A Warrior's Oath

Yeo-seol was the sort of child who woke from a night’s sleep with vitality spilling over.

“Brother, what am I learning today?”

Breakfast was hardly cleared away before she was asking to learn martial arts, and it bothered me. Lately nothing held her attention like martial training, and she had begun to take real pleasure in it. Girls her age usually liked other things entirely, and the thought of it pinched at my heart.

Yeo-seol and those ordinary girls are different at the root. This is no time to be steeping myself in sentiment.

I taught her what I knew of the Ghost Immortal’s martial arts. The arts ran on spirit energy, so a martial artist with an ordinary human constitution could never draw out their proper power.

But why is it that Yeo-seol can work the Ghost Immortal’s arts at all? Because she is the Ice Sacred Body? Is the Ice Sacred Body a constitution close to the Seven Stars and Seven Primes as well?

For all the knowledge I could marshal, this was the one part I could not bring to light. The records and the information in my hands were simply not enough.

If she has none of the Seven Stars and Seven Primes’ spirit energy either, then some other spirit energy in her is strong — and what would that be? Or is the Ice Sacred Body simply born with strong spirit energy to begin with?

No art and no record existed for using spirit energy as internal force, so I had no choice but to make myself the starting point and reason outward from there.

Yeo-seol can draw in the qi of nature and use it as internal force, and she can draw out spirit energy besides. Let me watch her a while longer and take it apart.

Working out Yeo-seol’s condition, I could see, was going to take time.

With Yeo-seol’s training done, we all gathered in one place for lunch.

“Did you rest well?”

Namgung Cheol-ung was the one who greeted me. Namgung Hwa-jun and Namgung Pyo greeted me as well and took their places at the table, a keen martial edge coming off them; they must have been up training since dawn.

“I rested well.”

Namgung Hwa-jun put a question to me.

“Master Scholar Cheon, when do we leave? It does not seem we can stay here indefinitely.”

The Hyeoncheon Sect was a stronghold of the unorthodox sects, and for martial artists of the Namgung Clan a long stay inside it could not help being uncomfortable. The eyes that turned on them were not kind ones.

“Let us talk about it after we have eaten.”

Yeo-seol had her eyes fixed on the food. She must have been hungry.

“As you say.”

We had finished the meal and were rinsing our mouths with tea when Gwanryong Jin’s voice came from outside the door.

“Master Scholar Cheon.”

“Oh, Great Hero Gwanryong. Come in.”

I let him into the room.

“You are all here, I see.”

“Will you take a cup of tea?”

Gwanryong Jin shook his head at that.

“No. I will hand over what the Supreme has given and be on my way. I am charged with guarding the sparring tournament at the sixtieth-birthday feast this time, so I am a little busy. From today the rising talents of the unorthodox sects have begun pouring in.”

“Ah. That will be hard work for you.”

I took the documents he held out.

“The land deeds and bank notes, I am told.”

“You might have set one of your men to it. Why has the Corps Chief brought it himself?”

“There is a friendship between Master Scholar Cheon and myself, so the Supreme named me for it. And there is one thing more to give you — too precious a thing to send by anyone else’s hand, which is why I came.”

Gwanryong Jin drew a silver case out of his robes. It was a case I had seen often enough somewhere before, and I looked up at him.

“Is this not the Dragon Blood Pill?”

“It is. I was granted one myself when I took up the post of Corps Chief. The Dragon Blood Pill is what a man receives for a great merit in our sect, or on promotion to the rank of Corps Chief or above. My congratulations, Master Scholar Cheon.”

“I already received the Dragon Blood Pill I was promised when I met the Supreme.”

“Ah — the Supreme said it stands in place of the spirit elixir the Young Sect Leader ate.”

“Ah!”

I called to mind my Flying Dantian, which Mak Ji-mong had eaten the night before.

A windfall out of nowhere. My thanks, Mak Ji-mong.

Once Gwanryong Jin had gone, Namgung Cheol-ung spoke up.

“The land deeds already? They must want Master Scholar Cheon tied down here quite badly.”

