Hyeonseong Jin-in
Every gaze whipped around at once. Racing down the foothills of the Cang Mountains like the wind itself came a single Taoist priest.
He closed the distance at a terrifying pace, flying more than running, and in the next breath he stood before the disciples of Jeomchang.
"You were meant to have come up the mountain by now, and when you still hadn't arrived I came down to meet you myself… What in heaven's name is going on here? What was that roar just now, and why is Hyeon lying there with his limbs torn open and bleeding?"
One of the Jeomchang disciples stammered,
"A d-duel, Master Uncle. They used some devilish trick…"
"A duel?"
The priest's eyes snapped to Dang Su-jeong.
She answered without flinching.
"A man named Ilhyeon insulted my family, mocked me for being a woman, and challenged me to a duel. I had no choice but to accept."
"You pathetic fools…!"
The priest roared at his own disciples.
"These are guests the Sect Leader ordered brought up with every courtesy, and this is how you treat them? Apologize at once!"
"M-Master Uncle, but…"
"Shut your mouth and apologize right now!"
He spun on his heel, clasped his fists, and bowed at the waist toward Dang Su-jeong and Hui-yeom alike.
"My apologies. I am Sayul, first disciple of Jeomchang. I serve as Master of the Guest Reception Hall. It seems the boys got carried away by their own hot blood and made a grave mistake. I beg your forgiveness."
It was exactly the fair, upright bearing one expected from a disciple of a great orthodox sect like Jeomchang.
"M-Master Uncle… how could you…"
"I'll deal with the lot of you when we get back."
The second-generation disciples, who had clearly expected Sayul to take their side, muttered in despair and finally lowered their heads.
"You as well—apologize this instant!"
"…W-we beg your forgiveness."
The Jeomchang disciples bowed with faces that made plain how little they wanted to.
Dang Su-jeong eyed them with a crooked look, then flicked a glance at Hui-yeom.
You're the one representing us. Handle it however you like.
"Would it be proper to address you as Master Sayul? It is an honor to meet you. I am Dang Hui-yeom, Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family."
Hui-yeom returned the clasped-fist salute with a bright, sunny smile.
"Please, let's not stand about on the roadside. Shall we go up to the main mountain and speak properly? And do straighten up—having a senior of your standing bow so low is rather hard on the nerves."
"…Quite so. Forgive me for making you uncomfortable."
For a fraction of a second, Sayul's eyes flickered.
This little brat is no soft touch.
Hui-yeom had steered the conversation with perfect smoothness—and never once said he accepted the apology.
When a senior of Sayul's generation had ground the second-generation disciples under his heel and forced them to apologize, the natural thing was to receive it. Instead Hui-yeom had called the bow itself a burden, turning an apology into a form of pressure.
Later, if the talks turned sour, he could claim, I came only to speak in good faith, and Jeomchang answered by drawing blades and making a mockery of us—and seize the high ground from the first word.
Before negotiations with the Dang Family had even begun, Jeomchang's position had already twisted against them.
They say the Seonjiaryong's name shook all of Sichuan even at his age… and these fools, on the other hand…
Looking at his junior disciples standing there like beaten dogs with their heads hung low, Sayul ground his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. He gave no sign of it.
"Ilgwang, Ilmyeong—support Ilhyeon and take him to the Small Yang Palace at once for treatment. You've already stopped the bleeding, I trust?"
"Yes."
"I-I can stand on my own—ugh!"
Even if Dang Su-jeong had placed her shot with almost artistic care so as not to hit the great vessels of the leg, a bullet buried in the thick muscle of the thigh does not leave a man walking. In the end Ilhyeon had to lean on his two martial brothers as they started up the mountain path.
"The Sect Leader and the elders are waiting inside. As Master of the Guest Reception Hall, I will guide you. Follow me."
"Of course."
And so the people of the Dang Family crossed the mountain gate of the Jeomchang Sect.
Hyeonseong Jin-in, seventeenth Sect Leader of the Jeomchang Sect, heard that his second-generation disciples had clashed with the Dang Family on the mountain road and struck himself in the forehead.
"Those brainless little—"
Second-generation disciples with no authority whatsoever had picked a fight with guests from another school—guests from one of the Nine Great Noble Families, no less—and then lost?
