Berserk Button
Morning broke before I knew it. Fresh from sleep, I yawned my way down to the lower floor of the inn.
"Yaaawn... You're all up already?"
The sight that greeted me was one of people who'd risen ages ago — some mid-meal, others already packing up to depart. When I asked, Dang Jihyeon answered with the same exasperated face she always wore.
"Yes. Once you finish your breakfast, Young Lord, we can be on our way."
I nodded and got to eating. In stark contrast to everyone else scurrying about, I was taking my sweet time with my chopsticks — until I felt a pair of eyes on me, at which point I scarfed down the rest of my rice and addressed her.
"Alright, let's get going."
"Yes, sir."
Our brief exchange concluded, the whole Dang Clan contingent filed out of the inn. Hooves clattered, the carriage lurched into motion, and Dang Jihyeon spoke up.
"We should reach the Zhuge Clan Estate around the hour of the Rooster today."
"Really? Then dinner's at the Zhuges', huh. Oof... how the hell is this landmass so damn wide?"
Sichuan and Hubei counted as close neighbors by the standards of this world, and even so the carriage journey had chewed up nearly three full weeks. I answered with the face of a man thoroughly sick of travel. With that, silence sank back in, and I spread open my right hand and folded my fingers down one by one as I muttered.
"So the Peng Clan's more or less wrapped up... and the Zhuges were off the list..."
"What exactly is it that's 'wrapped up'?"
Having endured my lunatic's rambling the whole while, Dang Jihyeon asked, her expression plainly reading what are you plotting now.
"Huh? Ah... I was just thinking over the favor Green Heaven Squad Leader asked of me, that's all."
"Dang Giyeong? The man currently laid up in the Medicine Hall? What favor could he possibly have asked of you?"
I answered her with a face that said it was nothing.
"Nothing major. He just asked me to come back after stomping a few mudholes into the kids from the other Great Clans."
"Ah....."
"Anyway, that's partly why I went out of my way to needle that bandit-looking brute from the Peng Clan yesterday..."
Only then did understanding dawn on Dang Jihyeon's face, and she nodded slowly.
"And here I thought you were picking fights, cursing people out, and beating them half to death with poison thrown in — all without a single thought behind any of it. So it was premeditated?"
"Look, no matter how much it might look like I act without a shred of a plan, the truth is I plan out every single thing before I do it... What am I, some kind of god who acts on pure whim?"
"Then was killing off that Qingcheng Sect disciple also part of your calculations?"
She yanked up an incident from months past without the slightest warning, and my face went blank, my voice dying in my throat—
"As expected of you, Young Lord. Truly magnificent. Stack up a conveniently sufficient pretext, then kill the man first and think about it after."
Her crooked smile and dripping sarcasm set me off, and I snapped back at her.
"Hey, the guy came out of nowhere with a straight-up personal attack! How the hell was I supposed to just sit there and eat it?!"
"A per... a what?"
"Never mind... It's just... ugh. Drop it."
Talking to this woman left me with the uncanny feeling that the longer the conversation ran, the deeper I was being reeled in. Before long I whipped my head away and stared blankly out the window.
I was deep into counting the trees I'd passed and pointedly ignored — all for the sake of strengthening my mental fortitude — when Dang Jihyeon addressed me in a low voice.
"I don't care for Dang Giyeong personally, but this once I have no choice but to side with the man."
The sheer randomness of it had me turning my head back around to ask—
"What in the world is that supposed to mean?"
"I'm saying I, too, approve of showing the rabble of the Five Great Clans what for."
Dang Jihyeon said this as she stroked the snake coiled across her lap.
The sight wrung a scoff out of me.
"Heh... why on earth does every single Squad Leader keep singing the same tune?"
A while back, Red Heaven Squad Leader Dang Yun had asked me to trample the other clans' bastards underfoot. The Green Heaven Squad Leader I'd met right before departure had said the same. And now even the White Heaven Squad Leader. I asked, genuinely baffled.
"Hm..."
She hummed in thought for a moment, then put a question to me.
"Are you aware of the balance of power within the orthodox faction, Young Lord?"
"The balance of power? Well... I know pretty much all of it?"