“Nothing else would have got it settled this fast.”

Namgung Hwa-jun answered him, then went on.

“Where does the land the sect leader gave you lie?”

I looked at the land deeds and murmured.

“Hwaryeong County. Hwaryeong County would be one of the counties near Poyang County, on Poyang Lake.”

I had the geography of these parts down to the last detail.

Namgung Pyo looked at the deeds and made a sound of astonishment.

“Whoaa, they are giving you forty acres? Forty acres would be a tenth of Hwaryeong County, would it not?”

The Five Great Clans commonly ran from twenty-four to forty acres at the small end, which made it an enormous grant.

“Brother, have we gotten rich in land?”

“Hm. Something like that, yes.”

Land in my own name. That was not a matter of mere nerve on their part; it was possible only because these were the unorthodox sects. In the orthodox murim, open-handedness on such a scale was not to be thought of.

All the same, is it truly all right to take land on this scale?

Namgung Pyo picked it up sourly.

“Honestly, though — if Master Scholar Cheon goes back to our house, or if anything goes wrong, they will take it straight back, will they not? Then it is nothing but a show of generosity.”

Namgung Cheol-ung answered him.

“Why? He can sell it. And the young lady Yeo-seol could inherit it, for that matter.”

“And if he cannot reform Young Sect Leader Mak Ji-mong, they take it back, do they not?”

Namgung Pyo shot me a glance as he said it.

“Perhaps so. But giving it over at once like this means they trust Master Scholar Cheon.”

Namgung Cheol-ung said it as though he were speaking on my behalf.

“Brother, now that we have land of our own, we could live there.”

“We could. Buy an estate and live on it.”

“Whoaa! We’re getting our own house and our own land!”

Yeo-seol flung both hands in the air and let out a cheer. Cheong Yo and Song-ran watched her and smiled.

“Now we won’t have to mind the landlord’s moods. Keeping the landlord company is hard work, you know.”

Listening to her, I gave a bitter smile; the landlord she meant had come to mind.

“To take up what I left off saying before — it seems to me the three of you might leave together once Miss Cheong’s playing at the sixtieth-birthday feast is done. What does Miss Cheong think? It would save the trouble of hiring armed escorts separately.”

Cheong Yo said nothing.

Is this a thing to agonize over? Armed escorts or not, going with three first-rate masters of the Namgung Clan must be safer than with men she hardly knows.

She must have felt my eyes on her, because she gave an awkward smile and answered.

“Ah — my thoughts were elsewhere a moment. Forgive me, Master Scholar Cheon. It is only that Ran and I turned this matter over carefully last night.”

She seemed to be finding it hard to say, so I pressed her.

“Speak freely. If it is a request of Miss Cheong’s, I must accommodate it as far as I can.”

At that, Cheong Yo spoke like a woman who had made up her mind.

“Might this girl not live on the land Master Scholar Cheon has been given? Ran has agreed to it as well.”

I had not expected that, and for a moment I read her blood flow to see whether she meant it. The flow ran fast, from nerves most likely, but there was nothing singular in it.

“Going back to live at the Cheonsangnak Tower would not be so bad, but I find I want an ordinary life now.”

I could feel what she was wrestling with.

“It is because of the Regional Military Commissioner.”

Cheong Yo nodded, her face gone sad.

“The Regional Military Commissioner wants me, yes, but so does his Excellency the Prefect, and every man down the line beneath him. Avoiding the Commissioner would not be the end of it.”

Song-ran took up the thread.

“Sister Cheong Yo has been suffering because of those people. They press her hard enough that she cannot hold out much longer.”

“Even living here, men who want Miss Cheong will appear. Miss Cheong is far too accomplished a person. Who would not covet her?”

“Which is why — would it not be better simply to enter me as Master Scholar Cheon’s household courtesan?”

A household courtesan properly meant a courtesan raised up inside a household, and the practice went back to the days of the Han dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Because a household courtesan belonged to one house and worked there, the pay was poor.

When I pointed that part out, Cheong Yo answered.

