Incidents Always Happen at Inns
Incidents always happen at inns.
The sun hung high at midday. I had finished my lunch and was idly making ready to head out. After giving my clothes one final inspection, I peered into the mirror, where a languid-looking man with black hair and black eyes gazed back at me.
"I still haven't quite gotten used to this."
Raising a hand to my lips, I murmured to the man in the mirror — a man who, apart from his hair and eye color, bore not the slightest resemblance to me.
"Young Master! A visitor has come to see you."
At the voice calling from outside, I promptly pulled my eyes from the mirror and answered.
"Tell them I'm heading out now."
With that, I ambled outside at a leisurely gait, where Dang Giyeong was waiting to meet me, smiling with his eyes narrowed into slits.
"Ah! There you are."
As the saying goes, you can't spit in a smiling face, so I, too, put on a courteous smile and replied.
"Yes... well."
"Shall we be off, then?"
"By all means."
With those words, Dang Giyeong drew close, slung an arm around my shoulders, and declared, "I pride myself on knowing the Dang Clan's surroundings better than anyone alive. Just leave it all to me."
Watching him smirk at me as he said it, I found his trustworthy-sounding words having precisely the opposite effect — my faith in Dang Giyeong was sinking lower by the moment — when,
"Ah! With me here, there's really no need for you to tag along."
Dang Giyeong was actually telling one of the Red Heaven Squad members stationed behind me that his guard duty was unnecessary.
At that, the squad member fidgeted. "Th-that is... the Squad Leader's orders..."
"If someone shows up who can actually harm the Young Master even with me standing right here, then unless it's Squad Leader Dang Yun or Bi Gwang, you wouldn't be much help anyway, would you?"
"Still..."
"You may as well head back. Or go fetch Squad Leader Dang Yun."
"Ha... understood."
Squeezed by the faint pressure bleeding off Dang Giyeong's words, the man soon relented with a sour look, bowed to me, and said, "Have a safe trip, Young Master."
Watching the whole exchange, I felt the suspicion I'd been harboring toward Dang Giyeong swell to enormous proportions, and gave only a perfunctory reply.
"Fine... it won't take long anyway."
Leaving it at that, I set off toward the main street with Dang Giyeong.
How long did we walk? We had left the inner city and passed clean beyond the outer walls when he finally spoke up.
"Come to think of it, do you truly remember nothing at all, Young Master?"
"Yes... well, that's about the size of it."
Apparently pleased with my answer, Dang Giyeong's smile deepened. Humming through his nose, he adopted a pointedly insinuating tone.
"Hmmm~ to think you truly recall nothing at all... how tragic."
Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he murmured,
"Then again, it might be a blessing."
I doubted my own ears. "Sorry?"
"Ah — no, that wasn't what I meant. If you remembered the incident itself, you would remember the agony of the poisoning along with it. I only meant it's a mercy that you don't."
The sight of him saying it so smoothly, without so much as a flicker in his expression, only scrambled my thoughts further. No, but seriously... how does anyone get away with being that openly suspicious?
While I was still tangled in profound confusion over Dang Giyeong's utterly incomprehensible behavior, he came to a stop and announced, "We're here."
At that, I lifted my gaze from the pavement and looked around to find a bustling market street spread out before us.
"Ooh...!"
As I stood there marveling at the vibrant scene for a moment, Dang Giyeong spoke up. "Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go?"
"Is there an inn around here that's good at somen?"
"Didn't you just eat...?"
Barely an hour had passed since lunch, and there I was hunting noodles. He stared at me with pure, undisguised disbelief, and watching that face work, I thought, So even that face can manage expressions like that...
Having marveled at the spectacle of a slit-eyed, permanently grinning visage conveying disbelief, Dang Giyeong pondered something briefly before answering. "Then... allow me to take you to a place I know well. Their somen is second to none in all of Sichuan."
"You're sure they're actually good at somen?"
"Naturally. If it tastes bad, you have my full permission to dump the bowl right over my head."
"I'm sorry?"
"A joke."
I shot him a look cold enough to curdle milk, but it rolled right off him; utterly unbothered, he steered me toward a certain inn.
"Here we are."
The place Dang Giyeong led me to was, it turned out, no empty boast — an inn packed to the rafters with a seething crowd.
In all that clamor and overflowing vitality, the realization that I had truly crossed into another world struck me hard for the very first time.
"Hey!"
The moment Dang Giyeong stepped inside and waved someone over, a serving girl popped up, gave him a quick bow, and led the two of us upstairs.
The whole exchange looked so well-worn that I asked him, "You come here often, don't you?"
"Naturally. I'd wager I've been here a good hundred times at least."
Trailing after him as he preened and puffed up his shoulders, I climbed to the second floor.
Unlike the ground floor, stuffed to bursting with people, this level was a touch quieter. Settling into a seat, I asked Dang Giyeong, "Why aren't there many people up here?"
"Ah... this floor is reserved for honored guests and truly long-standing regulars only."
