Forbidden Garden — 4
"I intend to visit the Medical Pavilion. Prepare my outdoor attire."
Dokmuhu Tang Ok-ran granted her disciple some free time—a reward, of sorts, for the letter she had received from her fiancé—then informed her maid of her plans to go out.
"Yes, Lady Dokmuhu."
The Tang Clan had only just weathered a grave crisis with the Poison Human incident. There was no need for a Half-Poison Human to go strutting about the compound and sow the seeds of fresh trouble.
Donning her traveling clothes and pulling a conical straw hat draped with a gauze veil down over her head, Dokmuhu left the Forbidden Garden.
The compound certainly seems lively.
The Tang Clan appeared to be in a flutter. Stepping out of the Forbidden Garden, Tang Ok-ran immediately sensed the strange atmosphere hanging over it.
"Why on earth won't they just release volume three already!"
"I hear there's something they need to review first, so they can't distribute it right away."
"Author Hopil obviously wrote it well enough! Hah! I wager this is how a cat feels, staring at a fish it can't eat!"
"That's exactly what I've been saying!"
Were they expecting a festival? The festive air persisted all along her footsteps toward the Medical Pavilion.
The bustle did rouse her curiosity as to what was going on, but she had no intention of announcing her arrival by asking someone about it.
"Is Tang Mugi within?"
Arriving at her destination, Tang Ok-ran called for the Hall Master of the Medical Pavilion.
"How dare someone speak so carelessly of the Hall Master's name— L-L-Lady Dokmuhu?!"
Recognizing her, one of the pavilion's warriors cried out in a startled voice.
"Don't make a fuss. Is the Hall Master inside?"
"Yes, he is! I'll summon him at once!"
Fretting over whether he might have somehow given offense to the Poison Martial Empress, the warrior scurried to usher her inside.
"Lady Dokmuhu? What brings you here of all places?"
The Hall Master, who had been handling medicinal herbs, greeted her with wide eyes.
"I've come because I need certain ingredients."
"You could have simply sent someone."
"These are herbs not easily obtained, so I thought I would check in on the Hall Master while I was about it."
Dokmuhu spoke with the expression of an elder watching a nephew grow into a fine man.
The Hall Master was not only a loyal retainer of the Clan Head but a childhood friend as well. And so to Tang Ok-ran—the Clan Head's aunt—he was also the friend of her nephew, whose growth she had watched since the days he was still a snot-nosed brat.
"I'll check our inventory right away. Please, have a seat and rest a while."
The Hall Master hastily ushered Tang Ok-ran into his office.
"I shall."
"And how has young Hwarin been faring these days?"
"A gifted child, and passionate to match. If I but guide her down the proper path as her master, she will one day soar remarkably high."
Wasn't it said that a parent's pride and a master's love for a disciple know no bounds? Dokmuhu smiled with quiet satisfaction and sipped the tea that had been prepared for her.
"Music to my ears."
"I hear you brought my disciple and her fiancé here safely. You have my thanks."
It had all happened before the girl became her disciple, but would one haggle over conditions when expressing gratitude? As Tang Hwarin's master, Dokmuhu offered a courteous bow to her disciple's benefactor.
"I only did what had to be done."
"That fiancé of my disciple. Was his name Kang Yunho?"
Tang Ok-ran nodded along to the Hall Master's answers before raising a new topic.
"Yes. A young man with half the Tang Clan's blood flowing in his veins."
"And what sort of man do you take him to be?"
In truth, medicinal herbs had not been the only reason Dokmuhu had come to the Medical Pavilion today.
Her disciple—the only one she had ever taken in her entire life. And that disciple had a fiancé who had shaken the Tang Clan to its roots. Dokmuhu had left the Forbidden Garden in person for the sole purpose of learning more about this fiancé.
A question wrapped in a gentle expression but carrying a razor-sharp gaze was aimed squarely at Tang Mugi.
"You are asking for my assessment?"
"As her master, I find myself curious about this young man called her fiancé. I've heard my disciple praise him until my ears ached, but the praise of a woman in love must always be strained through a sieve."
"As I understand it, he has already been received in audience by the Clan Head."
An illegitimate son of the Clan Head, and the betrothed of a Poison Human. Tang Mugi took a somewhat evasive posture rather than passing judgment on Kang Yunho right away.
