The Great Peng's Footprint
The Fourth Young Master, Yeon Bi, thought to himself.
One of the most stifling things about living in this world was having to share it with people who could not grasp the most obvious truths.
It was like being the only one with open eyes in a world where everyone else kept theirs shut, pointing alone at the stars in the night sky.
Like being the only one with open ears in a world where everyone else had theirs stopped, listening alone to the chatter of birds.
As a child he had been unusually late to find his voice compared to other children his age. From infancy he had not even babbled. Whether that was because of the constitution he had inherited from the Tang family was a matter of endless debate among the physicians. His mother had ignored them all. Even in her frail health she remembered the words spoken by Grand Madame Yak So-yu, who had personally assisted at his birth and cut the matter short with absolute certainty.
"This child is special. It may take a little longer for his tongue to loosen," Yak So-yu had said as she placed the newborn in his mother's arms. "But once he grows a little more he will chatter without rest, like the birds that sing at your window every morning. You need not worry."
Hearing that, his mother had given him the name of her favorite bird—the kingfisher. And Yeon Bi had understood and remembered every word of it.
Even after he grew steady on his feet he still could not speak, yet he always found his way to Wongak Pavilion. In that mysterious place lived someone who read his heart as if he were an immortal out of legend: his eldest brother, Yeon So-hyeon.
"Bi. You have come."
Whenever he visited, his eldest brother would take out books and teach him everything he had been curious about—how to see the world, the continents beyond the sea, how to read people, how to govern the heart, the affairs of state and institutions. His brother's teachings knew no limit, no boundary; their depth was infinite. The so-called scholars the world praised could not even be compared to him.
"…Why?"
Just as Yak So-yu had promised, his tongue had loosened one day without warning. And with speech came understanding. The reason he had been unable to communicate with others was not because he could not speak. Even when he did speak they could not hear. Even when he showed them they could not see.
"Why?"
No matter how much he boasted of his eldest brother's specialness or tried to show it to them, almost no one understood. Instead they only praised the one they could understand—the Fourth Young Master himself—and elevated him higher still. The more he spoke of his eldest brother, the more he tried to reveal him, the worse it became.
"I know my lord respects the First Young Master, but the Fourth Young Master is destined to become an even greater man."
"This old woman's eyes have never been wrong. My lord was born with the qualities of a sovereign finer than any I have ever seen."
No, no! No matter how desperately he shouted, it was useless. He understood at last. His eldest brother was a great peng soaring through the vast cosmos above the clouds, and to ordinary people a great peng was nothing more than a creature of myth and fantasy.
So he simply waited for the day the great peng would descend beneath the clouds and show its true form to the earth. Days passed, and more days, and still more.
And at last the great peng had left the faintest of footprints here.
The footprint of a single stomp.
That trace was bizarre beyond measure. Solid paving stones across a wide area had shattered and settled as if twisted by a whirlwind. Yet the shape did not look like destruction; it looked as though the ground had always been that way, utterly natural. When the footprint was carved there had been no crash of sound, not a single mote of dust raised. And so the footprint had been etched into the earth.
Now no one standing in that place could any longer doubt the existence of the great peng.
The Fourth Young Master's gaze swept across the command tent.
"Close this sector and have the water deliveries proceed from here, exactly like this."
Even while barking frantic orders and jabbing at the fire-status board, Old Woman Gwak kept glancing at that footprint out of the corner of her eye. She looked without realizing she was looking.
"Aaah! If we organize it this way we'll have to start the whole thing over from the beginning!"
Tang Ye-rin, temper flaring as she glared at the comprehensive situation board she herself had filled, roughly scratched her head and then, without thinking, stared at the footprint as well.
Everyone inside the tent was the same. Every gaze, whether casual or blatant or merely curious, brushed across that footprint.
His eldest brother had left to lead the rescue operation, yet the footprint stood in his place, radiating presence as if he still stood there. At last the existence of the great peng had been driven deep into every heart present.
"Hahahahahaha!"
It felt good. It felt clean. Yeon Bi suddenly burst into wild laughter, startling everyone around him—because the man who had been issuing orders had suddenly broken into laughter.
"It is nothing."
A moment later he waved a hand dismissively and returned to giving instructions, all the while continuing a separate train of thought between orders.
"It is nothing. Pay it no mind."
