White Spirit Tree (3)

Lost in thought, I set my fingertips on the table and tapped. Tok. Tok.

"Why? I'm the clan head's only daughter. Marry me, and a great deal of the Jegal Clan's authority would pass into your hands."

I stopped tapping, swept my hair back, and answered.

"And I'd still be nothing but your puppet. Wherever your breath happened to blow, my life would be shoved this way and that. A future I can see plain as day. If that's the choice, wouldn't it be simpler to swallow the Golden Manor by my own effort?"

"Hohoho. As expected — you're no ordinary man."

"You flatter me. And this marriage. You're quite certain you came with the clan head's permission?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I don't believe you did. Cautious folk like the Jegal Clan would never consider, on a whim, a man they've never even met face to face as a son-in-law."

That much was real, drawn from my own experience. The people of the Jegal Clan are, at bottom, filthy with suspicion and worry. The trait becomes their strength, and it also becomes the weakness that hems in how far their power can spread. Judged against the air of that inner house, conduct like Jegal Rin's was all but impossible.

"Go back. Whether you took the Golden Manor lightly or took me lightly, I couldn't say — but treating a matter like this so casually only makes a joke of the Jegal Clan's own family law."

Jegal Rin's eyes sharpened to points.

"Baseless guesses are amusing."

"If you mean to be stubborn, I've nothing more to say. I'm certain."

"In the end you invoke my clan's family law just to excuse your own lack of quality. You've misread me — badly. Your vessel is too small to hold me."

"Well judged. This won't be going far. My time isn't so idle that I can spare it on a flighty, half-grown girl who bolts in every direction."

I extended a hand and pointed at the door.

"Farewell."

That was when it happened.

Jegal Rin bit down hard on her lip, drew two luminous pearls from a silk treasure pouch, and rolled them in her palm.

"Young master, focus on this sound."

Without meaning to, I fixed on the pearls — and her voice reached my ear with unnatural clarity.

Tss—tss—tsut—

The click of pearl against pearl melted over that voice like a second instrument joining the piece. Into the dreamlike undertone she poured true qi, and the pearls' light dyed itself a still more brilliant hue. As the glow grew fiercer she began to chant, and strange syllables caught my consciousness in a languid grip.

"From now on, answer my questions."

"No. You answer."

In the same instant the pearls in her grip rolled across the table — clatter, clatter — and came to rest in my hand.

"Yes."

Jegal Rin's pupils had already lost their focus. They were, precisely, the eyes of someone caught in the Soul-Enthralling Art.

"You've lost your mind. Casting a soul art right out in the open. Rotten from the roots since you were small. Then again, that's why the men who marry you later will die one after another under suspicious circumstances. Every last one of them a man who crossed your will, tidied away after the fact."

I don't know Jegal Rin's childhood, but I know very well what manner of monster she becomes. Like a female mantis devouring her mate, her future resembles the Grand Madame of the Golden Manor rather closely.

Even taken in as a daughter-in-law, they wouldn't have gotten along. Two of a kind.

What mattered, in any case, was that she had dared to lay a hand on me.

"You dared unfold the Vermilion Bright Soul-Enthralling Art in front of me?"

"Yes. I did."

The Vermilion Bright Soul-Enthralling Art is the Jegal Clan's Soul-Enthralling Art. Before my regression, quite a few in the Heavenly Demon Cult fell to it as well. Unfolding it requires several conditions. A medium to stand in for a formation — spirit pearls imbued with spiritual energy, like the ones now closed in my hand. Added to that, a space sealed on all sides where the pearls' light and sound can gather, a room like this one. And one last condition: from the first moment of the art to the last, the caster must never let the room's resonance cease, sustained through those pearls.

"You never once considered I might see through it."

"No. I judged it would be fine. Once the Soul-Enthralling Art was finished, the memories I wanted would be planted. Your guards are keeping watch far outside, and inside the room there was no one but you and me."

She had arranged the art's conditions as if it were nothing, and she had even staged a moment fit to drop my guard. Arrogant certainty was understandable. She had simply chosen the wrong opponent.

Having prepared for the Vermilion Bright Soul-Enthralling Art in advance, I swept my hair back and stimulated several acupoints. Then I cut off the light and sound spilling from the pearls and cracked her art. I hadn't tapped the table because I was lost in thought.

For the time being, a Soul-Enthralling Art turned back on its caster like this does not come undone. And I had no intention of wasting the chance. She had walked into my hand of her own accord. How convenient.

"It's hard to believe you valued me enough to force a Soul-Enthralling Art and arrange a marriage on your own, without your clan's leave. What is your real intention?"

"I..."

"......"

"I meant to seduce you and make use of the financial power you hold. If the talk went well, I intended to draw funds from you. If it didn't, I intended to take your secret funds with the Soul-Enthralling Art."

"What could the precious daughter of the Jegal Clan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠possibly lack? It isn't as if the clan is about to collapse tomorrow."

"There is one matter I carried out in secret from the clan. And that matter went wrong."

Well now. The deeper this goes, the richer it gets.

"Go on."

"I failed an investment in Lanzhou. It took every secret fund I had, and even the treasury notes I siphoned from the clan."

"How much went in?"

"About one coffer of gold. I have to fill a sum like that without the inner house finding out."

One coffer of gold. Easily twice the scale of the funds I had moved in recent dealings. Clan head's daughter or not, if this came to light, confinement would be the least of what awaited her.

"What sort of investment?"

