A Brother's Love for His Sister
“Ah….”
“That damn Su-jeong. I warned her so many times to rein in that temper of hers….”
“Who’s that guy? From the way he’s dressed, he looks like some rich kid from a well-off house.”
“Yong So-myeong, second son of the Yong Family of Shaanxi. A notorious playboy. We received a report that he entered Chengdu just yesterday.”
“Tsk. Is she going to kill him?”
The Dang Family members, including Hui-yeom, who had been trailing Dang Su-jeong, were certain everything was ruined the moment Lee Jin-myeong got provoked by Yong So-myeong and Su-jeong, eyes blazing, charged in.
Even if the murim lived off violence dressed up as righteous causes, there was nothing handsome or beautiful about a man throwing punches in front of a woman. And in an age whose ideals of beauty still preferred women demure and feminine, the sight was even worse.
The Dang people who had already guessed the ending clicked their tongues and sighed—until the reversal hit.
“Huh…?”
“Huh?!”
They had been stunned when Lee Jin-myeong stepped up behind Dang Su-jeong—shoulders slumped, radiating a “it’s all over” aura after chasing off the thugs—and pulled her into his arms. When he slipped a ring onto her finger and she kissed him with enough force to nearly snap his neck, they either clapped hands over their mouths or threw both arms into the air and cheered.
Dang Un-sang laughed heartily.
“Well now. Lee Jin-myeong’s a real man.”
“…If we’re being precise, Aunt was the manlier one.”
Hui-yeom smiled lukewarmly.
“What do we do! I’m so happy for them~!”
“Oh.”
Eun Seol-ran slapped Ye-eun’s shoulder again and again while Ye-eun herself stared blankly at Dang Su-jeong.
The Dang Family members watching the couple’s union with warm eyes decided it was time to show a little tact.
“All right, all right, let’s head back.”
“Yes. We’ve already seen the most important part.”
Grinning, they turned to leave. In that warmly charged atmosphere, Dang Un-sang spoke with the same smiling face.
“By the way—that second son of the Shaanxi Yong Family from earlier?”
“? Yes.”
Hui-yeom tilted his head with a look that asked why that guy all of a sudden. Dang Un-sang continued.
“He dared lay hands on a Dang Family person—your right-hand man, no less. Don’t we need to make an example of him? The Shaanxi Yong Family? Dig into them. See if anything interesting turns up.”
“…Pardon?”
“If they raised a son like that, the family ought to take responsibility, don’t you think?”
“…Responsibility?”
“Exactly. Worthless, talentless bastards stuffed full of nothing but entitlement—give them wealth and power and this is what you get. That wasn’t his first time, was it? We can’t just leave a cancer like that festering in the nation.”
“You mean to wipe them out…?”
“Wipe them out? Why dirty my own hands just to crush a bug? All we have to do is quietly slip any evidence of their past crimes and misdeeds to the Provincial Surveillance Office over there. And if they still refuse to move… well, our own Legal Affairs Division can pay them another visit. Or better yet—just send Legal Affairs staff on temporary assignment straight to the Shaanxi Surveillance Office.”
“….”
Father, people get into scuffles. A raised voice and a grabbed collar—why are you trying to dismantle an entire family over that?
Hui-yeom wanted to say it, but Dang Un-sang’s eyes were anything but normal. He glanced around in silent appeal for someone to rein his father in—only to find Eun Seol-ran and Ye-eun wearing the exact same expression. He sighed.
Ah, right. This is the Dang Family.
Never forget grace or grudge. A family that repaid kindness twofold and grudges tenfold. A clan so vicious, so cruel, so relentlessly vengeful that anyone who made an enemy of them had to be prepared for one side to be completely annihilated. The absolute champions of holding a grudge—that was the Sichuan Dang Family.
Hui-yeom offered a moment of silent condolence to the family head of the Shaanxi Yong Family, a man he had never even met. The fact that he failed to recall all the other factions he himself had dismantled in classic Dang fashion only proved that he, too, was a model member of the clan.
The marriage of Dang Su-jeong and Lee Jin-myeong proceeded at breakneck speed. Of course, one could not simply wrap up the wedding of a famous woman warrior of the jianghu and the left arm of Sichuan’s Crouching Dragon, Dang Hui-yeom, as casually as slurping noodles in bean broth. Eun Seol-ran resolved to spend several months preparing everything with meticulous care.
For reference, Lee Jin-myeong’s parents nearly fainted when Dang Su-jeong, dressed in the true-green robes of the Sichuan Dang Family’s direct line, appeared before them beautifully arrayed and pleaded with desperate sincerity:
“Ah—Father, Mother! Please give me your son!”
“Uh, ah, well….”
Lee Jin-myeong was thirty this year. His father was forty-six—married at fifteen, fathered Jin-myeong at sixteen. Dang Su-jeong was forty-two. In short, the feeling of sending one’s son off as a son-in-law to a woman young enough to be called “older sister”….
Damn, I’m jealous…!
Any thought of “What shameless old hag shows up demanding our son?” evaporated the instant it met Su-jeong’s devastating beauty and a background in Sichuan that put even the emperor to shame. The way she clasped both hands and looked up at them with glistening, pleading eyes—terrified of rejection—was so destructive it even broke the iron resolve of Jin-myeong’s mother, who had been burning with the determination of “I will not marry my son to a woman my own age!”
“Ah, well, you are a precious direct descendant of the Sichuan Dang Family… what could you possibly see in a son of mine….”
“I can no longer live without Myeong-myeong. Father, Mother—please accept this humble girl…!”
In the end, Lee Jin-myeong’s parents consented to take Dang Su-jeong—who was barely younger than themselves—as their daughter-in-law. And the moment they did, their lives changed dramatically.
