How To Handle A Hellion

Cheon Tae-san opened his mouth.

“If I do call the butterflies, then give me your word that the Young Sect Leader will not lay a hand on me for one month.”

“What?”

Hwang Gok had never in his life seen a scholar with gall like this, and just watching it was enough to knot his stomach.

In all my life I have never seen a man treat Mak Ji-mong the hellion like that. He carries on exactly like a mayfly, and my own heart shrinks to watch it. But is it not truly something? Who would dare behave so boldly in front of Mak Ji-mong?

Hwang Gok was by nature a grown man himself, one who squared his shoulders and spoke up boldly wherever he went. In front of Mak Ji-mong he went about like a dog with its tail tucked, because he knew the man was a hellion with the strength and the power to kill him over nothing worse than a sour mood.

“Fine. I give you my word. I won’t touch the scholar for one month.”

“Swear it.”

“A trifle like an oath — I’ll swear it by the gods of heaven and earth. What else shall I swear on?”

Cheon Tae-san tossed a line at the smirking Mak Ji-mong.

“Swear it on the Young Sect Leader’s mother’s name.”

At that, Mak Ji-mong glared at him.

Cheon Tae-san knew that whatever else the man was, he cherished his mother beyond all reason. She had lain on her sickbed a long while now, but his devotion to her, at any rate, was genuine. Filial devotion in an utter hellion may sound a little out of place, but a rabid stray cur will still wag its tail for the one master who is good to it.

“Fine. I swear it on the name of my mother, Deung Jo-ryeong.”

Mak Ji-mong had the distinct feeling that this scholar was not one to be trifled with.

There is the nerve of him, not batting an eye in front of Father or in front of me, and there is his knowing exactly where I am weak. How did he learn that my mother is my soft spot? Is it because he belonged to the Murim Alliance’s Inspection Corps?

The martial artists of the Hyeoncheon Sect’s own Inspection Corps had nothing like the scholar’s ability. All they knew was how to squeeze money out of other men’s corruption.

Cheon Tae-san took up the qin that stood ready in the pavilion and began to draw the notes out of it.

“Oho — Spring River in the Flower Moon Night!¹”

Spring River in the Flower Moon Night was reckoned the hardest piece there was, for technique and for feeling both.

How many courtesan houses must a man have haunted to know it from the opening measures alone.

The notes ran on stately as a river, then spread out bright as flowers opening in spring, and from there the piece climbed into the high register and flowed soft as a moonlit night.

About midway through the piece, two butterflies came flying in from somewhere. Butterflies do not stir at night, so their coming at all was astonishing, and on top of that they went circling round and round above the scholar’s head.

“Th-this is a coincidence! There’s no way it’s real! How does a man call butterflies with music! It makes no sense!”

Mak Ji-mong shouted it because he could not accept it, and the two butterflies settled on the scholar’s shoulders regardless, one on each.

“Haa!”

Hwang Gok turned to his younger sister.

“So-ye. How does that scholar’s level of attainment in music look to you?”

Hwang So-ye shook her head.

“Brother. I thought I had a fair confidence in the qin and the pipa myself, but hearing that piece, I am a long way off yet. With the grounding I have in music I could not dare to pass judgment on that scholar’s music. Honestly, I did not know he would be at that level either.”

“As much as that?”

“It occurs to me that it may be the finest music alive today. Brother, do you think those butterflies flew in by chance? At this hour of the evening.”

It was then.

“Oh—! What is that!”

Hwang Gok cried out, startled.

A great long yellow wasp came flying in and circled about the scholar.

— Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

“That is a hobong!”

The hobong is an aggressive wasp, the one commonly called a hornet.

“He calls in wasps?”

Cheon Tae-san set the three spirit energies turning and put his will into them. As the music rose toward its height, the sound of the hornets’ flight fell into an exquisite harmony with it.

Hwang Gok spat out a cry of astonishment.

“Good heavens!”

The hundreds of hornets that had been circling about the scholar flung themselves at Mak Ji-mong.

