The Covenant of Moji — 4
"You're late."
Moji Covenant.
While the Gimun Head glanced idly at the Simun Head, I couldn't hold back my curiosity any longer. What connection could the clue I'd heard from the Ma Gate Head have with Im Hayeon's situation?
"If you wanted me to come, you should have sent the sedan chairs and had the courtesans escort me in style. Making a man my age run until his soles are soaked with sweat — you're too much. No wonder you got that expensive information for free."
"...Come visit me as a courtesan when you have time next."
"Heh heh. And will you entertain me persona— all right, all right! I'll say no more."
When the Gimun Head frowned, the Simun Head flailed both arms in surrender.
So they're closer friends than I thought, apparently.
"The Moji Covenant... why does that damned pact keep crawling back out of its grave?"
The Gimun Head, her face still twisted in a scowl, put the question to the Simun Head.
"Because that damned pact created this damned mess, that's why."
"Impossible."
"Well, trying to do the impossible would drive anyone half-mad."
What are they even saying?
I couldn't keep up with the rhythm of this conversation at all.
"Um... what exactly is the Moji Covenant?"
I cautiously asked the Simun Head for an explanation.
"Where do I even begin? Do you know what Moji is?"
"I do. Isn't it where the Haomen Master resides?"
"Right. The Moji Covenant is the promise the Haomen Master made to the Branch Heads at Moji."
"The Haomen Master's promise?"
What in the world was the Moji Covenant?
What could it be, that it led to Im Hayeon being hounded, and the courtesans of the Gyobang being slaughtered?
The truth the Simun Head revealed was entirely unexpected.
"The Mangju. The right to become the Haomen Master's disciple, and the seat from which to reign as leader of all the Branch Heads. This is a covenant concerning the seat of Mangju."
"Has it never struck you as strange? Every branch has its Branch Head, yet in Wuhan — the city that should command all of Hubei's Haomen — there is no regional director at all, only the Branch Heads."
Before I could even digest the information about the Mangju, the Simun Head fired a question straight at me.
"I understood that the organization was so vast it had to be split up to be run at all."
I'd assumed that since no single person could oversee all the courtesans, gamblers, coachmen, and waiters of Hubei, it operated as a kind of oligarchy among the several Branch Heads.
"Originally, there was a Mangju above the Branch Heads."
The Gimun Head said this while tapping the ash from her long pipe.
"That's right. Just like a city branch director, there used to be a position called Mangju enthroned above the Branch Heads. All Branch Heads had to obey the Mangju's word. It was a position that concentrated all of Haomen's information and power in a single person."
"Then why doesn't it exist now?"
"What do you know about how one becomes a Haomen Branch Head?"
"From what I understand, if you do outstandingly well in your territory — like the Simun Head here — you get elevated to the position."
Haomen was a gathering of those from the bottom rungs of life. Becoming a Branch Head wasn't simply a matter of martial prowess.
The previous Head's backing, reputation, standing within Haomen, ability in one's own field. A Branch Head was chosen from a synthesis of all these factors.
"Exactly. Whether it's the Ma Gate or the Gi Gate, when the previous Head retires, the one performing best in that field gets elevated. But the Mangju was different."
"In what way?"
"It was a seat the Haomen Master's own disciples came down and occupied. Isn't that absurd? You toil for decades to claw your way up to Branch Head, and then you have to grovel at a single gesture from some green young pup."
"Resentment must have piled up."
Imagine a lifelong employee finally making executive — only for the chairman's young child to come down and start barking orders. Of course it would fester.
"Right. So ten years ago, the Branch Heads who resented it gathered and raised a rebellion."
"I've heard rumors of that."
"The Haomen Master's side had more masters, but there were just that many malcontents. After a drawn-out internal war, the Master finally resorted to a cunning move."
"The Moji Covenant?"
