The Way of Wine
By rights, the direct line of a great house held a noble station, and ought not to wander abroad at will. The world of the rivers and lakes was, after all, a perilous one where blades flew thick as rain.
In truth, it would have been only right to call the Dancheon Clan's Myeong a strange one—a boy who made a habit of running away from home and entering religious orders.
And yet……
"Is this not a great blessing for the clan?"
Bang Yeo-baek asked back with a hearty laugh.
"Hmm……"
Dancheon Gang could not refute the man's words. In truth, an invitation to the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe hosted by the Nine Sects was itself a mark of the clan's standing—and one that, at its foundation, acknowledged the legitimacy of its succession. No one said it aloud, but it was common knowledge in the murim that the Nine Sects' prestige far surpassed the collective renown of the great clans. So there was no way the Nine Sects' recognition could feel anything but good. After all, more than one or two great clans were craning their necks for an invitation to the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe even now.
"Patriarch."
"Speak."
"They cannot remain children in your bosom forever, can they?"
It did not seem a question meant to be answered; Bang Yeo-baek carried on. "The Second Young Master's martial depth surpassed ours long ago, and the First Young Master now stands shoulder to shoulder with us. That worry of yours—I'd say it's unfounded."
"……Hmm."
"Am I wrong?"
Bang Yeo-baek smiled.
Dancheon Gang gazed at him in silence for a while. Theirs had surely been a relationship closer to lord and vassal, yet of late it felt altogether different. Not lord and vassal so much as friends—no, closer to family. And that would not be far wrong, for Bang Yeo-baek was, after all, of the Dancheon Clan's collateral line.
"……Very well. You're right."
When Dancheon Gang nodded, if a bit grudgingly, Bang Yeo-baek guided the patriarch along.
"Then let's not keep them waiting."
"Let's."
Dancheon Gang walked toward the main gate of the Dancheon Clan, Bang Yeo-baek escorting him. A crowd had gathered there.
"We greet the Patriarch."
The clan retainers and his two sons bowed their heads at the sight of him.
"Mm."
It was quite unlike that day when they had departed for the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, standing divided into factions. Everyone stood together now. The escort guard and the elders mingled freely, and Baek Yeo-hae stood among the retainers as well. More than anything, the sight of his two sons standing side by side—so unlike those days—stirred something in Dancheon Gang.
"Mm."
Bang Yeo-baek had been right, it seemed. For it had not been he who mended the fractured clan, but his two sons.
"Travel well."
With only those brief words, Dancheon Gang turned away.
"Brother, you're not bringing retainers along this time?"
"Shut it."
"You've grown up, have you?"
"Hmph."
The sound of his sons murmuring back and forth drifted faintly to his ears. They still bickered, it seemed.
Good.
It was not a bad feeling at all.
The foremost seat among the Nine Sects. The greatest sword gate under heaven. The fountainhead of the sword.
One could search endlessly for epithets worthy of the sect: Wudang, honored of the South, had its seat on Mount Wudang in Junxian, Hubei Province. Mount Wudang was also known as Xianyue, a mountain range so numinous it ranked among the four great sacred sites of Daoism.
Though Xianyue did not number among the Five Great Mountains that the people of the Central Plains held supreme, that fact was no grounds to diminish Mount Wudang's spiritual power. Nature was great by its very existence, complete in itself without any human measure to judge it by. Even if the once-in-an-age genius Zhang Sanfeng had raised Wudang from nothing, it was the mountain's numinous energy that had sustained that unbroken history and grandeur—and all the more so for it. Xianyue's power had made Wudang great, and a great Wudang had made Xianyue greater still.
A tavern in Hubei Province. Today, as always, the patrons were killing time with idle talk.
"What's the finest city in Hubei?"
"Hubei? Wuhan, without question."
"Mm. You're not wrong."
Wuhan was the provincial capital of Hubei. But Wuhan's excellence did not stem from its being the capital. It was not great because it was the capital; it had become the capital because it was a great place.
"Wuhan sits at the heart of the East Lake, the hub of land and water routes both. Follow the waterways of the East Lake, and there is nowhere in the Central Plains you cannot reach."
The patron who declared this squared his shoulders as though he'd been born in Wuhan himself. "Didn't they say—if you would see the future of the Central Plains, go to Wuhan?"
He was not wrong. It was an age when land travel was difficult, what with the vast territories and treacherous mountain ranges. Water transport was the lifeblood of commerce. Save for the rare few martial artists who had mastered qinggong to its utmost, even simple travel was far faster by water in this world.