It was a question from absolutely nowhere, but I answered, dredging up memories of my days playing the game. Dang Jihyeon nodded and pressed on.
"Then this will go quickly. Truthfully it's an obvious matter, when you look at it right, but..."
She let the sentence hang for a beat, swallowed hard, and continued.
"At its root, the orthodox world is split three ways: the Five Great Clans, the Nine Great Sects and One Alliance, and everyone else. 'Orthodox' is the only rope binding them together — in practice, each power spends its days keeping a wary eye on the others."
By that point I had a fair guess where she was headed, so I spoke first.
"And there's friction even among the Five Great Clans themselves — and inside the Nine Great Sects and One Alliance too..."
"Precisely. And it runs deepest on the clan side. They clump together by bloodline — same surnames flocking to the same banner — so where the Nine Great Sects and One Alliance mostly confine themselves to wars of pride, the clans actually come to blades with some regularity."
"Still, no matter how often the clans carve each other up, they get along better with one another than with the sect crowd, don't they?"
When I cut across her to ask—
"That's true. But it isn't clan solidarity that buys their friendship. None of them is willing to hand over their grip on the Alliance's reins, so they lock arms with each other because there's no alternative."
"Ah..."
Having given me the broad strokes, Dang Jihyeon returned to her earlier point.
"In any case, the clans' power struggles burn hottest at the Assembly. Clan Heads themselves rarely gather in person, of course, but they always send someone of at least Young Clan Head rank."
At that, I turned to her with a look of utter disbelief.
"Then that blockhead we saw yesterday is the Peng Clan's Young Clan Head? The Peng Clan's future is looking pitch black..."
"Ah... no, he isn't. The Peng Clan's true Young Head has reportedly been in secluded training these past few years. So the Peng Clan Head apparently sent his second son instead — though why he'd ship a whelp like that to the Assembly, I honestly can't say."
"A whelp?"
"Yes. Probably a year your junior, Young Lord..."
"That face is one year younger than me? What, did he personally catch every hardship the ages ever threw? What is wrong with his face?"
"Hard to say..."
I sat there gaping like a fool, having heard something even harder to make sense of than how I'd come tumbling into this world in the first place—
"Young Lord, a fly is about to go in. Kindly close your mouth."
At her words I clamped my jaw shut and coughed.
"Ahem... anyway, get on with what you were saying."
"Where did I leave off?"
"From the part where the pride wars peak at the Assembly..."
Dang Jihyeon swept her hair back behind her ear and began her explanation anew.
"In any case, they call it an Assembly, but it's really nothing more than a social mixer. When a hall full of Young Clan Heads and the young warriors guarding them gets together, what do you suppose gets talked about?"
"Beats me."
At my half-hearted answer, she clicked her tongue.
"They wage an all-out war of pride over which clan's Young Head is the finest of them all. It starts with 'so-and-so did such-and-such,' then moves on to who's earned which epithet, whose realm has climbed to what height..."
"Ah....."
"And how do you suppose the Dang Clan has been treated at the Assembly these last few years?"
I mulled it over for a moment before venturing an answer.
"The clan with the most handsome Young Clan Head?"
"Ugh..."
"What? Why?"
"No, it's not that... Well — daughters rarely inherit a family to begin with, so setting Lady Murin's achievements entirely apart, whenever anyone brought up Young Lord Muyeong, they would say..."
"Would say...?"
Dang Jihyeon ran her eyes over me once, head to toe, pity written all over her face, and continued.
"'The Clan Head's sole remaining son is still mired in Third-Rate... meek of temperament and hardly brilliant, and the only thing about him worth looking at is his face — a house that will have to make a male concubine of its boy to find itself a mistress of the household.' That is what they said."
Perhaps her words were simply too devastating. Silence flooded the carriage.
I sat frozen with my mouth hanging open for a long, long while before I finally clawed my way back to my senses and asked her.
"Who said it?"
"Pardon? Everyone, really... Is there anyone in particular to name?"
"No... then who was the first to bring up the male-concubine part...?"
"As far as I know, it was the Sword of the Namgung Clan..."
"The Namgung Clan? Hoo... okaaay....."