"That's it. Whoever wins the consent of four of the five Branch Heads may ascend to the seat of Mangju. And beyond that, the one who takes the Mangju seat will be granted the right to become the Haomen Master's disciple. That is the Moji Covenant."
So the Master's disciple could become Mangju, and whoever became Mangju could become the Master's disciple.
A clever negotiation card for placating the rebels.
"Why is that a cunning move, though? Wasn't it exactly what the rebels wanted?"
If someone became the Master's disciple, they could presumably claim the right to be the next Master. Hadn't the Haomen Master made an enormous concession?
"Because any sitting Branch Head could become Mangju simply by securing consent."
"Don't tell me..."
Too great a prize will sometimes breed infighting.
"The rebel factions began fighting among themselves. And Hubei was part of it."
I knew it.
"Might I ask what happened?"
The Simun Head, as if he'd rather someone else tell it, turned his gaze toward the Gimun Head with her pipe. Did that mean she could explain better than he could? He exhaled a long puff of smoke and spoke.
"Hoooh. That old hag let her greed run wild. The previous Gimun Head wanted to become Mangju herself."
So the leader of the rebels had been the Gimun branch.
"The Ma Gate Head lost his son and grandson as hostages during the fighting. I refused and dug my heels in, and my wife was poisoned and killed. The previous Domun Head watched how things fell, then threw in his lot with her."
The Simun Head interjected all this as if it were nothing, but for an instant, grief flickered through his eyes.
"..."
Yeah, Haomen really is the underworld through and through. Kidnapping, murder, poison — no crime is off the table.
"While the hag was hunting down the whereabouts of the other Head who'd vanished, I rallied the factions within Haomen and subdued the previous Gimun Head."
"Crushing that hag's skull was my doing."
Gimun Head, ma'am. When you swing that pipe with only one corner of your mouth curled up like it was fun, it's a little terrifying.
So the current Gimun Head had pulled off a 'succession by force' ten years ago?
"But what does any of this have to do with Lady Ha Yeon?"
I understood the Moji Covenant and the full story of the rebellion ten years ago. But Im Hayeon and the Domun affair didn't seem particularly connected.
The Simun Head shrugged at my expression and continued his explanation.
"After that, Branch Heads jockeying against one another became the norm. For instance, I know that Kang Yunho is the Tang Clan Head's illegitimate son, but the other Heads won't know until I tell them. Information gets hoarded. So the Haomen Master needed an additional safeguard."
"From the Master's perspective, having a Mangju made oversight convenient, so he attached one more clause. He proclaimed that if a majority of the city branch directors — not Branch Heads — consented, one could be nominated as Mangju."
The Gimun Head added a word of her own.
Hold on. Branch directors?
Before the attack, the director of the Wushan Haomen branch had clearly belonged to the Gimun.
Which means...
"If the Domun Head is after the Mangju seat, then the attack on Wushan was to replace the branch directors, wasn't it?"
A physical campaign to unseat sitting directors and secure a majority. Now the situation made sense.
"Strange, though. Plenty of branches have flipped to the Domun lately, but they haven't crossed the majority line."
The Gimun Head conceded my point, then looked at the Simun Head.
"We got word from the Ma Gate. The Domun has been quietly courting directors of other divisions for a long while. Apparently they crossed the majority mark recently."
"...So they've been pulling this stunt in secret all along."
The Gimun Head let out a bitter, incredulous laugh.
"So they tried to silence Im Hayeon so no one would catch on that the Domun Head was reaching for the Mangju seat."
They say power is a drug — once you've tasted it, you chase it until the day you die.
Absolute power within Hubei's Haomen. The Mangju.
Secure a majority of the directors, and you could become Mangju. As Mangju, you could command the Branch Heads with a flick of your finger — and you might even have a shot at becoming the next Haomen Master.
For the Domun Head, perhaps it was a madness worth attempting.
"..."
Why did the mood feel off, though?
Weren't the other Branch Heads now facing a massive crisis — a Mangju about to appear above them all?
