Jegal Hwaryeon (2)
The young lady of the Jegal Clan. The Supreme Elder was her grandfather, no less. And judging by the way she called the clan elders "Grandfather," she almost certainly had the entire household wrapped around her finger.
In other words, she was a walking bomb. The kind of bomb that would send the whole Jegal Clan charging down on anyone foolish enough to set her off.
Once that thought settled in, the woman before me started to look rather different. Not a bomb walking toward me — a bomb I could plant inside the Jegal Clan.
"Hah... If you are the Clan Head's daughter, my lady, then I suppose I have no choice but to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"It concerns a matter the Clan Head has been pursuing of late."
"My father? And what does that have to do with today's performance?"
Fair enough. Of course she wouldn't see the connection. Nobody in their right mind would imagine that a venture pushed by the head of a clan as vast as the Jegal Clan had anything to do with a Seolseoin performing stories in the street.
"It is not unrelated, my lady. Before I explain — how did you find today's performance?"
"Hmm... It was fascinating, honestly. I'd never heard that our clan had someone like that."
"Yes. Fascinating, I am sure. And you are a daughter of the Jegal Clan yourself, are you not? Was fascination all you felt? No — hearing of Zhuge Liang's exploits, you must have felt proud."
"That's true."
She nodded, as if the point had landed exactly where I wanted it.
"Then what do you think would happen, my lady, if this story were written into a book and carried to tens of thousands — hundreds of thousands — of people? The story of Zhuge Liang, the ancestor of the Jegal Clan."
"Well... I'd be enormously proud, I suppose? But what are you driving at? What does any of that have to do with the grandfathers not being keen on it? I don't see a connection at all."
"There is one."
I let out a low sigh. I was going to have to spell this out more carefully.
"My lady, are you aware of the enterprise the Clan Head has been advancing of late?"
"I have no reason to discuss clan affairs with you."
Her guard went up at once, sharper than anything I had seen from her so far.
A misstep. I should have realized how sensitive that question was. Whatever ventures the Clan Head was running were surely secrets even within the clan — and here a mere street storyteller had gone and asked about them. No wonder she bristled.
"Ahem! Ah — please do not misunderstand. I am not asking after the particulars of the enterprise."
I cleared my throat and changed tack.
"Then what are you asking?"
"Are you aware, my lady, that the Clan Head and I are pursuing a venture together?"
"You and my father? A venture?"
I let the words settle, slow and deliberate.
"That is the work the Clan Head and I have undertaken."
Her eyes went wide.
Making the Jegal Clan great once more. Put more simply: Make Jegal Great Again.
The venture the Clan Head and I were actually pursuing was nothing more than a printing operation. That did not mean it wasn't MJGA. If the chronicle of Zhuge Liang's life succeeded, the name of the Jegal Clan would rise with it.
"...So what is this venture, exactly? Get to the point."
A thread of irritation had crept into her voice, the natural result of my talking in circles. I would have been frustrated too, in her place.
But I had cultivated that frustration on purpose. Satisfaction always hits harder once impatience has been allowed to build — especially when the other person has talked themselves into wanting the answer.
I allowed myself a faint smile and opened my mouth.
"You watched today's performance, my lady. That should make this easy to follow."
"Pardon?"
"How many people would you say heard the story today?"
"A few hundred, maybe?"
"A few hundred... Yes, that sounds about right. And do you know how many gathered for my very first performance?"
"How on earth would I know that?"
"I remember it exactly. Ten people. A mere ten souls came to watch me perform!"
She said nothing. Whether she was overwhelmed by the sudden speech or simply waiting, I could not tell.
"And yet a performance that drew barely ten people now draws hundreds."
I pointed toward the square, still warm with the memory of the crowd that had packed it only moments before.
"How long do you suppose it took to gather hundreds of people?"
"I... well, I wouldn't know."
She frowned, turning it over in her head, and I did not rush her. I simply waited.
After a moment she finished thinking.
"Today was the first time I saw the performance, but... to draw a crowd like that, it must have taken quite a while, right? A month, being generous? Or maybe two?"
"A month? Far too long. Two weeks. Starting from twelve people, it took me two weeks to gather a crowd of hundreds."
"What? Say that again?"
Jegal Hwaryeon's eyes went perfectly round.
"That's impossible."
She shook her head, plainly refusing to believe it.
"A performance that twelve people watched became a performance that hundreds flock to — in two weeks?"
"It is not a lie. It is a fact. You could ask any stallkeeper nearby and they would tell you the same. What would I gain by fabricating something so easily verified?"
"Even so, how...?"
"Zhuge Liang's story captured people's hearts, I would imagine. Did you yourself not find it compelling, my lady?"
"I... did, yes."
"And did it end at mere interest?"
"No."
Jegal Hwaryeon fell quiet for a moment, turning something over.
"If I am being honest, I wanted to go home and ask Father about it. Whether this Zhuge Liang truly was our ancestor — and whether the story I heard today actually happened."
I smiled.
"That is precisely it."
"Pardon?"
"When people hear a story that moves them, they want to tell someone else."
I gestured again toward the square where the performance had been.
"They go home and tell their families. They tell their friends. They tell their acquaintances."
"......"
"Ten people become twenty. Twenty become fifty. Fifty become a hundred. But that is the limit."
"...The limit?"
"Yes. The limit of what the human mouth can spread."
I let the words unspool, unhurried.
"Hundreds is not a small number, of course. But I told you earlier, did I not? That we would make the Jegal Clan great once more."
I looked her in the eye.
"So I will ask you again, my lady. How did the people listening to my story react? Did they not, every last one of them, praise Zhuge Liang?"
"That's... true."
"And the Jegal Clan, you see, are the descendants of Zhuge Liang."
