Forging Ties

— Slip. Slip.

Doctor Yu drew the needles out of Jo Yeonggwang, the young bureau head of the Shandong Escort Bureau. His father Jo Mansik, Hwangbo Mueul and I had been waiting for the treatment to finish.

He worked the last needle free and spoke.

“I have neutralized the drug entirely. He will wake before long.”

The words were barely out when Jo Yeonggwang groaned where he lay on the bed.

“Nnh…”

His eyelids trembled and slowly lifted. Vacant and unfocused, his eyes went first to the ceiling, then to us.

“Yeonggwang! It’s your father! Do you know me!”

Jo Mansik grabbed for his son’s hand.

“Father…?”

Jo Yeonggwang looked at him, bewildered. Then he turned his head this way and that.

“Where is this? We were on an escort run, and a pack of bandits came down on us… Did you save me, Father?”
“Don’t you worry. Elder Hwangbo Mueul here dealt with the men who took you.”
“Ah…”

Jo Mansik gestured toward Hwangbo Mueul as he said it, and Jo Yeonggwang pushed himself upright and made a cupped-fist salute.

“Elder, I owe you the debt of a life saved. Thank you.”
“Hoho. There is a tie between Bureau Head Jo and our clan. Of course we were bound to help.”

Hwangbo Mueul smiled and went on.

“Young hero Yang was quicker to act than I was, and that is why the young bureau head came through safely. Is that not so, Bureau Head?”
“The Elder speaks truly.”

Jo Mansik took up the point.

“Young hero Yang found out who had taken you and where they were hiding. That’s how we came to you so quickly.”

At that, Jo Yeonggwang turned and made a cupped-fist salute to me as well.

“Thank you, young hero Yang. Twice now I owe you my life. My father was right; your discerning eye is remarkable.”
“You praise me too highly. I only guessed from the circumstances in front of me. Far more of the credit belongs to Elder Hwangbo, who dealt with them.”
“Hoho, your words run like a stream down a green mountain. Not unpleasant to hear, mind. Still, there is no need to be quite so modest.”

Hwangbo Mueul patted my shoulder. I made a cupped-fist salute and bowed my head.

“You praise me too highly, Elder.”

With the warm words still passing back and forth, Jo Yeonggwang put in a question, his face curious.

“But Father, just who were the men who took me?”
“The Great Saber Gang, out of Qingzhou.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”

Jo Yeonggwang tilted his head at that.

“Then why would the Great Saber Gang take me at all?”
“Black Leopard, the leader of the Great Saber Gang, has gone into dealing in people.”
“Then I understand it less than ever. Taking me means setting himself against the Shandong Escort Bureau head-on, and however blind money has made him, the man can’t be that stupid.”

His son had a point, and Jo Mansik nodded heavily.

“That puzzled me as well, so I had it looked into. He told his men to bring in only the powerless — orphans, beggars, that sort. It seems one of the underlings took you by mistake.”
“I see…”

Jo Yeonggwang nodded, his face sour with doubt.

It must look strange. He won’t be able to make sense of it either.

It was only natural.

Because I was the one who had planned all of this.

Black Leopard was no madman. He’d never have hit the Shandong Escort Bureau inside Shandong itself, and he would certainly have drummed that into his men. But there was one thing he had missed.

The variable called ‘me’.

That was why this had happened. If he’d known what sort of man I was, he’d probably have caught and killed me first.

If you mean to win a fight, you cannot be choosy about the means.

Weigh out every last scruple and you would never win a battle. You had to do everything you could. Only then did you win the fight and keep your life.

That was how I survived ten years at Blood Sand Plain.

The moment Black Leopard laid a clumsy hand on a man like that, his defeat was already settled.

Jo Yeonggwang spoke again.

“Then when you said the men who took me had been dealt with…”
“The Elder found the leader of the Great Saber Gang in his hiding place and finished him. He brought the head back himself. You have punished the one to warn the hundred, Elder. My thanks.”
“Thank you, Elder!”

Jo Mansik and Jo Yeonggwang made their cupped-fist salutes, and Hwangbo Mueul laughed and waved a hand.

“Some men were catching on my qi sense, so I put a hand to them. It was only luck that the leader of the Great Saber Gang was among them.”

His words brought back what had happened a little earlier.

When he suddenly told us to go on ahead, saying he would sweep up the remnants, it had raised a question in me. Duho had told me the Great Saber Gang’s men were all long gone.

So I’d thought something was off, and it was nothing of the kind. It had come of my own realm being low. The qi sense of a martial artist as high in realm as Hwangbo Mueul was far keener than I’d supposed.

At any rate, it is a great mercy that Black Leopard is dead.

If he’d lived and got away, he would have been a headache for a long time to come. Every time I set something in motion from now on, I’d have had to lay my plans with him in mind.

But he was dead, so there was no such worry. Between us, Duho and I could handle whatever remnants of the Great Saber Gang were left.

The Great Saber Gang, which had been a nuisance, was gone; my standing with the Shandong Escort Bureau was firmer than ever; and on top of that I’d come to know a master like Hwangbo Mueul. Three gains out of a single plan. This business had been a great success.

I was well satisfied.

I turned to Jo Mansik.

“Rest here at your ease until the young bureau head is himself again. House Yang will look after you with every care.”
“Young hero Yang…”

Jo Mansik seized my hand, visibly moved.

“The words alone are thanks enough. But you have saved our Yeonggwang’s life twice over, young hero Yang, and I want to repay it. If there is anything you want, say it and don’t hold back.”
“It was not done in hope of repayment.”
“It sits ill with me, that is all. You may speak freely.”
“He’s right, young hero Yang. Speak freely.”

