Entangling Bonds

I studied the young man closely. From nothing but the pattern worked into a man’s martial robes, I could name any martial house that existed in the murim.

The red sash bound at his waist, and the blue tassels. The shape of a thunderbolt engraved on the scabbard.

The thunderbolt pattern belonged to the Noeryong Sect, an unorthodox school of Jiangxi, and the red sash to one of its warriors. I counted the blue tassels.

Three of them means the direct line, so this will be Yu Seong, the heir of the Noeryong Sect.

The sect leader had two sons. The elder had died of qi deviation while honing the Thunderbolt Qi, so only the second, Yu Seong, was left.

So Yu Seong did obtain the Noeryong Sect’s Thunderbolt Qi.

I sensed the current running along his blood flow. But there was an energy lodged in his mind stronger than that current.

How has he stayed alive until now with a Heavenly Slaughter Star as strong as that?

That energy belonged to a Heavenly Slaughter Star, and it was more than enough to have made a murderer such as the world had never seen and would never see again¹. Those who carried one had no capacity for empathy, took their pleasure in killing, and once they had abused a man they enjoyed the sight of his pain. I knew because I had seen a carrier of the Heavenly Slaughter Star with my own eyes. Yu Seong belonged among the dangerous ones.

Since he came of the unorthodox sects rather than the orthodox murim, the trait could stand out all the more; among the unorthodox it was the wicked and the strong who were heroes.

I see. The Heavenly Slaughter Star has not come into bloom yet because the Thunderbolt Qi has been burning its energy away and holding it down to some degree. But that has reached its limit now. Once the Thunderbolt Qi stalls, a Heavenly Slaughter Star grown stronger still will break through.

He held an energy that could have made him a murderer for the ages, and the only reason he had not become one until now was his family’s Thunderbolt Qi. Even now the star’s energy was growing stronger than his Thunderbolt Qi. Let him stop working that power for no more than a few days and the Heavenly Slaughter Star would come into bloom. But being the heir of the Noeryong Sect he would work it without missing a single day, so the blooming would be put off.

Whether he becomes a Great Slaughter Star, or overcomes it and becomes a hero of the unorthodox sects. I am curious.

A Heavenly Slaughter Star’s energy was bound up with the innate qi, so removing it could shorten a man’s life or kill him before long.

I do not think there is anyone alive now who could remove that Heavenly Slaughter Star.

Even I, as I was now, could not cut a Heavenly Slaughter Star free of the innate qi it was bound to and take it out.

Just then, feeling my gaze perhaps, Yu Seong looked at me and smiled, wide and bright. There was goodwill in that smile, and it puzzled me. Then the thought came.

What is this? Surely he has not taken me for one of his own kind?

He might well think I had toyed with Wang Sim for the pleasure of it. A man like him could misread it easily enough.

Even so, I had no point of contact with him, so I let my interest go. His gaze felt like a hand at the scruff of my neck, and I made myself ignore it.

Eun-bi and Cheong Yo had told Yeo-seol how Wang Sim was dealt with, and she was in high spirits, bouncing about like a well-fed cat batting at a fluttering hem for want of anything better to do.

“Brother. Did he really wet himself and beg to be spared?”

Something in the story had changed in the telling, and one sidelong glance at Eun-bi and Cheong Yo told me how.

“Of course. And that wasn’t the half of it. He begged you and Eun-bi for pardon too, over and over, saying he’d done wrong.”

“Ohohoho!”

Yeo-seol threw her head back and laughed with huge satisfaction.

“I knew Brother would serve that wretch with no manners in him just like that.”

Yeo-seol, who had been laughing so hard a moment before, gave a long yawn.

“Ah, I want to hear more but I’m too tired. I’m going to bed early.”

“Is that so? Go on, then.”

Yeo-seol went trudging listlessly into her room.

“What’s the matter with Yeo-seol?”

It was exactly like a cat that has had a good romp and then loses interest and drops off to sleep.

Eun-bi’s face turned slightly dark.

“Have you not noticed, sleeping in the same room?”

“Hm, you mean her getting up early now and then to go to the privy?”

“Not that. They say she has been having nightmares often of late. Enough that she cannot sleep.”

Cheong Yo answered.

“Is that not just the growing dreams everyone goes through at Yeo-seol’s age? Dreaming of ghosts, and dreaming of dying. And falling from a cliff.”

“It is, but hers are rather bad. Some days her clothes are soaked through with cold sweat, as though she had been badly ill.”

The growing pains seemed worse than I had thought.

“I’ll read her pulse.”

“Yes. Do please give the young lady Yeo-seol some thought.”

With difficulty, Eun-bi brought out the thing she had wanted to say.

“I will take more care of her too.”

