Liberation, Perhaps?
The Murim Alliance's Shanxi Branch.
Paeng Ga-heon — the Reckless Blade, a Peak Realm master of the Paeng Clan, one of the Five Great Clans, and Branch Chief of the Murim Alliance in Shanxi — was passing yet another tedious day.
"Hmm. Two and a half breaths, after all."
Whether it was better to introduce the variation on the third breath of this technique from the Five Tiger Gate-Severing Blade, or to shatter the established pattern and shift at two and a half to strike where the enemy least expected — deliberating over this was the most productive item on his agenda. For a man of the martial path, what more need be said?
Such was the life of a Murim Alliance branch chief. When some fool stepped out of line, you had to pound him down — but never too hard. Everything in moderation; the trick was to settle matters without stirring up new trouble. In a region like Shanxi, where none of the great sects had planted their banners, balance was the one thing that mattered most.
True to his nickname, the Fox Bear, Paeng Ga-heon had an uncanny gift for reading a situation, and he judged that he had upheld the dignity of his office and discharged his duties admirably. What he could not deny was that the process was deadeningly dull — for he, too, was a hot-blooded son of the Paeng line.
"Branch Chief, a letter has arrived."
"Hm? From where?"
Really, the life of the Murim Alliance's Shanxi Branch Chief was little different from that of an idle gentleman of leisure. Even his own clan rarely sought him out, so the arrival of a letter was a genuinely rare occasion.
"From the Beggars' Gang."
"The Beggars' Gang?"
"Yes, sir. It came marked urgent."
"Hm?"
Urgent, no less. In three years as Shanxi Branch Chief, this was a first — small wonder his curiosity stirred.
"Show him in at once."
Scarcely had his leave been given before a beggar materialized before Paeng Ga-heon.
"It's been a while, sir."
The familiar beggar was Jao-gae. Even Paeng Ga-heon respected the man's iron spirit, and he welcomed the long-overdue reunion.
"Indeed it has."
"Here — take this."
As if not a moment could be spared, Jao-gae thrust the letter forward. Empty courtesies were wasted on an urgent missive, so Paeng Ga-heon accepted it without ceremony.
Come to Sanmenxia three days from now, by the hour of the Ram — early afternoon. You must stop the Great War of Righteousness and Evil from igniting.
— Dancheon Myeong
Brief as it was, the letter held anything but an ordinary request.
"The Great War of Righteousness and Evil..."
It was an absurd claim on its face, yet he found it hard to dismiss outright. Partly it was the name signed at the bottom; partly it was that the man who had carried the letter here under an urgent seal was Jao-gae of the Beggars' Gang, which lent the thing no small credibility. Even so, one could hardly march the Shanxi branch's forces to war on the strength of a single letter. As branch chief he could do it if he truly wished, though "reluctant" would be the more honest word.
"Hmm."
True to his nickname, the clever Fox Bear chewed the problem over for a moment — and a fine idea surfaced. A certain figure had come to mind: the perfect man to share this burden. There was someone else idling away his days just as boringly as he was, a single man who could stand in for the entire martial strength of the Shanxi branch. After the Black Water Gate affair, that man had taken an interest in the Dancheon Divine Dragon as well. It might prove a rather fruitful meeting.
"I'll be away from my post for a while."
With that, Paeng Ga-heon sprang up briskly. Getting that man to Sanmenxia by the hour of the Ram three days hence would be a tight squeeze.
"Where are you going?"
"To the Murim Alliance."
With those parting words, the bear-sized bulk of Paeng Ga-heon vanished from the Shanxi branch in an instant.
Even for one who had lived through the future and returned — even if that life had been Myeong-gae's, a beggar who dealt in information — there was no knowing everything that was happening now, let alone everything yet to come. Not even for an affair as considerable as the massacre of the Ice Palace delegation.
The reason was simple: an incident is, by nature, a layering of many-sided stories. Such is the nature of information. Most intelligence records outcomes, not beginnings or processes, and so the event as I had received it in my past life had been condensed into a single line that made little contextual sense: "On a certain day of a certain month, at Sanmenxia in southern Shanxi, the warriors of the North Sea Ice Palace were slaughtered to a man by unidentified assailants."
Of course, thanks to the combined forces of elapsed time and personal interest, Myeong-gae had known rather more than the world at large. Distilled, it came to this: the Ice Palace delegation had carried the supreme elixir known as the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, and Wiji Han, Supreme Leader of the Sado League, had attacked the delegation to take it for himself. That the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han had a son afflicted with the Nine Yang Severed Meridians was a fact every information broker worth his salt knew by heart. And once you narrowed the field to those capable of butchering the Ice Palace delegation without a sound or a whisper, the Overlord Martial Emperor inevitably rose to the top of the suspect list. Indeed, after the incident his son — his condition apparently improved — had appeared before the public on official occasions more than once. It was no groundless conjecture.
Even so, I knew I had never learned the whole of the affair. I did not know what had become of Bukgung Seol-ah within that event, nor of Han Baek-rim. Still less did I know what had become of the Overlord Martial Emperor himself. Information, as a rule, records the deed but not the people caught inside it — one might call that the trade's inherent limitation. In the end, the crucial links remained omitted, buried somewhere in the maze.
If I had to name the missing link that had tantalized me most, it was unquestionably the matter of the Sado League's leader. How had he known the Ice Palace delegation's route? And how had he known they carried the Snow Ginseng at all? Those two questions had prodded at my curiosity more than any others.