"My thinking runs a bit different, though."
As another patron opened his rebuttal, the first man's eyes narrowed to slits.
"And where would that be?"
"Junxian, Hubei Province."
"Junxian has no proper waterways, sits wedged against harsh mountains, can grow some crops but has nothing remarkable about it."
The patron who had raised the objection snorted, as if to say, Is that all you have?
"Wudang is there."
"……"
At that single remark, the patron who had been holding forth fell silent. A worth that could stand comparison with the waterways of a prosperous capital—that was the standing and value Wudang commanded in this age.
He's right.
Listening in on the patrons' debate as old memories stirred, I poured Jiannanchun into Chun-baek's cup.
Glug, glug, glug.
Haaah—
"Ahh—"
"Mm—"
As the saying goes, one who can share a drink with you at the end of a long and grueling journey is a true friend.
"Making noise while drinking is a breach of etiquette."
The only difference from usual was that someone beside me was lecturing.
"Brother."
"What?"
"Have a drink."
Hoping to shut my elder brother Dancheon Hak's mouth, I poured Jiannanchun into his cup.
Glug, glug, glug.
My behavior must have seemed rather wine-lover-like, for Dancheon Hak accepted the Jiannanchun without quite knowing why.
……
About ten breaths. A span one might call brief—yet long enough for a supreme master to die and live again a dozen times over—and through all of it, Dancheon Hak stared at the cup of Jiannanchun without a word. From that tableau, my brilliant mind arrived at a hypothesis.
"Brother, can you not hold your liquor?"
Come to think of it, I had never shared a drink with Dancheon Hak before. That we had never drunk together for want of closeness was only natural, but I could not recall ever receiving even the information that Dancheon Hak drank at all.
At my question, Dancheon Hak merely glared at me with contempt and gave no answer.
"Myeong, you may not understand this, but some people have a weak head for drink."
Thus spoke the lover of Jiannanchun, the wine-lover Master Yi Chun-baek.
"Mm."
Unlike Chun-baek's assumption, I did understand the fact in question. More precisely, I knew it as information. According to the research of some eccentric or other, roughly one in five of the Central Plains' population could not drink. As I understood it, just as some fell ill from the power of an elixir they could not overcome, so too were there those who could not overcome the power of wine, that precious substance. Weak constitutions, in other words.
"I see. A weak head for drink is no flaw, I suppose."
I said it against my better judgment. For with Dancheon Hak joining in, there was more Jiannanchun to split with Chun-baek and me—no loss there.
But perhaps Dancheon Hak had read my true intent.
"I am not weak!"
With that bold declaration, Dancheon Hak downed the Jiannanchun in one go.
Gulp.
"Kiyaaaaah—"
Accompanied by an exclamation, his face contorted in a deep grimace.
"There, you see, Brother? That's the sound one naturally makes when drinking—so it can hardly be a breach of etiquette."
"Hmph."
Having said it himself, Dancheon Hak could not refute me. I'd call that my victory.
"In an emergency, one ought to expel the wine's toxins with internal power, but on a day of leisure like today, that would be poor conduct. Would it not be a waste of fine liquor?"
I said this having caught the true qi circulating in his dantian, and Dancheon Hak's qi froze solid.
"Hmph. You think I wouldn't know that much? The way of wine is the dignity of a great house."
"Haha."
One might dismiss it as nothing, but I found myself newly impressed by Dancheon Hak's skill—reining in his circulating qi in an instant. Truly, the word genius was no exaggeration for Dancheon Hak's martial talent. Had it not been for the Yakseon Heart Decision and my regression—had I lacked those advantages—I might have struggled even to follow in his wake.
"Young Master Hak, have one with me as well."
A wine-lover like Master Yi Chun-baek could hardly sit out such a gathering, and so he raised his cup to Dancheon Hak.
"If it's your cup, Brother Chun, I suppose I must accept."
Dancheon Hak accepted the offer without hesitation. Behind the composed words and bearing befitting a great martial house's son, his face was flushing red from the drink—and it was oddly endearing. His face had reddened after a single cup; it was safe to conclude that liquor did not agree with Dancheon Hak.
Glug, glug, glug.
And still Chun-baek filled his cup to the brim with Jiannanchun. One might call it a touch mischievous, but a martial artist's instincts were sharp—if he truly could not hold it, his body would expel the toxins on its own. No cause for worry.
