The Rigged Bracket
I have always been fond of the Paeng Clan.
Perhaps it is because their trademark boldness calls to mind those shameless beggars of the Beggars' Sect, who are every bit as insolent to your face as they are behind your back.
"Uncle Gaheon has told me time and again. He says that since he himself owes a debt to the Dancheon Divine Dragon, I am to treat the man as a benefactor should we ever meet in the jianghu. Hahaha."
What I mean is that, in this very moment, I find myself quite taken with the sight of Mad Tiger Blade Paeng Jin-hu spinning a thread of connection out of Reckless Blade Paeng Ga-heon.
It helps, too, that nothing crooked shows in the clear, gentle light of Paeng Jin-hu's eyes.
"If we speak of the great hero Reckless Blade, then it ought to be me saying I was the one who owed him."
After all, I really had been in Reckless Blade Paeng Ga-heon's debt. How could I forget that magnificent strike of his, the one that turned aside the Hegemon Force Martial Emperor's Formless Sword during the Ice Palace incident?
But Paeng Jin-hu shook his head at my flattery.
"I heard it straight from my uncle, and by his account that is not how it was. He is not a man who speaks falsely."
"Then let us leave it at that."
My answer seemed to please him, for Paeng Jin-hu laughed heartily once more.
Another link in the chain of information clicked together in my head.
Mad Tiger Blade. It meant "mad tiger," and to my mind it bore a distinct resemblance to Reckless Blade, the epithet of Paeng Ga-heon, the Murim Alliance's Shanxi branch chief. No doubt Paeng Jin-hu's martial arts had been steeped in the man's influence.
And the very fact that he could claim the tiger, emblem of his clan, as his epithet told me he was the widely acknowledged frontrunner to lead the Paeng Clan's next generation.
"Have you been preparing?" Paeng Jin-hu asked, offhand.
"Preparing for what?"
"For the matches, of course."
"Surviving the jianghu is itself a road through mountains of blades and forests of swords. Is every day not preparation?"
"Hahah! You're quite right."
It was not that funny, and yet Paeng Jin-hu erupted into a roar of laughter. Apparently he, too, was a man whose threshold for laughter sat as low as Brother Chun-baek's.
"I concede. You may be more a Paeng warrior than I am. My uncle had it right."
That was the highest praise Paeng Jin-hu knew how to give, and he handed it over freely. The pride the Paeng household took in its own name was famous throughout the Central Plains.
"And you, Brother Paeng? Are your preparations sufficient?"
"A Paeng warrior exists to fight."
There was no falsehood in the words, and his bearing already showed a readiness so complete that calling it such wanted for nothing.
"It should be a fine time."
"I hope so too."
"Until later, then."
"Until then."
With our small talk spent, Paeng Jin-hu's gaze drifted toward Namgung Tan, standing off at a distance. Namgung Tan did no more than steal glances our way, and in the end he never approached.
"Brother Namgung!"
Perhaps judging Namgung Tan's isolation a thing to be pitied, Paeng Jin-hu went over to him.
"Are there matches today?" Brother Chun-baek, quiet at my side until then, asked me.
"You came without knowing?"
"My ears are not as sharp as yours."
In other words, Brother Chun-baek had walked the long road to Wudang without the faintest idea why.
"Then why did you agree to attend so readily?"
"Because you were going. I thought it might be fun."
"Hm."
It might have been reason enough.
In any case, here lay the greatest difference between the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly and the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe: where the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly frowned upon formal duels, the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was an occasion built for nothing else.
The Martial Scripture Pavilion.
They said the name came from this: for Wudang, which pursued the Dao through the martial, secret manuals were scripture itself. True to it, the Martial Scripture Pavilion was where the sect kept the secret manuals of its teachings, texts whose worth no sum of gold could measure.
It was also the body that directed Wudang's dealings with martial artists who made enemies of the sect.