They say a fine information broker fills the omitted parts with inference and imagination. In Myeong-gae's head, a number of assumptions had interlocked to produce one particular conjecture, and the raw materials were as follows. First, the existence of her younger brother, Bukgung Han-yu — presumed to have ascended to Young Palace Master the moment Bukgung Seol-ah died, seizing control of the North Sea Ice Palace. Second, his conduct thereafter: though the palace had lost its Young Palace Master to the Sado League's leader, Bukgung Han-yu had neither raised a war nor lodged so much as a proper protest, letting the whole affair fizzle into nothing. And that Bukgung Han-yu...
As such fragments gathered, a chain of what ifs and perhapses had taken shape in Myeong-gae's mind. Every thread of my reasoning pointed toward a hidden struggle between siblings. Perhaps that was why, in my days as Myeong-gae, the Ice Palace affair had gnawed at me so.
But at the same time, there was something I had to keep firmly in mind: a broker's deductions could at times come infinitely close to the truth, yet they must never be taken as one and the same with it. That was the first duty of the trade I had learned living as Myeong-gae. And so what I needed now was a conversation — with Han Baek-rim, or with Bukgung Seol-ah. Only by turning the realm of inference and imagination into hard information could I prepare with any certainty for the future bearing down on us.
"What are you pondering so deeply?"
Just then Bukgung Seol-ah approached and asked. If ever there was a moment, this was it.
"I was thinking about death."
"Death?"
I nodded with a grave expression. Because she had come to me first, I was able to lay my groundwork more easily than I had expected.
My answer to Bukgung Seol-ah had been no lie. After my conversation with Han Baek-rim, death had truly been one of the koans weighing on my mind.
"And how do you regard death, Young Palace Master?"
Truthfully, for a man who had actually died once, asking such a thing might have been laughable — but I wanted to hear her answer.
"...I hardly know."
Bukgung Seol-ah let the words trail off, held a long silence, and then...
"Liberation, perhaps?"
That was her reply. Though her face was hidden behind her veil, I could picture the expression she wore in that moment. My honed instinct told me: Bukgung Seol-ah had just borrowed an ordinary conversation to lay bare a secret buried in the deepest chamber of her heart. I knew well how it worked — precisely because one is speaking to a stranger with no ties to oneself, the moment sometimes comes when a secret can slip free.
"Please forget you heard what I just said."
Perhaps she had felt it too. Quickly smoothing over her words, Bukgung Seol-ah withdrew from my side.
"So that was it."
Understanding arrived. No — more precisely, the loosely meshed gears of information in my head had finally clicked into alignment. Only now did I begin to understand: why, instinctively, I had sensed in her a dark shadow quite unlike mere coldness. I could see it plainly — a shadow of death lingered at her side. One might even call it a fate she had accepted of her own accord.
Perhaps.
Perhaps it was not the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han who had led the Ice Palace delegation to their deaths — but the Young Palace Master, Bukgung Seol-ah herself.
But I knew this, too, was only inference drawn from a fragmentary conversation. I would have liked a little more information; that time was short was the only pity.
"Is something the matter?"
"Nothing at all."
Han Baek-rim came over and asked, but I saw no need to mention Bukgung Seol-ah and turned the subject instead.
"More to the point — ready yourself. We're just about to reach our first destination."
"I see. Understood."
Three days had already passed since I joined the Ice Palace delegation. The sun hanging at the very crown of the sky announced that it was noon. And there, far in the distance, my eyes caught it: Sanmenxia, the gateway from Shanxi into Henan. I had given Paeng Ga-heon the hour of the Ram, so the timing would fall exactly into place.
Paeng the Great Hero — I'm counting on you.
A man sharp enough to earn the name Fox Bear would surely move exactly as I intended. I steeled myself and walked on. This affair, perhaps, would prove anything but easy.
Sanmenxia. The thoroughfare countless travelers used to cross from Shanxi into Henan — and, in my past life, the very ground where the Ice Palace delegation met its calamity.
Truthfully, I had agonized over this. After all, I was the one who had volunteered as the delegation's guide. I could hardly help turning over ways to lead them somewhere — anywhere — other than Sanmenxia, their planned route. Judged by results alone, I would call that deliberation worthless. If the incident never occurred, my own chance of obtaining the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng evaporated entirely; and worse, should I cross the Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han anywhere but Sanmenxia, there would truly be no way to handle him. I had judged that the best course was to squeeze every drop of value from my foreknowledge and arrange everything with meticulous care.
"This way, please."
The Ice Palace delegation moved at my direction. And then...
"Look here, if you would."
It was a phrase not unlike ones I had heard several times over the three days from Yanggo to Sanmenxia. The only difference was that the speaker this time was not a pack of rough Green Forest outlaws, but an old man of extraordinary bearing.
"I'd rather not cause a commotion here, so come along quietly."
And the greater difference by far was this: beneath his words ran the settled, unhurried killing intent of an absolute master. Not a soul in the delegation had learned their martial arts half-heartedly, so every one of them sensed that the old man was no ordinary figure. We quietly circulated our inner strength, and casting off his killing intent proved no difficult task.
"Will you follow him?" I asked Han Baek-rim.
"...We shall," he answered.
"Lead the way, elder." I spoke to the old man in a bold, unflinching voice.
The hour of the decisive battle was at hand.