The Second Day
Downstream of the Valley of Sin, near the temporary command tent.
The morning sky was so clear that the previous night’s catastrophe felt like a lie.
“Urgh.”
Bathed in the morning sunlight, Kong Dam-ung sank back down with a groan as every muscle in his body screamed in protest.
“Huh?”
At that moment the straps of his armor, which had been barely containing his giant frame, all burst at once. The entire suit of armor slid off him and clattered to the ground in a heap.
The remaining members of the Four Heroes of Yellow Lake snickered at the sight.
But they were just as exhausted; the laughter soon died away. Having endured a chaos none of them had ever experienced in their lives, they no longer even had the strength to laugh. Watching the thin columns of smoke still rising here and there after the fire had finally been extinguished, they simply sat with the lingering aftertaste of having accomplished something.
The same held true for the twenty or so members of the Emei Sect sitting nearby.
Their dazed gazes drifted toward the side of the temporary command tent.
“Move this patient to the next sector.”
“Can you speak? Try for me.”
Physicians from the Compassion Hall were examining the wounded. Auxiliary medical staff with their faces wrapped in cloth fed the patients thin gruel and tended them with devoted care. Elsewhere, people boiled freshly washed bandages, sweat pouring from them. Others carried the dead.
Without exception they still wore the filthy, disheveled look of people who had lived through last night’s hell, and exhaustion was etched deep into every face. Yet their eyes still burned with a fierce light. The sweat running down their bodies caught the morning sun and shone like gold.
Watching them, the Emei Sect’s disciplinary nun recalled the previous evening—the First Young Master’s message she had heard when the deputy abbot nun and the administrative nuns were detained by warriors of the Luoyang Sword Family.
He explained that what was needed was not only your profound devotion to the Buddha, but the compassion and pity that rise unbidden from the deepest places of the heart.
Compassion and pity.
She thought she finally understood what those words had meant.
“…I believe we have rested enough.”
The disciplinary nun braced a hand on her knee and rose. The other nuns stood as one. The armor they wore for the first time was still awkward and cumbersome, but they had grown somewhat used to it.
“Hahaha! Our heroes can’t be outdone!”
Kong Dam-ung sprang to his feet. The rest of the Four Heroes of Yellow Lake rose with fire in their eyes.
The day that had never truly ended began again.
Headquarters of the joint business venture between the First and Fourth Young Masters in the Valley of Sin.
Because the flames had come so near, only a rough firebreak had been thrown up around the building; it had nearly been abandoned. Yet it still stood.
“Thankfully the headquarters survived thanks to the swift firefighting.”
“If this building had burned completely, every document stored here would have been lost. How fortunate we are.”
The heavy smell of smoke that had soaked into every corner no longer mattered.
When the civil officials opened the door and stepped inside, they saw the Fourth Young Master standing tall amid the frantic traffic of people. He received reports and issued orders with practiced ease.
“And to think we can witness our lord commanding so reliably on his very first field assignment…!”
“And what of the spectacle the First Young Master displayed last night? Everywhere you go in this valley, people speak of nothing else.”
“Ha! Need I even say it? There are still people lingering around the temporary command tent, staring at the footprints he left, hoping to feel even a fraction of the martial prowess he showed…”
A sharp voice cut through their conversation.
“You two! Where do you think you’re standing around chatting?! Get over here at once!”
It was Tang Ye-rin, eyes blazing.
“Oh no!”
The officials hurried over to her, where she was running the comprehensive situation board.
At that moment the door burst open and an agent of Hyeonwol Pavilion rushed in.
“Fourth Young Master!”
She bypassed the Valley of Sin field command of Hyeonwol Pavilion entirely and reported straight to the Fourth Young Master.
“Urgent report from the Luoyang Sword Family!”
Without even pausing to catch her breath she continued.
“The Sword Family’s Business Support Division has raised a motion that the entire business plan for the Valley of Sin must be reconsidered from the beginning, and it is currently under discussion!”
Faces around the room changed color.
“What? Reconsider the business plan at this stage…?”
“Didn’t this project already pass deliberation?”
“If the Business Support Division blocks the plan, we’ll have no way forward…!”
Gwak Nopin, the Fourth Young Master’s closest advisor, thundered in her booming voice.
“Quiet!”
She slammed her staff against the floor.
“We already knew the Second Young Master’s side would begin their obstruction in earnest starting today, did we not?!”
Her rebuke silenced them. She was right, of course—but the mere mention of the Business Support Division, with its formidable authority, had thrown them into confusion. The gap between their own strength and the Second Young Master’s faction felt suddenly, painfully real.
“Yes. We knew.”
The Fourth Young Master smiled faintly.
At the sound of that smile every gaze in the room turned to him.
“Remember this well, all of you.”
Hands clasped behind his back, he looked around the assembly.
“This is only the beginning.”
They swallowed dryly. Some pressed hands to their foreheads; others rubbed the backs of their necks. Having worked through the entire night at a pace far beyond ordinary overwork, they were now at their physical and mental limits.
“Tsk, tsk.”
Gwak Nopin clicked her tongue as if displeased by the sight. Tang Ye-rin crossed her arms and snorted.
“But it is not something headquarters needs to concern itself with right now,” the Fourth Young Master continued. “We will simply finish cleaning up after the fire and go about our usual duties.”
He raised a single finger.
“From this moment on, you may ignore every obstruction the enemy sends toward the Valley of Sin.”
“You mean…?”
