The Second Homecoming
The private audience with Chief Strategist Singija had run long, and the sun, unable to hold on any longer, slid down along the mountain ridges until darkness settled over everything.
It did not sit easy with me, taking up the hours of the busiest man in the Murim Alliance—perhaps in all the murim of Jianghu.
"Sit."
"Isn't it getting late?"
"This very moment is the future of Jianghu's martial world itself. How could I let it slip by idly?"
With Singija declaring as much and granting his time so willingly, I had no grounds to refuse.
Glug-glug-glug. Gulp. "Ahh—"
When talk stretches past sundown, fine liquor becomes a necessity. With premium Jiannanchun set before us, Singija and I carried on.
Though to put it precisely, it was no longer a private audience.
—You should join us as well.
—Me?
—Yes. You.
Singija had brought Brother Chun-baek, who had been waiting outside, into the fold.
—Gi-ja, are you leaving me out?
—Is your work finished?
—Finished.
—Then join us.
—Much obliged.
No doubt because Pahwang, having at last dispatched his paperwork, had joined us in the end.
Pahwang was one thing, but it struck me as a little surprising that Singija had seated Brother Chun-baek at the table uninvited. If I had to guess, Singija knew Brother Chun-baek's true identity as well. The successor of the Sinbi Sect—the man who would one day be hailed as the King of Vagabonds, Yi Chun-baek. Singija had surely grasped long ago that he, too, was destined to make Jianghu's history.
Glug-glug-glug. Gulp. "Ahh—"
The Jiannanchun went around several times.
"What are your thoughts on the Great War of Righteousness and Evil?"
Singija opened the subject. As expected—with company this distinguished, this was never going to be a simple, comfortable drinking party.
"It is a war that must never happen."
After that resolute answer…
"And yet even now, the conflicts keep coming."
I added.
"The Dancheon Clan Leader has taught you well."
In truth, my schooling owed far more to the Beggars' Gang and Bigak Pavilion than to the Dancheon Clan, but I saw no need to correct him. Setting aside that it was a truth I could never tell, I had also come to embrace my father Dancheon Gang's heart with genuine sincerity.
"The Heavenly Demon is mine to take down!"
Pahwang, making no effort to burn off his drunkenness, declared it like a proclamation, his face flushed red.
"Just finish your drink."
"Fine, fine."
Sadly, no one at the table rose to answer his grand spirit. Fortunately, Pahwang in his cups didn't mind in the least—I would have to call that a mercy.
"How many demonic cult spies do you suppose there are in the Central Plains?"
Having dealt with Pahwang, Singija turned his question on me and Brother Chun-baek.
I knew the rough answer but kept it behind my teeth, and Brother Chun-baek held his silence.
"At the very least, ten thousand. Count everyone even tangentially involved, and you reach roughly a hundred thousand. And that figure covers only the spies planted across the Central Plains—not the strength of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's main stronghold."
"That's a lot."
"A great deal indeed."
He was right. A hundred thousand. A staggering number. This was the Beggars' Gang speaking—the largest organization in all Jianghu, blind to no secret in the Central Plains—putting the count at a full hundred thousand.
"They know the Central Plains."
Singija's meaning was crystal clear. Just as no corner of the Central Plains murim lay beyond the Beggars' Gang's reach, no corner lay beyond the footsteps of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
It meant, too, that even in this age hailed as a golden peace, the demonic cult's forces had already sunk their roots into every corner of the Central Plains.
"But we know nothing of them."
For a moment, a heavy silence devoured the drinking table.
"Ten years."
"…?"
Catching my gaze, Singija went on. "Within ten years, most likely, a great war will break out between the righteous and the demonic."
"Mm."
It was only right to call Singija's powers—the finest intellect under heaven—beyond dispute. Unlike me, who knew the truth because I had lived it and returned, he had divined the oncoming future from scattered fragments of information alone. And yet, for all that he had foreseen it, he had failed to stop it. Which was to say: the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's march had been every bit as meticulous and unshakable as that.
Singija's eyes came to rest on me. "And what can you do?"
Expectation filled his gaze. I understood well enough what Singija expected of me.
Gulp. Savoring the Jiannanchun, I opened my mouth.
"I will achieve the Six Dan Gong."
That alone would be enough.
"I will make your prediction wrong. There will be no Great War of Righteousness and Evil."
That would be the road I walked.
"Is that possible?"
"I'll have to work at it and see."