“The lowly creatures dare to fly at me!”

He drew up his body-protecting qi and killed the hornets.

— Sizzzzk!

With a sound like burning, the hornets came down in a patter. Still they kept flying in at Mak Ji-mong, like moths to a flame.

— Sizzzzk!

What angered Mak Ji-mong was not that the hornets were flying at him. The rage rose out of the very fact that they were flying at him and at nobody else. Hwang Gok, Hwang So-ye and the scholar all stood within reach of him, and still the hundreds of them came for him alone.

That scholar fellow is working the hornets.

Even as he thought it, he bit his lip.

But is such a thing even possible?

In any case, he could hardly take the man to task for it.

— Tak-ta-ta-ta-tang!

When the playing ended, the hornets that had lived flew fast up into the air and were gone. Yellow hornets lay heaped in Mak Ji-mong’s cup and in the dishes set out with his drink.

“Well? My playing. Has it made amusement enough?”

To fly into a rage now would only make him a small man and nothing else. He had asked for the qin himself, and it was he who had declared outright that no man could call butterflies.

“How is it that the hornets attacked me and only me?”

He put the question to Cheon Tae-san, and there was killing intent in it as well as curiosity.

“Quite so. It is a wonder to me as well. It seems to have been a coincidence. The Young Sect Leader said it himself — such things are the product of coincidence.”

“Heh heh heh. Uh heh heh heh.”

Mak Ji-mong let a foolish laugh leak out of him.

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt this dog-rotten about anything.”

“I shall trust you to keep your word.”

Cheon Tae-san poured himself a cup at his leisure and drank it slowly, as though savoring it.

“Good wine, and I drank my fill of it. My thanks for the invitation. Young Hero Hwang, Miss Hwang. I shall take my leave now. It is a pity that with everything so unsettled I could not drink with you properly. Next time I should like to hear Miss Hwang’s music.”

Cheon Tae-san made a courteous salutation and left the pavilion.

The moment he was past the moon gate a shout rang out behind him, Mak Ji-mong roaring at the top of his voice, unable to master his own fury.

“What son of a bitch is that, howling so mournfully on a night with the moon so bright!” Cheon Tae-san flung back over his shoulder, without breaking stride.

At Cheon Tae-san’s words a smothered snort of laughter came from somewhere near the moon gate. His sense for qi caught four men lying hidden there.

“Bwahahahaha!”

Mak Yeo-heun, whose laughter seemed fit to carry the great hall away with it, spoke into the empty air.

“Is that the truth of it?”

“Yes. It is so, my lord.”

“The scholar called hobong in with his music and set them on him?”

“So it is. The escort who saw it firsthand said so.”

“Shadow Master, but is such a thing possible? Calling butterflies and wasps with music? No — from the sound of it he is not calling them but commanding them, is he not? Does it stand to reason, to single out one man and make them attack him?”

“This subordinate too thinks that to come so far in music, a man would have to be at least the equal of Neung Hwa-eun, the Hundred Melodies at a Touch.”

“Then you are saying he is a master of the sound arts on the order of the Hundred Melodies at a Touch.”

“I mean that he is at that level of attainment.”

“When I looked at him he was a scholar without even a dantian. Could it be that I saw wrongly?”

“My lord, if he could deceive my lord’s eye, that would make him a master of the Transformation Realm himself. Such a thing cannot be.”

“Just so.”

“I think it likely he has some other means. Whatever it may be, this time it seems we may allow ourselves to hope.”

“Quite so. And he even got a promise out of the hellion not to raise a hand against him for a month. And if the boy still does not change, he does not mind being killed for it?”

Even by Mak Yeo-heun’s own reckoning, the scholar had gone a long way past anything he had hoped for.

“I have been truly bored of late, and now there is entertainment in watching the two of them. So — what is the hellion at?”

“They report that he is shouting and cursing.”

“Kuhahaha! Had he gone by his usual temper he would have beaten the scholar to death.”

