Crisis at Daseogak - 4
Had he figured out that I was Hopil?
The look Uigakju fixed on me carried the absolute certainty of a man who already knew. What clue had he dug up to pin me as Hopil? Or was Hwarin throwing me under the cart, offering me up as the convenient scapegoat?
“Hopil? What on earth are you talking about?”
I was no shadowy silhouette from a detective comic who would spring up at the middle-aged sleuth’s razor-sharp accusation and shout, Yes, it was me! I practiced tap-dancing every night after work upstairs and that is how the murder happened! So I denied it first.
“This manuscript of Dangga Pungun right here. The thick scent of ink clinging to the girl. At first I never once suspected she was Hopil.”
So it hadn’t been a bluff. The way Uigakju was talking had the exact flavor of a detective manga’s solution chapter.
“I’m not sure what misunderstanding you’ve fallen into.”
Uigakju kept his grip on my wrist, gave a small shake of his head at me, and opened his mouth again.
“Mastering medicine does not only mean reading a person’s organs and meridians at a glance. There are things you can read from the outside as well.”
Surely this uncle wasn’t about to claim I looked like the culprit by face-reading. Did he not know the iron law of detective stories? The guy who looks most guilty is never the one.
“What do you mean Yunho looks like Hopil?! Let go of Yunho’s wrist! Ow!”
The moment Hwarin stepped toward him, Uigakju’s free hand snapped out and seized her wrist too.
“When I took her pulse just now I studied her hands carefully. The marks of long years spent diligently training in the Sichuan Dang Clan’s poison arts and assassination techniques were plain to see.”
He turned Hwarin’s palm toward me as he spoke.
Ah. I finally understood what he was driving at. That was the tell he had caught.
“So what? Let go!”
When Hwarin struggled he simply released her and turned back to me.
“You already look like you understand. Yes. This child has none of the calluses that form from writing for long hours. You, however, have them. Still going to deny it, Hopil?”
He held my own callused hand up for me to see, then let go of my wrist. Producing the decisive piece of evidence like that—the middle-aged detective Uigakju had not been striking a pose after all.
“Haha. Living as a bookstore manager means you handle a brush more often than you’d think.”
“You said you used to be a maedamja, correct? Knowing about an incident from twenty years ago and turning it into an entertaining story are two different talents, of course. A skilled maedamja would have had no trouble weaving the tale this girl told him into written form. Is that not so?”
Even after my excuses, Uigakju regarded me with the firm conviction that I was Hopil.
Checkmate. The manuscript of Dangga Pungun sat right here, so Hopil had to be either me or Hwarin, the two people living in this place. Every scrap of evidence and every circumstance pointed straight at me.
“No! I’m Hopil!”
Hwarin finally realized the situation was sliding out of control and leaped to my defense a beat too late.
“Child. Even if he is a barbarian, your concern for your friend is admirable.”
This uncle’s double standard was ridiculous. He looked at Hwarin with the fondness reserved for a youngest granddaughter, yet I was just some barbarian pup?
Was orthodox conduct only for “our people,” while barbarians counted for nothing?
“Bullshit. I said I’m Hopil!”
“Very well. If that is so, prove it.”
“What?”
“Bugakju. You praised Dangga Pungun to the heavens, did you not?”
Leaving Hwarin’s bewildered face behind him, Uigakju called to the deputy pavilion master who had been watching from the rear.
“I am ashamed.”
“I did not call you to scold you. You know the book well, so have this child write a single line of dialogue from Dangga Pungun on the paper on that desk.”
“Pardon? Yes, understood. In that case… write ‘Welcome to my poison-murder chamber—’ right here.”
Bugakju quickly set out blank paper and a brush on the desk and summoned Hwarin. I knew exactly what they were doing. Confirmation kill.
“Yunho…”
Hwarin had caught on too; she looked up at me, asking with her eyes what she should do. I wanted to refuse, but I had no justification. None.
Realizing she had no choice either, she glanced at the papers I had written nearby and carefully copied out the line Bugakju had dictated.
“You tried hard, yet the handwriting is completely different. Ready to admit it now?”
Uigakju approached the desk and lifted both Hwarin’s sheet and the manuscript of Dangga Pungun I had written myself. The dialogue she had just written and the manuscript I had penned—anyone could see the hands were different.
