The Sichuan Tang Family (3)
I caught the faintest smile on Madam Dae's lips—there and gone, barely more than a suggestion.
With so many eyes upon them, she could hardly have liked watching the initiative slip from her hands in plain sight. Even so, she seemed satisfied that I had turned the situation on its head.
None of it had been for her sake. From the beginning, I stood on no one's side. Until I had wrung the Golden Manor dry to its last coin, I would move only to keep the balance of power intact. The more evenly those two factions strained against each other, the more there was for me to take.
"What did you mean by that, just now?"
Unlike Geon Wi-jin, who made no effort to hide his agitation and stood there heaving with fury, I remained perfectly calm.
"I heard it from Seol-ha. Before Gon died, he told her as much, more than once. Wang San had long looked down on those of us who carry Father's blood."
"You're saying you took revenge out of private grievance?"
"Me? Hardly. Even a man mad with infatuation would not simply strike the head from a retainer's shoulders. I only followed Father's will and made an example of those beneath us."
Outwardly, I wanted to be seen as Geon A-seong—a man so obsessed with winning Seol-ha's heart that he would do anything for it. That way, the reason for what I had just done would look perfectly plain to the world outside.
"You've lost your mind. Utterly. This is madness!"
Geon Wi-jin, a man who would not so much as blink at most things, was raging like this only because Wang San's death had struck him a grievous blow. It left a bitter taste all the same. The same man who had not twitched an eye at the death of my mother—the woman to whom he had once whispered such deep love—was throwing a fit because a single favored retainer had died.
"Well done. Thanks to that bold resolve of yours, some small part of your elder brother's grudge will have been eased. The youngest, who suffered from that madness, may rest in peace as well. He thought the world of his eldest brother."
The moment Geon Wi-jin lost his composure, Madam Dae did not let the opening pass. She tied the matter off and swept aside the disadvantage gathering against her.
"The Gold Dragon Squadron ought, by rights, to bear responsibility for this affair and lay down their posts. Yet out of mercy as vast as river and sea, those posts will be preserved. The Manor Lord will agree, I trust."
Geon Wi-jin, silent for a long while, nodded.
"Very well."
"The formal funeral for my children will be held at the hour of the Dragon, and the Manor Lord, as chief mourner, will lead the rites. Attend without fail, and observe every propriety."
"Yes, Madam."
As the principal figures of the Golden Manor gathered in the hall gave their answer, Geon Wi-jin seemed to gather himself, and his expression sank once more into cold stillness.
"You ought to return to your quarters and rest. You've hardly had a moment to shake off the fatigue of the road."
A polite order to leave, and nothing more.
Geon Wi-jin offered no reply. He came to stand before me, and in that short span his face had settled back into calm. Watching how quickly he recovered his composure, I could see he had not seized the Manor Lord's seat for nothing.
"So you've decided to take Seol-ha in Gon's place? A commendable heart."
"There was nothing to take or not take. She isn't a slave. I merely received leave from the steward's office and have been employing her as a retainer I happen to need."
"Yes. I suppose so. I have seen your intentions clearly enough. Go on choosing in ways you will not regret. Only then will you not spend the rest of your days regretting what happened today."
"I will take it to heart."
"We're leaving."
Geon Wi-jin drained out of the hall with the Gold Dragon Squadron like an ebbing tide. The warriors of the squadron let a faint killing intent seep toward me as they, too, withdrew beyond the great hall.
In the end, Madam Dae had failed to drag the Manor Lord from his seat, and the Manor Lord himself had closed the matter by losing a retainer who had been all but his right arm—a blow without precedent.
With everyone else dismissed and only Geum Sa-yeop left in the great hall, Madam Dae asked quietly.
"Sa-yeop. Did you foresee that the boy's sword would move?"
"I did not sense it properly."
"Then could you have avoided that sword?"
"I would have to receive it to know. But across a gap like that, if one lets his guard slip, it would not be easily stopped."
"And if one does not?"
