Are You Eating Properly? - 2
A single nyang of silver coin from an unknown sender. A letter with no discernible meaning. The ripples those two things stirred up proved powerful enough to throw three heads into utter confusion.
"Could someone be spying on Hongseong Sect?"
At Yu Hui's words, Hong Ryeon's lips pressed shut. It was a possibility that couldn't be dismissed.
Hongseong Sect was where the Sword Saint resided, and as such, plenty of people in the murim watched it with keen interest. Sword Saint Na Yerin was not one to leave her sect's grounds unless something extraordinary demanded it. She stepped out into the world only when a great calamity struck the murim—or when one of her disciples fell into danger.
"They say the murim has been awash with turmoil of late."
Demonic beasts had begun multiplying without warning. Bandits had taken to moving with unsettling organization. She had even heard, back when she accompanied the Murim Alliance on an inspection and investigation mission, of suspicious flows of supplies—and of unrest stirring within the imperial palace itself. Which meant Hong Ryeon could hardly deny that if some hidden force meant to plunge the world into chaos, the Sword Saint would be among the very first people they needed to neutralize.
"So they'd rattle the youngest to throw Hongseong Sect into disarray...?"
Even so, the odds of that were slim. It was certainly true that Sa Yun was the beloved youngest of the sect—but ask whether she wielded any real influence over Hongseong Sect as a whole, and the answer was absolutely not. Even if she wavered over a letter or two, the sect was more than capable of absorbing the blow. Anyone hoping to strike at them this way would have to set their sights on someone other than Sa Yun.
"That's right. They'd have to come after me."
Na Yerin held the title of sect master, but it was Hong Ryeon who actually ran Hongseong Sect and trained its disciples. Without her, the sect would reel and crumble on the spot.
"Hmmm... Then could whoever sent it have predicted exactly this reaction—us scrambling around in confusion—and sent it for that very purpose?"
Send objects of unknowable meaning, let suspicion and doubt take root, and keep your target from moving rashly. Hong Ryeon slowly folded her arms, pressing them in firmly enough that her ample chest swelled—a little physical stimulus to jolt her thinking awake.
But no clear answer surfaced. There were far too many possibilities for Yu Hui's theory to hold, and if the goal were merely to hobble Hongseong Sect's movements, plenty of better methods existed than this.
"Or... hmm. What if it's simply someone who wants to sponsor Sa Yun?"
"Who would?"
"...W-well, s-someone?"
Yu Hui stole a glance at Sa Yun. The girl herself seemed utterly clueless—how was Yu Hui supposed to know?
"I could see it if this were someone like me or the other sisters, who've gone out into the world and proven ourselves... but the youngest hasn't even finished mastering the first half of the Hongseong Divine Art. And someone's sponsoring her?"
"Maybe they saw potential and decided to invest..."
"If they were investing in her potential, they'd have announced who they were, not hidden their name."
At Hong Ryeon's flat remark, Yu Hui clamped her mouth shut.
...Fair point.
"Sponsoring her in secret, over and over, never showing their face... ugh. No, this doesn't fit either."
At Yu Hui's muttering, Hong Ryeon cast a sidelong look at Sa Yun. The letter rested in the girl's small hand. A single line of script. Her tiny fingers, wrapped around the missive bearing nothing but that one worried question—Have you been eating properly?—were trembling ever so slightly.
"Youngest."
"Y-yes, Eldest Sister."
"I don't know who sent this. But if it was meant to do you harm, then worry no longer."
Certain that the youngest was fretting herself sick, Hong Ryeon raised a hand, forcing a smile onto her somewhat gruff features. Then she reached out, stroked the girl's hair, and spoke with utter solemnity.
"...Th-thank you..."
Warmth bloomed across the girl like a rushing flame. Joy—and guilt, too. At the strange sensation tickling some corner of her heart, Sa Yun dipped her head.
"In any case, the letter itself seems harmless enough for now... If another arrives, we'll look at it together."
What remained was the silver itself. Hong Ryeon studied the ingot for a long moment, then pressed it into Sa Yun's palm.
"It arrived in your name. It's only right that you spend it."
Sa Yun stared down at the ingot resting in her hand. Na Yerin had taken her as a disciple, and under her guidance she had entered Hongseong Sect. But a frugal sect raised frugal children—she had never so much as seen money of this size, let alone touched it.
