The Three Treasures Of North Road

I had been keeping my own watch on the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult of late. Namgung Mu-baek was serving with the Namgung Demon-Repelling Corps and had nothing in particular to report, and that alone told me how quietly the two cults were moving.

I put the question to Namgung Mu-baek, back at last after several days away.

“Have you found no trace of the Demonic Cult or Blood Cult crowds?”

“No. They move so carefully there isn’t so much as a trace of them. The Murim Alliance’s White Tiger Corps and the Inspection Corps have been turning over every underworld faction in the area and still can’t find them.”

Namgung Mu-baek sounded a little tired.

“I’m to wash and get some sleep, and then go out again.”

I gave him a word of caution.

“Young master, even if you do run into them, do not think of being the first to step forward. Martial artists with real combat experience should be the ones to go out and meet them. The Blood Cult and the Demonic Cult are as insidious as men come, and one slip puts you in a trap.”

“Don’t be concerned. I’m not the man I was.”

I nodded as he said it. He really had changed a great deal from what he was.

“In any case, take care always.”

I watched Namgung Mu-baek go into his quarters and let out a breath of relief.

They do not seem to be looking for Yeo-seol out in the open.

I had told Du-sik as well to send word if men came about asking after a young girl. No word had come, which meant they were moving too quietly for the likes of Du-sik to catch.

I shut myself in, polished the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique to completion, and handed it down to Yeo-seol.

“Yeo-seol, this is a dance only the two of us know. And the dance is for when other people try to take you away — you mustn’t show it to anyone else. Understood? And when it’s just the two of us, you dance only when I say so. If you dance in front of other people, from that moment on you get none of the food you like.”

Over several lessons of that kind I drilled the warning into her, so that she would never unfold the technique in front of others without thinking.

The Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique stood among the ten great sword techniques of the murim, and a mere scholar and a young girl who could not so much as remember herself had mastered it, and mastered it perfectly. That was a marvel.

We could do it because I drew on spirit force rather than internal force, and because Yeo-seol circulated the qi of nature and used that; neither of us needed decades of training.

In a matter of days we had reached an attainment a martial artist of outstanding martial talent could train a whole lifetime and never touch, and if others knew of it they would want us dead. So until we had power enough to protect ourselves outright, Yeo-seol and I both had to be careful.

While I was teaching Yeo-seol manners and the plainest common sense, I roused my agility and worked at the lightness skill whenever I had a moment. To keep out of sight I trained at Namgung Mu-baek’s private training ground. Entry to a direct-line family member’s training ground was strictly controlled, so there was no need to mind other people’s eyes. It would sound absurd to anyone who heard it, but once I applied myself in earnest I had even the lightness skill finished in a matter of days.

If I made up my mind to become a martial artist, I really could be the first man under heaven.

But I knew what made me singular, and I did not let greed take hold. A martial artist singular in that particular way could draw the sort of glares reserved for a public enemy of the murim. Let a thing once be written off as a black art or a martial learning of the Demonic Cult, and making a man a public enemy of the murim was as easy as snapping one’s fingers. I had served in the Murim Alliance’s Inspection Corps; nobody knew that better than I did.

Rare talents from the ground between orthodox and unorthodox had been buried in just that way, and not a few of them. If such a talent grew, he would threaten the places of the orthodox murim’s own rising talents, so he was nipped in the bud. Having seen that unjust face of the murim, I had never much yearned to become a martial artist.

“Huh? Pretty Sister. You’re someone I haven’t seen around here — where did you come from?¹”

“Ohoho. So you are the darling Yeo-seol.”

“You even know my name. What’s the pretty Sister’s name?”

“Ohoho. Is this Sister pretty?”

“Mm. The prettiest of anyone I’ve seen lately.”

“Is that so? Yeo-seol has a discerning eye.”

I had been at the lightness skill when a familiar voice reached me from some way off, and I went toward it. She was not a person who would come here alone, and I tilted my head at that.

“But what sort of person is Sister? You wear good clothes, and you’ve got pretty ornaments on too.”

“I am the wife of the man Yeo-seol calls the old gentleman.”

At that I went over to where Yeo-seol was. There was no telling what nonsense she might come out with, and it made me anxious.

“Huh? Sister is the old gentleman’s wife? Then he’s a total—”

“A total what?”

