Breaking Through The Crisis

I bore the killing intent surging through the room in waves, and answered.

“As a scholar who once served in the Murim Alliance, how could I not know a thing like that?”

“Then what did you mean by prying into the secrets of this house?”

“I meant to save a man.”

“Do you mean to say you meant to save Mu-baek?”

“Just so. When the youngest young master showed me the secret manual of the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique, I felt a longing in his eyes. The craving to grow strong. As a rule, once a man comes to hold a longing of that kind he is bound to change, and the change carries him in a good direction. In time, I thought, it would take him out of the hellion’s life.”

I had tested it thoroughly enough through Paeng So-un, so I knew.

“And when I am able to guide that longing myself, why should I hesitate?”

“Even knowing that it would be the ruin of Scholar Cheon?”

Namgung Hak set the kindly father aside and showed, without the slightest reserve, the full authority of the clan head who had risen to the first seat among the Five Great Clans. The pressure of it settled around my neck like a rope. But I sat straight-backed and answered.

“There is a saying: hoe out one evil, and ten goods grow. That is what I felt in Young Master Namgung Mu-baek. And so I heard the young master’s request and read his oral formula for him. Even if I were ruined by it, I could not turn away from what was there before my eyes.”

Hoe out one evil, and ten goods grow

Remove a single evil, and ten goods grow up in its place.

“So what you are saying is that if Mu-baek’s evil is removed, ten goods can be made of him?”

I shook my head. I had decided to buy a little more of his goodwill.

“I did not put it to you merely in that sense. In the youngest young master I saw the temper of a chivalrous hero. Strip the hellion’s temper out of him, I judged, and he could well become a great chivalrous hero whose name rings through all under heaven. More even than Young Hero Paeng So-un. If chivalry is given a body through him, how should that not be hoeing out one evil and growing ten goods?”

I sold Paeng So-un out. He had been famous as a hellion once, true enough, but his martial talent was outstanding enough to be called the finest in a hundred years, and geniuses of that order numbered only a handful in the whole of the Murim Alliance. There was even talk on his account that in the age when he became clan head the first seat among the Five Great Clans would pass to the Paeng Clan. I had heard a rumor, too, that Namgung Mun-seol had lately taken to trailing after him to ask him for a sparring match. And since I had absorbed the Lucun energy out of him, the temper of a chivalrous hero had been surfacing in him little by little, so word was going about that he had turned onto the straight path.

He did not let it show, but it pleased him to be told that the son he had given up on was timber to set beside Paeng So-un, who was called the genius of an age.

Namgung Hak spoke.

“I shall speak frankly. To my eye, Mu-baek was born with a fair enough gift and a fair enough martial talent. I think him a man of ordinary parts.”

I stepped in before his doubts could go any further.

“As for the judging of men, the clan head has an excellent eye, so no doubt you are right. But when I look at a man, I look from another vantage.”

“Speak of it in detail. So that I may follow you properly.”

Namgung Hak, it was plain, had no intention of leaving me a gap to slip through.

“The youngest young master is a man who possesses a free spirit. That is why he has been wandering. He wants to fly and has no wings. And a bird that cannot fly is no different from poultry. So until now the youngest young master must have felt himself a chicken or a duck. It was to break through that self-contempt, I would say, that he did all his foolishness.”

I wrapped Namgung Mu-baek’s hellion antics up in fine paper. Watching Namgung Hak listen to me with that grave face, I thought I understood the heart of a father with a worthless son. And my words must have seemed plausible enough at a glance, because he was drawn right in.

“A free spirit must fly like a bird, and there has been no azure sky for him to fly in.”

“Are you telling me that this azure sky is the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique? Is that not rather a leap?”

By this point he was as good as won over.

“Young Master Namgung Mu-baek needed something that would fasten wings to that free spirit. That is why he went looking for wine, and for amusements. But now he has found a proper pair of wings. The shining wings that are the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique. If I am able to fasten wings on the young master, then whatever restrictions there may be, should I not help him?”

I steeled my eyes to show my resolve.

“If I am to be punished for making a gift of the sky to a bird shut in a cage, then for that bird’s sake I shall gladly take the punishment.”