Who knew a single nyang of silver could weigh so heavy?
Sa Yun clutched it tight for a long while... then held it back out to Hong Ryeon.
"Hm?"
"C-couldn't you put it toward the sect's operating expenses?"
She had received so much. Been handed a life so full of joy. Yet there was nothing—nothing—she could offer in return. But if this silver could ease the sect's burdens, even a little?
Meeting the quiet resolve gathered in Sa Yun's eyes, Hong Ryeon chuckled and shook her head.
"Hongseong Sect isn't poor enough to need that. Buy yourself whatever you require."
"...Okay."
The unmistakable rejection left her a touch deflated. Hong Ryeon patted the drooping little head, then nodded toward the letter and the bundle of boxes.
"Now then—back to your duties."
One nyang of silver.
To some, a fortune. To others, pocket change.
And to Sa Yun, who had lived her whole life as a beggar orphan, it was a sum so vast as to be absurd.
"So what are you going to do with it?"
"W-well..."
As they stepped out of Hong Ryeon's room and Yu Hui asked, Sa Yun mulled it over. A single nyang was enough to buy twenty of those delicious dang-gwa. No—hold on. At the trading house they always stopped at when the sect came down to shop, the dang-gwa seller threw in one extra for every twenty purchased. So it was enough for twenty-one.
"Windfall money's supposed to be spent quick and carefree, you know."
"Windfall... money?"
"What else would you call it? We don't know who sent it, but it came addressed to you, didn't it?"
"That's true, but... what if spending it causes trouble somehow..."
"Oh, come on~. What kind of trouble could this cause~?"
To Yu Hui, a single nyang of silver was hardly a fortune. Watching Sa Yun hem and haw over such a paltry sum struck her as adorable—and a little heartbreaking, all at once. She reached over and ruffled the girl's hair.
"Someday a nyang of silver won't even make you blink. Besides, it won't do for a disciple of Hongseong Sect to go letting the weight of money crush her like this."
"Hnnnnngh..."
"Or—want to come out to town with me sometime?"
"...Yes. I'll think about it."
Clutching the nyang of silver in her pocket, she gave a small nod.
A few days had passed since the silver's arrival. Sa Yun, who had spent every one of them groaning over the dilemma, finally settled on what to spend it on—and resolved to go out with Yu Hui.
Seomhwachon, the village they descended to, seemed so bright and comfortable that to Sa Yun it might as well have been another world. The bustling market was crowded with stalls selling food that looked delicious beyond words, and strange, wonderful goods besides.
Back when she was a beggar, she could never set foot in the market so freely. It went without saying—most beggars did more than beg; they stole as well. But dressed now in a Hongseong Sect disciple's robes, she was a beggar no longer, and the market folk smiled and vied with one another to sell to her.
Sa Yun felt a persistent tickle in the corner of her chest. She was no longer a beggar. She was no longer alone.
When the small hand wrapped around hers tightened, Yu Hui grinned and squeezed back all the harder.
"U-um... Senior Sister?"
"Hm? Oh—right. So, decided what you want to buy? Clothes? Or maybe an ornament..."
"...Dang-gwa."
Face scarlet, Sa Yun murmured it as if confessing a secret. Yu Hui burst out laughing at the sight of that pretty skin, flushed to the point of bursting, and steered her straight toward the trading house.
The moment they reached Seomhwachon's one and only trading house, Sa Yun's eyes went round as dinner plates. The market's wares had been lovely, full of things she'd wanted—but what the trading house sold looked better still. Jade hairpins. Ornaments woven of colored silk thread. There were far, far too many things made to set a young girl's heart aflutter.
But of everything on display, Sa Yun's gaze fixed on one thing alone: the rows of dang-gwa, resplendent in every color, each one more delicious-looking than the last.
"Um... I'd like to buy dang-gwa, please."
"Of course! And how many can I get you?!"
The chipper clerk asked with a smile, and she fished the silver ingot from her pocket.
"How many... could I get for one nyang of silver?"
"Let's see now... yes! Twenty, plus one extra on the house!"
"I'll take... all of it, please."
"Right away, miss!"
Before long, the bamboo box was stacked high with neatly layered confections. By the time it was handed over, Yu Hui had returned from her own shopping.