Jo Yeonggwang added from beside him.

I thought about it for a moment, then spoke.

“Mm… Then I will ask two things of you.”
“Only say them.”
“First, go and see the prefect. Dozens of people were taken and lives were lost; the authorities will find it hard to let a thing like that pass. Once they open an investigation they will learn that my house and I were caught up in it, and I would rather avoid the bother.”

Jo Mansik smiled at that and answered.

“As it happens, I meant to see the prefect over this business anyway. The Yang manor will not be drawn into it, so set your mind at rest. And the other request?”
“I would like the Shandong Escort Bureau to take charge of the people the Great Saber Gang carried off and see them home. If they are simply told to go home, they may be taken by bandits all over again.”

When I had finished, the room went quiet for a moment.

Jo Mansik looked at my face for a long while, then tightened his grip on my hand.

“You are a truly good man, young hero Yang. To ask that the people who were taken be looked after to the end, and not one thing for yourself… Your chivalry is remarkable indeed.”

Jo Yeonggwang spoke up beside him.

“My father is right. I’d have asked for money, or for a bigger share of the contract’s profit. But young hero Yang is worrying about whether those people are safe, and I’m too ashamed of having thought that way to lift my head.”

Hwangbo Mueul listened to the two of them and nodded.

“Hoho. It is as the two of you say. You seldom see a rising star of so thoroughgoing a chivalry these days. The vessel is very large indeed.”
“You praise me too highly.”
“Not at all. A man of such goodness is a rare thing in the gangho. That nature of yours will be a fine example to the other rising stars. Looking at you puts this old man in mind of his own boyhood.”
“Thank you.”

I gave Hwangbo Mueul a cupped-fist salute and thanked him.

“I could wish the children of our Hwangbo house would learn your chivalry.”

Jo Mansik answered him.

“Is there a soul in the Central Plains who does not know the chivalry of the Hwangbo Clan?”
“Bureau Head Jo lays gold leaf on the house of Hwangbo, and this old man’s face grows hot with it.”
“What is to be done, when it is simply the truth? Haha.”

Jo Mansik looked at me and spoke.

“Young hero Yang, we will take charge of those the Great Saber Gang carried off and send them back to their homes. I give my word on the name of the Shandong Escort Bureau.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there nothing else you would ask?”
“That is enough.”

Jo Mansik smiled at my answer.

“If there is ever anything you need, at any time, you have only to say so. The Shandong Escort Bureau is on young hero Yang’s side.”
“That word alone is like being handed a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.”

I gave a cupped-fist salute and quietly bowed my head.

The Gangho Register, the imperial court’s organization for keeping watch on the martial artists of the Central Plains.

In one of its offices, a report was being delivered.

“Hwangbo Mueul has moved. He turned up in Qingzhou, in Shandong, and struck an unorthodox-sect band.”

A middle-aged man who appeared to be the superior turned a page of his documents and asked without much interest.

“Qingzhou in Shandong. Is that not the jurisdiction of the Great Sail Gang, one of the Eighteen Unorthodox Gangs?”
“It is.”
“Has there been friction of some kind between the Hwangbo Clan and the Great Sail Gang?”
“No. From what I have found, one of the black-path gangs in Qingzhou¹ abducted the young bureau head of the Shandong Escort Bureau. It appears Hwangbo Mueul stepped in and settled the matter.”
“Hah, what fools. Of all the people to lay hands on, the young bureau head of the Shandong Escort Bureau. The Great Sail Gang will be smarting, though, with no grounds to step in.”

The middle-aged man set down his teacup and gave an order.

“Send a man to Qingzhou. There may yet be friction between Hwangbo Mueul and the Great Sail Gang.”
“Understood. Ah — and do you know of Iron Lion Yang Taejun?”
“I recall him as a first-rate master entered on the First Roll. Why?”
“He has a son named Yang Mujin, and they say the son played the central part in this business. It was he who pinned down the Great Saber Gang’s hideout and told the head of the Shandong Escort Bureau.”
“…Is that so?”

The middle-aged man sat thinking for a moment, then asked as though something had come back to him.

“Isn’t that the boy who made the healing pills and the wound salve everyone has been talking about lately?”
“Yes. The same man.”
“The Iron Lion’s son has a great many talents. They said the house had come down in the world and was running a small escort bureau — it looks as though the son will be the making of it. Add the son’s particulars to the Iron Lion’s file.”
“Understood.”

A few days later.

The party from the Shandong Escort Bureau and Hwangbo Mueul left the Yang manor.

Jo Mansik went to the prefect in person and leaned on his influence there; the Great Saber Gang affair petered out and was quietly buried.

The moment the guests were gone, I made for a shabby inn in Qingzhou. In a corner seat a man in a bamboo hat was throwing back Bamboo Leaf Green.² I went and sat down across from him.

The man set down his cup and lifted the brim of his hat a little.

“Didn’t take you long, huh?”

It was Duho.

He raised the bottle of Bamboo Leaf Green and offered it, so I took up the cup in front of me. He filled it, then poured for himself.

We touched our cups together lightly.

“You’ve had a hard time of it, lying low.”
“This much isn’t hard. Doing a job and going to ground is basic schooling for a bandit, see?”

Duho answered with a snicker.

“So what’s our Young Master’s next move going to be?”

I turned the empty cup in my fingers.

“Pulling weeds and grabbing land.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The territory the Great Saber Gang held. Let’s eat it up.”

It was time to begin the great work of building the house up.