The Second Test - 9
"To save me, was it?"
The Three-Eyed Sword Jo Cheol spoke as though I'd just spouted pure nonsense, the point of his blade trained on my throat.
Stay calm. If I so much as showed him an opening, today would end in blood. The one who needed shaking was the Three-Eyed Sword — I was the last person who could afford to waver.
I took a small, silent breath and opened my mouth with a face of perfect composure.
"A martial artist leaving the murim behind to live a second life is hardly unheard of. You borrowed a fortune and vanished — but the Central Plains are vast. Once you went to ground, no one would ever recognize you. That was your thinking, wasn't it?"
"You knew... all along?"
No need to confirm or deny. I simply pressed on.
"At first, your courage for a new life must have carried you forward. After all, you were fleeing with the Mangeum Jeonjang's money — the money house of the age. But when you burst out of Hogajang, brimming with ambition, you ran headlong into a problem. The fact that Black Hair draws far too much notice to slip away unnoticed."
"Ha..."
One corner of the Three-Eyed Sword's mouth curled upward. A sneer laced with grudging acknowledgment.
"So first, you needed to hide. Hubei Province is the Mangeum Jeonjang's own territory — stay put, and it was only a matter of time before their collectors were on your back. After long agonizing, the place you chose was Wuhan."
"..."
The frost-cold point of his blade gleamed, as if to say: keep talking.
Fine by me. This whole stage had been built for exactly this — a three-inch tongue facing down a master's blade.
"Wuhan is full of Joseon folk. You wouldn't stand out, and no one would care enough to look. It's vast besides — perfect for hiding. But there was one problem. A very big problem, one not even the greatest Three-Eyed Sword in the world knew of."
And what was the answer to that problem? I rapped two fingers against my own chest.
"It was you, then."
I nodded without a moment's hesitation.
"That's right. Leader of the Joseon Hometown Association. Prospective grandson-in-law to the Mangeum Lord himself. Kang Yunho. I was summoned straight before the Mangeum Lord. He held out a set of documents — and your name was on them."
Technically, what I'd received was the Impossible Ledger. But there was no need to be that precise.
What mattered was conjuring a crisis the Three-Eyed Sword himself had never known existed.
I raised a hand and pointed at his throat. Long before you ever thought to aim at my neck, the Mangeum Jeonjang had already been hunting yours. Without you knowing a thing, the noose had been tightening.
Let him feel the weight of it.
"Finding me was easy enough, then."
They'd have had him within a day. I gave a scornful snort and glared at the Three-Eyed Sword as though he were beneath contempt.
"You labored under a colossal delusion."
"Delusion?"
"You've never borrowed a fortune in your life, so you must have imagined that taking money from the Mangeum Jeonjang was no different from squeezing a few coins out of some rich man's purse. The Mangeum Jeonjang sees it quite differently."
"Quite differently, you say?"
Time to change my face. I would become a man of the Mangeum Jeonjang.
I put force into both hands as though clenching my fists, and the calm fell from my gaze, leaving a glare steeped in grievance and fury fixed on Jo Cheol.
"The Three-Eyed Sword Jo Cheol dared treat the Mangeum Jeonjang as a common money pouch! We have been insulted! Find him! Find him and make him pay!"
"..."
"Take him and sever the tendons of all four limbs! If he resists, kill him! That is the judgment passed down upon you!"
What judgment had actually been rendered for the Three-Eyed Sword, I had no way of knowing. But the Mangeum Lord had said it himself — the day the exchange is treated as a mere money pouch, everything ends.
Had it been words alone, of course, it would have been an empty bluff. But right behind me stood the Mangeum Jeonjang's warriors, poised to pounce at any instant.
Which meant every word out of my mouth looked like plain fact.
"Khh..."
The Three-Eyed Sword stole a sidelong glance at the Mangeum warriors. No doubt he was doing the math.
One wrong move, and off goes his head.
The situation I had manufactured let him deduce the "truth" for himself. My warnings and threats had hardened into fact, pressing down on the Three-Eyed Sword with all their weight.
"Three-Eyed Sword."
I called to him, calm and even.
"...?"
Good. The specter of death was now firmly lodged in the Three-Eyed Sword's skull.
"My name is Kang Yunho. Born in Joseon — but not in Musu Village."
Time to bare the truth.
An unexpected truth takes a moment to sink in. A flicker of puzzlement crossed Jo Cheol's eyes — then they flew wide with shock.
"You — what did you just say?"
Don't be too startled. I saved this confession for after the truly shocking news, specifically so you wouldn't be too shocked.
Only by owning up to my lie at this precise moment could I win your trust.
"My being from Musu Village — that was the lie. Everything else was true."
"Then just when did you begin deceiving me? Surely not from the very start?"
Betrayal warped the Three-Eyed Sword's face.
"That is not the question you should be asking."
I had no intention of receiving his fury. Not an answer — a refusal.
Explanation time was over. Let's not dwell on the past, shall we? With a firm, clipped voice I cut the thread and seized back the initiative.
"What?"
"Doesn't something strike you as strange? You and I are perfect strangers. My task should have ended the moment I located you and passed your whereabouts along. So why did I approach you at all? Why am I deliberately exposing my own lie right now? Isn't that what you ought to be wondering?"
A refusal, then a question — his attention and the initiative swung back to my side of the board.
"It's all finished, so now you're making a fool of me, is that it!"
I shook my head at once.
Another change of face — this time, a man bearing an earnest plea. For a little while, I would put on a play staged for the Three-Eyed Sword's sake.
"Please, wait! The Three-Eyed Sword must have his circumstances! Severing the tendons of his limbs is far too harsh! Just grant him one more chance! Am I not your own prospective grandson-in-law, my lord? Trust me, and give him that chance! All it would have taken was his whereabouts and a 'well done' and a pat on the head from the Mangeum Lord — the whole matter would have ended there!"
I was performing the Kang Yunho who, before ever setting eyes on the Three-Eyed Sword, had strained every sinew on his behalf.
See? I worried for you. I stuck my neck out for you. So stop fuming and start wondering. Of course, none of that ever actually happened.
"..."
"Are you truly not the least bit curious why I went all the way to the Mangeum Jeonjang to plead for you?"
Hearing it laid out like that, Jo Cheol seemed to sense that something about the situation didn't add up. He faltered back a step, then spoke with sudden gravity.
"...Why indeed?"
How to put it.
To save you. Everything I did was for you. So quit raging at me, hand over the money, and go on your way. If I said that, the blade before my eyes would punch straight through my throat.
My words needed more than honesty. They needed weight.
"To help you. Just as the Three-Eyed Sword — no. Just as Jo Cheol once did, in Musu Village, a dozen years ago."
I had a reason. A reason even you couldn't refuse to believe.
"What is that supposed to mean! Didn't you just say you weren't from Musu Village!"
"Don't you remember? A dozen years ago. Back in the old days, before you left Musu Village — you caught a wild boar and threw the whole village a feast. In the lean spring, when everyone was starving and clothed in rags."
"A boar, in the lean spring...? The one I caught by pure chance, and that crotchety old chief of the rich quarter nagged me into surrendering? How could you possibly know that?"
You're not from Musu Village, you said. So how do you know? The Three-Eyed Sword's gaze bored into me.
"Because there was someone who watched you that day and thought: that is the kind of man who gives — and the kind of man I must become."
I fielded it with a practiced smile.
"So now you're pretending to be Gaettongi again!"
No. Not quite — it was how I meant to persuade him.
"I said that I was not Gaettongi. I never said that Gaettongi did not exist."
Because I had come rather well prepared.
"What...?"
Hollow words never reach an enraged man. Persuasion demands a story.
Following my gaze, the Three-Eyed Sword's head turned. There huddled the crowd of Joseon folk, watching us in wide-eyed terror.
And hidden inside that crowd waited a story made just for me.
"B-Brother Cheol! It's me — Gaettongi, from Musu Village!"
The genuine Gaettongi, that is.
"What in the...?"
"Everyone, you can come out now."
The Three-Eyed Sword was wavering. I couldn't let the opening slip. At my signal, the people burst forth all at once.
"Brother Cheol! It's Sottongi — Baekdol! We lived behind your house, across the lane!"
"Kang Yunho! You're deceiving me again!"
As though resolved not to waver, the Three-Eyed Sword fixed me with a burning stare.
Fair point. For all he knew, I could have drummed up yet more people to dupe him. But here's the thing.
"You wretch! Bowing to the Association Leader wouldn't be enough for you! What manner of farce is this!"
Jo Cheol, my friend — when the faces are people you know, the story changes, doesn't it?
"The chief of the rich quarter...? Old man... you were alive?"
The man the Three-Eyed Sword placed at a glance was Musu Village's chief of the rich quarter — the same old codger he'd once called crotchety and stubborn.
The Three-Eyed Sword's eyes trembled again. A crack already opened is a crack easily widened.
"Brother! It's Jaewon — I lived right next door! Remember me? I got scolded earlier for wanting to greet you!"
"W-wait — you're the father of that lad who took a measure of rice earlier...?"
Jo Cheol turned to me, utterly lost.
What happened, you ask? It was all arranged from the very start — for this day.
Jo Cheol, you were better loved than you ever knew.
I had gathered Musu Villagers to deceive you — and among them were men who worried for you, who looked up to you, who still carried warm memories of you.
Thanks to that, I'd been able to lay in a truly fine story.
But the story I had built was not a reason to help the Three-Eyed Sword.
The story that mattered was not his. It was mine.
"When I explained everything and set out to find you, they said to me: the pride of our Musu Village — Brother Cheol! Please, save him!"
The one man who could save the Three-Eyed Sword Jo Cheol: Association Leader Kang Yunho.
"So then... the reason you lied about being Gaettongi was..."
As though the shape of things had finally come into focus, the Three-Eyed Sword lowered his blade as he spoke.
"You were already running for your life. Had just anyone come to talk you round, would you have heard a single word? You'd have bolted like a rabbit startled by a rustle in the brush — and lost the tendons of all four limbs for it. That is why it had to be me."
A man entrusted with the pleas of the Joseon folk, willing to brave any danger to come to your aid. Such was the Kang Yunho I claimed to be.
"Brother Cheol! We couldn't just stand by and watch!"
"You scoundrel! Running off with another man's money! Your family won't sleep soundly for three generations, you hear me!"
"..."
Lovely covering fire, everyone. Struck dumb with shock, the Three-Eyed Sword could not get a word out.
"Now, if you would all step back for a moment."
At my gesture, the Musu Villagers withdrew behind me.
What the Three-Eyed Sword saw was me, with Musu Village at my back. Old bonds had begged for help, and Kang Yunho of the Joseon Hometown Association had answered the call.
Not deceit born of malice, but deceit forced by circumstance. A tableau that would persuade anyone at a single glance.
Not a man shaking him down for his own money, but an old friend dragging him back from the brink of death. Enough to shake anyone.
"...But why?"
Swallowing hard, eyes unsteady, the Three-Eyed Sword spoke to me.
"Why what?"
"I understand why you stepped in. But why wager your own neck to save mine?"
Had the deception been discovered, he would have killed me. Even now, death hovered an arm's length away. So why had I stepped forward? An excellent question.
I turned upon the Three-Eyed Sword a gaze brimming with fondness and opened my mouth.
"For the boar soup."
"...!"
Without turning, I indicated the Musu villagers behind me.
"The man who made it through the lean spring on the broth you shared grew up and became a father himself. The children you scolded to slow down, or the meat would lie heavy in their bellies, have homes and families now. And Gaettongi, who swore to become a man like you, still hands out firewood every winter despite his own hard lot."
"..."
"I am the leader of the Joseon Hometown Association. Leader of the Joseon folk the people of the Central Plains oppress. If I am not the first to repay an old kindness, the first to reach out a hand to someone in dire straits — then who, in all the world, will reach out for our kinsmen?"
Onto the story of Musu Village, I layered the story of the Association leader I had always shown myself to be.
My past was counterfeit — but the Kang Yunho he had witnessed with his own eyes, the leader of the Joseon Hometown Association, was real. That was what gave the story its weight.
"W-whatever fine words you spin, it changes nothing — you still deceived me..."
True enough. But your heart, I suspect, is another matter.
"I have done all that I can. So I will offer you one final choice."
He was shaken enough. Time to land the finishing blow.
"A choice?"
I drew a paper envelope from inside my coat.
"The promissory note I gave you earlier. If you want it, take it back."
"Association Leader?!"
"What is this...?"
The Three-Eyed Sword's eyes flew wide, as if they could widen no further.
I drew close to Jo Cheol and looked upon the Three-Eyed Sword with tenderness and worry.
"If you mean to run, then whatever you do, keep away from the docks — they've staked them out wall to wall. And the moment you step out that door, the Mangeum Jeonjang will be at your heels. There is a horse tied at the back gate; it will shake the pursuit for a while, at least. Whether you can slip free of Wuhan altogether... that, I cannot promise."
It was a voice steeped in worry.
Your money was never what I wanted. Saving you was. So I whispered into the Three-Eyed Sword's heart.
In truth, it meant his escape was doomed no matter what — but the expression and the voice made my intent impossible to doubt.
"Why, in heaven's name, would you..."
Jo Cheol's voice went thick and heavy. Slowly, I pressed the envelope into the Three-Eyed Sword's hand.
There was no self-interest in it. I was genuinely worried for him.
Wrapping the Three-Eyed Sword's hands gently in both of mine — as though to say, don't drop it, now — I tripped the last mechanism I had prepared.
"After all, Brother Cheol — aren't you one of us in the Joseon Hometown Association too?"
His thumb, that is — still bearing a faint smear of blood from the seal he had pressed not long ago.
"...!"
"Take care of yourself out there."
Hometown folk. A warm and welcoming Joseon Hometown Association. An Association leader who cared for Joseon people with all his heart. And the Three-Eyed Sword Jo Cheol — now a member of that very association.
All of it threaded together as one. Could he truly cut that thread and run?
"...I'll pay it back."
"Brother?!"
"I heard you! I'll pay it back! I said I'll pay it back!"
He was never going to run.
"The Mangeum Jeonjang's people have withdrawn."
No sooner had they taken my money than the Mangeum Jeonjang's warriors withdrew from the inn without a murmur.
"Haah..."
A "production" for the Three-Eyed Sword's benefit... hmm, poor phrasing. In any case, once The Cheolman Show had wrapped, Jo Cheol slumped into a seat and heaved an enormous sigh.
"What's all the sighing about?"
"I've lost everything. What more is there for me to do but sigh?"
There was still plenty of grievance in that voice. He had handed the money over, true — but the emptiness must be staggering.
Well, you see...
"I say this because our story is far from finished."
"What?"
"Close the doors! We can't have the Mangeum Jeonjang's curs overhearing."
"Yes, sir!!!"
As if drilled for a secret council, the Joseon folk slammed the inn's doors shut.
"Huh?"
"Everything has been emptied out of you — which means this is your chance to begin again. Just like the rest of us, who left our homeland behind and came to this land of Wuhan."
"What on earth are you saying...?"
Picture the fellow who ran off with another man's bundle. You dunk him in the river, and the bundle comes back.
The man before me was that very guest, barely clawed out of the water and soaked through to the bone. The Three-Eyed Sword would have fished him out without ever demanding the bundle back... but I am not the Three-Eyed Sword.
"I have a proposal to make — for your sake, Brother Cheol."
Having reclaimed the bundle, surely it was only right to claim the dripping-wet man attached to it as well?