The First Button
In the crimson light of the setting sun, the soldiers’ armor flashed with a brilliance that stung the eyes.
Watching through the window as the men of the Second Guard Brigade withdrew in perfect unison, the Deputy Abbess of Emei breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Whatever it was, it seems it’s over now.
On the Grand Abbess’s orders she had somehow forced her way into the First Young Master’s procession, yet she had grasped nothing of what was truly unfolding—and the frustration had been enough to drive her half mad.
On top of that, I haven’t managed a single word of contact with the Grand Abbess all day.
The memory of the Grand Abbess’s ghostly, furious face already made her stomach twist with dread.
The first to sense that something was wrong was the carriage carrying the Hall Supervisor nun.
“See! Just as I thought! The carriage with the Daseonrang girls is nowhere in sight!”
The Protective Arts nun, leaning out of the racing procession and checking every coach one by one, cried out in alarm.
“And the ox-cart carrying the First Young Master of the Sword Family is missing as well!”
“Get your head back inside this instant! Do you want to die?!”
Even as she barked the order, the Hall Supervisor herself felt the same rising confusion.
Were the Daseonrang girls never part of this procession from the start? And the First Young Master never joined it either? Just what is going on…?
Yet her worries over Daseonrang could not last long.
“What in heaven’s name is the meaning of this?!”
At a major crossroads the carriages of Emei alone had been cut free from the rest of the column.
The Hall Supervisor flung open the window beside the driver and shouted, but the cold reply that came back from the maidservant of the First Young Master who held the reins was pure ice.
“You would do well to sit quietly.”
The blatant threat told the Hall Supervisor that matters had gone terribly wrong; unease flooded her face.
And as life so often proves, an ill omen is never wrong.
What awaited them once they entered the fortress-city of the Luoyang Sword Family was news that struck like a bolt from a clear sky.
The Hall Supervisor’s cry was almost a scream.
“An—an assassination plot, you say?!”
“Exactly as you heard.”
Behind the utterly unperturbed Yeon Ha-eung, the Deputy Abbess and the administrative nuns of the main mountain were being led away under guard.
“Deputy Abbess! Is this truly true?!”
“….”
Head bowed, the Deputy Abbess was dragged off without a single word of reply.
The administrative nuns of the main mountain wore looks of confusion, yet none of them offered any fierce denial of the charges.
That silence itself was answer enough for the nuns left behind.
“What… what on earth….”
The Hall Supervisor clutched her suddenly trembling knees.
They tried to kill those children? Just what has our Emei Sect been doing in the shadows?!
She had known that the high-ranking nuns of the main mountain eyed the Daseonrang enterprise with open greed. But as a mere member of the academy, there had been little she could do.
That is why I have always drilled into those girls the need for caution—again and again and again…
She had done everything in her power to keep the children from giving the main mountain the slightest pretext. Her greater strictness toward Daseonrang had always been for that reason alone.
The main mountain held their families like hostages; she had lived in constant dread that the girls might do something reckless. She had only ever prayed that the whole affair between Daseonrang and Emei would end without catastrophe.
And yet the main mountain itself commits something so monstrous!
The sound of grinding teeth escaped her lips.
The joy she had felt the day she first entered Emei, the pride she had built while teaching the children in the academy, her devotion to the sect itself—all of it had already begun to tremble as she brushed against Emei’s darker face. Now those things collapsed and were trampled in a single instant… and by the very sect she had served.
“…Amitabha.”
She was not alone in the feeling. From the academy nuns left behind rose a continuous murmur of the Buddha’s name. They too were only ordinary people; they had averted their eyes, pretended not to see the sect’s conduct that no individual could change. But the moment had come when they could avert their eyes no longer.
“Thank you for waiting.”
Having confirmed that the Deputy Abbess and the administrative nuns were properly taken into custody, Yeon Ha-eung returned.
“Um…!”
The Hall Supervisor asked him at once.
“Daseonrang—those children—are they unharmed?”
“Of course. It never went beyond an attempt.”
Relief-laden sighs burst out on every side.
“Then the reason the Daseonrang girls were nowhere to be seen today…?”
He nodded readily.
“The First Young Master of our house is personally protecting them.”
“I knew it….”
One mystery at least was solved.
Well, protection wasn’t the only reason…
Yeon Ha-eung gave a bitter little smile inwardly and changed the subject.
“Everyone remaining here belongs to the academy, correct?”
Some twenty nuns nodded.
“From this moment until you are escorted to Chengdu, you will be placed under house arrest in these quarters.”
“…!”
Only then did the nuns lift their heads, finally understanding their own situation.
“E-escorted?! We took no part in any of this!”
At the Hall Supervisor’s cry Yeon Ha-eung merely nodded.
“You are neither of the main mountain nor of high rank, so the confinement has been adjusted accordingly. As for guilt or innocence—that will be determined later in Chengdu through investigation and trial, not by our house. Protesting to me now will do you no good.”
Investigation and trial.
They knew nothing of the political struggles raging above them, yet they could feel how ominous the present current had become.
When he showed us the documents earlier, the seals of the Dali Duan Family, the Sichuan Tang Family, and the Governor of Chengdu were clearly stamped upon them…!