"If he has the internal power and the speed to keep producing movements like that, then yes. It would be difficult."
"So he is still growing."
"He has not truly crossed swords with anyone of late, so I cannot speak with certainty. What is certain is that his skill is beyond any comparison with before. However much Wang San may have lowered his guard..."
Geum Sa-yeop could not go on for a long moment. When he did, he chose his words with care.
"He was not a man whose head would fly so easily, even caught unawares. A Peak-realm expert of long standing. Even within the lands of Chengdu, he ranked among the strongest."
"Astonishing. Truly astonishing. How does one pile up martial prowess like that and change so completely in so short a time?"
Madam Dae's admiration was sincere.
"This humble one also overlooked that the second young master possessed such aptitude. And if there was a fortuitous encounter..."
"He must have achieved something at the site of the Green Flame Earth Dragon."
"Yes."
"There isn't some other hand aiding him, is there?"
"Do you judge that an outside power is supporting the second young master from behind?"
"I cannot say there is no possibility. The second son stood at the center of all of this. Who can guarantee, now, that his sword will not turn toward me?"
"..."
Geum Sa-yeop swallowed the words that had climbed as far as his throat. Are you afraid? In their place, he offered something else.
"The second young master's course still points in a direction that makes him our ally, does it not? With this affair, he has made a complete enemy of the Manor Lord. At the very least, he is unlikely to turn on us."
"As I said a moment ago, collusion with an outside power is not something we can afford not to suspect. And so..."
After a brief deliberation, Madam Dae brought out her final measure.
"I will have to discard the second son as well."
"What do you intend?"
"It is time to give him a task he cannot accomplish. An order he will have no choice but to accept."
"Will he accept it meekly? He has martial power now, and he will use the fact that he is the only heir left."
"There is still that child, Seol-ha."
"You believe his obsession runs deep enough that he would give his life for her?"
"We shall see. But those eyes he showed before the Manor Lord were not eyes one could lightly dismiss. Heir or not, he must be removed."
Geum Sa-yeop bowed his head deeply.
"As you command."
"Young master, haven't you pushed yourself too far because of me?"
The moment we returned to my quarters, Seol-ha looked at me with worry.
I dropped into a comfortable rocking chair and leaned back. The wool against my shoulders was thick and soft. Half-closing my eyes, I spoke.
"What reason would there be to meet that Manor Lord bastard alone? If it ever comes to meeting him, I'll go with you, so don't worry. For the time being, stay at my side."
Seol-ha smiled, small and quiet.
"Why are you smiling? The inside of the Golden Manor is thin ice right now."
"Aren't you being a little overprotective? I'm the one who's supposed to be protecting you."
"If that bothers you, get stronger."
"And you were the one telling me not to rush. You're contradicting yourself."
"People above you are always like that."
"Tch..."
I let a faint smile show, then returned to the point.
"More importantly, the price of failing to cut the Manor Lord down in a single stroke is that Madam Dae is about to face an even thornier struggle inside these walls. Once the news reaches them, Dang Mu-gi or Guihyeon Jin'in may approach the Manor Lord, and the connections he still holds will try to make trouble for her."
"Then won't the account ledgers tied to the Green Flame Earth Dragon venture—the thing at the center of all this—become a problem?"
"Madam Dae's side will already have cleaned up that much. What worries her are the outside ledgers Dang Mu-gi is likely holding. If he hands those over to the Manor Lord and hands him a pretext along with them?"
"The Manor Lord might gladly fold Dang Mu-gi's armed force into his own. And with that as his foundation, push Madam Dae aside and seize the Golden Manor."
Even as she said it, Seol-ha looked startled by her own words.
"Madam Dae will certainly use us as the piece she plays against that."
"Right. She'll be making proposals along those lines before long."
"And if we refuse?"
"She won't offer a choice worth refusing. To refuse, I'd have to reveal that I'm Geon-gon and disappear. Then the Manor Lord and Madam Dae would join hands and turn every conflict with the Sichuan Tang Family and the Qingcheng Sect onto me."