They say Wudang's root lies in the Dao, but in the end it remained an organization of living, breathing people. Its structure and its culture, then, could hardly touch nothing but the Dao. That the Treasury Pavilion, steward of Wudang's finances, held the greatest power, and that the Martial Scripture Pavilion, keeper of its martial arts, came just behind it, were matters better described as the affairs of men than as the Dao.
Be that as it may, the Martial Scripture Pavilion commanded Wudang's martial affairs and stood among the most powerful bodies in the sect, so its taking charge of this Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was close to inevitable.
"Pavilion Master, will this truly be all right?"
Cheon-am, Master of the Martial Scripture Pavilion, looked at Jin-su, his deputy, who had voiced the worry. Jin-su was the man slated to succeed him as Pavilion Master once Cheon-am passed beyond that seat and entered the Council of Elders, hardly someone to be handled carelessly merely for holding the post of deputy. The situation, in other words, made it difficult to wave the concern away as nothing.
"Jin-su."
"Yes, Pavilion Master."
"What is the problem?"
At the question, Jin-su's eyes went to a large sheet of paper. Upon it lay the diagram they had decided, for want of a better word, to call the match bracket. Jin-su, who had combed through the names on it once more, spoke.
"...It is not fair."
"What is not?"
"Is this not a bracket shaped by our own hands?"
"Hm."
Cheon-am was a Daoist who had sharpened himself within Wudang his entire life, and he barely swallowed the urge to click his tongue. Then he went on.
"Man himself is nothing more than nature's making. How, then, can you call a thing artificial simply because our will runs through it?"
"Even so..."
As Jin-su moved to press some objection, Cheon-am raised an open palm. It meant wait; he had not finished.
Cheon-am knew it as well as anyone. He knew the logic on his lips was, in truth, nothing but a strained excuse.
And yet there are times when a man cannot step back even knowing he is wrong. Especially when it is done for the sake of a great sect. Then it might even be a duty.
To the wavering Jin-su, Cheon-am fortified his argument once more.
"Then tell me, in your judgment, is it fairer to decide the bracket with a throw of the dice?"
"That is not it either, but..."
He gave his answer in the negative, but the look on Jin-su's face had not budged.
"You are not wrong to feel it."
By Cheon-am's measure, Jin-su was an upright and admirable martial artist, a Daoist on whom the dust of the mundane world had not yet fully settled. It was that very quality, watched and weighed over the years, that had marked him as the next Master of the Martial Scripture Pavilion, though much remained to teach him.
It was nothing one could call a flaw. Merely something his Pavilion Master could keep close and correct in time.
"By my judgment, this serves the smooth conduct of the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe, and it is no private indulgence. Trust your Pavilion Master, and follow."
...
Jin-su let the silence sit for a moment before he asked.
"Does the Sect Leader know?"
"He does not."
Both of them had known from the outset that Taecheong Jinin, Sect Leader of Wudang, would never sanction such a thing.
Cheon-am held Jin-su's gaze.
"Do you intend to report this to the Sect Leader?"
"Absolutely not. It would be unthinkable."
For the first time, there was true feeling in the eyes of the man waving the suggestion away.
"Then trust in this Pavilion Master alone, and let it proceed as planned."
When Jin-su still hesitated, Cheon-am pressed the point again.
"Every ounce of responsibility will fall upon this humble Daoist. Do you understand?"
"...Yes."
The Daoist Jin-su nodded, the strength gone out of the motion.
The Grand Martial Arena of Wudang.
A crowd far larger than usual had gathered in a space that even on ordinary days brimmed with Wudang's warriors honing their arts. Thanks to the singular occasion of the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe, the Grand Martial Arena, the very heart of the sect, had been opened to outsiders for the first time in a long while.
"We welcome the fellow Daoists of the jianghu who have honored the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe with their presence. May this prove a meaningful occasion for our mutual advancement."
Taecheong Jinin, Sect Leader of Wudang, whom I had seen once before at the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, delivered that plain congratulatory address and withdrew.
They claimed the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe knew no factions, yet the arena at that moment was split cleanly in two. The Nine Sects against the rest. Or, more precisely, the Nine Sects against the warriors of the mundane world.
