Chapter 28

I walked over to the kids in the Daoist robes and held out the griddle cakes. I say it without hesitation: there is no better way to make a friend than handing somebody a tasty snack.

“Hi there. I brought some griddle cakes I made to snack on, want some?”

The one standing right at the front blinked at me vacantly, then put out a hand without thinking and took one. He looked about my age, and there was something so languid about his face that he seemed only half awake.

Plum blossom scent?

A faint flower scent drifted off his fluttering sleeve.

A kid this young, and he’s already on perfume?

“Hey!!”

Just then a thunderclap of a shout rang out behind me, and Moyong Rin caught hold of my ear.

“You want to die? I told you not to go off on your own.”
“Ow, ow, ow.”

As I was being hauled off by the ear, murmuring voices drifted over.

“What are you doing taking that?”
“Throw it away, Ju Jeo-ha.”

So the sleepy kid with the languid look was named Ju Jeo-ha, apparently.

“Ju Jeo-ha? That’s an unusual name.”
“Is it as bad as yours?”
“What’s wrong with my name?”

The young Daoists were pressing Ju Jeo-ha to throw the griddle cake away.

“I said throw it away!”
“Why waste it?”

Ju Jeo-ha bit into the griddle cake I’d given him without a shred of suspicion.

“…!”

In an instant, those languid, half-sunk eyes went round as a rabbit’s. Watching it, I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“Heh heh heh…. You’ve taken the bait.”

The Mount Hua Sect’s young Daoists flinched at the sight of my smile.

“That wicked grin!”
“Don’t tell me he poisoned it?”
“No! Jeo-ha, spit it out, quick!”

I smiled meaningfully.

“Too late.”
“What?”

With everyone’s eyes fixed on Ju Jeo-ha’s working mouth,

— Gulp—

the mouth that had swallowed the griddle cake opened.

“It’s good…!”

And then one bite, two bites. He didn’t stop eating.

“Jeo-ha?”
“This is the kid who says he’s got no appetite and barely touches his food?”
“He picked at breakfast a few times this morning and ran off again. Why is he eating this so well!?”
“S-stop eating it!”

I could feel the young Daoists getting agitated. Hands even shot out to snatch the griddle cake back, and Ju Jeo-ha slipped every one of them by a paper’s thickness with the barest shift of his body. That was no ordinary footwork.

“A master…!”

Moyong Rin muttered, startled.

But what does it matter that he’s a master? He is already a slave to the griddle cake!

“Hahahaha! And how does the griddle cake taste?”

The griddle cake vanished in a blink, and Ju Jeo-ha came over to us, paying no mind to the hands trying to hold him back.

“Wh-what is it?”

The young of the Moyong Family bristled. Ju Jeo-ha, perfectly unbothered, turned to me and asked.

“That thing. What did you call it?”
“Ah, that is what is known as a griddle cake.”
“A griddle cake…!”

He nodded and repeated it under his breath a few times, as though carving it into his head. Then he looked up at me, eyes shining.

“Have you got more?”
“I’ve got some, but.”
“Can you give me some?”
“Sadly, I can’t give you any more.”
“Why?”
“Because today’s the first time we’ve met, isn’t it? The world isn’t soft enough to hand a stranger two of them.”
“Ahh…!”

Disappointment spread across Ju Jeo-ha’s face. His shoulders drooped.

“But.”
“But?”
“If we were friends, that would be a different story.”

Ju Jeo-ha’s eyes went wide.

“…Friends?”
“That’s right, friends. For a friend I can trust in this harsh world, I could give two. No, two is nothing. I could give three. What’s your name?”
“I’m Ju Jeo-ha.”
“I’m Moyong Gwang-seon. Want to be friends?”
“Yeah!”

I put out my hand to Ju Jeo-ha. He tilted his head.

“What’s the hand for?”
“This is called a handshake.”
“A handshake?”
“That’s right.”

I took hold of his hand and shook it up and down. Ju Jeo-ha watched the hand go up and down and murmured blankly.