He nodded at the civil official’s question.
“Trust Elder Brother.”
No further words were needed.
Headquarters began to move again. As though nothing had happened, each person threw themselves into their work. A measure of ease even seemed to return to their faces.
Looking over the reinvigorated headquarters, the Fourth Young Master smiled.
In less than a single day, Elder Brother has become the great pillar that can support everyone’s hearts.
He turned to the Hyeonwol Pavilion agent.
“So which department of the Business Support Division raised the motion?”
“The First Support Department, my lord.”
“The First Support Department…”
As he repeated the report, the Fourth Young Master’s expression turned strangely thoughtful.
Come to think of it, that is where my elder sisters are assigned.
The faces of the Third and Fourth Young Ladies—the twin sisters one year older than himself—rose in his mind.
At the same hour, in the old city center of Luoyang.
“First Young Master, this way, please.”
A priestess of the Compassion Hall guided Yeon So-hyeon and Jeong-a.
It has been a very long time since I last came here.
Following behind her, Yeon So-hyeon lifted his head and surveyed the surroundings. It was the ordinary landscape of a Compassion Hall branch that could be found in any poor quarter—except that this one was somewhat larger in scale.
“It is dark and the ceiling is low. Mind your head.”
The priestess took a lantern from the wall. They descended a passage lined with solid granite. The stone was not natural rock but worked blocks that formed an artificial underground structure.
In the old city of Luoyang such things were not hard to find beneath the surface—legacies of the former dynasty.
The Underground Great Waterway.
Yeon So-hyeon was walking through one section of that vast subterranean system.
“Just ahead.”
Having no further permission to approach, the priestess bowed with excessive formality.
“I shall wait here until you emerge.”
When Yeon So-hyeon and Jeong-a rounded the corner, a wide corridor appeared—wide enough that they no longer needed to worry about striking their heads. It was bright enough that the lantern the priestess had carried was unnecessary.
At the end of the corridor stood a massive door. Two gatekeepers waited before it, wearing armor and weapons over priestess robes covered in ritual patterns. At a glance they were practitioners of considerable attainment.
“Everyone is waiting for the First Young Master.”
“Please enter.”
They opened the door, revealing a vast space.
“This place…”
Jeong-a, who had already surveyed the interior with her Dragon Eyes, still let out an involuntary gasp of wonder.
The ceiling was raw natural rock, riddled with openings through which shafts of sunlight poured down in sharp, brilliant beams. The light reflected off multicolored fabrics heavy with ritual and religious meaning, heightening the mystical atmosphere. The enormous walls were covered from end to end with sacred paintings of the Medicine Fairy.
As if answering Jeong-a’s awe, Yeon So-hyeon spoke.
“Yes. This is the main sanctuary of the Fairy Cult—the Lowest Hall.”
Everyone seated in tiers along the circular walls rose as one.
The branch heads of every Compassion Hall in Luoyang.
And every high priestess.
They pressed their palms together and bowed to Yeon So-hyeon in unison.
“We pay our respects to the First Young Master, son of the Medicine Fairy—who is both Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and the Medicine Buddha.”
In the very center of the hall, at the lowest place of all, the blind High Priestess who had been waiting for him joined her hands and bowed deeply.
“We greet our leader.”
Yeon So-hyeon returned the deep bow of joined palms, then spoke to them all.
“Be seated.”
Once everyone had taken their places, he went straight to the point.
“What has become of the land in Hodu Village?”
Though he had raised the subject of Hodu Village without warning, not a single person looked surprised.
“I shall report.”
An elderly physician from the Hodu Village branch of the Compassion Hall rose.
“We have reclaimed every plot of land that the Second Young Master’s faction—the Great Immortal Merchant Group—had purchased.”
Yeon So-hyeon smiled.
“Was it difficult?”
“Far from difficult—it was easy.”
The old physician smiled as well.
“Those people wanted nothing more than to offload the land they had bought by mistake as quickly as possible and cut their losses.”
“Well done.”
“Hyeonwol Pavilion cooperated far beyond what was necessary, providing us with every trading technique and piece of information we required. That made the work far smoother.”
“Good.”
Yeon So-hyeon nodded. He had successfully used the Compassion Hall to buy back, at rock-bottom prices, the land the Great Immortal Merchant Group had acquired as part of their obstruction and preemptive land-grabbing scheme.
“Then begin the resettlement plan for Hodu Village at once.”
“As you command!”
In the past, when he had visited the Hodu Village branch of the Compassion Hall together with the Fourth Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon had told the branch heads:
Later I shall give you several scenarios. Formulate realistic plans for each and practice them thoroughly, so that no mistakes occur.
His plan was proceeding steadily.
“And now I shall introduce those who will oversee the Compassion Hall’s business plans going forward.”
At his words every gaze turned in one direction. Those who had arrived earlier and already exchanged greetings with the members of the Compassion Hall rose from their seats.
“Allow us to introduce ourselves once more.”
A woman of beauty so striking it would seize every eye wherever she went spoke as their representative.
“We are Daseonrang. By the First Young Master’s command, we will henceforth take overall charge of the Compassion Hall’s enterprises.”
After exchanging a glance of greeting with them, Yeon So-hyeon addressed the assembly.
“With them as the core, begin first the redevelopment plan for Hodu Village.”
The redevelopment of Hodu Village.
It was now a project funded purely by the Compassion Hall’s own capital—and therefore an area in which the Luoyang Sword Family’s Business Support Division could not interfere.