Yeo-seol broke off in the middle of what she was saying, and Jeon I-an pressed her for the rest.

“The old gentleman is a thief.”

“Ohoho. That is right, a thief. He stole me, after all. Just as the old gentleman said, you are so darling I want to bite you.”

“I’m not something you eat.”

“Yeo-seol, would you like to be my daughter?”

“Hmmm, no.”

“Why?”

“Then I’d be the old gentleman’s daughter too. And the old gentleman is the hellion’s father too. I don’t like the hellion. Though the hellion has gotten dull lately.”

“Ohoho. But you would have a great deal of family.”

“For family I’m happy with just my Brother. My Brother is the best.”

“Ohohoho.”

Jeon I-an broke into a wide smile.

“Madam. You have come.”

I greeted her.

“Ah, Scholar Cheon. Why have you never introduced me to such an adorable little sister? My lord said over and over how adorable she was, so I came myself.”

“Hahaha. Adorable, hardly. She has no manners, and it puts me in difficulty often enough.”

“What is she to do, with no memory? But how can she be this pretty? I truly want her for my daughter.”

“Sister, I said no. I’m happy with just my Brother.”

“All right.”

Namgung Hak and Jeon I-an both. The pair of them were thoroughly taken with Cheon Yeo-seol and watched her the way you watch a granddaughter at play.

“But what has brought you here?”

“I truly came to see Yeo-seol. Now that I have, I shall be going. Yeo-seol, let us see each other again.”

“Yeah. The pretty Sister is always welcome. Tell the old gentleman that if he doesn’t bring something to eat, I won’t see him.”

There were times when I could not tell whether Yeo-seol was a child or a fox got up as one.

“Ohoho. All right. I shall tell him.”

Once Jeon I-an had gone, I started nagging.

“Yeo-seol, I told you to watch your words with people getting on in years. Have you forgotten what I taught you?”

“I know. But Brother.”

“What?”

I made a show of glaring, and Yeo-seol opened her mouth.

“The clan head doesn’t like it when I speak politely to him. The clan head and the clan matron are that fond of me — how could I? Before, when I used polite speech with the clan head, he went all glum. He looked like he saw me as a granddaughter. Did I do something wrong?”

By this point there was no telling whether the creature was a human being or something uncanny.

“I read them now, too. Whether people like what I say or don’t like it.”

The schooling seemed to be showing its effects in altogether the wrong place.

“All right. Do as you see fit, then.”

“Hehehe. Okay. Shall we go and eat some scorched rice?”

“Go with Eun-bi. Your Brother has business outside for a while.”

“Can’t I come along?”

“Not yet. It seems the people who smell are looking for you. Once that lot is gone, we’ll go out together.”

The people Yeo-seol hated most were the ones whose bodies smelled. The shock of it back then must have been great, because she had still not got over the smell. And well she might not, for like me, Yeo-seol had her five senses developed to an extreme and was sensitive to smells.

A little later Yeo-seol said she was sleepy and went into her room. Her sleeping hours had grown long of late. It occurred to me that this might be a property of the Ice Sacred Body. She was still a girl of somewhere past ten and not settled in her mind, and she seemed to be closing that gap with sleep.

Eun-bi made for Yeo-seol’s room. Whenever Yeo-seol fell asleep she always set a bowl of water at her bedside.

Carrying the water bowl on a tray, she caught sight of Cheon Tae-san and made her greeting, and just then her foot caught on the threshold and she pitched forward.

“Aah!”

The tray and the water bowl went up into the air, and in the instant they began to fall Cheon Tae-san put his footwork to use and caught the bowl and the tray. Eun-bi squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the bowl to break. The Scholar was more than twenty paces off, too far to call to for help. And yet when she opened her eyes, he was holding the tray. She blinked, and blinked again, astonished.

“Careless of you. When Yeo-seol wakes, bring her something to eat.”

“Yes. She asks for dumplings when she wakes, so I always have dumplings ready.”

“Thank you for always taking such care. And if anyone in your family is ill, say so. No — put the word out once more that the sick among the people on our estate are to gather again at the Cheongsim Teahouse. Set the time yourself, Eun-bi.”

As it happened, Eun-bi had been meaning to ask the Scholar for a consultation herself, her own father having said he was ill. Only, he had seemed busy of late on Yeo-seol’s account, so she had not been able to say it, and having him speak of it first like this made her grateful enough to weep.