“A handshake….”
“A handshake is something friends do.”
“So we’re friends from now on?”
“That’s it. Here, griddle cake.”
“Griddle cake!”

The moment he got it he wolfed it down. The more I watched him, the more he looked like a puppy. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging itself off.

“He does eat well.”
“….”

I could feel Moyong Rin and the others watching, but I paid it no attention. Before long the Mount Hua Sect kids came to their senses and hauled Ju Jeo-ha away, and I watched with satisfaction as he went, still refusing to let go of the griddle cake.

“That kid’s blessed when it comes to food.”

They say you give an extra rice cake to the one you’re fond of. When somebody eats like that, how is anybody supposed to hold out and not give them more?

“What about me?”
“Hm?”
“That handshake, or whatever it is. Why don’t you do it with me? Am I not a friend?”

Moyong Rin was glaring at me, sulking. I put out my hand.

“Want one, then? A handshake?”
“Forget it!”
“…?”
“Hmph!”

Honestly, what am I supposed to do with her. If Ju Jeo-ha was a puppy, Moyong Rin was a cat.

“You shook hands with Danho too, I bet. Left out again, only me….”
“What are you on about.”

Leaving Moyong Rin to sulk and mutter to herself, I looked back over at the Mount Hua Sect kids. My nose itched.

“Sniff, sniff.”

The lingering scent of plum blossom still hung about my nose.

“Daoists, and already on perfume….”
“It isn’t perfume.”

I turned my head to find a beautiful woman in profile, well past girlhood. Early to mid twenties, perhaps. To my eye she looked like a slightly more grown-up, slightly more careful Moyong Rin.

“Big Sis Cheon-bung.”

Moyong Cheon-bung.

Along with Moyong Pae-cheon and Moyong Gun-ak, she is a direct-line descendant of the family head Moyong Jin-seong, which makes her an elder sister to me and to Moyong Rin. There’s quite a gap in age between us. Looked at that way, Moyong Rin is the late child of the house. A cute little late-born youngest.

You’d think she’d be doted on, and she doesn’t seem to be, which strikes me as a little odd. I’ve hardly ever seen the two of them together, and even now they keep their distance from each other.

Is that why Moyong Rin’s temperament came out so crooked?

The direct line often train separately, so you rarely see them. This was the first time I’d properly held a conversation with her.

“It isn’t perfume?”
“No. You know what the Mount Hua Sect Daoists’ martial arts are, don’t you?”
“The Plum Blossom Sword Art, was it?”

Famous enough that even I had heard of it, and I know nothing whatsoever about martial arts.

“That’s right. They say that once you reach a certain level, a faint plum blossom scent comes off you.”
“Then….”
“Exactly. That kid you gave the griddle cake to. He’s quite the master.”

I took a fresh look at Ju Jeo-ha, still munching away at his griddle cake.

That dopey-looking kid?

“Hmph. Young-looking, but he’s not half bad.”

Big Sis Cheon-bung snorted, then glanced over at me.

“Don’t drop your guard just because someone looks young.”
“I’ll bear it in mind, Big Sis.”
“…Hmph.”

Moyong Cheon-bung looked at me with a displeased eye and turned her head sharply away.

“Wuhahaha! It’s a farce, nothing less!”

This time I turned toward the source of a hearty burst of laughter. Over there, with our two big brothers at the head of it, a full-blown battle of momentum was under way.

“Those Paeng bastards—”
“Hold. What would those simple-minded brutes who only ever use that ugly saber know?”

The Hebei Paeng Family. One of the Five Great Families, called the Tiger of Hebei, and famous, I’d heard, for its domineering saber arts. Martial bone taken to the extreme, a house sitting at the very opposite pole from the Jegal Family with its fame for strategy. Bold, dogged, practical and domineering, they said….

“Our Paeng Family will win this exchange meet!”
“Grovel now and we’ll still go easy on you!”
“Uhahaha!”
“Khehehe!”

