Reopening - 5

Trust me, the frustration runs both ways.

I received this Black Coin from a Mr. Wang who runs a fabric shop in Chilgok County, Hubei Province—we grew friendly back in my street storyteller days. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to lay it all out from the very beginning.

If not for one small reason, that is.

"The Shadowless Divine Thief is my sworn elder brother."

Just as you instructed, Uncle Wang—I blurted out the first tale that came to hand.

"Sworn brothers with the Shadowless Divine Thief?"

"That is so. And as his sworn brother, is it any wonder I came to hold the Shadowless Divine Thief's Black Coin?"

Explaining how I had truly come by the coin would require a long, winding account indeed. I would have to recount how, while working as a street storyteller, I grew close to the owner of a fabric shop—how we traded banter, visited the bathhouse together, shared meals and drinks.

And what would happen then? An organization like the Haomen would trace Mr. Wang's whereabouts without ever breaking a sweat. I could not break my promise to that man.

So how was I to cut through this situation? Sworn brotherhood. Invoke that magical bond, and I could account for the Black Coin without a single tedious explanation—and handle our present circumstances all at once, too.

Uncle, from this moment on, you and I are best friends. No—best brothers. You never did walk me through the whole story, so don't go crying injustice later.

"What kind of nonsense is this...? Where is the Shadowless Divine Thief now?"

"That concerns a painful chapter in my sworn brother's past. As the younger brother, I have no intention of sharing it with strangers I've never laid eyes on before."

The Haomen rebellion of a decade or more ago. The hint had already been dropped. I had no idea how Uncle Wang was tangled up in it, but if he had vanished in that incident's aftermath, there was a reason for it.

I didn't know the fine details. But survivors of the rebellion might still be out there, and I had no way of knowing how I stood with these people I'd only just met. Besides, Uncle Wang might well have been implicated in the rebellion itself.

At this moment, I was the Shadowless Divine Thief's sworn younger brother. I had no intention of dragging him into danger—which made it a splendid excuse for keeping my mouth shut.

"A stranger, he says! Do you have any idea how long I have known that man!"

So that was why she recognized the Black Coin. He did tell me most people would never ask about it—yet ask she did. What a coincidence.

"My sworn brother has washed his hands of the jianghu. That is why I cannot tell you."

Even if the branch chief were thick as thieves with the Shadowless Divine Thief himself, I had no intention of talking. In martial arts novels, the fool who unmasks a retired master is always the first to die. I didn't know why Uncle Wang had concealed his identity and withdrawn from the world. Even so, carelessly unmasking him could bring harm down on my own head as well.

"You truly refuse to tell me."

"As his sworn brother, I absolutely will not."

Sworn brother or not, I wasn't going to tell anyway. Repaying kindness with kindness is simply one's duty. Uncle Wang had been good to me. In a Central Plains hostile to black-haired barbarians, he was the man who laid the groundwork for a nobody—then hardly better than a beggar—to live like a proper human being again.

And I had given him my word: if naming his whereabouts before these people might put my benefactor in peril, my lips would stay sealed. I may be no chivalrous hero out of a martial arts novel, but as a man who writes about them, I had no intention of betraying a trust. Better, then, to declare myself the sworn brother and draw every arrow to my own chest.

"And why should I believe this sworn-brother tale? Didn't you say earlier you were merely acquainted with him?"

"Would you toss off a claim of brotherhood with the Gentleman on the Beam so lightly?"

I was claiming kinship with a thief, after all. What sort of man announces that without a second thought?

"I watched you startle at the very name Shadowless Divine Thief, and now you ask me to believe this?"

"I always knew my sworn brother did night work in his younger days. I simply never knew he had risen to so grand an epithet."

"Even between sworn brothers?"

No—precisely because we were sworn brothers, if anything.

"Our spirits matched, I owed him a debt I could never repay, and so we became brothers. Would a younger sibling go digging into his elder brother's every little flaw?"

Prying into another man's shortcomings is ill-omened work. Raking over a sworn elder brother's flaws is lower still. The word sworn brother lent legitimacy to everything I had done.

"And you ask me to believe that now?"

Oh, come on. Would it kill you to believe me a little?

Granted, it would be absurd for them to gape and cry, Ooooh! Forgive us, sworn brother of the Shadowless Divine Thief! and flatten themselves against the floor. But that was fine.

"And if you choose not to believe me, what then?"

Because with that single phrase, the justification was mine.

I settled boldly into my chair and stared the branch chief down.

"What was that?"

"Prove that I am not the Shadowless Divine Thief's sworn brother."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I produced the Black Coin. Its authenticity has been verified. I disclosed my connection to its owner. If you doubt me still, then the burden of proving me false now falls to you."

"Why you insolent whelp! Where do you get off disrespecting the Branch Chief!"

When I met the branch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chief—a man old enough to be my father twice over—with sheer brazen-faced audacity, one of the Haomen men behind him barked.

"Hey. Your elders are speaking. Who told you to butt in?"

At my incredulous retort, the man could only glare at me, seething, unable to lunge.

Seething? And what exactly do you plan to do about it? I happen to be the sworn brother of the Shadowless Divine Thief. Find yourself an elder with better pull than mine, and then you can have at me. Understood?

