The Postponed Showdown — 5
Several days had passed since the duel between Hong Ryeon and Chae Jin.
Their injuries had healed after a day or two of proper rest, just as the physician had promised. Neither wound had been serious in the first place, so there was really nothing to worry about there.
The problem lay elsewhere.
Having finished my usual work and reached my training hour, I headed out to the back yard. Normally, I trained alone in the mornings, while Chae Jin guided me in the afternoons. Even when she was around in the morning, she'd only offer a word or two of correction while watching me practice — but over the past few days, that had changed.
"Now, extend your fist out like this."
Chae Jin naturally took my arm and drew it into position. She was gentler than usual, and rather more of her body seemed to end up touching mine.
"Hmm..."
"This part is essential if you want to advance to the next form of Chae Family Tai Chi Chuan, so make sure you remember it well."
"Thank you."
"Oh, don't mention it. We're family, aren't we?"
"Still, aren't you holding on a bit too much?"
"You can feel the flow of my internal energy, can't you?"
"Huh? I can, actually."
"When hand touches hand and body touches body, the flow of inner energy connects, and through that you can master the next form far more quickly. You want to get stronger, don't you?"
"Well, that's true enough, but..."
"Come on. What are you doing? Move already."
Chae Jin smoothly guided my arm, and at the same moment her other hand seized my shoulder and pulled. As I was dragged toward her embrace, I braced my strength and resisted — and Chae Jin grinned slyly, her hands shifting in an uncanny pattern as she pulled all the harder.
"Chae Family Tai Chi Chuan pairs beautifully with the Seizing Hand, you know. This one is called Lightning Shifting Hands — a seizing technique that brings out the subtleties of change. Remember it well."
"Understood. But would you mind letting go now?"
"Of course."
With a light spring of her body, she rebounded several paces backward. I nodded, mentally reviewing the technique we'd just practiced — and by the time I looked up, Chae Jin was extending her hand.
"Now. Your turn."
Was she planning to teach me other martial arts now, not just the Tai Chi?
Come to think of it, there was nothing bad about that. Unlike the prologue, the scenario of this first chapter meant Seomhwachon might well become a battlefield. In the worst case, enemies could pour into the village — so if I thought of it as laying down my own foundation to fight, no amount of gratitude would be excessive.
"Try pulling harder."
When I gripped Chae Jin's shoulders and applied force, she spoke in a sulky tone. Was it because I wasn't performing the move properly? I nodded and pulled her shoulders — and just as I had done earlier, Chae Jin slipped naturally into my embrace.
"Is this right?"
"...Yes."
She answered in a low voice after a brief hesitation. Good. Now, at this point, rebound off and—
"...Lady Chae."
"Yes?"
"Aren't you supposed to be thrown back?"
Why wasn't she bouncing away when I'd put real force into it?
You're the one teaching here. If you go that full-throttle on a beginner—
"Ahaha. I just meant for you to use even more strength than that."
"I see."
I applied force again, and only then did Chae Jin fly backward, staggering several steps away just as I had.
"Well done. Now, shall we practice the next form?"
Was it just the heat? There was a flush spread across Chae Jin's face.
Well, no cause for concern, surely.
The unusual morning training finished, I worked through my chores, and before long the lunch rush was winding down. About time she showed up, I thought.
"Hello~!"
A bright, sunny voice announced the arrival of a woman at the inn's entrance — unforgettable hair, burning red like flame. A woman in a fitted qipao bearing the crest of the Murim Alliance was walking in, smiling. It was Hong Ryeon, who since recovering from our duel had come down every single day as soon as lunch service ended.
"Here to learn from Yohwan again today?"
"Hehe. Yes."
"Good for you. Take this with you when you go, will you?"
I pointed at the dang-gwa sweets I had prepared that morning under Yohwan's instruction. I'd been thinking of expanding the variety of sweets, and it turned out Yohwan knew quite a bit about confectionery besides. The ingredients barely cost anything, and the results tasted even better.
