You're Not My Type
Yang Su-rin, second daughter of the Yang Family Hall of Anhui City.
My fiancée of my previous life — the woman who had left me with the most wretched of memories.
And now that same woman, who had cast me off without a backward glance, stood before me once more, her face set in a full sulk.
"You're refusing to be engaged to me?"
Even with her brows drawn tight, her beauty did not fade a shade — a face, I would have said, entirely deserving of her fame as one of the Five Flowers of Anhui.
And mine, by comparison? Not so hideous as all that, perhaps, but hardly handsome either. Even with soot smeared over my face and my hair a deliberate tangle, I had blended into the beggars' ranks without a single suspicious glance — which is to say, I knew perfectly well that the looks of one Dancheon Myeong could not be called objectively outstanding.
"Hello? Are you not listening to a word I say?"
"I heard you. I refused the engagement."
I nodded as I spoke. My voice came out calmer than I had expected.
Back then I had been too busy floundering, spellbound by her beauty — but that was then. Beggar life had taught me that a pretty face was not so very important, and knowing what she kept hidden in her heart, I no longer had any reason to be led around by her.
For in the end, is a person's heart not what matters, more than any splendid outer hide?
Looking back on it now, she and I had never been a fitting pair to begin with.
"Did some filthy bastard actually dare to dream of being joined with me?"
Even setting those words aside, her frigid gaze was seared starkly into my memory. Wielding that barb like a drawn blade, she had struck down a second time the boy who stood dumbstruck, fresh from losing the contest for succession. On the pretext that she had never known I was a bastard, she annulled our engagement.
Of course, her claim was a lie. I had never once concealed my circumstances from her. To the boy I had been, she was a truly cruel person.
"Didn't you love me, Rin? We were engaged, weren't we?"
I remember how she answered the question I clung with — the question asked only to keep her from leaving.
"Honestly, you're not my type."
The smile she wore as she said it was the brightest I had ever seen from her.
"Why?"
The present returned, and she asked me.
"What could I possibly be lacking, that you would refuse to marry me?"
I steadied my breath and answered. As flatly as I could manage.
"You're not my type."
A weight ten years old lifted from my chest.
Yang Su-rin's face had gone blank.
She had plainly never imagined hearing such words in her lifetime. For a moment she was at a loss for them, and what settled over her expression was shame and fury. Given her background, it was only natural. This was the second daughter of the Yang Family Hall, a power that held Anhui City in its palm — and a beauty of the first order besides.
Measured against the Namgung Clan Manor, Anhui City's foremost house, or the Dancheon Clan pressing close at its heels, hers might be called a step short — but the pride of the Yang Family Hall, which had begun as a single trading house and risen to stand as the third most illustrious family in the city, was not difficult to understand. In wealth alone, it was a house that had earned the title of richest in Anhui.
"Do you know who I am, to speak to me this way?"
"The second daughter of the Yang Family Hall, are you not?"
"And still you spurn me? A windfall that landed in your lap?"
Had my mother Baek Yeo-hae not been standing beside us, I suspect the tail of that sentence would have run, 'How dare the second son of the Dancheon Clan.' I knew her temper well.
I met the glare of a thoroughly riled Yang Su-rin.
"Do you wish to be engaged to me?"
"Why else would I have come, if not because I do?"
"And why do you wish it?"
"......"
Her lips, poised to press the attack, stopped short, unable to find the answer.
The reason she was weighing marriage to me was simple: I was the second son of the Dancheon Clan. Among the choices open to a trueborn 'second daughter' whose claim to succession hung ambiguous, the seat of wife to the Dancheon Clan's 'second son' was not a poor one. But a woman of her soaring pride would never say so outright. And so she chose a somewhat different answer.
"The truth is, I didn't come because I want to marry you."
"Then why did you come?"
"I came to have it out with you. It infuriated me that you refused an engagement without so much as a glance at my face."
Then as now, her confidence in her own beauty was absolute.
"Is it normal to accept an engagement without even seeing the face?"
"Is that not how the engagements of great houses usually go?"
