The Sixteen Imperial Capital Families (3)
"My, my. To have gentlemen of such towering renown seated before me — I am quite dazzled."
Yeon So-hyeon's light banter hung in the air. Across the long table, the former head of the Sado Family allowed himself a faint smile.
"Coming from the First Young Master himself, those words carry a certain weight. Sitting face-to-face like this, I find you every bit as impressive as the stories claim. Still…"
Another family head cut in.
"The First Young Master almost looks as though he knew we would come."
Yeon So-hyeon's smile deepened.
"It was hardly a difficult thing to guess."
Before yet another of them could speak, he pointed past their shoulders.
"Far off, over the high walls of this Gongsun estate, I saw the great, glittering banner of the Second Imperial Guard Brigade on the move."
"And so?"
"That alone, I took for nothing more than Lord Gongsun's earlier threats to throw me out. I thought little of it. But then…"
Yeon So-hyeon smiled faintly.
"From a certain moment on, not a single soul could be seen moving anywhere on these vast grounds. One could hardly fail to notice."
If word got out that the whole of them had mobilized at once over a single Yeon So-hyeon, it would bruise their dignity. So the Second Imperial Guard Brigade blocked the main road, cutting off the view of the First Young Master's procession, and under that cover the former family heads made their move. Halting every external activity of everyone inside the Gongsun estate served the same purpose.
"Hm."
The former head of the No Family nodded.
"Seems the man himself is genuine."
They, too, had wanted to confirm whether the figure who had exchanged letters with them truly existed.
"This is growing tiresome. Might we put an end to the testing now?"
Yeon So-hyeon waved a hand.
"In any case, a little more conversation will make everything clear soon enough."
The head of the Sunwu Family smiled.
"Then let us get to the heart of the matter."
At that, Yeon So-hyeon heaved an exaggerated sigh.
"Is this about the price for crossing your thresholds at will again? That, too, is growing rather dull."
"The First Young Master did not come all this way without some bargain in mind. But for a bargain to be struck properly, the accounts must be settled first, no?"
And with that they began laying out their demands, each in turn.
"First, the Sado Family requires a share of the mining rights to the copper vein recently discovered on the northern edge of Henan Province."
"The Won Family wants a full year's exemption from Yellow River shipping tolls."
"The Bokyang Family…"
"And furthermore…"
Each demanded grand compensation befitting the power his house still commanded. As Yeon So-hyeon listened to them hold forth, he sneered inwardly.
How is it that men who hunger for power and lust after authority look so utterly the same, no matter the time or place? Always concealing what is theirs, coveting what belongs to others, endlessly devoted to filling a bottomless storehouse.
If this is how they mean to play it…
Pretending to listen with rapt attention, Yeon So-hyeon smiled.
Aren't they almost too easy to handle?
Easy to handle? He sat before no fewer than seven former heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families — seven old demons — and still he thought so.
While his mind wandered, their seemingly endless list of demands at last ran dry.
"That ought to do it."
"Indeed. Even for a First Young Master of exceptional ability, anything more would be a burden, would it not?"
The former head of the Sado Family met Yeon So-hyeon's eyes and smiled.
"At this level, we have already made considerable allowances out of regard for our connection with the First Young Master."
And then a clear, ringing laugh burst from Yeon So-hyeon's mouth — so loud that the former family heads found themselves thoroughly embarrassed.
"First Young Master, what is so amusing…?"
"If you do not explain yourself properly…!"
Yeon So-hyeon cut them off with a firm wave of his hand. Let one open his mouth and another would follow; leave them to it and they would go round and round without end, trying to apply pressure.
"You gentlemen are no different from Lord Gongsun."
He fixed them with a deliberately provocative stare.
"Have you already forgotten what you truly need? Has your sense dulled that far?"
Icy gazes flew at him like drawn blades, but he ignored them cleanly.
"So desperate to chase the profit right under your noses that you come rushing in with excuses about the order of visits?"
Yeon So-hyeon leaned forward, baring his teeth.
"Was it not simply that the later your turn fell, the less of the carcass there would be left to tear into — and the thought burned you alive?"
He chuckled, low and mocking.
"Which is why you could not even wait, and came pouring in all together like common street thugs."
Someone shot up from his seat. Teeth ground. Roars filled the air. Yeon So-hyeon ignored every reaction as cleanly as before.
"You have fallen so far that this Yeon So-hyeon has no reason whatsoever to pay a price for crossing your thresholds at will."
He cast them an open sneer.
"Do you not understand? You no longer possess that kind of value."
He slowly shook his head.
"You have made considerable allowances for our side, you say…"
He folded his arms at a leisurely pace.
"It rather seems to me that I am the one making allowances…"
His eyes settled into a chill stillness.
"That I came seeking you at all — rather than the new houses currently rising in the Central Kingdom — is already…"
Yeon So-hyeon bared his teeth again.
"proof that this Yeon So-hyeon, for the sake of old ties, is looking after your circumstances with no small generosity. You ought to recognize that."