Each of those names was a weight no single person could ever bear. Once they were taken to Chengdu, nothing kind awaited them—anyone could see that. And if an unjust verdict fell, who in the world would lift a finger to help them?
“So long as you do not leave these quarters, you may spend the time until your departure in as much comfort as you like.”
Having said all he meant to say, Yeon Ha-eung turned away with almost disappointing neatness.
“W-wait!”
The Hall Supervisor’s voice was nearly a scream.
“I understand there is nothing to be done! But is there truly—truly—no other way?!”
The cry was so frantic it was doubtful the meaning had even come across clearly. Yet Yeon Ha-eung understood it as if by magic.
It was the very line he had been waiting for.
“Ah—come to think of it…!”
He rummaged in his robes and produced a single document.
“Hmm. The First Young Master did mention there is one matter in which you ladies might be of help.”
“The First Young Master of the Sword Family…?”
He smiled brightly and continued.
“He explained that the work will require the depth of your Buddhist hearts, together with the compassion and pity that rise from the very core of your being.”
“What… what do you mean?”
Yeon Ha-eung pretended to read the document, drawing out the pause until at last he delivered the decisive words they longed to hear.
“If you cooperate in this matter, he will personally send a petition of appeal on your behalf to Chengdu.”
He folded the paper away again and smiled.
“Well now. They call it a petition, but when it comes from someone of the First Young Master’s standing… it’s essentially a grant of immunity, isn’t it?”
He half-opened his narrow eyes and asked,
“Might any of you be interested…?”
After a brief silence, every voice rose at once in clamor, volunteering.
“Now, now, I understand. Please calm yourselves first….”
Yeon Ha-eung stretched out both hands to quiet them, while inside he wore a thick, bitter smile.
The First Young Master never simply lets go of anything that has once entered his grasp.
It was a truth Yeon Ha-eung, whose body these days felt as though ten of him would not be enough, knew down to his bones.
Well. In my own case I walked into it willingly enough…
As he directed the Emei nuns, he murmured to himself,
Twenty martial nuns of Emei… Considering the present state of the Valley of Sin, that is fighting strength too precious to let slip.
Watching the nuns form a line at his instruction and sign the document one after another, he tilted his head.
In a way, this too is voluntary—if one chooses to call it that.
In any event, Yeon Ha-eung sent them a quiet cheer born of a strange sense of kinship.
Mount Beimang, the Gong Family estate.
“Ohh….”
The aged elder blinked his eyes.
Yeon So-hyeon had withdrawn every golden needle and gently laid the former head of the Gong Family back down upon the bed.
“Does it seem to have helped somewhat?”
“Good! Very good indeed!”
The former clan head shouted with vigor, only to break into a fit of coughing. Even so, he forced himself up from his reclining position and managed to sit propped against the headboard.
“…This is not a sickness that improves so easily in a mere few hours.”
Yeon So-hyeon regarded the old man with a look of quiet pity and spoke as if soothing a child.
Upon arriving at Mount Beimang that day, his first visit had been to the Gong Family. After performing the treatment for the elder, he had moved on to the next household. Now that enough time had passed for the effects to appear, he had returned.
“Sickness?”
The old man gave a phlegmy snort of laughter.
“This is no mere sickness.”
In the elder’s eyes Yeon So-hyeon read deep regret and self-reproach.
“This is the price I deserve to pay.”
The words were spat out as though chewed.
“Because I failed to stop that cursed war, Heaven itself has laid this punishment upon me.”
The lonely old man who had endured so many years in the capital that was like a demon’s den now blamed only himself.
“…More than that.”
The elder lifted a gentle gaze to Yeon So-hyeon. In those eyes flowed a warmth and pride greater even than when he looked upon his own grandson.
“To think that the boy who, across the distance of letters, so boldly spoke of the great righteousness at such a tender age has grown into this… and that these old eyes are permitted to see him in the flesh….”
His frail hand trembled as it closed over Yeon So-hyeon’s, which had been drawing the quilt higher.
“Thank you. Thank you so very much.”
At the endless gratitude Yeon So-hyeon offered a wry smile.
“If it is the treatment you mean, I shall come as often as you wish.”
The old man shook his head with difficulty.
“No. That is not what I mean.”
Only after several coughs could he continue.
“I am grateful that you did not age before your time.”
“…!”
The elder’s deep eyes fixed upon Yeon So-hyeon without wavering.
“I believed that you, so brilliant, had grown disappointed in the world far too early and chosen seclusion.”
“That is….”
The old man’s hand patted Yeon So-hyeon’s warmly.
“Whatever the reason may have been, you returned. You have returned to the world so proudly.”
He laughed, a dry, rasping sound.
“For that I am endlessly grateful.”
An old man who had lost his lonely battle and in the end been left with a deep illness continued to pour out thanks to his former comrade-in-arms.
No, Elder Gong…
Yeon So-hyeon bowed his head low.
Whatever the reason, whatever the path, he himself had already turned his back upon the world and lain down. The one who stood here now was not the Yeon So-hyeon the elder remembered, but the Yeon So-hyeon who had taken the hand of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture and been granted a second chance.
I am sorry… for coming so late.