The Sichuan Dang Clan's Mood Maker
After what happened yesterday...
"The sky is blue, and..."
I sat in my lodgings, gazing blankly at the scenery outside the window, when Dang Jihyeon — fresh from breakfast — looked at me and struck up a conversation entirely out of nowhere.
"A blue sky? Where, exactly? The heavens are this choked with dark clouds and the snow is coming down in sheets — what drivel are you spouting first thing in the morning, might I ask?"
"Uh... huh? Oh. So it is dark..."
"On that note — what exactly did you do yesterday that the Zhuge estate's servants are shredding you so enthusiastically at every turn?"
"Yesterday? Ah... yesterday I was a total piece of garbage, that's all."
Without so much as meeting her eyes, I went on muttering at the empty air.
"Just a bastard who dumped his fiancée, ran off to a giru with some other woman, and stayed out rolling around all night. That's me."
"Wow... and you got caught at it again, no less? Perhaps you'd care to simply bite your tongue off and be done with it?"
Only at those words did I finally turn my head toward her.
"No... I swear I did nothing but drink. What I cannot figure out, even now, is how I ended up recast as the son of a bitch who ran a full-blown orgy with Namgung Han..."
"You... didn't?"
"Why would I go to a giru of all places just to put my arms around women? I went to listen to the songs and drink, that's all there was to it..."
Even with all that indignation packed into every word, Jihyeon went on studying me with a look of profound unconvinced-ness...
"What is that look supposed to say? You actually believed I was so starved for women I'd run off to a giru? Come on... with a fiancée as beautiful as mine, why would I even bother?"
"And yet the very gentleman who possesses so beautiful a fiancée arrived at the Zhuge estate and, first thing, was discovered joyfully entangling himself with another woman — was he not? Up until yesterday, no less."
"Get your story straight! How exactly does getting punched and flying off to knock myself cold turn into 'mixing bodies'?!"
No matter how earnestly I protested, she merely shrugged, and just as I reached back to clutch my neck in defeat...
"In any case, the Zhuge Clan Leader will be summoning the representatives of each family before long."
"Oh. Right... the assembly — that's why we came to Hubei in the first place... Wait, then what am I even supposed to do there?"
"Simply recite what the Clan Leader entrusted to you."
"He never entrusted me with anything?"
At that answer, Jihyeon favored me with an expression of deep pity.
"What do you mean, never? He suddenly tossed the Young Clan Head's seat at me — and even that was some Red Heaven Squad Leader or Dark Heaven Squad Leader who shoved the token into my hands, and the entirety of my instructions was 'You must depart for Hubei tomorrow.' What am I supposed to do with that?"
"Are those not precisely the things a person ought to work out for himself?"
"Haah....."
My mouth had stopped cooperating; my face, meanwhile, had begun to crumple of its own accord.
Jihyeon heaved a long sigh, and only then did she rummage about her breast, produce something, and pass it over.
"What's this?"
She pressed it into my palm, and as I took it I asked...
"The letter the Clan Leader instructed me to deliver to you, Young Master."
At that answer I unfolded the letter, and found it set out, more or less, what I was to say at the assembly.
The Demon Cult's movements... the affair in Ningxia... the secret pact between the Fighting King and the Spear Star...
The letter went on to contain a fair number of genuinely mind-boggling items...
"Why am I only receiving this NOW? If you'd handed it over on the road to Hubei, I could at least have wrapped my head around it — but as it stands, I'm expected to stand before the Zhuge Clan Leader and read this aloud on the spot?!"
"I forgot."
"What....."
"Surely a person may be forgiven for forgetting the odd trivial thing now and then?"
"You call this trivial? Then what, pray tell, counts as important?"
"Escorting you safely, of course. Besides, I had intended to deliver it on the day you crossed fists with the Paeng Clan's second son — but you went and caused such a scene that it slipped my mind."
"....."
Confronted with that world-class shamelessness, my mouth opened and shut a few times before I gave up on speaking altogether.
"Ugh..."
"Is there some problem? Once I had delivered the Young Master safely to Hubei, my duty was fulfilled."
"Whatever... no, never mind. It's all my fault. Yes, all mine. The brawl with that Paeng bastard — my fault. Getting decked by Namgung Han and face-planting — my fault. Getting caught hightailing it to a giru while leaving my fiancée behind — that too!"
What reined in my tantrum — my voice climbing a notch with every item — was a servant's voice from outside the door.
"Young Master, are you there?"
"He's in."
Only after Jihyeon answered did the man open the door and step inside, addressing me.
"The Clan Leader requests your presence. I shall escort you to the Clan Leader's Hall."
"Got it. Lead the way."
I set off after the servant, glancing back at Jihyeon and shaping the words with my lips alone.
You and I are going to have a talk when I get back.
"Hmph....."
The derisive little snort she blew at my blood-chilling warning very nearly drove me to pounce on her then and there, but I just barely wrangled my temper under control and made for the Clan Leader's Hall.
By the time I arrived, I was the last to show — of all the seats laid out, only one remained without an owner.
Wearing the most artfully casual grin I could manage, I said...
"So I'm the last one, then? My apologies for the delay."
As I took my seat, a middle-aged man at the head of the table opened his mouth, his face carved with fatigue.
"Now that the Dang Clan's Young Clan Head has arrived, let us begin the meeting."
Staring at the exhaustion etched into the Zhuge Clan Leader's face, I thought:
Wow... why do clan leaders all wear the same half-dead expression? Maybe I should toss the Young Clan Head seat up to my sworn sister and run for the hills while I still can.
Entertaining that utterly pointless thought, I scanned the room and took stock of the faces.
