What He Truly Wants

Mak Yeo-heun was curious what sort of gift Scholar Cheon would ask for.

Money? Land?

Land the man would have in plenty by now. As for money, the gold mine had come to them by Scholar Cheon’s doing in the first place, so he meant to see him set up with enough to idle on for the rest of his life. If that bought a lasting tie with the man, it was worth every coin.

Spirit medicine? A treasure?

Whatever it might be, Mak Yeo-heun was minded to grant it.

“It is simply this. I ask only that one day, when this humble one has need of them, you lend me the Dark Heaven Asura Corps.”

“Mm?”

Mak Yeo-heun thought he had misheard, and asked again.

“Lend you the Dark Heaven Asura Corps?”

“Yes. Not now, but one day, when the need comes, I should like the use of the whole of the Dark Heaven Asura Corps.”

Mak Yeo-heun tilted his head. He had been called a genius in his own right all his life, and yet he could make nothing at all of what Scholar Cheon’s request was supposed to mean. Then one thought came to him.

“Is there some school somewhere you mean to take revenge on?”

The Dark Heaven Asura Corps numbered close to three hundred men. With that alone, a school of middling rank could be wiped off the face of the earth in a single night.

“Shall I hear the reason? If the reason holds, there is nothing to say I cannot grant it.”

Just then an Elder of the Dark Heaven Sect, who had been standing at his side, cut in to check him.

“Supreme, any other gift may be given, but I would ask you to think long and hard before lending out an armed body of our sect.”

“Hold your tongue. I said plainly to Scholar Cheon that I could give him any gift whatever. Would you have this seat speak twice out of one mouth?”

In that instant the great hall filled with his energy, and the Elder went pale.

“When this seat is ready to hand over the daughter he prizes so, should Scholar Cheon ask for her — what talk is this?”

Cheon Tae-san flinched to hear it.

Surely that is not a gift but a poison?

Outwardly Cheon Tae-san let nothing whatever show. He had no wish to hand Mak Yeo-heun a handle on him for nothing.

In truth, Mak Yeo-heun had sent his daughter along to the Hohyeon Estate in the hope that a tie would form between her and Scholar Cheon. Take Scholar Cheon in as a son-in-law that way, and the man could be drawn into the Dark Heaven Sect. Then the reports had come back. She had made such a shambles of it that Scholar Cheon now looked at his daughter the way a chicken looks at a dog¹, and that was a disappointment.

Must I set the finest beauty in our sect on him for a beauty trap? Wait — is there a beauty in our sect at all?

He turned the thought over a moment, gazing fixedly at Scholar Cheon.

“Let me hear the reason.”

Inwardly Cheon Tae-san let out a breath of relief that Mak Yeo-heun had not begun by refusing him. To ask for the use of a school’s armed body was an outrageous demand. He could ask it at all only because of the great service he had done the Dark Heaven Sect: the gold mine meant the sect would never be pinched for funds, and curing Mak Ji-mong had settled the matter of the heir besides.

“Sect Leader, forgive me, but I would ask you to clear the room.”

By calling him Sect Leader rather than Supreme, Cheon Tae-san marked it out as a more official matter.

“Everyone out.”

Nobody could put a word against an order of Mak Yeo-heun’s.

“Me as well?”

When Mak Ji-mong said it, pointing at himself, Mak Yeo-heun looked to Scholar Cheon.

“It would be well if the Young Sect Leader knew of it too.”

“Is that so? You stay.”

At that, all the rest of those in the great hall filed out. With only Cheon Tae-san, Mak Ji-mong and Mak Yeo-heun left, a heavy silence settled over the place.

“This seat has put up a qi screen, so speak with an easy mind.”

Understanding that it would be something of weight, Mak Yeo-heun had raised a qi screen.

“When this humble one was with the Namgung Clan, the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult came into Hefei and raised havoc there, fighting to seize the Ice Palace’s Young Palace Lord.”

“This seat has heard of it and knows.”

Cheon Tae-san nodded.

“At the time I thought merely that the Demonic Cult or the Blood Cult coveted the Ice Palace.”

“And?”

“And this time the Demonic Cult came into Jiangxi and coveted a gold mine.”

“The Demonic Cult fellows must have found out there was a gold mine there.”

“This humble one fixed on the fact that the Demonic Cult came as far as Jiangxi to take a gold mine. If it was gold mines they wanted, they could have found them in Sichuan, in Yunnan, in Gansu. Yet they came all the way to Jiangxi even at the risk of colliding with the unorthodox sects. That would mean those regions are already secured.”

“Hmm. And so?”

Mak Yeo-heun had the sense that Scholar Cheon was laying the ground for something of consequence.

“I thought that if they would come into the Unorthodox Supreme’s own territory to seize a gold mine, then something had arisen that wanted that much money.”

“Quite so. Why would the Demonic Cult fellows need money so badly?”