"Silence! Now then, Manager Kang Yunho. So you demand I prove it, the other way around?"

"I have disclosed everything that can be disclosed. Manager of Daseogak. Honored guest of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Sworn brother of the Shadowless Divine Thief. That is who I, Kang Yunho, am. If not—prove it."

I declared it with the composure of a madman who had strolled unarmed into a gang's own office. The justification was mine. So was the backing. Lay a hand on me at your own peril.

"...So now you threaten me, ever so delicately. Hey. You think I'm soft because I've played nice? This is the Haomen. Interrogating one man is less than nothing to us. Are you aware of that?"

Beside himself, the branch chief pressed his threat home with a thin, creeping edge of killing intent. Blades at the drop of a hat. Threats at the drop of a hat. This is exactly why the unorthodox sects are hopeless.

"Do as you please. But you will bear every consequence that follows."

I had shoved my head between a tiger's jaws more times than I could count—did he truly think a little growl would make me cower? When I only stood prouder, the branch chief's complexion warped, ever so slightly.

Quite the pickle for him, no? If I really was the Shadowless Divine Thief's sworn brother, he might have poked the wrong sleeping dragon. And he knew perfectly well that I was a guest of the Tang Clan. He could surely picture it, too: in the worst case, taking the fall all by himself.

At last the branch chief ran out of words and settled for a pointless staring contest.

"...The secret code."

The pink-haired woman who had been quietly spectating—the Shadowless Divine Thief I knew—spoke at last.

"A secret code? What is that supposed to mean?"

The branch chief turned his head as the silent woman finally broke her silence.

"If that man truly gave him the Black Coin, he would have taught him the code."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She knew the Black Coin's secret code? Uncle Wang swore no one would. Well then—this just became a great deal easier.

"A code? There is no such thing attached to the Black Coin."

The branch chief asked her, plainly lost.

"This one has one."

She said it while gazing down at the black coin with a troubled expression.

"Do you know the code?"

"I do. And you, Manager Kang—do you?"

She answered, then turned the question on me.

"Go ahead and ask."

She stared long and hard at my shamelessly composed face, then let out a small sigh and parted her lips.

She had tossed me the opening of the code—the challenge half—and the response left me as naturally as breathing. Thank the heavens, I remembered it. Uncle Wang had said no one would ever ask, and still told me to commit it to memory just in case. Had that "just in case" been for the day I met the Shadowless Divine Thief?

At my instant reply, she went on staring at me with trembling eyes, unable to find her voice.

What? Did I remember it wrong?

"...Let him go. He did receive the Black Coin from that man."

"I will take my leave, then."

In the end, I walked out with an apology in hand. Getting out of the Haomen, it turns out, is the hard part.

"Consider my debt repaid."

She said it flatly, curtly, as we left the Haomen together.

"I am truly grateful. But might you be family to my sworn brother?"

I knew the answer. I asked anyway, on the off chance.

"Do you know me?"

There it was.

Uncle Wang. So the child you once mentioned fathering with a courtesan back in your glory days—that was the Shadowless Divine Thief.

"I knew it. I did once hear word of a daughter. Your hair matches his, and you knew the Black Coin on sight, so I dared to hope. Thank you, Lady Hayeon."

I spoke her name and bowed once more, with full courtesy.

"So that man... has not forgotten, after all. And a courtesan's hyangmyeong—the name she leaves behind at home—is not something just anyone may call."

Strained, then. I couldn't begin to guess the exact history between those two, but an unmistakable chill came off her.

"Then at least favor me with your courtesan name."

The name a woman bears before entering the courtesan house is called her hyangmyeong, it seemed. Her true name, then—and apparently not to be bandied about by strangers.

"A runaway courtesan... call me whatever you please."

"Then Du Eunghyang it shall be."

I let the joke slip out with a smirk.

"...Just call me Lim Hayeon."

"Lim Hayeon?"

It was the true name I knew, all right. So Wang was the alias?

"I have never once used that man's surname."

Lim Hayeon had clearly caught exactly what had startled me, and she answered with a scowl. Born of a courtesan rather than a wife, so the surname never passed to her? Or did she refuse it on principle?

"They call it coincidence, but to rescue my sworn brother's own daughter—what a twist of fate this is."

Though in truth, I had saved her because I recognized the Shadowless Divine Thief. I put on the astonished face of a Joseon expat stumbling upon a fellow countryman in the middle of the Central Plains.

"If you mean fate with that man, I can't say I'm delighted."

Picky, aren't we.

"Well, I am delighted."

"..."

When I said it smiling, she could only stare at me, struck dumb.

Hold on.

If I was Uncle Wang's sworn brother, then that made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lim Hayeon my sworn brother's daughter.

In a flash, a brilliant idea struck me.

"I know you find yourself in a difficult position."

I eased into the pitch.

"Go on."

"I owe my sworn brother more than I could ever repay. And I am not the sort of man to look the other way when his daughter is in trouble."

A fabricated bond, once established, could be cultivated into a genuine one. Whether she would ever need my help, I couldn't say. But with a woman who might yet become a true heroine, the point of contact must stay open at all times.

And so—

"Should you ever need help, knock on the doors of Daseogak at any hour. As your father's sworn brother, I shall be waiting."

First, dangle the sweetest of bait.