Though I knew full well that reaching the Six Dan Gong was impossible on my strength alone. Which was precisely why I had to walk a different path than Yakseon had.
"I'm counting on you."
A head poked out from behind Singija—
"And don't forget your promise to face me once you achieve that Six Dan Gong."
Pahwang was burning with the thrill of rivalry.
Brother Chun-baek sipped his Jiannanchun without a word.
The road back, after my audience with Singija came to an end.
"Myeong."
"What is it?"
Brother Chun-baek had called my name. He studied me for a moment, then drew something from inside his robe.
Clink—
What emerged from Brother Chun-baek's robe was a bottle of liquor.
"It seems a shame to head straight back. Care for one more drink?"
"Any time at all, so long as it's with you, Brother Chun-baek."
"Haha. Where would you like to go, then?"
Brother Chun-baek asked it with a satisfied smile.
The hours with Singija and Pahwang had already carried us well past sundown into the evening; it was deep into the night now. Naturally, no tavern in the world would still have its doors open at this hour.
But… with good company and good liquor on hand, what problem was there?
"How about over there?"
"Looks good to me."
I pointed to a spot beside the stream—a broad, flat rock spread out like a wooden platform. Brother Chun-baek and I settled onto it side by side.
It was late, the moon itself hiding behind the clouds, and the fireflies wandering the stream bank were the only light we had. It was no trouble at all. Brother Chun-baek and I were both martial artists risen to realms where such trifles no longer held any sway over us.
"Not bad at all."
My days as Myeong-gae came back to me. If a beggar's life held one advantage over that of a great clan's direct heir, it was how readily nature offered itself as a companion. For Myeong-gae too, the true pleasure had never been any fine tavern, but sour raw rice wine drunk to the sound of a stream.
"Have a sip yourself."
Brother Chun-baek, drinking straight from the bottle, held it out to me.
"A familiar bottle, this."
It was the Jiannanchun Singija had served us. I was no deep connoisseur of drink, but I knew premium liquor when it touched my tongue.
"You pocketed a whole bottle."
"Your sleight of hand would put the Gentleman on the Beam himself to shame."
"Puhah!"
With Brother Chun-baek's trademark laughter and the soft murmur of the stream for our only side dishes, we passed the Jiannanchun back and forth.
"Is there something you wish to say?"
I asked because Brother Chun-baek wore the face of a man who had resolved to speak. I knew it was kinder to ask outright than to play the innocent. Though that held true only between two people whose trust ran as deep as mine and Brother Chun-baek's.
"Myeong. I am the successor of the Sinbi Sect."
Like an ambush, Brother Chun-baek's true subject charged headlong into the conversation. That was how poor Brother Chun-baek was with words.
"I call it the Sinbi Sect, but truth be told, it's nothing so grand. Just a lineage that passes a single martial art from one hand to the next, that's all."
"I see."
And so, for a long while—
"My master is hale as ever, yet he worries himself sick over me. Truth is, I only got to attend the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly because I forced the issue. Thinking on it now, it was the best thing I ever did. Wasn't it there that I met you? If I hadn't, I'd never have reached my present realm this quickly. I hadn't known how wide the world was."
Brother Chun-baek carried on alone, as though making a confession.
Only after we had talked a very long time over the Jiannanchun—
"…and that's the whole of my story."
Brother Chun-baek's account had run its course.
I knew every word of it was true. But one thing was wrong. If the martial art in question would give birth to the swordsman known as Yi Chun-baek, King of Vagabonds, then the Sinbi Sect was no nameless backwater. It deserved to be called a truly extraordinary place—the sort of hidden haven murim folk would ordinarily brand a fortuitous encounter, a heaven-sent opportunity.
Whatever stands out in this world becomes a target for envy, jealousy, and greed, and so the Sinbi Sect generally kept its identity hidden. Yet Brother Chun-baek had laid it all bare for me. For me. Perhaps precisely because I was me.
"I simply wanted to tell you, that's all."
Brother Chun-baek's face looked unburdened as he said it.
"I have mastered a martial art called the Yakseon Heart Decision."
I opened my mouth in a shape much like Brother Chun-baek's own blunt manner. A story every bit as long as his poured out through my lips.
That day, with nature and Jiannanchun for companions, we talked away the long night. Sharing secrets may not be the only measure of friendship and trust, but I could not deny that this was a night that had drawn Brother Chun-baek and me closer.
Kaifeng.
The city where the Beggars' Gang's general headquarters stood—which was to say, the very heart of the beggars' den itself.