“He swore it on the clan matron’s name, so he cannot break it.”

“Bwahahaha! See here, Shadow Master. Take the land deeds to him at once. And take him a certain amount of money as well. That is what will keep him from wandering off.”

“It seems this one will survive a good while.”

“To this seat’s mind it is not a matter of surviving — I have a feeling he will reform that hellion.”

“That we must give time and watch a while longer yet. But where shall we give him the land?”

“Why, that place, is it not. The one where ghosts walk so often that even the people who lived there have all left. The Ghost Domain by Poyang Lake. We are giving a great deal of land — we can hardly give good land as well, can we.”

“That goes without saying.”

Mak Yeo-heun’s sly, underhanded smile drifted through the great hall.

“If he survives well in that place, then he is a scholar this seat can acknowledge. Ah — and the hellion ate the scholar’s spirit elixir?”

“Yes. The Young Sect Leader is reported to have said it was a spirit elixir with five years’ worth of internal force to be felt in it.”

“Hm. A spirit elixir as precious as that will be the Namgung Clan’s Azure Sky Pill. The Azure Sky Pill raises the internal force by about five years, does it not?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Then give the scholar one more Dragon Blood Pill.”

“My lord has bestowed a great deal already. What has been given is enough.”

“The hellion took it off him, did he not. That much must be made good. But the Azure Sky Pill is a spirit elixir the Namgung Clan prizes highly — and they gave it to the scholar?”

“There is information that Namgung Hak holds Scholar Cheon dearer than his own children.”

“For that fastidious Namgung Hak to treat a man so means there is something in the scholar. Namgung Hak is not one to treat a man well where there is no profit in it.”

Mak Yeo-heun went on.

“Have we finally met the scholar who will reform our hellion?”

“It is early to judge, but this subordinate too finds himself hoping a little.”

“When you tell the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps’ Corps Chief to carry the land deeds over, tell him to carry a Dragon Blood Pill as well.”

“But will the scholar have any need of a spirit elixir?”

“Let him eat it himself or give it away, as he pleases — tell him that. There is no need for us to meddle so far. I do it because, being the Unorthodox Supreme and all, I have no wish to live in another man’s debt.”

“As you say.”

Yu Yeok-rip made her decision in the end.

“We will buy an estate near Poyang Lake and stay there.”

Not a disciple or a man among them would raise an objection to Elder Yu’s word. But the question had to be asked.

“Scholar Cheon’s party has gone into the Hyeoncheon Sect, so would it not be better to withdraw and watch for the time when they return to the Namgung Clan? To wait here on and on seems inefficient.”

He said it because he did not properly understand the Ice Sacred Body. She saw no need to explain it to them.

“No. How are we to know when they will return, that we should wait on it? Better to wait here and watch for our chance. No more talk — go and find an estate.”

At her word they answered as one.

“We will follow your command.”

She looked off toward where the Hyeoncheon Sect lay and muttered.

“On the day the Ice Sacred Body finds her true consciousness, she cannot help but come looking for me. The Ice Sacred Body is bound to come to me, who carry the energy of the ice crystal.”

That was why she could not leave this place. The trouble was that there was no telling when the Ice Sacred Body would find her self.

But the Ice Sacred Body’s self wakes the faster as her consciousness keeps widening and developing. The more her consciousness is quickened by that scholar fellow’s teaching, the faster it will come. It cannot be so very far off.

Yu Yeok-rip expected the wait here would not prove so very dull after all. Keeping the Ice Sacred Body to herself alone would take one more piece of work.

“And you — tell the men left in Hefei not to stop watching about the Young Palace Lord. Openly enough that the Blood Cult and the Demonic Cult crowd notice it.”

“As you say.”

When the follower had gone, Yu Yeok-rip grinned.

“Because those fellows must go on thinking the Young Palace Lord still has the Ice Sacred Body tucked at her side.”

She knew that the moment the Blood Cult or the Demonic Cult learned the true Ice Sacred Body was with the scholar, securing her for herself would become difficult.