuan Dang Family, and still acting this way?”
At that moment—
as if Lee Jin-myeong’s words had struck a reverse scale, the man suddenly foamed at the mouth and charged.
“The Dang Family!! Lee Jin-myeooooong!!”
Fast…!
He staggered forward with no footwork at all, a precarious, reeling motion—yet the man’s speed was bestial.
It was not the agility of a martial artist trained in the jianghu, but the raw swiftness of a wolf or wild dog.
Even in his panic, Lee Jin-myeong reacted according to the forms of Samyang Fist, the basic fist-and-foot art of the Dang Family he had once learned.
He stepped back in a triangular stance, twisted his upper body to let the enemy’s charge slide past, scooped his left hand upward to strike the man’s chin, then slammed the heel of his right palm into the lifted jaw.
A blow to the Chengjiang point beneath the lips would shake the brain, make the legs give way, and leave a man unable to stand.
Seeing the ruffian’s eyeballs shudder as though in an earthquake under the cleanly chained strikes, Lee Jin-myeong grew confident of victory and let his guard down.
But—
“You bastard!!”
The man, whose brain should have been thoroughly rattled, twisted his body as if nothing had happened and drove a dagger into the close-pressed Lee Jin-myeong.
—Thuk…!
Lee Jin-myeong’s eyes flew wide as if they would burst.
“Ghk!”