Soo's Jianghu — 11
The white snow along the roadside had vanished, and yellow flowers were blooming over the bare yellow earth.
Spring had come.
And just as the season turned, the Heavenly Demon Cult was changing, little by little.
Byeongil had gone into closed-door training, swearing he would complete the Heavenly Demon Dominion Manual, and Gapjae had begun to show his strength to others. They were making ready for change.
The ordinary person I had given power to was dragged off somewhere inside the Heavenly Demon Cult, dissected alive, and died. The same befell the ordinary person kept by the Hall Lord of the Heavenly Palace.
From their point of view, they were simply snatched away one day and put through a cruel experiment, with no way of knowing what had happened to them. But I knew. I had heard the Hall Lord of the Heavenly Palace speaking with his guardian. People had come to them, he said, trying to learn how those I had laid hands on had changed — and they had come from the most secretive place in the Heavenly Demon Cult, the one with the least contact with the outside world. Wolje Hall. A gathering of those who would lick the light, if only they could.
There was no order from the Heavenly Demon, of course. It was an organ that moved with a curious independence. The previous cult leader, Gu Seong-yong, had visited Wolje Hall often, and even that had not left him knowing it well.
Well now. How interesting.
The power to make a person living inside the Heavenly Demon Cult simply disappear — secret enough that word of it never climbed as far as the Heavenly Demon. Was an independent organ like that even permitted? If so, this was information I might be able to use.
I would have to start visiting the village often. And if I did, the odds of someone attacking me would rise, wouldn't they? If that let me lengthen the harvest season, I would be very pleased indeed.
Until now I had stayed away from the village on purpose. Partly because I wanted for nothing even without going, and partly so the Heavenly Demon would not grow wary of me. But I thought the wariness would be all right now. At the very least, the Heavenly Demon had grown fond of Soo. And since I occupied one corner of that fondness, there was a good chance she had eased her guard toward me as well.
Hehe.
Slowly, my own time to step out of ordinary days had come.
A few days later, when the Heavenly Demon came by, I caught hold of her and asked.
"May I go to the village?"
The look she gave me asked why I was putting that question to her at all.
Oh? I had been sure the Heavenly Demon would have forbidden it. She hadn't?
If I had been free to go all along, then the question itself was strange. To smooth the words over, I would have to push a little more shamelessly here.
"Give me money. You exchange it for currency, don't you?"
The shamelessness seemed to land. The Heavenly Demon folded her arms. People fold their arms when they feel the need to defend themselves. She spoke with a sulk in her voice.
"Getting that currency means you'd have to work."
She was asking whether I meant to eat money with an empty mouth. In an instant my question had been reduced to petty greed. Perfect.
Time to test the water, just a little. What did she think of me making a harvest season?
"Then I can just hand myself over when I buy something."
I said it, then watched the Heavenly Demon's face closely, trying to read what she thought. A flicker of discomfort, a flicker of doubt. Then the look of someone who had understood — and she waved a hand.
A wave?
"Do as you like."
She meant I was free to make a harvest season. She must have been wary of the harvest season in her own way, and yet the moment she herself became one, she had let that wariness go. It would be hard to say she had simply decided to ignore the records Eunjae left behind; the Heavenly Demon had seen straight through to my true body. Had she looked at my humanity and decided I was not dangerous?
If that was the case.
"I'll be back."
At my words she waved me off as if to say I should manage on my own, and went over to Soo.
It was training time, and the two of them were busy. At this hour I often slipped out of the house claiming I was going to exercise, so Soo would not follow just because I left alone.
I headed for the village.
Where there are many people, change follows. That was not the only reason, of course. I didn't really know what kind of place the village was, did I? Better to go and see for myself before Soo did. Even if it turned out to be a bad place, I had no intention of forbidding it — but an adult ought to give a warning, shouldn't she? This, too, would be over within two years. Until then, shouldn't I raise her with some sense of responsibility?
The pity of it was that Soo did not seem to think she was being looked after. The difference in our ages was only about five years, and I was the weaker in martial strength besides, so she treated me as nothing more than a peer. Fair enough. It wasn't strange. When you raise someone, what matters is experience and ability, not age.
Just as in the martial world the man in my faded memories had known, strength came first in this world too. Put simply, I was the one who ought to be learning from Soo. I was weaker. The difference in our builds was a good two heads, and losing on strength was unfair — but the world had always been unfair, and what was I to do about it?
Thinking that, I walked through a stretch where low grass pushed up and rocks showed here and there. I lived north of the Heavenly Demon Cult's main hall, and the village lay to the west of it, so reaching the village meant drawing an arc around the main cult, counterclockwise. I wasn't climbing hills or coming down them, only walking straight along their flank, so it cost me little strength.
With a light step, I arrived.
The buildings looked as if they had stepped out of an old Chinese film. The last time I came, white cloth had hung everywhere. Not now.
The moment I stepped inside, eyes fixed on me. Was it the effect of a harvest season's advertising? Or only that a stranger had come? Pretending not to notice the gazes pouring in from every corner, I went deeper into the village and made for the market. If you mean to buy something, you go to the market. That much is common sense. Once a world develops, of course, you can buy things without leaving the house. This was not that kind of world.
