The Sixteen Imperial Capital Families (2)
Near the main gate of the Gongsun Family estate on Mount Beimang.
Surrounded by the Second Imperial Guard Brigade, the Emei Sect’s bodyguard arts instructor kept glancing about restlessly.
“...What in the world are you looking around for in a situation like this?”
The supervising nun sharing the carriage scolded him in a low voice, and the instructor hunched his shoulders as he answered.
“I... I can’t seem to spot the carriage carrying the Daseonrang girls...”
“What did you say?”
The garden of the Gongsun Family mansion on Mount Beimang.
“Well then, what is your answer? First Young Master! Come now! Hurry and answer me! Please, just give me an answer!”
With a face gleaming with madness, Gongsun Na-gang pressed in with oppressive force, and Yeon So-hyeon let out a sigh.
“Haa...”
At that long, unhurried sigh, Gongsun Na-gang’s eyebrows twitched. Unlike the frozen expression of a moment before, the sigh seemed light—as if the young man felt not the slightest burden.
This isn’t pressure. If anything, it’s...?
Just as Gongsun Na-gang tried to read something from the face of the First Young Master seated before him, Yeon So-hyeon’s lips parted once more.
“Lord Gongsun. How have you shriveled up so completely?”
Yeon So-hyeon regarded him with the eyes one might turn upon something pitiful and pathetic.
“Wh-what?!”
Gongsun Na-gang nearly leapt from his seat, but Yeon So-hyeon’s words outpaced him.
“The moment you meet a man who has only just emerged from seclusion, you try to strip him of everything he has...”
His tone was leisurely, utterly calm. His posture remained perfect, upright without a single flaw.
“Is that any different from the behavior of a common highway robber?”
“A-a highway robber?!”
Yeon So-hyeon waved a hand as if the whole matter were tiresome.
“Exactly so. No different from a highway robber.”
“Y-you... you...!”
Gongsun Na-gang’s face flushed crimson as if it might explode at any second, twisting into something almost demonic. Yet in the next instant—
“...Oh?”
—a small, mocking smile rose on his face as if by magic, the change as abrupt as a face-changing opera artist switching masks.
“Aha...! It won’t work. It won’t work at all. Trying to provoke me into remembering my station and pride so you can wriggle free of this situation...”
He wagged a finger.
“That is far too shallow a psychological ploy for the First Young Master I know.”
Yeon So-hyeon lifted his eyes and met Gongsun Na-gang’s gaze.
“Psychological ploy? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Hmm...?”
Yeon So-hyeon still looked at him as one looks at something pitiful and pathetic.
“Have you still failed to understand my meaning?”
His mouth opened, revealing a neat row of white teeth. He enunciated every syllable in a clear, ringing voice—as though speaking carefully for an old man whose hearing had begun to fail.
“If you were the Gongsun Na-gang of the past that I know, you would never have behaved like a mere highway robber at a moment such as this.”
Yeon So-hyeon clicked his tongue.
“When did you shrink into something so pitiful? Where has the audacity gone that once let you commit deeds ordinary men could not even imagine? Where has that flashing wit and seemingly boundless wisdom vanished to?”
He sighed again.
“...The Lord Gongsun I remember can no longer be found.”
“......?!”
Gongsun Na-gang froze exactly as he had risen.
“W-what nonsense...!”
Through the loose silk robes the gaunt ribs showed; the back had already begun to stoop. The face of an old man whose only remaining trait seemed to be irritability twisted further.
“What nonsense...”
He tried several times to refute the words. Yeon So-hyeon gave him no opening whatsoever.
“The Gongsun Na-gang I know was...”
Yeon So-hyeon lifted his eyes to the empty air as if gazing upon something distant and precious.
“Even before I was born, the great eunuch Gongsun Na-gang was a man who accomplished deeds no other power-holder would dare imagine.”
He gestured freely through the air, losing himself in the tale.
“To revive the Gongsun Family as its prestige waned, and to place himself at the Emperor’s side closer than any other, he conceived an idea no one else had ever managed.”
Yeon So-hyeon clenched a fist.
“He first claimed that, according to the unofficial histories remaining from the previous dynasty, the ‘fortune’ of the realm had sufficiently settled upon the old palace through the construction of the artificial lakes.”
His voice rose.
“The palace that still stood as ruins in Luoyang, capital of the former dynasty!”
The story poured out without hesitation.
“And once the rumor had fully reached the Imperial Capital, he had those ruins completely dismantled and transported—every last piece—to the present capital!”
To dismantle a palace and move it? An idea no sane man would ever entertain.
Yeon So-hyeon cried out:
“Down to the final cornerstone!”
He sketched in the air the long procession of oxen, horses, and people stretching toward the capital.
“Five thousand head of horses and oxen were mobilized at the time. More than twenty thousand laborers! I have even heard that a folk song still survives claiming the procession stretched unbroken from Luoyang all the way to the Imperial Capital.”
As Yeon So-hyeon’s voice sang of his own past, Gongsun Na-gang’s eyes grew distant despite himself—and pain settled into them at the same time.
How have you shriveled up so completely?
Yeon So-hyeon’s words continued to echo in his ears.
“To push that plan forward, you spent the entire family fortune—and even mortgaged this very mansion on Mount Beimang that houses the ancestral tablets!”
Yeon So-hyeon pointed at the vast estate around them.
“Everyone opposed you! The entire household fought desperately to stop you—yet the young family head of that time pushed the plan through to the end. And he succeeded!”