A glance around confirmed it — the room held nothing but figures in silk robes or well advanced in years.
"Ooh... so you really do come here a lot."
At my words, Dang Giyeong scratched his head and corrected my misunderstanding. "We were shown upstairs not on account of my patronage — I hardly count — but because one of the most esteemed figures in all of Sichuan has just walked through the door. Of course they'd seat him up here."
I asked, puzzled. "Me? Have I ever been here before?"
"I couldn't say — but Young Lady Mulin used to frequent the place, so the moment they saw Young Master Muyeong, who looks the very image of her, they must have ushered you straight upstairs."
It dawned on me that this identity I'd done nothing but grumble about was actually good for something after all, and I marveled. Ooh... this part's rather nice, actually.
"Two bowls of somen, if you please!"
With Dang Giyeong's order placed, I waited for the food and asked him, "By the way, do people not pick fights with each other around here?"
I was picturing the old wuxia staple — ruffians harassing a lady at an inn and starting a brawl — as I posed the question.
"Anyone who starts a fight in here is a lunatic."
His flat answer disappointed me.
Whether he noticed my slumping shoulders or not, Dang Giyeong carried on. "It does happen downstairs now and then... but it never escalates into anything serious. Most of the idiots who'd dare cause trouble this close to the Dang Clan's doorstep left this place long ago."
"Huh..."
"Two bowls of somen!"
Just then the serving girl arrived with steaming bowls, and I waved him off. "Let's talk after we eat first."
"Yes... fine."
Then I took my first bite. Oh... oh?
The fiery yet refreshing taste drew a gasp of admiration from me, and in the blink of an eye I inhaled the whole bowl.
A short while later, once both Dang Giyeong and I had finished eating, he asked me, "It seems the food agreed with you rather well."
Remembering how I'd practically chugged the noodles earlier, I gave a sheepish laugh. "I can see why you brought me here with such confidence."
"Right?"
Suspicious slit eyes aside, he hadn't pulled anything strange at all — he'd simply introduced me to an excellent inn — and I felt my suspicion of Dang Giyeong ease, if only somewhat.
"Haah... I'm stuffed."
I was drumming on my full belly, sipping the tea the serving girl had poured and idly taking in the scene around me, when—
"He really is alive?"
At a woman's voice, sudden and out of nowhere, I whipped my head around to find its owner.
A girl who still looked quite young sat among her companions, dressed in the robes of a Taoist sect.
Utterly indifferent to my stare, one of the men beside her snickered to himself. "So the Dang Clan Head went and turned his own son into a jiangshi, did he?"
At the absurd remark drifting in from beside me, I tilted my head, turned to Dang Giyeong, and asked, "What on earth are they on about?"
My question failed utterly to hide my disbelief, but Dang Giyeong answered with perfect serenity. "They say you're a jiangshi, Young Master."
"No, that's not what I'm asking... who are these people, that they'd pick a fight out of nowhere and carry on like that?"
Whether my words rubbed him the wrong way, the robed man made no effort to hide his displeasure and sneered at the top of his lungs. "These days even jiangshi can talk. My, how the world has improved."
When I glared at them, the man didn't so much as pause, pressing on in that baiting tone. "Glare all you like — what difference does it make from a fellow who spent his days cowering behind his sister's skirts?"
Sensing the air going distinctly strange, another man spoke up.
"Senior Brother..."
Paying his fellow disciple no heed whatsoever, the man kept spewing.
"What, was something I said wrong?"
Just as I felt my irritation beginning to simmer, Dang Giyeong remarked, "Taoists of the Qingcheng Sect, it seems."
At that answer, I heaved a sigh. "Haah... they're Taoists, are they? Well, that figures. There's bound to be a few of these everywhere you go..."
Whether he'd caught my words or not, the man's face flared scarlet as though someone had slammed his berserk button, and he shrieked at me, "How dare you, you piece of trash!"
Paying the man no more mind, I turned to Dang Giyeong. "The best way to deal with that sort is to give them no attention at all, wouldn't you say?"
"Naturally."
Watching the two of us converse right over his head like he was a stray dog, the man promptly crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
A split-second hush swallowed the entire inn.
"Ooooh..."
For once, Dang Giyeong's eyes widened slightly.
"Senior Brother!"
The man's companions cried out, rushing to restrain him—
"Ha... ha..."
—and Dang Muyeong's face went suddenly, utterly cold, as though his reverse scale had been trodden upon, and for a long moment he simply stared at the man, expressionless.
A worthless little maggot, flapping his mouth about whatever he pleases...
The instant Dang Muyeong — silent behind that blank mask — shifted his expression and began to speak, the mood of the hushed inn started drifting somewhere stranger and stranger.
"An insult on this level — if I were to kill him where he stands, that wouldn't cause any real trouble, would it?"
As I let the words slide out with a chilling smirk and a hollow laugh, Dang Giyeong beamed and replied, "Probably not?"