The Most Fearsome Martial Artist (4)
Luoyang Sword Family.
Second Young Master's camp, main conference hall.
One strategist shouted.
"There must have been some secret pact between the Grand Elder and the Sixteen Families! Otherwise, the First Young Master's actions make no sense!"
The strategist beside him snapped back.
"You idiot! If such a pact existed, how would only the First Young Master know of it and be able to use it?!"
"W-well, maybe because the Grand Elder favored the First Young Master…!"
Another strategist cut in.
"You've forgotten that the Grand Elder was the very one who confined the First Young Master! And if there had been a family-to-family pact in the past, the Supreme Operations Council would now be the party to that agreement!"
One strategist had his head buried against the table, muttering to himself.
"…Was there really no intent behind the order of his visits? What if visiting them in sequence from the entrance itself hides some meaning? If so…"
A grizzled strategist spat as he spoke.
"If it wasn't a family-to-family pact but a personal one from the start, that changes everything!"
The strategist now covered in spit flushed with rage.
"You thick-skulled Luoyang-born fools! You keep piling on wild assumptions just to prop up claims that have no logical foundation or evidence!"
At that, the Luoyang-born strategists surged forward as one.
"You harbor rats with brains pickled in the stench of the sea…!"
"Pack your bags and go back to joining pirate crews and plotting raids!"
The Jiangnan-born strategists rolled up their sleeves and closed in.
"You soft-boned husks who've gone soft to the marrow chasing pleasure in the gutters of Luoyang—how dare you!"
"Bookish scholars who've only ever fondled scrolls, looking down on pirates?! I'll beat the lot of you flat myself right now!"
When the mood was good and things were going well, such things stayed buried.
But in a bad situation, the conflicts that had always lain within became fuses ready to explode at any moment.
"Haa…"
A few strategists who had hastily withdrawn sighed.
Everything they were spouting was nothing more than words flung out as they came.
In truth, it held no value at all.
As if the strategists themselves did not know.
These were men who, in their own circles, were said to fly and leap with the best of them.
"…When we can't even grasp the situation properly, what strategy is there to discuss?"
Those with hot blood or short tempers were simply running wild out of sheer frustration.
Then someone's fists started flying, and tables and chairs began toppling.
And so the main conference hall sank beyond control into chaos.
"Enough!"
A shout laced with internal energy rang out first, and then a thunderous boom and shockwave, as if a bomb had gone off, rocked the entire hall.
Strategists with weak qi sank to the floor where they stood, and even those hardened to cannon fire from Jiangnan felt their guts turn cold.
Every gaze turned toward the dais.
Elder Hahu, who had punched a massive hole straight through the wall with a single fist, threw back his head and laughed loudly.
"Everyone needs to cool their heads a bit!"
While all stared at him in stunned silence, he waved a hand.
"From this moment, all of you—get out! Go eat, drink, pleasure yourselves alone, do whatever you usually like and empty your heads for a while!"
He smiled with the same overflowing confidence he had shown from the first.
"By the time the next assembly order falls, we elders will be able to present you with a proper direction!"
One of the chief strategists, who had long since been leaning against the wall with arms crossed, gave a small nod.
"…A well-timed intervention."
As he moved outside with the others, another chief strategist shook his head.
"The First Young Master's opening move was one we could never have countered to begin with. It was a move that used his own overwhelming status."
"We had only prepared to answer the First Young Master's so-called divine stratagems."
"We simply set our direction wrong from the start."
"Indeed."
"Still…"
One of the chief strategists who had been walking in silence muttered.
"How does a First Young Master who has only just ended his seclusion come to possess such status?"
There was no answer.
Second Young Master's camp, elders' lounge.
"…."
From the cigarillo between Elder Hahu's lips, smoke rose in thick coils.
Whether it was leaf tobacco, a pipe, or anything else, every elder who smoked was simply exhaling smoke from their mouths.
The ashtray set in their midst was a work of art carved from crystal, yet its original beauty had long vanished beneath ash and half-smoked butts.
Even so, their eyes still held vitality and will.
"Let's go over it from the beginning…"
An elder standing by the window to avoid the smoke broke the long silence.
"That the First Young Master is a renowned artist is clearly the point of contact with the retired family heads."
Several nodded at that.
"In truth, from the start it was hard to find any other connection."
Elder An, the one in charge of the Daeseon Trading Company who had just returned after putting out an urgent fire, pushed up his spectacles.
"The uppermost circles of the art world are every bit as closed as Mount Beimang itself."
At least among the elders of the Luoyang Sword Family gathered here, not one looked at art from the standpoint of art.
To most Luoyang Sword Family elders, who put material value first, a work of art was fundamentally property.
A consumable, an ornament, or else an investment object bought and sold in the manner experts recommended—nothing more.
Even so, they were thoroughly versed in the art market.
It was professional expertise demanded of them in order to deal with the high officials they frequently encountered by position.
"Men of the former heads of the Sixteen Families are, in practice, the elders of the Central Kingdom's art world."
"Even if such men favor the First Young Master, who holds a unique place in that world, it would not be strange."
The First Young Master was known to excel not only in poetry, calligraphy, and painting, but in ceramics of stonework, woodwork, and bamboo as well—and even in the fields called the miscellaneous arts.
Mount Beimang of Luoyang, Gongsun Family.
Gongsun Na-gang and Yeon So-hyeon.
Judging by age alone they looked like nothing more than grandfather and grandson, yet their manner made plain that the reality was otherwise.
