The Do Gate — 2
"Has she still not come to?"
It felt like drifting beneath the surface of a placid lake, forever unable to find the water's edge. Lim Hayeon's unmoored spirit lent an ear to the voices floating around her.
"The physician says she should wake before long."
It was the voice she wished would whisper at her ear every day of her life. Somehow, her surroundings had grown noisy.
"We've done all that can be done. The wine house where the Do Gate Master asked to meet us is close now — I'd ask you to hold on just a little longer."
Such an achingly familiar voice. A voice from some far corner of her memory. Lim Hayeon's spirit tried to trace that worried tone back to an old recollection, but a soul still adrift could hardly be expected to dredge one up.
"Time is nearly upon us. We must be boarding the carriage soon."
"I'll carry her for now."
"Allow me to carry Miss Hayeon. If she opens her eyes somewhere unfamiliar, she won't panic so long as I'm the one at her side."
"Fine, go on then."
Lim Hayeon's body was settled onto someone's sturdy back. Perhaps because her body had lurched so abruptly, the spirit within her, sinking once more, swayed along with it.
"Uuurgh! Wh-where... am I?"
When Lim Hayeon finally forced her eyes open, the first thing she saw was the dependable expanse of someone's back. I'm being carried. By whom? She struggled to turn her head, and what greeted her was a head of familiar black hair.
"Miss Hayeon?! Are you awake?"
"M-my body... something's wrong with it."
Lim Hayeon fumbled through her memories, searching for how things had come to this.
She remembered almost nothing after the drinking. Only scattered fragments remained. Her whole body ached and sagged, ruled by weariness and fatigue.
"You were poisoned. We treated it, but traces of the venom still linger. Does it pain you badly?"
"I can bear it."
Lim Hayeon painfully hauled up the memory of drinking the poison and nodded.
"Thank goodness. We are on our way to the Do Gate Master as we speak."
"...I'm sorry — what?"
At the utterly unexpected news, her hazy mind poked its face above the water.
"There isn't time to explain it all. Miss Hayeon. From this moment on, you must trust me completely. Only then can we see our way through everything that is about to happen."
"......"
Her lover's urgent voice knocked against her drifting spirit. Carried on his back, it was as though a door had opened in her mind, letting the outside world in. The sunset had, unnoticed, begun to dye the Yangtze River red.
How long had it been? What on earth had happened while she slept? She could not piece her situation together at all.
"Where do I even begin to explain..."
She could hear the pounding of his heart. His face wore an anxiety unlike him. Something grave was afoot — that much was certain.
Lim Hayeon's mind was still fogged with venom, but she had strength enough left to call out to her visibly restless lover.
"My love."
"Hm?"
Lim Hayeon let her chin rest wearily against his shoulder and summoned a labored smile.
"Breathe. Whatever you tell me, I'll trust it and follow."
"That obvious, is it?"
Kang Yunho's eyes widened a touch in surprise before crinkling into a soft laugh. Finding that face impossible not to adore, Lim Hayeon brought her lips to his cheek.
"I am your Hayeon, after all. Skip the whys and just tell me what needs doing."
"Miss Hayeon..."
His plans were hers to trust and follow. And if anything should prove lacking, filling in those gaps was her role to play.
They had weathered crisis after crisis together, and the trust between the two of them had grown too deep for any blade to cut through.
Lim Hayeon pressed her lips once more to his moved face. Still not enough. The venom had loosened something in her, making her spirit all the more honest with its own feelings.
She wanted to feel somewhere softer than his cheek. But she had to hear what he had to say first. Should have made up for lost time ages ago. A pity, but so be it. One more on the cheek, then...
"Hooooooh."
The instant Lim Hayeon moved to press her lips to his cheek again, a long plume of smoke came billowing from somewhere, exhaled from the very bottom of someone's lungs — with all the theatrical weight of a protest: enough of this eyesore already, spare us the sight.