Jeon I-an took my hand again. Hot tears fell onto it drop by drop, like candle wax.

“My lord, has there ever been anyone who understood our youngest and worried for him more than Scholar Cheon? Your humble wife only worried over our youngest and scolded him, and whether I ever truly tried to understand him is a thing I must answer for. Scholar Cheon. Thank you. And I am sorry.”

“Even so, one of the two supreme arts of this house has been let out to an outsider. It is not a thing that can be taken lightly, my dear.”

“I am sorry, but I am no martial artist, so I would not know. To me our son is more precious than some martial art. If selling the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique and the Emperor’s Sword Form could save my son, I would sell them gladly. Will you punish your humble wife even so?”

Jeon I-an spoke with passion. All those urgent looks I had sent to keep the clan matron from leaving had been worth it. This exceedingly quick-witted woman had caught my look at once, stood her ground against Namgung Hak’s displeasure, and made herself my strength.

“The secret supreme art of this house is no trifling thing.”

“Then there is only one way. You have only to hold Scholar Cheon precious. Give him a standing that lets him look even upon this house’s secret supreme art.”

I cheered Jeon I-an on with my eyes, now that she had come at last to the conclusion I wanted. But here I had to bow myself lower still.

“Madam, the words alone are thanks enough. Clan Head, I hope you will not trouble yourself. If ever I let the martial learning of the Namgung Clan out to another, you may take my head and I shall hold no grudge for it.”

Namgung Hak was a man who had heard me read the oral formula and seen with his own eyes his youngest son come to enlightenment. My skill at it he could not deny, and now his wife’s words set him brooding.

“True enough. There is a way, as it happens.”

“Truly?”

Jeon I-an was more delighted than I was.

“What is it? And should there be none, we must make one.”

At Jeon I-an’s impatient urging, Namgung Hak looked at his wife and smiled. For a moment a strange current passed between them, but I pretended not to notice.

“In this house there is but one man outside the direct line who may look upon the secret supreme art and learn it. But that I shall tell you tomorrow.”

It was like having a piece of rock candy held out right under my nose and snatched back again.

“What sort of thing is that to say?”

Jeon I-an put my own feelings into words exactly.

“Tomorrow the people of the Jegal Clan visit this house. Whenever they come, the people of the Jegal Clan have always challenged our youngest to a sparring match. They call it a friendly sparring match, but they challenge him in order to shame us, and they have always won and gone off in triumph.”

Namgung Hak let out a sigh at his own words.

“I knew it and I turned a blind eye. And the more it happened, the more crooked our youngest grew. If our youngest wins tomorrow’s friendly sparring match, I shall make you a man of standing enough that there is no trouble in your looking upon this house’s secret supreme art.”

“Is there really any need for that? You could simply give it to him.”

“It is because a justification is needed. Even the smallest justification. That is a very important thing. I may be the head of this house, but if the Elders or the Grand Elders’ Council make an issue of it later, I shall have nothing to say. That is why a justification is needed.”

Namgung Hak spoke as though soothing her, and Jeon I-an nodded.

“You said he has always lost. Will he be able to win tomorrow?”

“Scholar Cheon has fastened wings on him. It would not do for him to fail to fly.”

He said it with a slight smile, and somehow it felt like he meant it for me too.

I talked with the two of them a little longer and left the clan head’s hall. I had not been nervous, and yet my back was soaked through. Taking a master’s aura full on was no different from sitting a tiger down in front of you and looking it in the face.

Once Scholar Cheon had gone off into the distance, Jeon I-an spoke quietly.

“My lord, I am sorry that your humble wife was so obstinate earlier. But for Mu-baek’s sake I wanted to know as well.”

“I know your heart, my dear.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

Jeon I-an took Namgung Hak’s hand and held it tight, and he gathered her gently into his arms.

“To your humble wife’s eyes, Scholar Cheon does not look like the sort of man to go about noising this house’s martial learning abroad.”

“Just so. He is not the sort to do it with a blade at his throat.”

“How can you be so certain? You were badgering him hard enough a moment ago.”

