What Was Traded For The Heavenly Silkworm Thread

Mak Yeo-heun said to the Shadow Master.

“Whom shall I put on the hellion for escort?”

“Would escorts of the Escort Hall not do?”

“No. The Escort Hall is too weak. Put on the twenty finest men of the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps, and Corps Chief Gwanryong Jin. Scholar Cheon is at least on nodding terms with Gwanryong Jin.”

“I beg your pardon? Is that not far too much? A force of that size alone could conquer a small faction outright.”

“That is exactly why I say put them on. Jin-yul is going along too.”

The Shadow Master was startled enough that the reply died in their throat.

“…”

“What is it? Is the escort too much?”

“It is not that. Would Scholar Cheon not find the two of them more than he could manage?”

“Is that so? I think Scholar Cheon has ability enough for that. He is a man of skill who can hide his internal force even from this seat. And I am sending my hellion children in order to get in first.”

“Getting in first?”

It came so far out of nowhere that the Shadow Master asked again.

“This is a business the Demonic Cult is working at to the point of killing even Investigating Censors. Would a thing like that be simple? There is a very thick smell of money about it.”

“Might it not be no more than expanding their power?”

“No. The Demonic Cult never wants to set itself against the government service. Historically its relations with the government service have been bad. That it should make a move as reckless as this even so means there is an enormous prize in it.”

Mak Yeo-heun rose from the jade throne.

“There is that as well, but what displeases me is that these wretches dare to go about their work as they please in my own territory. In Jiangxi, and at Poyang Lake of all places. Am I to sit and watch rats swarming in our own stronghold? It is an act that tramples the pride of the unorthodox sects underfoot.”

“So it is, indeed. Supreme.”

Gwang-yo the Shadow Master had called him lord until now, but the force in Mak Yeo-heun overbore them, and the word Supreme came out before they could stop it.

“If it is a matter of such importance, will it do to leave it to Scholar Cheon alone?”

“Do not worry. Scholar Cheon will do well. My instinct says so. Tell me, could you take this seat’s Soul-Destroying Qi at the transcendent-peak level?”

The Soul-Destroying Qi was one of the energies Mak Yeo-heun had come by in his later years.

“Does my lord remember that this subordinate took the Soul-Destroying Qi at the transcendent-peak level and lay ill three days? The blood brought up alone would have filled a tub.”

The memory must have come back, because the Shadow Master shuddered as they answered.

“This seat had not long had the energy and put it to the test, and you had a hard time of it.”

“Don’t tell me! Was the energy that hung about the great hall a while ago the Soul-Destroying Qi?”

He had reached the level of attainment where he could shrink the Soul-Destroying Qi and hold it concentrated, and that was why even the Shadow Master had missed it.

“Yes. The Soul-Destroying Qi at the transcendent-peak level. And I do not know how he did it, but he turned the Soul-Destroying Qi aside in an instant.”

A first-rate master would have brought up blood and pitched over; a peak master could hold out, but would have to lie ill three or four days.

“Could a man whose internal force cannot be read through evade this seat’s Soul-Destroying Qi as easily as that? So I turned it over carefully. The conclusion is that it is no martial art of the Murim Alliance. And there is a place that keeps almost coming to me and will not.”

“Where is that?”

“That is just what I cannot say. The memory almost comes and does not.”

Somehow it felt like being made sport of, so when Mak Yeo-heun called, the Shadow Master gave no answer and pretended not to be there.

I went into the room and called my whole party together.

“I have to go to Nanchang and back on a friend’s business. The three escorts are to give more thought to the party’s safety.”

“Understood.”

The three had had a word from me beforehand, so none of them offered to come along. If they came, there would be nobody left to guard the party, and I would have to take everyone with me.

“Brother, I’m going with you.”

I had my answer ready for Yeo-seol’s pleading.

“Yeo-seol is to be in closed-door training until I come back. When I return I should like Yeo-seol to have mastered every martial art I have taught her.”

“Why does Brother keep teaching me martial arts? A scholar ought to be teaching letters.”