“Thank you. Scholar.”

More than any of that, the sight of the Scholar covering the distance in an instant, as though he had moved through space itself, had shaken her outright.

To think a man who was so far off could close the distance in the blink of an eye — a secret weapon of the Murim Alliance really is something else after all.

On the strength of that one thing alone, what she had been claiming all along seemed proved true, and a smile came to her without her meaning it.

Because she had not been lying.

I went outside.

Yeo-seol has held me up for a few days. If the chance comes, today I take the energy.

Of course, it was possible the man did not carry a Seven Stars energy. But from the way he conducted himself, the odds were good that he did.

Before I came to the Namgung Clan on rotation, I had investigated every martial house in the area around it, orthodox, unorthodox and demonic alike.

It was to map out the dangers within my own territory first, and along the way I turned up an unexpected gain.

In Hefei no martial house of the unorthodox sects or the demonic path could dare survive. The Namgung Clan held the first seat among the murim’s Five Great Clans in plain sight and kept both eyes wide open on them, so they could not set up so much as a branch. They might run a safe house in secret; operate openly they could not.

That left only the underworld factions, and even they barely drew breath. Any of them that grew to size became the Namgung Clan’s prey without fail, commonly wiped out root and branch in a single night. Only the outfits small enough to go unminded were left untouched. Du-sik knew it, which was why he never grew his own but kept his men to fifteen or so and made his living that way.

It was a rare outing, so I went to the noodle stall meaning to have a bowl of noodles. But the stall was thick with people.

“Business is going well.”

A pity I could not eat, but the trade was clearly thriving, and it filled me with a needless swell of pride. The husband and wife worked at a run, and still the smiles never left their faces.

“The sight of people who live hard living well is a good one, however often you see it.”

I gave up on the noodles and went straight for the eating house. I meant to see to my hunger before I met the man.

Had I known it would be like this, I should have eaten at home before coming out.

I had come out on an empty stomach on purpose, because I wanted noodles, and the plan had gone awry.

On the way I caught sight of Du-sik in the distance with his men, loading something onto a cart. I turned to a merchant at a stall nearby.

“Proprietor, let me ask you something.”

The merchant was well on in years, and at my words he bent suddenly at the waist toward me.

“Yes, Scholar.”

His eyes had the look of a man who knew me, so I asked.

“Do you know me?”

“Of course. Of course I do. Are you not the guardian of our North Road?”

Thinking I had misheard, I asked again.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Du-sik said so. That the true guardian who keeps North Road is Master Scholar Cheon.”

The merchant smiled and went on.

“It is only what we say among ourselves, but there is a phrase — the Three Treasures of North Road.”

“And what is that?”

The Three Treasures of North Road. The phrase meant precisely that, the three treasures of North Road.

“First, the Saintess, the physician Jong So-bin. Second, Cheong Yo of the Cheonsangnak Tower. Third, Scholar Cheon Tae-san of the Namgung Clan.”

“What have I ever done, to be one of the three treasures?”

I offered the modest disclaimer, and the merchant waved a hand at me.

“Nothing of the sort. There is no place that pays as little in taxes as our North Road. And above all, there is not one street thug interfering with our trade. I have traded here for decades, and this is the first time it has ever been so good a time for trade. I know it is entirely thanks to Master Scholar Cheon.”

Was that why, then? That whenever I walked the street the merchants’ eyes were full of goodwill. That I should suddenly be one of the three treasures of the Namgung Clan’s North Road.

It was a strange feeling. Being acknowledged by the people who lived at the bottom sat better with me than being acknowledged by the Murim Alliance’s famous scholars.

“It is kind of you to say so. But what is Du-sik carrying off just now?”

“Ah. Since Du-sik cannot collect taxes on North Road anymore, these days he earns by clearing away the refuse the market puts out and running errands. A great deal of refuse comes out in a single day, so it makes a fair living.”

Good to see Du-sik living steadily rather than feeding himself by playing the street thug. But he had mouths of his own depending on him, and that alone would hardly keep them. He had gone straight, and I put work his way now and then, so it seemed I ought at least to settle him some means of feeding himself and his people.

Strictly speaking, it was because of me that he had come to live steadily.