The Sixteen Imperial Capital Families (1)
Luoyang. The provincial magistrate's office.
The hour was late; official business had ended and dismissal from court was near. A fragrance said to soothe body and mind drifted gently through the chambers.
"Work the shoulders harder this time."
"Yes, Your Excellency!"
At the magistrate's words — spoken from where he lay face-down on a couch prepared at one side of the office — the professional masseur began vigorously stimulating the acupoints of his shoulders.
"Aigoo, that's good! Wonderful!"
The Luoyang magistrate beamed with a broad, blissful smile, savoring a joy that felt almost otherworldly.
"Do you have any idea how hard this old man had to work to reach this post?"
The masseur shook his head.
"How could a lowly man like me dare claim to understand affairs of state? I've only overheard that any number of exalted gentlemen would give anything to sit in the Luoyang magistrate's chair."
"Exactly. Precisely so. This is the very seat every high official dreams of!"
There was not a shred of exaggeration or falsehood in the magistrate's words.
Among all the provincial governors of the Central Kingdom, the post of Luoyang magistrate held the least real power and the least influence. And yet it was, at the same time, the office high officials envied most — the one every last one of them longed to occupy.
"Indeed! This humble servant may be good for little else, but he knows his massage. Even just from working the shoulders, one can tell that the great men of the realm are different from the rest of us — born with different frames and different acupoints!"
"Hahaha! Transparent flattery, but today this old man will accept it!"
Months into his appointment, every day was still a happy one for the Luoyang magistrate.
The true master of Luoyang was the Luoyang Sword Family; the magistrate's post was little more than a figurehead. And that was precisely the charm of it. Something seems to have happened at the Yongbongjihoe Arena construction site, but the Sword Family will handle it well enough. Leave everything to the Luoyang Sword Family, take whatever they offered, and enjoy every luxury a high office could provide — that was why competition for the Luoyang magistracy was so ferocious.
"Y-Your Excellency!"
The office door burst open without warning.
"What is it?!"
"Urgent report!"
The magistrate had been about to erupt in anger — until he saw the gate officer's face, drained white as paper, and swallowed his rage.
Still lying where he was, still receiving his massage, he listened to the report that reached his ear. The color drained from his face by degrees.
"Y-You — leave at once!"
The first-rate masseur, sent over from the reception hall at the request of the Luoyang Sword Family's outer court, was driven out on the spot.
"Is that report true?!"
"Would I dare invent such a thing?!"
Even as he said it, the Luoyang magistrate knew perfectly well that no one here was mad enough to joke about news of this magnitude. He simply needed a moment to accept reality.
"The First Young Master? The First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family has gone to Mount Beimang? And he is visiting the families one by one…?"
Still in his underclothes, he sat on the edge of the couch, legs trembling, and chewed at his nails.
"This is serious. This is no ordinary matter. For something like this to happen during my term…"
He might have looked somewhat lacking for a high official, but the Luoyang magistrate was by no means a man of meager ability. The post required a lifetime of service to the empire without a single stain on one's record — that was the bare minimum qualification.
His mind raced.
"I don't know what that First Young Master thinks he's doing, but it's madness. Does he even understand what he's set in motion?"
To use the Sixteen Families to flaunt his prestige and influence? Pure insanity.
He shuddered from head to toe.
"Then it must be a deal! Some enormous transaction is afoot! A deal big enough to shake Luoyang itself! This is a catastrophe! A natural disaster!"
As befit a man who had climbed to the Luoyang magistracy by means of self-preservation skills ranked among the finest in the Central Kingdom, his grasp of the situation was astonishingly swift.
"Summon all my confidants at once! No one is to leave the office!"
The gate officer all but rolled out of the room and ran.
"But what in the world is that First Young Master thinking?"
The magistrate's hands and feet shook.
"The Sixteen Families! The Sixteen Families! If he storms through them at will instead of following proper procedure — even before any deal is struck, the price of that arrogance alone will be beyond imagining…!"
The Luoyang government offices.
A middle-aged man tore through the corridors like a madman.
"Out of the way!"
A clerk he collided with went sprawling, documents scattering everywhere; the man did not even glance back. Father calmly invited the Sword Family's First Young Master into the house…!
He was none other than the fourth son of the Gong Family. I have to get word to my eldest brother in the Imperial Capital at once…!
Whether their senile father meant to insert himself into the Luoyang Sword Family's succession struggle, or was taking a reckless gamble to reclaim the family headship, was none of his concern. His only task was to report the fact to the main house in the capital as quickly as possible.
And at that same hour, he was far from the only one running.
"Make way! All of you, make way!"
Other members of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families were likewise racing with every ounce of speed, eyebrows streaming, to carry the news to their main houses in the Imperial Capital.
All Yeon So-hyeon had done was pay an uninvited visit. Yet the repercussions were already swelling like a snowball beyond all imagination.
Mount Beimang, Luoyang. The Gongsun Family. Guest lodgings.
Dozens of stewards and maids went from room to room, delivering a polite notice to every guest.
"The master earnestly requests that from this hour onward, all guests refrain from going outdoors and remain indoors until further notice is given."
It was phrased as a request, delivered in the form of guidance — but in truth it was an order.
And so, across that vast estate grounds, not a soul was left moving about.
The central garden.
"Oh-ho?"
Gongsun Na-gang flicked out a bright-red tongue.