“There’s nobody I can trust but Eun-bi. Take a little more care of her. I’ll be watching closely as well.”

I watched until Yeo-seol was asleep, then left the room. Hearing that she had been having nightmares worried me a little; I had assumed that because she was an Ice Sacred Body her mind would be strong too.

Being an Ice Sacred Body does not make the mind invincible. I have been far too careless about this.

With my mind unsettled I came out into the flower garden. Just then I heard voices at the corner of a pavilion.

“Has intelligence come from the government office?”

“Yes. According to the intelligence…”

Myeong U-jong listened to his escort warrior a while, and then his voice rose.

“What? That they cannot hold out much longer? Who does it say attacked them?”

“From the report, the same lot that attacked us.”

“The masked Demonic Cult men?”

“Yes.”

I had heard enough of Myeong U-jong and his escort warrior and meant to pass on by. Then his next words froze me where I stood.

“I shall have to set out early tomorrow morning. I only hope the Hohyeon Estate holds out until we arrive.”

At the words Hohyeon Estate I came round the pavilion and went up to him.

“Censor.”

“Ah, Scholar Cheon.”

“Forgive me. I was passing and heard what you were saying.”

“Were you? I was careless. I shall take care.”

Myeong U-jong wore the look of a man reproaching himself for having spoken of so important a matter in a loud voice. Of late, having talked with me a great deal, he had come to use plain speech to me in a familiar way.

“It is not that. You said Hohyeon Estate just now, and I wondered whether you mean the Hohyeon Estate at Nanchang. Where the estate master’s name is Hohyeon Jung.”

“Eh? How does Scholar Cheon know Estate Master Hohyeon Jung?”

“My sworn brother is Hohyeon Byeok, the estate master’s second son.”

“Truly? Well, well! What a turn of fate this is.”

“What is the matter?”

“The missing friend this official spoke of is Hohyeon Jun, the eldest son of the Hohyeon Estate. He too is a sworn brother of mine. He left for Poyang County with the post of Investigating Censor, and went missing.”

“As I understand it, the Hohyeon Estate is a house of scholars but a martial house as well, so I take it Investigating Censor Hohyeon was a master too. Hohyeon Byeok was a prodigy, beyond second-rate and closing in on first.”

“Just so. Hohyeon Jun was a first-rate swordsman. And even so he was a friend who took pride in being a scholar.”

“Is there some connection between the Demonic Cult and the Hohyeon Estate?”

“By the look of things, so it seems. There is Hohyeon Jun’s disappearance, and now they say the Hohyeon Estate is under constant attack by mysterious figures, with its household being killed off.”

“Do you know why?”

“That much I do not know. I think I shall have to go to the Hohyeon Estate to find out.”

I could hesitate no longer.

“Censor. I will go with you. It seemed you meant to set out tomorrow morning, but do not. Make ready and leave at once. By the look of it every moment counts.”

Myeong U-jong brightened.

“Would that be all right? As it happens, my escort warriors seem able to travel without trouble now.”

“I must speak to my party and to the sect leader, so let us meet here again in an hour.”

“Very well. We shall make ready too.”

Mak Yeo-heun, seated on the jade throne, was listening to the Shadow Master’s report when he realized he had leaned forward, forgetting his own dignity.

“Hm. And then?”

He made a show of composure, but his eyes told the tale, and his curiosity was plain to see. The Shadow Master, who had not seen their lord so in a very long time, smiled.

“After that he beat Wang Sim, the Young Faction Leader of the Iron-Blood Faction, like a dog. So exquisitely that the man could not get down off the sparring platform and could not lie down either, and they say he even wet himself.”

“Hahaha! It does my heart good just to hear it. But why did it happen? Why was the scholar in a sparring match?”

He had certainly been told the reason earlier, but he had listened with half an ear and it was not even in his memory.

“It seems Wang Sim made sport of his younger sister and her maidservant at the Guest Pavilion.”

“Hm, then of course he might. Well, he could have made a cripple of the man and had nothing to answer for. Family is not a thing you touch.”

Mak Yeo-heun stroked his beard.

“So there was a reason for Scholar Cheon asking whether he might beat the boy in the course of educating him. But there is no trace of internal force in Scholar Cheon. How did he beat a first-rate master?”

“Well, he will have learned some martial art whose internal force cannot be sensed.”

Mak Yeo-heun tilted his head at that, and then presently nodded.

“Perhaps. Or it may be the level of Returning to Simplicity.”

“That is entirely possible. If he is at the peak level of attainment.”

“If he was toying with Wang Sim, then it is possible. But my own boy falls short of even that Wang Sim fellow, which is the trouble.”

The Shadow Master answered.