"Ahem. It's enough to make a lonely old woman's heart ache."
"Enjoy it, kid. That's the age when a single meeting of the eyes is enough to set the blood on fire."
"Huh?"
Only then did Lim Hayeon realize that the Hyangju were standing in a loose ring all around them, wearing sheepish, awkward faces.
"Ahem. S-seems my daughter leans on you a very great deal."
And that one extremely familiar face stood among them, too.
"Hahahaha."
"Wha—?!"
Only then could Lim Hayeon fully gather her wits about her.
"All of the Hyangju are on their way up."
Atop the highest floor of a wine house perched along the Yangtze — an entire story emptied into one great hall — the master of the Do Gate gave a nod.
"Are they now? Must be urgent, the way they're all scrambling out."
"Do Gate Master. If this erupts into open war, the danger will be considerable. It would be wiser to bide your time until—"
"If the hand passes to the next round, will you be covering my stake for me?"
"Master."
The Do Gate Master dug a finger into the shoulder of his worried subordinate, jabbing with every word, teeth bared.
"Now! Today! At this very table! That is where it gets settled! Do you understand me? Once the momentum slips away, the only way left to seize the win is to finish it today!"
"I will have every fighter of the Do Gate assembled at once."
The officer could only bow his head to his master's frantic voice.
"And the antidote?"
"Just as you instructed — split cleanly in half, for ease of negotiation."
"Good work."
"The Hyangju are ascending!"
"Time to get ready."
The Do Gate Master took his seat with a stiff face, loosening his shoulders in a show of practiced ease.
Watching him, more than one person present knew exactly how a gambler who wore his nerves that openly at the table tended to end up — but no one saw any profit in saying so.
"Only the invited guests needed to come — what's with all these hangers-on dangling off you like grapes on the vine?"
The Do Gate Master greeted the Hyangju, who arrived at the top floor trailed by their officers, with open-armed warmth.
"Do Gate Master."
The former Shadowless Divine Thief. Wang-ssi ground his teeth as he glared upon his mortal foe.
"Right — the Shadowless Divine Thief. No, the former Shadowless Divine Thief, I suppose. In any case. Have you come to your senses? All that's needed is for you to press the seal."
"I am not the one who can raise you to Mangju!"
"Ah! Quite right! That honor falls to our brand-new Tumun Head! Though from the look of her, she's barely managing to cling to her senses."
The Do Gate Master sneered at Lim Hayeon as she clung, weak-limbed, to Kang Yunho's back.
"Kh!"
"Do you truly believe an agreement wrung out of a poisoned Hyangju carries any force?"
They could not let the Do Gate Master seize the initiative. The Simun Branch Master cut into the exchange.
"When did I ever do such a thing?"
The Do Gate Master shrugged with a marvelously innocent face.
"What did you just say?"
"Oh, come now! How unjust! What that woman swallowed wasn't poison — it was an elixir. An elixir! It was meant for my own mouth, and the thief went and pinched it, guzzling every last drop!"
"Listen to the man spout his shameless nonsense."
The Giman Hyangju railed at the Do Gate Master in open disbelief.
"Press a hand to the girl's dantian and see for yourselves. Just like the little thief she is, she knew exactly how to sniff out the precious things and swallow them whole. I was merely endeavoring to show a little grace to a Tumun Head with sticky fingers."
The Do Gate Master pounded his chest like the aggrieved party.
"So this is the shallow little gambit you've been cooking?"
It was no poisoning, no threat — he had gifted an elixir, and received consent in payment. The excuse would never hold water here, but it was worded to pass muster at Haomen's headquarters.
"If it holds, then it stops being a shallow gambit, doesn't it? What say you, former Tumun Head? Bring your daughter over to my side, and out of my boundless magnanimity I'll forgive the girl her thieving."
"......"
The former Shadowless Divine Thief answered by seizing the hilt at his hip, words rendered quite unnecessary. To anyone watching, it was a signal that he would sooner cross blades. But to the Do Gate Master, that degree of bluffing was old, familiar news.
