Suddenly Gaining A Little Sister

“Let go of me! I’m not going. It stinks. I don’t want to!”

“What’s a chit of a girl doing kicking up a fuss like this! Quiet, before you get hit! I’m telling you I’ll feed you and give you a bed.”

“I don’t want to! Your body smells of shit and I don’t want to.”

“What! You really are asking to die!”

The girl’s voice and the man’s rang down the alley, and not one person passing threw so much as a glance that way. Even if somebody had, nobody took an interest in an alley lined with people whose clothes were more rag than cloth.

“You’re going to get hit!”

Her right hand locked around a tree, the girl strained to pull the caught left one free. At that the man raised a hand like a cauldron lid.

“Put that down!”

I said it as I stepped into the alley, and the man draped in rags snorted.

“Pah! Now even my lord Scholar gets in the way of our business. Well, I never. What the world is coming to.”

“You may well ask. What is the world coming to, that a man tries to carry a person off in broad daylight.”

“Carry off, he says. We are offering board and bed to an orphan with nowhere in the world to go.”

“So now it is beggars who offer board and bed to orphans. And who is an orphan? That child is my sister.”

“Sister? Bwahahaha! Where do you get such lies from.”

“He is my brother, that’s right.”

The girl looked at me and called it out.

“There, you see. So take that hand off her.”

“This little pair, taking us for easy marks. Oi, do that bastard over.”

The beggars came at me, giving off a dank, sour air.

“Smell that. That is not shit — that is a corpse rotting.”

With a sense of smell as keen as mine, I found it hard to bear.

The man in rags gave the order.

“Beat that bastard until he shits himself.”

One of them rushed me. I put out a foot, caught his toe and tipped him off balance. My eyesight was sharp enough that I watched him topple in slow motion, every instant of it stretched out before me.

“Agh!”

I planted a kick in the backside of the staggering man.

“Urk!”

He pitched forward, flew out of the alley and drove his face into the ground.

The man in rags shouted.

“Learned a trick or two, have you. But there is no strongman alive who stands up to a mob beating. Walk on even now and we will call it nothing.”

Deciding, perhaps, that I was not a man to be trifled with, he threw out his laughable offer.

Just then someone came into the alley.

“What’s this?”

Du-sik, the shaggy-haired boss of the Du-sik Gang, had seen a beggar come flying out of the alley and had come over to look.

“Scholar! What are you doing in there?”

He caught sight of me and waved.

“Eh? Du-sik? What do you think I’m doing. Some men are trying to carry off my sister, so we’re having words about it.”

“What?”

Du-sik came into the alley and ran his eyes over the men in rags.

“I’d heard a lot of beggars had come onto North Road lately and I was worried about it, and here they are at it. They’ve been causing a fair bit of trouble of late. I’ve given them a hiding a few times, at that.”

“Du-sik must be a generous man. If you had given them a proper hiding, would they be out trying to carry people off?”

“Oh now, Scholar. That’s a misunderstanding.”

Killing intent turned in Du-sik’s eyes.

The man in rags listened to us talking and gave a snort.

“There is no shortage of madmen in this place. A scholar squaring up to us without a scrap of fear, a local street thug swaggering about. You think you can handle us on your own? Not a grain of fear in your heads.”

“Scholar. I think these men need to be shown how hard North Road can be.”

“Will you? You don’t need me to lend a hand?”

“Goodness no, Scholar. If you lay a hand on a lump of shit like this you only come away smelling of it.”

The man in rags shouted.

“Oi, what are you standing there for! Do the pair of them!”

As the men in rags made to rush us, Du-sik’s underlings came into the alley.

“These bastards. And where do they think they are.”

The big men came crowding in, and the men in rags fell back. Against opponents near enough twice their size, fear took them for a moment.

“Lads! Show these men the strict order of North Road.”

At Du-sik’s word the big men came pouring into the alley. I took out a silver coin and tossed it to him.

“When the work’s done, take the lads to the noodle house and stand them a bowl each.”

“Ah, thank you, Scholar.”

Du-sik checked the amount and his face brightened. There was enough there to put meat alongside the noodles.