“Young martial artists these days do not want to be masters, they want to look like masters. Because becoming a real master takes hard labor. The Young Sect Leader’s martial talent is outstanding too, and he could rise to the level if only he trained, but the trouble is that he does not train.”

“That is my thinking as well.”

“To this subordinate’s mind, it might be worth entrusting that to Scholar Cheon as well.”

“Is that so? For that he would have to be in our sect a long while. Oh! Yes.”

He struck the armrest with a crack, as though a fine scheme had come to him.

“Yes. From of old, the finer the man the weaker he is to a beauty. Set our sect’s greatest beauty on the scholar. But who is our sect’s greatest beauty?”

At that the Shadow Master’s eyes flicked back and forth in thought, then they answered.

“There is a beauty in our sect called the One Flower of Jiangxi.”

“Is there? Who is it?”

“The young lady Mak Jin-yul.”

“Mm? My daughter?”

“Yes. The young lady Jin-yul is the One Flower of Jiangxi.”

“My daughter is?”

Mak Yeo-heun looked at the Shadow Master with the face of a man who thought she was hardly all that.

“That is not flattery forced out because she is my daughter?”

He tilted his head a while, then opened his mouth.

“Could a beauty trap be worked with Jin-yul? There is hellion blood running in that one too.”

As he spoke, a bright smile spread over his face.

“Yes, that is a good thing. If it succeeds it is a beauty trap, and if it fails it will do as an education for a hellion. If anything is two birds with one stone, that is. Shadow Master, set the beauty trap going.”

“But she is the Supreme’s own daughter, and to use her as a beauty trap…”

“What nonsense. It is only by serving one’s own use that one is truly of the unorthodox sects.”

Whatever it was that pleased him so, he kept giving little snorts of laughter and tapping the armrest with his fingers.

“Supreme! Scholar Cheon begs to be received.”

At the escort warrior’s words Mak Yeo-heun smiled broadly.

“Show him in.”

He muttered.

“Speak of the tiger, they say, and the tiger comes.”

“So? You mean to leave our sect this moment and go to Nanchang?”

“Yes.”

I could not tell him the deeper part of it, so I gave him only the broad strokes.

“Hm, this may not be a matter of a day or two. Am I not to have you at my sixtieth-birthday feast either?”

“Forgive me. My sworn brother is in danger and his life hangs by a thread. I think I should regret it all my life if I did not help my friend.”

“Then you must go. Take my boy along on your way. I shall send him with escort warriors enough.”

Which was to say, use them when it came to fighting.

I made a show of reluctance.

“There is something I have not told the Supreme. It seems to me this business has to do with the Demonic Cult. If it goes wrong it could set me at odds with the Demonic Cult.”

Mak Yeo-heun looked at me steadily, and then burst into great laughter.

“Bwahahaha! Are you worrying about me now? A scholar of the Murim Alliance!”

It was not a reproach. The look in his eyes said he found it admirable.

“There is something Scholar Cheon does not know. The Demonic Cult is not an organization that moves by a single will. In such matters especially, it is often one organization acting out of its own greed.”

In that Mak Yeo-heun was right.

“I know it. But this could bring trouble on the Supreme.”

“Did you suppose this seat feared the Demonic Cult?”

The mettle and majesty in those words rolled over me. The presence a master of the Transformation Realm gave off was for all the world like a vast tidal wave. But I let that aura run off me with spirit energy.

Mak Yeo-heun let a flicker of surprise show, and hid it again at once.

“The hellion will be no help, but the escorts will. Take him.”

“I thank you for your goodwill. But if I take the Young Sect Leader along as well, the account does not balance for me. There is a great deal to see to. The escorts are escorting the Young Sect Leader, and there is no benefit in it that comes to me.”

“Bwahahaha!”

Mak Yeo-heun threw his head back and laughed with huge satisfaction.

“I like Scholar Cheon better and better. Now that I think of it, Scholar Cheon is right. I can hardly entrust my own child to you and send you off empty-handed. What is it you want?”

“I understand there is heavenly silkworm thread in the Hyeoncheon Sect.”

“There is. But why heavenly silkworm thread?”

“I need it for a private matter.”

“Very well. That much this seat has no need to know. Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. How much of it?”

“Enough to make a wrapping cloth will do.”

“Precious as heavenly silkworm thread is, that much I can let you have. Take it on your way out.”

“I thank you. I shall not forget this kindness.”

“Yes. From of old, a true man ought to carve his grudges in sand and his kindnesses in stone.”

Mak Yeo-heun crooked a finger.

“It will be ready shortly, so take the hellion with you.”

All at once I had come away with Mak Yeo-heun’s backing as well. Facing the Demonic Cult alone had looked bleak, but with his help it seemed I could well enough make a fight of it.