“Little brother Heo, you can't just go saying names like that.”
“Pardon?”
Hong-hyung let out a deep sigh.
He even glanced around to check whether anyone nearby had heard.
The training ground was full of battle cries, and no martial artist was paying particular attention.
“Hoo, follow me to my room for a moment.”
“All right.”
Hong-hyung was so serious that I had no choice but to follow.
A martial artist's quarters are different from a scholar's.
So was the atmosphere of the room.
Unlike my room, which had a place to sit, a desk, and paper, brush, and ink, there was only a hard bed and a rack for hanging weapons.
There was no oil lamp either. A martial artist had no reason to stay up at night.
“Good thing no one heard. That…….”
Hong-hyung frowned as he spoke.
“……Hermit Forest.”
It was the first time I'd seen him like this.
Naturally, I grew cautious too.
“Is that, um, some kind of dangerous name?”
It struck me all over again. I'm ignorant of the murim.
The Nine Sects One Gang I might know, but a name like the Hermit Forest, which sounds like something a martial arts novelist made up on a whim, I'd have no way of knowing.
“Dangerous, all right. You've heard of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, right?”
“Aren't they a band of rebels?”
That much I'd picked up from playing the scholar.
Unlike the Demonic Cult of typical martial arts novels, the Demonic Cult of this world was apparently a band of rebels who had risen against the Imperial Court. As is the way of eras like this, I knew no details.
The Imperial Court deliberately restricted information about the Demonic Cult.
“And you know they've got these Seven Demon Heavenly Pillars?”
“Of course I don't.”
“They're, you know……. Dangerous groups.”
“Like the Nine Sects One Gang?”
“Right. Like the Demonic Cult's version of the Nine Sects up there……. What's the general perception of the Sichuan Tang Clan?”
Honestly, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know what the Sichuan Tang Clan of this world is like.
What I know is the Sichuan Tang Clan of typical martial arts novels.
“They're ruthless people, aren't they? Repay a kindness twofold and a grudge tenfold, or something like that.”
“Right? Scary, huh. But nobody's afraid to say the Sichuan Tang Clan out loud. That sect you just named…….”
By now even I understood.
It meant something you'd be afraid to even mention.
“Uh……. Did I say something I shouldn't have?”
“That……. Ha. I don't even want to say it myself.”
Hong-hyung whispered softly in my ear.
“It's the most secretive sect of assassins in the world. To people on our side……. it's another name for death. Nobody even wants to say it. Because if you do, it might come for you.”
“…….”
It's nothing new, but this place, with a civilization like medieval China's, is sensitive to superstition.
Martial artists and scholars were no different in that.
As for me, I didn't originally believe in such things, but now aren't I practically a superstition myself?
Who on earth would believe me if I said I came from another world, or from the distant future?
So I can't help being lenient toward the superstitions of the people of this era.
“I'll be careful from now on.”
“I don't know any more than that myself. So don't say it. You'll die.”
“Understood.”
“A curse isn't anything special……. You keep saying it, and it comes for you.”
Hong-hyung was clearly no master who could command the world.
Then he had no choice but to shun words that might summon masters he couldn't handle.
Most of Jeong Manor's martial artists were probably the same.
Hong-hyung glanced around again for no reason.
He really seemed scared.
Seeing this side of him for the first time drove home once more the standing the Demonic Cult held in the martial world.
Better not to get involved, after all.
‘But……. then why would the Chairman…….’
Before I could think further, Hong-hyung suddenly asked.
“So who'd you hear that name from, anyway?”
“Ah…….”
If the name was that taboo, I shouldn't have known it in the first place.
Still, I came up with an answer in an instant.
“I came across it while leafing through old books in the library. It was written like the name of a sect, but with a name like that…….”
“Haha. Sounds like the whimsy of some reclusive great Confucian scholars, doesn't it?”
“Tell me about it. I'll be careful from now on.”
“Yeah, yeah. You said your life is precious, so you don't want to know about murim affairs. Keep living like that.”
Hong-hyung said that bitterly, then suddenly fell into thought.
His eyes, looking at my face, turned somehow doubtful and worried.
He'd spoken as if to send me off, but in the end he held me back.
“No. If our little brother Heo knows too little about the murim, this kind of thing will happen again. You know what the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans are?”
“I know that much. I do.”
“You're good at memorizing, right? You should still know who not to mess with in the Central Plains. Even with martial artists, you have to recognize them to steer clear.”
“No, I mean…….”
There was nothing for it. Hong-hyung, unusually today, launched into a long lecture on the murim's map of powers.
Once it came to this, there was no stopping him. He was a hyung-nim who stuck his nose into everything.
When I first came to Jeong Manor and was fumbling around, he watched over me and helped me now and then.