“What I have already earned is enough that I could spend until the day I die and have some left. I am thinking I might teach talented children, together with Song-ran.”

Cheong Yo got on well with Yeo-seol, and having her stay with us did not seem a bad thing. Song-ran weighed on my mind a little, but what she carried was a history rather than any hostility, so watching her a while would be enough.

“Let us do it this way. For the time being, be a household courtesan. And whenever Miss Cheong wishes, she may leave. Stay as long as you wish, of course — that is no trouble either.”

Cheong Yo rose and bent deeply at the waist to me.

“I thank you for your consideration.”

She was a performing courtesan whose fame had further to rise, and yet she seemed not to hunger after renown. Watching her, I set the silver case down on the table.

“This is the Dragon Blood Pill, the spirit elixir the Hyeoncheon Sect prides itself on. Assimilate it well and they say you gain five years’ worth of internal force. I should like to give it to the three of you, who have had a hard road of it escorting us this far.”

“What?”

Namgung Cheol-ung, Namgung Hwa-jun and Namgung Pyo stared at me round-eyed.

“The Namgung Clan has the Azure Sky Pill of its own, but the three of you will never be given one.”

The three of them nodded, their faces gone gloomy.

“Because we are the collateral branch. The collateral branch never receives the Azure Sky Pill.”

The Azure Sky Pill went to the direct line alone.

“Which is why I am giving it. Divide it between you and you will gain a year’s or two years’ worth of internal force at the least, and it will be a great help to the three of you.”

For masters at their stage, a year or two of internal force could open a wide gap. It would help their training in the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique as well, and win them recognition inside the Namgung Clan.

“Escorting you is a thing we are bound to do as a matter of course. We cannot take it.”

Namgung Cheol-ung said it with a stubborn set to his eyes.

“This is a token to bind the tie between the three of you and myself. Between us, surely a gift of this size is allowed?”

The Dragon Blood Pill could have gone to Yeo-seol, or I could have swallowed it myself. But for her a spirit elixir carried a real chance of getting in the way of her growth instead. She worked with the qi of nature, and piling up some other particular energy was not desirable. As for me, the Flying Dantian drank other men’s internal force dry to raise my own, so there was no need to go swallowing a spirit elixir. And I had one more Dragon Blood Pill besides, which was what let me be so open-handed.

The three of them must have passed some meaning back and forth by voice transmission; they rose from their seats, made a cupped-hands salute toward me and bent at the waist.

Namgung Cheol-ung spoke in a solemn voice.

“Though our names stand on the Namgung Clan’s register and our blood binds us to it, we give our lives to Master Scholar Cheon. Whatever the matter, if you have need of our lives, call for us. We will render you the service of dog and horse¹ to our last breath.”

A warrior’s oath.

And the oath of a Namgung Clan warrior was no light thing. An oath to lay down their lives whenever I had need of them sent a heat through my chest.

“How should one paltry spirit elixir buy the lives of three men? Come and drink a cup with me now and then when I am lonely — would that not be enough?”

The three Namgung Clan warriors bent lower still, their eyes full of feeling. Resolve stood right out on their faces, as though they had sworn some deep oath.

The women, faced with the men’s resolve, were awkward at first and then found themselves moved.

“Splendid.”

Yeo-seol must have caught the feeling; she sprang up from her seat and made me a bow.

“My brother has looked after me well, so when my brother is old and has no vigor left, I’ll lay down my life to look after him.”

“Hahaha! There’s no need for that kind of bow between family. Family are bound together by their lives.”

Cheong Yo and Song-ran listened to us and threw envious looks our way. Neither of them had anyone she could call family.

“I’ll look after Sister Cheong Yo and Sister Song-ran too. They’re like family to me.”

They surely knew it for a thoughtless child’s remark, and still they looked at Yeo-seol with wet eyes. To be counted as family seemed to comfort them past any other words.

“Thank you, Yeo-seol. You’re like family to me too.”

Something must have welled up in Cheong Yo; her voice came out trembling.