For an instant the former family heads' eyes flickered. Yeon So-hyeon did not miss it. He raised his voice.
"Do you know why you have been reduced to old men in the back rooms? Surely there is no one here who does not!"
As if the world held any back-room old men who still wielded power as formidable as theirs — but that was irrelevant. Because that is how they regard themselves.
Yeon So-hyeon's voice rolled out even louder — loud enough that, in a mansion soundproofed to perfection, one almost worried someone might overhear.
"You forced through the Northern War I told you was impossible, and you were defeated!"
A flinch. Several former heads' shoulders twitched. They raised their own voices higher still, veins standing out on their necks, but Yeon So-hyeon's voice did not yield an inch.
"Thanks to His Majesty's clemency and the simple fact of your advanced age, your withdrawal from politics was stretched over years and looked natural from the outside! But what is the truth? Here you sit on Mount Beimang, waiting for nothing but the day you die!"
He drove them harder, his presence swelling.
"Old and ailing, this and that — and yet it seems you still have strength to spare!"
Yeon So-hyeon laughed heartily.
"Fine! Do you wish to correct this young pup's manners?"
He spread his hands wide.
"Then why not settle it properly, here and now? This First Young Master is perfectly prepared to take on every last one of you!"
His eyes blazed like the sun; his presence was as weighty as a mountain.
"Even if I face all of you at once, do you truly believe I cannot become Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family? That I cannot become its head?"
A thunderous cry tore from his throat.
"I will leave not one foundation stone of these Mount Beimang estates standing! I will wipe them clean!"
He looked down upon the former family heads with open contempt.
"And I will fill Mount Beimang with a new Sixteen Families."
When Yeon So-hyeon's declaration ended, the garden held no sound at all. The former heads who had been jabbing fingers, spitting, and turning their faces purple with rage had, at some point, all fallen silent.
Yeon So-hyeon looked into each of their faces in turn. Only faint shreds of emotion remained there; no proper expression could be read. But he knew.
At last their true faces have come out.
Why had he not listened to a word of theirs from the start? Why had he ignored them even when they acted as though they meant to fight him to the death? Because those reactions were nothing more than what they had chosen to perform as the situation required.
Monsters who tailor their emotions to their advantage, use them to pressure their opponent, and all the while never stop weighing profit and loss inside their heads…
It was not that they had no feelings. They were simply so seasoned that they could bury even their own emotions in the deepest places and move solely by calculation of interest. For now they had been pushed aside — yet the assets born of the long years they had reigned at the very summit of the Central Kingdom's political power were still vividly alive.
Even Gongsun Na-gang, whom Yeon So-hyeon had faced first, had not he switched his expression with almost grotesque speed to suit the moment?
Truly, human-shaped demons. The nickname "Old Demons" suits them far too well.
And so Yeon So-hyeon had shaken them, and shaken them again, to move the feelings buried deep within. Until at last he had brought them to the point where they could no longer keep fabricating emotion.
…
Arms still folded, Yeon So-hyeon closed his eyes altogether. And he waited.
He gave the Old Demons time to measure themselves against the peak of their own past. Time to feel again the position from which they had been shoved out of power within their own houses. Time to remember once more how much help those "letters" Yeon So-hyeon had sent them through so many past crises had truly been.
Could men like them fail to know what Yeon So-hyeon was capable of — the way he stimulated the human heart without killing a single person, moved people, and shaped the flow of events as he wished? Could Old Demons of their caliber fail to see that he was shaking them by that very method right now?
Even so, Yeon So-hyeon waited.
One of the former family heads, calculating what risks might follow if he took Yeon So-hyeon's hand, twisted his mouth into a bitter smile.
At first I only meant to wring a fat compensation out of him.
And yet somewhere along the way, he found himself thinking that considering an alliance with this "young monster" — just once — might not be such a bad idea.
I'm being played.
He knew. He knew this was the boy's method. He knew the provocations themselves were nothing more than part of that method. And yet the sheer nerve this spirited young monster displayed without hesitation somehow touched the emotion he had forced down into the deepest place within him.
An emotion he had crushed because of his circumstances. And the moment he recognized it, the cold calculations that had seemed to run so cleanly met the bottomless will to power — and a long hibernation ended. Desire began to stir and spit itself out.
And then the young monster called Yeon So-hyeon — a being one hesitated even to call young — began to look like an attractive "opportunity."
The first to speak was Gongsun Na-gang. Shaking him before the others joined had done its work. Thanks to that, the conversation Yeon So-hyeon had been waiting for opened at last.
"Well then. In the bargain the First Young Master proposes — what do we stand to gain?"
There had been no consultation, yet no one questioned the query or tried to stop it. All talk of petty compensation had vanished without a trace. It meant such things no longer mattered to them.
Yeon So-hyeon unfolded his arms and answered once more in a courteous tone.
"Of course — the chance for the former family heads seated before me to reclaim the seats of family head, and to stand once more at His Imperial Majesty's side."
Wearing a manufactured smile, Yeon So-hyeon thought:
This is exactly why they're so easy to handle.