Faced with irrefutable proof, neither Hwarin nor I could say a word.
“One arm will settle the matter.”
A brief silence. Uigakju shattered it with a declaration that struck like a bolt from a clear sky.
“What?”
Settle it with what?
“Bugakju. Draw your blade.”
“What are you doing?! I told him to write it—why are you cutting Yunho’s arm?!”
Hwarin leapt in front of me in a panic, blocking Bugakju’s path.
“I wrote it only for Hwarin’s sake.”
Now that I was exposed, I might as well throw myself on their mercy.
I had done it solely for a friend; I had pursued no personal gain. Why treat me like this? I protested to Uigakju in the most earnest tone I could muster.
“I understand. As you wished, I will personally guarantee this child’s protection under my name.”
“While you’re at it, you could protect me as well.”
“This child is of our clan and must be protected. But if guilt exists, the old snakes of the family and those who still cling to the idea of dokin will seize upon it and scheme against her without rest. Therefore, barbarian, you will take every sin upon yourself and offer up your wrist. Preferable the one you write with.”
Both wrists, is that it?
For the sake of our precious clan’s illegitimate son, a barbarian’s wrist was disposable. I should have known the moment he started swinging that neck-cutting gesture around—this was pure barbarian discrimination.
I had misread their “orthodox” face. The Sichuan Dang Clan tried to keep to the righteous path, yes—but that path apparently included a distant bastard of the bloodline, while a black-haired barbarian stood outside it.
“If Dangga Pungun is the problem, then Yunho and I will go to the Dang Clan ourselves and explain everything!”
“Child. Your care for your barbarian friend is touching, but that is something only someone who does not know the Sichuan Dang Clan would say.”
Uigakju looked at her with genuine pity.
“What?”
“The Sichuan Dang Clan possesses many methods for opening a sinner’s mouth. In that process, you who share the clan’s blood might survive. This barbarian would be left a cripple. And once the interrogation begins, both of your crimes will come to light. Offering the wrist here and now is the way to avoid that fate.”
“Don’t give me that shit.”
“Heh heh. Child. Do you think I take pleasure in cutting your friend’s wrist? Only by doing this can I fight tooth and nail when the clan tries to pile further punishment on Hopil. So step aside. Do you refuse to see Dang Geoho punished and yourself healed?”
“What about Yunho? Yunho still has to write!”
“Losing a wrist means he can no longer use martial arts, but he will still be able to lift a spoon, and as for writing… someday he will write again. Bugakju.”
“Absolutely not!”
The moment Bugakju took a step forward, Hwarin unleashed killing intent and roared.
“Hopil. You are silent.”
“……”
Ignoring the murderous aura pouring off Dang Hwarin, Uigakju spoke to me as I watched the scene without a word.
“I understand your anger leaves you speechless. But I have heard that in the barbarian lands they cut off a thief’s hand. As a barbarian yourself you must know the custom well. You committed a crime, so surrender one wrist and I will protect the girl and see that you live without worry in this bookstore. Do not make this harder than it needs to be.”
In Joseon, a thief got flogging, you bastard. What is this, the Code of Hammurabi? Cutting off a wrist for theft—what kind of savage law is that?
“Yunho, never.”
Hwarin. You seem to think my silence means I’m about to offer my wrist. Wrong.
I was busy searching for a way out.
The price of shortcuts.
A tangled knot of misunderstandings. I had sliced through the Gordian knot I could never untie with the blade of a new misunderstanding, yet the pieces I had failed to unravel still lay on the floor and clutched at my ankles.
Uigakju’s words themselves were reasonable.
Even when wrapped in good intentions, guilt does not vanish.
If everyone cannot be happy, someone must be sacrificed. A mere barbarian’s wrist. In Uigakju’s eyes that was a cheap penance.
Do I have to give up the wrist?
I looked at Hwarin as she desperately shielded me.
This isn’t the situation I planned for, but I still have one method left.
The problem was whether using that method was the right thing to do.
If I used it, I wouldn’t just lose an arm—I would be throwing myself into the tiger’s den.
Offer the tiger my wrist, or stick my head into its jaws and hope it doesn’t chew?
Even while Hwarin protected me I kept turning the choice over and over.
“Take one more step. I dare you.”