We'd made a few trial batches, so I'd been setting some aside daily, planning to hand them out to the Hongseong disciples first and then think about how to sell the rest.
"How am I supposed to feel, taking things from you every time?"
"However you like. So — how are the herbs coming along?"
"Ah, the kids will bring those by later. They're still being packed."
"Then I suppose I should head to the Blue Gathering Merchant Group once the drying and packing are finished."
"About when would that be?"
"A week at the earliest, I'd say. Why do you ask?"
"Shall I come along, then?"
"Won't you be busy?"
"This concerns our Hongseong Sect, doesn't it? Then it's only right that I be there."
She wasn't wrong. The herbs had been grown by Hongseong Sect, after all, and they were meant to be shipped to the capital through the Blue Gathering Merchant Group. If nothing else, having Hong Ryeon along as a guarantee seemed wise. I doubted Cheon Il-hwa would suspect me of anything, but it was still proper to let him see for himself.
"And what's this? Planning to leave me out?"
Just then, a woman came down from upstairs. It was Chae Jin. She descended with an easy smile, glancing back and forth between me and Hong Ryeon before her smile deepened.
Then she said, briefly: "I'm coming too. Things are at a crucial stage in training right now — you weren't thinking of cutting me out, were you?"
"Can't you train on your own?"
"Could I, really? And you've been practicing the Seizing Hand lately too, haven't you?"
Huh. That was true.
I looked at Hong Ryeon. She considered for a moment, then smiled brightly.
"Well then, we can all go together."
"I trust the two of you aren't planning to fight."
When I said it with visible exasperation, Chae Jin and Hong Ryeon answered in unison.
"We have no intention of fighting."
"We agreed not to duel, after all."
That's right. They had agreed not to duel.
But that was one thing, and this was quite another.
The moment Yuwol went upstairs to see to his work, Hong Ryeon and Chae Jin, as if by prior arrangement, made for the back yard. They stopped beneath the great tree, and the smiles they had worn were let fall.
Then, without a word, they regarded each other.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure of finding you here?"
Chae Jin spoke first. Even at her levelless, unreadable tone, Hong Ryeon remained utterly at ease.
"Is there somewhere I can't go? Seomhwachon is Hongseong territory, and as for Master Yu, the innkeeper... hehe."
"...Go on then. Say whatever it is you want to say."
"You two are quite close, aren't you?"
"...Close enough that I know the 'closeness' you mean is strictly of the business variety."
"...Tch."
Sharp-eyed little minx.
Hong Ryeon clicked her tongue briefly, then spoke slowly, in a tone every bit as flat as Chae Jin's own.
"Though I hear your lessons have gotten rather... expanded, lately?"
"Ah, well. The innkeeper felt he needed to be able to protect himself. Chae Family Tai Chi Chuan and the Five Animal Frolics are all well and good, but he really ought to learn the Seizing Hand as well."
"The Seizing Hand. Fine technique, that. But what's the meaning of all the sneaky touching? Last I saw, you were practically—"
"How could I teach without touching? It's only natural."
"Liar."
Hong Ryeon snorted. Of course, Chae Jin wasn't strictly wrong — correcting stances and demonstrating forms during martial training naturally brought bodies into contact. Nothing strange about that.
But given the gulf in their skill, Chae Jin's behavior was more than strange enough.
"At your level, couldn't you teach without any of that?"
Exactly. The current gap between Yuwol and Chae Jin was, quite literally, the difference between heaven and earth. At that distance, simply guiding his energy flow and reciting the forms aloud would have been more than enough to teach him. And the Seizing Hand he'd been learning lately — Lightning Shifting Hands — wasn't even among the more difficult Chae family techniques.
And yet she taught him pressed body to body?
"That's my business, isn't it?"
At Hong Ryeon's pointed remark, Chae Jin's cheeks colored faintly.
Sharp-eyed little minx.
