“Have a cup.”
Having come down to the inn's first floor, I put the human-skin mask back on and pointed at the cup in front of Seol Ha.
“I should abstain while on escort duty.”
“The important business is done and this is a celebration. Set the escort work down for a while. Tonight we'll stay at this inn and leave after.”
I had not come here simply because of Geon Pyeong's provocation in the first place.
It was because of Baek Mun-gyu.
My luck had held and I had joined hands with Baek Mun-gyu and become his business partner, so one of the great branches I had considered while regressing was now in my grasp.
Very satisfying indeed.
“I cannot begin to gauge what you are thinking. You have even entrusted that enormous sum to my responsibility.”
“It is a lot of money. If I happen to go under, I'd ask for nothing more than for you to take that money and live without worry.”
“Young Master!!”
“Don't worry. It won't come to that. For the moment I'm a man under heavy watch in the Golden Manor, so I only mean to borrow a little help from you. Don't let it weigh on you.”
Just then Seol Ha lowered her eyes.
And murmured, small, as though whispering.
“I am fond of you, Young Master.”
I felt my body stiffen for a moment as I was about to bring the cup to my lips.
A flush passed briefly over Seol Ha's face.
“That is not only because of the debt I owe your mother. Wanting to protect something is also a matter of not wanting to lose it that much. So please let me be with you always for the hardships we will face.”
“I don't have the knack for explaining everything, but I understand what you mean. I understand the fear too, that so much seems to be changing because of my choices. But listen.”
I filled Seol Ha's cup to the brim.
“It'll be as sweet as it is bitter.”
Seol Ha swallowed the drink with a gulp.
Then she looked at me with eyes gone round and broke into a bashful smile.
“It is sweet.”
“Already?”
“I do not think it will be bitter.”
“I'm honored. You're far too easy to persuade.”
Seol Ha quietly nudged her empty cup toward me.
“Another?”
“Where has the person on escort duty gone?”
“One cannot refuse a celebration.”
Somehow Seol Ha is getting more and more shameless.
***
“…….”
Looking at Seol Ha sprawled flat out in my bedroom, I let out a laugh of pure disbelief.
How can she hold her drink this badly?
Five cups. Just five.
Seol Ha, who had tied her hair back with such spirit and shared cups with me, went down flat after exactly five.
“Surely it wasn't her first time drinking?”
Seeing that she did not even know her own capacity, it seemed possible.
Come to think of it, that was the sort of person Seol Ha was to me.
Like a warm spring wind that stayed a moment and brushed past.
A person who left far too early, trying to shield me from harsh trials, without ever properly sharing a friendly cup with me.
“It was a first. For me too.”
I drew the quilt over Seol Ha's body and quietly looked at her, lying in the soft moonlight shining in through the window.
It struck me anew that for Seol Ha as well as for me, all that lay ahead would be things experienced for the first time.
That was good.
I sat down in the chair beside Seol Ha's bedside and leaned back.
“Sweet.”
This night of ours.
***
“Are you certain that son of a bitch is here?”
Jeong Hong-seon, eldest son of the Righteous Sword Sect, pointed at the Yeonho Inn.
At that, a man with a savage cast to his face who had been settled in the darkness walked out.
“There is no mistake.”
It was Geon Pyeong, his whole face wound in blood-stained bandages.
Having barely recovered consciousness, Geon Pyeong had met up again with Jeong Hong-seon and Yeon Gyu-baek and arrived at this place.
Yeon Gyu-baek, too, had appeared with his injured left arm wrapped in bandages, so far had their thirst for revenge already gone.
“Is this all right? He is still the second son of the Golden Manor's Chairman. Even if Brother Geon permits it….”
Jeong Hong-seon, the soundest of the three, spoke while reading their faces.
“What, will the younger brother step out of it?”
The eyes of Yeon Gyu-baek, who asked with a composed expression, were already full of savage murderous intent.
“No. When I think of that arrogant face, my blood runs backward.”