On the face of it, at least, they were nothing but a pack of hooligans. As I watched them, a small question came to me.

“…Has the Paeng Family not achieved civilization yet?”
“Snrk!”
“?”

Moyong Cheon-bung had turned her head away. Moyong Rin stared at her with round eyes. Big Sis Cheon-bung’s shoulders heaved a few times; then she wiped her face clean of expression and shot me a sidelong glare.

“What are you looking at?”
“….”

I looked at Moyong Rin.

“You two are alike, though?”
“You want to die?”

Moyong Rin pinched my side, and I went back to watching the war of nerves between the Paeng Family and the Moyong Family.

“Aren’t you ashamed, carrying an ugly saber like that around?”
“Ha! I’d like to ask you the same. Aren’t you ashamed, carrying a flimsy little edge like that around? A man ought to carry this much, at the very least.”
“Ignorant lot. Do you even know the profound subtlety of the sword arts?”
“That profound subtlety of yours shatters to pieces the moment it meets the sabers we swing, doesn’t it?”
“In front of the Paeng Family’s bold saber arts, sneaky little sword arts like yours are completely ‘Moyong’-less. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Wahahaha!”
“What’s for lunch today — Moyong? And dinner — Moyong?¹”

Moyong Pae-cheon caught hold of Moyong Gun-ak, who was about to charge out.

“…I’ll have these bastards—”
“Hold, Gun-ak!”

Seriously, are these grade-schoolers?

While I was genuinely wondering whether this was really how the rising generation of the great orthodox sects talked to one another, the Mount Hua Sect, which had been keeping still, entered the war.

“That last remark I can’t let pass. What was that about sword arts?”
“I said bold saber arts are far better than dank, low sword arts. Anything wrong with that?”
“What was that, punk?”

The Mount Hua Sect, who use the sword, ran the saber down without mercy and drove the Paeng Family back.

“Bold, you say? Don’t you mean thick-headed?”
“With an edge on one side only, your attacks are half-measures too.”
“Why is there no edge on the back? Are you planning to turn around mid-fight and hit me with the flat? Aha, so the Paeng Family holds to a no-killing creed after all — most unlike them! I never realized!”

When the Paeng Family faltered under the Mount Hua Sect’s onslaught, the Moyong Family took heart and joined in as one to drive them harder.

“Using only one edge — that’s a half-wit who learned half a martial art.”
“With only one edge it’s too heavy to thrust with. How pitiful.”
“If it’s going to be like that, why not carry an axe instead? That would suit you far better.”
“Go chop firewood!”
“Wahahaha!”

Under the combined attack of the two sword schools, the Paeng Family trembled.

“Kkh…!”
“Why are those Daoist bastards’ tongues so sharp?”
“Pushing us back by sheer numbers. What cowardly swordsmen you are.”

Then, out of the Paeng Family’s helpless retreat, one man stepped forward. Three or four years older than me, maybe? He turned and struck back at the Mount Hua Sect.

“Why not go and play with Zhongnan instead of coming all the way out here? Wouldn’t Zhongnan play with you?²”
“What?”
“Some lot off the streets, trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with a great and famous family built up over hundreds of years by blood? Isn’t that so, Moyong?”

The way he used the fact that both were great and famous families to slide the Moyong Family onto his own side was a work of art.

The Moyong Family took the cue and turned their blades the other way on the spot. They’d been sour on those Mount Hua Sect bastards anyway, so this was perfect!

“I hear there’s a rumor that no plum blossoms bloom on Mount Hua.”
“They say that when you swing your swords, the plum blossom scent draws all the insects in?”
“It must be good for growing flowers, at least. Ah — is that how you got plum blossoms to bloom on a barren rock of a mountain?”

Watching them switch sides in a heartbeat and go on the attack, I could only marvel.

Are these really the orthodox?

The Paeng Family and the Moyong Family attacked together, but the Mount Hua Sect resisted so fiercely that the battle came out even. Then, out of things to say, both sides lapsed into a lull, standing there glaring at each other and breathing hard. Is this a time-honored tradition too.