How could she read the situation so precisely? Did she have other thoughts? Of course she did. But that, too, was undeniably her own heart.
"And what about you?"
Snorting right back, Chae Jin turned equally frosty.
It had happened only yesterday. Hong Ryeon had learned a dish from Yohwan and fed it to Yuwol — spooning it into his mouth with her own hand.
Into his mouth!
Something even she hadn't done!
"...There was only one pair of chopsticks at the time, you see."
"The inn is drowning in chopsticks."
"So what?"
Every time their gazes clashed, sparks seemed ready to fly.
Truth be told, it was rare for martial artists to abandon their fists and bicker with words alone like this. Warriors were meant to speak with their weapons, after all.
But actually drawing weapons?
Absolutely not.
Both of them recalled at the same moment what Yuwol had said before. That if the two of them fought and hurt each other, it would wound him. That they were both precious to him, and he wished above all to avoid either of them being badly hurt.
For the two of them, who wanted so desperately not to be hated by him, drawing a blade in this contest would have amounted to a betrayal — of the fight itself, and of their own hearts.
"..."
"..."
They glared at each other. Then — should one of them simply strike first and confess right here, right now?
Wouldn't that bring her one step closer to him?
But both immediately shook their heads. However they turned it over, it was a clumsy gambit. He was a man who drew the line between friend and foe with perfect clarity, and to his allies he was as warm as he could possibly be. But was that warmth the warmth of a lover, or of someone he fancied? One could only tilt one's head at the question.
Besides, he was a man who saw nothing else once his goal was set. Chae Jin had heard from Ha-no long ago how he had once kept an almost unclothed gisaeng at his side without so much as a sideways glance; Hong Ryeon knew that back in Palseon Village, he hadn't spared a single look for the beautiful gisaengs and ladies around them, keeping his whole attention on the journey with them.
In other words — he was not some easy mark who could be won over simply by laying bare a woman's heart and confessing.
What if she confessed, and all he said was that he was sorry? If she had to endure that, then win or lose against the woman before her, her heart might very well collapse entirely.
That was how deeply Yuwol had taken root in their chests.
Even those formidable masters who feared nothing in any circumstance were, in the end, no different from anyone else before this problem. They were afraid of failure. Afraid of being sunk without a trace.
Only now could the two of them understand the meaning of what their own masters had told them: once you reach a certain level, nothing matters more than tempering the heart.
"...Gh."
"...Ugh."
If they failed. If he refused them.
They were prepared to say — a second chance, a third, any number of chances were fine. But what if he told them that not even that was possible? Terrified of that, Hong Ryeon and Chae Jin groaned.
And so only one course remained to them now.
They had to think and act strategically.
Like drizzle soaking a coat unnoticed, they had to seep into him slowly, but surely. Get closer to him. Make him feel them as women. Then, when he had grown so fond of them that life without them would feel hard — only then confess, and make him conscious of it.
Hadn't someone said it? That a confession was nothing more than an act of confirming affection. The two of them knew well that a hasty move made in the murk of an ambiguous relationship could only invite disaster. They stared at each other — then both flinched and clenched their teeth.
"...Looks like you've had the very same thought I did."
"...So it seems."
Of all things, the same strategy.
At Hong Ryeon's words, Chae Jin clicked her tongue briefly and nodded. Hong Ryeon truly was no ordinary opponent. But losing? She had no intention of entertaining the thought. And of course, neither did Hong Ryeon.
So the two of them simply stared at each other, silent, all the harder.
"What are you two doing out in this heat?!"
Just then, a shout rang out from the upper floor of the inn — from the window of Yuwol's room. Hong Ryeon and Chae Jin whipped their heads around at lightning speed and called back with beaming smiles.
"Nothing at all!"
"Just having a little chat!"
At their reaction, Yuwol tilted his head in puzzlement and went back inside — and Hong Ryeon and Chae Jin, eyes locked one last time, whirled away from each other.