Kaifeng sat in Tianjin County of Hebei Province, beside Beijing, where the Emperor was said to reside. That the dwelling place of the most wretched souls had taken root right beside the residence of the most exalted man in the world—one could call that a cross-section of the Central Plains itself.
Of course, since the beggars of the Beggars' Gang were no ordinary beggars, the city suffered none of the usual ills—no lax policing, no filthy streets. If anything, the gang's countless beggars doubled as Kaifeng's citizen watch, making it one of the safest and cleanest cities anywhere.
Revere righteousness. Any villain fool enough to plot crime straight through the vast information network of a gang built on such lofty ideals had long since been eradicated. And so Kaifeng was a strange city: cleaner and more peaceful than any other, yet with rather more shabbily dressed beggars in view than most.
Kaifeng was far. Measured from Anhui, the journey meant crossing Henan and pressing on to the heart of Hebei—a road that spanned at least two full provinces. Considering the sheer size each province of the Central Plains commanded, even in flattery, "close" would have been a hard word to use.
Dancheon Myeong, who had turned his back on his family at twenty, remembered making that grueling journey without a single coin to his name. I remembered with perfect clarity the state I was in when I reached Kaifeng—indistinguishable from any stray of the Beggars' Gang.
And now.
"This is the place?"
"It is."
I had come to Kaifeng with Brother Chun-baek.
"You give directions like a man who's been here a hundred times."
Brother Chun-baek, hopeless with roads despite his life as a vagabond, marveled at me, and I marveled right back at him.
"I've always had a good eye for roads. You're the strange one, Brother Chun-baek."
"A vagabond goes wherever his feet take him. What use would I have for knowing the way?"
That this same man had somehow always found his way to the Dancheon Clan right on time made me think human ability was truly without limit.
In any case, this was my first time setting foot in Kaifeng in this life, and the feeling was a fresh one. The twenty-year-old Dancheon Myeong who had come here alone, cast off by his family. And… the twenty-two-year-old Dancheon Myeong who arrived bearing his family's recognition and the supreme realm called the Profound Realm. The gulf between the two was vast indeed, so the ache of how much had changed was only natural.
"Let's go."
Setting the feelings behind me, Brother Chun-baek and I walked toward the entrance of the Beggars' Gang's general headquarters. Unlike my past life, when I could not escape rags and beggar's garb, I wore the Dancheon Clan's martial uniform now, its colors smartly set in fine fabric—it would be right to call this a homecoming in glory. For the Beggars' Gang was, without exaggeration, my second home.
Step, step.
When we reached the entrance to the general headquarters, an old beggar lay sprawled there in his shabby rags. As I approached, he stirred and pushed himself up.
"I've come to the Beggars' Gang on business."
I said to him, and—
"The direct line of the Dancheon Clan, with business at the Beggars' Gang?"
the old beggar replied.
—The direct line of the Dancheon Clan, come to enter the Beggars' Gang?
The reason for the déjà vu was simple enough: this moment resembled that one almost exactly.
A glance at the old beggar's waist showed six knots tied in careless disarray. It was only natural. This six-knot old beggar would not rise to seven-knot elder until after Myeong-gae had become a branch chief at twenty-three—there was still time to go.
"What is your name?"
asked the six-knot old beggar, who had clearly seen through what I was. Even now, after my regression, I still did not know what he had been after with that question—but answering him was the right thing to do. Not because I had anything to lose, but because I wanted to.
"Myeong. Second son of the Dancheon Clan."
My voice scraped as it passed my throat.
'This time, I have not cast this name away.'
I swallowed the thought down. I was overjoyed to see him—but I knew full well that to him, this was our first meeting.
"Right. Dancheon Myeong. So that's the name, eh."
The old beggar replied with an impish grin. There was a gladness in the way he spoke my name. Even back in those days when I had cast off my own surname, he had still called me 'Dancheon Myeong.'
"It's good to see you, Chwipung-gae."
In the end, unable to hold it in, I called his name.
Chwipung-gae, startled for a heartbeat, broke into a beaming grin.
'A well-connected young pup, this one.'
No doubt that was exactly what Chwipung-gae was thinking. I knew him, after all—there was no chance of being wrong.
"Do you have business at the general headquarters?"
I shook my head at his question.
"I came to see you."
At my out-of-nowhere answer, Chwipung-gae tilted his head.
"I see. Follow me, then."
Chwipung-gae asked no questions. I watched his retreating back for a moment—then fell into step behind him.