Arriving At The Hyeoncheon Sect

— Kreeeak!

The carriage door swung open, and its hinges screamed. A fairly rough stretch of mountain road had left them sitting a little crooked.

To Song-ran the air inside the carriage felt twisted out of true, much like the door itself. Sister Cheong Yo had evidently worked out, at least in part, that she was no ordinary girl.

“Sister Cheong Yo. The truth is, I can see. I laid a seal on myself so that I can’t.”

“…Why?”

“I learned a particular martial art, and it binds anyone who sees my eyes to me on its own.”

“Is it like the soul-seizing arts the people of the murim talk about?”

Cheong Yo had picked up no little hearsay of her own, and she came up with a comparable art on the spot.

“That’s right, it’s that sort of martial art. But an ordinary soul-seizing art has to be laid on by my own will. Mine takes hold the moment somebody sees my eyes, even with no such intent in me at all. That’s why I keep my eyes shut altogether.”

“I see. That must have been hard. Able to see, and choosing not to.”

Cheong Yo took Song-ran’s hand, her eyes full of pity.

“Sister Cheong Yo, I’m sorry I deceived you.”

Cheong Yo shook her head.

“What are you talking about. When did you ever deceive me. You just didn’t tell me, that’s all. How hard it must have been for Ran. Able to see, and having to live with your eyes shut because of a martial art.”

Perhaps the words were a comfort, for Song-ran wept. The tears fell onto the back of the hand still holding hers, one after another, hot as wax running off a candle.

“How Ran must have suffered in her heart. And thanks to it we’re alive. You saved a good many people.”

“Thank you, Sister Cheong Yo. I was scared you’d keep your distance from me.”

“Oh, you. What elder sister turns her back on her little sister over something about her she doesn’t understand. You’re as good as family to me.”

For a long while Cheong Yo patted Song-ran’s back, comforting her without a word.

“I think the two of you have something to say now. Talk it over. Song-ran and I can speak again by ourselves later.”

Cheong Yo was a wise woman. She saw that the two of them had things to say, and she gave up her place to them.

“See you later. Ran.”

“Yes. Sister Cheong Yo.”

“I shall ask you to look after Yeo-seol a little while.”

“Do not worry.”

When Cheong Yo had gone out, Cheon Tae-san spoke.

“Miss Cheong is a truly good elder sister.”

“Yes. She has cared for me all this while as though I were her own younger sister. She is the one family I have left.”

Cheon Tae-san nodded.

Was family anything so grand?

At the turnings of a life walked in tears, whoever sees you off the longest and the farthest is family. They take you in knowing full well that the road together will be far from smooth, and that pain will follow at times. No blood binds them, and they are family all the same.

So it was for Cheong Yo with Song-ran, and for Cheon Tae-san with Yeo-seol.

Cheon Tae-san waited for Song-ran to speak first.

The carriage rolled forward again and took to the road. With the carriage’s own two horses poisoned and dead, a warhorse ridden by one of the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps had been put in the traces. Perhaps because a warhorse pulled harder than any carriage horse, the ride had turned rough.

“Master Scholar Cheon.”

“Yes.”

“Could you unfold a qi screen over this carriage?”

A voice transmission and the like could be managed with spirit energy as well, but a qi screen to shut sound out was something I had never unfolded before. In any case I set the three spirit energies turning, poured them out, and walled off everything around us.

Song-ran must have felt it, because she broke into a smile.

“What a strange qi screen. So the bead that went flying about that time was Master Scholar Cheon’s after all. This screen has much the same feel to it as that bead did.”

Nobody had ever felt spirit energy before. That she had felt it meant she did not work with ordinary martial arts.

Song-ran spoke.

“Do you know the martial art I used?”

First of all, she seemed to want to know how far my knowledge went.

“The Soul-Seizing Divine Eye… I do not know it in any detail, but I once read something of the kind in a book.”

“That is strange. There should be no official record of my martial art anywhere in the murim.”

“Why is that?”

Song-ran answered me.

“Because my school has never shown itself to the murim officially, nor been known to it. It did have dealings now and then with a few eminent seniors of the murim, but only on their promise to leave no record.”

So the record in the Murim Alliance’s secret vault had been left by somebody breaking that promise.

“But once several hundred years have gone by, somebody is bound to write it down.”

“This girl thinks so too. So, do you know my martial art?”

“I saw only fragments of a record, so I do not know whether it is exact. They are old, and much of what was in them is lost. Miss Song’s martial art is the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye, exactly as you have told me so far. A method by which merely to be looked at is to be caught in the soul-seizing art. That is how it was set down.”

