Not Human?
"Seven of them. Every last one is a Hao Sect disciple."
"The Hao Sect?"
Sun Wukong tilted his head.
"Didn't I mention them last time I was filling you in on Murim?"
"Ah, right. Not the unorthodox path, exactly. More like a guild of every kind of lowlife."
"Yes. But they're a proper martial sect all the same."
Sun Wukong sounded amused.
"So they infiltrated from the Hao Sect?"
"That's right. But here's the thing — when you think about it, it's strange."
"Strange is putting it mildly."
"No, not that. I figured out who they were in less than two hours at a drinking party."
"You're saying the Hwangbo Clan couldn't have missed it?"
Sun Wukong twirled a lock of hair around his finger.
"Then we've got two possibilities."
"One: the Hwangbo Clan is genuinely that stupid. So obsessed with expanding their influence they can't even vet their own people. That's just incompetence, plain and simple."
"They're competing for the top seat among the Five Great Clans. Would they really be that dumb?"
Sun Wukong shook his head.
"The other possibility is they knew — and took them in anyway."
"So an alliance between the Hao Sect and the Hwangbo Clan? Or should we call it a conspiracy?"
Sun Wukong nodded. The latter was more likely, he had to admit. The Hao Sect dealt in information, and plenty of people would kill for intel on the inner workings of the Namgung Clan. Hao Sect disciples slipping in like this could become a serious problem.
Then the Hao Sect is connected to the shadow organization.
No. Sun Wukong shook his head.
Just because they were enemies in a past life doesn't mean they're all part of some shadow organization. That's jumping to conclusions.
The odds were high, but nothing was certain. He wasn't about to leap to a verdict.
Besides, this is something I need to figure out myself.
Sun Wukong scratched his chin. The crimson threads of fate. He couldn't exactly send Ojeong to look into that. Go dig up their past lives for me, would you? How was he supposed to say something like that?
He'd tried, actually.
"They were enemies of mine in a past life, you know. What do you make of that?"
He'd tossed it out casually. Ojeong had blinked at him, then answered in a thoroughly deflated voice.
"Ah. I see."
Another bit of backstory added to the pile. Sure. Whatever.
When that was the reaction, what else could he do?
"Forget it. You've done enough."
Sun Wukong dismissed him. It had been a long day, and his head was throbbing. He'd sparred with Namgung Seowol, gotten a look at Namgung Jinbaek's martial arts, drunk his share of wine, and even inserted himself among a bunch of kids.
Ojeong didn't leave right away. He looked like he had something to say. Normally he'd have taken the hint by now, but tonight he paced around like a dog that needed to piss.
Ojeong had been wrestling with a problem of his own lately.
I think I can break through the wall...
It had started with that spar against Sun Wukong. The sheer completeness that had bloomed from Sun Wukong's fingertips. After witnessing that, Ojeong had been stealing time whenever he could to swing his sword — over and over, replaying the forms Sun Wukong had demonstrated.
He didn't just copy my forms. He executed them more perfectly than I ever have.
He understood the techniques more completely than Ojeong himself. What the forms meant. What kind of attack they were. How they were meant to break an opponent.
Ojeong swallowed. Unlike his inner art, Water Transformation Qi, everything else he practiced was a hodgepodge — a stew of mismatched techniques. Shaolin lay-disciple arts mixed with the obscure pressure-point methods of river bandits. He'd never gone deep. He'd just collected a colorful surface. No depth. No weight.
Shallow roots only made the wall, when it finally appeared, all the more crushing. He'd half given up. What end was there to a martial art that was nothing but leftovers?
And then he'd seen it. In that final eleventh form — the path he was meant to walk.
For the first time in a long while, the spirit of a martial artist blazed to life inside him.
An emotion I'd forgotten I even had.
They said the people of the jianghu were moths who lived for revenge. From some dim, forcibly buried memory, Ojeong felt that old feeling catch fire.
Revenge.
Was it because he'd witnessed, with his own eyes, the kind of martial advancement that could actually make it possible? Ojeong's eyes burned with the fire of a true martial artist. If he could receive even a single word of guidance — what martial artist wouldn't treasure that like gold and jade?
After turning it over and over in his mind, Ojeong finally resolved to ask Sun Wukong for advice.
"What are you doing? If you need to take a shit, go to the outhouse. Don't do it here."
"Ah — Great Hero. This is, well, an embarrassingly forward request, but..."
"What? Why are you talking like that? Doesn't suit you at all."
Ojeong took a deep breath and clasped his fists in a formal salute.
Thwack!
The posture was dead serious — the exact bearing of a disciple before his master. Sun Wukong's face twisted in alarm.
"I learned a great deal from our last spar. If you would grant this unworthy junior of the martial world even a single word of instruction, I would treasure it as gold and jade."
"I'm not exactly your senior in Murim."
