A Modest Investment (4)

In the memories I carried from before I was sent back, Geon-pyeong had been a man of thoroughly middling talent.

He had inherited the principal wife's cunning and her venom, yet none of her keenness — and he resembled Geon Wi-jin, lord of the trading house, in neither those crane-among-chickens looks nor the silver tongue that could read a man's insides at a glance. If anyone had taken after Geon Wi-jin, it was Geon-aseong, the brother I had killed: strikingly handsome, at least where faces were concerned. And so Geon-pyeong had always tried to paper over what he lacked with the people around him.

Just as he was doing now.

I studied the three men and two women standing in a loose ring around me. Every one of them belonged to a martial house that counted for something in Sichuan, and through them Geon-pyeong meant to settle an old score — not by laying a hand on me, but by tormenting Seol-ha, the one I kept close.

"Don't fret too much. She'll come back in one piece. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Her master's waiting on her so anxiously, after all."

Yeon Gyu-baek clapped a hand to my shoulder. Each pat carried a thread of true qi from the heel of his palm — thump, thump, thump — and a weighted force traveled down through the joint. Anyone could see the hostility in it. A martial artist a cut below him would have swallowed empty air and folded at the knees.

When I gave him nothing, not a flinch and not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a change of face, his brow twitched. He ground his teeth, about to pour on more strength, and I caught his hand before he could pull it free. His expression hardened further. I smiled.

"Kind of you to worry. But the one I brought is closer to a companion than a bodyguard. Looking after the guest I came with is my part to play, wouldn't you say?"

I was all easy smiles. Yeon Gyu-baek couldn't even work his mouth; the color had drained from his face. Small wonder. The hand in my grip had gone past a tremor — he couldn't straighten it at all. Pride still wouldn't let him use the other. He endured it on the one, and a wide grin broke across my face.

Crack.

A bright, grinding snap of bone rang out, and at last Yeon Gyu-baek screamed.

"AAAAAGH!! You son of a bitch!!!"

Whatever ease had been in him vanished. He loaded internal energy into his free hand and swung without mercy — a fist that would have been fatal on a graze.

I only tipped my head aside, then wrenched the hand I still held a second time. His arm twisted into something grotesque, and Yeon Gyu-baek became the center of the uproar.

"GAAAAAH!!!"

Only after I watched him drop to his knees, undone by the pain, did I let go. He sat there leaking tears and snot, and the rest of the circle wore the same stunned, vacant look. This was not the scene they had planned. Bewilderment sat plain on every face. Only the girl who had kept her name a secret watched me, and her expression was a strange one.

Jeong Hong-seon was the first to recover his wits, and the first to lunge in.

"What manner of conduct is this!! Have you ever seen such mannerless filth!!"

The air turned murderous, as if swords might leave their sheaths at any moment, and he turned his temper on Geon-pyeong.

"And will the younger brother simply stand and watch? A sharp scolding wouldn't begin to cover what that discourteous sibling of yours deserves!!"

Geon-pyeong's face went a bursting red. He glared at me, chest heaving, eyes darting this way and that for a way through — too many people were watching. In his own fashion, he cared about his reputation.

I thought back to my years on the demonic path. A little push between the shoulder blades ought to do it. I cast him a thread of sound.

"Y-you... You dare... to me."

The red in Geon-pyeong's face went past flushing into a bloodless white as he drew his sword.

"I'll kill you right here!!!"

He charged as if the watching crowd no longer existed. No one stepped in. If anything, the mood was of gentlemen observing a fire on the far bank — polite, detached, thoroughly entertained. The Moorim likes to say that all men are brothers. The hypocrisy of the orthodox really does deserve a round of applause.

And today, that hypocrisy—

"Suits me just fine."

A faint sword-force, the kind that marks a second-rate, breathed out a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shapeless edge and raked toward me. For a man who had been fed every spirit medicine under the sun and tutored by outstanding masters he had bought, the result was pitiful. I slipped the killing intent of his blade to either side, seized the hand on the hilt, and bent it back.

"AAAAAGH!!!"

To that unfailing scream for music, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dislocated the shoulder of the arm I had already broken.

"Ghk—!"

Fear rose in Geon-pyeong's eyes as he thrashed. I smiled, thin and brief, and looked away. This was only the beginning.

My knee came driving up, and his eyes flew wide.

A sickening crack — his teeth burst free and scattered through the air. Blood fountained from mouth and nose as he toppled backward. He was a breath from blacking out. To hurry him along, I set my foot on his face and pressed, once, then again, unhurried.

Geon-pyeong, who had been trembling in little spasms, lay in a reeking smear of blood, tears, and snot.

"Ugh... what is that smell..."

Even Ju Yeo-ran, the woman promised to him in marriage, clapped a hand over her nose and retreated in a hurry. I had, it seemed, committed a rather vivid breach of manners. The musicians stopped. Silence settled over the hall.

Jeong Hong-seon, who had egged the fight on, flinched at the sight of Yeon Gyu-baek and Geon-pyeong both on the ground.

"Care to continue?"

He only bulged his eyes and took a step back.

"Forgive the disturbance. It began as a light quarrel between brothers — please, pay it no mind. Close brothers fight like this all the time."

My little speech must have carried some weight. The air, a moment from turning grave, loosened, and lively music spilled through the hall once more.

