A Deer With A Predator's Teeth

— Smash!

He kicked a noodle stall over. The middle-aged couple who had been selling from it jumped, ladles still in hand, and stared blankly.

“What are you looking at!”

Every eye on the market street swung to that one spot. Having pulled a stunt like that, Namgung Mu-baek gave me a look that asked what I meant to do about it. The moment I dodged this instead of settling it, I was finished as his master of letters.

That was hellion nerve, no question about it. And I rather liked that nerve, the kind that thinks nothing of his house’s honor or his own good name. Which meant I would have to show him nerve to match.

You take me for a timid little scholar. That is your misjudgment.

I am a deer with a predator’s teeth.

“I’m making a scene because I don’t like this scholar. So this scholar is the one who’s going to settle it.”

Which is to say he had thrown me to the merchants and passersby of the market street as a sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the blame, and it had all landed squarely on me. They could hardly curse the Namgung Clan out loud, so it amounted to telling them to curse me instead.

A thoroughly nasty piece of work.

Namgung Mu-baek folded his arms, a look of pure satisfaction on his face.

He’s a student without a coin to his name, so he can hardly pay for the damage. All you’ve got is that mouth of yours — go on, then, let’s see you settle it with that fine tongue.

The sight of that martial artist bowing politely before he left had grated on him no end, like a fly buzzing right in front of his face.

A fly just needs swatting. No need to make it complicated.

A long career as a hellion had taught him exactly where people came unstuck.

Slowly, the people began turning resentful eyes on me. Whatever the reason behind it, he had made his scene on my account, which made me the one who had given them cause. And the people of the market street were not so given to reason that they would stop to weigh the circumstances.

I could already feel the whispering start. At this rate my reputation on this street would hit rock bottom, and it would come back to haunt me for a long while. I might have trouble getting a bowl of noodles here, or buying so much as a dumpling.

I swept my eyes over the crowd and picked out a knot of men the commotion had drawn out.

When the man above shoves the responsibility onto you, shove it onto the man below.

Words to carve into your bones like golden law, if you meant to survive in the Murim Alliance.

“From this day, the stall fees of this street, this noodle stand included, will be managed by Young Master Namgung Mu-baek of the Namgung Clan!”

At that absurd shout the resentful looks turned baffled.

“Who takes the stall fees on this street!”

I put the question to the couple who sold the noodles, and the husband hesitated.

“Answer me! I ask in the name of Namgung!”

“The Du-sik Gang, sir.”

I raised my voice.

“Hear this, Du-sik Gang! From this day it is Namgung Mu-baek of the Namgung Clan who collects the stall fees here! And Namgung Mu-baek sets the fee at one copper a month!”

— Murmur, murmur!

One copper was as good as saying he would collect nothing at all.

“If the Du-sik Gang collects the stall fees, punishment will be dealt in the name of the Namgung Clan! And if the Du-sik Gang tries to collect them, come to the Namgung Clan and report it!”

My sudden declaration threw him, and he came at me looking ready to slap me across the face.

“This gentleman here is Young Master Namgung Mu-baek himself! It is proclaimed in the name of the House of Namgung!”

His hand was already up to strike me when the cheer burst out along the street, and he flinched.

“Whoaa! Long live Young Master Namgung Mu-baek!”

“The Namgung Clan, as expected!”

“Namgung Mu-baek the chivalrous!”

With his own name suddenly going up in a chant, he turned the hand meant for my face into an awkward wave. And while he was at it, he growled a threat at me.

“You’ve gone out of your mind wanting to die. I’ll tell them you lied.”

“Please do. If the Namgung Clan would like a reputation as a worse underworld crowd than the Du-sik Gang.”

“What?”

“It has already been proclaimed in the Namgung Clan’s name. And just now the young master waved his hand and confirmed it. Do consider what will happen if you take those words back.”