"Come, come, this way if you please."
Gongsun Na-gang, lightly dressed, kept urging Yeon So-hyeon, who walked at a leisurely pace behind him.
"You seem in rather a hurry."
"How could I not be in a hurry?"
A broad smile spread across Gongsun Na-gang's wrinkled face as his thin legs moved with surprising vigor.
"When this young master has personally graced the home of his old disciple."
He laughed with a wheezing, deflating sound and guided Yeon So-hyeon onward.
"Always exchanging only letters and works through messengers—and now to meet my young master in the flesh like this, how this old disciple's heart has raced…!"
"Hahaha."
From corridor fork to corridor fork.
From room to still another room.
The sheer scale of the estate—ninety-nine rooms in the annex alone—made unmistakably clear what stature the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families held within the Central Kingdom.
"Here we are. This is this old man's humble little storehouse."
At last they arrived at a gallery corridor specially designed for the keeping of his works.
A space where sunlight never fell directly, where oil lamps and the works kept proper distance, where ventilation was smooth so that mold never grew, and where humidity was always held steady without great fluctuation.
To call such a place a humble storehouse felt almost embarrassing—it was a perfect repository for works of art.
"A splendid place worthy of the elder's splendid works."
"No, no. Not at all. This is nothing more than a mere storehouse…"
When Yeon So-hyeon clapped his hands with elegant grace, the old former family head waved both hands in frantic denial, gums fully exposed.
"But if my young master is pleased, then the effort was worthwhile. Worthwhile indeed. Eheheh."
As they stepped inside, the first things to appear were Gongsun Na-gang's most recent works.
The moment he saw them, Yeon So-hyeon let out a cry of admiration.
"Oh? This is…?!"
At that pure expression of surprise, Gongsun Na-gang's shoulders seemed almost to dance.
"Well? How is it? How is it?"
Yeon So-hyeon's eyes narrowed.
His sharp gaze dissected the painting, examining every last detail.
"…Remarkable."
The work was indeed excellent, so Yeon So-hyeon offered his admiration without reservation or flattery.
"With the birth of this work, Elder, you have become the founder of an entirely new school of brush-flow technique that the Central Kingdom has never known."
It was no empty praise.
"Is that so?! Even in my young master's eyes?!"
The awkwardness of a first meeting vanished at once.
It looked for all the world as if a master and disciple who had never seen each other's faces had begun a warm exchange like a spring day.
Luoyang Sword Family, Second Young Master's camp.
Elders' lounge.
"Works treated as the very highest rank are born in the hands of the highest-ranking officials, and circulate only among them."
Elder An nodded.
"So a combination of those men and the First Young Master was bound to be good from the start—that much is true."
"Looked at that way, their relationship would be nothing short of ideal."
Elder Hahu took the cigarillo from his mouth and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
"But there was a reason we set such conjectures aside from the beginning, was there not?"
Indeed.
Everyone nodded heavily.
"An exchange of art? Crossing the thresholds of the Sixteen Families as freely as his own doorway for that reason alone?"
"Nonsense. Even if the former family heads regarded the First Young Master as a master, that would still be impossible."
That was the truth.
No matter how high personal favor might run, it made no difference.
The height of the Sixteen Families' thresholds was not a matter of a retired family head's personal face, but of the family's face and the family's status.
Elder Hahu narrowed his eyes.
"Whatever the reason, the fact that the First Young Master moves so freely on Mount Beimang means there is something between them that goes beyond mere artistic exchange."
Another elder stroked his beard and added,
"And that something must be vast enough for them to set aside the dignity of their families."
The past, Yeon So-hyeon's childhood.
"My son… just what have you done, and how?"
At his father's stunned question, the young Yeon So-hyeon beamed.
"It wasn't so difficult!"
Nestled in his father's arms, the boy chirped in a clear, ringing voice.
"First I checked the situations facing the family heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families through the confidential reports that came from the Imperial Capital into Father's study!"
Young Yeon So-hyeon shrugged as if it were nothing.
"And then I simply told the family heads who were in trouble how to get out of those situations!"
Luoyang Sword Family, Second Young Master's camp.
Elders' lounge.
"Then this time as well…"
Elder Hahu's voice settled heavy and low.
"It means the First Young Master and those old demons have something to trade."
"Good! Excellent!"
Gongsun Na-gang laughed loudly, repeatedly slapping his own knees.
"With my young master guiding me in person like this, this old disciple's skill seems to have advanced a full stage in a single day!"
Time had passed, and Yeon So-hyeon and Gongsun Na-gang sat facing each other in a pavilion where an artificial stream flowed.
"But, young master…"
Gongsun Na-gang asked of Yeon So-hyeon, who was leisurely savoring the fragrance of tea.
"I do not believe you crushed the threshold of this family under those ferocious iron wheels merely to give an old disciple a little instruction."
The tone was of an entirely different temperature from the mild atmosphere until now.
"Before reaching this Gongsun Family, a full nine families."
The wrinkles that filled his face grew still more bleak.
The eyes set deep like those of the aged rolled and glittered like oiled glass beads.
"I trust you have come fully prepared to pay the price."
The former eunuch who had once attended the emperor at the closest distance and held the most powerful authority in the Central Kingdom's political world revealed his true face.
"Of course."
The smile that rose to the lips of Yeon So-hyeon seated opposite was far brighter than any he had shown before.
That smile looked more alive than any expression Yeon So-hyeon had worn even when gazing upon the most astonishing works of art.