There was a problem, though. I didn't know where the market was. I meant to catch whoever happened to be passing and ask.
I failed.
Not at speaking to them. Somewhere along the way, people had drawn a ring around me. They were looking at me the way one looks at something profoundly alien, and yet a strange feeling clung to those looks. Where had I seen it? I had seen it often.
"What is it?"
No answer came back. Slowly they tightened the circle and came toward me.
For a moment I thought of running, then gave it up. I didn't have the strength to flee through so many people. And if I could, I wanted to see what sort of reaction they would show. Collective violence would be even better. Those who attack me with intent, I can eat.
So I waited, still.
They came up and took hold of me. Strangely, their hands were gentle. What was this? Several of them pulled off their own clothes and draped them over me as they led me away, as if to hide what I looked like. Packed into a single mass of bodies, I walked and memorized the road. We went a long way into an alley, passed several buildings, then turned from alley into alley again. Just as I began to think they were moving to shake off someone's pursuit, I arrived at the western edge.
The buildings here were old and worn. The closer one got to the main cult, the higher the people who lived there, it seemed; the farther east, the more refined and handsome the buildings became. This place was closer to a shantytown.
And the man who had led me first bent low before me. Not a bow of the head. A full prostration.
"Heavenly Maiden. You must flee from here."
Ah.
Yes. That look.
So it was goodwill. This.
"What's happened?"
At my question, the people with their heads still bowed began to stammer out the story. The harvest season had gone about talking of me, and then one day vanished. Anyone who spoke of me was suddenly faulted for some trifle and beaten to the edge of death, or beaten until they died. Anyone who tried to look for me went missing.
"This is a frightening place. Leave it, and never come back. It is truly, truly dangerous."
So they warned me.
Yes. Unfortunately, they had risked danger in order to protect me. Or else they were steering me so I would slip out this way.
There was something I needed to ask them.
"If you aren't careful, you yourselves could be in danger. Why did you do this?"
I asked so I could watch their faces and see what they were hiding. But there was nothing on those faces except a simple, honest smile.
"Well, shouldn't one treat kindly a person who came from heaven?"
They said it was only that.
Unfortunately, I had not come from heaven. I had come from the very bottom beneath the ground, and these people were certain to be punished. Goodwill does not always return as goodwill. Ignorance is a sin. Stories in which good things come back to the good exist precisely because the real world is not like that.
See?
That was why they had met me.
I thought well of their ability to act. Where there is a heart that resists injustice, I believe there is also a cruelty hidden inside it, ready to do anything for that resistance. Goodwill is sometimes more vicious than malice.
"I live in the house standing all by itself near the cliff, north of the Heavenly Demon Cult's main hall. If something bad happens, please come find me. I know the Heavenly Demon."
Yes.
If what was happening in the village had been cut off from the Heavenly Demon, I would connect it. If unreasonable violence was binding them, I would give them strength. Only one thing. I needed only to obtain warmth. And if I could, I wanted to meet Wolje Hall as an enemy — to fight, to kill, and at last to take their memories.
I went among the villagers, offered my deep thanks for their goodwill, then circled home along the edge of the forest.
I must have walked too close to the trees. On the way, something like a leopard dropped from a branch and attacked me, and my throat was torn out. It wasn't much of a problem. I had been attacked, so I took its warmth. Tentacles sprouted along the beast's left side, a carapace grew over the right, and shards of metal pushed out along its tail until it had become a grotesque monster. Screaming, the monster fled into the forest.
Looking through the beast's memories, I could see that no one had sent it with intent, so there was truly nothing to concern myself with. Still — a dangerous creature like that, living in the forest. I would have to tell Soo to keep out of the trees.
"Choseol. Where'd you go off to alone, coming back at this hour?"
When I reached the house, the Heavenly Demon had already gone and her place was empty. Soo sat alone beneath the eaves with her arms folded, glaring at me as she spoke. The sky had passed deep blue and was nearly black. It was still early spring, and the days were short. I looked at Soo and answered obediently.
"I went to the village. It was dangerous, so I came back."
"Dangerous?"
At my answer Soo started, eyes wide, then came scurrying up to look me over from head to toe.
"You're fine."
"Yes."
"Did something happen?"
I was about to explain everything I had been through, then swallowed the words. Instead I said this.
"It isn't time for you to know that yet, Soo. Not until you're at least as tall as I am."
"Even when I'm all grown, I don't think I'll ever be as tall as you, Choseol!"
Choseol was tall, for a woman.
"Then I suppose you'll never get to know."
"Don't change the subject. Tell me!"
I pushed away Soo, who had grabbed hold of me and was making a fuss, and went straight to the kitchen.
"Let's just eat."
Soo protested, but in the end she could not win against food. Once I set the table she came over grumbling and picked up her spoon. It is hard to let someone go hungry in a growth spurt. As I wiped the grains of rice from the corner of her mouth while she stuffed it full, I glanced toward the village.
I hoped something would happen.