He wanted to smash his fist into the face of the scholar answering him so brazenly, but with merchants chanting his name he could not bring himself to raise a hand.

This little bastard—!

He was on the point of giving his temper its head and doing the hellion thing when something stirred deep down in his chest. Fingers had been pointed at him his whole life; not once, in all his years, had anyone cheered him. And it was not, as it turned out, so bad. People had always looked away from him the way they stepped around dog mess in the road, so he had never known, and it quietly made him hold his head higher.

Watching Namgung Mu-baek’s face change several times over in the space of a breath, I laughed to myself. Hellions did not become hellions because they were truly hellions at heart. Most of them were children who grew up without attention and, tormenting people to get some, discovered the pleasure of cruelty. Hellion behavior, in other words, was a sickness of the mind born of a shortage of attention. That was my own diagnosis, and the Murim Alliance’s countless hellions had been my test subjects.

“You there! Are you Du-sik Gang men!”

I said it with a finger leveled at a group tattooed head to foot. They had been scowling since the stall fees first came up, so I had my guess.

“That’s right!”

“This is Young Master Namgung Mu-baek’s doing, so the Du-sik Gang had better understand it! And if—”

I broke off mid-sentence and looked at Namgung Mu-baek.

“A word from you, young master.”

“Eh? Me?”

“It was declared in the Namgung Clan’s name. To wriggle out of it here would be to shame the house.”

For an instant Namgung Mu-baek’s jaw clenched.

A clash with an underworld crowd like the Du-sik Gang was nothing whatsoever to worry about. What angered him was being led around by this damned scholar and made to do something absurd. But hellion or not, he could not shame the house itself, and if it came to that, it might not end with a mere ten days of closed-door training.

“If the Du-sik Gang collects the stall fees, I, Namgung Mu-baek, will not let it stand!”

He put his internal energy behind the words, and his voice carried into every corner of the street.

“Whoaa!”

“Namgung Mu-baek!”

“The Namgung Clan!”

As the people shouted in delight, the look on his face was something to see. Smiling, then grimacing, then smiling again, like a man suffering a toothache.

I pulled out my writing case then and there and dashed off a note stating that the damage to the noodle stall would be paid for.

“Young master, put your mark here, if you would.”

“Hmmm.”

His hand took up the brush, trembling slightly: from anger, most likely. Inside, he must have wanted to take me by the collar.

“Ngh!”

Writing his mark on the paper with his teeth clenched, Namgung Mu-baek bit down lightly on his tongue.

“Ah — there is no need to go so far as writing it in blood.”

At my galling reply he glared at me again, but I paid it no mind and turned my head away.

“Take this to the Namgung Clan’s steward’s office and they will pay you.”

“Thank you, Scholar.”

“Not at all. All of this is thanks to Young Master Namgung Mu-baek. Do spread the word.”

I stepped closer to the man and murmured.

“You may quote three or four times the damages. Understood?”

People simply do not know it, but a great house keeps a standing practice of paying compensation in cases like this, for the sake of the family honor. Ordinary folk never hear of it, and so it goes unused.

“Understood. Thank you, Scholar.”

I slipped away, leaving the merchants behind as they offered their thanks to Namgung Mu-baek.

A young predator whose molars haven’t even come in properly, and he’s trying to bite through somebody’s artery.

I looked at Namgung Mu-baek with a thoroughly pleased expression.

“Do you know that scholar?”

A woman enjoying her tea at the teahouse across the way asked the woman seated opposite her. The one who had asked wore the rapt expression of someone watching street performers work a market.

“It is a face I have not seen on this street before. Most likely a scholar newly taken into the Namgung Clan.”

“And still he handles a hellion that well? He looks no older than the hellion himself. Now I am curious. Look into him.”

“He is a scholar for all that. Not a man worth the Young Palace Lord’s attention.”