"Did these old ears of Gongsun Na-gang hear correctly? Did the First Young Master just say he is prepared to pay the price?"
The familiar, almost affectionate address of "young master" was gone. All that remained in that place were the former head of the Gongsun Family and the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family.
"Honestly, this Gongsun Na-gang is not so sure. Mount Beimang, the Sixteen Families, the Gongsun Family itself — surely the First Young Master did not mistake them for some friendly neighborhood hill where kindly friends gather? Surely not. Of course not."
The old man, his expression ghostlike, rolled the whites of his eyes and poured out words in a flood.
"This Gongsun Na-gang is hardly an expert on the Sword Family's internal affairs — but shall I venture a guess?"
He raised his speech and lowered it at will. It might have sounded like he was simply tossing words about as he pleased; in truth it was not careless chatter but the peculiar, devouring cadence unique to a former eunuch, as if he meant to swallow his counterpart whole.
"The Sword Family's Third Young Master must be preoccupied with the construction site affair just now — so is it the Second Young Master, then? Striking while the Third is short-handed, dealing a blow to the Second Young Master's side as they close in?"
To dissect the labyrinthine politics of the Luoyang Sword Family's succession struggle so cleanly while remaining seated — it was a reminder, once again, of what sort of post this man had once held.
"Or did you simply wish to announce your return to Luoyang — and to the distant Imperial Capital — in the grandest, most spectacular fashion? Indeed, indeed. After so long in seclusion, to come and go among the Sixteen Families as if they were your own home would make for a splendid topic of conversation."
His eyeballs quivered; his gaze snaked and twisted without pause as he watched every flicker of Yeon So-hyeon's expression. Whenever the slightest change appeared, a sadistic pleasure stirred deep in those pupils.
"The reason hardly matters. Hardly matters at all."
He giggled alone, spittle flying as he laughed.
"However…"
After laughing a long while, he suddenly hardened his face as if he had become an entirely different person. That shift of expression alone seemed to press a frostlike force down upon the surroundings.
He leaned in, creeping across the tabletop toward First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon, thrusting his face close. Hot breath stirred the young man's long eyelashes.
"If you thought that goodwill built on past ties would let you use the Sixteen Families for a cheap price — you were gravely mistaken!"
The old man snarled like a savage beast.
"Whatever those old men of the earlier families said, whatever terms they accepted, whatever bargains they were satisfied with — it is of no concern whatsoever!"
He shook his head.
"Indeed! You have misjudged the matter entirely. Misjudged it by a great deal!"
Then he raised a hand like a demon's claw and pounded the table wildly.
"Well then! Present that price to this Gongsun Na-gang! Offer a deal that will satisfy me!"
The price of daring to make the Gongsun Family his tenth visit! The price for wounding the honor of a man who had lived his entire life one rank beneath the Son of Heaven, serving emperors closer than any other!
"But first! There is something the First Young Master must remember well!"
Before the main gate of the Gongsun estate.
The First Young Master's procession waited in a space prepared along one side of the avenue.
"Defensive formation! Defensive formation!"
At the head maid's cry, the maids drew their swords as one and formed a wall around the carriage. The escort captain and the guards under him sharpened their eyes, reining their horses back as they gripped their sword hilts.
Yet as if the drawn blades of the maids were invisible, as if the guards' killing intent could not be felt, the Second Imperial Guard Brigade advanced in crisp, measured strides.
"Encirclement formation!"
With razor-edged precision they began to ring the First Young Master's procession layer upon layer.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
The one who stepped calmly forward before the head maid's sharp shout was the brigade commander himself.
"A 'request' has been received. You will prepare so that, at this commander's order at any moment, you may withdraw from Mount Beimang."
He spoke as though the dozens of blades leveled at him did not exist.
"Withdraw? The only one who can command us is the First Young Master of the main house!"
"Is that so?"
The commander folded his arms.
"You would do well to remember this as well: the only ones who may turn a blade upon our Imperial Guard are rebels."
Beneath his helmet the commander's face was impassive, but the chill in his eyes was enough to raise gooseflesh — and the meaning in his words was colder still.
The Luoyang magistrate's office.
"Your Excellency! Your Excellency!"
The gate officer nearly smashed the door open as he burst in.
"W-What now?!"
The Luoyang magistrate, who had been assessing the situation with his closest aides and devising a response, nearly leapt out of his skin.
"A messenger has arrived from Mount Beimang!"
"Don't dawdle — deliver the messenger's words at once!"
The clerk, gasping as if he might collapse from his ragged breathing, drew one great breath and shouted:
"From this moment, no one is to leave their post — all of Luoyang's high officials are to remain on standby within the government offices. That is the 'request'!"
In ages past, the man whom even the Family Head of the Luoyang Sword Family had once called the "Old Demon" bared his teeth.
"But First Young Master — you must remember this well. Should you fail to offer a price that even slightly satisfies…"
The Old Demon's mouth stretched wide into something like a smile.
"…you will be driven from Mount Beimang at once."
Laughter burst freely from his lips.
"If that happens, far from announcing your return to the world, you will become the laughingstock of all Luoyang!"
How could he not rejoice, when the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family had walked of his own accord into the very mouth he had opened?
The meaning of his words was clear: If you do not wish to be humiliated, you will have to show sincerity enough to hand over everything you possess!