“Now, you will have had Corps Chief Gwanryong’s report, but there is the fact that men taken for the Demonic Cult attacked the descendants of the Grand General and the Grand Academician.”

“Right. The fellows have gone mad. What do they think they will get by stirring up the government service?”

From that, Cheon Tae-san knew Mak Yeo-heun had not grasped what really lay behind it.

“Do you know that the Demonic Cult fellows attacked with the Dark Heaven Sect’s own exclusive martial arts?”

“So I heard. Our martial arts have spread as far as the Demonic Cult fellows, it seems.”

“But read it another way, and it comes out like this. Suppose the descendants of the Grand General and the Grand Academician had died at the hands of unorthodox-sect martial arts — what then?”

“Mm? Wait…”

Mak Yeo-heun turned it over in silence, and his brow drew down.

Mak Ji-mong, who had been listening without a word, spoke up.

“Then the Grand General and the Grand Academician would think we of the unorthodox sects had killed their descendants. Killed with our martial arts, after all.”

Cheon Tae-san looked at Mak Ji-mong and asked.

“And after that?”

“After that? Then, uh, maybe the Grand General would count us his enemies?”

Having said it, Mak Ji-mong felt there was something wrong about it, and his eyes went wide. Only now had he grasped how great a problem it was.

“That is so. The Grand General would raise an army and attack the Dark Heaven Sect, and the Grand Academician would set the imperial palace moving.”

“Good heavens!”

Realizing what a colossal backlash there could have been had they died in that way, Mak Ji-mong came out in gooseflesh from head to foot.

When Mak Yeo-heun spoke, his voice came grave and heavy.

“So then — the Demonic Cult meant to provoke the government service and the imperial palace into attacking us?”

“That is right. More precisely, it would be truer to say they meant to hold the unorthodox sects in check by way of them.”

“Why?”

Mak Yeo-heun too had caught something of the Demonic Cult’s intent.

“Because they want the Orthodox-Demonic War.”

Mak Ji-mong muttered.

“The Orthodox-Demonic War? The Demonic Cult is going to start a war? Then why drag us into it?”

“The Supreme is called the Unorthodox Supreme, but he stands plainly on the ground between orthodox and unorthodox. He walks the upright road of the unorthodox sects to the point of being named the Unorthodox King, True Lord.”

Even in the middle of all that, Mak Yeo-heun smiled at the words about walking the upright road of the unorthodox sects.

“I like that. To walk the upright road of the unorthodox sects.”

“It is likely the Demonic Cult played this move because, once war breaks out with the orthodox murim, the Supreme would plainly throw in his hand with the orthodox faction rather than with them.”

“So you take it they have been gathering power and money by way of the Ice Palace, the gold mine and the rest. And then, with our feet tied, the Orthodox-Demonic War could end in a victory for the demonic path.”

“There has been no war in the murim these fifty years. As you know, once the Demonic Cult’s strength gathers, it can hold together only by letting that strength burst outward. Strong and yet sitting still, the Cult falls to quarreling within.”

“I take your meaning. But there is too little intelligence to take Scholar Cheon’s word at face value. Nothing has come from the Strategy Bureau yet, either.”

Cheon Tae-san could hardly say aloud that the Dark Heaven Sect’s Strategy Bureau was second-rate. Of orthodox, unorthodox, demonic and underworld all told, the unorthodox sects were the slowest for intelligence and the weakest at reading it.

Only the unorthodox sects themselves did not know it.

“If you have need of a Strategist, I recommend Hohyeon Byeok of the Hohyeon Estate. He would lay good stratagems before the Supreme.”

“Is that so? From another man, perhaps not, but a recommendation from Scholar Cheon can be trusted. Very well, I shall see the man.”

Hohyeon Byeok, as Cheon Tae-san knew, was a man whose genius had come out without any special constitution behind it.

“From this moment I shall give the order to get a proper grasp of the Demonic Cult’s movements.”

Cheon Tae-san added a word.

“There is one thing more. The Demonic Cult’s training in martial arts peculiar to the unorthodox sects seems to have another purpose in it as well.”

“What purpose?”

Mak Ji-mong asked without so much as thinking about it.

“Consider it. These are men out to set the unorthodox sects at odds with the government service and the imperial palace. Would they not use another method besides?”

Deep thinking was still no habit of Mak Ji-mong’s, and irritation came before anything else.

“So what plan?”

Mak Yeo-heun murmured it low.

“Right. Scholar Cheon is right. They will not sit still. They learned our martial arts because they had a purpose in it. Then they could raise a disturbance at the Dragon Martial Grand Tournament that is coming.”

The Dragon Martial Grand Tournament was, in name and in fact, the greatest sparring tournament of the murim, open not only to the orthodox faction but to martial artists of the demonic path, the unorthodox sects and the underworld as well. Fifty years ago, at the close of the long war among orthodox, unorthodox and demonic, it had been founded for the sake of concord in the murim, a sparring tournament where every branch gathered once in five years to build goodwill.