She was grumbling because she wanted to come.

“I’ll teach you letters when I get back. Be working on the martial arts I taught you. All right?”

She must have seen the settled resolve in my eyes, because she pleaded no further. No doubt she felt that I was going off to do something that truly mattered.

“Then if I get strong, will you take me along with you?”

“Of course. Naturally.”

I told a small lie to soothe her.

“All right. I’ll go into closed-door training the moment Brother leaves.”

“Eun-bi is to take good care of Yeo-seol.”

“Please do not worry.”

Song-ran spoke up quietly.

“Might I be of any help?”

I did wonder whether Song-ran’s Soul-Seizing Divine Eye might be put to use, but I thought not.

“The sect leader has put elite escorts on me, so there is no need to be anxious. I am only going to settle a bit of noise in a friend’s household.”

I said nothing to the party about the Demonic Cult. I left it at something like a quarrel between a friend’s household and an unorthodox school.

“Miss Cheong, I ask you to play well at the sect leader’s feast.”

“Do not worry about us. Go and see to your business.”

I took a length of cloth out of my robe.

“And this is what is called heavenly silkworm thread. Miss Song will have need of it.”

Song-ran can never have looked for such a thing, and she trembled all over. It was heavenly silkworm thread, so rare that they say a thousand pieces of gold will hardly buy it.

Cheong Yo knew what it meant too, and stroked Song-ran’s shaking back.

“How good, Ran. Thank you.”

Cheong Yo gave her thanks and went solemn for a moment, but Yeo-seol alone turned sulky.

“Why isn’t there a present for me?”

“Mm?”

I had not thought about how Yeo-seol would take it.

Song-ran said to Yeo-seol.

“Yeo-seol. It is because Sister is ill that Master Scholar Cheon gave it. If there is any of it left over I will give it to Yeo-seol.”

“Really?”

“Mm. This cloth is big, so there will be some to give Yeo-seol too.”

I thought it just as well that I had brought back plenty of the heavenly silkworm thread.

“I shall be leaving soon. Do not let your guard down until the sixtieth-birthday feast is over, and keep to the Guest Pavilion as far as you can.”

I came out of the Guest Pavilion and went straight to find Myeong U-jong.

“I am ready. And the sect leader has given us the support of his forces.”

“That is a great relief. Scholar Cheon alone is stout backing, and with forces given us on top of that it is a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.”

“There is a place I must stop at first.”

I stopped at a shop nearby and bought two coffins.

“What do you mean to use these coffins for?”

Myeong U-jong looked at me, puzzled by the two coffins.

“They are weapons that will be a great strength to us.”

I explained about the poison men. Myeong U-jong heard me out at length and then let out a cry of wonder.

“They say the murim is full of strange martial arts and strange objects, and so it is.”

I went to Hwaryeong Village, where the two poison men had been waiting in an abandoned house, and put them into the coffins.

The villagers were glad to see me and made me welcome. The place was warmer and more companionable than I had expected; they had got all their household goods in and even finished the cleaning, and were cooking their supper. They urged me to stay and eat, but I declined and took to the road.

Myeong U-jong reckoned the Hohyeon Estate business bound up with Poyang County in any case, and moved along with me. He was thinking too of the escort he had sent on his errand, and left word with our party beforehand that the escort, on returning, was to come on to the Hohyeon Estate at Nanchang.

When I came before the Hyeoncheon Sect drawing a cart loaded with the two coffins, Gwanryong Jin was waiting for me.

“Great Hero Gwanryong. It seems you are to help me.”

“The Supreme told us to help you to the utmost. There was word too that if fighting breaks out we are to follow Master Scholar Cheon’s directions.”

“There are one or two circumstances, which I shall explain as we go. But who is that person?”

I was looking at Mak Ji-mong.

“That is the Young Sect Leader, is it not?”

Gwanryong Jin gave me a look that asked why I was asking when I already knew.

“No, not that. I mean the person standing beside the Young Sect Leader.”

“Ah, Master Scholar Cheon will be seeing her for the first time. She is the Young Sect Leader’s younger sister.”