"Through a partner, I raised a nameless ghost merchant group and meant to corner the market in Lanzhou. I folded his capital in as well."

Cornering a market is, unexpectedly, no simple thing. The moment and the luck both have to be right, and if you fail, every coin you put in is gone.

"Lanzhou... the White Spirit Tree, by any chance?"

"Yes. That's right."

The White Spirit Tree grows only in the rocky crags of Lanzhou. Tough and sturdy, it serves any number of uses, but in Gansu Province its bark is the herb that prevents Earth-Bone Poison, the endemic sickness said to spread on a cycle every year. No other region had a suitable herb to take its place.

"Even in Lanzhou it grows only on fixed stretches of rock. Buying it all up for yourself couldn't have been easy. Someone already holds that interest."

"Yes. The Dragon Iron Union owns the White Spirit Tree. It's one of their chief sources of income."

"Then how? You didn't move the Jegal Clan itself, and bending the Dragon Iron Union by your strength alone couldn't have been easy."

"When the White Spirit Tree had piled up to the full, I spread a rumor that an herb with a similar effect existed in another land. I deliberately drove the price down, and through the ghost merchant group I bought up, quickly, whatever came onto the market."

"All of the stock?"

"Yes. Ordinarily the supply piles up every half year, so I meant to secure the entire amount timed to the season when Earth-Bone Poison is at its worst."

"So you used that partner of yours."

"Yes. But he had been played by the Dragon Iron Union as well. He lost everything and collapsed. After that, once his usefulness ran out, I discarded him."

"So there really was another herb that could stand in for the White Spirit Tree."

"Yes. They released a herb they had prepared in advance and wrecked the price of what I had bought beyond any hope of recovery. So he and I are still keeping the White Spirit Tree in a warehouse, unable to dispose of it."

"They led you into the corner, so you have no pretext for crushing them in the clan's name — and being lured by a rumor into buying up the White Spirit Tree would be a disgrace to the Jegal Clan. You're afraid the reputation you've built will start to shake."

"That's right. I would rather die."

I grinned. I had taken the whole affair for nothing but a nuisance, and here was a usable chance that had rolled in vine and all.

Then Jegal Rin's lips began to tremble. What consciousness remained was resisting the Soul-Enthralling Art. There wasn't much time left, but I already had everything I needed for the moment.

"Now. From this point on, you will remember things exactly as I say them. First — you made a deal with me. On terms favorable to you, at that."

Her trembling lips went still. Even caught in a Soul-Enthralling Art, a residue of awareness remains, and loss and gain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are felt with precision. The moment it seemed to her advantage, the resistance in that awareness eased.

"Yes."

"You hid the truth, and just now, out of this quarrel with me, you threatened to push a real marriage proposal onto one of my brothers and block my path."

"I understand."

"To stop that, I walked into the trap called the rights to the White Spirit Tree. We haggled and snapped at each other over the price until the sum settled at about three-tenths of what you invested. How's that."

"Good. New capital for a venture, and room to invest elsewhere — that's good for me as well. It's the only way I can fill the hole in the clan's funds."

"Good. I'll draw up an official contract. The moment this meeting breaks, you will hand over the location of your warehouse and every authority over it. I'll see to the rest myself."

"Yes. The location is..."

Watching her pour out everything I wanted, smooth as water, I leaned quietly back in the chair.

A sudden trip to Lanzhou.

"This ought to be quite a pleasant journey."

Sooner than I had expected, a chance had come to pour Baek Mun-gyu the capital he needed. Of course, there was one more person I had to meet before I left.

"Did you hear? They say the second young master's movements are anything but ordinary."

"I nearly jumped out of my skin. They say he beat the first young master to a pulp. And at the Sichuan Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, where all the precious young masters gather."

A small inn near the Golden Manor's estate. Scribes of the Geumhwa Department, finished with lunch, sat huddled together sharing the tea that had come out afterward. These days the incidents born of the second young master Geon A-seong's outrageous conduct had become the most urgent topic of all, so anyone who worked at the Golden Manor was talking about him.

"That's not all. I hear the young lady of the Jegal Clan's head is even pressing a marriage on him!"

"One of the Five Great Clans? Whoa... can a man's life turn over like that?"

"Quiet. Someone'll hear."

The scribes' eyes drifted toward Ju Cho-saeng, who was quietly devoted to nothing but his meal. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The head scribe who had been leading the talk let out a short laugh.

"Ju. Not interested in this sort of thing, are you?"

"No, sir. So long as I eat well and the monthly pay comes in, isn't that enough? I mean to devote myself to a scribe's life — warm back, full belly. Hehe."

"You fool. You can't live like that. From of old, the road up opens when you stand in the right line and show your face early. You planning to die flipping through ledgers your whole life?"

Unlike the head scribe, who was launching into a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lecture, the others — so eager a moment ago — began to open and close their mouths like carp.

"Ch-Chief... Chief Scribe."

"What. Just looking at the lot of you with no ambition makes my guts burst. Wait and see. One of these days I'll go find the second young master, show my face, and even share a meal."

A voice from beside him asked back.

"How?"

"How? I've got connections, obviously. You think this body spent drink money here and there for nothing?"

"Then at least you saved the cost of the meal."

"Huh?"

Only then, feeling the air gone cold in an instant, did the head scribe grasp the situation. He rolled his eyes toward the shadow taking the seat beside him.

"No need to spend your connections. We can talk right here. So — which of them arranged a meal with me?"

"......"

Geon-gon, disguised as Geon A-seong, grinned.

"I don't have anyone I'm close with."