The Gates - 1
Yep. I had been kidnapped.
"So the rumor that the Nokcheong Escort Agency case was cracked by a black-haired bailiff of some renown was no idle falsehood after all, I see."
The man, well into his later years, curled one corner of his mouth upward as he confirmed my deduction.
"Merely an empty name drifting through the streets, nothing more."
Right. The Ma Gate Head. But what in the world could the Ma Gate Head possibly want with me? I paid my fare promptly, every single time I hailed a carriage. Don't tell me this was about that fellow who tried to fleece what he took for black-haired sightseers and ended up kneeling in formal apology for it.
"Kang Yunho. Twenty-two years of age. Unmarried. Proprietor of Daseogak. Master of the Ungi Inn. Friend of Hopil, author of Dangga Pungun. Honored guest of the Tang Clan. Any family hunting for a son-in-law would be drooling over that list."
The Ma Gate Head began laying out my personal particulars as though conducting an interrogation.
You certainly did your homework.
"If you've come to introduce me to a promising match, I'd be happy to meet her. Positively delighted, even."
In other words: please don't kill me.
"Heh heh. An amusing young man. Regrettably, you couldn't ask for a better match than the Zhuge Clan's youngest daughter."
You know I'm in marriage talks with the Zhuge Clan's youngest daughter, and you kidnapped me anyway? I understood this man less and less.
"Then might I be permitted to ask why you were driving a carriage for a barbarian such as myself?"
"Do you know why the Haomen is a sect that gets looked down upon in the murim?"
What kind of question was that, out of nowhere?
"Because it's a sect gathered from the dregs of society, isn't it?"
"To be precise, it's because those lowlifes have no strength. We were never a sect founded on martial prowess to begin with, so it's only natural."
"I believe I've heard something to that effect."
Consider, for a moment, a waiter of the Haomen. Say his service is so fine that every customer tips him an extra twenty percent on the bill, making him, by common consent, a five-star ace of his trade. That still doesn't make him a martial arts master. Martial arts — unless you're a wuxia protagonist showered in fortuitous encounters — must be drilled diligently from childhood.
The only martial force the Haomen could put forward amounted to the hired fighters retained by its Hyangju and branch heads. In information, perhaps, they had something. In actual force, they were laughably negligible.
"And yet the Domun has been working mischief with that handful of strength."
The Nokcheong Escort Agency case. I knew exactly what he meant, so I held my tongue.
"The Simun, the moment that happened, moved as though it had been waiting for its cue. The Gimun, too, has caught the scent of something and taken to prowling about. All three appear to be circling the same end. I know the world threw respect for one's elders to the dogs long ago, but for all three to clamp their jaws shut and explain nothing — it stings a little, I confess."
"..."
"Heh heh. So the young ones have snatched up the Hyangju seats for themselves — what do they gain by disregarding an old man? Here's the funny part, though. Lean your ear this way. Every last arrow is aimed at one particular young man."
There was no need to ask whom he meant.
I settled back into my seat with a theatrical sigh of lament. "In this life, I'd rather be the one loosing arrows than the one catching them. Rarely do things go as one wishes."
"Regrettably, I too have come carrying arrows."
With the Ma Gate Head's words, the carriage door swung open, and two warriors settled into the seats on either side of me.
"What the—?!"
The carriage hadn't even stopped. They flung open the door of a moving coach and climbed aboard as casually as stepping onto a ferry. Fighters in the Ma Gate Head's employ, no doubt.
"Kang Yunho. Move and you get hurt."
The two pressed small daggers against my flanks with practiced ease — clearly this was not their first time running this particular routine.
"Now then. I'd like to hear about how you've been living these days. In exchange, today's fare is on the house."
So this is how they're playing it?!
Among those who know little of wuxia, there is a question that comes up again and again.