“Scholar Cheon is a man who fought Elder Gal of the Murim Alliance with his life on the line. Elder Gal has misconduct enough to answer for, and yet until now neither the Alliance’s Inspection Corps nor even the other Elders would risk crossing him. Not the Alliance Leader, not the Strategist. And then a mere member of the Inspection Corps stood up to a person like that. And weathered every kind of threat. That a mere scholar, not even a martial artist, should have such spirit in him is a truly remarkable thing. Would a man like that let a great clan’s supreme art out?”

“Then why ever did the Alliance send such a man to this house? A man like that ought all the more to be given a post of trust.”

“The Inspection Corps Chief told me why. It was to keep him alive. Originally they meant to send him to the Paeng Clan of Hebei. The Paeng Clan seem to look on him as their benefactor for having made a human being of Paeng So-un. They invited him with a mind to protecting him.”

“And you took a man like that away for our Mu-baek’s sake, my lord.”

“Just so. Your heart had been sore, and should I not mend it?”

At times like this Namgung Hak knew how to win a woman’s heart.

“There truly is no one but my lord.”

Jeon I-an nestled into Namgung Hak’s arms.

“Even so, I had to give him a warning. There is always the one chance in ten thousand.”

“You did well. Rather than that, what if we made Scholar Cheon a man of our own Namgung Clan?”

At his wife’s fixed, obstinate look, Namgung Hak swallowed a low groan.

“Hmm…”

Earlier he had taken it for half a joke, but the look in her eyes was in perfect earnest.

“That is not a thing I can do anything about.”

“Then your humble wife will look into it herself.”

Namgung Hak could not stop his wife. To throw cold water on the first passion she had burned with in a long while would have been like shouldering a bundle of kindling and leaping into the fire.

When the martial artists of the Jegal Clan came into the Namgung Clan, the mood was, on the face of it, one of welcome. Just as Namgung Mu-baek had said, it was not a matter of one or two men arriving. Some ten of them had come, and the visit carried considerable weight, since the pressing business of the Five Great Clans was also to be discussed.

Jegal Do-won paid a call at Namgung Mu-baek’s quarters.

“Little Brother Namgung! Where are you! Little Brother Namgung!”

He shouted for Namgung Mu-baek as though the place were his own quarters. Over a gap of a single year, no more, he insisted without fail on being treated as an elder brother.

“You have come.”

Namgung Mu-baek met him with a sour look on his face. A guest was a guest, whatever else the man was, and the situation required that he be attended to. But not once had Namgung Mu-baek called him elder brother.

“It has been a long while — are you not glad to see me? I am glad enough to go out of my mind.”

The wish to needle him made up the larger part of it, so the look he turned on Namgung Mu-baek was not a kind one.

Jegal Do-won had a build better suited to a martial artist than Namgung Mu-baek’s, nothing at all like the slight, delicate frame of the Jegal Clan. He carried more muscle on him than when I had seen him at the Murim Alliance.

He seems to have trained all the harder so that he can put Namgung Mu-baek down.

Namgung Mu-baek happened to have been training with me, so he was soaked in sweat. Jegal Do-won looked him up and down and spoke.

“Have your skills come along at all? I hear every rumor about you, little brother. Same as ever, by the sound of it.”

One hellion scolding another hellion for his conduct drew a snort out of me.

“I always work harder than Young Master Jegal, and it still falls short.”

At that faint barb from Namgung Mu-baek, Jegal Do-won’s eyebrows shot up.

“Something has definitely changed. Since last year. What could it be?”

Then his gaze reached me.

“Hmm. A newly taken-on scholar, is he? Not the scholar I saw last year.”

“He is my master of letters.”

“Oho!”

In all this time Namgung Mu-baek had never once introduced a scholar and called him his master of letters. Always dismissive, always contemptuous.

Has the hellion Mu-baek changed thanks to that scholar there? Nothing else can explain the change in him.

True to the Jegal Clan, his eye for a situation was uncanny.

“And what might your name be? Scholar?”

“I am called Cheon Tae-san.”

“‘I am called’?”

Being addressed on all but level terms left Jegal Do-won at a loss. But the name was one he knew well from somewhere, and he muttered it over.

“Cheon Tae-san, Cheon Tae-san… The Ghost-Trailed Scholar of the Murim Alliance?”

Jegal Do-won stared at me with the face of a man who had seen a ghost.