Yes. It was nothing. Yeon Bi had never imagined that his eldest brother had been born with talent for internal energy, much less that he had cultivated martial arts to such a level. Yet he was not surprised. To the great peng, something like this would have been "nothing at all."
And here stood a man whose eyes were nailed to the footprint Yeon So-hyeon had left, unable to look away.
He was the escort commander Yeon So-hyeon had left behind after conscripting the Fourth Young Master's guard detail.
…This is…
His gaze, as if entranced, traced the remnant of Yeon So-hyeon's stomp. He searched his memories again and again. And at last he reached a conclusion.
There is no mistake.
He wiped away the cold sweat he had not even noticed. Dropping to one knee, he ran his fingers over the wave-like traces left on the ground.
This is unmistakably the former Family Head's…
Valley of Sin, fire-suppression site.
Kong Dam-ung, one of the Four Heroes of Yellow Lake, was exerting truly monstrous strength to hold up a collapsing ceiling.
"Hrrrngh!"
While he became a living pillar, pushing his Vajra Arhat Qigong to its absolute limit, the rescue team hastily dragged people out of the burning building.
"Everyone's out!"
At the welcome shout Kong Dam-ung gave a great yell, heaved the ceiling away, and rolled free. The moment he escaped, the blazing building crashed down with a thunderous roar.
"Whew…"
As he rose, breathing a sigh of relief, applause poured over him.
"Thank you! None of the people you saved are in danger of dying!"
"Brother! You're not just big—you're a Vajra warrior in the flesh!"
"At least tell us your name or title! I'll spread word of you to everyone I meet!"
Kong Dam-ung only insisted it was nothing, offered humble greetings, and refused to leave even a name or sobriquet. After waving farewell to those heading off to the next fire, he turned.
"You did a good deed, but it was not our mission."
A fully armed woman spoke with an expressionless face. She was a maid of the Wongak Pavilion maid corps, paired with him for this duty.
"Haha. What's good is good, isn't it? Calling myself a chivalrous hero and just walking past a scene like that—I couldn't do it."
Kong Dam-ung grinned, teeth flashing white against a face blackened by soot and dust.
"You must walk past it."
"Hmm. Is that so?"
He had been floundering in confusion at first, but once given a clear mission he quickly recovered his usual nature.
"Forgive me, but according to my training, in situations like this everyone must remain under control and faithfully carry out their assigned duties."
The maid shook her head.
"If our patrol route is disrupted because of us, a gap appears. And when a gap appears, unexpected problems will inevitably…"
She glanced sideways while speaking and walking—only to find Kong Dam-ung no longer there. He had spotted something else and wandered off again.
"Haa…"
…Please…
Hm?
A faint voice reached Kong Dam-ung's ear as he walked with the maid. Because he had just been circulating his internal energy at the fire site, he could hear the thin sound. He immediately turned into the alley it had come from.
He saw the poor fleeing the distant fire. Amid their screams and shouts a thin voice was clearly present.
"Please… save me…"
The owner of the voice that seemed about to break was a child collapsed against the alley wall. The moment he saw the child wrapped in rags that could barely be called clothes, Kong Dam-ung reflexively ran to him.
"Stay with me!"
He knelt and lifted the child. There was no obvious external injury, but the boy might have inhaled smoke.
"Th-there… in the building… my little brother…"
The child's trembling hand pointed, and Kong Dam-ung's gaze followed.
"That building?!"
In that instant—
Piiiiiii—
A sharp whistle blast snapped Kong Dam-ung fully alert.
"Kugh…!"
Reflexively seizing the blade that had been driven at him, he felt several drops of red blood fall from his grip. The child he was holding had stabbed him. Confirming that the crude weapon was caught, the child spat a vicious curse.
"Fuck…!"
At the same moment the maid appeared and smashed the child's skull with the scabbard of her sword. As the unconscious child tumbled to the ground, Kong Dam-ung stared blankly at the blade still clutched in his hand and muttered,
"…What is this?"
It was a crude weapon, yet the edge had been honed so keenly that if his training had been shallower the nerves in his fingers would have been severed.
"Have you already forgotten?"
The maid tucked the whistle hanging at her neck back into her clothes, still expressionless.
"First rule: never answer a question from the poor."
Kong Dam-ung answered before he could stop himself.
"I wasn't answering a question, I was—"
"I told you when the team was first formed."
Her glass-like eyes fixed on him.