"......!!!"
"So as people praise Zhuge Liang, they will naturally find themselves thinking of the Jegal Clan."
I held her gaze and did not look away.
"The higher Zhuge Liang's renown climbs, the higher the name of the Jegal Clan will climb with it."
"!"
Understanding finally broke across her face — she had grasped, at last, why I had been performing in the street. The surprise did not last. Doubt rushed back in to fill the space it left, and the startled look faded as quickly as it had come.
"What you are saying is right. But your performances only reach a few hundred people. For things to go the way you describe, a few years wouldn't be enough. Decades wouldn't be enough."
I smiled.
There it was. The line I had been waiting for.
"You are correct."
"Pardon?"
"A few hundred is not enough."
I nodded without the slightest resistance.
"As I said, two weeks of performing without rest gathered a few hundred people. That is no small number. But at that pace, I could not swear the thing would be done even after years — even after decades."
"......"
"A book, however, is a different matter."
Jegal Hwaryeon's eyes widened, just a fraction.
"Don't tell me... that's why you brought up a book earlier?"
"Yes."
I nodded, slow and sure.
"We turn Zhuge Liang's story into a book. A book is different. The same tale can be made into hundreds of copies, thousands of copies, and carried to countless people."
"!"
"What happens when a story that gathered hundreds in two weeks becomes a book?"
I opened my hand, as if scattering something into the air.
"Those hundreds become thousands. Those thousands become tens of thousands in a heartbeat. At a speed the spoken word could never hope to match."
"......"
"Even then, my lady — would you still believe the name of the Jegal Clan would not rise?"
"And that is... what you and Father planned?"
I nodded.
"It is. But I was told by the Clan Head that the elders look unfavorably upon it. So what else was I to do? I had to show them that people are already going mad for Zhuge Liang's story."
"...I still don't understand. You are not even a member of the Jegal Clan."
The question in her eyes had not gone anywhere.
"Even if our ancestor's fame rises and the clan's standing rises with it — what does that gain you?"
She paused, then looked me dead in the face.
"Why are you going this far?"
"My lady."
I took my time opening my mouth.
"What sort of man do you believe Zhuge Liang to have been?"
"Pardon?"
"You heard my story today. You already know."
Jegal Hwaryeon thought for a moment, then answered.
"A loyal minister."
"Is that all?"
"A man who never forgot the late emperor's grace, and devoted his entire life to the nation?"
I nodded.
"Just so."
And then, quietly, I went on.
"That is why."
"Pardon?"
Something flickered in her eyes.
"The world is full of peerless martial artists. But in this age, how many people truly walk the path of chivalry?"
"..."
"Everyone chases their own profit. Everyone serves their own clan. Everyone is busy building their own name."
I smiled, and there was something bitter in it.
"I am not saying that is wrong. People are made that way."
"..."
"But Zhuge Liang was different."
"!"
"All his life, he put the nation before himself. He put the common people before his own safety. I respect a man like that. I simply want more people to know who Zhuge Liang was."
I smiled, lightly.
It was not even a lie. Zhuge Liang had always been my favorite character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Back when I used to play the strategy games, the moment his name popped up I would move heaven and earth to recruit him.
"I want the world — and the Jegal Clan — to know that a hero like that once lived among them."
"Ah..."
A small sound of wonder slipped out of her. The wariness she had been carrying only moments before had already thinned to almost nothing.
She looked at me in silence for a long while. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful.
"So that is what you have been thinking."
"Yes."
"And that is why you have been trying to tell the world the story of our ancestor, Zhuge Liang."
"It is."
She drifted into thought again. Then something seemed to occur to her, and she smiled — a small, bright thing — and opened her mouth.
"What is your name? Everyone just kept calling you Master Lee. Nobody actually used your name. Will you tell me?"
"Of course. My name is Lee Munhyuk."
"Lee Munhyuk..."
She tasted the name once, quietly, and a faint smile touched the corner of her mouth.
"It's a good name. I am Jegal Hwaryeon. I would like to talk with you longer, but unfortunately something has come up that I need to attend to, so I should be going."
"Go safely, my lady."
All things considered, it seemed to have ended rather well.
I would be lying if I said I had not been tense. There had been a sword at her hip, after all. And even without the sword, she was a martial artist. One punch and I would have been on the ground. But I had talked my way through it, and at the very least I did not seem to have offended her. If anything, I appeared to have left a reasonably good impression.
Whew. Lived to tell the tale.
I swallowed a sigh of relief and was waiting for her to turn and go when she spoke again.
"Ah — and please keep the performances going."
"Pardon?"
I stared at her, momentarily blank.
Jegal Hwaryeon smiled, bright and easy.
"I will talk the grandfathers around somehow."
"Pardon?"
My mind went white.
What had I just heard? Keep performing?
Hold on. Why?
I swallowed the absurdity of it. The only reason I had been performing in the first place was to win permission to print. If not for that, I would never have been out here doing unpaid labor. And now she wanted me to continue? The presumed young lady of the Jegal Clan herself?
I was still turning over whether I had any choice in the matter when she spoke again.
"I will be going, then. And... I will be looking forward to tomorrow's performance."
With that, Jegal Hwaryeon turned lightly on her heel and vanished from sight.
"Ah... I suppose I have no choice, do I?"
Jegal Hwaryeon had said, in so many words, that she would come to watch. If I canceled the performance after that, there was no telling what she might do. The thought dragged a long, heavy sigh out of me.
"Haaah..."
The plan had succeeded, as far as I could tell. So why did it feel like I had only given myself more work?
Was that just a feeling, or had the work actually increased?
I turned it over for a moment, then shook my head.
"Well. My head is still attached, so..."
I consoled myself with that and started walking back toward my lodgings.