The grown-ups showed no intention of stopping it; they watched us fight from a little way off with satisfaction on their faces.

“Haaah….”

Am I the only grown-up here?

Mature as I am, I decided to be the one to hold out a hand first. There’s a saying that the one who forgives is the one who wins. I have no idea where I heard it, but there it is.

I picked up the griddle cakes and went over to the Paeng Family.

“Hey, where are you going!”
“To end this war.”
“What are you on about.”

Moyong Rin followed me, grumbling the whole way. She was as reassuring as a full bowl of Red Persimmon and Egg.

“What is it?”

The one directing them from the very front, who looked three or four years older than me, eyed me warily. This one seemed to be the leader. I couldn’t say anything about his strength, but he looked the cleverest of the Paeng Family’s rising generation.

“What’s your name?”
“Paeng Dol-hwi.”
“That’s a peculiar name.”
“And you?”
“Moyong Gwang-seon.”
“You’re not one to talk, I think.”
“Griddle cake. Want one?”

He must have had a decent head on his shoulders, because he snorted.

“Do you take us for that gullible Daoist over there?”

I split it open a little and let the filling show for a moment. Meat, vegetables and egg peeked out from where they’d been hiding. A mouth-watering smell came rushing out.

“Looks deli— no, trying to lure us with food! Just what I’d expect of you crafty Moyong bastards.”

Paeng Dol-hwi’s eyes had gone hazy; now they sharpened again. He wiped away the drool that had trickled down and bellowed.

“Did you think I’d fall for it that easily? Not a chance.”
“Really? Then it can’t be helped. I’ll have to throw it away.”
“Th-throw it away?”
“I brought it to give to you, and you say you won’t eat it. What else can I do.”

When I really did make to throw it on the ground, he hurriedly stopped me.

“Wait! Isn’t that too much of a waste?”
“Then will you throw it away for me?”
“Me? W-well, I suppose I could.”
“Here you go.”

Before he knew what was happening, the griddle cake was in Paeng Dol-hwi’s hand.

Easy.

He wasn’t going to hold out against the temptation of a griddle cake.

“Bah! I’ll throw it away into my mouth!”

In the end, after all that agonizing, he took a huge bite out of the griddle cake. His eyes flew open.

“I-it’s good!”
“Just how good is it?”
“Dol-hwi! Give me a bite too!”
“Get your filthy hands off it.”
“What was that, punk?”
“You brat, to your own big brother!”

— Crash-bang-bang!

Fists went flying among them and the whole thing fell apart. The rising generation of the Mount Hua Sect and the Moyong Family watched with dumbfounded faces. A taut war of nerves, brought down by a single griddle cake.

“So we more or less won the opening skirmish?”

My muttering to myself drew the eyes of the young of the Moyong Family.

“What on earth are you….”

Moyong Pae-cheon and Moyong Gun-ak stared at me in blank astonishment. A worthy rival they’d been fighting tooth and nail had collapsed over one griddle cake, and it left an oddly hollow feeling behind.

I turned my head and checked on the grown-ups watching from a little way off. They must have been in the middle of something important, and yet every one of the gathered heads had their eyes turned this way. The Paeng family head was quietly drawing a hand down over their face, while the Mount Hua Sect’s sect leader and the Moyong family head blinked at us with dumbfounded looks of their own.

“Enough, enough!”

Just then Paeng Dol-hwi’s voice rang out. It wasn’t an especially loud voice, and yet, strangely, it felt as though it were being driven straight into my ears.

“How did he do that?”
“He mixed internal energy into his voice.”

Moyong Rin explained for me.

“Is that hard?”
“It isn’t something just anyone can do.”

Which meant this Paeng Dol-hwi was no slouch either. Well, of course. Being clever isn’t enough on its own to make you the leader.

Paeng Dol-hwi settled the Paeng Family down and then came striding over to me. His lip was split; he must have taken a few blows in the course of having his griddle cake stolen.