"Do not make contact with the poor at all."
He closed his mouth. He had heard her repeat it several times.
"Ordinarily they would approach looking innocent, several of them asking this and that, and while you were distracted one would stab you. Given the present situation, it seems they adapted their method cleverly."
"Method… you say?"
"Kill one of the people maintaining order."
Her eyes narrowed as she continued.
"This is an initiation rite for joining the dark organizations of the Five Evils."
"Initiation rite…"
Her gaze fell on the child rolling on the ground.
"He looks like a child, but that is only malnutrition. His actual age is past the mid-teens."
The perfect age for undergoing initiation and entering an organization, she added.
"No—if he dies in the attempt, what good is an initiation rite?"
She looked at him as if he had said something strange.
"If he dies, he dies."
"W-wait! What are you—!"
At Kong Dam-ung's cry the maid, who had drawn her sword and was about to bring it down on the child, tilted her head.
"Then will you leave him alive?"
Her emotionless eyes made Kong Dam-ung feel as if the breath had been crushed from his lungs. It was not as though he had never stained his hands with blood while walking the chivalrous path. But to kill a teenager lying helpless…
"Don't touch our brother!"
"You murderers!"
The maid's sword flicked aside the flying stones. While a group of children hurled rocks, several others seized the chance to drag the fallen boy away.
"…Huu."
After a brief hesitation the maid glanced at Kong Dam-ung's state and let out a small sigh.
"Fucking bastards!"
He simply stood there taking the stones that struck him, staring blankly at the children.
"Burn to death in the fire, you shitheads!"
"Fucking Sword Family bastards!"
Leaving their curses behind, the children vanished deeper into the alley. The maid lowered her sword and spoke to Kong Dam-ung.
"I trust you learned something from this."
His gaze dropped.
"From now on I strongly recommend you do not make contact with the poor."
She sheathed her sword and turned to walk away. Toward her retreating back he suddenly asked,
"…How do you know so much about the Valley of Sin?"
Her steps faltered. Still facing away, she answered.
"Because I too am from the Five Evils."
Most of the maid corps, like her, came from the Five Evils or from equally wretched slums.
Kong Dam-ung felt the old pain and hatred that lay deep beneath her calm words.
"I'm sorry. I asked something unnecessary."
"It is nothing."
She resumed walking. Following her, Kong Dam-ung suddenly turned his head and looked back toward the spot where the child had fallen. The blood that had dripped from his own hand and the blood that had run from the child's struck head lay together on the ground.
Then he felt a gaze and lifted his head. Far down the alley a human-shaped figure stood motionless, watching him. He drew upon his eyesight to identify it.
"…?!"
The silhouette stared at him with eyeballs black as an abyss, without a trace of white. Every hair on his body stood on end.
"Th-that…!"
Before he could shout, the figure vanished like a ghost between the flames.
"Is something wrong?"
"Th-that was…!"
He tried to explain what he had seen to the returning maid, but when she saw his deathly pale face and inability to speak properly she simply shook her head.
"For now, getting out of here is the priority."
Her eyes swept the surroundings with sharp vigilance.
"This is currently an 'uninhabited alley.'"
The second rule rose in Kong Dam-ung's mind: Do not mistake an empty path for one that is populated. Only then did he realize. The various noises that had been coming from far away, the poor fleeing the fire—none of it was there. Nothing at all.
"…!"
They immediately used movement techniques and fled the alley. Once they had returned to their original patrol route, Kong Dam-ung asked while dripping cold sweat,
"Wh-what in the world was that just now?"
"That was…"
She began to answer, then shoved him against a wall and threw herself aside as well.
"…!"
At that moment a steel ox-cart drawn by two bellowing oxen thundered past them at tremendous speed. Immediately afterward black-armored carriages madly pursued the ox-cart. And the black-clad subordinates of the Fourth Young Master raced across the rooftops with ghostly movement arts, accompanying the First Young Master's procession.
Inside the ox-cart, Chief Maid Jeong-a made her golden Dragon Eyes gleam as she sent a sound transmission to every driver.
If the procession were to jam and stop in a narrow alley, it would be a tactical catastrophe.
Opposite her, the First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon sat in a half-lotus posture with his eyes half-closed, regulating his qi and breath for the battle that was about to unfold.
The procession hurtled like a runaway beast toward the forward base located in the mid-reaches of the valley.