That fellow who's the spitting image of the Zhuge Clan Leader must be the Zhuge Clan's Young Clan Head... Namgung Han I saw yesterday... and the Paeng Clan's Young Clan Head is said to be absent, so if that mountain of a man is the Hwangbo Clan's Young Clan Head, then that old gentleman must be the Paeng Clan's Elder?
"Young Clan Head..."
Seriously... what do the Hwangbo and Paeng Clans feed their people? How is it only their lot are built like that?
"...Yeong..."
They say the Hwangbo Clan fights with its fists — but that's no fist, that's a demolition hammer.
"Muyeong!"
"Huh...? Y-yes?"
At the shout someone hurled my way, I finally came back to myself and looked up — every eye in the room was fixed on me.
"Muyeong, lad... what on earth has you so absorbed that you can't even hear your own name being called?"
Namgung Han was regarding me with pure bafflement, and I dipped my head once, scratched the back of my skull, and answered.
"I was lost in thought for a moment... My apologies."
"No matter. Now then — speak what the Dang Clan has come to convey."
The Zhuge Clan Leader's words were gracious enough, but the eyes he leveled at me belonged to a man gazing upon his mortal nemesis...
"Understood..."
With the most sheepish smile I could summon, I drew out the letter, unfolded it, and began.
"Ahem... hem. At the time of the attempt on the Dang Clan's Young Clan Head's life, unusual movements were detected within Sichuan; a covert strike on the source revealed a safehouse of the Demon Cult, and a martial artist of the Transcendent Realm had been deployed to carry out the assassination... Huh? What's this?"
I broke off mid-read with a sudden question in my voice, and several brows knitted around the table.
Among them, the quick-tempered Namgung Han addressed me...
"Is something the matter?"
"No... it's not that..."
Because I had only skimmed the letter in haste earlier, I was now laying eyes on its contents for the very first time, and I floundered onward in a daze.
"Combining the traces they left behind with various corroborating signs... the abduction and murder of the Hwangbo Clan's young lady... the sudden death of the Paeng Clan's lady of the house... the total burning of the Zhuge Clan's secret vault... even the rampage of the Dang Clan's former Young Clan Head... all are presumed to be the work of the Demon Cult..."
The moment my words died and I slowly raised my eyes—
Crrrunch—
...the Hwangbo Clan's Young Clan Head had seized the armrest of his chair in that enormous hand of his — and crushed it flat, as though wringing out a wooden log.
As for the Paeng Clan's Elder, who looked to be well along in years...
"Zhuge Clan Leader — forgive me, but I'll step out for some air."
...and with those parting words, he kicked his way out of the hall,
AAAAARGH—
loosing a roar loud enough to shake the entire estate...
The Zhuge Clan's Young Clan Head, for his part, was failing spectacularly to manage his expression — directly in front of his own father, no less.
Granted, there was also Namgung Han, serenely ferrying tea sweets into her mouth one after another — but the mood in the hall had sunk like a stone, nothing like it had been before.
A short while later, when the Paeng Clan's Elder returned, the Zhuge Clan Leader — his face a shade wearier than ever — spoke to me in a low voice.
"Muyeong... are the words you just uttered the Dang Clan's official position?"
"Yes... I believe... yes, they are."
"Ha... this is beyond absurd..."
He pressed a thumb hard against his temple as though his head ached, laughing bleakly at himself — and in the face of that, I slowly began to read the rest of the letter.
"It has been confirmed that figures believed to belong to the Demon Cult are operating covertly in Ningxia and Gansu as well... and judging by the suspicious movements of the Fighting King and the Spear Star in Guizhou, we must also keep watch against a secret pact forming among the unorthodox factions..."
The bomb I had dropped had left every head in the room a tangled mess; each face at the table announced a splitting headache...
The Zhuge Clan Leader, host of this entire assembly above all, looked as though he had aged ten years on the spot, sighing from the depths of his chest.
"Haah... let us continue the meeting for now."
Still, he did not abandon his duty, and pressed the agenda onward — and watching him, I muttered to myself:
Now this is what a proper council looks like... back home, Dang Clan meetings are practically a fighting pit...
And as I muttered away, the gathering somehow wound down and trailed off into nothing in particular.
Once it ended and the attendees began rising one by one, the Zhuge Clan Leader singled me out.
"Dang Clan's Young Clan Head — stay a moment and speak with me..."
"Hm? Me?"
When he stared at my protest, long and level...
"Ah... yes. Of course."
I answered, and while I remained seated in the emptying hall, the Zhuge Clan Leader personally brought out tea.
Silence hung for a spell in that room, which now held only the two of us — and when at last he opened his mouth, I thought to myself...
The Demon Cult must be giving him one monstrous headache...
But every ounce of that sympathy proved wasted — for with eyes bristling with killing intent, he said:
"You... went to a giru, I hear?"
The weary old man from moments ago was gone; this was unmistakably one of the heads of the Five Great Clans — and beneath that stare, I answered with cold sweat trickling down my spine.
"Th...that's true, I did go to a giru, but..."
"Hwa-a says she will let this one pass, so I shall let it pass as well... but should anything of the sort happen one more time, you will not be dying a gentle death..."
"I...I will bear it in mind."
"Good... then see yourself out."
Every hair on my body standing on end, I gave him my answer and, at his word of farewell, started toward the door — thinking:
Shit... what pressure. No, wait — come to think of it, this is flat-out unjust. What exactly did I even do at that giru, huh?
Having been trampled from every direction all day, I was stomping back toward my lodgings in high dudgeon when a familiar voice drifted over from somewhere.
"Young Master, it's been a while."
I turned my head toward the voice...
"Huh...? What are you doing here?"
"Me? The Clan Leader had some orders for me — and I thought I'd get a little recuperation in while I was at it?"
"Haah..."
Confronted with Dang Giyeon grinning from ear to ear at me, I found myself standing there, mouth agape, utterly robbed of words.