That alone was enough shame to set a man's face burning. Worse still, they had apparently told the Dang Family to keep their hands off Yunnan's interests.
Yes, that was what Jeomchang wanted. But what business did some green second-generation disciple have speaking for the entire sect? One might as well laugh and ask whether the Jeomchang leadership couldn't even control its own pupils—and there would be no good answer.
Their opposite number, meanwhile, was no soft mark.
Even after a first disciple old enough to be his father offered a formal apology, the boy had merely smiled it away and declined to accept it, brushing the whole affair aside.
Anyone who was not a complete fool could see he meant to wring every last drop of advantage from Jeomchang's blunder once the real talks began.
They say the Seonjiaryong is only at the age of setting his will—fifteen years old. Heavens above…
See one thing and you know ten. Looking at this seasoned politician's touch, the rumors that had drifted over from Sichuan could not be entirely empty. And even if only half of them were true, this was no opponent to take lightly.
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the council chamber.
"Sect Leader, I have brought the guests."
"Show them in."
"Yes."
The sliding door whispered open, and behind Sayul came two men and two women.
The pair in front claimed the eye at once.
So that is the Poison Phoenix.
A woman of intoxicating beauty offered a light clasped-fist salute, her eyes cool and prim. She was so striking that even the slightly upturned, almost fierce set of her gaze only sharpened her appeal into something fierce and magnetic.
Ilhyeon couldn't land a single blow and got dismantled… Surely he wasn't simply dazzled by her looks?
The boy at her side was no less remarkable.
Where the Poison Phoenix Dang Su-jeong's beauty was the kind that seized the eye with open brilliance, the youth beside her possessed a luminous quality that made one glance and then look again, and keep looking. Unlike the sharp-tempered Su-jeong, his eyes curved in a gentle smile—soft, kindly, clear as a winter lake—and the overall impression was mild and almost boyishly pure.
So this is the Seonjiaryong…
He was still studying the unexpected face when Hui-yeom smiled brightly, bent at the waist, and offered the formal salute.
"Dang Hui-yeom, Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family, greets Hyeonseong Jin-in, Sect Leader of Jeomchang, and the honored elders."
"The Poison Phoenix Dang Su-jeong pays her respects to the great seniors of the martial world."
"Welcome, Seonjiaryong, Young Master Dang Hui-yeom, and Poison Phoenix Dang Su-jeong. Jeomchang greets you both."
Pretty and clever as they might be, they were still someone else's children. In a negotiation that touched the sect's interests, there could be no special consideration. Hyeonseong Jin-in received them with a kindly smile that hid a blade.
His gaze drifted past Hui-yeom and Dang Su-jeong to the two behind them.
"And these?"
"Ah—these are my secretaries. Han Ye-eun and Lee Jin-myeong."
"Han Ye-eun."
"Lee Jin-myeong. It is an unparalleled honor to stand before the renowned Sect Leader and elders of Jeomchang."
Ye-eun bowed with spare efficiency; Lee Jin-myeong offered a carefully correct courtesy. Hyeonseong Jin-in chuckled and accepted both—yet his eyes lingered on Ye-eun.
Now this is an odd child.
She stood right in front of him, yet her presence was vanishingly faint. Call her an assassin and it would hardly be an exaggeration.
Some sort of hidden bodyguard, then?
That was as far as his interest in Ye-eun went.
"Come, come—the climb will have worn you out. Sit first and take a cup of tea. This is one of Yunnan's finest."
Clever children or not, they were still children. The world is not something one learns from books alone, and no amount of quick wit and improvisation conquers every hardship. That was why age and experience mattered.
Hyeonseong Jin-in never doubted for a moment that he could whitewash the young dragon of the Dang Family with three inches of tongue.
After the polite formalities, the real conversation began.
"First, our Jeomchang Sect offers its thanks for the relief work of the Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission. We have also heard that the Dang Family itself labored hard moving grain and aiding the people… Allow me to express our respect."
"You are too kind. I imagine it was not a pleasant sight to watch the Dang Family step into Jeomchang's own territory—we are grateful you looked the other way."
A light opening probe from both sides.
