The Sixteen Imperial Capital Families (4)
“Of course, this is also an opportunity for the former family heads seated before me to reclaim the seats of family head and stand once more at His Majesty the Emperor’s side.”
At those words, every former family head fell silent.
Yeon So-hyeon watched the faint residual tremors of emotion that had rippled outward across their carefully blank faces. As I thought—this alone is still a little insufficient. Their hunger for power had been stirred, and expectation toward the chance he was about to offer them was certainly present.
Yet they remained like snakes that still hissed and kept their distance even with prey laid directly before them; they had not yet released their vigilance entirely.
“…In that case.”
The former head of the Sunwoo Family spoke in a heavy, low voice.
“I would like to hear the details.”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled brightly.
“Of course. But before that…”
He raised a hand and pointed behind them.
“I believe we ought first to greet the guests I have invited.”
At his words, every head turned.
“Hoho, have you all been well?”
“There are even a few faces I haven’t seen in quite some time.”
When they confirmed the identities of those approaching from the far side of the garden, shock and astonishment bloomed across their faces.
“…You’re telling me a group of this size entered, and not a single person informed me?!”
Gongsun Na-gang, master of the estate, flared up in anger. One of those who had reached the table simply waved a hand.
“Now, now. Was it not you yourself who ordered that no one was to set foot in this garden? If they failed to stop us, then that is their sin, not ours.”
Who, after all, would dare bar the way of these men—the former heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families, the true masters of Mount Beimang?
“Thank you all for waiting. If you would be so kind as to sit this way…”
Following Yeon So-hyeon’s guidance, they seated themselves in a long row facing him.
Every former head was present, save only the former head of the Gong Family, whose failing health had unavoidably kept him away.
“What brings this procession all the way out here?”
Gongsun Na-gang’s tone was sour; the newly arrived former heads merely smiled.
“We too have come to hear the details of this ‘opportunity.’”
One of them lifted a liver-spotted hand and pointed at Yeon So-hyeon.
“The First Young Master here told us the discussion could not proceed until every last one of us was gathered, so we waited on purpose.”
“Still, I never imagined he would actually assemble the entire company.”
Another shook his head as he looked at Yeon So-hyeon.
“He claimed he was confident he could persuade every remaining head, so we decided to wait and see… yet here we all are.”
“To gather every single one of us in truth.”
The former heads of the families Yeon So-hyeon had visited before coming to the Gongsun estate clicked their tongues in admiration.
One of them chuckled.
“Even when we still lived in the Imperial Capital, assembling every one of us was a rare event.”
“You could count those occasions on one hand.”
The last time they had all sat in the same place had been when the resolution concerning the northern war was deliberated in the imperial palace.
And now, without any national crisis of that magnitude, a single individual had drawn every last one of them together by his own power.
That feat alone was worthy of being called an achievement—yet Yeon So-hyeon’s expression remained perfectly nonchalant, as though it were nothing at all.
No—rather, he still felt it was not enough.
While the former heads traded mild curses and caught up with one another in their own fashion, Yeon So-hyeon studied each of them in turn.
The feigned emotional displays had vanished, yet they still did not openly reveal their lust for power. They remained in a state of blank expression.
They are not showing their faces.
Fifteen snakes gathered in one place.
Those snakes pretended to converse among themselves while casting sly, sidelong glances at Yeon So-hyeon.
Each gaze carried a different temperature.
Some still led with wariness; some watched with mere curiosity; some harbored emotions of yet another order.
Amid those separate thoughts, calculations, and judgments, they waited for Yeon So-hyeon to speak first.
At this stage I must not be the one to table a proposal.
It was still insufficient.
He needed to bind their scattered emotional threads into a single strand.
He needed to gather the heads of those fifteen snakes into one.
Only when their heads were bound together would he face not fifteen separate emotions, but a single unified emotional line.
And to make that happen, I must shatter their blank expressions.
To do that—
I must force the desires already boiling inside them to spill outward.
He needed to drive them to the point where every last one of them would throw himself at Yeon So-hyeon without hesitation.
The only thing that can shake them further is power—power alone!
With a deliberately attention-drawing motion, Yeon So-hyeon shrugged off the black silk-thread outer robe he had been wearing.
“Well then, let us begin the discussion in earnest.”
He spoke, yet the former heads’ eyes did not turn toward him.
“…”
“…”
Every gaze was fixed on the black silk-thread robe he had removed and draped over the back of his chair.
Those stares burned so fiercely it seemed they might set the garment ablaze by intensity of will alone.
“…Hm?”
Yeon So-hyeon made a show of following their eyes.
“Ah! You mean this?”
He plucked out the ornate scroll that had been protruding from between the folds of the robe.
The moment he lifted it, every former head’s gaze followed the scroll.
Yeon So-hyeon held it up and smiled.
“Now that I think of it, this object must be all too familiar to those present here.”
It was the imperial edict he had received from the Emperor of the Central Kingdom on the day he ended his seclusion and began receiving guests.
“…”
Even at his words the former heads gave no reaction.
Some sat with lips slightly parted, others with jaws clenched tight; only their eyes remained alive, writhing as they stared at the edict in silence.
“First Young Master… might you…?”
One of them stretched out a trembling hand toward Yeon So-hyeon.
“Would you allow us to see that edict?”
Yeon So-hyeon tilted his head.
“Are you curious about the contents? There is nothing particularly special written inside.”
