The Owner Of A Solar Body

“Here?”

Jong So-bin looked up at the signboard and muttered, as though she could not credit it.

The Hefei government office.

“Why the government office?”

I met her questioning eyes and snorted a laugh.

“A Solar Body carries a great deal of yang energy. A martial artist can gather that yang energy in with an internal art, but when a common man has too much of it, more often than not he turns ravisher.”

“So what you are saying is that Solar Bodies turn ravisher and end up in the government office’s jail.”

She stared at the signboard, the strength gone out of her face.

Why did I never once think of this?

Jong So-bin could not shake the thought that she was a hothouse flower who knew nothing of the ways of the world.

“There are a fair number in the Murim Alliance’s prison as well — owners of a Solar Body who turned flower-plucking ravisher and were brought in for it.¹ When you go to the Alliance later, you need only go down to the prison on the justification of treating them and absorb their energy.”

Jong So-bin heard that and felt she must go to the Murim Alliance without fail.

“When I was with the Inspection Corps I put a few flower-plucking ravishers away out of the Alliance’s own men, so I know the matter well.”

Listening to me, Jong So-bin realized that the problem that actually mattered was still standing.

“Grant that the ravishers have Solar Bodies. But how do we get into a jail with sentries posted on it at all hours?”

“Follow me. You can walk a little, I take it?”

“Yes. A little at a time, I can. It is thanks to Master Scholar Cheon treating me so well.”

She seemed to mean that sincerely.

At the main gate of the government office I told the sentry I had come from the Namgung Clan on business, and he checked my standing and let us through.

“Eh?”

Jong So-bin seemed unable to make head or tail of what I was doing; she kept drawing in startled little breaths.

“Isn’t that where the magistrate is?”

“We shall go to the magistrate and ask him, of course.”

“We aren’t government people. Will he grant it just because we ask?”

Jong So-bin might still know nothing of the ways of the world, but she knew that much.

I walked toward the sentries.

“Halt! This is where the magistrate conducts his business.”

I went up to one of the two and spoke.

“I am here from the Namgung Clan.”

The name Namgung brought the sentry up sharp. In Hefei, and across the whole of Anhui besides, it tended to come before the name of any man in power.

“And what business brings the Namgung Clan here?”

I drew the plaque from inside my robe and handed it to him.

“Take this to the magistrate and he will know.”

The moment the Protector’s plaque passed into his hands the sentry knew it for a thing of consequence, and he hurried off into the magistrate’s quarters. He had barely gone in before the magistrate came bursting out, and the man must have been in the middle of his meal, because a grain of rice clung to the corner of his mouth.

“It seems I have interrupted the magistrate’s meal.”

“What brings you to so shabby a place as this?”

The magistrate was no great authority on the murim, but he knew perfectly well what a Protector of the Namgung Clan Head’s Person meant.

There is some circumstance behind it, and he has disguised himself as a scholar. But the Protectors are men well on in years, as I understand it, and this one is very young.

His doubt lasted only a moment; he could hardly presume to slight a man carrying the Protector’s plaque.

“How is it you have come all this way?”

“There is a matter our house wishes looked into, and it seems I must go into the jail for a short while. I should be glad if I could see the prisoners.”

At that the magistrate grew angry on my behalf.

“Ahh, so among the prisoners there is some vermin who has done your honored house harm. In that case I must help you with a will.”

There was no reason to refuse a man so small a favor as looking in on some prisoners.

“If you help us, our house will be grateful.”

At my words a man of the magistrate’s standing bowed from the waist. In Anhui, having the Namgung Clan behind you was an enormous benefit.

Watching the scholar and the magistrate from a distance, Jong So-bin tilted her head again and again. The magistrate kept lowering himself, and a man only bore himself that way toward someone of high place.

That scholar is certainly no ordinary man. What magistrate bows and scrapes like that to a mere scholar?

A man who commanded martial arts of that order and yet lived as a scholar was surely moving under some secret commission.

The scholar came over and spoke.

“Let us go to the jail.”

A sentry led the way, and Jong So-bin followed behind the scholar without a word.

