The Proposal
Beneath the eaves where the cool night air lingered, Cheongwol sat at the edge of the veranda and gazed up at the darkened sky with eyes red and swollen from weeping.
Clouds clumped in layered masses and drifted past; between them a moon as slender as a woman’s eyebrow shed its faint light.
"..."
It was said that looking up at the moon while listening to a mournful song would make homesickness well up unbearably. Yet she knew no such tunes and had no hometown to return to—so how was she to soothe this lonely body now?
If only she could hide herself among the clouds like that lovely moon.
She closed her eyes slowly, and in the heart of the pitch-black darkness Seomun Hwi’s face rose before her. Seeing his eyes tremble like a child’s, she simply could not leave him alone. Had she herself not already learned how sorrowful it was to send away someone precious?
And so—
At first it was only meant to be holding hands. Then it was only meant to be an embrace. Before she knew it, she had drawn close and pressed her lips to his.
She was a man; such a thing would never be forgiven by anyone.
She let out a deep sigh, and as if they had been waiting, the auditory hallucinations began to slip into her ears.
There is no need to reproach yourself. You have lived your whole life stuck in a mountain valley—what would you know of living as a man?
You piled Yin energy into your body even before you learned martial arts, did you not? Then every scrap of Yang energy you ought to have carried must have vanished as well.
Since things have come to this, why not simply set the revenge aside as your grandfather and master advised? That is, if you have no intention of turning away from someone precious.
Things that on any other day would have torn into her without pause were somehow trying to play along tonight.
Ever since she had undergone the great method and mastered the Sunflower Manual, she had heard countless hallucinations—yet never one like this.
To those formless voices that seemed to wish her to live as a woman, Cheongwol whispered softly, as if for them to hear.
"…I am a man. And even though I am in this state now, I know what it means to live like a man. I only have to live the way Grandfather did—fulfilling every duty given to me until the moment I draw my last breath."
Indignant voices rose at once.
Foolish creature! So you insist on walking a road you need never take!
The gall of one who kissed a man of her own free will is beyond belief.
I look forward to seeing how long you can keep up this stubbornness.
"That will never happen. So… leave me alone now."
She drew up a thread of inner energy, and the clamor in her ears fell silent as if by a lie.
The hallucinations were nothing more than impurities born of a weak heart.
If Soga-yul’s words were true, did that not mean she herself wished to live as a woman rather than a man?
Even if she turned her back on the lonely souls of the Im family whose grudges she was bound to resolve—
She bit her lower lip hard enough for a thin line of blood to well up.
That could not be.
From the moment she had turned her back on her grandfather’s grave until this very day when she had forced the words of farewell past her lips to Seomun Hwi, Cheongwol had never once forgotten the register her grandfather had written in blood.
The revenge he had told her to forget so that he would not place a heavy burden on his grandchild—yet which he himself had never been able to set down.
When the day came that every enemy’s name was entered into that register, she would gladly go before his grave and offer a memorial rite for the Im family.
She was steeling her heart once more, gazing at the night sky where the moon had completely hidden itself behind the clouds, when a voice reached her.
"…I was wondering where you’d gone. So you were here."
Hong Chilgong’s awkward voice drifted over.
Instead of the battered old bottle he always carried, Hong Chilgong tilted a wine flask whose worth was plain at a glance and filled a cup.
"Expensive wine must be drunk like this— in a place with atmosphere, together with good company. The moon may be too shy to show its face, but today is a hard day to stand under moonlight anyway, so it works out well."
When he saw the tear-stained corners of Cheongwol’s eyes, deep regret washed over him.
I did something unnecessary. This is exactly why one should never meddle carelessly in other people’s affairs.
Cursing his own detestable meddlesomeness more fiercely than usual, Hong Chilgong held out the cup.
"Will you have a drink?"
She accepted the cup, yet shook her head with a distant look.
"I want my first drink to be with Hwi."
What did it matter if the dream was unreachable? Simply carrying it in her heart gave her strength to take the next step. Knowing that, he did not press her further.
"Sharing a cup with a friend is good too. At least better than drinking with this old man."
Unlike his usual habit of tossing wine back like water, Hong Chilgong let the liquor flow slowly into his mouth. True to a wine the Dang Clan had kept hidden, a single sip filled his palate with the fragrance of many flowers.