That's how we became close, and humoring him in talks like this was part of my job, so to speak.
Above all, Hong-hyung truly seemed full of goodwill. He looked at me like a child left at the water's edge.
As his long-winded explanation came to an end, Hong-hyung spoke.
“A knight-errant, huh……. There was a time I wanted to be one too.”
“Aren't you still a knight-errant, Hong-hyung?”
“Come off it. At my age?”
That was a first too.
Like the headband he always wore, Hong-hyung was a self-proclaimed knight-errant.
Today, his mood was different from usual.
“You said you're preparing for the Provincial Examination, right? Leave Lizhou and get to the Imperial Academy quick. That's how you get qualified.”
Somehow it sounded like he was pushing me away.
I just chuckled and answered.
“Even so, there's no other Master like you for me, Hong-hyung.”
“Thanks for saying so. Now get going and study.”
From that moment on, he was the usual Hong-hyung again.
With a shout of “Heave-ho!” he ran out to the training ground.
I scratched my head and went back to my room.
***
It's nothing new, but I feel how little I really know.
If this book is linked to me, then what it can do might grow along with what I know.
In fact, things I didn't even know existed weren't even listed among the book's items for sale.
Even in Hong-hyung's long lecture, there were subtle differences from the Nine Sects One Gang and Five Great Clans I knew.
Sects like the Hainan Sect drift in and out of the Nine Sects depending on the story, but here at least it seemed to be in.
“Well, so what? The murim isn't a place I'll get tangled up with.”
But there's a problem.
“Why the Chairman……?”
This alone had no answer.
The Hermit Forest?
I looked again.
[Squad Leader in the Infiltration Unit of the Hermit Forest, one of the Seven Demon Heavenly Pillars of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. Carrying out an undercover mission under Captain Sa Pae-cheon.]
“This is real?”
I tried reasoning it out, or guessing.
Jeong Manor is……. yes. Very suspicious.
This place had always been suspicious in its own way. I'd just never thought hard about it, since I was only grateful.
Most of the retainers were probably the same.
It even says Squad Leader.
And the Captain is……. Teacher.
“How am I supposed to read this?”
Only one thing had become certain.
If they find out I know this, I die.
And one more thing was certain.
No one in the world thinks I know this.
“Should I leave quickly?”
Let's think rationally. Let me put together the information I have.
“No. Isn't this actually good?”
Nothing had happened in the past five years.
Nothing had happened even in the decades before that.
Judging by "Captain of the Infiltration Unit," it must be something like a branch in Sichuan.
If you think about why it exists, it's obvious.
They're assassins, so they have to take commissions.
There must be people who want to make use of that ominous name, and this must be a secret place such people visit in secret.
The Chairman's power is…….
“Even greater than I thought?”
Viewed in a good light, it definitely is.
And why on earth would a hidden assassin power be raising scholars?
“To make use of them all.”
Of course, this could be a poisoned chalice.
But Heo Saeng doesn't know anything yet.
And he won't in the future either.
It's dangerous, no doubt.
But Jeong Manor is a place I'll be leaving soon anyway.
I plan to go to the Imperial Academy. I'll study there and sit the Provincial Examination.
“All I have to do is go on not knowing.”
In fact, nothing really changes.
It sends a chill down my spine, but…….
I decided to think of it that way.
“I can't make a living outside Jeong Manor anyway……. Or can I?”
Now I could attach myself to the law enforcement office.
I could even live as a retainer of the government.
I'd have to watch my step, of course, but they'd take in someone of no less than Licentiate status.
My options branch in several directions.
But for now, at least.
“Let's be a Licentiate who knows nothing, and keep still.”
Then, by leaving for the Imperial Academy, I'll naturally slip out from under the Hermit Forest's influence.
Not completely, but it's a fact that my success would benefit them too.
There's no chance of anything happening to me right now.
I'm safe.
Precisely because I'm a piece on their game board.
A deep sigh escaped me.
Did I fasten the very first button wrong?
Would it have been better to go on not knowing?
Or is it lucky that I found out now, at least?
Life never lets you see even an inch ahead.
Grumbling, I left my room. It was almost lunchtime.
Meals were prepared by cooks the Chairman hired.
Martial artists, scholars, and the rest of Jeong Manor's household all dug in together.
A few scholars who'd eyed me with disapproval looked away as soon as I met their gaze.
Because our status was different now.
Too much had happened yesterday and today, but the fact that Heo Saeng had become a Licentiate remained the same.
That was also all that everyone around me knew.
After the meal, I got ready to go out.
It was time to drop by the bookshop.
Used books often came into the library, but I'd sometimes go myself and get them cheap.
That's why I was on good terms with the bookshop owner, Mister Jang.
Let's stick to my routine.
What should I do with the book? I don't know what might happen if I separate it from my body.
