The Price of Silence
I stopped by the Patriarch's Hall. A place that in my former life had held no bond with me whatsoever had, somewhere along the way, become one I drifted in and out of at every turn — and fittingly, my countenance was at ease as I stepped inside.
"I'm thinking of taking another trip through Jianghu."
At that excuse, worn smooth with use by now, my father Dancheon Gang let a faint smile slip.
"How long?"
"I... can't rightly say."
This time, even I had walked into territory beyond easy prediction. The plan wove together great sects and the interests they guarded jealously, so the odds of it unfolding exactly as intended were slim. I had made my arrangements, true — but I could not swear to success. Humans were creatures whose undercurrents seethed more wildly than nature itself; to predict and orchestrate them perfectly belonged to the realm of the impossible. Even so, I was a man who could not abandon the pursuit of the Five Great Murim Pills, and so time was hardly the pressing matter.
"Hmm."
Perhaps because my air was so different from the occasion I'd vaguely said "about a year," gravity settled over Dancheon Gang's face.
"Is this something you must do?"
"Yes."
At my flat, unhesitating answer, frost gathered in my father's eyes. If I had to guess, he was recalling the death that had raked its claws across our clan — the Heavenly Demon. Just as the Heavenly Demon had sensed destiny in me, and I in him a fated doom, perhaps Dancheon Gang too had felt the inevitability binding the two of us. After all, he was a man who had stretched his spirit-sense outward and was himself setting foot into the realm of intent. Which meant the reason he had not raged might lie not in my demeanor at all, but in the fate that had brushed past the Dancheon Clan.
"It is necessary. Absolutely."
At my answer, repeated like a vow to myself, worry crept across Dancheon Gang's face.
"...Then so be it."
But he did not stand in my way. It felt like an acknowledgment of me as a man grown whole, and a respect for the destiny laid upon my shoulders. And still, the worry settled in him would not lift.
"It will be all right. Elder Brother has entered the Harmony Realm now."
I said it to lighten his burden, if only a little. The words even if something should happen to me went unspoken, but my father and I both heard them all the same. Dancheon Hak, the clan's rightful heir, had reached the Harmony Realm at an age still far short of thirty; it was fair to say the Dancheon Clan now stood on bedrock, with or without me. The pact I had made when I refused to contest the Young Patriarch's seat had been honored — his worries, by rights, should have grown much lighter.
"..."
In silence, Dancheon Gang studied me for a long moment. What lay in his gaze was a truly tangled knot of feeling; the most I could read out of it were pity, an old anger, and self-reproach.
"My son."
"Yes."
"I was not worried for the clan's future."
Before I could answer, he went on.
"I was worried for you."
The voice was gentle, but this was unmistakably a scolding.
"..."
This time, I had to admit my thinking had been short. It meant I had been wrong, and my father Dancheon Gang right. Since my regression — no, perhaps even toward the woefully inadequate Dancheon Myeong who came before it — Dancheon Gang had never once set down his heart as a father. I simply hadn't known. Not in those days. Nor now.
The time had come to be certain of what I believed. Dancheon Gang, Patriarch of the clan, truly was a good father. Rather, the question worth agonizing over was whether I had ever been a good son to him.
"..."
A stretch of silence stood in place of an apology...
"I will keep it in mind."
I bowed my head deep and left the Patriarch's Hall.
"Never forget that the Dancheon Sword Clan stands behind you."
The Patriarch's low voice saw me off onto the hard road ahead.
Stepping out, I found my elder brother Dancheon Hak standing askew in the middle of the path, blocking it. He had been busy tying up all he'd gained, so this was a sight I hadn't seen in some time.
"Something the matter?"
"Off again?"
"That's right."
He already knew my plans. At this point, it was fair to assume Dancheon Hak had planted informers around me.
"As you well know, I've entered the Harmony Realm myself this time."
"Congratulations."
Dancheon Hak bored his eyes into me, then spoke.
"Next time, my sword will truly reach you. Don't waste your time."
And with that, he up and vanished without so much as waiting for my answer.
"..."
Even having broken into the Harmony Realm, the man never changed. Come to think of it, Elder Brother Dancheon Hak had always spoken of next time. Somehow those words rang like a farewell wish — come home safe — so my instinct was probably no idle fancy.
Chun-baek filled the spot Dancheon Hak had vacated.
"So your preparations are finally done?"
"They are."
"Straight to Kaifeng, then?"
I had told him Kaifeng was my destination, so Chun-baek asked as much — the Beggars' Gang's main helm sat there, after all.
"Before that, there's somewhere I need to stop."
"Where?"
"The Murim Alliance. Just for a while."
"Right, then."
"Let's be off."
Chun-baek raised not a single question, and so we started walking. Traveling with Chun-baek was always this easy.
We reached the Murim Alliance.
"This way, please."
"Much obliged."
Thanks to Chief Strategist Singija smoothing the way in advance, we skipped every tedious formality and stepped straight into the Alliance Leader's Hall.
"Hmph. So the boy who's been scarce all this while finally deigns to visit."
That was the greeting of the Tyrant Emperor Yeom Gi-ha, half-buried in a mountain of paperwork. A mountain of documents and the Tyrant Emperor — a pairing so wrong it hurt to look at. And sure enough, the Pa-hwang who had burned bright even in defeat before the Heavenly Demon now sat withered as an old scallion root.
"Get back to your work."
Singija fielded the Tyrant's grumbling with a single stroke. His retort matched my own sentiments well enough that I felt a rush of satisfaction.
"Grr."
One jab from the Chief Strategist, and the Alliance Leader deflated like a steamed rice cake. No doubt the thorn lodged in him over his little runaway stunt hadn't been plucked out yet. His flight had saved my life, granted — but I couldn't help thinking he could stand to stay put a while longer. I knew the Tyrant Emperor's temperament far too well; a deflated Tyrant was simply more comfortable company than a freed one.