They had handed over such precious wine the moment he said he wished to drink it with Cheongwol. Whether whim or consideration he could not tell, yet he had not refused the favor Dang Gangjin offered. All the more reason it would have been nicer to drink it together.
He refilled his cup and glanced up; his eyes met Cheongwol’s. Their relationship could never continue because of the affairs of the Seomun Clan and the Sichuan Dang Clan, yet there had been no need to settle the heart so abruptly. Still, Seomun Hwi’s dazed reaction and the look on Cheongwol’s face told him the two had already reached an end.
Swallowing guilt and pity, Hong Chilgong asked,
"…Why did you refuse? From what I saw, the young master of the Seomun Clan seemed to hold feelings for you as well."
Cheongwol answered while staring at the empty cup.
"Because I am in a state no one can hold. Cracked here and there—if I forced myself to contain anything, it would only leak out."
How could a child who might not even have passed twenty speak such words?
"A woman of your measure lacks nothing when set beside anyone. No—she overflows. I have wandered the entire Central Plains; I can swear to it."
Even under Hong Chilgong’s comfort, Cheongwol’s lips remained tight.
"Thank you. But… neither too much nor too little. I keep thinking—what if I had been just enough to hold only one person?"
"I am telling you it is enough."
Though there was nothing to chew, he drained cup after cup. When the wine rose and he had steadied his breath, he continued.
"I do not know the reason, but did you not push him away lest your friend be hurt?"
"…Did I do the right thing?"
She lowered her head, recalling Seomun Hwi, and asked in a worried voice.
"That depends on how your friend chooses to accept it."
It was the correct answer, yet not the one she wanted to hear just then. As her face darkened, Hong Chilgong looked up at the clouds endlessly streaming across the night sky.
"If I must judge, you did well. If the friend is truly precious, that is exactly what one must do."
The face that spoke those words carried a story no lighter than her own, so this time Cheongwol asked quietly,
"Did Grandfather also have such a friend?"
"…I did, once."
There had been a friend with whom he had laughed and talked through joyful days. On the day they first put righteousness and chivalry into practice together, his heart had raced as though he had become the hero he had always admired. He remembered as well the times they had clashed their youth in sparring and acknowledged each other while discussing the sword.
Now that friend appeared only occasionally in dreams, shedding tears of blood. Even if the man spat curses mixed with terrible resentment, Hong Chilgong was grateful simply to see his face that way—at least then he could kneel and repent his sins.
He let out a long sigh and scattered the last of the wine in his cup onto the ground.
"Unlike you, I could not protect my friend. If I could return to that time, I would have given my life to do so. Even now, the moment I close my eyes those resentful eyes refuse to leave me."
Cheongwol said nothing. She set her cup beside her and followed his gaze back to the night sky.
"…If he was truly a precious friend, that friend would no longer resent Grandfather."
Hong Chilgong paused in the act of tilting the bottle and looked at her.
"Of course at the time he might have been angry—might have resented you. But…"
A faint smile touched Cheongwol’s lips at last.
"Friends who have shared their hearts are the sort of people who cannot help but be that way."
She spoke while earnestly hoping that someday Seomun Hwi, too, would forgive her.
"…If that is truly so, there would be nothing more to wish for."
Hong Chilgong seemed to share the same heart; he nodded slowly.
Before long the long procession of clouds that had blanketed the night sky began to thin at its edges.
"Listen here."
"Yes."
"If staying longer at the Dang Clan feels awkward, how about leaving with me?"
At the sudden proposal Cheongwol’s eyes flew wide.
"You said you come from Qinghai Province, so you have never toured the Central Plains, have you? I will be your guide. It will not be dull."
"That is…"
As she hesitated, Hong Chilgong grinned.
"Did you not say your friend would have forgiven me? I want to go to the grave and see whether those words are true. But I lack the courage to go alone, so I am asking you like this."
He cleared the cup, lifted the bottle, and poured every last drop into his mouth. Though the wine was smooth, a hot heat slid down his throat.
"Meeting like this is fate as well—will you come with me?"
The moment his words ended, the clouds parted and moonlight filled Cheongwol’s empty cup.
The truth about the precious jade could be learned well enough by letter. Moreover, if she faced Seomun Hwi every day she would surely waver; deciding her heart did not take long.
"I have heard there are Taoists who live on steep cliffs. I want to meet them. Ah—and a lake as vast as the sea, too."