“You. You said Moyong Gwang-seon?”
“That’s right. Have you come to be friends too?”

Paeng Dol-hwi snorted.

“Friends, my foot. Stirring up strife in our own ranks with a single griddle cake.”
“Isn’t it more remarkable that a single griddle cake could stir up strife in your ranks?”

He shut his mouth tight. He must have decided he couldn’t win with words; his eyes moved busily, hunting for a weakness in me. From their side, they had to break me one way or another and take back the initiative. Starting the exchange matches with their morale broken like this would be a disaster.

His gaze stopped. A triumphant smile hooked up at the corner of his mouth.

“What’s a man doing with an earring? You’re not some girl.”

Paeng Dol-hwi reached out an arm to grab my earring.

— Only — I pray my Lord will not forget my starlight.

Ishtar’s voice, carved into my heart, rippled like spring water drawn up out of a deep well. I got a little angry. Angry enough to want to snap the arm clean off.

— Clamp.

I caught hold of his arm.

“Do not touch it.”

“Haah, those brats, making a spectacle of themselves….”

While the Paeng family head, Paeng Hak-beom, drew a hand down over their face, Moyong Jin-seong, the Moyong family head, and Seomun Jeong, sect leader of the Mount Hua Sect, looked at the Paeng Family and its outbreak of infighting with dumbfounded faces.

“What did he do to set them off like that?”
“Did he insult their parents?”

They had been in the middle of an important discussion and hadn’t managed to work out what was going on. Then Paeng Dol-hwi, having put down the disorder in his own ranks, was seen striding up to Moyong Gwang-seon, breathing hard.

Are they going to fight?
Looks like they’re going to fight.
This should be fun.

Unable to master their curiosity, the heads pricked up their ears.

“What’s a man doing with an earring? You’re not some girl.”

— Clamp.

“Do not touch it.”

In that instant, sound vanished. Every single person there held their breath without meaning to, and a moment’s silence ruled the open ground.

“This is not a thing the likes of you may touch.”

The air felt dozens of times heavier than it had a breath before. Under a pressure that squeezed the throat shut, the eyes of the dozens gathered there fixed on one person alone.

“Uh, uhh….”

This was not the man who had been going on about friendship a moment ago. Meeting that spirit head-on, Paeng Dol-hwi backed away a step at a time until the strength went out of his legs. He dropped down onto his backside and looked up at the boy standing over him. The face was blank, and angry all the same. The eyes looking down at him were endlessly cold.

“I-I only….”

Eyes stained with shock turned toward the boy, but the boy was looking at no one at all. At the center of the silence he simply stood there, haughty, as though looking down at the world.

— …Gulp.

Somebody swallowed hard, and the sound of it came unusually loud.

“….”

Moyong Gwang-seon, who had been quietly looking down at Paeng Dol-hwi, turned away. With that the momentum crushing the space vanished as though it had never been, and from here and there came the sound of held breath being let out.

Paeng Hak-beom, the Paeng family head, who had been watching it all in silence, checked their own palm. The fist that had closed at some point without their noticing was soaked with cold sweat.

I… was pushed back by his momentum?

It had lasted barely longer than an instant, and yet every head of every school gathered there, each of them a name to be reckoned with, had been overwhelmed by the formless spirit given off by one boy not yet even twenty.

This was not a question of higher or lower martial arts. It was, purely and simply, the crushing force that comes of the sheer drop between souls of wholly different depths.

What they call a difference of class.

Seomun Jeong, sect leader of the Mount Hua Sect, murmured in a dazed voice.

“What in the world is that child…?”

The Moyong family head, Moyong Jin-seong, had been staring blankly at the scene; now he came to himself with a start. He hurried over to the children and smoothed the atmosphere over.

“Now, now. The exchange matches will begin shortly, so gather over here.”

His expression was the same as ever, but inside him a heavy sea was running.

Gwang-seon. There is still so much about you I do not know.