"Think carefully. The instant you move rashly — the antidote vanishes on the spot. The only way left to obtain this medicine is to bring your daughter to stand at my side."
"I could never—"
Just as Wang-ssi moved to refuse—
"...If you give me the antidote... I will support you."
Lim Hayeon, who seemed to have only just clawed her way back to consciousness, declared it to the Do Gate Master.
"Miss Hayeon!"
"What nonsense are you spouting!"
"Tumun Head! You cannot!"
Amid the cries of shock, several fighters of the Giman moved to block Lim Hayeon's path.
"Protect them both!"
"Ugh!"
Lim Hayeon's word was the Tumun's word. The Tumun fighters guarding her flanks barred the Giman's way at once.
"There's a head on your shoulders those old relics could never hope to match! I'm not the man to play stingy even with a gambler I've lent my own stake to. Stand with me, and I'll bury every musty old grudge and return your wager two and three times over!"
"Carry me."
"Is that truly what you've decided?"
Wang-ssi lifted his daughter onto his back and asked, his face carved with grief.
"I'm just... so sick and tired of it all."
They were short words, but the meaning folded inside them drew slow, knowing nods from every member of Haomen gathered in that room.
"An excellent choice! I'd be much obliged if you'd press the seal right here — in the place set aside for the Tumun Head."
Toward Lim Hayeon as she approached him, the Do Gate Master held out a single sheet of paper.
"The antidote first."
"Ah! Of course! Here — the antidote!"
The antidote the Do Gate Master produced had been sliced cleanly in half. Lim Hayeon bit her lip and fixed him with a blazing glare.
"...So you intend to play it filthy right down to the last coin."
"A lender keeps his debt notes close at hand, does he not? You'll have the other half once today's business is concluded."
"Very well."
"Tumun Head! How could you betray us!"
Outraged voices erupted from every corner of the room. But with the Tumun and the Do Gate now hand in hand, the remaining Hyangju had no answer left to give.
Lim Hayeon swallowed the antidote with care. There had been no need to test whether the medicine was genuine. The moment it went down, the lingering venom came pouring out of her body, and her internal energy began to surge and roil.
Raising the signet ring on her finger, Lim Hayeon proclaimed to the Do Gate Master:
"I, the Shadowless Divine Thief Lim Hayeon, do nominate the Do Gate Master Je Jong-mo, the Severed-Arm Ghost, as Mangju."
So it has come to this in the end.
A suffocating silence wrapped the great hall for a long moment. Without a word, I watched Miss Hayeon, who had finished her declaration and withdrawn to a corner of the room to set her qi circulating.
An air of defeat coiled around us. In contrast, a man wearing the smile of a victor now stood before the Do Gate Master.
"On behalf of the branch heads of Hubei, I move that Do Gate Master Je Jong-mo be raised up as Mangju."
The spokesman unfurled a joint petition bearing the names of every branch head who backed the Do Gate Master, displaying it before all eyes — then rolled it up and handed it over like a baton of victory.
Raising that baton high as though moved to tears, the Do Gate Master proclaimed in a ringing voice before this gathering of Hubei's representatives:
"I, Do Gate Master Je Jong-mo, do hereby nominate myself as Mangju!"
For the Do Gate Master to claim the seat of Haomen's Mangju, two things were required: the assent of two Hyangju, and the majority of the branch heads.
Which meant that here, now, in this very room, the Do Gate Master had become the Mangju.
"Congratulations!"
"Our felicitations!"
"Blessings upon your inauguration as Mangju!"
What a circus. In the space of a heartbeat, the entire floor had dissolved into an uproar.
"Kheheheheh. At last! At long last, I—! What are you Hyangju playing at? Why are you not on your knees before your Mangju this instant!"
Waving his baton of victory, the Do Gate Master demanded this of us.