If men trained in the unorthodox sects’ martial arts killed entrants or raised a riot in such a place, the unorthodox sects would be a public enemy of the murim overnight, and no help for it. Even if the truth of it came out later, by then it would already be too late. Those of the murim let feeling run ahead of them; they were simple people who raged at the fact in front of their eyes before ever weighing how a thing had come about.

“They will certainly make trouble at the Dragon Martial Grand Tournament.”

It struck Mak Yeo-heun too that this was no ordinary matter, and he sank into thought.

“So — what are we to do?”

“You must secure all the intelligence you can and watch the movements of the Demonic Cult, the Blood Cult and the Ice Palace, and from now on you must tighten the bonds among the unorthodox sects. The Demonic Cult may already have laid a hand on other unorthodox powers.”

“Right, the Demonic Cult always begins by sowing discord before it makes its move. So that is why you had everyone put out of the great hall, in case.”

“That is so, Supreme.”

“There will be rats of the Demonic Cult or the Blood Cult in this place too.”

“Which is why from now the Supreme must step out himself and tighten the watch. And there is need, besides, of an alliance with the other powers nearby.”

“This seat will have a great deal to do.”

“This humble one’s reckoning may go wide of the mark, but every piece of intelligence points one way. It cannot be passed over, and that is why I lay it before you.”

“Had I not met Scholar Cheon, I should have been in real difficulty. So that is why you wanted the Dark Heaven Asura Corps. Very well — that request I grant.”

Cheon Tae-san decided to be a little more brazen.

“Thank you, Sect Leader. But might I ask one more small thing?”

“Mm? Look at this fellow. So this is the thing you truly want. Very well. Say it.”

Cheon Tae-san smiled.

“I have heard there is a book in Sanskrit, taken some while ago from the tomb of the Moon Shadow Divine Thief. I should like to see that book.”

“Eh? How do you know that? It is one of our closest secrets. The Murim Alliance Inspection Corps indeed.”

A briefly displeased look crossed Mak Yeo-heun’s face, and then he laughed as though the wind had gone out of him.

“Which would mean there are a good many Murim Alliance spies in our sect. And if so, a good many Demonic Cult spies as well. They will all have to be weeded out.”

Mak Yeo-heun said it with a bitter smile.

“I can show it to you. Only, since I have already said I would lend you the Dark Heaven Asura Corps, you may look at the book for two hours and no more. Will that do?”

Two hours with a book in Sanskrit meant getting through only a few pages.

“That will be enough.”

But Mak Yeo-heun did not yet know what sort of man Scholar Cheon was. Sanskrit, to him, was no different from any other writing.

“Good. It is in our sect’s secret vault, so the Young Sect Leader will take you there.”

Only a handful besides the sect leader and the Young Sect Leader could enter the Dark Heaven Sect’s secret vault.

Cheon Tae-san, able at last to have the gift he truly wanted, cheered inwardly.

I had once seen, in the Murim Alliance’s secret vault, a list recording what the Moon Shadow Divine Thief had stolen. It was set down there that the thief had stolen the very thing I truly wanted. That was the Auspicious Spirit Flower, the flower of mystery that had been in the Potala Palace². Buddhism calls it the udumbara.³

The Moon Shadow Divine Thief had two treasure vaults; one had been uncovered at the end of a long investigation, but the other had still not come to light. That undiscovered vault was where I believed the Auspicious Spirit Flower lay.

No. It had to be there.

Of every medicinal herb there was, it alone could cure my mother. The Auspicious Spirit Flower was the medicine strongest in Buddha-nature, and nothing else could change my mother’s constitution.

I believed the Sanskrit book the Moon Shadow Divine Thief left behind held a clue to that second vault.

At last I have come this far.

My reason for taking up medicine in the first place had been to cure my mother’s constitution. But the more I studied, the more I grasped that there was no cure, and I despaired. Then in one medical text I came on a passage saying that my mother’s special constitution could be cured by nothing but the Auspicious Spirit Flower, which is full of Buddha-nature.

The writings of a physician once called the Immortal Doctor, which I read in the Murim Alliance’s secret vault, gave me my lead on the Auspicious Spirit Flower. I turned over every book I could lay hands on for word of where it had gone, and found a record that the murim’s legendary thief, the Moon Shadow Divine Thief, had stolen it out of the Potala Palace fifteen years ago. Asking about after the thief, I learned that relics of that same thief were held in the Dark Heaven Sect.

At last I was to lay eyes on one of the motives that had brought me to the Dark Heaven Sect on the pretext of Mak Ji-mong, and I was moved past words.

My request had been granted only because I had cured Mak Ji-mong and put a gold mine into their hands as a gift besides. Without that, the Dark Heaven Sect’s secret vault would have been out of the question, and borrowing the Dark Heaven Asura Corps unthinkable.