“Then do you also know the school that unfolds the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye?”

Being quizzed like this, one question at a time, grated on me a little, but I knew what Song-ran meant by it and bore with it. She had settled on question and answer, no doubt, as her way of explaining it to me properly.

“By the Secret Records of the Murim, the school that unfolds the Soul-Seizing Divine Eye is the Mukrim Heaven, so the book had it. But does a place called the Mukrim Heaven truly exist? Even with the records in front of me I could not believe them, and took it for a tale somebody had spun out of his own imagination. A school founded by the descendants of Bian Que¹ and the descendants of the scholar-gentry. Who would believe that?”

Song-ran’s eyes went round; the answer had startled her a little. She ran her tongue over her lips.

“Do you know other schools besides the Mukrim Heaven? The schools said to be in the Secret Records of the Murim.”

“I have them by heart. It spoke of schools unknown to the world, the Musang Heaven and the Jeongil Heaven.”

“Does Master Scholar Cheon believe it?”

I gave a hollow laugh.

“With a living witness sitting plainly in front of me, how could I not believe it.”

“Then does Master Scholar Cheon know what those three places are called together?”

“That I do not know. The Secret Records of the Murim is a book lost in places, and I saw only one part of it, so my knowledge of it is not whole.”

“I see. It does seem some eminent senior of the murim long ago had dealings with them and left a record behind for later generations.”

“But there will be nowhere in the murim that knows these three schools. Most do not so much as know that a book called the Secret Records of the Murim exists, and besides, what stands in it reads like unofficial history.”

Song-ran nodded, and then she spoke.

“The Jeongil Heaven, the Musang Heaven, the Mukrim Heaven. These three places together are called the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens. In our world, that is.”

The name meant three small worlds broken off from the immortal realm. I had never heard it before. I carried every faction and sect of the murim in my head, and in all my life the words Three Immortal-Shard Heavens had never once crossed it.

“So Miss Song’s school is the one among them called the Mukrim Heaven.”

“Yes.”

Song-ran made to explain something further, and I raised a hand.

“Miss Song, I am a scholar. There is no need to explain to me as far as the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens. Merely thinking about the men who attacked us just now is enough to crowd my head.”

Song-ran tilted her head. Plainly she had not expected that. She had taken it that I would be curious about the secret of the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens, still so little known in the murim. For all she knew I was the Murim Alliance’s secret weapon, or its joint successor, and she must surely have reckoned I would want to get at this secret.

I told her, roundabout, that I had no particular wish to know.

“What business could there be to tangle me up with a place like the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens, which has never shown itself to the murim until now? They will have their reasons for not wanting to appear in the world, and I should like to respect that decision.”

“Ah. I see.”

Song-ran nodded.

“Living at the Murim Alliance taught me that there is no need to go opening a room locked with the padlock of a secret. I heard out Miss Song’s circumstances because Miss Song is someone I know, and out of gratitude for her dealing with the poison men.”

Something in the curious turn of speech seemed to draw her, and she nodded.

That was honestly how I felt. Now that I had left the Murim Alliance’s Inspection Corps and was on a rotation posting, I had no strength to spare for the murim’s inner affairs or its hidden histories.

Just now I am filled to the brim with worry over Yeo-seol and nothing else.

The Ice Palace, the Blood Cult and the Demonic Cult, all tangled up with Yeo-seol. And Gal U-heon, tangled up with me. The mere thought of them set my head throbbing.

“We shall arrive at the Hyeoncheon Sect shortly.”

Gwanryong Jin’s voice came from outside, and I opened my eyes. I had been playing with Yeo-seol and had dozed off without meaning to.

“Brother. You’re awake?”

Somewhere along the way I had ended up asleep with my head in Yeo-seol’s lap.

“Your legs must have gone numb. I’m sorry.”

“No. Brother was sleeping so soundly I just left you.”

“You rascal, you should have woken me. Our Yeo-seol knows how to think of other people now. All grown up.”

I stroked Yeo-seol’s head, and she giggled.

“Yeo-seol. From here on you listen well to what I say and keep it firmly in mind.”

“Mm.”

“The Hyeoncheon Sect we’re going to belongs to the unorthodox sects. You know that?”

“Sure I know. They’re the sort with foul tempers like jackals, who enjoy tormenting other people.”

“Hahaha. If the unorthodox sects are jackals, then what is the demonic path?”

It sounded like something she had picked up somewhere, so I asked.

“They say the demonic path are wolves.”

“That’s right. You could call them men who bare their teeth the moment a thing doesn’t suit them. So you mustn’t treat people carelessly the way you did at the Namgung Clan.”