"The same goes for a father drowning in guilt over a lifetime of neglecting his own child. I hear you spent considerable time at that young man's side. ......What manner of boy was he?"
Tang Mugi, Hall Master of the Medical Pavilion, fell into thought.
Should he speak of Kang Yunho's literary talent? His silver tongue? Or of the chivalrous heart that burned hotter in his chest than in any warrior's, despite never having been raised to the sword?
Should he tell of the courage that had kept the man standing to the last on a battlefield where his life hung by a thread? Or of his unwavering, straight-as-an-arrow love for one woman?
So many memories rose to the surface that, precisely because of it, a single short phrase to capture the man finally presented itself.
"Had he been raised in the Tang Clan's embrace, I would not be standing at the Young Clan Head's side today."
"......!"
Dokmuhu's eyes widened in an instant. This, from the Clan Head's childhood friend and closest confidant—a loyal retainer renowned for his unbending character.
"But that is not what came to pass."
Tang Mugi's words were ones that could shake the Tang Clan's very line of succession.
With that final remark, the Hall Master made clear that he still stood behind the Young Clan Head—and that what he had just said was simply the highest praise his honest tongue could offer.
"Praise bright enough to make these old eyes of mine shine."
Dokmuhu raised her teacup, steadying her startled heart.
The fact that her one and only disciple had betrothed herself to a proper man brought a pleased smile to her lips—which she hid behind the rim of the cup as she drank.
While Dokmuhu sat waiting for her herbs to be gathered, the sound of distant chatter drifted in.
"About Dangga Pungun! That Tang Pae fellow had better have grabbed the Medical Pavilion's copies, right?"
"Tell me about it. I hear even the Council of Elders is waiting with their necks stretched out—at this rate, who's to say they won't snatch our share too?"
"The Medical Pavilion is lively as well, I see."
The whole way here the compound had been bustling, and the pavilion proved no different. Dokmuhu remarked on it, ever so casually, to the Hall Master.
"Because the escort team has only just returned from Daseogak."
The Hall Master said it with a smile, as though he knew everything that was unfolding.
"From what I overhear, it's all about some book."
"The clan was in an uproar for quite some time over a book written by one Kang Yunho under the pen name Hopil."
"I heard as much. But wasn't that story already finished?"
She had heard that he wrote of the Erotic Fiend Saekma from some twenty years past and threw the clan into chaos. From what she understood, the matter had been neatly resolved afterward—so why all the commotion? Dokmuhu wondered.
"It ended—which means everyone can now enjoy it with an easy heart."
"......?"
"I have been rereading volumes one and two myself, now that word has come that volume three will soon be distributed."
"You, of all people, enjoy pulp fiction?"
"Pulp fiction?! Dangga Pungun is absolutely not a book that deserves to be dismissed as pulp!!!"
A violent reaction burst out of the Hall Master.
"......"
"Ah... Lady Dokmuhu. My sincerest apologies."
The moment he saw her frozen expression, the Hall Master scrambled to apologize for his outburst.
"No matter. I'm seeing many sides of you today. Is the book truly that remarkable?"
Dokmuhu had indeed heard from her disciple that her fiancé's writing was brilliant. But even granting that, was it not just lowbrow entertainment?
Like any woman's lovesick praise, she had assumed it was laced thick with exaggeration—yet judging by the Hall Master's reaction, something unusual was afoot.
"It is a novel that astonished the world with a single light flap of its wings. Should Dangga Pungun spread across the Central Plains, the most famous figure of this generation's Tang Clan may well be none other than Author Hopil himself."
The Hall Master declared this while holding up volume one of Dangga Pungun, his expression boundlessly grave.
"It carries that much weight, you say?"
"When the escort to Daseogak was being assembled, the promise of early access to volume three of Dangga Pungun had our warriors falling over one another to volunteer. In the end, after fierce competition, they were chosen purely by skill. The roster of those who went alone could have erased an entire small-to-mid-sized sect overnight."
"Oh my... So the whole clan truly has been thrown into this much of an uproar over a single book?"
The Hall Master was hardly a man to spout idle nonsense. Dokmuhu could not hide her astonishment.
"Hall Master! I've brought the inventory ledger."
One of the pavilion's warriors entered the office and handed a document to the Hall Master.
"It seems the herbs you seek are not in stock at present. I shall have them procured by tomorrow."
"Then have someone deliver them to the Forbidden Garden tomorrow."