— Kreeeak!

The jail door swung open and the stench came at them in a rush.

“Ugh!”

Jong So-bin drew back from a reek such as she had never smelled in her life. She had worked as a physician and knew the smell of a rotting wound, but this was past what a human being could bear.

Cheon Tae-san, by contrast, had been down to the Murim Alliance’s prison a good few times, and had a tolerance for a stench like this. The moment it reached him he had gone so far as to run spirit energy up and stop his nostrils with it. Jong So-bin could do no such thing and covered her nose with her hand.

Cheon Tae-san spoke to the sentry.

“Show me where the ravishers are.”

The sentry pointed to a corner still deeper in the gloom.

“The ravishers are penned mostly in this section.”

Five men sat hunched in two barred cells, restraints on their arms and legs. Nobody in that jail was treated worse than a ravisher, not even a murderer.

“May we go in and see the prisoners?”

The sentry answered as though it put him in a difficulty.

“There is no telling what those wretches might do…”

“You may not have heard, but we are warriors of the Namgung Clan.”

“Ah. Then you may go in.”

The sentry opened the cell door and Cheon Tae-san went in first. Two of them sprang up and rushed him; he sealed their points in a moment and dropped them, then laid his fingers to their pulses and ran spirit energy in.

“Just as I thought!”

Cheon Tae-san smiled across at Jong So-bin.

“This is the one.”

He went straight on into the other cell, and one of them shouted.

“What do you mean to do with us? Prisoners we may be, but you cannot handle us like this.”

He had a fine face for all that, and proper clothes on his back; he looked like the son of a house with money.

“Quiet.”

“You don’t know who I—”

— Crack!

Cheon Tae-san struck the sleep point hard on purpose and put him under.

“Who are you? A flower-plucking ravisher, that’s who. Prisoner scum, always running their mouths.”

Then he took the pulses of the three of them and read their constitutions.

“Oho!”

Two of the three had Solar Bodies. The one he had struck had blazing-yang qi banked up in him.

With this much in him he must have been quite famous as a ravisher. A martial artist would have gathered the blazing-yang qi in as internal force, but an ordinary man has to vent it as carnal vigor.

The other fell short of him, but still carried more than the man whose energy Jong So-bin was drawing on now.

This much should be plenty to keep her going some years without hindrance. Though it will depend on how far her ice-cold qi has gone.

Presently Jong So-bin came in and began absorbing the blazing-yang qi from the men Cheon Tae-san had pointed out. The sentry held his spear upright, ready to thrust should any of the prisoners break out.

About half an hour on, Jong So-bin got to her feet and nodded.

“It is done.”

The color came back into a face that had gone pale with the loss of so much blood. The blazing-yang qi set the balance of her body right, and she mended fast.

“That will do. We shall go out.”

As the two of them came out of the jail, the sentry asked.

“What shall I report to the magistrate?”

“Tell him we are in his debt. And tell him the prisoner we were looking for was not here. And that we may come again in time, so he would do well to remember this lady here.”

Jong So-bin might well come alone one day, so Cheon Tae-san had put in a word ahead of time.

“Understood. I shall pass it on.”

They came straight out of the government office and walked. Then Cheon Tae-san crouched down in front of a limping Jong So-bin.

“I am all right. I have got a good deal of my strength back.”

“I will carry you as far as the safe house. And you must be careful of the vessel in your thigh. If it parts again, there will be nothing to be done.”

Jong So-bin did not dig her heels in, and climbed up onto the scholar’s back.

“It is thanks to the Scholar that I have survived so grave a danger.”

“Your span will have lengthened a little. When you reach the Murim Alliance, be sure to absorb a Solar Body’s energy there as well. There will be no small amount of it.”

Jong So-bin shook her head.

For him to speak even of my span — he seems to have worked me out entirely.

The question of how much he knew climbed as far as her throat and went back down again. On reflection it meant nothing. So she brought out one that did.

“Why are you so good to me?”

The Nine Nether Ghost-Spirit Footwork was driven by spirit energy rather than internal force, so they could talk even while he ran. But Cheon Tae-san had nothing to answer with, and only ran.