He unrolled the edict for them to see.
It contained only a few lines: that the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family had now returned to the world, and that the Emperor hoped he would perform many good deeds hereafter for the Central Kingdom and the imperial house.
For the Emperor himself to send an edict merely because someone had ended a period of seclusion was already remarkable—
yet for the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family, reputed the greatest under heaven, it was not so surprising.
“No—that is not what we mean…!”
“Hurry…!”
Without distinction, the hands they thrust across the table trembled violently.
They looked like men dying of thirst in a desert who had just spotted someone holding a water skin.
Yet the sight of those contorted elderly faces and the dozens of clawing hands was far more chilling than any such metaphor could convey.
“It seems I have no choice. Handle it carefully, if you please.”
Smiling, Yeon So-hyeon passed the edict to one of them.
He had half expected someone else to lunge and snatch it away—
but they treated the scroll as though it were the most precious and fragile thing in the world.
“Ohh…!”
Their eyes traveled over the edict as though licking it.
The written contents never even registered.
“Golden silk that can be woven only within the imperial palace of the Central Kingdom…”
Someone caressed the outer silk with trembling fingers.
“The Yellow Dragon and the Jade Dragon embroidered by the palace needlework hall!”
Someone stroked the paper inside.
“Ahh, the texture of paper made in the palace’s Nanzhu Pavilion…”
Someone flared his nostrils toward the edict.
“The mellow fragrance of the True Dragon Kang ink His Majesty himself favors still lingers!”
Eyes that had grown cloudy with age began to regain their spark.
Faces that had looked like the hide of a dead pig, mottled with age spots and wrinkles, flushed with color as though new flesh were rising beneath the skin.
Bent spines straightened as if by miracle; spindly legs that had quivered after the slightest movement recovered their strength.
Ten thousand medicinal herbs, every diagnosis of the most renowned physicians—all of them had been useless before old age.
Yet a single scroll that symbolized the absolute pinnacle of power in the Central Kingdom was pouring will and vitality back into the withered flesh of these old men.
They thought: Ahh! This is it!
The texture of power, the scent of power, the taste of power, the color of power, the pleasure of power, the wistfulness of power, the happiness of power…!
As vitality returned to their bodies, so too did the will to live.
At the same time, they understood.
They no longer possessed the brilliant wit of their youth, nor the lightning flashes of insight.
They still had incomparable experience and a venomous sharpness that only grew keener with age—
yet that was not enough.
The absence, the loss, cut them to the bone.
“If you have all finished admiring it…”
A pale, beautiful hand reached out and reclaimed the edict from them.
Their gazes traveled from the scroll, along that arm, and up to Yeon So-hyeon’s face.
His softly curved eyes regarded the faces of the old men.
On those faces was desire so naked it was almost absurd—
an expression that could never have been fabricated, a raw, unfiltered emotion laid bare in its entirety.
It was the look of men who would gladly pin Yeon So-hyeon to the table, crack open his skull, scoop out the fresh brain, and devour it raw.
The last fragment of feeling they had been suppressing until the final moment in order to calculate profit and loss with cold precision—
every last scrap of it had been dragged into the open.
Yes. That is precisely the expression I wanted.
The blank faces were gone.
Yeon So-hyeon smiled in satisfaction.
The heads of the snakes had been bound into one.
The initiative now rested entirely in his hands.
“First Young Master. Is it not about time we moved on to the real discussion?”
“Indeed. A great deal of time has already passed.”
They began to press him.
Their voices were soft and measured, yet Yeon So-hyeon heard them differently.
“As you well know, we may be old men consigned to the rear rooms, but we are hardly idle.”
“Ahem.”
To him their voices rang like enormous shouts.
Tell us what that opportunity is—right now!
Having drawn out the moment long enough, Yeon So-hyeon opened his mouth.
“Of course I shall tell you.”
Every mouth closed; every eye fixed solely upon his lips.
“The Chongqing city development project and the Yangtze River waterway expansion and maintenance project.”
His lips moved lightly.
“I intend to grant each of you the contractor-selection rights for those two great undertakings.”
“…!”
A stir ran through the gathering.
“The contractor-selection rights for those two projects, you say?”
“Securing influence over those two projects is a matter even the current heads of our Sixteen Families are struggling with…”
“Certainly. If we simply walk away with those selection rights, we could overturn the balance of power within our own families with ease…”
The Chongqing city development project and the Yangtze River waterway expansion and maintenance project lay extremely far from the Imperial Capital.
For the Sixteen Families, whose power was centered on the capital, projecting influence as effortlessly as they did at home was difficult.
That was why even the current family heads had invested enormous resources, yet the results had fallen short of the effort expended.
But if the former heads returned to their families bearing the contractor-selection rights—the very point where they could project their strongest influence—
then reclaiming their own seats would suddenly come within arm’s reach.
“But…”
Every gaze turned toward Yeon So-hyeon, heavy with question.
“When you say you will give us the contractor-selection rights…”
“Does that mean the First Young Master already holds selection rights that even the Sixteen Families have not yet obtained?”
“And not merely one—enough to distribute among every last one of us?”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled faintly.
“It was not especially difficult.”
He added a brief explanation.
“At present, this Yeon So-hyeon is protecting Daseonrang.”
Powerful doubt clouded every former head’s face.
“Those children who play at business on the level of a children’s game—what possible connection could they have with contractor-selection rights?”