I tucked it carefully inside my robes. It's something I'll have to carry with me at all times.
It must never fall into anyone else's hands.
On top of that, I need to know where on earth Mister Jang got it.
Who the original owner was, or whether he's already dead.
On my way out the main gate, I greeted the martial artists on guard.
The atmosphere around late lunchtime was peaceful beyond words.
Clearly, no one knew the Sword Star had died yesterday.
People were living their lives as if nothing had happened.
As I approached the bookshop, the Clear Wind Inn came to mind.
Would they be wondering?
Probably not. Being away a day or two must have been nothing unusual for him.
He's not the type to die on the road, so they wouldn't even imagine it and would be carrying on as usual.
In front of Mister Jang's bookshop, only the bloodstains from yesterday remained. The three siblings must have handled the body well.
“Well, well, if it isn't our Licentiate Heo!”
“Elder, did this book by any chance come from here?”
When I pulled the neat leather-bound book from inside my robes, Mister Jang tilted his head.
“That's right. Didn't this have blood on it?”
“It did. It came off when I wiped it.”
“Sa the library keeper came with his servants and swept up this and that. Looking at it now, it seems expensive. I wonder if I sold it too cheap.”
“Where did it come in from, by any chance?”
That stolen goods came in from time to time was an open secret.
He probably did business with unorthodox gangs nearby too.
Mister Jang whispered sourly, as if asking why I'd bother asking that.
“Now that you're a Lord Licentiate, you cracking down on me?”
“No. No, not at all. It just looks so expensive…….”
That hint alone was enough for Mister Jang to understand.
“Ah, worried someone might come looking for it? Guess you got it from Sa.”
“Yes, he told me to practice my writing with it.”
“It was empty inside, sure. Don't worry, whoever its owner was…….”
Bloody incidents are extremely common all over the Central Plains.
Partly because of the murim, but it's also an era when thieves and mounted bandits run rampant everywhere.
It's an era when farmers naturally turn into thieves when the harvest fails.
Hinting at one such incident, Mister Jang nodded.
“Looks like it came around the long way, but the owner's dead. The fellows who brought it only rob places like that, so it's for sure. They don't rob the living.”
You do business with people like that too?
I didn't tactlessly ask that.
He was only telling me this because a Licentiate was asking. Before, he'd have scowled and chased me out.
I nodded quietly.
“Understood. I'll keep my mouth shut.”
“Go carve some fine verse in it, then. I don't know a thing about it.”
And Mister Jang laughed, heh heh, as if nothing had happened.
Good. There seemed to be no way anyone could pick up my trail. I'm safe.
A smile came to my face too. The first smile of the day.
All I have to do is leave Lizhou as Licentiate Heo who knows nothing.
Just as I was about to leave the bookshop.
The doorway was blocked.
No, I mistook it for that.
It was a person.
A huge, huge person.
“I smell blood. Yesterday, was it?”
Unlike his rough voice, which fit the phrase "like iron scraping" perfectly, his tone was casual and, at a glance, even mild.
Then he pointed at the book in my hand.
“That book smells of older, stranger blood.”
“Pardon……? Pardon?”
I was flustered, but I bowed my head first.
Anyone could see he was a martial artist.
He had to be well over two meters tall. Though hidden by loose sleeves and a huge bamboo hat, his air alone was menacing.
I'd sensed whispering around town, and it turned out a figure like this had been walking the streets of Lizhou.
“Well, it is too dried out to interest me. You there, scholar. Do you know Jeong Manor?”
Mister Jang had already hurried back into a corner, practically prostrating himself.
Yesterday the Sword Star. Today…… who is this?
“Yes, yes, as it happens, I'm living as a retainer at Jeong Manor.”
“Lead the way.”
As I stepped outside, doing my best not to look reluctant, I realized why I'd been singled out.
The street was quiet.
Everyone had gone inside their houses or into the alleys and wasn't coming out.
The bamboo-hat man definitely didn't have the air of an orthodox martial artist.
Then he must be unorthodox, and no one would want to so much as catch his eye.
A frame over two meters was, in this era, literally a giant.
Did he come into Mister Jang's bookshop, of all places, because of that blasted smell of blood?
Gloves covered hands as big as pot lids, but I caught a glimpse of the skin at his wrist.
It had far too much red in it to be a human's skin tone.
And he decides what to do based on the smell of blood?
This isn't just dangerous. It's absurdly dangerous.
Is it okay to bring someone like this to Jeong Manor?
Right after my thoughts reached that far.
‘Ah, right. Jeong Manor is a Hermit Forest branch.’
Whatever it is, it's one of the Demonic Cult's seven pillars or something, so they'll handle it fine. I just need to guide him there quickly and go hide.
I miss the modern police. O murim, where there's no one even to report to.