"Is there something I'm missing?"
"A Mangju cannot be made by the directors' consent alone."
The Simun Head shook his head in denial.
"You just said crossing the majority means nomination."
"Nominated, yes — but the requirement of the Branch Heads' consent remains unchanged. Even with the directors' majority, it counts as only two votes. Each Branch Head also has the right to vote for themselves, so that's one. But where would the last vote come from?"
"Persuade someone, anyone—"
"Ma Gate, Si Gate, Gi Gate. All of them are people who were there when we crushed the previous Gimun Head's skull ten years ago. Every one of those Heads would gnash their teeth at a Mangju. Who's going to nod along?"
So it worked like a decision passed by the House that still had to clear the Senate before taking effect?
However many directors got swapped out in the infighting, the Branch Heads hadn't cared much — because no one would ever back the Mangju seat in the first place.
"I can't make sense of it. I understand why she acted like a wild mare, but slaughtering her own sect's people for a seat she could never take?"
Unable to fully contain her anger, the Gimun Head scowled and bit down on her pipe again.
"The Ma Gate Head even said he'd back her himself if she'd lost her mind."
"Maybe it's a blessing we finally know the whole story..."
With the Gimun Head's pipe smoke, a faint sense of relief settled over the room.
If a mad mare ran wild inside the pen, we could control it. As long as the other Branch Heads withheld their consent, the Domun Head could never become Mangju.
Did they assume the affair would grow no larger?
Was that really true?
Something snagged in my mind.
She really concocted no plan at all and just started killing her own sect's people? However sweet the taste of power, that was strange even for the underworld.
An individual can simply go mad. But for a group to go mad, it has to be mad in a logical way.
Something was being overlooked.
"May I ask one question?"
I decided to poke at the thorn of suspicion, aiming it at the Simun Head.
"Ask."
"Why five?"
"Hm?"
"Gimun, Simun, Domun, Mamun. There are four Branch Heads, aren't there, not five?"
Wuhan's Haomen currently had four Heads. So why did the covenant speak of four votes out of five?
"Didn't I just say? There's one more Head who's vanished without a trace."
"Vanished?"
"She went into hiding herself, but she never declared retirement, and no new Head was ever elevated in her place — so her seat still stands."
"Who is that?"
A flicker of familiarity stirred somewhere in me.
Deep in the drawer of my memory, something I'd tucked away for later raised its head.
"The chief of thieves."
"The chief of thieves, you say?"
"The Tu Gate. The Tu Gate Head. The Shadowless Divine Thief herself."
"..."
Uncle Wang of the drapery shop. The Shadowless Divine Thief, who vanished ten years ago. And Im Hayeon's father.
"A legendary thief, but she suddenly disappeared ten years ago. And thanks to that, the Gimun Head couldn't gather her four votes and never became Mangju."
I was striding right up to the heart of the problem.
Steadying my trembling heart, I knocked on the door of the question once more.
"Do the two of you know anything about Im Hayeon's parents?"
"Hm? Isn't she a courtesan's daughter?"
At their puzzled faces, I turned my head toward Im Hayeon.
So my hunch had been right.
Was it telepathy? The moment our eyes met, Im Hayeon seemed to grasp what I was thinking, and she gave a small nod of confirmation.
I'd been thinking about the problem all wrong.
I'd misread the examiner's intent.
The Domun had hounded Im Hayeon relentlessly, throwing everything they had into finding her. I'd assumed it was simply a culprit hunting down a witness.
Because I'd framed the question wrong from the start, no answer had ever come.
"Forgive me if this is presumptuous. Say the Tu Gate Head — the Shadowless Divine Thief — has a daughter..."
"Hm?"
The Domun and Im Hayeon weren't culprit and witness.
"Say she has a daughter, and that daughter gets abducted. Then tell me — would the Shadowless Divine Thief cast her vote?"
They were abductor and abductee.