The Main Branch - 3
After settling in successfully at the Yichang Daseogak, Kang Yunho had secretly sought out a branch of Salmak, following the method he had been given.
He asked them to deliver a letter to So-hee, but Salmak was a closed order — he was not one of their own, and the location of the headquarters to which any letter would have to travel was a jealously guarded secret. His request was refused.
In the end, the most he could wring out of the Yichang branch after much pleading was a promise that they would send along a brief status report of their own accord.
The brief status report sent by the Yichang branch.
That report struck Cheon So-hee's head harder than any blunt weapon ever forged.
"It seems he is working as the manager of a bookstore in Yichang called Daseogak."
Unbelievable news. So-hee's mind was so flooded with shock that she could scarcely hear what her master — who had already read the report through — was saying.
"Oppa is. Living with a woman?"
Who? Oppa. With whom? A woman. Why? ......Why?
Faced with news she could not possibly comprehend, Cheon So-hee had no choice but to ask herself the question all over again.
"This can't be! An affair, fine — that much watashi expected — but cohabitation already?! Yukiko! I cannot hide my shock at this stairway to adulthood! Nin-nin!"
Cheon So-hee stared blankly at the No. 6 assassin — who had stolen a peek at the report — clutching her forehead and spinning in circles with theatrical gestures.
An ordinary man and woman living under one roof without even marrying. Unthinkable. How could anyone do such a thing.
Cheon So-hee herself had never once slept in a room apart from Kang Yunho in all the time they had lived together — but that fact, to her, was beside the point. Childhood friends. The Defier of Destiny and the Heavenly Killing Star. A man and woman bound by a promise of the future. What reason could there be not to live together? It was the most natural thing in the world.
"As I was taught: even a man who has promised himself will want to pluck the flower placed before his eyes, nin-nin."
Oppa? No way.
"Oppa would never do such a thing."
The words that left her lips were utterly, immovably certain.
Even amid the shocking news, Cheon So-hee felt no anger toward Kang Yunho, no sense of betrayal. No — rather, her faith in him did not waver in the slightest. The Kang Yunho she knew was absolutely not that kind of man.
Something must have gone wrong somewhere. Something else must have driven oppa into living with someone. Yes — if there was a problem, it was the woman living with him.
"Tang Hwa-rin."
She would be the problem. Who was she? From the Sichuan Tang Clan? The name nagged at her, familiar somehow. Cheon So-hee bored her eyes into the name Tang Hwa-rin.
Who are you? Why are you living with my oppa? Oppa promised me our future. Who do you think you are, living with the man I love?
If a glare could kill written characters, the name Tang Hwa-rin would have been dismantled stroke by stroke in an instant.
From the depths of the Heavenly Killing Star's chest, a murky, sticky emotion had begun to seep out, drop by drop.
"Emergency, Yukiko! I believe I can see the 'Heaven' of the Heavenly Killing Star showing itself right now! Yukiko! I have no confidence whatsoever in facing a No. 5 gone mad! I shall prepare the ultimate escape art of the ninja: the Cicada Sheds Its Shell!"
Flailing about, the No. 6 assassin issued a barely disguised warning toward Cheon So-hee, who stood on the verge of being overtaken by that sticky, unpleasant emotion.
"It's not that."
It was not her usual murderous intent. Rage gripped her — but not the Heavenly Killing Star's bloodlust reaching to dominate her body. Cold yet burning, burning yet cold. A strange feeling, clammy and clinging, quietly boiling.
Cheon So-hee rifled through her memories for this emotion — unfamiliar, and yet not. That was it. It felt like what she had felt long ago, when Yoonho oppa spoke of the woman he had taught the emetic technique to.
It was jealousy, born of love — but because she had felt it only once in her life, she could hardly put a name to it.
"One look at his face and you would fly straight off to Yichang, wouldn't you."
It was the reaction she had already expected, and Dan Seo-wol allowed herself a small smile as she took in her disciple's expression — brimming with a jealousy she had never shown before.
"…"
Can I go? Cheon So-hee swallowed the words and did not deny it.
She wanted to see Yoonho oppa. She wanted to ask him why he was living with a woman. She wanted to know, more than anything, what kind of woman she was.