"A public enemy... of the martial world..."
"Yes. A public enemy, in the plainest sense of the words."
"Then how can you be so unfazed?"
"I've spent a very long time preparing to overcome exactly that sort of thing. Affairs like these are nothing more than mountains I'm meant to cross. The problem is the other kind. The kind from last time."
"Like when you met the Young Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult?"
"Yes. That sort of thing can't be dealt with. Which is why, then..."
I added it in earnest.
"I'll need your help, Seol-ha."
A variable, answered with a variable. The Seol-ha at my side was climbing steeply enough to become a new variable in the days ahead. If the hands I had laid upon countless situations someday circled back to threaten me, then I only needed allies beside me who would face that threat with me.
No one lives alone. Just as I had remained at Cheon Yu-wol's side, there would be Seol-ha at mine, and new companions besides.
"You can do it, can't you?"
A deep smile gathered on Seol-ha's lips, as if she welcomed the words.
"If it's for you, young master."
"For someone who says that, you went down awfully easily last time."
Seol-ha's face, white as polished jade, flushed scarlet.
"It won't happen again."
"Mm. I believe you."
"Liar! You don't believe me at all—it's written all over your face!"
"Hahaha."
Amid the new crisis drawing near, I savored the quiet before the storm and let a thin smile settle on my lips.
Time passed. The funerals of Geon-pyeong and Geon-hyu followed one after another, and many came to pray that the dead might rest in peace.
Officials who had long fattened themselves on the Golden Manor's bribes arrived in flocks, and—surprisingly—so did men who held key posts in the imperial court. I could feel, in my own way, the weight of a house that held trading rights along stretches of the canals and even the running of its market halls.
But they were migratory birds. The moment the Golden Manor looked ready to collapse, they would shake their feathers clean and fly. Then again, out in the provinces the emperor's authority had long since become a name without substance. What responsibility, what trust, could one expect of officials?
The present was a quiet chaos on the eve of war. Emperors had lost their legitimacy generations ago, and the one who sat the throne now was hemmed in by treacherous ministers, running the imperial house in dissipation and neglect. Save for a few armies, the imperial forces and the provincial troops alike were a rabble, and officials from the top of the ladder to the bottom were busy taking bribes.
So long as those bribes came in at a decent rate, they turned a blind eye to fighting among the powers of the martial world and feared sticking their necks out for nothing. Even the great merchant guilds chose to join hands with martial factions stronger than the officials themselves. Law and justification were ornaments. This was an age in which strength came first.
As proof of it, both the Manor Lord and Madam Dae treated the head of the Sichuan Tang Family with a guest's courtesy far more lavish than anything they showed the high ministers of the court. And on the day that family head showed himself at the funeral, Dang Mu-gi—who had slipped in among the Sichuan Tang procession—came looking for me.
"You left quite an impression the other day."
"And when would that have been?"
"The day you beat Young Master Geon-pyeong like a dog."
Seated across from me, Dang Mu-gi's blue eyes were still and sharp, as if they meant to see straight through me.
"You were there?"
"I didn't bother attending the banquet. I was waiting as a guard, ready to step in if anyone crossed the line."
"I made a disgraceful showing. Forgive me."
"You don't actually think you did anything wrong, do you?"
"..."
"Same with throwing away the Green Flame Earth Dragon venture, I imagine."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"That left an impression too. However you managed to sweet-talk Madam Dae, I never thought you'd take the head of Young Master Geon-hyu—my own partner—and bury the whole affair as if it had never happened."
"..."
"Which brings me to what I came to say."
Dang Mu-gi stared at me for a long moment, then broke into a thin smile.
"What would you say to becoming master of the Golden Manor?"
The hand carrying my teacup stopped in midair.
Well, now. Look at this.
For a proposal from Dang Mu-gi, a man who had just swallowed a loss, it was remarkably brazen.