“Lads, the Scholar has left us the price of a meal. Give them a thorough education.”

“Yes, elder brother.”

After that, the sound of blows and of groaning came out of the alley.

I looked at the girl a long while and sank into thought.

This child is a real problem. And there is nowhere to leave her.

Even in coarse hemp, the sort only a slash-and-burn farmer really wears, her beauty would not stay hidden, and that was the trouble. What would become of a girl like this wandering the streets alone was as plain as looking into a fire.

“You. Do you want to stay with me until your memory comes back?”

The girl looked at me and nodded.

“You don’t smell of shit, Brother. All right.”

I gave a wry smile. Only a house of power like the Namgung Clan could use water as it pleased, so I bathed often and did not smell. Washed my clothes often, too.

There were several empty rooms at my quarters, so housing the girl was no difficulty. The awkward part was what to say she was. If I simply told people I had taken in an orphan girl, it would draw hard looks.

“If people ask, you’re to call me your cousin — your Brother. You met with an accident on your way to find me and lost your memory. You will remember what I have said?”

“Mm. All right. You’re telling me to lie. I’m good at lying.”

“That’s right. A lie. A lie only we two know. Understood?”

The girl nodded.

“Mm.”

She watched the people going up and down the street, then took my hand in a firm grip.

“Mm?”

“From what I can see, a little sister and her brother hold hands.”

Saying otherwise and shaking her off would have been awkward, so there was nothing for it but to hold the girl’s hand.

“Right. And we shall have to give you a name. If you’re to be my cousin on my own side, you’ll have to take my family name — how would Cheon Yeo-seol be?”

“Cheon Yeo-seol?”

“I made it up just now. Will it do?”

“It’s a pretty name. It’ll do. Your hand is warm, though, Brother.”

A chill hung about the girl’s hand, cold enough that it came climbing up my own. Her body’s warmth must have dropped from poor food and thin clothes.

I had better put her on something good for the blood.

I took Cheon Yeo-seol with me and set off for the Namgung Clan.

Jong So-bin watched the scholar and Cheon Yeo-seol go into the Namgung Clan and muttered.

“This is absurd. How does she come to be with Scholar Cheon?”

“It seems he bought her noodles while she was wandering about hungry.”

“Is the Ice Sacred Body so free of wariness with strangers by nature?”

Hwa-yeong felt the thorns in the Young Palace Lord’s words. It would be because the Ice Sacred Body they had searched for so desperately had, of all things, disappeared into the Namgung Clan in a scholar’s company.

“The Ice Sacred Body tends by nature to have only the memories of early childhood, so she will have gone with whoever treated her kindly.”

Hwa-yeong spoke with an eye on the Young Palace Lord’s mood.

“Shall we seize her when she comes out again?”

The Young Palace Lord shook her head.

“No. Though perhaps — Third Protector.”

Jong So-bin glared at the Namgung Clan and went on.

“That may be the safest place there is just now. Is there anywhere in Hefei as safe as the Namgung Clan? They say even the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult have come into Hefei looking for the Ice Sacred Body.”

Hwa-yeong nodded. “Yes. And Elder Yu is here on top of that.”

“If our strength is not enough to hold them off, then the safest thing is to leave her in the Namgung Clan as she is.”

“But Elder Yu can find her out. She has the energy of the ice crystal in her.”

“Which is why, Third Protector. I want this used.”

Jong So-bin drew a leather pouch from inside her robe.

Hwa-yeong’s eyes widened. “That is…”

Out of the pouch she took a white bead the size of a small child’s fist.

“With this ice crystal we can deceive Elder Yu. Is there a child we can have swallow it?”

Hwa-yeong read what was in her mind and answered.

“Yes. I have a disciple of our Palace with me, a girl of about ten. If she swallows it she can be passed off as the Ice Sacred Body.”

“Good. Then have that child swallow it.”

“But without it, Young Palace Lord… As it is you have not absorbed the energy of a Solar Body either, and if you cannot take the ice crystal’s energy as well, your span will grow shorter still.”

“Third Protector, first we must put out the fire that has fallen on our own feet. This very night the Demonic Cult or the Blood Cult or Elder Yu might come at us to take the Ice Sacred Body away. Do not make light of them.”