The moment the three of us were about to drink together—
"Hm? Isn't that the bastard?"
An unpleasant voice cut in. I turned—and there stood Namgung Tan.
Namgung Tan, the young patriarch of the Namgung Clan. We had first met at a tavern on the way to the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly—an ill-fated encounter, yet I did not quite hate the man. Perhaps because I had struck him harder than the insult he had dealt me. But the greatest reason was……
"It's been a while."
"……You vagabond."
It was thanks to him that Chun-baek and I had forged our bond. Having lived through a regression, I was inclined to believe in the current called fate. I was certain that someday Chun-baek and I would have crossed paths and become the close friends we now were regardless. And yet the fact remained that it was Namgung Tan who had given us the occasion to bind ourselves together.
I had heard through the grapevine that he had broken his engagement with Yeon Se-hwa of the Yeon Clan—which was another reason Namgung Tan made me feel the positive reach of my regression. I had not yet saved the Central Plains, perhaps—but had I not saved at least one woman's life?
Meeting Namgung Tan in Hubei rather than Anhui was no great coincidence, either.
"You lot are headed to the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe as well?"
"That's right."
For Namgung Tan was the foremost of dragons—the Spear Dragon. In my past life he had held the title of Sword Dragon, only to lose it to Dancheon Hak and become the Spear Dragon instead—but one could not deny that he was numbered among the honored Dragons and Phoenixes. The Dragons were the first invited to any gathering; it was inevitable that the bearer of the Spear Dragon title would make for the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe. That of all the taverns in the world, we should cross paths in this one again—that, of course, was pure chance.
"Tsk."
Namgung Tan narrowed his brow at us, clicked his tongue, and pressed on. "A bastard and a vagabond. What a fitting pair." A sour smile curled across his face; the man's expressions were certainly varied.
"I suppose I'll have to conclude the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe has lost its standing."
"Hm."
Judging by Namgung Tan's conduct just now, one could also see how negligent he was about gathering intelligence. Given the martial reputations Chun-baek and I had built across the rivers and lakes, our attendance should have raised the gathering's prestige, not lowered it. We had used the Beggar Sect and the Lower Five Gates to bury a great deal of information, but even the known facts alone should have been enough to reach that conclusion. Moreover, this scion of the Namgung had surely suffered a crushing defeat at my hands in the unofficial sparring at the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly—yet his mouth was still alive and flapping. That, too, was worth noting.
"I may have to think twice about attending the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe myself. Wouldn't you say, Hak?"
Namgung Tan's question was aimed at Dancheon Hak, who had been sitting in silence beside me. Come to think of it, Namgung Tan and Dancheon Hak were acquainted.
At last, Dancheon Hak opened his mouth.
"Shut your mouth."
What came out was an unexpectedly vulgar retort.
"Are you speaking to me?"
Namgung Tan asked back in a flustered voice, as though Dancheon Hak's behavior had caught him off guard.
With a scrape, Dancheon Hak rose roughly from his chair and met Namgung Tan's eyes.
"If you intend to spew that filth at my brother and my dear friend, then I'm telling you to get lost."
"……"
After a moment's silence at Dancheon Hak's insult, Namgung Tan turned away.
"My apologies."
Leaving those words behind, Namgung Tan departed without stirring up any further trouble.
It seemed my earlier judgment at the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly—that Dancheon Hak ranked above Namgung Tan—had been correct.
"Hmph."
Snorting, Dancheon Hak dropped back into his seat and downed the Jiannanchun Chun-baek had poured for him in one go.
"Kraaaaaah—"
Again with the rough groan he could not hold back.
I regarded Dancheon Hak with fresh eyes. He had not expelled the wine's toxins, and his face burned red. Dancheon Hak was handsome enough to hold his own anywhere, and that flushed face of his looked rather like the Vermilion Fruit. Whether his outburst just now had sprung from genuine feeling or from the drink, I could not quite tell. But the words my brother still echoed in my ears.
"Wine tastes best when shared, Brother. You'll need to study the way of drinking again."
"Shut it."
"Hahahaha."
Dancheon Hak spat out his usual vulgarity, but the feeling was not a bad one.
The Namgung Clan. The foremost of the Five Great Clans that held sway over the Central Plains. Given all that had transpired, it was puzzling that the Namgung direct line remained so ignorant of intelligence—but for now, it was better to focus on this time with my elder brother Dancheon Hak here beside me.