Mantid Maiden - 8
"Did you say... a friend surnamed Kang...?"
The corner of Moyong Sang-ah's eyebrow trembled, ever so slightly.
"He was the first friend I made after coming down into the murim. A Joseon man, at that."
Cheongun felt a little wronged, truth be told. The first friend he had made since leaving Hubei Province had been surnamed Kang — and what was more, the name printed in the Tale of the Wind and Cloud Chivalric Hero as its author had been Kang Mo. Hadn't even the Joseon folk living in the Central Plains said the author must be surnamed Kang, not Mi?
He had brought it up thinking nothing of it, for Kang was a common surname — not because he knew of any tie between the woman before him and the Kang family.
So Cheongun chose a roundabout path toward his apology.
"Is that so."
Not that the other party's reception was warm.
Moyong Sang-ah regarded him with her lips pressed into a hard line. Why would he raise the matter of his Kang-surnamed friend before her, of all people? Did he mean to speak of the Kang family's grudge? Or of her lord? Whichever it was, it was unmistakably a thorny subject.
"His name may be unknown here in Liaodong, but in Hubei he has been making quite a name for himself of late."
"In Hubei, you say?"
"He has quite the gift for the written word, you see."
"Writing, is it."
Fortunately, he did not seem to be speaking with any malice. Did he truly only wish to talk of his friend? Easing her guard a little, Moyong Sang-ah answered him.
"That friend is an author. He writes of the murim — in Hubei, his books sell out faster than they can be stocked."
"Is that so?"
"Even on the river journey down the Yangtze, I heard people speaking of his novels."
At the sight of Cheongun's proudly beaming smile, Moyong Sang-ah grasped the true intent behind the conversation. Simple small talk, doubled as boasting about a friend — no doubt meant to explain why he had mentioned the Kang name so carelessly.
If her benefactor was speaking by way of apology, then she would receive it graciously, thorny topic though it was. Moyong Sang-ah resolved to play along with his words.
"It cannot be easy to win such renown writing of the murim. You have a remarkable friend."
And as her wariness toward the topic of the Kang-surnamed Joseon man melted away, someone began to rise unbidden in her heart.
My lord had such a gift for the written word, too.
The book of Joseon tales that had first joined her with her lord. Later, when she had quietly made inquiries, she learned that no such stories existed anywhere in Joseon.
The Masked Princess — he wrote it for me.
Crafting a merely entertaining tale was difficult enough. Yet he had laced that story with meanings only she could catch, and hidden within it a cipher no one else could ever hope to decipher. How painstakingly must he have labored, all for her sake?
Her lord had been a chivalric hero who wielded everything he possessed to save the woman he loved. For one instant, the wicked woman's heart seized with ache.
"A Joseon man, yes, but one whose heart brimmed with admiration for chivalric heroes."
"A chivalric hero... did you say?"
Chivalric hero. The very words she had just been turning over in her thoughts of her lord now fell from Cheongun's lips, and Moyong Sang-ah found herself staring at him, unable to close her parted mouth.
"Thanks to that, we grew close rather easily."
"What manner of books does he write?"
No longer mere polite agreement — Moyong Sang-ah leaned in, listening with genuine interest.
"Well, it's— ah!"
Cheongun began to answer, then hastily clapped a hand over his own mouth.
Bawdy tales. No — he's a writer of erotic chivalric fiction.
Cheongun knew perfectly well that Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan was a book that discoursed upon chivalry — but explaining as much to another person was an entirely different matter. His friend wrote under a pen name, and did not authors of such salacious tales use pseudonyms precisely to conceal who they were? For his friend's honor's sake, the secret had to be kept.
"……?"
"To my shame, I met him in the midst of travel, so I have not had the chance to read his work."
Rather than blame his friend, Cheongun chose to turn the arrow on himself. In truth, he genuinely hadn't read it — he had passed through Yichang, but the Daseogak had been closed, and no other bookstore carried Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan.
"I see."
The frosty reply stung Cheongun's ears. This is bad. Does she think I'm lying?
"We met under rather urgent circumstances, you see, so there was no time to sit down with a book."
He decided to add as much.
"Urgent circumstances?"
"His beloved had been poisoned, and I met him on the road to the Sichuan Tang Clan."
"It sounds as though he has been through quite an ordeal."
"He has. My friend was staking his very life on the road from Hubei to Sichuan, all to save the woman he loved."
The demonic cult's ambush. The journey to the Tang Clan with his life hanging in the balance. Countless things had happened before Cheongun ever arrived in Liaodong, but that was the memory that stayed with him most.
"Staking his life to save his beloved..."
"Fortunately, they reached the Tang Clan without mishap. By now, I am certain she is resting happily in her beloved's arms."
He had never heard how it ended. But everyone had been so certain. She would surely have awakened by now. She had to.
Inwardly, Cheongun prayed for his friend's beloved to recover whole and unharmed.
"He staked his life to save the woman he loved. How... how wonderful."
Cheongun noticed nothing.
A man surnamed Kang. A woman plunged into desperate peril. A story of a man risking his very life to save the woman he loved — and a happy ending at the last. He had no idea what his words meant to the woman before him; no idea that Moyong Sang-ah was struggling to feign composure before her benefactor while her eyes trembled.
"So, in any case."
"...?"
"K-Kang is such a common surname that I gave it no thought whatsoever."
Cheongun forced a sheepish smile and apologized for his rudeness.
The two of them might have spoken further of the Joseon man surnamed Kang. But it had been, from first to last, nothing more than idle chatter in service of an apology — and Moyong Sang-ah, understanding her benefactor's intent, did not press him.
No. She could not have pressed him.
The woman a Kang-surnamed man had risked his life to save. How could the wicked woman who had driven a dagger into her lord's heart possibly bring herself to ask about a story so like her own, yet ending so utterly differently?