If the Beggars' Sect — a sect of beggars, no less — counts as orthodox, why is the Haomen unorthodox? A gathering of society's downtrodden ought to be a labor union, shouldn't it? Declaring them villains of the unorthodox path simply for banding together pitiful workers — honestly.
Could it be that wuxia authors stand at the very front line of ideology, drilling the proletariat in bourgeois thought to hold back the revolution?
No.
The waiters drug the food. The courtesans drown their marks in wine. The coachmen turn highwaymen. The gamblers trade in human lives. In ordinary times they were ordinary laborers — but when the moment demanded, they felt no qualms about crime. That is why.
"Ma Gate Head."
Damned unorthodox bastards. I ask for an explanation of my current situation, and they answer with knives first. A good Tang Clan offers its hand before its blade — that's the whole family motto.
"So you finally feel like talking. I do hope your tongue proves as smooth as your cunning."
I drew a slow breath, eyes fixed on the Ma Gate Head as he drove the team on ahead.
The Domun's assault on the Wushan branch. The sole survivor, Lim Hayeon. And the guardian of that sole survivor, Kang Yunho.
How much should I say? How much could I say and still step down from this carriage alive? A dozen calculations flashed through my mind in an instant, but the conclusion was only one.
"Ma Gate Head. When a man becomes a hostage, I believe information comes in two kinds."
Don't let yourself look rattled. Don't show a flicker of fear.
Daggers pressed against both flanks — but by now, this much barely counted as an annual event of life in this world. No — call it an annual event and the universe might take that as a promise to return. Let's call it a funeral instead. Funerals only happen once.
With an expression of perfect detachment, I addressed the Ma Gate Head.
"Two kinds?"
"Information one can speak of and live. And information that kills the moment it leaves the lips."
"Ohh? And which kind do you take our present circumstances to be?"
"I'd say keeping it swallowed is better for the continued health of everything above my neck."
The conclusion was: say nothing at all. The Mamun was no ally of mine — and worse, this was a man who would kidnap people over a single scrap of intelligence. One slip of the tongue here, and every effort I'd made to protect Lim Hayeon could come apart like foam on water.
"Even the tightest-lipped friend, I find, finds his lips growing light once a carriage wheel comes rolling up before his very eyes."
Threatening me here, are you? Then two can play.
"If the outcome is the same, does it matter whether it's a carriage wheel or a blade at my ribs? The Simun Head might feel a touch slighted, though."
"Slighted, you say?"
"I was on my way to the inn at the Simun Head's own invitation. I trust that once he learns the truth, he'll see fit to express his displeasure. Properly."
The Wuhan Haomen ran on a kind of oligarchy. No post in the Wuhan Haomen stood above a Hyangju. Should word get out that a Haomen member, summoned by the Simun Head himself, had been kidnapped and killed by the Ma Gate Head, that would become a wound to his pride no Simun Head could ever let pass.
"Heh heh. No better card up your sleeve?"
The Ma Gate Head spoke while facing forward, in a tone of mild amusement.
"The strongest card may not be in my hand at the moment. But the most troublesome one is."
The Sichuan Tang Clan is far away; our friendly neighbor the Simun is right next door. Given enough time, of course, the Tang Clan card would come into play as well.
A smile rode at the corner of my mouth while my eyes declared that not a word more would ever leave them. I regarded the Ma Gate Head.
How will he take it?
The Ma Gate Head drove on in silence for a long moment after my words. Then, for the first time, he turned his head and looked at me.
"Heh heh... You're an interesting one, aren't you. Tell me, young man — any interest in working under me?"
It landed.
"I still owe debts of gratitude I haven't repaid. I'm afraid it would be difficult, for now."
"Cunning, a slick tongue, and gall to spare. The potbellied waiter has gone and found himself quite the prospect to raise. Fine. When that man rages, everything turns tiresome — so let's have no more of these unfunny games."
"..."
At the Ma Gate Head's word, the two warriors dropped away from the still-moving carriage. Were they raised in Tianzhu or something? How does a person just do that?