I ran back over Mak Yeo-heun’s family in my head.

“If she is the Young Sect Leader’s younger sister, would that not be the one called Mak Jin-yul? But as I understand it she is not at the Hyeoncheon Sect at present.”

Mak Jin-yul was known to have run away from home when her father Mak Yeo-heun tried to marry her off.

“Well, she came back for the sixtieth-birthday feast and has kept indoors since.”

“Then why is she here?”

“Did you not know? She goes along with the Young Sect Leader this time.”

“Haah…”

I let out a long sigh without meaning to.

“No wonder he handed over the heavenly silkworm thread so meekly.”

Mak Ji-mong and Mak Jin-yul were famous as hellions with nothing to choose between them. Being a woman, she was thought the lesser troublemaker of the two, though to my eye there was little in it. For sheer rottenness, she was reckoned to have even less promise in her than her brother.

“Hey! Scholar! Have you some complaint about my being here? Know this much. I’m not going because I want to either.”

Mak Ji-mong was her elder brother, but he could not control her either. She was the greater master of the two, and more of their father’s martial arts had been handed down to her.

“What are you doing? Get moving! Are you going to stand here all day?”

Mak Jin-yul bellowed something that was not quite a bellow. I felt she needed sorting out.

“Hey. Mak Ji-mong’s little sister.”

“Eh?”

Her face flooded with confusion on the instant. There would have been nobody in the Hyeoncheon Sect who called her ‘Hey.’

Mak Ji-mong tossed a remark at his little sister.

“I told you, didn’t I? He is no ordinary scholar. Act up for nothing and you may get a scolding.”

She must have been genuinely angry; she growled like a she-cat.

“Hey, you. Do you want to die? Don’t you know who I am?”

“I know. But if you’re going to keep picking a fight with me, just go to your father. I’m not taking you.”

“What did you say?”

At that, Mak Jin-yul’s face said plainly that this was awkward. The mere fact of getting out of the Hyeoncheon Sect must have been what excited her. She had come home only because her father’s sixtieth-birthday feast left her no choice, and the place cannot have been comfortable for her.

“Go, I said! You’re too loud!”

Corps Chief Gwanryong Jin fidgeted at our quarrel and then shut his eyes.

“Corps Chief. Tie that bastard up. And throw him into the prison.”

Behavior like that made her an even worse blockhead than Mak Ji-mong. He at least kept up a minimum of appearances, since his standing as the Young Sect Leader required it; his sister would not be reasoned with at all.

“What are you doing! Tie him up, quickly!”

I walked toward Mak Jin-yul, who was shouting brazenly down from her horse.

“You. Get back home! I can’t take a child along who does nothing but throw tantrums. Do you think we’re going off on an outing?”

Words she had never heard in her life brought Mak Jin-yul down off her horse, and she slapped me across the face.

“How dare you!”

— Knock!

I caught her by the wrist and poured spirit energy into her so that she could not stir.

“Eh? Eh! What is this! Why has my body gone numb all of a sudden!”

Holding her so, I shook the wrist and struck her cheek with her own hand.

— Smack!

“Agh!”

“I’m not the one hitting you. You are hitting your own cheek with your own hand.”

— Smack!

“Aaargh! Somebody stop this madman, quickly!”

Not one of them stepped forward to stop it. Gwanryong Jin and the twenty warriors of the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps with him all turned their heads away and looked at anything else, every one of them with the air of tasting a private satisfaction. They will have suffered at her hands more than once or twice.

I gave them their absolution.

“Let nobody step forward! The Supreme has given me full authority to discipline the young lady Mak Jin-yul.”

I was lying, but I took it that in slipping a hellion like this into my company without a single word of explanation, he had meant as much. And if he had not, the responsibility was Mak Yeo-heun’s all the same.

“Won’t you let go?”

— Smack!

That scholar fellow is out of his mind after all.

Watching Mak Jin-yul’s cheek flush a burning red, Mak Ji-mong shuddered all over. He had seen himself in his sister.