The wound and the guilt buried in Moyong Sang-ah's chest went on gnawing at her without pause.
"There is truly no need to dwell on it. It was never a matter that troubled me."
All Moyong Sang-ah could manage was to hold her face blank by a thread and see today's sparring to its end.
"My lady, let us comb your hair for you."
"You must be exhausted — please, sit."
"Please do."
Fresh from her bath, Moyong Sang-ah surrendered her tangled hair to her maids.
"Our lady, honestly — skin as soft as a baby's. It seems to grow lovelier by the day."
Her ladyship's mood hung heavier than usual today. The two maids had been standing within earshot of the conversation between her and the young hero Cheongun on the training ground, and they knew exactly what weighed on her. Hoping to lift the pall, one of them launched into a bright, chattering stream of nonsense.
"Even the prettiest face turns ugly when it's scowling, but— huh. Why are you even prettier?"
"……"
The maid kept up her fussing — a fuss over nothing — but the heavy gloom refused to brighten.
"My lady..."
"What is it?"
It was the other maid, the one who had been quietly combing her hair at her side, who spoke next.
"If something weighs on your heart, my lady... shall I have someone look into the matter?"
Had any of the Changbong Corps been present, they would have rapped the maids across the head for such presumption — mere servant girls, speaking out of turn. But Moyong Sang-ah's maids had words of their own that deserved saying. They had remained at their lady's side even when half the Changbong Corps walked away from her. They might know nothing of Changbong Hall's affairs, but when it came to their lady herself, even a maid had every right to speak.
"……"
Moyong Sang-ah's gaze sank low.
"The circumstances are so alike — might he be of a cadet branch, or some distant relative?"
"What are you saying? Don't tell me you mean that Joseon writer from earlier?"
The maid who had been trying to brighten the mood turned on her friend in astonishment.
"If it troubles her heart, then seeking him out and offering him support might be one way to ease it — that is all I meant."
"Hey. The man lives thousands of li away in Hubei. And since when does sharing black hair and a surname make someone family?"
"You never know until you try."
"It would be a wild goose chase, and even if it were true, then what? He's living well, isn't he? You'd fill my lady's head with idle nonsense and trouble her for nothing?"
The first maid's eyes flashed as she rounded on her friend.
"Still..."
In truth, both maids had a point. Their lady carried guilt toward the Kang family. Perhaps the Kang-surnamed man was a kinsman of the Kangs, the house branded as traitors. Offering him aid might be one way to lighten that weight on her conscience.
Absurd, of course. There were countless Kang clans besides the traitor Kangs. And this was not even Liaodong — it was Hubei, a journey of half a year merely to reach. It would be a wasted effort, plainly and simply.
Moyong Sang-ah listened quietly to the two of them, then opened her mouth with effort.
"Thank you for your concern. If you are quite finished, you may go in."
A tactful order to leave. Moyong Sang-ah chose not to answer them.
"My lady..."
"Forgive me. I will finish up and retire straight away."
The maids could only swallow their sighs at the sight of their lady, suffering yet again today for a love that could never be undone.
"You. Come with me later. Seriously. You are dead to us older sisters!"
"I only said it because I was worried about our lady!"
When all trace of the maids had faded beyond the door, Moyong Sang-ah sank quietly into thought.
Both of them had spoken sense. He might be a relative. Then she should offer help, and lighten the burden on her heart. No. Nonsense.
After long deliberation, a small sigh escaped her.
"A person must have some shame."
She chided herself. It was not because the Joseon writer surnamed Kang was unlikely to be her lord's kin — though he almost certainly was not.
The women of the Kang family gnashed their teeth at the very name of the Moyong Clan. They had said they would sooner die than accept so much as a thread of help from the Moyongs.
"If it were only to comfort my own heart, it would be better left undone."
This writer surnamed Kang was not some desperate soul awaiting rescue, as the women of the Kang family had been.
By all accounts, he was a celebrated author.
And even if he truly were a distant kinsman of her lord — how displeased would he be? Living in comfort as he was, how much humiliation would he feel if his family's sworn enemy appeared out of nowhere, offering him money?
Such a reaction would burst out of him, as only natural. Even concealing her name would change nothing — for then it would truly be nothing but an act of self-consolation.
A foolish act. A wrong act.
Her ending was to shoulder her sins and walk into the burning pit — not to strike the debt from her heart with some clumsy gesture.
"Two who staked their lives for love, and found happiness in the end."
Moyong Sang-ah murmured the words as she drew her knees to her chest, desolate.
Had such an ending ever been possible for her, too?
Not sitting alone like this, hugging her knees in the cold — but if she could have whimpered that today had been so very hard, and had her beloved lord gathered her tenderly into his arms... could there have been such an ending?
Perhaps, somewhere, there might have been.
"The very opposite of mine."
If the wicked woman had never betrayed her chivalric hero.
On a quiet night like this — instead of confronting her own sins at one careless remark from another — she might have been gazing into her beloved lord's eyes.
"There is no point in thinking on it further."
It was not a matter to ask about, nor to agonize over. Merely words the young hero Cheongun had spoken by way of apology.
Rather than tearing at her own wounds and aching over them, she had to keep pressing forward — toward the day she would meet her lord again.
And yet.
"A writer surnamed Kang... of Yichang, in Hubei..."
Lying in her bed, Moyong Sang-ah murmured into the empty dark.
The Central Plains — a land so vast that a single province rivaled the whole of the Korean peninsula. Even if someone she had believed dead were in truth alive, finding him would be beyond all hope.
And yet, today.
A tiny clue — one she would never even have thought to call a clue. A single thread of information about the one person she could never forget.
Both were being carved, fierce and indelible, into the mind of a woman who had lost the man she loved.