"Not curious how I came to know the Simun Head fed you?"
I was somewhere in the middle of imagining that, should I train under the Ma Gate Head, I might one day step lightly off a speeding express train all by myself — even at stations where it never stops — when he asked me that.
"I'm listening attentively."
"The potbellied one let it slip on purpose. A warning, meant for the rest of us: the young man is one of his people now — move against him carelessly, and you make an enemy of the Simun."
"An honor beyond my deserts."
"Thanks to that, the Domun crowd can't resort to anything drastic. Even so, the fact remains they're still sniffing about."
"I've heard the rumors myself."
That was precisely why I was headed for the Simun — before you kidnapped me.
"I'd rather we not have needless strife, Haomen clawing at Haomen. We had our fill of that ten years ago."
The Ma Gate Head turned his head toward me once more as he said it.
"As I understand it, the Simun Head has been taking precautions in every direction himself."
"Heh heh. Then let me give you a gift, by way of my apology."
"And what would that be?"
I rather doubt even a holiday gift box of red ginseng would smooth this over.
"The Pact of the Nameless Place."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"The potbellied waiter keeps his eyes fixed on nothing but his target, so he's slow to grasp the full picture. In times like these, one needs a man who watches from afar."
The Ma Gate Head spoke as though he already knew something.
"Did you not come to extract information?"
"I came because I needed a messenger. I confess I was curious, too — what manner of young man it was that had an old fool sharing his food for the first time in a dozen years."
So this was some unorthodox-style hazing for the new recruit? He could have said so from the start.
"The Pact of the Nameless Place. I shall deliver it faithfully."
"We've arrived. Off you go."
"The Pact of the Nameless Place?"
Having returned after audiences with both the Ma Gate Head and the Simun Head, I put the question to Lim Hayeon.
"Does the term mean anything to you?"
"No. It's the first I've ever heard of it. But I do know what the 'Nameless Place' part refers to."
"It doesn't simply mean any old stretch of land, I take it? It carries a meaning of its own?"
What on earth was a 'Nameless Place'? I bit down on a joke so dire that not even my old department head would have stooped to it, and asked instead.
"People of the Haomen live like duckweed, drifting wherever the current takes them. So it means the any-old-place where such drifting lives gather. In practice, it usually refers to wherever the Haomen's general headquarters stands."
"A pact sworn on the Haomen's own home ground..."
And that cleared up precisely nothing.
"What did the Simun Head have to say?"
"Apparently he had planned to let it be known that I was a man whose food he himself had shared — word enough to keep the Domun from touching me carelessly. But when I relayed the Ma Gate Head's message, he said he'd tell me another time. And instead, he issued a decree to receive me as an honored guest."
The Simun Head's complexion had turned rather poor at the mention of the Pact of the Nameless Place.
"Could it be connected to something big?"
Lim Hayeon asked me, worry written plain on her face.
A pact known only to the Haomen's upper brass. What could it possibly have to do with this affair?
"Let's look on the bright side. If something big truly erupts within the Haomen, they may not spare even a passing thought for a mere Miss Hayeon."
If it genuinely was tied to some great matter, that might work in our favor. If this entire affair was being staged to dispose of Lim Hayeon — the girl who walked away from the Domun's dirty work — then word had already spread further than the Domun intended. Ordinarily, this would be an operation to plug a small hole in a dam. But with both the Mamun and the Simun now wise to it, the dam was bound to burst. And once it did, Lim Hayeon would simply stop mattering to the Domun at all.
As I laid out my reasoning, I gave Lim Hayeon's hand a reassuring pat.
"I suppose it could be seen that way."
"Don't fret too much. We stay vigilant, same as ever. I'll make my own preparations as well, in case the worst should come."
Perhaps the test I'd been preparing for all this while — the problem named Lim Hayeon — was drawing near. Until the exam paper was set down in front of me, all I could do was prepare my utmost.