"Ah — if you're stronger than me, you're a senior. That's how it works."
Sun Wukong started twirling his hair again. Ojeong hurried to add:
"It's just — my inner art only shows its true power underwater, so..."
"You really think that?"
"Pardon? Yes. That's right. On dry land it's nothing but an ordinary cultivation method."
"Then stop thinking of it as dry land. Think of it as water."
"What?"
Ojeong quietly closed his eyes and sank into thought. This man was a far greater master than himself. There had to be some profound meaning in the advice.
...No matter how I turn it over, it sounds like complete bullshit.
What kind of dogshit advice is that? Even if I pretend I'm underwater, I'm still standing on solid ground.
What, if he just thought "water," did this place suddenly become the middle of the Yangtze? No matter how hard he wracked his brain, he couldn't find the hidden meaning.
He opened his mouth to ask more — then shut it. Sun Wukong had already snuffed out the lamp and lain down, looking thoroughly done with the conversation.
When you've spent an entire day thinking and still can't find the answer yourself, there's a method for that.
Ask someone smarter than me.
Who, though? That Seomo kid?
...We're about the same, honestly.
Then, suddenly, the guest retainers of Pungryuwon came to mind. The Namgung Clan's guest retainers were, by and large, eccentrics. Most of them had lived without family, without backing, without even friends — so even while staying at the clan estate, they barely spoke to one another.
Ojeong had been bored enough to wander the grounds, and he'd run into a few of them. Most treated each other as if they weren't even there. But even among that crowd, there was bound to be someone sociable.
Elder Chae, was it?
They said he'd once been a famous great scholar. A blind man who couldn't see a thing. He'd even joked that he might just be the smartest man in the Central Plains. How could a blind man who couldn't even read make a claim like that? Still, he had the bearing of an immortal sage, and he certainly seemed smarter than Ojeong.
Finding Elder Chae wasn't hard. He was always dozing in the pavilion by the wall.
"Elder Chae. You said you were a brilliant scholar, so hear me out."
"Oh, if it isn't Master Ojeong."
"Master? I was only a Shaolin lay disciple for a little while. Anyway, just listen, Elder."
Ojeong laid it all out — the spar, the shortcomings of his own martial arts, and Sun Wukong's baffling advice. Elder Chae listened in silence, then tilted his head.
"Which venerable master said such a thing?"
"Ah, Teacher Sun. A bit of a nutcase, honestly. I somehow got roped into traveling with him."
"A nutcase?"
"Oh, absolutely. From the day I met him right up to now, he's been dead set on claiming he's the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven — wait."
That wasn't Elder Chae's weathered old voice. Ojeong's neck creaked as he turned. Sun Wukong was standing right there — when had he even arrived? A cold sweat slowly beaded down Ojeong's spine.
"Ah — haha. The nutcase? That was me. Definitely me."
"Sounds like you haven't gone quite crazy enough. Want me to finish the job?"
"Come on, don't be like that. Anyway — what brings you here?"
Ojeong smoothly changed the subject. Sun Wukong clicked his tongue.
"Came with the young master to meet this fellow."
"Elder Chae?"
He glanced sideways and found Namgung Muyoung standing beside Sun Wukong. The clan's heir — Ojeong hurriedly clasped his fists in salute.
Sun Wukong hadn't come here because of Ojeong. Following the proposal to arrange a gathering between the guest retainers and the young successors, Namgung Muyoung had asked Sun Wukong for help. His own persuasion wasn't enough — he needed a fellow retainer to back him up.
Sun Wukong was curious about the other retainers himself. The Black-Faced Iron Sword he'd met before coming here had been a fairly interesting character. But above all, the man sitting in this pavilion — Elder Chae, formerly Chae Gong, Grand Scholar of the Hanlin Academy — was the most interesting of the lot. Sun Wukong regarded him with genuine curiosity.
Chae Gong stared right back.
Watching this, Ojeong's face twisted in confusion.
A man who can't even see, staring at someone like he's trying to bore a hole through him?
After staring at Sun Wukong for a long moment, Chae Gong flared his nostrils. As if he were scenting the air. The bizarre display made Ojeong wonder, just for a second, whether this man had really been a Grand Scholar.
"Pardon?"
"I said it's strange. If that's not a human, how can something that moves be standing in front of me on two legs?"
Ojeong was struck speechless by the cryptic remark. Sun Wukong, apparently understanding perfectly, let out a giggle.
"Not a human — a monkey. Pleasure to meet you, Elder. I am Teacher Sun, the Monkey King, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven."
Chae Gong smiled faintly.
"A hard tale to believe — and yet, to my eyes, you look exactly like a Monkey King."
Listening to this exchange, Ojeong was at a complete loss. They said the Namgung Clan's guest retainers were mostly eccentrics...
These aren't eccentrics. These are just lunatics.