But she must never go. If she failed to hold herself back, she might never see oppa's face again. She must never, ever go to his side.
The Heavenly Killing Star pressed her lips tightly shut, as if to endure the agony of patience.
"I requested additional reports knowing you would be like this. Read the second report."
One piece of bad news, and two good ones. Cheon So-hee accepted the report her master held out and began to read.
Tang Hwa-rin. Purple hair, green eyes. Presumed to be of the Sichuan Tang Clan's bloodline. A native of the Seong Family Estate, cast out of it in the aftermath of the incident caused by the Heavenly Killing Star.
Cheon So-hee's eyes widened slightly, and she spoke the name again, familiar on her tongue.
"Seong Hwa-rin… of the Seong Family Estate?"
"You know this girl?"
"I know her. I've seen her before."
It was a name Cheon So-hee knew — from her mission to assassinate the lord of the Seong Family Estate. Besides, on her very first day infiltrating the estate, she had seen Seong Hwa-rin throwing a tantrum at their own client.
"They say the incident you caused at the estate upended its power structure, and she alone was cast out."
"Because of me?"
"Ah! Could this be the famed law of cause and effect at work?! The ninja art of vengeance — stealing away the man of the one who got you exiled and making him your own?!"
"Seol-ja."
Cheon So-hee called Yukiko by her true name, her voice cold as frost.
"Hey! What did you just call me?! …Ngh! I apologize! This time it was all Yukiko's fault!"
Meeting the frigid stares of master and disciple alike, Seol-ja bowed her head deep and admitted it.
"Seeing her with your own eyes, you would grasp it quickly enough. Read the report below."
From below the face and across her entire body, discolored blotches resembling a skin disease; she keeps herself veiled at all times.
Cheon So-hee recalled the girl she had seen at the Seong Family Estate. She had covered herself with a silk veil, but her condition had not been one to show to anyone.
Oppa was living not with a beautiful woman, but with a woman stricken by a skin disease?
"Bah! What man would leave behind a woman with a face as lovely as the Heavenly Killing Star's and a devastating figure to court someone like that?!"
Trying to redeem herself, Seol-ja offered words of comfort meant to lift the weight from her heart.
Could there be some other circumstance with Yoonho oppa after all?
The stone that had been pressing down so heavily upon her heart began, at last, to grow a little lighter.
"It is written in the report as well, but while settling the affairs of the Seong Family Estate, I came to learn something more about that woman, Tang Hwa-rin."
"What is it?"
Dan Seo-wol read the subtle shift in her disciple's mood at once and began to lay out what she had learned.
"It seems the girl Tang Hwa-rin took on an enormous debt. With your betrothed's help she managed to keep the bookstore she'd had, but I hear the debt still hangs over her. So it is not that they live together as lovers — they share lodging and meals while running the bookstore as partners."
Burdened by debt, they shared board and lodging at the large bookstore. Her master relayed, with an easy smile, the findings of an investigation undertaken purely for the sake of her disciple's love life.
"I understand how it came to be now. But you could simply have told me that from the start."
The chain of cause and effect was easy to trace. This was the oppa who had taken in even her — the girl who had once tried to kill him. He had met a woman in dire straits and helped her, and oppa had left behind his grueling days as a Maedamja street storyteller to become a bookstore manager.
Not cohabitation as lovers, but sharing room and board in the same building for the sake of a shared business. Even Cheon So-hee could accept that much.
"In this dreary old Salmak, there is no news half so delightful as my disciple's tale of love. Hand it over too easily, and where is the fun in that?"
It would have been a shame had her disciple not taken the bait of the bad news. Dan Seo-wol chuckled softly.
"…"
Cheon So-hee shot her master a resentful glare.
"You seem somewhat relieved now. Good. Then this news should set your heart entirely at ease."
Dan Seo-wol held out the third piece of news to her disciple.
"What's that?"
"News your betrothed sent with his own hand."
Good heavens. It was a movement even her own eyes could not follow. Dan Seo-wol marveled as she watched the note vanish from her very hand.
The Red Rakshasa watched with keen fascination as her disciple handled the note more carefully than any precious treasure, slowly unfolding its creased parts.