A smile touched Yeon So-hyeon’s lips.
“That loyalty was recognized by the late Emperor, and he rose to a position no amount of wealth could ever have purchased!”
When the story ended, a long silence filled the garden.
“...”
What remained there was no longer the Gongsun Na-gang who had radiated a ghost-like presence. Only an ordinary old man of matching age sat in his place.
After staring at the ground for a moment, Gongsun Na-gang shook his head.
“...Quite the storytelling skill, First Young Master. However...”
Just as he prepared to declare that this, too, would not work, Yeon So-hyeon’s voice reached his ear.
“Even if that threat was meant merely to ‘test’ me, for even the threat itself to have shrunk in scale...”
At the word “test,” Gongsun Na-gang’s mouth twisted.
“A test, you say...?”
Yeon So-hyeon looked at him as if wondering what he could possibly mean.
“Are you still acting? I knew from the very beginning.”
He continued evenly.
“You had never once met me face to face. Were you not trying to judge the true nature of the man who had only ever existed beyond letters?”
Gongsun Na-gang’s face hardened.
“Certainly. Considering the age at which those letters were exchanged, it must have been hard to believe that Yeon So-hyeon himself wrote every one of them.”
A fictitious figure strategically created by the collective intellect of the Luoyang Sword Family for some purpose. It was a suspicion worth entertaining.
After a moment his mouth opened.
“...How did you know?”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled.
“It was not particularly difficult.”
Near the main gate of the Gongsun Family estate on Mount Beimang.
Head Maid. Something feels wrong.
At the transmitted voice of the escort company commander, Hyang, the head of the maid corps, nodded.
I sense neither killing intent nor fighting spirit from them at all.
Yeon So-hyeon raised one finger.
“First. Lord Gongsun, you dragged me through your private galleries and endlessly questioned me about the arts.”
Just as they had exchanged letters on artistic matters, he had called the young man “Teacher” with familiarity and kept shifting fields of inquiry—questions posed as though a disciple had every right to quiz his master.
A second finger unfolded.
“And once the verification of my artistic knowledge was complete, you disguised yourself as a ‘highway robber’ to observe how I would respond under pressure.”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled faintly.
“Surely that highway-robber disguise was not the real thing, was it?”
“...”
Gongsun Na-gang forcibly swallowed a groan and spoke.
“You are correct about the test, First Young Master. Yet you have only spun old tales and still have not—”
Yeon So-hyeon gave a short laugh.
“The only person who knows that it was Lord Gongsun himself who spread the rumor of the fortune-laden palace is this Yeon So-hyeon.”
“Someone could have told you, could they not? Therefore this Gongsun Na-gang will now pose a single difficult question—”
Yeon So-hyeon burst into laughter and waved him off.
“Surely you do not mean to ask me to solve a political conundrum for free—using a ‘test’ as the pretext?”
Struck once more in a vital spot, Gongsun Na-gang waved both hands.
“This Gongsun Na-gang is not quite so shameless. Merely a small problem—”
Yeon So-hyeon cut him off.
“We have exchanged enough for the test to be sufficient. Are you simply stalling for time now?”
Gongsun Na-gang’s complexion changed.
“Stalling for time...?!”
Yeon So-hyeon looked across the garden as he spoke.
“If that is the case, you may stop. Should you have been waiting for someone, I believe they have all arrived.”
Following Yeon So-hyeon’s gaze, Gongsun Na-gang turned and nodded.
“So they have arrived at last.”
Six figures revealed themselves.
“My apologies, First Young Master.”
“...”
Gongsun Na-gang turned back to Yeon So-hyeon. The sly, grotesque expression had returned to his face.
“As you said, this old man has shriveled considerably in both scale and nerve.”
He snickered.
“So I called a few reinforcements.”
As the distance closed, the faces of elderly men became clear—each draped in robes and ornaments of incalculable value.
The Situ Family, the Lu Family, the Yuan Family, the Chunyu Family, the Puyang Family, and the Mou Family.
They were the former family heads of six houses Yeon So-hyeon had not yet met.
“First Young Master, set any great worries aside. They simply wished to see your face a little sooner, that is all.”
Having just loudly announced “reinforcements,” the old man now tossed out a subtle mockery intended to pressure Yeon So-hyeon.
“We all share old ties, so perhaps we might overlook a little rudeness regarding the order of precedence—”
Ignoring Gongsun Na-gang as he prepared to cackle, Yeon So-hyeon rose from his chair.
“This is the first time we meet in person. I am Yeon So-hyeon, First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family.”
At the slight, Gongsun Na-gang’s wrinkles trembled for an instant, yet he held his tongue. Six more figures of equal standing had just joined him.
“A pleasure, First Young Master.”
The former family heads arrayed opposite him brought their hands together in greeting as one.
For men who were former heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families, it was unheard of for anyone to step forward as representative. Without the slightest consideration for Yeon So-hyeon, each simply introduced himself, their voices tangled together.
In a situation where it was impossible to tell who was who, Yeon So-hyeon showed not a trace of fluster.
“Come, do not stand about. This way, everyone.”
He guided them toward a broader table and a greater number of chairs—as confidently, even brazenly, as if he himself were the master of the mansion.
“...”
From behind, Gongsun Na-gang glared, sparks flying from his eyes.
Setting everything else aside—that shamelessness exceeds even what I felt through the letters!