"What am I supposed to dooooo?"
Inside the mansion where Kang Yunho and Lim Hayeon sat knocking their heads together over their troubles, Jegal Hyang was clutching her own hair and drumming her forehead against the floor in torment.
"I knew it — Hayeon Eonni is in love with Young Master Kang, isn't sheeee!"
Jegal Hyang had begun, at first, by nursing a sliver of hope. After all — unless it was a genuine clan-inherited art, unless Lim Hayeon had merely been drilling one of the mass-produced lightness techniques anyone could buy in the market, then perhaps Hayeon had simply been exaggerating to Young Master Kang, and the truth might turn out nothing like what Jegal Hyang feared.
"But it's not even an ordinary clan art — it's a supreme-grade martial art, isn't iiiit!"
Loosing nine hidden projectiles at precise targets while weaving in a disorienting blur no master of martial arts could predict. Even to Jegal Hyang's brief glance, it had seemed without a single rough edge — a match for the lightness arts of any renowned orthodox sect.
U-um... Eonni may not know this, but th-there is such a thing as the rules of the jianghu, you seeeee.
I know exactly what those are. And I follow them quite well, thank you very much?
Only now did Jegal Hyang finally understand why Lim Hayeon itched to eat her alive.
A woman scheming to use her clan's power to snatch away, mid-romance, the very man Hayeon Eonni had set her sights on. That woman was her.
"Does Young Master Kang even know how Hayeon Eonni feels about hiiiim?"
The secret arts of a clan inheritance are never revealed to outsiders. Common sense to anyone raised in the murim — but he was a young gentleman from a foreign land, so perhaps he simply didn't know. If he had, she would never have written it so casually in the exchange diary.
"And what if Hayeon Eonni has her sights set on the seat of Young Master Kang's wiiiife?"
Jegal Hyang closed her eyes and compared herself against Lim Hayeon with all the cold clarity she could muster.
The person most useful to Kang Yunho? Hayeon Eonni. In looks? Hayeon Eonni also knew how to make herself lovelier. His teacher in the martial arts? Hayeon Eonni. The person he trusted most? Hayeon Eonni. And unlike Jegal Hyang, Hayeon Eonni could actually cook.
"She's the spitting image of a perfect legal wiiiife!"
Utter, total defeat.
It was a defeat of flawless perfection. At this level, merely holding herself up as a rival for the wife's seat felt like an act of insolence.
"Hhh... hhh... What am I supposed to do about this? What does Young Master Kang think of Hayeon Eonni? How — how am I supposed to beat Hayeon Eonnniii... ack!"
As Jegal Hyang rolled across the floorboards with a laugh from which the soul had entirely departed, the copy of Dangga Pungun on the desk slid off and landed square on her head.
Face crumpled to the verge of tears, she spread open the Dangga Pungun she had read hundreds of times over and murmured:
"First, for the sake of my peace of mind, a little Dangga Pungun... Hm?"
Something about the open pages struck her as strange.
"Th-this feels strangely familiar?"
The way the story unfolded. The choice of words. The arrangement of sentences. The same uncanny déjà vu as something she had read only days before. Jegal Hyang shot to her feet and pulled out another book. It was the exchange diary she shared with Kang Yunho. Similar, all the same.
"No way. No, no wayyyy!"
In that instant, a shock like a hammer swung at her skull seized Jegal Hyang.
It couldn't be. Could it?
A long-shot hypothesis. Jegal Hyang began to dredge a single memory up from the depths of her mind. What surfaced was a letter of thanks received months ago — the reward for dozens upon dozens of illustrations and reader essays she had mailed off. That letter had, without question, been sent by the author Hopil.
The exchange diary before her eyes. The thank-you letter in her memory. After comparing the two over and over, Jegal Hyang at last succeeded in arriving at one question.
"Why... why does Young Master Kang's handwriting match Author Hopil's?"