“Cheon Yeo-seol, you said?”

Jong So-bin had not asked a question that wanted an answer. What she needed was to speak a lament of her own.

“Cheon Yeo-seol is the Ice Palace’s last hope. Raise her well. The truth is, I went once to see how she was getting on. I had to see the Ice Sacred Body for myself.”

She drew a breath and went on.

“Seeing how she lives with Scholar Cheon exactly as though they were brother and sister by blood, I could not bring myself to go up and so much as greet her. It felt as though I would be breaking Cheon Yeo-seol’s peace. Perhaps, perhaps…”

Jong So-bin could go no further. The duty she carried as the North Sea Ice Palace’s Young Palace Lord had collided with the plain humanity that came of a mother’s love.

Perhaps living that way is what would make the Ice Sacred Body happy.

Born in the North Sea Ice Palace and shut into a closed life from the day she was named Young Palace Lord, she could not tell why it should ache so in her breast to see the girl running and playing with nothing to hold her back, laughing wide and easy among people.

Is it right, after all, to make her live the life I have lived?

That day she had stood a long while watching Cheon Yeo-seol, sunk in thought, and then turned away.

“If Master Scholar Cheon should use the Ice Sacred Body with ill intent, I shall take her back, whenever that may be.”

“As you should, of course.”

Cheon Tae-san went on, wanting her to know his mind exactly.

“A parent must not think that, having borne a child, he holds the power of life and death over it. A child is in itself one independent human being. To respect the decisions of an independent person is what makes someone a true parent.”

It felt rather like being lectured, and Jong So-bin let out a snort of a laugh.

Eh? And yet he can talk as easily as this while unfolding a lightness skill?

She was astonished at the scholar’s ability, and set at ease by it at the same time.

A man of this much ability will keep the Ice Sacred Body safe. Better than being with us, at the very least.

When we arrived at the safe house, the place was crowded with people. The White Tiger Corps’ martial artists had taken it over, and their Corps Chief, Wang Cheong, came up to me. They looked at me and gave a friendly smile; thick brows and jutting cheekbones lent their face an air of stubbornness.

I introduced Jong So-bin first.

“This lady is the Young Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace. I am Cheon Tae-san, on rotating assignment at the Namgung Clan.”

“I am Wang Cheong, Corps Chief of the White Tiger Corps.”

Wang Cheong spoke in a clear, ringing voice.

I answered as courtesy required.

“I heard a great deal of Corps Chief Wang’s repute during my service at the Murim Alliance. It is an honor to meet you like this.”

Greeting the Alliance’s high-ranking men called for this much ceremony.

Wang Cheong looked at me and broke into a grin. Their eyes held a plain liking, and inwardly it puzzled me. High-ranking men of the Murim Alliance who showed me any goodwill were as near to none as made no difference. A mere scholar had dug up their corruption and won himself a name at the Alliance for it, after all.

“I have heard the whole of it from the lady called Hwa-yeong. Requesting our Corps’ protection was very well done indeed.”

I looked at the girl called Ye-won, tucked in at Hwa-yeong’s side. Hwa-yeong met my eyes, greeted me with them alone, and said nothing more. From that I took it that neither the White Tiger Corps nor the Inspection Corps knew the Ice Sacred Body existed.

Curious how much they knew, I asked lightly.

“I hear the Demonic Cult and Blood Cult crowds are running wild in Hefei.”

“They are grasping after the North Sea Ice Palace’s Young Palace Lord. They must reckon that if they take the Young Palace Lord they can have the North Sea Ice Palace itself, would you not say? We have just had intelligence that the Ice Palace’s Elders have come into Hefei as well.”

Wang Cheong turned to Jong So-bin.

“In that light, from here on the Young Palace Lord must refrain from acting alone. This is no longer the North Sea Ice Palace’s affair only; it has become the Murim Alliance’s.”

If the North Sea Ice Palace fell into the hands of the Blood Cult or the Demonic Cult, one pillar of the murim would come down with it, so the Alliance could hardly sit on its hands either.