Her business concluded, Dokmuhu rose from her seat and smoothed her robes.
"It hardly sits right to send you away empty-handed, Lady Dokmuhu. Will you not at least take this Dangga Pungun with you?"
With an apologetic face, the Hall Master held out volumes one and two.
"I have no habit of reading pulp fiction. I appreciate the offer, but I must decli—"
The instant Dokmuhu waved her hand in refusal—
"I beg... your pardon?"
The warrior who had come to deliver the report stared at her, his face frozen in shock, as if he had just heard something utterly beyond comprehension.
Just what manner of book is it, to draw a reaction like that?
At the warrior's reaction, Dokmuhu slowly lowered her hand.
"Haha. It's the book that has been shaking the Sichuan Tang Clan of late. And as it happens, it was written by your disciple's own fiancé—I believe you would do well to give it a read."
Seizing the opening without a moment's delay, the Hall Master pressed volumes one and two of Dangga Pungun into her hands.
"Very well. I shall read them. I'll return them by the hand of whoever brings the herbs tomorrow."
Dokmuhu nodded with lukewarm indifference.
She had no taste for pulp fiction, and she was not the sort of woman to chase whatever happened to be in fashion. Still—a book written by her disciple's fiancé... perhaps it deserved a single reading.
Skepticism still lingering in her gaze, Dokmuhu took up the books and left the Medical Pavilion.
"Grrrrrgh. Kang Yunhooooo."
The next day, Tang Hwarin sat in her room, her feelings still nowhere near settled.
From Tang Pae, she had learned the true nature of the work uniforms Kang Yunho had supposedly provided for his employees.
"A qipao? And what in the world is a 'Meidu uniform' supposed to be?"
Providing the male employees with smart, practical work attire—had she been there, she would have praised him for that too. But the problem lay with the female employees.
An outfit that put every curve of the figure on display. And he had dressed only the beautiful young women in it.
Had she been standing there, she would have seized Yunho by the ear and given him a proper piece of her mind.
And there was more feeding her fury besides.
"I-I could wear something like that too, you know."
If it was clothing that showed off her figure without baring an inch of skin, she could have worn as much of it as he pleased. Tang Hwarin murmured it in a voice small with embarrassment, afraid someone might hear.
She found herself remembering the time, just before their parting, when she had stood before Kang Yunho in a daring outfit with an open neckline—something she had never once worn in her life.
"Nngh!"
Tang Hwarin's face flamed scarlet in an instant.
Having the dazed gaze of the man she loved fixed upon her had been such a blissful experience. And then there was everything that came after.
Yunho's hands had been rough, his lips tender. Their faces burned so hot there was nothing left to burn, and only when both were on the very edge of losing all restraint did they finally manage to pull apart.
"Could it have been my fault?"
Perhaps that day she had disturbed something in Yunho that he had been barely holding in check. Maybe that was why he had gone to Daseogak and acted so unlike himself.
Tang Hwarin strained her utmost to rationalize Kang Yunho's outrageous behavior.
"I-I could pull off something even more daring, if I wanted to."
Tang Hwarin stood before the mirror, still without her top.
She cupped, hefted, and gave a little shake to the gloriously resilient assets that, thanks to her internal energy, would never once sag—staging a scene that would have driven her fiancé past mere excitement into outright awe, had he been there to witness it.
"And just what do you think you are doing?"
Naturally, someone was there to witness the pathetic display.
"Master?!"
"I was wondering why a child who should have changed into her training clothes and presented herself ages ago had yet to appear..."
"I'll change right now!"
Tang Hwarin scrambled to change into her training attire.
"I see. And... no, never mind."
Dokmuhu glanced around her disciple's room with a peculiar expression, then shortly shook her head.
"Master?"
"Hmmm. Well, it is only..."
Dokmuhu moved to say something to Tang Hwarin, swallowed the words, and let her gaze wander off.
"Is there something else you needed from me?"
It was the first time in her life she had ever seen her master falter mid-sentence. Could something dreadful have happened? Tang Hwarin asked, her voice edged with worry.
"It is nothing."
"If it's nothing, then all the more reason you can tell me."
Dokmuhu studied Tang Hwarin's anxious face for a long moment. Then, with an expression that could only be called sheepish, she asked:
"Have you, by any chance... finished reading volume three of Dangga Pungun?"
"I'm sorry... what?"