A sneer gathered on Yang Su-rin's face as she said it. Her expression was calling me a naive boy who knew nothing of the world.
"Don't tell me you're nursing some green little notion of marrying the person you love?"
It would have served her to stop right there... Young, that was all. I understood. She was barely sixteen — fruit not yet ripe. Still, by adding that remark she handed me the grounds for a counterstroke, and I could hardly be displeased about that.
"Then there is no problem now, is there? I did tell you to your face today, did I not? That you're not my type."
Yang Su-rin's face crumpled again in an instant.
Fat chance, girl. Perhaps against the naive Dancheon Myeong of eighteen — but how did you imagine you would ever beat Myeong-gae, a man of thirty?
Swiftly composing herself, Yang Su-rin lifted the corners of her mouth. Admirable, truly — even in the thick of this, she was still trying to smile.
"The second son of the Dancheon Clan keeps his standards up among the clouds, I see."
"I'm a bit poor at knowing my own place, I'll admit."
She was no doubt reading my manner now as nothing more than the arrogance of a great house's second son who knew nothing of the world.
"Could you give me some time?"
"What sort of time?"
"You have never had the chance to truly know me, Young Master Myeong. Time for the two of us to come to know each other."
When the other side came bowing in like this, accepting the gesture was itself the posture of a magnanimous man.
"Very well. Let it be so."
"Thank you."
"Think nothing of it."
Only then, as if her purpose had been achieved, did a genuine smile spread across Yang Su-rin's face. Meeting that expression, I smiled as well. Her purpose would never be achieved.
However fine a prize I might be as the Dancheon Clan's second son, a woman of Yang Su-rin's towering pride had no reason to come bowing in like this. She was the Yang Family Hall's second daughter, after all. But everything in this world has its reasons — and I knew precisely why she acted this way. It was thanks to a truth that would not come to light for another five years yet.
In five years, Yang Su-rin would become the rightful successor of the Yang Family Hall. A second daughter with a murky claim to succession leaping to the headship of a great house — the Beggars' Gang had investigated the matter thoroughly at the time. It stood to reason that Myeong-gae, a three-knot beggar still nursing empty fancies like If only I had won the contest for succession, would she have stayed by my side...? would take an interest in the Yang Family Hall's intelligence.
And so — by chance, or by fate — I learned a new fact woven into our engagement. The fact that Baek Yeo-hae and Yang Su-rin were bound in a deal.
The terms were simple. Yang Su-rin would become engaged to Dancheon Myeong, but extend him no support of any kind. If, against all odds, Dancheon Myeong became head of the Dancheon Clan on his own strength, she would stand as its lady. If he failed to become head, the engagement would be annulled — and a staggering breach penalty paid out.
No wonder she had announced the broken engagement so very easily. It had all been the design of my mother, Baek Yeo-hae. She had wanted me thoroughly isolated — fearful, it seemed, that Dancheon Myeong might grow, with someone's aid, into a threat to the seat of the eldest son, Dancheon Hak. In any case, the interests of Baek Yeo-hae and Yang Su-rin aligned perfectly.
Yang Su-rin was an enterprising woman — a merchant willing to put even herself on the block as trade goods. I doubt she could have found better terms anywhere. All she need endure was the slight disgrace of a broken engagement, and in exchange she was guaranteed a result without casting a single effort.
That is the whole of why Yang Su-rin bowed in despite my insolence. She simply could not afford to let her deal with Baek Yeo-hae slip away. To her, our engagement was the stepping-stone to her own success.
A nasty piece of work.
In my days as Myeong-gae, when I first learned the truth, I had felt, for a moment, something like a taste for revenge. If I could only return, I thought, I could make her pay. But do you know? A blazing emotion like vengeance is terribly vulnerable to the weathering of time. Looking back now, that was exactly how it went.
I did not believe she had ever borne me any great malice. She had merely pursued her own profit. She never once did me actual harm, for that matter. So I had considered forgetting revenge altogether — simply living this second life without ever tying myself to her.