Jeong Hong-seon hesitated a little, then shook his head.
The killing intent from Yeon Gyu-baek felt more threatening than the faint unease he felt at Geon Pyeong's ghastly state.
Above all, the humiliation he had suffered in the banquet hall goaded him again.
“I will not kill him. I will simply let him experience what comes of challenging our authority in due measure. He must pay the price for making a blood relative into this.”
Geon Pyeong, who had lost most of his front teeth, made a sound of air leaking.
“Of course. Wreck him so thoroughly that he can never swing a sword properly again.”
“Do not worry. Do you think I called a man of my clan for nothing? However outstanding his skill, he will be pulp in no time.”
Hard on the heels of Yeon Gyu-baek's words, a man of lithe aspect with a sword on his back walked out of the darkness. Merely meeting his eyes turned the air cold.
“This is Deung Yeo, whom our clan deliberately gave no great post and assigned solely to my escort. He is a swordsman within the count of ten fingers in our clan. Had he been in the banquet hall, that bastard would never have dared to commit such rudeness against me.”
“Indeed, even his presence is different.”
“Before long he will be begging for his life, hands turned to feet. Hyuk hyuk.”
Along with the three men, thoroughly delighted, Deung Yeo gave Yeon Gyu-baek a short bow of the head.
“It will not take long.”
“Yes, work him over in due measure and drag him before me.”
“Yes.”
Deung Yeo vanished into the inn like a shadow.
***
A tea's drinking passed, and then a quarter hour.
Jeong Hong-seon and Geon Pyeong breathed out white plumes and kept stealing glances at Yeon Gyu-baek.
Being dawn, it had grown colder still.
When Geon Pyeong quietly stamped his feet, Yeon Gyu-baek reacted fiercely.
“Why all this fuss? What is so cold about it?”
Perhaps because his mouth was a little frozen from the cold, Yeon Gyu-baek's speech sounded somewhat slurred.
“My apologies.”
“Er, brother….”
“Wait a while. Deung Yeo seems to have something in mind. Given his careful nature, rather than finish it in one stroke he will mean to separate the joints one at a time and break him in spirit. By about the time he comes before us, he will be trembling and fawning on us.”
Yeon Gyu-baek touched his bandaged left arm and added it at his ease.
“Hoo hoo hoo hoo.”
“That should be quite a sight.”
Ease settled among them again.
Then another quarter hour passed.
The crowing of dawn cocks could be heard here and there, and the dim blue light before daybreak hung about the inn.
“Er, brother, is this not being careful past all carefulness….”
“…….”
Yeon Gyu-baek could not answer.
White frost had already settled above his eyebrows, and only his shoulders, stiffened with cold, trembled pitifully.
“Shall I go in and look?”
“No. I will go.”
It was just as Jeong Hong-seon and Geon Pyeong were clamoring.
CREEEAK—
The inn's gate they had waited and waited for opened.
The eyes of all three flew wide.
Yeon Gyu-baek forced his frozen lips apart and murmured in an excited voice.
“There, you see. What did I tell you. Deung Yeo is utterly thorough. I can hardly wait to see how far he tormented and broke that….”
But the one who walked out through the gate was not Deung Yeo bearing a report of victory.
Deung Yeo was holding a broom instead of a sword, and on his lips was a smile so gentle it was grotesque.
“……Deung Yeo?”
Yeon Gyu-baek called to him, his wits gone.
Deung Yeo looked at Yeon Gyu-baek and bent at the waist politely.
“Welcome, honored guest. Thank you for visiting our inn so early in the morning. What shall I prepare for your meal?”
“You there, what are you doing! What about the bastards inside!!”
When Yeon Gyu-baek seized Deung Yeo's shoulder and shook him, the blank eyes of Deung Yeo found their focus for an instant.
“GWAAAGH!! Get away!! Get away from me!!!”
Deung Yeo let out a piteous scream, shook Yeon Gyu-baek off and ran away down another alley.
