His and Her Circumstances (1)
Namgung Hyeon had originally gone by the epithet Changcheon Geomryong—the title he had inherited from Namgung Jin, champion of the previous Mt. Hua Sword Debate.
Determined not to shame the name of the last tournament's victor, Namgung Hyeon finished every preliminary bout of the Mt. Hua Sword Debate with a single form. Yet the moment the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering began, he lost his participation token and found himself at the center of a storm of controversy.
He quieted the uproar with his own sword and fought his way into the finals. And just as he had at the previous Mt. Hua Sword Debate, Namgung Hyeon claimed the championship once more.
Witnessing the martial prowess he displayed in that final match, people began to call him Geomcheonryong—the Sword-Heaven Dragon. The other rising talents of the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering had managed to show the realm of Sword Qi Coating only in scattered individual forms. But from the midpoint of the finals onward, both Namgung Hyeon and Moyong Ran coated every single technique they unleashed in Sword Qi. Most observers concluded that the match had been decided by the simple presence or absence of a weapon.
Namgung Hyeon had blocked Moyong Ran's assaults with his sword; Moyong Ran had been forced to meet his blade with her bare body. She had had to shield herself with Protective Qi, and when her internal energy ran dry, she conceded the bout.
That was what people believed. The two who had actually fought saw it differently. Had it been a duel to the death, the outcome would have been anyone's guess.
Only days earlier they had faced each other across a sparring ground. Now the same man and woman sat across a table with teacups between them. The atmosphere, however, was scarcely less charged than it had been on the platform.
Within the Murim Alliance grounds lay a garden that gathered flowers from every corner of the realm. At its heart stood a small pavilion, and it was there that the two of them were enduring a matchmaking meeting.
Someone was watching from a distance: Zhuge Yu, military strategist of the Murim Alliance. From a window of his office he looked down on the pair below.
"A perfect match of a man and a woman, and all they're doing is drinking tea. The flowers in that garden must be weeping."
"When two great clans arrange a meeting like this, both parties are bound to have a great deal on their minds."
Zhuge Yu himself was sipping tea as he watched them. Moyong Min, the deputy strategist, answered without looking up from the letter in his hands.
"The Namgung Clan has no reason to refuse. Their second son just demonstrated enough martial skill to threaten the first. Isn't this a perfect chance to send him out of the clan?"
"If that's how you see it, why show me this letter at all?"
Moyong Min gave the document a little shake. Zhuge Yu smiled.
"Is it so strange that I, as strategist, should discuss a major Alliance matter with my deputy?"
The words were fair enough. Still, most Alliance business was deliberately assigned to people with no personal stake, for the sake of impartiality. And the letter in Moyong Min's hand had been sent by Jinmyung—until mere days ago, Moyong Ran's betrothed. Moyong Min was certain Zhuge Yu had handed him the letter with a purpose.
"What do you make of it?"
"It's a proposal that scratches exactly where we itch. The Mt. Hua Sword Debate costs far more money than it appears to."
Jinmyung had sent a business outline claiming there were secondary revenues to be made from the Mt. Hua Sword Debate. He stressed that the previous tournament had already proven the returns, and that the profits were now attractive enough for other sects to start muscling in.
What Jinmyung did not know was that the Murim Alliance itself had already been drawing up plans of its own. Moyong Min had not been the officer in charge, but he had taken part in the original draft. The assigned officer, rattled by the news that other sects were moving in, had been working late the night before to shore up the plan. What pleased Moyong Min was that the final page of the letter contained precisely the kind of refinements they needed.
"Refinements only the Murim Alliance could offer…"
A flicker of doubt circled through Moyong Min's mind. Do such things even exist? In truth, the officer in charge had not been pulling a single night of overtime. The entire working group had been ground down by days of nonstop meetings.
"You yourself argued that if the Alliance jumped into this business, it might look as though we were snatching the venture out from under the Mt. Hua Sect and the other schools."
Zhuge Yu turned to look at him. In his judgment, Moyong Min was no brilliant schemer. Overflowing wit, silver-tongued rhetoric, the colorful stratagems that turned a person's heart—none of those were Moyong Min's strengths. But in tactics and strategy he stood level with Zhuge Yu himself, and he brought to war games a wild, instinctive edge peculiar to the Moyong Clan. It was for exactly that reason Zhuge Yu had named him deputy. More than half of the Alliance's daily affairs were shared with Moyong Min, and his counsel sought.
When they had first examined the storytelling venture called the Mt. Hua Tales, Moyong Min had warned that competitors would swarm. And at this year's Mt. Hua Sword Debate, events had unfolded precisely as he predicted.
"I'd like your advice on the present situation."
"There's an officer assigned to this. Asking me isn't proper."