The moment Hyeonseong Jin-in tried to fence the Dang Family's relief work in Yunnan as "the Sichuan Provincial Administration's achievement" and shave away their credit, Hui-yeom answered with, You failed to do the work that was properly yours, so we did it for you—what exactly were you doing?
"Haha… Nothing of the sort. In truth we ourselves were preparing to begin relief, but as such work falls under the Provincial Administration Commissioner's authority, there were some snags while we coordinated. And in that interval, who would have guessed the Commissioner's head would roll? Popular feeling might easily have erupted; it is fortunate things ended as well as they did."
Which, translated, meant: We at Jeomchang were getting ready to handle the relief ourselves when you lot charged in and started handing out charity on your own. Don't go preening. And who in their right mind attacks a Provincial Administration Commissioner? If it had gone wrong, who was supposed to clean up the mess?
Hui-yeom's smile only deepened.
"Is that so? Thank you for your concern. Fortunately the Commissioner's crimes were already so old that every commoner knew them. My secretary Lee Jin-myeong here compiled the evidence, laid out point by point how the man had bled Yunnan dry for years, and submitted a formal indictment. Even a Provincial Administration Commissioner could hardly withstand that. Our blood ran a little too hot to bow our heads to a corrupt official after coming so far."
"Ahem…"
Several of the more cultivated Taoists cleared their throats. Hyeonseong Jin-in's face flushed; even he could not quite master his expression.
Hui-yeom's words, freely rendered, ran something like this:
Spare me the nonsense. Every stray dog in the street knew the Commissioner was a Tamgwan-ori. The evidence was lying around on the road. He'd been gorging himself for years and you never so much as lifted a finger—and now you talk about relief? Do you have any idea how bad it had to get before outsiders like us couldn't look away and stepped in? Before you play lord of the manor, try feeling a little shame.
If this had been a duel with live blades, Hui-yeom would have filleted Hyeonseong Jin-in while he was still breathing. The Sect Leader, who had never imagined he would be driven so one-sidedly in a battle of words by a child, revised his assessment of Hui-yeom a full step upward.
He has the ability the rumors claim, at least.
Hui-yeom, for his part, thought,
I didn't come to thrash them—I came to soothe them. Enough of the stick. Time for the carrot.
The opening skirmish was Hui-yeom's overwhelming victory on points. He turned at last to the business that had brought him here.
"The reason I dared ask the Sect Leader and the elders who guide Jeomchang to spare us their precious time today is so that we might discuss the monopoly on Yunnan tea, and the futures of Jeomchang, the Yunnan Provincial Administration, and our own family."
So it comes already. And this quickly?
The usual way among Central Plains merchants was to drink tea, circle through one digression after another, and only then edge toward the real subject—and Hui-yeom knew that dance well enough.
But—
When you've already landed the first punch and the other man is reeling, waiting politely isn't gentlemanly. It's just stupid.
Having battered Jeomchang over who truly deserved credit for the relief work, Hui-yeom rode the momentum and pressed on.
"As I already explained in brief by letter, the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission has transferred to the Sichuan Dang Family the exclusive monopoly rights over every leaf of tea produced in Yunnan. That arrangement, however, may cause unintended harm to the Jeomchang Sect. I have come so that we may coordinate what follows and seek mutual advantage."
Hyeonseong Jin-in nodded with a grave face.
"Indeed. When the small tea merchants under Jeomchang's protection learn of this, they will be deeply unsettled. Therefore Jeomchang wishes to make a most earnest request of the Sichuan Dang Family. Are we not a martial sect of the jianghu? When a monopoly granted by officials who understand nothing of our world, without so much as prior consent, threatens the livelihoods of the common people—how can we fail to lament it? Just as Jeomchang has never interfered with your family's affairs in Sichuan, we ask that the Dang Family, mindful of the standing our sect holds in Yunnan, do us the courtesy of preserving our face."
In plain speech: Take that monopoly and go to hell with it, and stop swaggering around in our backyard—wrapped in the finest silk. Hui-yeom answered,
"We would like nothing better ourselves… but circumstances have taken a rather delicate turn. So I will speak plainly from the start: I am afraid it will be extremely difficult to accept Jeomchang's proposal."
Hyeonseong Jin-in's brows twitched.