“Hm. So what you’re saying is the jackals won’t let me off for being young?”

“Just so. Best of all is simply not to speak.”

“All right. That’s not hard.”

“And one more thing. It’s the same here. You must never show what you can do in front of other people. And the same where there’s nobody about.”

“You mean they might be watching us from a distance?”

“Just as I thought — our Yeo-seol is clever. You’re to train in martial arts only when I say you may.”

“That’s a lot of fiddly rules.”

“It is. Moving about will be awkward for you. So if you want to go back to the Namgung Clan, I’ll send you any time. Or you could follow Uncle Namgung Cheol-ung and the others when they head back.”

“No. However awkward it is, I don’t want to be apart from Brother. I can put up with that much.”

There was no wavering in Yeo-seol’s eyes.

“All the same, if being here gets hard for you, tell me any time.”

“There’s no chance of that, but all right.”

“At first, don’t leave the quarters we’re staying in. I have to watch for a while and see whether it’s all right to live there.”

The words had a hard meaning packed into them, but Yeo-seol nodded.

“You mean if it comes to it, we bolt?”

“Ho ho ho. That’s it. That’s what I mean.”

“Here I’ll conduct myself demurely, so that Brother needn’t worry.”

She had learned to mix in difficult words now, the way a young lady does.

When did she grow like this? She seems to be growing so fast that it leaves me a little sorry for it. Is this how fathers with daughters feel?

With a genius’s capacity and a genius’s wits, she learned and grasped anything quickly. Still, she would put on her little-girl charm in front of me even now, and that set my mind at ease a little.

I got down from the carriage before we passed through the main gate, where the great Hyeoncheon Sect signboard hung.

“What is the matter?”

Gwanryong Jin asked.

“There are people I must pay my respects to.”

I turned to face away from the main gate, made a courteous cupped-hands salute and bowed from the waist. The thanks were for the five men of the Emperor’s Escort Corps who had followed in secret the whole way and guarded us.

I held the posture a long while, and a voice transmission burrowed in at my ear.

— It has been good to guard Master Scholar Cheon. Take care of yourself, I beg you.

I felt the five blood flows draw away, and straightened up.

Only after passing two main gates did we enter the Hyeoncheon Sect. A prince’s residence or the imperial palace is said to have two main gates, and this place put one in mind of a palace. Dozens of pavilions stood inside it, enough that there was no telling whether it was a single school or a walled city in its own right.

Gwanryong Jin came over to me.

“Before your quarters are settled, do stay at the Guest Pavilion for now.”

He guided our carriage to a place with a great pond and a flower garden.

“This is our sect’s Guest Pavilion.”

The Guest Pavilion was made up of three buildings. We were shown to the one on the right.

“Do stay here a while. I shall go and report to the Supreme. You may well come face to face with the Supreme in about two hours, so it would be well to make ready.”

Gwanryong Jin threw me that advice and vanished.

A person of middle years and agreeable appearance came up.

“I am the steward with charge of the Guest Pavilion. If there is anything you need, please say so.”

“I am told there is to be an interview with the Supreme in two hours, so I should like a bath in hot water.”

“It is ready and waiting.”

“Good.”

I gave the steward a smile. The rest of the party all made for the bathhouse as well.

After the hot bath the weariness of the road seemed to loosen out of me. I put on the spare blue robe I had prepared and folded myself into the lotus. Having no dantian, I had never sat to circulate the qi before, but the Flying Dantian had come into being of late, and on the road I had tried working the power a few times.

And I realized something.

To pass internal force through the body’s meridians by sitting to circulate the qi was to gain one more world of one’s own.

I did not circulate the qi by any particular internal art; I simply let the six years’ worth of internal qi flow as it wished to flow.

“The Supreme asks to see you.”

The steward’s voice came from outside, and I woke out of my meditation.

“Very well.”

I set out after the steward.

Anything at all touching Mak Yeo-heun, I knew. While I served in the Murim Alliance’s Inspection Corps I had gone through several volumes’ worth of material on him, and intelligence on a figure of that importance I had committed to memory whole, so forgetting it was out of the question.

If my memory serves, he is a man with the temper of one who by rights should be called a Great Hero.

I had not refused Mak Yeo-heun’s invitation partly because a lead on the Auspicious Spirit Flower lay in the Hyeoncheon Sect, and partly because of the byname he carried, the Unorthodox King, True Lord. He was the supreme of the unorthodox sects, and yet, for being more the chivalrous hero than the chivalrous heroes themselves, he had earned the byname True Lord.

I find myself looking forward to meeting Mak Yeo-heun.

It stirred me more than meeting Namgung Hak had.