Turned in an instant into kites with their strings cut, the three men stared at one another with blank faces.
Jeong Hong-seon, unable to bear it, asked him carefully.
“Brother, has Deung Yeo gone senile, perhaps?”
“Senile, nothing!!! Did I not say he was the finest escort warrior my father set in place for me!”
“My apologies.”
Geon Pyeong spoke with his face near weeping.
“We cannot go back like this.”
Yeon Gyu-baek gripped his sword with all his strength.
“Right, we cannot. We absolutely cannot!!”
“And what will you do?”
“I do not know what in the world happened in there, but that bastard has certainly worked some wicked evil art. Deung Yeo let his guard down and was caught.”
Yeon Gyu-baek wiped his running nose with the back of his hand and drew his sword.
“Now, let us go.”
Yeon Gyu-baek took the lead and went into the inn.
But how far had he gone.
Before he had even properly entered the inn, the presences following behind him vanished.
It was the moment Yeon Gyu-baek turned his head at the wrongness.
In the inn's front yard, Geon Pyeong and Jeong Hong-seon were toppling backward, spewing blood.
“You… you!!”
Yeon Gyu-baek, sword in hand, looked at the two men who had fallen unconscious in an instant and clenched his teeth.
“Geon A-seong!!”
“Yaaawn. A ruckus from the crack of dawn, what a ruckus.”
“What evil art did you use!!!”
“There's a penalty for waking a man from a sound sleep.”
“What are you….”
Yeon Gyu-baek lost consciousness at once, without even properly catching the presence that closed on him.
That was his last afterimage.
***
“You are awake?”
As I opened my eyes in the morning sunlight, Seol Ha came toward me.
“Mm.”
“What happened last night?”
“We got drunk at the same time, so I probably dropped off like a stone too? It was a peaceful night, nothing happened.”
“If you were drunk, how do you know?”
“Nothing happened, did it.”
“It was noisy outside, though.”
“Why?”
“From what I hear, some naked men, drunk out of their senses apparently, were sleeping tangled together in the inn's front yard in this freezing weather. Stark naked, at that!”
I stretched and clicked my tongue.
“Men with nothing to do. Let's have another bowl of meat noodles and head back.”
“Young Master Geon Pyeong was among them. Do you really not know?”
To Seol Ha, who asked it obliquely as though she had guessed something, I shrugged and feigned ignorance.
“No idea. Drunk and making a scene, I suppose. He's exactly the sort, isn't he?”
Seol Ha let out a short sigh and followed after me as I rose.
***
We took the carriage we had come in and returned to the Golden Manor's estate.
Using the Soul-Seizing Art after so long had left me with a light headache.
Still, recalling those men with their wits scattered was funny.
What I learned in order not to fall victim to the Soul-Seizing Art has its uses now and then.
The Soul-Seizing Art refers to sorceries that manipulate the mind, and it requires delicate conditions and circumstances to be properly exerted.
On top of that, it is a sorcery with large side effects in several respects.
If the practitioner using it errs, it can bring on a great backlash, which says it all.
Even so, the fact that the fellow Deung Yeo was caught by an unprepared Soul-Seizing Art owed much to the extremely limited and simple actions I ordered, together with his being a weak-minded bastard to begin with.
By about now he would have come to his senses without even remembering what happened.
JOLT—
In the meantime the carriage stopped, apparently arrived at the estate.
And so, as I was getting out of the carriage with Seol Ha and going into the estate.
Jun-pyo of the Golden Blossom Division, who never showed his face unless I called for him, had come scrambling up to the carriage.
“Young Master.”
“What is it?”
“The Grand Madam summons you over the first young master's business at the Sichuan Dragon and Phoenix Society.”
Right, it is about time she called me again.
Since I had expected it, I nodded without showing anything in particular.
But Jun-pyo's next words grated on me.
“And a marriage proposal has come in for you, Young Master.”
“A marriage proposal?”
Had some weighty marriage proposal come in for Geon A-seong around this time?
I would know once I went in.