“Please accept these garments.”
The Outer Hall Lord of the Sichuan Dang Family arrived with a bright smile and held out green robes to the couple.
“What… are these?”
“Robes of Green-Robed Spider Silk. They mark you as collateral blood of the Sichuan Dang Family. The two of you have been received as in-laws and as kin.”
The robes were a lighter green than the true-green worn by the direct line, beautifully embroidered with spiders and webs. Spider-and-web silk garments of this sort were ceremonial robes granted only to elders among the collateral lines—clear proof of how generously Dang Un-sang intended to treat his sister’s marital family.
And more—
“From this day forward, these warriors will guard the two of you at close range.”
More than thirty Outer Hall martial artists were assigned as the couple’s personal bodyguards. Granted, Lee Jin-myeong’s household had always been reasonably prosperous. His father was a former lay disciple of the Qingcheng Sect who ran a solid mid-sized trading company; the house was large, they kept a fair number of servants, and of course they already employed household guards. But compared to the presence of the thirty Dang-sent escorts, those original guards looked like roosters standing before peacocks.
“And these are elixirs provided by the Poison Hall at our Family Head’s command, offered with prayers for your long life and good health.”
A fine rosewood box held several pills of a type that did little for a martial artist’s cultivation yet greatly benefited ordinary health. Lee Jin-myeong’s parents could not close their mouths. They could only stare blankly back and forth between their son and the Outer Hall Lord.
“The Matriarch says she wishes to meet you properly once and then choose an auspicious day to finalize the wedding. Ordinarily Su-jeong’s own parents would handle this, but since they ascended to heaven long ago, the Family Head—her older brother—and the Matriarch will stand in their place. I hope the arrangement does not offend your sense of propriety….”
“O-offend us? Absolutely not! Never! It is the honor of our family! Of course! Yes! Hahaha!”
They felt as though they had rocketed to the top of the world overnight. And then—
“I scarcely know how to thank you for taking in my unworthy younger brother….”
“P-please don’t, Family Head! Raise your head, raise your head!”
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
At the formal meeting, Dang Un-sang bowed his head to Lee Jin-myeong’s parents with genuine gratitude. This was the head of the Dang Family—respected in Sichuan with a prestige that rivaled the emperor’s. A being who lived above the clouds was bowing to them; it was only natural that the couple’s brains short-circuited and they trembled like dogs with the ague.
Afterward, in a gently cordial atmosphere, the wedding date was set for autumn. Dang Su-jeong’s invitations were not left to Eun Seol-ran; Dang Un-sang himself took up a fine brush. He began carefully composing heartfelt invitations to every notable figure in the murim. If anything, he was pouring more care into this than he had for his own son’s wedding. Hui-yeom watched with a faintly puzzled expression.
“Father, why go to such lengths?”
“What, are you jealous?”
“No, it’s not that, but….”
“Taking care of your wedding was your mother’s lifelong wish, so I stepped aside. And….”
Dang Un-sang blew gently on the letter he had just written to the abbot of Shaolin Temple—
I would be infinitely delighted if you would grace the wedding with your presence despite your busy schedule.
—let the ink dry, stamped it with the Family Head’s seal, and grinned like a mischievous child.
“That’s just what family is.”
People who usually fought like mortal enemies, yet remained the most precious beings in the world. Hui-yeom felt warmth in his father’s boyish smile.
“Besides—if I take good care of her at the wedding, I’ll be able to tease our ‘Aung-ne’ madam for the rest of her life.”
“….”
Hui-yeom spent a moment wondering whether he should worry more about Su-jeong, who had just handed their father lifelong blackmail material, or about his father’s body, which would take a punch every time he used it. Hmm. Pointless worry, either way.
Several months remained before the wedding. While Lee Jin-myeong threw himself into the business of preparing for his own marriage, Hui-yeom was hardly idle. He had already traveled back and forth to Henan, coordinated with Shaolin Temple, secured the construction site for the 2nd State-run Ironworks, and begun the foundation work.
The enormous labor demand quickly outstripped the workers of Hui-eon Comprehensive Construction alone. One State-run Ironworks would have been manageable, but construction contracts for the Angang Water Transport Traffic Safety Management Corporation were also in full swing. Filling every position—from managers down to common laborers—with Dang Family members or collaterals was physically impossible. Local people filled the gaps.
“They say even after the construction ends, the Dang Family will hire skilled workers on permanent contracts?”
Tenant farmers set down their hoes and picked up hard hats stamped with the character Tang. Idle young men who owned nothing but strong bodies began loitering around the sites. Small ironworks, carpentry shops, and village smithies that had barely been scraping by closed their doors and applied to Hui-eon Comprehensive Construction as experienced craftsmen and technical staff.
Of course, when you transfuse that much new blood at once, impurities inevitably try to slip in.
“Infiltrate agents.”
“Select only those who can run long-term operations for ten years—twenty if needed.”
From the Emperor’s Privy Council to the Eight Great Families of the Empire, powerful clans, local magnates, and murim houses alike all saw the mass recruitment drive for the State-run Ironworks as a golden opportunity to finally penetrate the Dang Family’s interior—an interior that had until now been sealed airtight by family loyalty and regional solidarity.
Naturally, the Minjeongwon and the Sakpungdae, who had to screen every job applicant’s background, found themselves muttering curses under their breath.
“How are we supposed to handle this….”
Construction was falling behind schedule, manpower was short, yet if they simply accepted everyone, problems were certain to explode. While Hui-yeom was still fretting over the dilemma—
“Hyung-nim—!! Your little brother has arrived!!!”
—Gol Jun-sang, heir of the Gongjong Gol Family, came looking for him.