At the sight of Dang Muyeong muttering to himself, his face dark as a storm front, Dang Jihyeon felt a sudden prickle of unease and moved to stop him—
"Young Lord! I say this purely as a precaution, but you absolutely must not declare a death match."
"Heheheheheheheh."
Without so much as pretending to have heard her, Dang Muyeong laced his fingers, propped his chin atop them, and laughed like a lunatic — and she began giving serious thought to whether the carriage could yet be turned back toward Sichuan.
Truth be told, like anyone alive, I had a berserk button of my own. And the moment 'that word' left Dang Jihyeon's mouth, a memory from the long-distant past came flashing back, and the rage rose until my hands were trembling.
"Male concubine...? Male concubine?? That fucking bastard..."
And so inside the carriage sat two people bound for very different destinations of the mind: I, cackling away with my eyes rolled back in my head, and Dang Jihyeon, solemnly deliberating whether to turn the horses around even now.
But alas, houses had begun to drift past the window — the homes of actual, living people.
The Dang Clan's party soon rolled to a halt before the main gate of the Zhuge Clan Estate.
"Young Clan Head, we've arrived."
Someone rapped on the carriage door, calling for me. I craned my neck around with a creak and answered.
"Yeah. Coming out."
At the sight of me speaking in a soft, honeyed voice while wearing a smile twisted far beyond pleasantry, Dang Jihyeon beside me pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Ha... I don't even know anymore," she murmured under her breath, and then—
Creeeak—
The carriage door swung open, and I set my foot down outside.
No sooner had I disembarked than an old man who appeared to be the Estate's Head Steward came hurrying over to me.
"You are most sincerely welcome to the Zhuge Clan Estate. I shall see you escorted to your lodgings at once, so if you would first tend to the unloading of your luggage—!!!"
The moment his eyes rose to meet mine—
"Heheheheheheheh."
One look at my face — split by a lunatic's cackle, wearing an expression too terrifying to meet even in dreams — and the old man flinched hard.
I stretched out a hand to him in offer of a handshake and spoke.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance... Tell me, has the Namgung Clan already arrived?"
"Th... yes... The Namgung Clan arrived yesterday."
"Then could you tell me where the Namgung Clan's Young Head might be at this moment?"
"Th... at this hour, he should be in his lodgings, or else at the training grounds..."
"Escort me to the training grounds first, then."
As I spoke, my grip closing hard around his clasped hand, the Head Steward of the Zhuge Clan answered with badly hidden alarm.
"Might I ask what business takes you to the training grounds...?"
"Ah... nothing grave. I simply have a matter of some importance to discuss with the Namgung Clan's Young Head."
"As you wish."
With that he set off to lead me toward the training grounds, and no sooner had I fallen in behind him than the White Heaven Squad Leader hurried up at my back, jabbing me in the ribs and beaming her voice straight into my ear.
Young Lord... might it not be wiser to proceed to your assigned lodgings right now?
Unable to answer in kind — voice transmission being beyond me — I turned my head and replied out loud.
"What? Oh, come off it. You don't actually think I'd challenge him to a death match, do you? Please..."
The Head Steward flinched yet again at the grim talk drifting from behind him, but true to his office, he silently led the two of us onward.
No... that's not what I mean. The Namgung Clan's Young Head is—
"Ugh, forget it. Do as you please, Young Lord."
No matter how she pressed, Dang Muyeong only kept grinning — so Dang Jihyeon gave up on the voice transmission altogether, sighed loud enough for the whole street to hear, and said,
"I did clearly try to stop you. Do whatever you want, Young Lord."
"Relax. It's not as if I'd go blaming the White Heaven Squad Leader afterward..."
By then we had arrived at the training grounds, where war cries and shouts of exertion rang through the air. The moment the door swung open, a figure with tied-back hair stood facing away from us, blade sweeping through the air.
"Guests?"
He began to turn at the presence he felt at his back—
"HEY! YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
I hurled myself at him with a roar, the dark-red qi in my hand compressed into something almost solid.
The Head Steward would later look back on that day and say only this:
"I should have simply refused and taken him straight to his lodgings..."