In the middle of it Yeon Gyu-baek came to, groaning, and ground his teeth.

"You think you'll walk away from this clean? I am Yeon Gyu-baek of the Yubyeok Sword Clan!!!"

"Stop shaking that broken hand and go. I left you a measure of face."

I pointed at Geon-pyeong, sprawled spread-eagle on the floor.

"Otherwise, you get to look like him."

Yeon Gyu-baek didn't dare argue the point. He only shouted at me.

"Whatever happens to that bodyguard bitch of yours — know that it's on you!"

Orthodox young masters, aping the filthiest games of the unorthodox. No wonder the Heavenly Demon would later beat them to a pulp without leaving a scrap behind.

Seol-ha came to stand at my side just then. A faint smell of blood drifted from her, and Yeon Gyu-baek's and Jeong Hong-seon's eyes went round. They had never dreamed the men they sent would be the ones to suffer at her hands. Of course they hadn't.

"Forgive me for being late."

Mindful of the eyes around us, she held herself stiff.

"It's fine. Looks like you enjoyed yourself. I had a fair idea of what was going on."

"Yes."

"I wasn't worried, of course. If anything, I was worried for the ones picking a fight with my companion."

"..."

"I was busy myself."

Seol-ha glanced at Geon-pyeong lying on the floor and let out a short sigh.

"Ah..."

"Right?"

"This is... serious."

"What was I supposed to do? Elder Brother came at me like he meant to die. The Madam will understand."

I offered the lot of them a parting word and took my leave.

"We'll be going. I think we've enjoyed ourselves enough."

No one moved to stop our steps.

"You all right?"

"You're asking now?"

"I trusted you."

"Then I lived up to it."

"Still. I never got around to what I actually came to do."

I clicked my tongue at the missed chance. Seol-ha smiled.

"I found him. We agreed to meet outside the banquet hall first."

"Really? Well done. Sharp as ever."

"But is the person I found the same one you're looking for? You never even told me his name."

"His name? I don't know it either."

"What?"

It was the truth. Even before I was sent back, I had never known the name he bore in this era. All I had ever heard, from him and from those around him, was the legend of a life that rose from nothing. In the years to come — even in a chaotic age when the great trees of the merchant world fell one after another — he would be a man the Heavenly Demon herself acknowledged as a great mountain of commerce.

That was who he was.

I had only half believed it. And yet he was truly here.

Of course, it had also been possible because she recognized a worth that reached past profit and loss.

The Dok-am I had known was a man whose insides no one could read. He had been only about five years my senior, yet he was a sage with much to teach — one of the very few Cheon Yu-wol, my lord, had never treated lightly. The later news that a band of assassins had ambushed and killed him had shocked even me. His presence had been that large. That, I think, was when her footing first began to shake in earnest.

"You leave an impression."

In a small room of an inn, I lifted a wine cup and wet my mouth.

"Young master — were you addressing me?"

"Hard to say."

Meeting Dok-am as he had been in his youth stirred something new in me. No one knew his past. He had never gone out of his way to hide it, but his comings and goings had been so elusive that people said, with one voice, that he had simply dropped out of the sky. And yet I had heard it from his own mouth once.

He might have been lying. But a what-if is a thing no one can know, so I had come looking in the spirit of a drowning man grabbing at straw.

"Baek Mun-gyu..."

The face was younger than the one I remembered, of course, but it was unmistakably the Dok-am I had known. The beauty mark beneath the eye. Three unusually deep lines cut across the forehead. A slight frame, and yet the shoulders and the back always held straight; calm, deep black eyes that weighed the true heart of whoever stood before him. Set the quality of the cloth aside, and the neat, precisely ordered way he wore it was enough to tell you the temper of the man.

"..."

The silence held. Since the exchange of names, Baek Mun-gyu had not opened his mouth again. Curiosity got the better of me.

"Aren't you curious why I asked you here alone?"

"I am."

"Then why not ask?"

"I thought that if I waited, you would tell me yourself."

A short breath of laughter escaped me. People really don't change. The Dok-am I had met before I was sent back — no, Baek Mun-gyu — had been the same. Words, he held, grow more disadvantageous the more of them you spend. A merchant's first virtue is to be sparing with them, and to listen a great deal.

"Do you know who I am?"

"I do. The second young master of Golden Manor."

"That's both right and wrong."

"What do you mean?"

I didn't draw it out. Carefully, I dismantled the human-skin mask. Baek Mun-gyu's eyes shook hard.

"I am the discarded son of Golden Manor. A man called Geon-gon. You may not have heard of me. If you have, this conversation gets easier."

For a long moment he said nothing. Then he let out a deep breath and gave a hollow laugh.

"How is a man said to be dead sitting in front of me?"

"Saves me the trouble of explaining."

"What is it you want from me?"

Thrown as he was, he adapted with startling speed. I drew a promissory note from inside my robes.

"I'll buy it. Half of you."

However my choices rewrote the future, that was not a thing to grasp at now. That was a thought for after I held everything I wanted in my hands. I was feeling, just then, as if all of it were flowing exactly as I willed — when an answer I hadn't expected came back.

"I am not selling."

I set down the cup I had been raising to my lips.

The wine had lost all its flavor.