Childish Nonsense?
‘But what if I said it for no reason and he gets upset? Or he might think it's just childish nonsense.’
“Jeong Yeong.”
“Y-yes? Yes!”
Jeong Yeong, who had been walking along, startled and turned to look at Ryeon. He seemed utterly shocked that she knew his name.
“Practicing your footwork?”
“Ah…… I'm sorry, truly sorry. I'm still so lacking……”
Jeong Yeong jumped even more in surprise and spoke in a flurry. It was only natural—he'd been caught slacking off while escorting his young mistress.
“No, no, I'm not scolding you. I just meant……”
Ryeon trailed off for a moment before letting go of his hand. She'd never trained in martial arts herself, but she'd spent her whole life in a murim family. Of course she knew the clan's basic footwork.
Most people could consider themselves lucky if their feet didn't tangle on their first try with a new form. But Ryeon had Harmony.
Her steps moved with cheerful lightness.
“This isn't just for putting distance from an enemy. It's great for dodging briefly and then advancing again. So you pull back firmly on the rear left leg to build momentum for pushing forward.”
“Pardon?”
“Since you're pivoting on the left foot to drag the right leg in and then extend it, don't fear the momentary tilt of your body. Embrace it, and it might flow even better.”
Tak, tatak!
She stepped one pace away from Jeong Yeong, then closed the gap again. The motion was as lighthearted as a child playfully dodging a relative, yet there was profound subtlety in her toe placement.
“Ah…… Yes, understood! Thank you for the guidance.”
Jeong Yeong clasped his hands and bowed deeply.
Ryeon felt awkward instead, scratching her cheek as he accepted it so readily.
‘Well, of course. Who would argue with the eldest young lady of the house?’
A wave of regret and embarrassment washed over her—had she spoken out of turn? She fell silent and said no more.
The vast estate would take at least half a shichen to tour fully, so by the time the two arrived quietly at Rejing Pavilion, the morning sun had just begun to sparkle.
“You mean…… the archive in Rejing Pavilion right now?”
“You're saying the same thing as Yeong. Is that a problem?”
At Ryeon's smiling words, the master of Rejing Pavilion, Seol Gwan-hui, flinched in shock. He glanced at the guard holding her hand.
Seol Gwan-hui was just past forty, his hair already streaked with white, yet his wrinkle-free face made him look like a young man.
“Goodness, no! Of course you can enter. Absolutely.”
Desperately recalling the state of the archive from his last visit ten days ago, the pavilion master guided Ryeon toward it.
‘Was it somewhat organized? Or not? Ah, I think I just piled the documents and told Cho-il to sort them. Did that boy actually do it?’
Danmok Ryeon was barely eight, her eyes open for scarcely a year. What could such a child possibly notice? Yet anxiety gnawed at him anyway.
Sensing something was wrong from the pavilion master's pained expression—like he might come down with a sudden illness—Ryeon left him at the archive door and stepped inside.
She felt him craning his neck like a rooster, trying to peek in.
‘To fix anything, I need to know how the household truly stands.’
She already knew misfortune had befallen the family. Her aunt Danmok Hyeon-yo, acting as family head, couldn't even stay home and had gone to the Murim Alliance—that said it all.
To stand, you first had to know what you were sitting on. Stand too hastily from eggs, and you'd crush them all; from sand, and you'd sink.
Ryeon took a deep breath and began scanning the room with her sparkling eyes.
“Is our sister…… really sick?”
“Doesn't seem like it……”
Two boys peeked toward Danmok Ryeon's quarters from nearby.
The guard Jeong Yeong, stationed at her door, noticed the movement and glanced over, smiling faintly at the whispering children. But the smile soon faded.
A few days ago, early one dawn, Danmok Ryeon had visited Rejing Pavilion. Everyone found it odd at first, but soon understood. She'd nearly memorized the Thousand Character Classic, so she must have wanted to read various characters.
The problem was that since then, a shadow had fallen over the little girl's face. Her smiles dimmed, her laughter quieted. Even her appetite waned, her meals shrinking dramatically, putting the entire estate on alert.
Even her young brothers gathered, holding their breath and peeking inside, everyone worried sick.
“Should I pick some plum blossoms? Maybe seeing flowers will cheer sister up?”
Danmok Bi mumbled. The small boy, too short to reach the branches even on tiptoe, craned his neck and stared at a plum tree utterly bare of buds.
The boy beside him shook his head with a sour expression.
“You're too short to reach, and the flowers won't bloom for ages anyway.”
“But there are already tons of goldthread around.”
“That won't lift sister's mood.”
“Then what should we bring?”
“Hm…… Probably a stack of ledgers.”
“Ledgers? What's that?”
Jeong Yeong, eavesdropping, shot a glance at Hwaryun, who had mentioned ‘ledgers.’ The boy had strikingly large, clear eyes and features; standing next to Danmok Bi, anyone would mistake them for two young masters, not master and servant.
Rumor had it he'd caught Danmok Ryeon's eye by chance, and being exceptionally bright, they planned to raise him like a brother from youth to make him a close retainer.
“Ledgers—you think that's all it takes? Where do you get them? Should I ask Mother?”
“Just kidding. If they were that easy to get, sister wouldn't be like this.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Exactly…… Why is she like that? Sigh, I think I know, but……”
His low, sighing mutter didn't sound like a child's at all.
Jeong Yeong had started watching Hwaryun closely not long after the boy entered the Danmok estate. Even as a servant boy, in ten or twenty years, he'd likely be a core retainer. But one day, the boy suddenly whipped around, stared straight through him without blinking, scanned him head to toe, then turned away as if bored.
After that, the boy never spared him another glance. Yet that piercing gaze left a strange, chilling afterimage in Jeong Yeong's heart.
“No way around it. Better memorize the Thousand Character Classic first. You got it all down?”
“Huh? No…… not yet…… What about you, Hwaryun bro?”
“Same as you. Let's go cram it now.”
“But sister……”
“Once you finish and learn swordsmanship from Great-Grandfather, sister will perk right up. She'd love that most.”
“Really?”
“When you're the world's greatest, she'll dance for joy.”
“Really, really? But can I become the world's greatest?”
“Dunno…… Probably not easy.”
Jeong Yeong watched the two boys walk away.
The world's greatest…… He'd dreamed of that once. It felt so distant now.
He recalled that dawn at Rejing Pavilion. Danmok Ryeon had critiqued his footwork, but he hadn't minded much. A young lady advising retainers—if he took offense every time, he couldn't do this job.
Still, he'd felt watched afterward and skipped footwork practice for a while.
Jeong Yeong stared down at his own toes.
Ryeon sprawled flat on her bed.
‘Ughhh……’
Then she flipped over, burying her face in her arms.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
Sleep wouldn't come. The days of expending her building spiritual energy just to extend her lifespan felt like a dream now.
Visiting Rejing Pavilion had been half impulse, but she hadn't expected things to be this bad……
The family-run shops had dwindled to a handful you could count on two hands. Yuseong Escort Agency, which once reached beyond Xinjiang, had shrunk to a shadow—now only running escorts between Henan and Shaanxi provinces, and even those because the Murim Alliance was in Henan and Wijicheong's brother was at Huashan Sect in Shaanxi.
They'd sold off fields for quick cash; landholdings were half what they'd been twenty years ago. The orchards had long withered, the family clinic split—one half absorbed by Hoseon Medical Pavilion in Hangzhou, leaving only the pharmacy.
No new disciples in three years. Better to hold onto what they had.
Why? They couldn't sustain the current size.
Numbers shrank, and retainers they'd nurtured slipped away like sand through clenched fists.