Call them the rest or the mundane if you like; the great majority were sons of storied great clans, so it would be no distortion to call it the warriors of the Nine Sects against the warriors of the Great Clans. That was only natural, for the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe had been founded precisely so the warriors of the Nine Sects and the warriors of the mundane world might trade their arts.
"A pleasure. I am Cheon-am, Master of the Martial Scripture Pavilion."
With Taecheong Jinin having withdrawn without ceremony, the warrior who named himself Cheon-am stepped forward.
"This would be today's match bracket."
On cue, a placard was hoisted behind the platform. The distance was considerable, but every participant present was a master who had trained the eye arts, and reading it cost no one any trouble.
Hm?
Working through the bracket, I could not help but notice an uncomfortable truth.
In truth, I had never cared much for the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe. It was not that I considered myself superior to the prodigies of this age, but the realm I had built, thanks to the fortune of my regression and the Yakseon Heart Decision, stood incongruously high for my years.
My cultivation, having reached the unification of the Five Dan Fields, had achieved the state of Five Qi Returning to the Origin and now stood within reach of the station called "All Under Heaven." How, then, was I to muster much interest in contending with those who had only just shed the mold of the late-stage masters to compete under the banner of "rising talents"?
The reason I had attended so willingly lay elsewhere entirely. It was simply that the event was held at Wudang, and I needed Wudang's sacred treasure, the Taecheong-dan. I was holding information that a "great event" would unfold at this Sinjin Gyoryuhoe, one through which the Taecheong-dan might be claimed.
But one look at the bracket and such notions fled my mind entirely. Myeong-gae's keen instinct for information had stripped the hidden intent from the bracket down to its bones.
Wudang, of all sects...
I found myself thinking that perhaps it would do no harm to take this Sinjin Gyoryuhoe seriously after all.
"The matches shall proceed according to the bracket. Participants, I ask that you make every preparation."
Cheon-am Jinin's voice rolled through the hall.
"This is the sparring stage."
The stage spreading out behind Cheon-am Jinin as he guided the assembled guests was vast indeed. No official rule said as much, but it was common knowledge that every figure invited here had won the epithet of Dragon or stood at a level that deserved one.
With matches planned from masters in the ripe fullness of the Peak Realm through Transcendent Peak and up to the Harmony Realm itself, the expanse of the stage was inevitable. Warriors gifted in the lightness arts lose measure of their skill the moment space constrains them, so fairness alone demanded it be so.
"An occasion such as this must pass without ugly incident. Give your utmost, but I ask this earnestly of you all: refrain from lethal strikes."
As Cheon-am finished speaking, veteran masters revealed themselves at intervals around the stage.
"Thirty-six elders of the Nine Sects have volunteered their service. They will stand guard over the participants' safety, though I would also ask each of you to guard your own."
Thirty-six elders. It meant the elders of the Nine Sects would hold every one of the thirty-six directions about the field, lending their strength to its safety.
An elder of the Nine Sects was, to a man, one who had entered the Harmony Realm or carried martial attainment beyond it, and it was right to assume a certain measure of safety came guaranteed.
And yet I knew this, too, was nothing but ceremony. Safety was the stated purpose, but to my eye it was simply an apparatus for parading the Nine Sects' towering grandeur. That impression came from having read the bracket, so I did not take it for an excessive suspicion.
Such is the way of the jianghu. The only ones owed protection are the late-stage masters. Should a late-stage master return from the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly missing an arm, it becomes a scandal that shakes the murim. Should a warrior who marched out into the murim come home the same way, it only means he was wanting.
It meant, as well, that those veteran masters would not stir unless the killing was truly deliberate. Who present did not know that meddling carelessly and drawing a dispute over the outcome upon oneself was the gravest trouble of all?
Be that as it may...
"Then let us now begin the main event of the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe."
With that solemn, resonant declaration, Cheon-am Jinin heralded the beginning of the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe.