In One Bite of Dumpling, She Saw Her Mother
"Every joint in my body is screaming..."
The lunch rush had torn through like a storm, and only as the hour of the Monkey began—somewhere between three and five in the afternoon—did peace finally settle over the shop. I collapsed into a chair and worked my throbbing wrist between my fingers.
This is insane.
The greatest man under heaven, the Heavenly Demon himself, and I was one more dumpling away from not having a tendon left in my wrist. I could loosen the muscles with internal energy, but the exhaustion of the mind was something no amount of qi could touch. Bowls I still hadn't washed rose in the basin like a mountain, and the mere thought of when I would ever get through them dragged nothing out of me but a sigh.
"I ought to close early today..."
I was giving serious thought to hanging the board that read Closed for the Day when the pitiless door chime rang.
Jingle.
I shot upright on reflex and fitted on the smile peculiar to a man who sells things for a living.
"Welco— ah. You've come again?"
Of course it was Namgung Seol. I had told her plainly that the ingredients were gone, and still she had come straight back. Not a day passed that she didn't wear my threshold down with her coming and going, and her diligence had long since passed the point where a man could do anything but click his tongue.
But she was not alone this time.
Beside her stood a woman in silk so lavish it stung the eyes. Three golden hairpins glittered in her hair, and a jade ring circled every finger. Her stride was proud enough for an imperial princess come out to inspect the provinces.
Who is she? Someone from the Murim Alliance?
My eyes went to her waist. No sword—only a folding fan, and on the ornamental tassel at its tip, an embroidered mark. Blue clouds, and a moon.
The Moyong Clan.
One of the Five Great Clans, a house that stood shoulder to shoulder with the Namgung, and the family rumored to hold more money than any other in the murim. A daughter of that house had deigned to grace my cramped little dumpling shop.
"Seol, is this the place? The one you called the finest restaurant under heaven?"
The woman of the Moyong Clan frowned and swept her gaze around the shop. She pressed a handkerchief over her nose, wearing the look of someone who had just stepped into a midden.
"It's so cramped... and it stinks. The reek of pork fat is everywhere."
"Endure it, Hwiyeon. Humble as it appears, this is a place that bears inner energy."
Namgung Seol answered without so much as raising her voice. Moyong Hwiyeon—even the name glittered.
Before she sat, she wiped the chair three times with her handkerchief. Still unsatisfied, she lowered herself onto the very edge, committing as little of herself to the seat as she possibly could.
"You there. Shopkeeper."
She pointed at me with her fan. Talking down to people came to her as naturally as breath. A golden child of a great clan, through and through—a jewel raised on silk.
"You do keep this place clean, I hope? Flour blowing all over the floor, and just look at how sticky this table is. It's filthier than the kennel where we keep our dog."
For an instant, my brow twitched.
A kennel?
She was calling the Heavenly Demon Palace—the grand headquarters of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and my own bedchamber—a doghouse? No. It was a dumpling shop now. Even so, I swept and wiped the place every single day, and she called it a kennel.
I ought to throw her out.
I wanted nothing more than to fling a handful of salt at her, but the wealth and power of the Moyong Clan standing at her back were a nuisance I had no wish to invite. Worse, she was a guest Namgung Seol had brought. Drive her off, and I would make an enemy of Seol as well.
"My apologies, honored guest. The lunch crowd was so thick I haven't had the chance to clean. I'll wipe it down at once."
I forced a smile, took up a rag, and came over. Then, under the pretense of wiping, I laid hidden force into the cloth and pressed down hard. An invisible vibration shattered the grime across the tabletop in an instant.
"There. Clean."
"Hmph."
Moyong Hwiyeon still wore a face that said nothing could please her.
"Seol, let's just leave. I'll treat you to a grand table at Cheonhyang Pavilion. Forget these cheap dumplings—come have bird's nest soup with me."
"No. Taste them first."
Namgung Seol was immovable. She looked at me and gave the order.
"Shopkeeper. Two platters of meat dumplings. And you will take particular care with the portion for Hwiyeon."
"Yes. Understood."
I stepped into the kitchen. From behind me, Moyong Hwiyeon's grumbling went on without a pause.
"I don't understand it. The Young Family Head of the Namgung Clan, of all people, losing her head over mere dumplings... Hey. Did this shopkeeper catch you by some weakness? Or are you coming here for his face? Scruffy as he is, I'll grant he's rather good-looking."
This young lady. Honestly.
My looks were a cut above, I'll admit that much, but I had never once done business on my face. Skill alone.
Fine. Have a taste, then.
Spite kindled in me. You dare dismiss my dumplings as cheap? I'll bring that high nose of yours—and that proud tongue—to heel.
I planted myself before the steamer. I was not going to steam them the ordinary way. Not this time. If I meant to show her the very height of flavor, I would have to draw out one of the secret arts I had kept sealed.
A low hum. Blue qi and crimson qi bloomed from both my hands at once.
One hand held the cold of the Ice Soul Divine Palm. The other held the searing heat of the Blazing Fire Palm.
Ordinary dumplings are steamed in hot vapor alone, but that lets the wrappers drink too much moisture and turn slack. I would cook the filling in fierce heat and, in the same instant, snap the outer skin tight with cold.
A method that drove the chew of the wrapper to its limit and imprisoned every last drop of juice within—a way of cooking possible, in all the history of the murim, to me alone.
A sharp hiss tore out of the steamer. Heat and cold struck one another, and the currents born of that collision wrapped each dumpling in turn.
"I don't even need eight minutes."
The time it takes to drink a cup of tea would be more than enough. I lifted the lid at the precise moment, and white steam erupted, bursting upward like an explosion. Within it the dumplings revealed themselves in a luminous grace—skins gleaming, smooth as the finest silk, the thin wrappers faintly transparent and clear as jewels.
"Done."
I set them on a plate and carried them out.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting."
I set the plate down before Moyong Hwiyeon.
"......"
Arms folded, she looked down at the dumplings. They did not look bad. No—honestly, she looked a little startled. The porky reek from a moment ago was gone, and in its place a savory, fragrant scent, the kind that pools saliva under the tongue, stabbed straight at her nose. Even so, her pride would not allow it.
"Well. The color is passable, I suppose."
She jabbed one dumpling with her chopsticks.
"But a dumpling is a dumpling. Flour dough stuffed with minced meat—how good can it possibly be, even at its best..."
"Taste it, then speak."
Namgung Seol pressed her. Moyong Hwiyeon put on a show of grudging surrender and brought the dumpling to her mouth.
"It'll be hot. Burn your tongue, and don't come crying to me."
She pouted and bit off the tiniest piece—hardly more than a mouse's dropping—like a royal food-taster checking for poison.
And in that instant—
Crack.
The wrapper burst with a bright, crisp sound, and her eyes flew wide.
What?
Moyong Hwiyeon froze. What had that been? It was plainly a steamed dumpling, and yet the first bite had skimmed past with the crackle of something fried—only for a chewy resilience, like rice cake, to wrap itself around her teeth a heartbeat later. The miraculous texture born of the Cold-Heat Steaming Method. And then the wave that followed.
Juice.
A hot torrent poured into her mouth like a waterfall, and it was not merely broth from meat. The deep savor of pork, the sharp bite of chives, the fragrance of ginger, and the rich umami of a secret soy sauce blended in perfect proportion into a flood of flavor.
"Mmph?!"
Moyong Hwiyeon clapped a hand over her mouth before she knew she had moved. To spit it out? No. To keep from losing a single drop. A fierce flash cut across her mind. The noise of the shop vanished. Namgung Seol, there before her eyes, vanished, and so did the scruffy shopkeeper.
What opened before her was a vast field of flowers.
A warm spring wind blew across a hill. Yellow rapeseed blossoms spilled over it in reckless bloom, and in the middle of that field stood a single small, old house with a tiled roof—not the splendid mansion of the Moyong Clan, but a plain and ordinary home.
"Hwiyeon~ Come and eat~"
A gentle voice reached her. Little Hwiyeon turned her head. A woman in an apron stood there—a face bare of powder, plain and unadorned, hands rough and warm. Her mother, dead when Hwiyeon was five, so faint in memory now she could scarcely recall her.
"M... Mother?"
"My little Hwiyeon, are you hungry? Mama made dumplings."
Her mother held out a plate, steam curling up from it. Not the rare delicacies of the Moyong Clan. Not the fine cuisine of Cheonhyang Pavilion. Just clumsily folded, ugly great dumplings. But they smelled of the warmest thing in the world.
Little Hwiyeon picked one up and put it in her mouth. It was warm. The covert struggles within the clan, the fight over who would succeed, her father's strict discipline, and the loneliness left by a mother who was gone—her heart, frozen solid through all of it, melted softly away together with the hot juice.
"Is it good?"
Her mother smiled and stroked her hair.
"Mm... it's good... it's so good..."
Tears spilled from Hwiyeon's eyes. It was not simply the joy of taste. It was longing. It was comfort. It was the peace of those days when she could set down every burden in the world and fuss, spoiled, in her mother's arms.
"Mother... hic... Mama..."
A stillness settled over the shop, because Moyong Hwiyeon sat with the dumpling still in her mouth, shedding tears as fat as chicken droppings.
"......"
Startled, I looked at Namgung Seol. She looked hardly less taken aback than I was.
"Hwiyeon. Hwiyeon—what's the matter? Is it too hot?"
Namgung Seol shook her friend by the shoulder. Only then did Moyong Hwiyeon jolt back to herself.
"Ah—!"
She scrubbed at her tears in a panic and looked around. There was no field of flowers. There was no mother. There was only a battered old table, and a dumpling-shop owner staring at her as if she had lost her mind.
"I... what did I just..."
Her face flushed red as a ripe persimmon. Shame crashed over her like a tidal wave. The princess of the illustrious Moyong Clan, bawling over a single cheap dumpling and crying out for her mama—this was a disgrace to the house, a humiliation she could never speak of anywhere.
But.
It's delicious...
An instinct fiercer than shame had already seized her tongue. The aftertaste lingering in her mouth was enough to drive her mad. With a trembling hand, she took up her chopsticks again.
"Wh... what is this?"
She glared at me and shouted.
"What did you put in them? A mind-bewitching drug? Hallucination incense?"
"Nothing but flour and pork, I'm afraid."
I shrugged, as if I had been sorely wronged.
"Liar! A mere dumpling... how can it taste like this? A hundred times—no, a thousand times better than the dumplings our head chef makes..."
She could not finish. She shoved another dumpling into her mouth, and this time she closed her eyes and savored it. Tears welled again. But these were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of rapture. She smacked and munched, and dignity—dignity and everything else—was forgotten. She even snatched the dumpling Namgung Seol had been about to eat and brought it to her own mouth.
"Hey. That one's mine."
"Quiet! I'll pay for it! Shopkeeper, give me everything you've got here! No—bring the steamer itself!"
Moyong Hwiyeon yanked out her coin pouch and slammed it onto the table. The sound was heavy. Not silver. The sound of gold inside.
"I'll give you all of this, so steam a hundred right now—no, two hundred!"
"Honored guest, you can't finish that many. And you'll make yourself sick."
"I'll eat them all! I'll take them home! I'll feed them to my father too!"
She had lost her reason entirely. The haughtiness of a moment ago was nowhere to be found. All that remained was a single fanatic, mad for dumplings. Namgung Seol watched the spectacle as if it were pathetic and, underneath, quietly satisfied, and let out a short breath of a laugh.
"There. What did I tell you? I said you had to taste it to know."
"Ugh... I admit it! I admit it! This place is the finest under heaven! Every restaurant in the Murim Alliance ought to be blown sky-high!"
Moyong Hwiyeon shouted it around cheeks stuffed full of dumpling.
"Shopkeeper! I'll buy this shop! How much do you want? I'll back you in the name of the Moyong Clan! I'll raise this place into a towering pavilion!"
"No. I'd really rather just keep the business small."
"You can't! Letting talent like this rot is a loss to the entire murim! I'll make you a legendary chef!"
I clutched the back of my neck. Namgung Seol alone was already more than I could handle, and now a great-clan brat had latched on, throwing her damned money around. Worse, the look in this woman's eyes was no ordinary fixation. If Namgung Seol came because of martial arts, this one was going to show up every day out of pure gluttony.
Please... just let someone allow me to live an ordinary life.
I looked at the pouch of gold and smiled a bitter smile. Making money was a fine thing. So why did my life after retirement keep knotting itself into worse and worse tangles?
"For now... please eat slowly. There are plenty of dumplings."
I went back into the kitchen and worked the dough. The sound of Moyong Hwiyeon sobbing as she ate never once left my ears.
"Mama... sob... it's so good... I hate Papa... I love dumplings..."
There would be no quiet end to today either. By tomorrow, servants of the Moyong Clan might well come dragging carts to sweep the shop clean of dumplings. I looked out the window. The sky was clear, and the clouds were drifting past, but ahead of me nothing waited but a sky packed full of storm clouds.