"Gi-ja, we have a guest..."
The Tyrant threw out the opening with a meaningful look, and Singija answered with a long, deep sigh.
"Finish just that much today, and I'll let you off."
"Now we're talking!"
Having wrung consent from Singija, the finest mind under heaven, Yeom Gi-ha — one half of the Murim Alliance's famed pair — cackled in delight and promptly buried his nose back in the documents. Leaving him to it, Singija and I spoke alone.
"...The Heavenly Demon appeared, you say?"
Singija's question came down heavy.
"He did."
We had laid a strict gag order over the whole affair within the clan and even enlisted Ma Sok of Hao Gate's cooperation — but there was no world in which Singija stayed ignorant. To begin with, the Tyrant was a man the Dancheon Clan could never have silenced even had we tried, and even had he held his tongue, Singija would have dug the truth out on his own. One of his posts was head of the Murim Alliance's Special Operations Unit. Of course he would know.
"The Dancheon Sword Clan has accomplished something tremendous."
"We only did what had to be done."
A table where flattery and humility shared space.
"Gi-ja, I had a hand in it too—"
The Tyrant edged his foot in the door...
"Quiet, and get back to work."
"Grr."
Chased off on the spot. A laugh slipped out of me at the utter lack of ceremony between them. It was a levity possible only because the Dancheon Clan had paid no great price in blood.
"The Heavenly Demon..."
I could guess what weighed on Singija as he murmured it.
The manifestation of the Heavenly Demon. In truth, this was a matter of the gravest consequence — not merely because the Heavenly Demon had shown his face in the Central Plains' murim, but because he had struck the Dancheon Sword Clan, a prestigious great family flying the Murim Alliance's banner. The unknown threat of the Heavenly Demon and his Demonic Cult had taken on flesh, yes — but the greater problem, in the end, was politics.
Take the simplest example: suppose the Tyrant Emperor Yeom Gi-ha had attacked a single sect under the Demonic Alliance's banner. What would follow? Nine times in ten, war. Negotiation might come first, but I judged the odds heavily favored a war between Righteous and Evil. This would be no lone martial artist acting on his own — it would be the head of the Murim Alliance himself, and naturally the Demonic Alliance's leadership could hardly sit idle. If their own subordinate forces were attacked and they did nothing, the federation's authority would crumble — was that not inevitable? And since the Heavenly Demon was the head of the Demonic Cult, the Dancheon Clan's case was much the same. This was no nameless cultist; the Heavenly Demon himself had been involved, which meant that by rights the Murim Alliance ought to move. That was the justice of the Jianghu, and the politics of a federation. It was, one might say, the very reason the Murim Alliance existed — and the reason the Dancheon Clan belonged to it.
And yet, with the Demonic Cult, the calculus bent a little. Those who worshipped the demonic could hardly be judged by the Central Plains' values to begin with, and any road to striking the cult's main stronghold — hidden deep in the Tianshan Mountains on Xinjiang's far edge — was remote at best. Simply put: negotiation was impossible, and war was a fool's errand.
War with the Demonic Cult had always been the one thing the Jianghu's murim shunned above all, because from the Central Plains' standpoint there was nothing in it for them. The greatest reason, of course, was that feuding with zealots bordering on madmen profited nothing — but the plight of Xinjiang itself, barren and destitute where the Central Plains were fat and fertile, weighed just as heavily. To undertake a calamity like war, surely the reward had to tower over the hardship. A war with the Demonic Cult offered no such reward. Put another way: the Central Plains had no engine to start one. And so, while the Demonic Cult had invaded the Central Plains more than once, the Central Plains' powers had never once marched on the cult.
Even staring at facts this plain, the Murim Alliance's leadership — Singija, precisely — could not help but rack his brains. As I've said: that was the politics of the Jianghu. Even if the Dancheon Clan, the wronged party itself, held its tongue, others might still take the Alliance's course to task. And so the conclusion...
"I would prefer this matter buried."
What Singija proposed was likely the best path. Keep the Heavenly Demon's manifestation a secret; erase the incident as though it had never been. For me, who had no wish for a Great War of Righteousness and Evil, and for the Dancheon Clan, who had no desire to stand at the heart of a war's conflagration, our interests aligned perfectly.
"You mean to use the Special Operations Unit?"
At my question, Singija nodded, quiet.
"It would have to be so."
Manipulating information was, on its face, a thing hard to call righteous. Singija had shown me a soft spot on himself — a flaw that could be held against him someday. He had long since promised me authority on par with the Special Operations Unit's own chief, so perhaps this, too, was the measure of his trust in me.
"Hmm."
As I said: Singija's interests and mine were one. For everyone's sake, the fact that the Heavenly Demon had attacked the Dancheon Clan ought to become a thing that never was. And yet...
I knew it was no virtue either, to sit before a sumptuously spread table and drink nothing but water. Singija had been first to speak of burying the Dancheon Clan's affair — which meant the initiative now rested in the hands of me, Dancheon Myeong, second son of the clan. Which meant...
"In exchange for burying it — I have conditions."
It meant that in return for letting this matter die, the Dancheon Sword Clan could wring a great deal out of the Murim Alliance. Or, to be precise: I could.
"Naturally. Let's hear them."
At my words, Singija put on the face of a man who'd known this was coming. He, too, had hardly intended to seal his lips over so grave a matter and pretend it away. It was a little unfair to Singija and the Tyrant, who had shown me nothing but kindness — but I fully intended to work them for all they were worth. That said...
This, too, was for the future of the Jianghu's murim. So I felt no guilt at all.