Hwarin’s voice, thick with killing intent, jolted me out of the swamp of indecision.
“Child. It is only a barbarian’s wrist. Once you reach the Sichuan Dang Clan you will make far better friends. If affection is the issue, I will introduce you to fine young men myself.”
“Bullshit. Watch your mouth. There’s only one man like Yunho, and that’s Yunho.”
Hwarin. I don’t get moved easily, but that line just now hit me.
If this weren’t the middle of a crisis, dinner would have been on me. I would have kept parroting her words just to watch her face go scarlet while she yelled at me. Shame we can’t.
“Heh heh. Twenty-odd years ago or today, why must you pour private affection on a barbarian and risk ruining great matters?”
Watching Hwarin’s stance, Uigakju seemed to recall something from the past; he let out a long, rueful sigh.
If I was going to play the scheme, the moment was now.
“Hwarin. Move aside for a second.”
“Hey. No.”
“It’s fine. Just trust me.”
I carefully took her shoulders and eased her to the side. She watched me with clear unease, but at the words “trust me” she reluctantly stepped away.
“So you have finally steeled yourself. I swear again that once you offer that wrist, no further harm will come to you.”
Uigakju, believing I had come forward to surrender my wrist, spoke with grand confidence.
Offer the tiger my wrist, or thrust my head into the tiger’s den?
From the days of eating a single scrap of bread while sleeping rough with no hope, through the barbarian maedamja years, all the way to the barbarian scribbler Hopil.
I had finally, barely, carved out a place. Hope of moving forward had appeared.
And now they meant to cut off the hand that wrote.
What you think you are severing may be some savage barbarian’s wrist, but what you are actually trying to cut is my hope.
Living without hope is not living—it is rotting.
Wrist, or life.
The answer was already decided.
“Uigakju, have you read every volume of Dangga Pungun?”
I looked him straight in the eye, unflinching.
“I have read them all.”
“Then do you recall the original courtesan name of the Joseon-born kisaeng Du Eung-hyang who appears in volume two?”
Uigakju had spoken of the fictional Du Eung-hyang as though she were a real person.
The lecher case was secret history. If he knew the details so well, he had either ridden along when they hunted the lecher or he knew someone very like Du Eung-hyang.
“How am I supposed to remember the name of some barbarian courtesan from twenty-odd years ago?”
Uigakju laughed as if the question itself were absurd.
No. You will remember. Even if you don’t, I’ll make you remember.
“Hyang-a. That was the apprentice courtesan’s name twenty years ago, the one who shared love with the present Clan Leader.”
“……Yes. That was the name. Wait……? How do you know she was only an apprentice?”
Uigakju’s eyes went wide as he stared at me.
How do I know? Of course I know. I have to know.
“I must leave now because the mission is urgent, but when I return I will take you with me and make you a proper member of the clan. That is what the Clan Leader told Hyang-a, the woman with whom he shared first love, as he departed.”
“I asked how you know!”
I ignored his shout, walked calmly to the desk, and drew something from the drawer.
What I pulled out was a bracelet.
The one Sohee and I had taken from the dead Joseon man on the road to the Seong Family Manor, the man the bandits had killed. The name of this bracelet was……
“Bulmanghwan?”
“Yes. The Bulmanghwan.”
Time to change my attitude.
I tossed the bracelet engraved with the pheasant casually to Uigakju.
“H-how do you have this?”
“The Clan Leader never told anyone else, but in truth a child was conceived between the two of them.”
“What?”
“Because it was a secret mission he could not write his name. ‘If my work stretches long, come to the Sichuan Dang Clan holding this Bulmanghwan.’ That is what the young Clan Leader said before he left.”
“Then that means right now……”
Uigakju’s stunned gaze flicked back and forth between the nameless Bulmanghwan and me.
Even if you walk into the tiger’s den, keep your wits and you live.
No. When has Kang Yunho ever merely kept his wits until the tiger bit?
If the tiger tries to bite my wrist I will thrash it; if it aims for my throat I will make it bow.
By deceiving the tiger.
I am used to deceiving tigers that come for my neck. And the tigers I am about to deceive this time……
“The child born twenty-odd years ago between the Clan Leader and the Joseon courtesan Hyang-a. That child is me.”
The Sichuan Dang Clan.