Seeing that the Young Palace Lord had made up her mind, Hwa-yeong sighed to herself. Nothing in the world mattered more to her than the Young Palace Lord’s safety.

She was the Young Palace Lord’s Protector, after all. And that being so, she could not refuse the order either.

“As you say. I shall prepare a false Ice Sacred Body.”

The answer came in a tone that sounded angry. Jong So-bin looked at her and smiled a little.

“Thank you, Third Protector.”

Hwa-yeong turned her face away from her, and from the tone that had gone warm all at once.

“Wow!”

Cheon Yeo-seol let out a cry of wonder at the Namgung Clan’s stone wall, huge as a fortress’s, at its main gate, and at the high towers and great halls showing above the wall.

“It’s enormous. Is this your house, Brother?”

“No. I’m imposing on them here for a while.”

As we came up to the main gate, the guard keeping it looked Cheon Yeo-seol over.

“Who is this?”

“My cousin.”

“Is that so?”

Whatever Namgung Hak had said about me, the guard raised no objection at the words ‘my cousin.’

“She will be staying with me from now on.”

“Understood.”

“Yeo-seol. Make your greeting.”

“Hello.”

She gave her greeting with a bright smile, and the guards made a sound of admiration.

“Haa. Scholar Cheon is one thing, and now his cousin — remarkable good looks in the family.”

Cheon Yeo-seol dipped her head again.

“Thanks.”

“One thing, though — my cousin met with an accident on her way to Hefei and lost her memory. If she should behave rudely, I ask your understanding.”

“Dear me, was there such a thing? The world is so unsettled these days… There seems no fear of the young lady putting anyone out of temper, so do not trouble yourself.”

Cheon Yeo-seol’s looks played their part.

“Mind you remember the way from the main gate to where I stay.”

The Namgung Clan grounds were so vast that she could easily set off down the wrong path.

“Mm.”

“Don’t go anywhere else. You are to come straight to the house where your Brother is.”

“Mm.”

I took her from the main gate toward my quarters, explaining as we went, so that if she ever wandered off alone she could find her way back to me.

I lodged in the annex of Namgung Mu-baek’s quarters, and when we went in Cheon Yeo-seol broke into a wide smile.

“Brother, the house is nice. It smells nice too.”

I called together Eun-bi and the maidservants and the servants who were at work here and there about the place.

“This child is my cousin, Cheon Yeo-seol. She met with an accident on her way to Hefei and cannot remember, so if her speech and manner fall a little short, I hope you will bear with it.”

By now I was on easy enough terms with the people who worked there to speak without the formal register. That came of having treated the servants’ families a few more times.

“Hello. I’m Cheon Yeo-seol.”

At her greeting Eun-bi’s eyes went wide.

“The young lady is a real beauty. When she is grown she will take the souls clean out of every man that sees her.”

“Sorry to ask, Eun-bi, but wash Yeo-seol and get her some clothes that fit her. When you get them, get them under my name.”

The Namgung Clan had a workshop of its own for making clothes, where you could buy them for a price.

“Hohoho. Don’t you worry. Your name alone gets anything through this house of ours already, Scholar. The clan head has given the order that whatever the Scholar wants, he is to have.”

Hearing that, I felt grateful to Namgung Hak. Set against my time serving in the Murim Alliance, it was extraordinary.

I took out several silver coins and gave them to Eun-bi.

“In any case, you’ll need money if you’re to get clothes or bedding or anything else besides. Use this. And since she lost her memory she speaks down to everyone, so bear with it.”

“Oh, the poor thing! Whatever is to be done… Yes, Scholar.”

Eun-bi took the silver without refusing. She knew that half of it was given for their own sakes.

I took Yeo-seol into the annex.

“Yeo-seol, you’ll be staying in that room. My room is right across from it, so if anything is the matter, tell me at once.”

“Mm.”

“And let me take your pulse. I need to know what your constitution is before I can use the right medicine.”

I sat down on a chair in the main hall and took Yeo-seol’s pulse. I had meant only to read it and make up a medicine, but the moment I sent spirit energy into her, I could not keep down my astonishment.