Sohee,
Your oppa has found his footing in Yichang thanks to a new friend he has made, and achieved a small success. I will live my very best to keep the promise I made with you.
A note of barely a single line.
It had been permitted when Kang Yunho, giddy from Dangga Pungun's back-to-back successes, brought the first and second volumes of Dangga Pungun — long out of stock and nearly impossible to find — to Salmak and begged leave to enclose it.
It was oppa. Oppa's turn of phrase — she could feel him in every word.
Cheon So-hee read it once, then twice, then again and again, as if devouring it.
"They say a single book by an author of unknown identity, sold at a bookstore called Daseogak, is shaking all of Yichang to its core. That will be your betrothed's handiwork."
Her disciple had said he would make his name with his writing. It was easy for Dan Seo-wol to see through the mystery author's disguise.
"The friend mentioned in the note must be that Tang Hwa-rin person!"
"True enough. A man who was truly straying would never have brought up another woman at all. That he told you means he thinks of her as a business partner — or, at best, a friend."
Though whether she truly knew how a man's heart worked was another matter — words Dan Seo-wol deliberately kept to herself, setting her disciple's mind at ease.
"I have never once heard of a cheating man being the first to bring up the other woman!"
And in truth, at the time Kang Yunho sent his letter from Yichang, he had thought of Tang Hwa-rin as a friend and nothing more, so he had felt no particular qualm about sending the note to Cheon So-hee.
Cheon So-hee went on gazing at the note.
It had all been a misunderstanding. For a passing moment, she had doubted the oppa who was giving his all for her sake.
"Oppa. Yoonho oppa."
Cradling the note against her chest, Cheon So-hee spoke the name of the man so far away.
She knew full well how he had suffered as a street storyteller. He, who had never had much money. He had said he would succeed through his books. He must have wanted to work at a bookstore. How much must he have toiled to win that place?
And still, oppa would have kept striving to keep his promise — for her. Oppa was still thinking of her. He was writing for her sake.
And he had succeeded, if only in a small way.
The emotions that had been quietly seething in her chest dissolved in an instant into solace and relief.
"Oppa. You're keeping your promise."
Cheon So-hee quietly drew the news Yoonho had sent into her arms.
Oppa was moving forward.
To think she had doubted such an oppa. Overwhelmed by her emotion for him and her disappointment in herself, Cheon So-hee sank down where she stood.
"No. 5! Don't tell me you're about to cry?! Rage and then weep, and your bottom will sprout horns!"
"Pretty… right?"
The next day. The Heavenly Killing Star murmured quietly to herself, tracing her own face with her fingertips.
The question had been answered, yet an uneasy feeling lingered. He had called her a friend, but something about it snagged strangely. Cheon So-hee had no way of knowing that this was what women called intuition.
"Whether you are the pretty one, or whether this Tang Hwa-rin woman is the pretty one. Is that what you have been brooding over?"
A familiar voice drifted down from the ceiling.
"You? Where did you crawl out from?"
"That is not the issue! Yukiko! This unsure-of-herself No. 5 is exasperating! Just once, look in a mirror!"
"Why the mirror?"
"I hate to say it, Heavenly Killing Star, but I have never once seen a beauty finer than you in all the Eight Provinces of Joseon! And you fear losing your heaven-destined man to a mere woman with a strange face?!"
Yukiko pressed her face toward the mirror as if she despaired of her.
The Cheon So-hee reflected in the glass was, without question, beautiful. It was the beauty of a flower buried in the snows of deep winter, still enduring its trial — yet one that would soon finish that trial and burst its bud into full, glorious bloom.
Cheon So-hee had never given her own looks much thought, but at Yukiko's praise the odd hollowness of anxiety that had pierced her chest filled in, and confidence surged up in its place.
I suppose I can forgive her for eating half of oppa's egg, So-hee thought to herself.
"Anxious still, even now, No. 5?!"
"No."
"Should anxiety strike again, I happen to have a method."
"A method?"
"Would you care to learn the seduction arts of the kunoichi of Dongyeong?"
And while Seol-ja made this most unexpected proposal to the beleaguered Heavenly Killing Star, urgent news was already winging its way in from Yichang.