"And why, exactly, should we kneel?"
The Mamen Head asked it with a perfectly flat expression.
"The Mangju's authority is absolute! Mind your station, mere Hyangju, and show your respects at once!"
One of the Do Gate's officers shrilled at us, his face glistening with malice. Right. These were the hounds who fawned on living power the moment it changed hands.
Around him, the others smacked their lips in disappointment, as though they'd been robbed of the chance to flatter first.
"No matter. No matter! They must simply be dazed still — shy, I'd wager."
"Mangju."
"Allow me a proper introduction. I am Je Jong-mo — as of today, the Mangju of Haomen. Soon I shall kneel as the disciple of the Haomen Sect Master, the man destined to lead all of Haomen."
Drunk on his own triumph, the Do Gate Master swayed through a greeting aimed our way. Anyone watching would have taken him for three cups deep.
"......"
"Haa. My patience is running down to its dregs, I must say. But this is a day for joy, so I'll indulge you a while longer. Kneel now, swear your loyalty, and I may yet see your seats as Hyangju preserved."
"I'll ask it again. Why should we kneel?"
The Mamen Head asked a second time, his expression every bit as flat.
"Mamen Head. Have your eyes finally gone? Did you sleep through what just happened?"
The Severed-Arm Ghost waved his trophy of triumph about as if the man were beyond all reason. But the Hyangju met him with stony silence — no reaction at all, simply standing where they stood.
Had he finally begun to feel that something was wrong?
The smile began to drain from the Do Gate Master's face. Once crowned Mangju, the Hyangju were bound to obey him absolutely — grievances or none.
Defiance of his orders was a thing that did not exist, and never could be suffered to.
"A gambling bastard who can't even read the room this badly..."
I couldn't bear to watch another moment. The sight was so absurd that I clutched my belly, laughing, and closed the distance by a single step toward the Do Gate Master.
"Kang Yunho?!"
Perhaps he had heard something ominous in my laughter. For the first time since his declaration of victory, the Do Gate Master's brow knotted.
"Oh, quite right. If the Tumun Head pressed a proper seal, then you would indeed be the Mangju."
From my breast I drew out a certain object the Do Gate Master knew at a glance.
"The signet ring?"
"You never thought to check whether it was genuine?"
What I held up was the Tumun Head's signet ring — the true one, not the counterfeit Lim Hayeon wore on her finger.
"Kkek-kek-kek! So that's what this is — crowing over a cheap carnival trick! The seal has ever been mere formality! What matters is the Hyangju's declaration! Any careless scrawl of a stamp would serve just as well!"
Lips twisted in contempt, the Do Gate Master spat the words at me.
And he was right. Would a Hyangju's authority evaporate just because she'd lost her ring?
The seal was ceremony, nothing more. What mattered was the person.
"Then it seems you still don't understand."
But here's the thing. That isn't my trick.
"What?"
"I'm afraid I've been slow to introduce myself to the members of Haomen."
"You — what are you—?!"
Enemy and ally, with an empty span of floor between the two lines. Ignoring the Do Gate Master's stricken face, I strode boldly out into that empty space.
The antidote was the Do Gate Master's final card.
Unless the Do Gate Master was acknowledged as Mangju, Miss Hayeon would never receive the rest of her cure. And yet we could not let him become Mangju. So what was to be done?
How does one make a man toss away the very card he clutches so tenderly?
There was a way.
I was sworn brother to the former Shadowless Divine Thief.
I had mastered the Shadowless Body Art and won the Tumun's recognition.
With my beloved Lim Hayeon at my side, I had helped make her a righteous thief.
And together, the two of us had become a single Shadowless Divine Thief — which meant there was a play that only I could make.
— It isn't a complete lie, calling myself the Shadowless Divine Thief. When you tally it up properly, I am the Shadowless Divine Thief too. Miss Hayeon may be the one scaling walls after dark, but every last plan is drafted by yours truly.