And yet. Even with Baek Yeo-hae's money behind her — was it not a waste, the talent of a woman who seized the Yang Family Hall's succession through her own ability? I decided I could afford to wipe one debt clean.
Useful. I'll give her that.
Young as she still was, she would grow into one of the powers of Anhui. She had it in her. Seen that way, was she not yet another prime target for a buy-low strategy? In this life, I meant to make some use of her.
"I'll come see you again."
I knew she was a wicked little thing, but her smiling face was truly lovely. Best not to be bewitched.
"By all means. I won't see you out."
Having thus seen Yang Su-rin off, I made for the Patriarch's Hall. My mother Baek Yeo-hae had asked for a moment of my time; I had brushed her off with the excuse that I had business at the Patriarch's Hall.
As I walked, I put my thoughts in order. The First Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision was complete — time to carry out the plans that remained. Carrying them out, I judged, would require the patriarch's sanction. There was much I had to do now.
Become Alliance Leader of the Murim Alliance and stop the Great War of Righteousness and Evil. And while I was at it, become the Number One Under Heaven. Ultimate goals, both — and ones sitting terribly far away. There were plenty of nearer ones, too.
First, I had to secure the elixirs. The alchemical fire-timing of the Yakseon Heart Decision needed to be raised, after all — I had only just completed the First Stage. Then I had to win the contest for succession as well. One hardly throws one's hat into the ring for Alliance Leader before heading at least a great house. Even the Number One Under Heaven would find it difficult to become Alliance Leader without the standing of a clan head behind him.
Above all, I knew that one of the Great War's first sacrificial lambs would be the Dancheon Clan itself. To ward off the annihilation of my family, my becoming its head was the swiftest way.
Beginning, development, turn, and conclusion — every part of the story was 'martial power.'
Right now, I needed to hone my martial power. Yakseon had said that once I brought the Heart Decision to its completion, even the Three Talents Sword Art would carry me to the summit of the world — but the completion of the Heart Decision was not going to drop from the sky. Only by diligently grinding my martial power from this point onward could I lay the footing to move on my own initiative. The First Stage was complete and the groundwork laid; now was precisely the right moment.
It was time to negotiate with my father.
"I wish to have an audience with the Patriarch."
"He is expecting you."
Every scrap of information in the Dancheon Clan was arranged to reach the patriarch's ears — of course my father already knew I had returned.
"Follow me, please."
"Thank you."
Guided by the family retainer, I stepped into the Patriarch's Hall.
"So. Did you enjoy your little runaway stint?"
"Yes. I achieved what I set out to do."
At my answer, he gave a nod. For whatever reason, he asked nothing of what I had done in the meantime, so I offered nothing either. I would only have said I had roamed the Jianghu to broaden my experience; there was no reason to volunteer more.
My father's gaze swept over me. His eyes belonged to a man whose name stood among the Hundred Great Masters of the Jianghu. I wondered whether they might glimpse the attainment of my First Stage — but he asked nothing of that either. One thing alone I could be sure of: the Patriarch of Dancheon would do me no harm.
"So. What favor have you come to ask this time?"
My father asked, as though seeing straight through me. That quality of his had once felt formidable and uncomfortable; now I found it almost a relief. After all, it spared me the need to string together a long, winding preamble.
"I mean to train my martial arts."
I was already training the first half of the Dancheon Sword Formula. Knowing this, my father fixed me with a look that asked what I meant.
"Please lend me Uncle Yeom Baek."
What I needed to secure now was to take my father's bodyguard captain, Yeom Baek, as my master.
"That man does not take just anyone as a pupil."
"Then it should suffice that I am not just anyone, should it not?"
My father looked down at me with a flicker of interest. To receive the patriarch's martial arts in full transmission, one had to be confirmed as the Young Patriarch. Until then, if I was to learn from someone, I was certain Uncle Yeom Baek was the finest possible choice. He was, after all, the sword hand most perfectly versed in the Dancheon Sword Formula.
"You have that much confidence?"
"Yes."
With the power of the Yakseon Heart Decision, I would raise the Dancheon Sword Formula into the finest martial art under heaven as well.
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