"The lot of them were dead on their feet, so I sent them all home to sleep. The Alliance Leader wants a report in one shichen."
Moyong Min stroked his beard and looked down at the letter again. After a moment's thought, he asked,
"This letter never states how much he wants for the business. Shouldn't we start by bargaining over the price?"
"We should, yes. Young Master Go is at Shaolin Temple, so open the price negotiation by messenger hawk."
"And the Alliance Leader's approval?"
"Ah—I got so absorbed watching that handsome pair that I momentarily forgot. His Lordship told me to come back once we had a figure. Completely slipped my mind."
"If things are starting to slip your mind like that, it may be time to start looking for a successor."
"It's only because prying a word out of you is such hard work."
"As I keep telling you, I am the deputy strategist for military affairs—not commerce."
"Everything in the Strategy Office is shared work. Are we strangers to each other?"
Moyong Min let out a long sigh. Both Zhuge Yu and Moyong Min had left their clans years ago and settled in Chang'an. Even so, Zhuge Yu still slipped into the easy, drawling dialect of Longzhong from time to time, and Moyong Min had never quite grown used to it.
"The Namgung Clan and the Donghwa Merchant Guild…"
Moyong Min set the letter aside and began drafting a reply. Zhuge Yu lifted his teacup once more and looked down at the man and woman in the pavilion.
Namgung Hyeon was thoroughly flustered. He was beginning to wonder whether this entire Mt. Hua Sword Debate was destined to bring him nothing but mortifying trouble.
First the violent stomach illness—and now a matchmaking meeting. Unlike Namgung Jin, who could turn a cold face even on his own family, Namgung Hyeon was a man of careful kindness, popular even among the household servants. But that popularity was the fondness one felt for a gentle older brother, not the kind that made a woman want to throw herself into his arms. For someone like him, a matchmaking seat was almost enough to bring the stomach sickness roaring back.
And the other party was Moyong Ran—his opponent from the final duel. He had not noticed it during the match, but sitting across from her now, he found her so beautiful he could scarcely bring himself to look at her face. She wore a veil, of course, yet even that thin gauze could not hide how striking she was. Namgung Hyeon sipped at the jehotang he had requested in place of tea and let his gaze settle on her hands. On one of the fingers holding her cup sat a ring.
"Are you looking at my ring?"
"Ah—yes. It struck me how different it is from the sparring ground."
How much had he suffered under the Soul-Chasing Finger and the Soul-Dissipating Palm that had bloomed from those hands? Yet today those same hands wore a jade ring.
"Jadeite, is it? Unusual."
"Yes. I've never been close with ornaments, so I keep few personal treasures."
The jade ring looked a little small; it sat on her little finger. At his words, Moyong Ran touched the band with her other hand.
Namgung Hyeon found himself thinking that the hand and the ring did not quite match. Wondering why he felt that way, he realized he was still seeing her not as a woman but as a martial artist.
"I heard you broke a prenatal betrothal."
"That is not a subject for a matchmaking meeting."
"My apologies. This is my first time at one of these, and I don't know what one is supposed to talk about."
"Neither do I."
Both of them lifted their cups again. Namgung Hyeon thought, not for the first time, that a sparring match would have been easier.
"Come to think of it, your swordsmanship in the finals seemed a little different from the preliminaries… Did you go into closed-door training during the main rounds?"
"You went looking for my preliminary matches?"
At her question Namgung Hyeon found himself wondering—had she taken an interest in him?
"The Namgung Clan was the champion school of the last Mt. Hua Sword Debate. Scouting the leading contenders is only natural."
"Ah. Yes…"
Their conversation would not flow the way a duel did. It felt more like a game of go—each of them studying the board for a long time after the other placed a stone before finally answering. The talk advanced with careful little pauses between every exchange.
Namgung Hyeon thought of the most recent game he had played. It had been against Jinmyung. Remembering that match, he opened his mouth.
"I didn't transfer my participation token for the sake of training. My health had taken a turn, so I struck a bargain with Young Master Go."
"Transferred…? Wasn't the token stolen from you?"
"Ah—yes. Well. I suppose I've never spoken of it outside the clan."
A doubt flickered through him—was it proper to bring up her former betrothed? Even so, the moment Jinmyung entered the conversation, the talk ran more smoothly than it had a moment before.
"If it would not be too forward… might I ask what sort of bargain it was?"
At Moyong Ran's question Namgung Hyeon hesitated. Misgivings circled through his mind.
"As for the first transaction… that would be a little difficult to discuss. But I believe I can tell you about the second."
To explain the first deal, he would have to confess the stomach illness as well—and that, at least, he preferred to keep buried.
Moyong Ran nodded, saying that would be fine. And Namgung Hyeon began to speak of his dealings with Jinmyung.