That blind man couldn't see a thing, yet he was going on about what he could see. And Teacher Sun over there was just as bad. Ojeong felt almost awkward, realizing he might be the only sane one here.
Sun Wukong cackled.
"You're no renowned Daoist with spiritual power, nor a Buddhist monk with dharma power — and yet you've attained the Heavenly Eye, Elder. Let's meet in the Heavenly Realm when you die. Of course, you'll be a low-ranking official, so you might have trouble even lifting your head in my presence."
Chae Gong laughed as if thoroughly entertained. Ojeong's suspicions only deepened.
He doesn't look blind at all.
It was like they were looking each other in the eye. Then Chae Gong turned his head and looked Ojeong dead-on. A chill ran through Ojeong's chest. Those clouded eyes seemed to be staring straight into him.
Chae Gong spoke simply.
"What?"
Chae Gong offered nothing more. He rose from the pavilion and left. Namgung Muyoung startled and hurried after him — he hadn't even delivered his request yet.
Ojeong stared blankly at the retreating back, then burst out in frustration.
"Hey — people. Ever heard of being clear and simple? Why does everyone talk like that?"
Sun Wukong laughed, thoroughly amused.
"That old man. He's got good eyes."
"He's blind."
"By not seeing, you see more."
Ojeong tilted his head. But unlike before, he rolled the words around in his mouth. His face looked like something was just about to click.
Watching him, Sun Wukong turned his head slightly and gazed at Chae Gong's receding back.
The gathering Jegal Seoseo had proposed was postponed for now. Most of the guest retainers had declined, which was the main reason — but roughly three had accepted, so it wasn't as if they couldn't have held it. The real reason was something else.
The young successor of the Sichuan Tang Clan had arrived.
"The Sichuan Tang Clan's people have arrived, so all Five Great Clans are assembled. A banquet will be held tonight, and the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering will officially begin."
Namgung Muyoung spoke quietly.
"Also — the Patriarch requests that all guest retainers attend the banquet without fail."
Sun Wukong nodded as if he'd expected as much.
A show of force, huh.
That would explain why every last retainer was being summoned.
Show up, look impressive, and earn your keep for the Namgung Clan.
Sun Wukong saw no reason to refuse. There wasn't one.
"There's a drinking party and you think I'd miss it?"
He'd have been offended if they hadn't invited him.
Night fell, and the banquet began. A raucous affair of wine and food. Namgung Jinbaek sat at the seat of honor, with the elders and household retainers along one side. The guest retainers took their places beside them. Across from them sat the heirs of the Five Great Clans and their entourages.
Even amid the flowing wine, Namgung Muyoung sat with perfect posture. He didn't touch a drop — save for a brief sip of the wine Namgung Jinbaek had offered him, and nothing after. Somehow, he overlapped with Sanzang a great deal.
Sun Wukong shifted his gaze and found Muhwa. She kept glancing around for permission, then working her chopsticks without pause. A quiet happiness had settled over her face. Sun Wukong snorted a laugh.
Muhwa didn't overlap with Sanzang either, if he was being honest. But that one moment when she had — it was branded into his mind.
...Though the way she never stopped eating didn't resemble Sanzang in the slightest. Sanzang had been the type to skip meals — hell, he'd gone on full fasts. Appetite is a desire that can be controlled, he'd said, all stern conviction.
Sun Wukong glanced at Namgung Jinbaek.
Honestly, I can't read that one.
Namgung Jinbaek was the hardest of them all to place. Nothing quite clicked. Sun Wukong looked away again.
But one thing is certain — whether I'm overthinking it or not, every last one of them carries some faint trace of Sanzang.
Namgung Seowol's stubborn eyes. Namgung Muyoung's expression, his bearing, the way he spoke. Muhwa's counsel. And even Namgung Jinbaek, now and then, let a flicker of that same profound quality show through.
From all of this, one conclusion emerged.
All of them... might be reincarnations connected to Sanzang.
These threads of fate. Not just the ones densely woven with Sun Wukong himself — every last thread somehow tied back to Sanzang as well.
Why?
Sun Wukong thought of Guanyin. Why had she guided him to the Namgung Clan? Why had she made him meet the bonds of his past once more? What future had she foreseen?
Sun Wukong shook off the tangle of thoughts.
I'll figure it out when I run into it.
Nothing complicated. Find Sanzang. Find the soul. Put it back. That's all.
With his mind settled, Sun Wukong surveyed the banquet hall once more. Then he found something he hadn't expected, and his eyes went wide.
Hmmm...
A banquet wasn't just wine and food. Invited courtesans performed song and dance to liven the mood. Sun Wukong's gaze fell on the courtesans. More precisely — on a few of them, bound to him by crimson threads of fate.
A strangely familiar scent of powder seemed to sting his nose.
These... are they the ones?