"Oh? You bought them?"
"Yes."
"Let's see... Huh? Why'd you buy so many dang-gwa, and nothing else?"
To Yu Hui's bewilderment, Sa Yun smiled sheepishly.
"...I want to give them... to my sect sisters. And to Master."
To the Master who had saved her, useless beggar that she'd been. To the sect sisters who cherished her like a sister born and bred. To the people who had become her light when she knew nothing of happiness and wore herself out merely surviving each day—she wanted to give something back, even if only a little.
Sa Yun hugged the bamboo box to her chest, and Yu Hui beamed at the sight.
Bathed in that smile, Sa Yun thought: the person who sent that letter had given her this chance to repay them. So surely—surely there was some way for her to offer them her thanks as well.
Several days had passed since I entered this world and began living as 'Yu Wol'.
Life posed no particular difficulties. Running a trading house was hardly backbreaking work. Every so often some fool would kick up a ruckus at the inn, but that was the sort of trouble you could laugh off.
The true instigators, of course, operated on an entirely different scale.
I pored over the paperwork, ground the dying ember of my tobacco out into the ashtray, and took a slow sip of bitter tea. As the taste unfurled across my tongue, a light flickered back on in my head.
"Hm... send this lot over to the Cheongryu Trading House. And there's something off about the inn's cooking. Have the kitchens source better ingredients."
"Yes, sir."
My staff filed out of the room to carry out the orders. I tucked the gold and silver ingots from the table into the safe.
Yu Wol had money to spare. Far more of it than I'd ever imagined. But that didn't mean I had any intention of increasing what I sent Sa Yun. No—her allowance would remain one nyang of silver, every two weeks. Unless something truly extraordinary happened, not a coin more.
What I—what we—wanted was for Sa Yun to savor happiness and grow strong. Not to be tossed about by money. Sure, people say it's better to cry in a Benz than on a bench, but too much silver would only weigh her down. The sect would provide everything she genuinely needed, so an allowance just big enough for the occasional dang-gwa was the better call.
Besides, overdoing the support ran a real risk of turning her into one of those spoiled 'gimme-gimme' types who expect the world handed to them.
I found myself recalling a scene from a few days back: through the window, Sa Yun heading up toward Hongseong Sect with her sisters, the dang-gwa she'd bought at the trading house cradled in her arms. The smile a single nyang of silver had coaxed out of her—beautiful, brimming with happiness—was the very smile all of us had been wishing for.
Proof positive that this beat creeping up to her in person, playing secret friend, and getting hauled off by the constabulary. If our fifty million Sayun Dan members had seen that smile—seen her going beet-red with embarrassment—they'd have wept tears of joy.
"Phew..."
Recalling that smile, I shook my head and settled back at my desk.
Small happinesses like this, I could manufacture myself. But growing strong—that was something her sect, Hongseong Sect, had to accomplish for her. Which meant that preventing Hongseong Sect's destruction was nothing less than the essential prerequisite for making Sa Yun the story's protagonist.
Though of course, I did intend to slip in a little help here and there.
"No notable problems so far..."
I had spent the past several days surveying the murim's shifting fortunes. The Iron Blood Dan had yet to show its face—but the turmoil stirred up in its wake was unmistakable. Demonic beasts multiplying, for instance. Bandits turning newly bold and organized, for another. Bit by bit, such things were tipping the world toward chaos.
But no use fretting over that now. What mattered was Sa Yun.
I was turning over the tasks ahead as I relit my pipe when a man dressed in black appeared outside the window.
"Hm?"
A courier of the Courier Gate. Odd—I hadn't summoned one today. When I gave him a puzzled look, he respectfully offered up a letter and spoke with care.
"The recipient inquired after information concerning you, sir. We disclosed nothing."
"Good work."
"They then begged that this be delivered without fail... If you prefer, we shall discard any such correspondence in the future."
"No—it's no trouble at all. Hand it over."
Unexpected, yes. But far from unwelcome. I tapped the letter lightly against my palm, and the Courier Gate man vanished as swiftly as he had come.
My eyes fell to the letter in my hand. Scrawled across the worn, coarse envelope that cradled it were these words:
From Sa Yun, disciple of Hongseong Sect,
to her benefactor.
Quite small, round little characters, every one of them.