“Namgung Mu-baek is a headache even within the Namgung Clan. He is famous for it in this region. If he can play a man like that so easily, does that not mean he is beyond the ordinary? To do a difficult thing easily is to have reached the level of a master. Handling an uncontrollable hellion like that — could you do it, Third Protector? A man of that sort wants looking into, if only for the sake of our own work.”

The woman thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Honestly, I have no confidence I could handle a hellion so easily. I will look into him thoroughly.”

“I am curious on my own account as well. Even if we are keeping our heads down over the Treasure and the Elder Faction, surely one small amusement is allowed?”

“As the Young Palace Lord says.”

“Now that I think of it — where have you put the Treasure?”

“It is being kept at the mountain stronghold.”

“There will be no trouble?”

“For the present it is the safest place there is.”

“In any case, I thought this place would be dull with the Namgung Clan sitting on it, and here the amusement turns up somewhere I never expected. It seems I shall have to keep playing physician a while longer.”

The woman’s gaze rested on Namgung Mu-baek and the scholar.

— Jangle!

Namgung Mu-baek all but threw a heavy purse down in front of me. That he had not thrown it in my face was close to a triumph of the human spirit. I understood his feelings well enough, so I made no complaint.

“Tear up the pledge. In front of me.”

I tore up the written pledge without another word.

“A single bank note would have been tidy. Must you really hand it over as a hundred silver coins?”

“I can’t stand seeing you comfortable.”

If it was petty revenge he wanted, I had the largeness of spirit to answer with an exceedingly petty revenge of my own.

“Where are you going? You must watch me count it all.”

“What?”

“It could come up short, could it not?”

“You— honestly!”

“One, two, three…”

In the end I counted every last coin and raised my head.

“Three are missing.”

Namgung Mu-baek glared at me as though he would kill me, then pulled three taels of silver from his robes and slammed them down.

“Take it and get out! You damned scholar! Get struck by lightning on the way and drop dead!”

I gathered up the coins that had bounced this way and that, and bowed my head.

“For lightning to strike there would have to be storm clouds, and today is clear. Rather difficult, wouldn’t you say? I will put this money to good use.”

Every manner of curse followed me until I left his quarters, and then the maidservant Eun-bi came over, worried, it seemed, about my state of mind. She was the one who had dropped the water bowl.

“When you hear the young master’s cursing, your head goes muddled for days. You must hold your heart firm.”

What a beautiful heart she had. A maidservant, and here she was worrying about me, a scholar. I looked at her and smiled.

“It does not trouble me in the least.”

The maidservant shook her head.

“More than five scholars have passed through here already. Some of them lost their wits to the young master’s cursing.”

He had tormented them. Mental abuse by way of profanity.

“Where would a scholar ever have heard cursing like that in his whole life? We lowly ones have heard it so often we’ve grown calluses.”

“Miss, can you understand what a passing dog says?”

“How could a human being understand what a dog says? That’s nonsense.”

“Just so with me. I cannot understand what dogs say either. Which is why it does not wound me in the slightest.”

She tilted her head at me for bringing up dogs out of nowhere.

“There’s something profound in that, I’m sure of it, but what is it?”

For a moment she seemed to think, then started violently and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“So the son of a bitch is Namgu—”

She had finally understood what I meant, and she flushed as though she had uncovered a secret of the world that nobody else knew.

It would never have crossed her mind that there was anyone alive who would call Namgung Mu-baek a son of a bitch.

“Ah, by the way — I know a little medicine. If anyone working in the young master’s quarters is ill, or has family who are ill, do tell me. I will look at them.”

“Truly?”

Physicians and clinics were for people with money; those living hand to mouth never got near a doctor. That was the reality.

“Ask around and let me know. I can even set needles, so I should be of some help.”

The maidservant trembled. She looked lost in thought, as though someone in her family was ill.

“I’ll ask. There is someone unwell right now, in fact.”

To make the people around Namgung Mu-baek entirely my own, I resolved to take a more active hand.